Norwegian Musician Creates Ice Instruments with a Chain Saw and Sub-Zero Weather

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture, YouTube | February 26th, 2013

Most pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians have a very spe­cial rela­tion­ship with their instru­ments. Male gui­tarists treat their favorite gui­tars like girlfriends—maybe bet­ter in some cas­es. Trav­el­ing cel­lists buy air­line tick­ets for instru­ments. It’s just too risky to put your liveli­hood in car­go.

Not so for Ter­je Insungset, a Nor­we­gian musi­cian who, among oth­er things, carves instru­ments out of ice. His back­ground is in jazz and tra­di­tion­al Scan­di­na­vian music, but he’s built a rep­u­ta­tion as an artist who makes music on uncon­ven­tion­al mate­ri­als. Con­sid­er­ing where he is from, it’s not sur­pris­ing that he has turned his atten­tion to ice and its musi­cal poten­tial.

Turns out the sound of an ice xylo­phone is lovely—soft, deep, tin­kly. The ice horn sounds like a lone­ly beast call­ing out across the tun­dra. Insungset col­lab­o­rates with vocal­ist Mari Kvien Brun­voll. Togeth­er they per­form around the world, some­times indoors and some­times in the snow, with elab­o­rate micro­phone cords draped around and beau­ti­ful light­ing.

There’s even an ice gui­tar.

Insungset has also built instru­ments out of arc­tic birch, slate, cow bells and gran­ite. His inter­est in ice as a mate­r­i­al devel­oped when he was com­mis­sioned to play music in a frozen water­fall at the 1994 Win­ter Olympics in Lille­ham­mer, Nor­way.

Unlike most musi­cians, he has to build his instru­ments in situ, as he did for recent con­certs in Cana­da where the tem­per­a­ture was 36 below zero with a light wind. Per­fect weath­er for ice music.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­ry Partch’s Kooky Orches­tra of DIY Musi­cal Instru­ments

“Glitch” Artists Com­pose with Soft­ware Crash­es and Cor­rupt­ed Files

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site, .

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The Art of Illustration: Four Illustrators Introduce You to the Awe-Inspiring State of Their Art

in Art, Comics/Cartoons, Video - Arts & Culture | February 17th, 2013

Con­tem­pla­tive types used to los­ing them­selves in an image may wish to have a motion sick­ness bag on hand when view­ing The Art of Illus­tra­tion, the lat­est entry in Off Book, a PBS web series explor­ing cut­ting edge art and inter­net cul­ture. The edit­ing seems even more ver­tig­i­nous than in episodes devot­ed to indie video game design­ers and glitch artists. The score recalls R. Crum­b’s exis­ten­tial hor­ror inside a mod­ern night­club.

Watch it any­way, for the inter­vie­wees thoughts on the state of illus­tra­tion.

Pro­fes­sor Steven Guar­nac­cia of the The New School’s Illus­tra­tion Pro­gram describes how illus­tra­tion’s cre­ative poten­tial explod­ed once pho­tog­ra­phy became the prime way of doc­u­ment­ing celebri­ty appear­ances and oth­er such news­wor­thy visu­als.

Edi­to­r­i­al Illus­tra­tor Yuko Shimisu inter­nal­izes those obser­va­tions, throw­ing shade on any idea she feels would look bet­ter in pho­to form. Shimisu, like all of the artists fea­tured in the short video, uses tra­di­tion­al media to make her draw­ings, but col­ors them dig­i­tal­ly. The form may pre­date pho­tog­ra­phy, but Shimisu implies that any prac­ti­tion­er unwill­ing to embrace the trend toward new media will find them­selves going the way of the dodo, as edi­to­r­i­al gigs migrate onto tablets and even small­er dig­i­tal devices.

