Written on 11th June 2009
8 COMMENTS Ralf Rottmann, Serial Mobile Entrepreneur, Apple Addict
YouTube user and Taiwanese Savannah College of Art and Design student bunllu had far too many Post-its at hand and rather than put them to waste, he thought he’d bring us this marvelous piece of stop motion animation:
According to Bang-Yao Liu the idea
comes from is that every time when I am busy, I feel that I am not fighting with my works, I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadline.
Londoners may soon have something new to look while they travel around the city. A plan has been announced that would allow people to upload their own works of art to a website and have them displayed on the rooftops of bus shelters around the city.
The Bus.Tops project would see the tops of sixty four bus stop shelters around London removed and replaced by networked LCD screens, visible from both above and below. Anyone will be able to upload their artwork to the Bus.tops website and, providing it gets enough votes, have it displayed on the bus stop of their choice.
Photographs, paintings, cartoons; there are some great possibilities here. Even larger ideas would be possible too. How about a game of hockey played across London via the LCD screens? Bus.tops is encouraging this kind of thinking. If the scheme gets the go-ahead well-known artists would also be invited to submit work.
Bus.Tops is the brainchild of Alfie Dennen. No stranger to grand artistic statements, he spent the tail-end of last year asking people to upload photographs of themselves holding stones as part of the world’s biggest ‘Geoglyph‘. A collaboration with former BBC Creative Archive Director Paula Le Dieu, Bus.Tops aims to get Londoners to engage with their city in a refreshingly social way.
The proposal has been submitted to the London 2012/Arts Council fund Artists Taking the Lead, and would tie in with London hosting the Olympic Games in 2012.
I really like the looks of this life sized mouse pointer art work titled ‘Hyperlink‘. It is a plastic needlepoint canvass and yarn, made by American artist Ben Fino-Radin.
Lots of original art works at his Blog too such as his Mac 512k with screen inserts.
I remember the times when start-ups would simply launch. I don’t think Yahoo sent out a press release when they first started collecting hyperlink in their dorm room, did they? These days launching a start-up seems to become THE defining moment in the history of the start-up.
It all started with a simple logo, attached to an email, with a press release.
Then we started seeing companies who recorded a ‘Screencast’ of their web service in action. Usually narrated by the lead developer. It was more informative and interesting than a screenshot or logo, but it could be longwinded and the quality of the movie and sounds wasn’t always up to par.
Now there is a new trend: beautiful, artistic, hip, high quality, animated small movies.
The slightly humorous movie that explains it all.
This is an example of such a work of art by tipSpot (Invite Code):
The company who sent me this is still in private beta and I can’t help but wonder how much time and money went into making this movie. They say you never get another chance to make a first impression and that must be the reasoning behind going all out in your introduction movie. But when I first saw the beautiful Google Chrome movies I couldn’t help thinking “Yes this looks great, but can’t you just make the software work?”.
Of course it does work. I did end up watching the whole movie embedded here and I doubt I would’ve read a press release if they would’ve sent me one. Absorbing a message wrapped up in nicely designed moving images is easier than reading plain text.
I wonder what is next. How long will it take before the first start-up launches with a Hollywood produced, 15 minute long, movie. Recorded IMAX style, with a $40 million budget, starring Megan Fox and Adrien Brody?
This is a photo by French photographer JeanYves Lemoigne. He made a whole series of sexy pixelated women for the #3 issue of Amusement magazine. That particular issue deals with video games and interactive culture. See all the photos on JeanYves Lemoigne’s beautiful website.
Some things shouldn’t be explained. I don’t know what this is except that it is titled “Man in the Dark” and was made by Miltos Manetas and Aaron Russ Clinger and that this Man has been floating around since 2004. Just check it out. Its hypnotic…
Written on 22nd September 2008
2 COMMENTS Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Belgian artist Jan Leenders seems to have more tricks up his sleeve than just his recently introduced Twit2art project, which Ernst-Jan wrote about. He has set up the website AuctionArt.be, where his new painted creations will be put up for auction, always opening at 1€.
