CCTV Music Video
Talk about ingenuity. A lot of fuss is made about big brother watching everyone in the UK via CCTV, but these crafty buggers decided to use it to their advantage. The band The Get Out Clause set up their equipment and performed at 80 locations around Manchester. They then requested the footage from the companies and organizations as is their legal right (about 20 complied), stitched together the footage, and viola, a music video was born.
Via Boing Boing
This American Life
I’m working on a personal project at the moment around how different people remember an event differently. This Chris Ware animation for Season 2, This American Life, shows another aspect - the memory thief. I won’t spoil.
Via Austin Kleon
Your face
Wanna spin the wheel of illustration? Send Damien Weighill a photo of your face and he will draw said face and plop it on his blog (if you make the cut.) Just as you should be open to new ideas, a drawing of your face is open to interpretation.
via Photojojo
Gene Simmons Jackson
From the set Refacing Government Tender.
via The Presurfer
NY Times Crossword Drawings
Another simple but brilliant idea. Artist Emily Jocureton creates drawings based on words found in the NY Times crossword.
via Drawn
The Tuymans Experiment
Yesterday, I made the decision to get off the 6 train at Brooklyn Bridge and walk across it to Brooklyn, rather than jump and on the F and head straight home from Manhattan. It was a nice day, and I thought it might be a relaxing, after-interview wind down. Something to give me a chance to look around and absorb the world at large. But then I got into Brooklyn and realized I’d spent most of the walk looking straight ahead, side-stepping the gadzillion tourists, and often-times simply looking at the ground and day dreaming as I walked. Pay attention. Pay attention. Look up. Turn your head, idiot!
Anyway, I found this on Wooster Collective this morning and it kind of matches that theme. About being observant and conscious of your surroundings. The first half fills you in on who the artist Tuymans is, and his place in the art community today. He’s a pretty big deal. Then the experiment - to see if people notice art out of context, in this case, on a cement wall on a street in Antwerp.
It actually reminded me of the experiment done by the Washington Post last year where violinist, Joshua Bell played his Stradivarius in the DC Metro during rush hour to see if anyone would notice the quality of the busker or just keep on rushin’ to their trains. During the 40 minutes he played, seven people stopped to listen and only one person recognized him. Worth a read..
The robots are coming
Over at Nerve you’ll find a post about the 50 Greatest Commercial Parodies of all time. But for me, this robot insurance spot is the most delicious. How can you resist such quality, robot-fearing copy delivered flawlessly by Sam Waterston?
“And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can’t break free. Because they’re made of metal, and robots are strong.” Damn straight!
Insuring the Aging American Population is priority ONE!
via adfreak
Universal Employee Video
Directed by Matt and Trey.
Via…someone’s blog in a browser window that I closed and can’t be bothered going through my history to find out. 
Newspaper Blackout Poems
Love the simplicity of these poems, compiled in wonderfully censored way. Newspaper Blackout Poems are the works of Austin Kleon, a writer who draws. And it’s just one category on his blog, which I enjoyed digging into this Saturday morning.
Via Kottke
From the maker of “Nolte Stubbies”
In a previous post about notebooks, I had asked if anyone know of a short pencil that fit in a pocket to match a small notebook. The kind of pencil that wouldn’t stab you in the talent if you sat down with it in, say, a front pocket. Upon returning from my world travels, I found a package in my postbox from a friend, dear boy Matthias. Not a standard set of golf pencils, but a hand MacGyvered set, resealed and packaged with the rather catchy name of “Nolte Stubbies”.
Now, since he’s called attention to himself by taking the time to hand-craft such a thing, I think it’s time he got a moment in the sun. You see, Matthias has done something familiar. He quit his job a year or two ago to pursue a dream: to see if he could hack it as a painter. No, not a house painter, but one of those artist types who mess with canvas and such. And since he doesn’t have a website, I’m going to “out” some of his work right here.
So, first canvas off the rank and I’m showing it in an incredibly geeky way. But many people ask me about my iPhone wallpaper, and I’m here to tell you right now, it is in fact a painting by Matt.
It’s my favorite painting actually, and one of the first he did while enjoying his new-found artistic freedom. It’s also the one he sold for way too little money, but that’s what being an artist is all about. (No it’s not. Charge what you’re worth.)
Seeing how he had such affinity for the cows, he held his first exhibition last year entitled “Meow Moo Woof” or “Moo Meow Woof”. He can correct me on that. Anyway, he added dogs and pussy cats to the mix to create a kind of artistic menagerie. Here are just a few of the works, but if you want to see some more or get a little background about each painting, the only thing I have is this PDF (1.6MB) Go nuts!
One of the Woofs
One of the Moos
One of the Meows
My flickr
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