Mean­while over at DC Comics, Sean Mur­phy has yet to dis­cov­er a super­pow­er capa­ble of speed­ing up the work that goes into ren­der­ing a sto­ry in com­ic book for­mat. The facial expres­sions, grand per­spec­tives, and moody light­ing that are his stock in trade could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be cap­tured with a shut­ter click, but at what cost to the over­all nar­ra­tive?

And then there’s the inim­itable Mol­ly Crabap­ple, pur­vey­or of Vic­to­ri­an-fla­vored kink and founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, whose Occu­py Wall Street posters chal­lenged the visu­al bound­aries of activist art. Find­ing a per­son­al style one can blow up into a brand is not just a choice, she implies. It’s one’s best hope of sur­vival in a sea flood­ed with com­peti­tors.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day pub­lish­es her illus­trat­ed zine, The East Vil­lage Inky the old fash­ioned way, then pro­motes it across all man­ner of dig­i­tal plat­forms, includ­ing @AyunHalliday.

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Watch Lambeth Walk—Nazi Style: The Early Propaganda Mash Up That Enraged Joseph Goebbels

in Comedy, Film, History, Politics, Video - Arts & Culture | February 14th, 2013

In a ter­rif­ic his­tor­i­cal prank that sent Nazi Pro­pa­gan­da Min­is­ter Joseph Goebbels storm­ing out of the screen­ing room, British min­is­ter Charles A. Rid­ley edit­ed togeth­er scenes from the film Tri­umph of the Will with the music from the musi­cal Me and My Girl to cre­ate a spoof that infu­ri­at­ed lead­ers of the Third Reich.

Lam­beth Walk—Nazi Style was released in 1941 to news­reel com­pa­nies. It was billed as “Schich­le­gru­ber Doing the Lam­beth Walk, Assist­ed by the Gestapo Hep Cats,” and lays the catchy tune against images of Hitler and Nazi sol­diers from Leni Riefenstahl’s sem­i­nal pro­pa­gan­da film.

The sto­ry goes that the par­o­dy enraged Goebbels to such an extent that he ran out of the screen­ing room, kick­ing at chairs and scream­ing obscen­i­ties.

“The Lam­beth Walk” tune was writ­ten for the 1937 musi­cal, about a Cock­ney boy who inher­its a for­tune and must leave behind his work­ing-class ways to become a gen­tle­man. Nazi par­ty offi­cials called the tune “Jew­ish mis­chief and ani­mal­is­tic hop­ping,” mak­ing it even fun­nier as the back­ground music for Nazi sol­diers parad­ing.

The name “Schich­le­gru­ber,” by the way, was also a dig at Hitler. It was the name of his mater­nal grand­moth­er, whose son Alois (Hitler’s father) was an ille­git­i­mate child. Oops!

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Don­ald Duck’s Bad Nazi Dream and Four Oth­er Dis­ney Pro­pa­gan­da Car­toons from World War II

“The Duck­ta­tors”: Loony Tunes Turns Ani­ma­tion into Wartime Pro­pa­gan­da (1942)

Hitler Reacts to Take­down of Hitler Par­o­dies

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at .

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Salvador Dalí Gets a Screen Test by Andy Warhol (1966)

in Art, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | February 4th, 2013

The Sur­re­al­ist is ready for his close up, Mr. Warhol. Are you ready for him?

As pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed on this site, Andy Warhol filmed near­ly 500 “screen tests” in the mid-60s. He was­n’t look­ing to dis­cov­er unknown tal­ent or cast an upcom­ing movie. His inter­est seemed to stem more from voyeurism, the col­lec­tor’s impulse, and his fix­a­tion with glam­our. The major­i­ty of his cel­e­brat­ed sub­jects, obey­ing Warhol’s instruc­tions, refrained from ham­ming it up on cam­era.

Report­ed­ly, Bob Dylan was a bit of a diva.

But it was not until Sal­vador Dalí faced the lens that the mak­er met his match…twice. The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art doc­u­ments the Span­ish artist’s fla­grant dis­re­gard for Warhol’s stric­tures, while also spec­u­lat­ing on Warhol’s response.

