Kanye West Cartoon Video for "Good Morning" from the "Graduation" Album

This is Kanye West's latest video for his song "Good Morning" from his "Graduation" album. The video/animated cartoon, which was created by Japanese contemporary pop artist Takashi Murakami, depicts Kanye as a cute teddy bear encountering some serious obstacles in a surreal environment as he struggles to make it to his graduation.

Kanye West |MTV Music

Tempestad and Dreams - Eugenio Recuenco's Amazing Photo Exhibit

I published some amazing photos from brilliant Spanish photographer Eugenio Recuenco a couple of days ago and promised to add more stuff. This very evocative and absolutely magical photo exhibition is Recuenco's latest work. The exhibit is called Tempestad and Dreams and it was presented at the Galerie Bertie-Toublanc in Paris in February/March of this year. These images are not yet in Recuenco's website but the site is worth visiting here.



















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Rain of Madness - A Hilarious Mockumentary for Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder

Rain of Madness is a mockumentary for the comedy Tropic Thunder starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downing Jr. and Steve Coogan supposedly chronicling the behind the scenes filming of Tropic Thunder which made its USA theatrical debut on August 13th. I think I got to the party a bit too late by posting this video now after the movie premiered but I think it is so funny! Juvenile as heck but funny to me nevertheless. The fake documentary mocks Hearts of Darkness which is a real documentary that chronicles the making of Francis Ford Coppola's epic war film Apocalypse Now.

"Tropic Thunder is a 2008 action comedy film directed by Ben Stiller and written by Stiller, Justin Theroux, and Etan Cohen. The film stars Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as a group of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film when their fed-up writer and director decide to abandon them in the middle of the jungle, forcing them to fight their way out."

-Wikipedia

Check out the trailer for Tropic Thunder if you have not done so already or watched the film. I think its totally hilarious!

Rain of Madness


Tropic Thunder trailer

Eugenio Recuenco's Amazingly Beautiful Photography

This is the work of 38 year old Spanish photographer Eugenio Recuenco who is considered by many to be the most important photographer on the international scene. Mr. Recuenco's amazingly evocative, pictorial photography and unique chiaroscuro style have earned him comparison with such great Spanish masters as Goya, El Greco and Zurbaran. Mr. Recuenco,who has earned multiple accolades for his fantastic work such as the Lion of Gold and Bronze for his work for Playstation at the 2005 Cannes Festival, has done work for such powerhouses as Lavazza, Nina Ricci, Pull & Bear, Magnum, Mango, Le Bon Marché, Vogue, Maxim, Saint Laurent and many others. This is a 2003 campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes.

I hate the cigarettes but I absolutely love the amazing photographic work! More to come from this fantastic artist. For now I leave you with this small gallery.










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Eugenio Recuenco

Destino - A Short Animated Cartoon by Salvador Dali and Walt Disney

Salvador Dali and Walt Disney collaborated on a short cartoon called Destino(Destiny). I personally can't imagine radical, chaotic, subversive Dali doing a collabo with Disney but it seems that the Spanish painter considered Disney (along with the Marx brothers and Cecil B. DeMille) to be some sort of a kindred soul in the surrealist movement. Destino is currently being shown at the MoMA in NYC as part of an exhibit called "Dalí: Painting and Film".

"Destino is a short animated cartoon released in 2003 by The Walt Disney Company. Destino is unique in that its production originally began in 1945, 58 years before its original release. The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, and features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez.

Destino premiered on June 2, 2003 at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France. The six-minute short follows the love story of Chronos and the ill-fated love he has for a mortal female. The story continues as the female dances through surreal scenery inspired by Dalí's paintings. There is little dialogue, but the sound track features a song by the Mexican composer, Armando Dominguez."

The film was shown as part of the exhibition Dali & Film at Tate Modern from June to September, 2007, as part of the Dali exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art from October, 2007 to January 2008, and at an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art called Dalí: Painting and Film from June to September 2008."

-Wikipedia

Full version of Destino. The video's quality is not that great but the images are still beautiful.



MoMA Exhibit

Dali's storyboard and inspirational artwork for Destino








Images via movie.net

The World's First Motion Pictures - Muybridge and Le Prince

Eadweard J. Muybridge (April 9, 1830 – May 8, 1904) was an English photographer, known primarily for his early use of multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the celluloid film strip that is still used today" according to Wikipedia.

In 1872 Muybridge, acting on a request by then governor of California Leland Stanford who wanted to know if at any point a galloping horse did not have all four hooves on the ground, filmed this animated sequence of a race horse galloping. The resulting 24 pictures taken as the trotting horse raced past, was the beginning of what is generally recognized as stop-action series photography. "In 1877, says Wikipedia, Muybridge settled Stanford's question with a single photographic negative showing Stanford's racehorse Occident airborne in the midst of a gallop."

