The Wilderness Downtown: Chrome experiment by Chris Milk and Arcade Fire

The Wilderness Downtown: Chrome experiment by Chris Milk and Arcade Fire: “Wildernessdownnnn

The Wilderness Downtown is perhaps the best browser-dominating Net art piece I’ve experienced since Jodi.org’s best work more than a decade ago. An experimental, interactive film by Chris Milk, it’s a tour-de-force for the Chrome browser and a lovely visual poem to accompany Arcade Fire’s excellent ‘We Used To Wait’ from their album The Suburbs. I won’t give the ‘story’ away, but I found it to be a deeply personal and moving experience.

Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering… this Chrome Experiment has them all. ‘The Wilderness Downtown’ is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire’s song ‘We Used To Wait’ and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas.

The Wildreness Downtown (Thanks, Jean Hagan!)

‘Behind the Work: Arcade Fire ‘The Wilderness Downtown’‘ (Creativity Online)


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Lowbrow Tarot Deck

Lowbrow Tarot Deck: “ Images Images Large 00-Tarot-Backs Lg Diaz

Images 4115 4925424367 Cd3B54121E B

Curator and artist Aunia Kahn selected a group of 23 lowbrow/pop surrealist artists to interpret one card each of the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. Hi-Fructose has a sneak preview of 14 of the cards, which will debut October 1 with a full show at Los Angeles’s La Luz de Jesus Gallery, a book, and of course a deck of cards. Above left, card back by Daniel Martin Diaz; right, The Devil by Chet Zar

The LowBrow Tarot Card Project preview (Hi-Fructose)

LOWBROW + TAROT + PROJECT

UPDATE: You can see the entire show at the La Luz de Jesus site here.


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Thanks for reading and "May the scientific method always be with you."

Thanks for reading and “May the scientific method always be with you.”: “201009021342

Phylomon cards: ‘EUROPEAN HONEY BEE, I CHOOSE YOU!’

I had a great experience here at Boing Boing, and want to send on a big thanks to Mark, Cory, Xeni, David, Rob and the rest of the crew for letting me spend some quality time here. I’m also grateful to the many museum folks who let me chat with them, and so graciously showed me their projects. Kudos especially to Bob Bloomfield for the warm welcome and the many discussions on biodiversity advocacy. Hopefully, my posts didn’t dilute the overall awesomeness here at Boing Boing, and at the every least, I hope a few more people are interested in Nagoya COP10. Also, it was fun to do my part to increase the Chewbacca quotient (even if only slightly) here at the site.

With that, I’d like to end with two last requests. Both related to biodiversity: one is kind of worthy, the other a little goofy. One requires folks of the artistic bent, the other maybe a more scientific approach.

First, if you haven’t already done so, do please check out the PHYLO project. If you don’t know what it is, think Pokemon but with real creatures, and then read the about section (or this previous Boing Boing post). Although the project is being hosted by my lab, it is hardly my project. Basically, all images, web infrastructure, game rules, IP advice, and educational discussion, to make the 180 or so cards currently available (new one every weekday!), has been produced solely from the fine act of crowd sourcing. Everything is open source and open access, completely free, so that all you really need is a printer, some paper, and you’re good to go. It’s been very cool to watch it progress, but I’d love it if more people came by to contribute. In fact, if it sounds interesting to you and/or your kids, you can even start playing it right now.

In particular, we’d like more artists to participate. You’ll note that the artwork for the cards is pretty freakin’ excellent (see the image above), and we’re hoping for a wider pool of people to contribute. Doesn’t matter what the organism is: it can be one you’ve already drawn, or one where you try your hand at something that’s not currently a card (for instance we are well represented by birds and mammals, but poorly lacking in things like reptiles, insects, aquatic plants, and still no blue whale yet). Heck, in honour of the Boing Boing community, I think we can even open the doors for unicorn submissions, but ONLY if you also provide a picture of a real creature (NOTE: you might wonder where a unicorn card might fit in with a biodiversity project, but we are not above a little parody in the project – see if you can find the one other fictional card already hidden in the collection).

Anyway, how do you submit? Well, there is a special Flickr pool just for art submissions, but if it’s easier you can also pass on a link to your art in the comments below (make sure the link also has a way of contact so that we can follow up); do the same via this post; or, if you’re on Deviant Art, by sending on a note to my deviantart.com account. All in all, any help is greatly appreciated.

We’re also now at the stage where we can begin to construct locale specific starter decks. In other words, with our card numbers continually expanding, we can provide pdfs of decks that make sense to a particular city or region, as well as decks of cards chosen to support the exhibits at learning institutions (I’ll be making one for the Natural History Museum for example). This would have awesome educational potential, so it would be great if we could get locale specific ‘champions’ to help with this.