And yet, some­thing soul­ful does come through in the clip above. Is Dalí emot­ing? Or is the shim­mer­ing back­ground melody by Arman­do Dominguez the inspi­ra­tion for Des­ti­no, a Dali-Dis­ney ani­mat­ed joint that took 57 years in the mak­ing?

Relat­ed Con­tent

Sal­vador Dalí Reveals the Secrets of His Trade­mark Mous­tache (1954)

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Andy Warhol Dig­i­tal­ly Paints Deb­bie Har­ry with the Ami­ga 1000 Com­put­er (1985)

Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Test’ of Bob Dylan: A Clas­sic Meet­ing of Egos

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will let you know if she makes it to Pitts­burgh for her screen­test if you fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Meet “Father Philanthropy”: America’s Most Prolific and Unlikely Master Art Forger

in Art, Random, Video - Arts & Culture | January 28th, 2013

Close your eyes and pic­ture a phil­an­thropist.

Like­ly you envi­sioned a fat cat with a design­er check­book. It’s the accept­ed image, but not every bene­fac­tor fits the mold.

Take Mark Lan­dis, a gen­tle soul who’s spent three decades sur­pris­ing the staffs of small Amer­i­can muse­ums with art­work pre­sent­ed out of the blue. Not just any art­work, and cer­tain­ly not the nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry orig­i­nals they were rep­re­sent­ed as—in every case, donor Lan­dis was even­tu­al­ly revealed to be the artist.

In Ter­ri Time­ly’s doc­u­men­tary glimpse, “Father Phil­an­thropy” (above, with a delet­ed scene below), Lan­dis oblig­ing­ly guides view­ers through the mul­ti-step process by which his forg­eries are cre­at­ed, but he reveals lit­tle about his moti­va­tion, beyond a desire to hon­or the mem­o­ry of his par­ents (Moth­er looms large here.)

His fakes don’t add up to a grand con­cep­tu­al piece, a la artist  J. S. G. Bog­gs’ incred­i­bly detailed, far-more-valu­able-than-the-items-they-were-used-to-pur­chase ban­knotes. He seems indif­fer­ent to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of high pro­file, if ill got­ten, pres­tige. He is, quite sim­ply a giv­er. His gifts cost the recip­i­ents pro­fes­sion­al pride and unex­pect­ed fees asso­ci­at­ed with fer­ret­ing out the truth, but they seem mal­ice-free. “About all I’ve got is an abil­i­ty to draw and paint,” he states, “So nat­u­ral­ly it led me to give away draw­ing and paint­ings.”

via The Atlantic

Relat­ed Con­tent

Art for the One Per­cent: 60 Min­utes on the Excess & Hubris of the Inter­na­tion­al Art Mar­ket

Art Lovers Rejoice! New Goya and Rem­brandt Data­bas­es Now Online

Ayun Hal­l­i­day keeps things real @ayunhalliday

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Watch Philip Glass Remix His Own Music—Then Try it Yourself With a New App

in Art, iPad, iPhone, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | January 18th, 2013

We told you in the fall about the album released by Beck and a troupe of oth­er musi­cians to cel­e­brate com­pos­er Philip Glass’s 75th birth­day. Rework—Philip Glass Remixed is a col­lec­tion of Glass works by artists includ­ing Beck, Tyondai Brax­ton, and Cor­nelius. Turns out that Glass him­self was pret­ty turned on by the results. In the above video, Glass plays around with his own music using an inter­ac­tive “Glass Machine” app, designed to com­ple­ment the album.

You can almost see the wheels in Glass’s head turn­ing as he swipes and taps away on the screen, cre­at­ing new loops with phras­es from his own music.

The app that Glass enjoys so much is avail­able to any­one with an iPad, iPod touch or iPhone (3Gs or new­er) and $10. The Rework app was designed by Scott Snibbe, who also cre­at­ed the inter­ac­tive galaxy in Bjork’s Bio­phil­ia app.