When seen through the Zoopraxiscope (as early as 1879), Muybridge's "Horse in Motion" photographs are considered by many in the know to be the world's first motion pictures.




This is ”Walking and turning around rapidly with a satchel in one hand, a cane in the other”, 1887




I absolutely love this sort of stuff and since I'm in the mood for delving into the fascinating history of cinematography, l decided to post this piece of history. The really, really short YouTube video below is the earliest surviving film. It is called "Roundhay Garden Scene" and it was shot at a house in Leeds, England in 1888 by French inventor Louis Le Prince.

The film was recorded at 12 frames per second and Le Prince is said to have succeeded in making pictures move before the Lumieres and Thomas Edison.

Levi van Veluw's Landscape Self-Portraits

Levi van Veluw is a young Dutch artists who does miniature landscapes/self portraits on his face and head complete with trees, lawn, lamp lights, sheeps, snow and other stuff. His latest work is the 4-piece "Landscape" series presented here. Fascinating and Weird.

"Levi van Veluw´s photo series are self-portraits, drawn and photographed by himself: a one-man-process. His works constitute elemental transfers; modifying the face as object; combining it with other stylistic elements to create a third visual object of great visual impact. The work you see therefore is not a portrait, but an information-rich image of colour, form, texture, and content. The image contains the history of a short creative process, with the artist shifting between the entities of subject and object.

Besides the four landscapes, Levi van Veluw will also present a new video piece, landscape installation and works from two other series of photographs."
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Madonna Kicks off her Sticky and Sweet Tour with a Bang

Madonna kicked off her "Sticky and Sweet" tour at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on August 23rd to critical acclaim. The Material 50 Year Old danced, skipped double dutch rope and is said to generally have kicked up a storm at the concert.

I am a Madonna fan but I know that the pop queen has perhaps as many detractors as she does admirers; there is something about the woman that rubs some people the wrong way. That's just as well. As far as I'm concerned, I get a kick out of the way Madonna manages to manipulate the general public with her antics on and off stage. Whether she's wearing pointy bras outside her clothes or getting crucified or making out with her female dancers or Britney Spears, the pop icon thrives on creating controversy. That's what she does best. Create controversy to remain in the public discourse. And people eat that stuff up and fall for it over and over and over again. LOL. In the YouTube videos below, Madonna performs "Vogue" and "Get Stupid"



"Get Stupid" is a quasi-political song of sorts which ends with an image of presidential candidate Barack Obama. The video shows lots of images of Madonna singing, of people, dead animals, Adolf Hitler and a whole lot of other shit. Furthermore, the video's quality is not that great but there are some really cool images.


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Oktapodi - Animated Film about 2 Octopi in Love - Winner of 2008 Computer Animation Festival

"SIGGRAPH (short for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics (CG) convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization says Wikipedia".

This year, the Computer Animation Festival was just held in Los Angeles about a week ago and the Best of Show Award went to Oktapodi, a well-made, really cool French animated short film about two octopi in love as they try to escape from a cook determined to capture them.

Peter Greenaway's "The Last Supper" Installation

British filmmaker Peter Greenaway's projection onto Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan was unveiled in that city for one night only.

"On the occasion of Saloni 2008, Peter Greenaway gives new life to the world’s most celebrated masterpiece "The Last Supper" by Leonardo Da Vinci, merging an extraordinary wealth of languages including visual arts, cinema, poetry, music and some of the most cutting-edge new technologies.

"Leonardo’s masterpiece "The Last Supper" has survived both the fast natural ageing process caused by experimental painting techniques conceived by the artist and the many attempts to restore its initial aspect, as well as having outlasted bombings during World War II. The Biblical scene will come to new life under the spectator’s eyes thanks to live projections of images and light bouncing on the very painted surface, accompanied by a soundscape of voices, music and noises. The performance will take place in the Refectory of the Dominican Friary in Santa Maria delle Grazie Church: on the very wall of the refectory, Leonardo portrayed the moment when Christ announces one of the apostle will betray him, causing disruption and dismay among them."
Source

Sin City Disney Characters

Curt Rapala, a very good graphic artist, merged the Frank Miller-created and Robert Rodriguez-directed film noir classic Sin City with some iconic (and oh so perfectly innocent!) female Disney characters. As a result, the mermaid Ariel is Jessica Alba's uber sensuous bar dancer Nancy, Snow White is Rosario Dawson's nasty-ass Gail, head of the all-women clan of sex workers, Aurora is Jaime King's Goldie who gets murdered by some bad people, Cinderella is Brittany Murphy's sexy bartender Shellie and Jasmine is Devon Aoki's deadly little assassin and clan enforcer Miho.





