Finally: wouldn’t these cards look cool on a smart phone? Maybe there are biodiversity type apps out there that would like to add a ‘card’ layer to their functionality. Or maybe just a way to play trumps or some such similar game with the cards? Just saying.

Second, here is a request that involves the blue whale I wrote about earlier.

201009021344

Photo by Stuart Pearce (link)

During construction (of the whale model), workmen left a trapdoor within the whale’s stomach, which they would use for surreptitious cigarette breaks. Before the door was closed and sealed forever, some coins and a telephone directory were placed inside — this soon growing to an urban myth that a time capsule was left inside. The work was completed — entirely within the hall and in full view of the public — in 1938. At the time it was the largest such model in the world, at 28.3 m in length, though the construction details were later borrowed by several American museums, who scaled the plans further. (Wikipedia)

Isn’t that wonderful? I’ve also heard other stories about what might be inside the belly of this whale (including one that mentioned a distill), and have increasingly heard the term ‘Narnia doors’ around this museum. Apparently, the museum is so vast and so twisty-turny that it’s not uncommon to open a door and end up somewhere totally unexpected.

In fact, the idea of the blue whale possibly harboring some secret inside is such a delicious notion, that I’m a bit disappointed that someone like J.K. Rowling didn’t lend her considerable imagination to include it in her vast Harry Potter iconography (although I might pursue this myself in a children’s science culture/novel I’m working on). Anyway, in this respect, I’m curious to find out more. To be specific, I was wondering if:

1. Anybody knows more about what might be inside the whale, and

2. Without having to open up the huge hollow model, what technical options (high tech or better yet DIY) are there to take a peek inside?

And with that, this is where I’ll sign off. Thanks for reading and playing along, and ‘May the Scientific Method always be with you.’


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Sugru

Sugru: “

Sugru is a soft moldable material that reminds me of Fimo clay. But unlike Fimo, it does not have to be heated to cure. It air drys and is rubbery and sticks to anything. I used it to make a new button for my utility knife when the plastic one broke. I made bumpers for my cell phone. I put some on my tools so they would not roll off the table. I am still discovering ways to use the product.

— Philip Lipton

This stuff comes in tiny pouches of different primary colors. You knead a bit with your hands until soft, then you apply it where you would like an additional grip, or stop, or section of repair. It’s pretty sticky, can be worked like clay, but dries into a hard rubber. The photo shows a paring knife handle that was falling apart from years of dishwasher use. I coated the outside with Sugru and it now it feels great and is dishwasher proof. See Sugru’s website for other ways it can be used.

— KK

Sugru Smart Hacks Packs

~$17 (£11) for 12 5g-sachets a mixture of colous

~$9 (£6) for 6 smart 5g-sachets a single color

(global shipping is cheap!)

Manufactured by and available from Sugru

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The Wandering Marionettes’ Gorgeous Masked Performances

The Wandering Marionettes’ Gorgeous Masked Performances: “hello-kittys-bats-and-cats-masquerade-royal-t.4107015.87.jpg
Photo: Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly from ‘Hello Kitty’s Bats and Cats Masquerade @ Royal/T’

The Wandering Marionettes are a performance troupe based in Los Angeles who have become an important part of the city’s nightlife. They appear frequently at clubs and other events (like Labyrinth of Jareth) across L.A. dressed in black and white and wearing sleek masks, using music and dance to tell a story of mysterious dolls.

I wrote about The Wandering Marionettes when they put together their own party, Kabinet Theatre, in Hollywood last year. (They’ve hosted Kabinet Theatre nights since then, as well, but moved it downtown.) I like The Wandering Marionettes for a reason similar to The League of S.T.E.A.M.: both emphasize audience interaction in their work.

Typically, The Wandering Marionettes will do a few dance numbers on stage, but that’s only part of what they do. The members of the troupe are in character all night and much of their performance revolves around their interaction with the crowd. They might be on the dance floor or hanging around the bar with everyone else, but they don’t speak and how you react to them more or less prompts what happens next. Check out the video below to see The Wandering Marionettes on stage.

Link:
The Wandering Marionettes


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Intensely psychedelic "fractal" architecture animation

[WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW. -egg]

Intensely psychedelic “fractal” architecture animation: “

Welcome to the Mandelbox. Over at Dose Nation, the creator
Hömpörgő says, ‘I wanted to go further too, but at the end part a single frame took 18 minutes to render, and the whole 1:27 minute video needed 12 days nonstop rendering. I felt thats more than enough at the time. It was just my first experiment with Mandelbulb 3D, a freeware program, I’m not a film director or something…’


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