Day: December 29, 2006

it’s a-peel-ing

I’m intrigued. The Geostationary Banana Over Texas project calls itself “an art intervention” and is scheduled to be ready for launch in August of 2008. The 300 meter banana will be constructed of bamboo and paper and be filled with helium. It will float at 30 to 50 km above the state of Texas, which will put it on the line between Earth’s atmosphere and space. From the ground, the banana will be visible and recognizable day and night from all over Texas. On thier “The Team” page, they list the Canadian Council for the Arts as a contributor.

what I get up instead of sleeping properly

Johnny Rotton on Judge Judy.

Sanex has created a beautiful film that transforms over 100 naked strangers into living skin cells for their new brand campaign. A UK exclusive, it just went live this week. The mesmerizing advert, built to sell how Sanex different from other skincare products because it works with your skin’s natural processes to “keep it at its healthy best”, was made in only three days by Director Lucy Blaksted, with a crew of 45, which included four skin airbrush artists.

This style seems to be part of a trend. Vaseline did two shorts this year that also featured astonishingly nice use of naked people – Sea, which has beautifully placed people in enchanting situations I wish I could have been part of, it sparks of a seriously fantastic art director, someone who could maybe make me cry, and Locked, which is lighter in tone and only uses hands.

Dolphin’s leap crushes woman in freak accident.

Stuck is a nice piece of work too. A two minute viral spot promoting a Canadian Becel Margarine contest, it uses the idea of an escalator break-down to play nicely on public assumptions of transportation. The type-casting is a little strong, but I think it works well. Apparently it’s based on a short film created back in 2003 by the writer/director that I’ve been unable to track down. The cute 30 second TV version is available on ihaveanidea.org, (appropriately, as it’s a margarine ad, a contender for “slimmest website”).

Heavy snow falls in Jerusalem; dozens injured due to bad weather.

While we’re on the topic of art tied to the hand of advertising, V&A and Playstation® sponsored something interesting this season, ‘Volume’ – an array of columns that respond to movement set in the centre of the V&A’s John Madejski Garden in London. A luminous interactive sculpture, the columns have been programmed to respond to movement with startling audio-visual displays that ripple complexity. On the surface this sounds hokey, a science-centre trick from the 80’s that’s been done countless times before, but the photos by John Adrian are unexpectedly lovely. The striking placement of the pillars and the obvious depth of the patterns mix so nicely with everyone’s obvious delight that it makes me wish I could hear the project as well as see it. It seems like such a perfect thing to stave off the darkness of winter.

(mcstrick, who put up the Volume pictures I linked to, also posted about Jeongmee Yoon, the artist behind the eerie Pink & Blue Project, a collection of photographs wherein children are almost lost in the vast mono-colour array of their blandly gender-coded belongings.)

hey mister pin stripe suit, there is no polite way to remove your underwear in an alley


trying to shut you up
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

-prelude-

New Years EVE Skytrain Dance Party at VCC Clark. Meet at 7:45 on December 31st, bring everything – music, costumes, party favours, instruments, etc. “At 8pm we hop an Accordion Train to the Future.” Total Trip time 1hr. 8pm to 9pm.

Act 1.

The Dancing Fields. A movement, they kiss. Every smile is a line inscribed. He makes her laugh. This is not a new thing, but another attempt. Her distance allows for the illusion of successful intimacy. This is the first time he’s met her at the door with his hands.

Act 2.

Heart of the World news. The current owner has put the Bollywood films up for sale on Craigslist. The letter of my contract says As Is, meaning, everything in the building is coming with the building that was there when I saw it. I’m sure that it was implied somewhere that this was to mean only fixtures, but I’m willing to kick for a discount off the price. I think we can roll with this. The realtor, though he seems nice, as it is his job to do, is still going to receive a silly amount of money, no matter, so I don’t feel I’m cheating anyone by complaining.

I’m also thinking about what it would mean to us if we bought them off Craigslist ourselves. Currently the films are stacked all over the theatre in big spilling reels and awkward tin boxes that we’ll have to organize, box up, sort, etcetera. If we buy them off Craigslist, not only will we be paying less for them than if they’re included in the theatre price, that will all be taken care of for us, and we’ll have to spend significantly less time cleaning the space up for performances. It might be worth a shot.

-intermission-

W.C. Fields began his career as a juggler, so good that he performed for royalty and heads of state. A portion of his routine was committed to celluloid in 1934’s The Old Fashioned Way. There’s a clip of it up on YouTube.

Act 3.

An Italian cafe, Cafe Calabria. Double-consonant beverages and nude white statues of mythical heroes with santa hats perched on their faux-marble heads. A Mediterranean cover of Bryan Adams’ Have You Ever Loved a Woman, “Lei mai ha amato una donna?”, piped past hanging cakes that frame the renaissance revival ceilings. Two nights in a row I sat there, nursing a delicious hot chocolate to within a drop of its life, and waiting for friends who never walked through the door. Tonight, the second night, I winked at the man behind the counter who called me “bella” and decided to try to be a regular.