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The app includes eleven inter­ac­tive visu­al­iza­tions of remixed songs from the Rework album (exam­ple on left) and a Glass Machine, allow­ing users to cre­ate their own Glass-inspired music.

As Glass him­self said, while play­ing with the Machine, “the user has become the artist.”

Relat­ed Con­tent

Philip Glass, Seen and Heard Through the Cin­e­mat­ic Mind of Peter Green­away (1983)

‘The Bal­lad of the Skele­tons’: Allen Ginsberg’s 1996 Col­lab­o­ra­tion with Philip Glass and Paul McCart­ney

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at .  

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The Clock, the 24-Hour Montage of Clips from Film & TV History, Introduced by Alain de Botton

in Art, Film, Life, Philosophy, Video - Arts & Culture | January 1st, 2013

To ful­ly expe­ri­ence the clip above, you’ll need to be awake and press­ing play at pre­cise­ly 12:04 am. What you’ll be see­ing is a very small seg­ment of The Clock, a 24-hour video assem­blage that keeps time with clips culled from a cen­tu­ry’s worth of film his­to­ry. Some of these mark­ers are in the dia­logue, but most are shots of clocks and watch­es in which a spe­cif­ic time is clear­ly vis­i­ble.

If view­ing the com­plete piece sounds like a marathon, con­sid­er that artist Chris­t­ian Mar­clay and a pha­lanx of assis­tants spent three years locat­ing and plac­ing the clips and smooth­ing out the result­ing sound­track. Some of these moments came pre­loaded with the import of a High Noon. Oth­ers were of a more inci­den­tal, back­ground-type nature pri­or to being cast in Mar­clay’s project.

Those unable to spend qual­i­ty time with The Clock at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art this Jan­u­ary can get a feel for it via philoso­pher and writer Alain de Bot­ton’s  brief chat with Mar­clay below.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day resolves to use it bet­ter in 2012. Per­haps you should­n’t fol­low her on Twit­ter @AyunHalliday.

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Stephen Colbert Brings Laughs and Book Tour to Google

in Comedy, Google, Television, Video - Arts & Culture, YouTube | January 1st, 2013

Stephen Col­bert is one of the most refresh­ing come­di­ans work­ing today. He main­tains his character’s obnox­ious­ness dur­ing his own show, riff­ing and impro­vis­ing dur­ing inter­views with every­one from Bill O’Reilly to Eli­jah Wood, build­ing his char­ac­ter to dead­pan heights even with Jane Fon­da’s tongue in his ear.

But in the hot seat him­self, as an inter­vie­wee on Let­ter­man, Oprah or even with Play­boy mag­a­zine, Col­bert is authen­tic, can­did, fun­ny and a fast-on-his-feet smar­tie. In ear­ly Decem­ber Col­bert vis­it­ed Google’s New York offices and taped an inter­view for At Google Talks. Col­bert fans will want to check out the unedit­ed ver­sion recent­ly post­ed by Google. As a guest, Col­bert is fun­nier than Jon Stew­art and we get an hon­est look at the bright guy behind the buf­foon. The uncut inter­view has its high­lights, includ­ing the point when Colbert’s reac­tion to Eric Schmidt’s sug­ges­tion that The Col­bert Report launch its own YouTube show. His answers to ques­tions from the audi­ence are engag­ing, fun­ny and reveal­ing. It’s won­der­ful to hear the per­son­al sto­ry about the moment he real­ized he want­ed to make peo­ple laugh.

Col­bert was also con­duct­ing busi­ness. The inter­view was part of his book tour to pro­mote Amer­i­ca Again: Re-Becom­ing the Great­ness We Nev­er Weren’t. Below, you can see Col­bert give his comedic pitch for the book. And, if you want to down­load a free audio copy, you can always do so by start­ing a Free 30-Day Tri­al with Audible.com. We have details here.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and at thenifty.blogspot.com. 

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