Archive - May, 2008
Pixel Pointillism: The Art of William Betts
Stumbled upon a brilliant exhibit at the Yaletown Jennifer Kostuik Gallery during lunch break today. Texas based artist William Betts (whose website curiously bares an “iPhone Optimized” icon) taps into the Big Brother omnipresence of our modern world, taking webcam and surveillance video screencaps as his subject matter and, by exchanging pixels for pointillism, reinterpreting them in often abstract and beautiful ways.
Says Betts in his Artist Statement:
“Today we have so many layers between the individual and direct experience, it fundamentally changes how we see the world…I am intereseted in how far removed I can get from the subject and the painting itself and still make paintings.”
Definitely worth seeing in person if you get the chance. The exhibit runs until June 8th.
The Communist’s Future
Illustrations from various works by Russian science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev
(via Coudal)
Joshua Davis On Pollock & Dynamic Abstraction
“Among modern artists I conceptually identify with Jackson Pollock – not that I’m a particular fan of his visual style, but because he always identified himself as a painter, even though a lot of the time his brush never hit the canvas. There’s something in that disconnect – not using a brush or tool in traditional methods.”
and
“Pollock might argue that it’s the process of abstraction that’s dynamic, not the end result, which in his case is a static painting. In my own work, the end result is never static; by making room for as many anomalies as possible, every composition generated by the programs we write is unique to itself. I’ll program the “brushes,” the “paints,” the “strokes,” the “rules”, and the “boundaries”. However it is the software that creates the compositions — the programs draw themselves. I am in a constant state of surprise and discovery, because the program may structure compositions that I may never have thought of to execute or might take me hours to create manually.”
Swedes Invade the Red Room
Sweeping in on the coattails of whistling pop sensation Peter, Bjorn & John and rockers the Hives amidst what is being declared a Swedish invasion (or is it a Scandanavian invasion: there were 42 acts from the region at SXSW this year; 11 of which were Swedish), two acts from the land of beautiful people and generous social welfare touch down at the Red Room this Wednesday night.
First up, 22 year old music-blog darling Lykke Li whose lilty tunes and airy vocals are produced by the Bjorn of prior-mentioned PB&J; into unabashedly catchy pop creations. The big push online right now is for Dance Dance Dance but I am groovin more on the diskJokke remix of Everybody but Me from over at Recrdlbl.
The second act, El Perro Del Mar, I am less familiar with. The one piece of trivia that I dug up was that TV on the Radio invited her to open for them in Spain last summer which seems like an odd pairing. But I trust their taste. Take the easy pop tracks of Lykke Li above and let them mature for a few years like a fine wine and you would have something sounding somewhat like El Perro. The lovely collection of songs on her new album, From the Valley to the Stars includes this one, Glory to the World.
Should be a good show. Be sure to look up my review later in the week.
iTunes by the Numbers
Found this cool meme on Sean Klassen’s blog and thought I would apply it to my own bloated iTunes collection:
Total Length:
» 16307 items, 50.7 days, 87.24GB
First and Last Songs (by title):
» A-Tisket A-Tasket by Chick Webb v/Ella Fitzgerald
» (|||) by DJ Ey3
Shortest and Longest Songs:
» “The End” by Maceo Parker, 0:04
» “Dj-Set 23.06.07″ by Justice at PinkPonyParty, 2:00:54
First and Last Albums (by title):
» “Abbey Road” by The Beatles
» “Writer’s Block” by Peter, Bjorn & John
First and Last Artist (by title):
» A.C. Newman
» !!!
Top Five Most Played Songs:
» “Manifesto” by Gonzales
» “Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois” by Sufjan Stevens
» “Winters Love” by Animal Collective
» “Andy Warhol” by David Bowie
» “Southern Anthem” by Iron and Wine
Search for the following words. How many songs show up?:
» Sex: 96
» Death: 78
» Love: 815
» You: 1588
» Home: 145
» Boy: 411
» Girl: 167
First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle:
» “Speakeasy” by Swayzak
» “The Gal from Joe’s” Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra
» “Johnny B. Goode” by the Sex Pistols
» “Wagon Christ / Spotlight” by Aphex Twin
» “Death or Glory” by the Clash
What’s on your playlist?
Black Kids and Cut Copy at Richard’s on Richards
There is a black guy in the men’s washroom of Richard’s on Richards dispensing soap and hand towels. He also has an assortment of colognes and prophylactics available for purchase. His outfit suggests that of a hipster bellhop.
I should point out that the men’s facilities at Richard’s on Richards are not large. There were perhaps eight others taking care of business in there at the same time as me and we were choked for space. Nor are we talking about a grand country club restroom with marble walls and golden chalices in which to urinate. This is a good and dirty rock n’ roll WC with key-scratched obscenities on the cubicles and grime in the tiles. Our poor bellhop would be privy to a whole *ahem* shitload of industry fallout over the course of an evening.
I should also point out that the year is 2008, not 1925.
Whatever the case, I had flown in on the red eye from Hawaii the night before and barely stumbled through my first day back at work. And here was an email from HQ in Brooklyn offering guest list status for a concert that had been sold out for weeks and figured prominently in the status of every Vancouver hipster’s Facebook page. And so there I was at the Black Kids and Cut Copy show, bleary and delirious and struck by the surreal nature of a black guy dispensing soap and hand towels in the men’s washroom of Richard’s on Richards.
The show itself was, as expected, quite brilliant. And since I’ve already used up my word count on complete irrelevance, I will let the YouTube coverage tell the rest of the story:
Footage of the Black Kids from mowchar.
And some rather shaky coverage of Cut Copy by chasingphantoms.
