SUSO

How's The World Feeling?

Art on the internet.

Some of it’s great, some of it’s instantly forgettable, but there’s no denying that it represents possibilities that artists only fifteen years ago could only have dreamed of, the kind of opportunities that Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar explore in the seemingly never ending We Feel Fine. Please, please, please check it out. It’s astonishing not just for the ambition of the idea, but for the slickness of the execution and, most of all, for the way it presents a snapshot of people’s emotions all over the world - on your screen!

Explore it HERE - click on 'Open We Feel Fine'. The Mission and Movement statements help to explain a little more about the project.

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Categories Art Culture Tags Art Digital

By on 28/2/08

Bruce Almighty

As a shark nerd, I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to mention here on Susology the death of Roy Scheider (above centre), the man best remembered for his role as Chief Brody in Jaws. It was very sad indeed.

Growing up, the Chief played a big part in the formation of this peculiar fascination with marine predators. But this is no place for mourning. Instead, let’s celebrate his role in a project that no one believed would ever get finished, the extraordinary determination of its production team, and the unwavering vision of one man in particular: the young and eager to impress Steven Spielberg.

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Categories Film Tags determination Films Jaws Sharks

By on 27/2/08

Like Common People

Art has an audience, a gallery and a purpose, but Jorge Rodriguez Gerada challenges our preconceptions of all these things in his urban murals that render common people in charcoal on giant town walls. They become local icons overnight. Each protagonist is taken from the streets of his or her own neighbourhood. Days later, their faces adorn one of its walls.

His art is not so much about the charcoal drawing as the process: the search for a city, a building, the person that not only represents the locality but is also happy to have his or her fifteen minutes of fame, and the deterioration of the charcoal because of time or rain. They become David to the Goliath of advertising, politics or even large scale commissioned art in public spaces.

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Categories Art Tags Street Art

By on 26/2/08

Man Power

The annual effort encouraging us to wake up and deal with African poverty is nigh. Sport Relief runs from the 14th to the 16th of March and there is a notable Olympian attempting something extraordinary. Bob ‘give us your f@&%ing money’ Geldof and ‘comedian’ Lenny Henry are resting up for Red Nose Day 2009.

So cometh the even year, cometh the man. James Cracknell, the double Olympic gold medalist, is attempting a new world record. He's going to row from Dover to Cap Griz Nez near Calais, then cycle 1400 miles to Spain’s most southerly point, Isla De Tarifa, and then swim the Gibraltar Straits to Morocco. So, England to Africa by man power alone.

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Categories Sport Endeavour Tags determination Sport

By on 26/2/08

Opening Up

Remember the classic titles from the original Superman film, with each line coming at you from the depths of space leaving a laser like three-dimensional trail?

Kyle Cooper, in respect to those original titles, reinterpreted the idea for the 21st Century update Superman Returns and, by capitalising on new technologies, took us round planets and into solar systems on a one man solo flight through space.

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Categories Design Film Tags Design Film Graphic

By on 25/2/08

Put Up Or Shut Up

“The best thing about Detroit is the people. They have to be some of the warmest people you’ll ever meet, and some of the strongest people you’ll meet."

“When somebody says, ‘W’re gonna do such and so,’ you say, ‘OK, that’s just talk.’ But when you do it, that’s when it means something in Detroit. That’s that working town ethic. It’s a put up or shut up town.” THEO PARRISH

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Categories Music Tags determination Detroit Music Parrish Techno Theo

By on 20/2/08

More Soul In Imperfection

As the digital age makes everything faster, cleaner and more and more perfect, who from time to time doesn’t crave a little imperfection in their lives? A 12” in their hand, not an MP3 on their pod; the unpredictability of a Moog, rather than the coldness of digital uniformity; or just the crackle of a film reel rather than clips viewed on a handheld screen?

Digital’s good. Analog’s good. Combine the two, and what do you get? Lots of things actually, among them the various creations of 45 iPod, an inventive little company that transforms old vinyl and cassettes into protective cases for both Classic and Nano iPods. The inspiration came from the realisation that the centre hole on a record matches the dimensions of the Classic touchwheel exactly, and so old vinyl is thus contorted into the shape of an iPod holder, with the centre hole framing the wheel exactly. They do a similar thing with old cassette tapes for the Nano. It’s analog meets digital in the truest sense.

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Categories Design Music Tags Apple iPod Music

By on 15/2/08

Black And White Colours

Just the other day I came across a copy of Colors magazine. I’d never seen it before. Strange, because it was launched in 1991, and has been published quarterly in multiple languages ever since. Shame on me. Anyway, each issue is dedicated to a particular subject.

It was Colors that was responsible for famously doctoring the face of the Queen to look like a black woman in its issue on race in 1993, and it was Colors that caused uproar when an issue on AIDS discussed the disease in the kind of blunt and forthright manner that no one else dared adopt; a picture of US president Ronald Reagan engineered to look like an emaciated AIDS sufferer reflected their approach.

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Categories Music Media Tags Media Music Publishing

By on 14/2/08

Exclusively For Everyone

“The whole point of street art is that it should be affordable.”

So says Mike Snelle of East London art dealer Black Rat Press. But affordable to who exactly? Judging by the £1 million worth of fees accumulated during last week’s Bonhams ‘Urban Art’ auction, affordable to a minority, that’s who. Nick Walker (see below), a British artist, sold Moona Lisa, a spray-paint-on-canvas piece from 2006, for £54,000, more than ten times its upper estimate. Other lesser known artists sold pieces for similarly inflated prices. And no prizes for guessing who’s work sold for the highest . Yep, Banksy’s Laugh Now, a chimpanzee with a sandwich board over his shoulders, fetched £228,000. An upcoming exhibition of Banksy’s work at the Andipa Gallery, London, prices Banksy’s Bombing MIddle England at £300,000.

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Categories Art Tags Art Graffiti

By on 13/2/08

Dark Knights

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.” WILLIAM BLAKE

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Categories Endeavour Tags Adventure determination

By on 12/2/08