If you have time and don't care about the spoiler alert, watch the YouTube video below for some cool scenes from this 2005 cult classic.
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Matt Lauer and Al Roker Do Synchronized Gymnastics at the Beijing Olympics

Matt Lauer and Al Roker of NBC's Today Show, clad in skintight athletic jumpers (yikes!)dance and allegedly perform something they called "synchronized gymnastics" to the tune of "Dreamweaver"in Beijing. The 2008 summer Olympics just got really, really creepy. May god help us all.


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The Many Incarnations of the Mona Lisa - From Dali to Banksy

Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is arguably the world's most famous and celebrated work of art and as such, it has been celebrated--and ridiculed--by world famous artists including Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Rene Magritte, Fernando Botero, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy.

A reader who signed in as "Anonymous" left the links for the three awesome Banksy images in a comment. Also, the clever and fun version of the Mona Lisa painted with peanut butter and jelly by Vik Muniz was a contribution from another (the same?) Anonymous. Thank you so much anonymous contributors! Check out the various renditions of the famous Gioconda below.


Banksy

Fernando Botero, Mona Lisa, 1963


Salvador Dali, Self Portrait as Mona Lisa about 1964


Andy Warhol, Four Mona Lisas, 1963


Mao Lisa Leonardo Bezzola, 1976


George and Mona in the Baths of Coloma Robert Arneson, 1976


Figure 7 Jasper Johns, 1968


Thirty Are Better Than One Andy Warhol, 1963


David Teixidor Buenaventura, Gioconda, 2001


Kazimir Malevich, Composition with Mona Lisa, 1914


Erro, American Project, 1958


Yasumasa Morimura Mona Lisa in the Third Place, 1998


Rene Magritte, La Gioconda, 1960


Daniel Spoerri, Use of Rembrandt as Ironing Board (Marcel Duchamp),1964


Andy Warhol, Mona Lisa, 1963


Fernando Botero, Mona Lisa, Age Twelve, 1959


Alfred Gescheidt, Mamary Lisa, 1972


Fernand Leger, Mona Lisa with Keys, 1930

Pneumonia Lisa Robert Rauschenberg, 1982


William T. Wiley, Mona Lisa Wiped Out, 1967


Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., readymade, 1919


Robert Rauschenberg, Mona Lisa, 1982

Jean Michel Basquiat, Mona Lisa, n/a

Sophie Matisse, Mona Lisa, 1997


Miran Fukuda, Resting Model, 1999


Andy Warhol, Mona Lisa (Two Times), 1980


Keith Haring, Apocalipse 7, 1988

Banksy


"Mona Lisa Mujaheddin" by Banksy


"Peanut Butter and Jelly Mona Lisa" by Vik Muniz
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We are happy to announce that "The Many Incarnations of the Mona Lisa" post was published by British newspaper Telegraph.UK. here. Thanks a lot to the "Anonymous" contributors. Keep 'em coming!

Fake "Mall Marathon" Prank by Michigan Improv Everywhere

Two weeks ago, an Improv Everywhere group from Michigan staged this impromptu fake mini marathon where the "participants" run thru a mall and then completely freeze before they get to the finish line. The reaction of the unsuspecting patrons is priceless!

Alanis Morissette Hilarious Rendition of the Black Eyed Peas "My Humps"

This stuff is so last year! I know! But as I was researching my next posting I kinda of made up my mind to go with a fabu YouTube van Gogh video I ran into that told the sad, sad story of the painter's suicide as it chronicled and referenced many of his fabulosos works of art. Instead however, I chose the Black Eyed Peas "My Humps" and Alanis Morissette's satirical version of the song. I get a huge kick out of watching Alanis trying to do Fergie and I think this is absolutely hilarious!

Black Eyed Peas

Black Eyed Peas - My humps
by maa

Alanis' version

Alanis Morisette My Humps
by axepourhomme

"Playing the Building" - A Sound Installation by David Byrne

David Byrne, a former member of the band Talking Heads, created this sound installation in which an old, abandoned building in lower Manhattan, NYC, is converted into a giant musical instrument by way of devises which are attached to the pillars, beams, and pipes of the structure. The idea behind this installation is to turn the old edifice into a very large musical instrument. However, don't expect to hear melodious rhythms when you play the video as the sound is kind of eerie and a bit creepy. The installation is located in the Battery Maritime Building - 10 South Street, NY, NY and will run until August 24th, 2008


Source

Grace Jones' New Music Video "Corporate Cannibal"

Singer, actress, writer Grace Jones who turned 60 in May, continues to amaze as she reinvents herself over and over gain. This is a music video for a song called "Corporate Cannibal" from Grace's upcoming CD "Hurricane" which will be dropped in October 2008. I like Corporate Cannibal; The song has a very nice beat to it.

