Tag Archives | Art

Artists Recreates Strangers’ Faces From Discarded DNA On NYC’s Streets

By on March 12, 2013 in News 21

You’ve been leaving yourself everywhere. For her ongoing project Stranger Visions, Heather Dewey-Hagborg culls discarded DNA (in the form of cigarette butts, chewed gum, et cetera) from the New York sidewalk and then uses a 3D printer to create sculpture portraits based on the genetic information. A reminder that we may soon need to guard our DNA tightly?

Heather Dewey-Hagborg creates portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material collected in public places. Working with the traces strangers unwittingly leave behind, Dewey-Hagborg calls attention to the impulse toward genetic determinism and the potential for a culture of genetic surveillance.

… Read the rest

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Wang Zi Won’s Mechanical Buddhas

By on March 8, 2013 in News 2

South Korean artist Wang Zi Won creates enlightened robots, including the Buddha and an idealized mechanical doll based upon himself, as a guidepost for a future in which technology lead to self-actualization:

Humans will evolve and adapt themselves to enhanced science and technology just as men and animals in the past evolved to adapt themselves to their natural circumstances. The artist sees this as our destiny, not as a negative, gloomy dystopia.

The artist considers it important to escape from human bondage in order to achieve harmony between men and machines. He thinks this harmony can be achieved through the process of religious practices and spiritual enlightenment.

The machine man was based on the artist, but this “I” is not a past “I” any more. His own existence vanishes, and a new being-as-machine man emerges. Z is thus a process of becoming the perfect “I”.

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The Art of Steven Leyba

By on March 4, 2013 in News 0

In his words: 

To me the most personal creation is the most universal. Simply writing words is not enough. Books are a way culture preserves its history, but often times books used to control the ideas and politics of society; to restrict information. I seek to make books to liberate: that defy control, censorship and simple definition and depict life in its totality. I see my hand-made books as political reclamation of the natural world in its fecundity. I paint oil over acrylic over collage over anything I can find. I embellish the paintings with glass beads and organic material from the world around me literally putting the landscape and my DNA into the books. I have used dirt, coffee, hair, leafs, molasses, blood, urine, insects and anything I feel can give the book life from life. We are so used to having the synthetic and technological global culture define how we perceive ourselves, our bodies, our biology, and who we are, that when someone has a different point of view of the human experience and makes the commitment to put it in a book forever, it can be frightening and challenging yet very alive.

… Read the rest

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DisinfoTV: The Voluptuous Horror of Kembra Pfahler

By on March 2, 2013 in News 3

Diggin’ in the crates once again, in this segment of our old TV series we meet New York art maverick Kembra Pfahler: glam rocker, wrestler, Calvin Klein model, and mastermind behind the legendary freak show “The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black,” she blurs the line between life and art, pleasure and pain, and terror and beauty.

Taken from DisinfoTV on DVD, available now at: http://bit.ly/V01W7T

Subscribe to Disinformation’s YouTube channel: http://goo.gl/aHTcz

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Rioting Video Game Allows You To Fight The Police

By on February 28, 2013 in News 38

Atlantic Cities describes the 8-bit-style smartphone game RIOT, a thought-provoking attempt to capture the liminal state which occurs during uprisings when order breaks down. I’d rather have my kids playing this than a game which makes them Navy SEALs:

“Riot” is a developing project in Italy that’s led by film-and-game director Leonard Menchiari, who previously did cinematography for “Half-Life” creator Valve Corporation. The atmospheric little simulator of bedlam, which runs on iOS or Android phones, is inspired by real-life political turmoil from around the globe.

There’s a hefty element of strategy involved, with the player taking on either the role of the agitators or the truncheoned legions of police trying to maintain order.

The developers have received modest funding so far on their Indiegogo page. If they collect enough cash, they hope to enrich the simulator by traveling to the sites of recent uprisings in Greece, Egypt and Italy to interview people involved in the conflicts.

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Artist Steals Identities Of 200,000 Corporations Avoiding Taxes In The Cayman Islands

By on February 27, 2013 in News 0

Loophole For All is a move of extremely questionable legality but unquestionable inspiration from Paolo Cirio. The press release and introductory video explain:

Paolo Cirio, contemporary artist and pirate, hacked the governmental servers of the Cayman Islands and stole a list of all the companies incorporated in the country. Now on Loophole4All.com, he is selling the identities of those companies at a low cost to democratize the privileges of offshore businesses.

Paolo hijacks the identities by moving their addresses to his Caymans mailbox and issuing counterfeited certificates of incorporation from the Caymans company registry. This massive corporate identity theft benefits from the anonymous nature of those companies since the real owners’ secrecy allows anybody to impersonate them.

Through Loophole4All.com, anyone can hijack a Caymans company, from 99¢ for a certificate of incorporation for a real company to $49 for a mailbox in the offshore country with mail rerouting.

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Do-It-Yourself Animation With Terry Gilliam

By on February 25, 2013 in News 4

Wondering how to make your life a bit more weird? Gilliam explains how to produce strange and wondrous things from household materials on the 1970s how-to series the Do-It-Yourself Animation Show. The rare television show which flips the tables by encouraging engagement, not passive consumption, of media, it was created and curated by British cartooning legend Bob Godfrey, who died this past week. Cartoon Brew explains:

The Do-It-Yourself Animation Show, which made animation accessible to the masses by taking the mystery out of the production process, was vastly influential and inspired an entire generation of kids in England, including Nick Park, who created Wallace & Gromit, and Richard Bazley, an animator on Pocahontas, Hercules, and The Iron Giant.

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A Nature Book From The Distant Future

By on February 16, 2013 in News 7

Via Monster Brains, a glimpse at the breathtaking illustrations inside scientist/author/artist Dougal Dixon’s rare and much sought-after Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future, a book exploring the many possible disturbing changes which humanity may undergo in the far future:

The book begins with the impact of genetic engineering. For 200 years modern humans morphed the genetics of other humans to create genetically-altered creatures. The aquamorphs and aquatics are marine humans with gills instead of lungs. One species – the vacuumorph – has been engineered for life in the vacuum of space. Its skin and eyes carry shields of skin to keep its body stable even without pressure. Civilization eventually collapses, with a few select humans escaping to colonize space. Other humans, the Hitek, become almost totally dependent on cybernetic technology.

… Read the rest

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The Midnight Archive – Art & the Occult

By on February 15, 2013 in News 0

If you enjoyed the recent conversation between Thad McKraken and Pam Grossman of Phantasmaphile, you might enjoy the latest episode of The Midnight Archive, which also features Grossman in a conversation about her inspirations, and the fascinating interstices of artistic inspiration and occult influences.

The Midnight Archive’s past episodes feature a number of interesting guests including Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America,  Evan Michelson, co-owner of Brooklyn purveyors of the odd  Obscura, and star of the Science Channel’s show Oddities,  Joanna Ebstein, curator of The Morbid Anatomy Library, and a number of other interesting organizations and individuals working on the edges of taboo and transgression.

Make sure to check them out at www.themidnightarchive.com… Read the rest

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