Bidding is done by e-mail, and the auction ends after exactly 5 days since the last bid is made (the buyer does have to confirm the sale by e-mail within another 24 hours). Every new painting put up for auction will be announced with a blog post, and the time of publication is the starting point for the 5-day window. There’s a handy ticking clock at the bottom of each post to keep you informed of the timeframe.
You can track auctions via Twitter, Flickr, RSS feed and/or by subscribing to an e-mail list.
The Saatchi-Gallery is probably one of the biggest sites you have never heard of, they are one of the most trafficked sites in the UK, with 70 million hits a day and are ranked the 253 in the world. And for those wondering what all the fuss is about they reached these traffic levels almost overnight.
What is interesting is that the Saatchi-Gallery was almost an instant hit when they launched their new social network last year, then the traffic peaked when they announced their first competition. Competitions are extremely attractive to artists who are looking for opportunities to make a name for themselves. The Saatchi-Gallery hit the nerve when they launched and then took the market by storm.
But according to Compete the appeal of the Saatchi-Gallery is falling off fast, leaving the door open for other contenders who do it right. Evidently the art market is ripe for the taking and the game is not over just yet!
Enter MYartSPACE which has just turned 2 years old and is slowly grooming itself into the Myspace for artists. MYartSPACE is a social networking forum where artists have their profile, can upload images and videos for others to comment on, network with others, and enter competitions. They are not alone in this space, with a few other contenders they are fighting it out to gain traction and build the premier network of artists.
So what can MYartSPACE learn from the giant Myspace who still dominates the No1 position for most trafficked site online?
Some constructive suggestions from my initial usage of the site.
Given these are expressive destinations the first and most important improvement that MYartSPACE could implement IMHO is allowing users to have much greater control over their personal profile spaces, like Myspace, allowing users to embed Flash widgets would be a major step forward and an easy technical addition.
Allowing the use of personal CSS to be incorporated, giving users control over the look and feel of their personal pages.
From a SEM perspective they are loosing a ton of potential traffic from Google as the profile pages are not optimized correctly.
Improving the value of their competitions, not in a monetary sense but in terms of connections, profile, prestigiousness and acclaim they can shower upon winners would help increase the participation of current users, also attracting new artists.
The social networking space for artists is a tough cookie to crack but rich rewards await the winners. With a few further additions MYartSPACE would have a fair chance at swiping traffic from the giant who dominated this space early on. It will be interesting to see how the race for traffic and user participation turns out, but one thing is for sure, the gap between the rich and the poor amongst these players is huge and if the smaller contestants are to have any chance they will need to use every bit of magic they can conjure.
Belgian artist Jan Leenders is one of those artists who uses new technology to create an exciting art project. He started @twit2art, an idea that revolves around people sending him messages, which he turns into a 18 x 12 cm art piece. Like this one:
That’s an interesting idea, but it’s getting more exciting – as Leenders rewards the people who reacted the fastest, have to pay less. He writes:
“If you’re fast, it’s cheap. The first twit (thus the first painting) costs € 1. The second € 2, the third € 3 and so on. The price includes everything. Material, packaging, shipping, taxes. Everything.
So the people who made Twitter big – the ones who have the guts and the curiosity to try new things – are the ones who have the opportunity to buy a real Leenders for an affordable price. The piece featured in this article for example, was sold for 11 euros. And this one for only 1 euro.
Eventually, Leenders will make some money out of the project. Making him, says Paul Bradshaw, a true punk capitalist. More and more D.I.Y entrepreneurs find new and unconventional ways of making money, some even by making beautiful things.
Here’s my Twit2art.Update: Leenders has sent me a confirmation, it will cost me 45 euros.
Written on 11th June 2009
8 COMMENTS 
Written on 9th June 2009
Londoners may soon have something new to look while they travel around the city. A plan has been announced that would allow people to upload their own works of art to a website and have them displayed on the rooftops of bus shelters around the city.
Photographs, paintings, cartoons; there are some great possibilities here. Even larger ideas would be possible too. How about a game of hockey played across London via the LCD screens? Bus.tops is encouraging this kind of thinking. If the scheme gets the go-ahead well-known artists would also be invited to submit work.
Written on 22nd May 2009
Written on 22nd September 2008
Written on 1st August 2008
Written on 8th July 2008
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