"This Is Not A Film" - A Short Film About Surrealist Master Rene Magritte

August 15th marks 41 years since the death of Belgian surrealist René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 - 15 August 1967). He became well-known for a number of witty and amusing images among which "The Son of Man"(1964) the painting of a man wearing a black overcoat and a bowler hat with an apple blocking his face, may be the most famous and best known.

Above are some of my very favorite Magritte paintings: The already-mentioned "The Son of Man", "The Listening Room" (1953), "The Difficult Crossing" (1926), "The Human Condition" (1935) and "Golconda" (1953).

The beautifully done short animated film "This Is Not a Film" which is based on Magritte's work, references over 40 of the surrealist master's paintings.

Do you like Grace Jones? Check out her new music video "Corporate Cannibal".

Dynamic Painting - San Base's Amazing Computer-Generated Art

San Base is a Russian born artist with a background in Cybernetics and art who is presently residing in Canada.

"Sometimes the images are glamorous, sometimes they seem psychedelic. At times, they may even seem to momentarily fall asleep, but only to regenerate their power, and strike once again with a new mesmerizing recombination -- luring the viewer into a parallel, Nirvana-like universe of art... It's like you keep watching for a comet to streak across the sky but, in this case, a possibility of discovering a new wonderful event on your screen is immeasurably higher."



"The Dynamic Paintings I'm designing are examples of digital generative art - an art that has been generated algorithmically by a computer system. There have been many attempts at producing generative art; the history of it goes back to the early days of computer development. Many of these works have used fractals and pretty much none of them accounted for more than just basic artistic principles. This is not the case for my Dynamic Paintings."

-San Base

Diego Velazquez's "Las Meninas" in Amazing 3-D

Las Meninas (Spanish for Maids of Honor, 1656) is Spanish painter Diego Velazquez's best known, and most discussed, masterpiece. The work of art was completed while Velazquez(1605-65)was the court painter of Philip IV, king of Spain. Depicted in this masterpiece are the 5 year old daughter of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana, the Infanta (Princess) Margarita, the Infanta's two maids of honor, two court dwarfs, the court's duenna and quartermaster who stand in the background, a man who has yet to be identified, a mastiff dog, and Velazquez himself who is standing to the infanta's right in front of a huge canvas and looking straight ahead as if watching people watch him and the others.

The King and Queen, Felipe IV and Maria de Austria (1634-1696) are reflected in the mirror at the back of the room, leading to a series of extraordinarily complex spatial relations.

Las Meninas is an incredibly beautiful and complex masterpiece which, through the years, has stirred a lot of discussions and arguments concerning space, time, reality (and unreality) and illusion.

The above videos present Las Meninas in gorgeous 3-Dimentional space. They are both narrated in Spanish so I apologize in advance if you don't understand what's being said. The images, however, are really beautiful and engaging so I don't think too many folks will mind. Enjoy!

Radiohead's "House of Cards" Video in Lego

This is a time-lapse Lego visualisation of Radiohead's House of Cards video that has gotten a lot of play in the blogosphere because of its ground-breaking execution where no cameras or lights were used. I love the music but I don't know what to think about this Lego rendition because I am not a fan of anything Lego. Check out the original House of Cards vid below the Lego rendition.



Original "House of Cards"

Beautiful United Airlines Animated Ad - "Sea Orchestra"

""Sea Orchestra" is a lively and visually rich commercial that introduces United's new international first and business class cabins. In it, a United airplane crosses the ocean and is serenaded by an orchestra of animated sea creatures that are playing a unique version of Rhapsody in Blue using tubas, violins, French horns and the Indonesian gamelan. The score was created by Shy the Sun, a South Africa-based directing team, which used hand-drawn textures, computer animation characters and photographs of water, reefs and skies".


Courtesy of YouTube

Iconic James Bond Movie Posters - The Work of Robert McGinnis

Robert McGinnis is a world-renowned American illustrator known for his work on paperback book covers and iconic movie posters. Check out the wiki on this great illustrator. "Robert McGinnis (born 1926), is an American artist and illustrator. McGinnis is known for his illustrations of over 1200 paperback book covers, and over 40 movie posters, including Breakfast at Tiffanys (his first film poster assignment), Barbarella, and several James Bond and Matt Helm films." Check out some of McGinnis' really gorgeous iconic James Bond posters.

Source

Amazing Pepsi Ad - Beckham, Ronaldinho, Henry, Lampart, Messi, Fabregas in "Open Source"

Very entertaining French Pepsi commercial called "Open Source" with Ronaldinho in the beach, Lionel Messi wearing some sort of space suit, David Beckham as Indiana Jones, Thierry Henry dribbling the ball into the jungle in a black tuxedo trying to avoid oncoming yellow taxis(in the jungle?), Cesc Fabregas and Frank Lampart doing really crazy but fun things. There is even a ninja dropkick/football kick and...Just watch the video.

Hilarious Monty Python Dark Knight Parody - The Dark Black Knight

"It's the Monty Python & The Holy Grail parody of The Dark Knight which figures to be the first in a long line of parodies" says Unibrow.uber.com. This video was created by Hugh Atkin.

Japanese Prison-Themed Establishment - Alcatraz Restaurant

"Alcatraz" is a prison-themed restaurant in Tokyo, Japan. The patrons are escorted to their "cells" before they are served cocktails named "Lethal Injection". Dishes such as "Incest Salad" and "Adultery Dish" are part of the menu in this weird, weird establishment.



Via YouTube

"Who Knows": Fantastic Music Video by Burbuja

I stumbled upon this aesthetically gorgeous video and I just had to post it. Burbuja(bubble) is the name of a musical project by Merche Blasco who is a Spanish performer of electronic music. This really beautiful music video was created by the Spanish branch of Garage Films.

"Muffin Man"- An Engaging CG Animated Ad

Muffin Man is a really engaging animated CG ad for the Royal Bank of Canada that was created by Nexus Productions.

I Met the Walrus - Animated Film about John Lennon

About I Met the Walrus

In 1969 a fourteen-year-old kid named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto, Canada with his reel to reel recorder and persuaded him to do an interview about peace.

"38 years later, Imetthewalrus.com says, "Jerry has produced a film about it (called I Met the Walrus). Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries traditional pen sketches by James Braithwaite with digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message."

The animated film has received numerous accolades including a 2008 Academy Award nomination as Best Animated Short Film.



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Camouflage Body Painting - Emma Cammack's Amazing Work

If you have been visiting this site with any regularity for the past year, you will no doubt remember the incredible work of body painter Emma Hack, of camouflage photographer Desiree Palmen and of Guido Daniele's fantastic animal hand painting. Now I want to introduce the work of yet another fabulous body painter.

Emma-Jane Cammack is a widely acclaimed and world-renowned British body painter and artist who works for the film, TV and advertising industries. Some of her clients include such powerhouses as Motorola, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Turner Classic Movies, BBC, Carlton, Sky, Nike, Disney, BMW, Mini, Peugeot, Marks and Spencers, Ikea and Habitat to name a few.

Impact Artists says, "Emma-Jane is dedicated to developing this artform. Since writing the first UK qualification in Bodypainting, Emma-Jane's masterclasses have been in demand worldwide. Her bodypainting has a modern and contemporary edge and can also be combined with her 2d art to create truly lavish statements."

Ms. Cammack's "Top-to-Toe Body Painting" has been showing at the Barbican Art Gallery in London since June 19th 2008.


Barbican Art Gallery

Salvador Dali's Fascinating "Face of Mae West" in 3D

Salvador Dali is one of my very favorite artists and his "Mae West (Face of Mae West Which Can Be Used as an Apartment)"(1934) is one of my favorite pieces of art by the Surrealist genius. The red lips on this installation are called "The Mae West Sofa Lips". Wikipedia says, (The Mae West Sofa Lips)is a surrealist sofa by Salvador Dalí. The wood-and-satin sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, whom Dalí apparently found fascinating.[1] It measures 86.5 x 183 x 81.5 cm. Edward James, a rich British patron of the Surrealists in the 1930's, commissioned this piece from Dali."



Mae West(1893-1980) was an American actress known for her daring and controversial portrayals on the big screen as well as vaudeville and on stage. She was also quite the sex symbol during her hay days.

What you have below is a short but fascinating presentation of the collage showcased above of "Mae West (Face of Mae West Which Can Be Used as an Apartment)" in a 3D video. In the vid, we can appreciate Mae West's face as the collage of furniture, paintings etc that it really is. Mae's eyes are pictures hung on the wall, her hair are curtains, and her mouth is the sofa I mentioned above. The second short video showcases "The Mae West Room" sculptural installation which was inspired by the collage. This installation dates back to 1974 and the same can be found in the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain. The Mae West collage is presently at The Art Institute of Chicago



"The Mae West Room"