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Pittsburgh's Gulf Tower is turning into an Instagram mood ring
For years, people in Pittsburgh have been able to get weather forecasts, holiday displays and occasional sports updates by glancing at the illuminated peak of the city's Gulf Tower building. There will be a change in programming, though, on February 11-13th, when the "Weather Beacon" will be replaced by a virtual mood ring to gauge the positive or negative nature of regional Instagram comments. The museum cooked up the Gulf Tower Project to coincide with artist Antoine Catala's upcoming "Distant Feel" exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art. It highlights the ways images can provoke emotional responses, even if they're just a Valencia-filtered photo of a cat in a box.
The Exquisite Forest: crowdsourced art made possible by Chrome (video)
Crowd-sourced art projects? You knew Google would get there sooner rather than later. And with the cooperative backing of the UK's Tate Modern gallery, artists Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin have been able to do just that, taking the surrealist concept of "the exquisite corpse" -- an evolving word tree exercise devised by early 20th century surrealists - and transmuting it into The Exquisite Forest, an animation-based collaboration that lives on the web. The exhibit, which kicks off July 23rd and should run for about six months, is yet another of Mountain View's Chrome Experiments and encourages any aspiring designer to log-in to the dedicated portal and contribute to existing trees (read: branching visual stories) or seed one of their own. You can check out a brief video explanation of the project's inception after the break. But if this concept already has your creative juices flowing to the point of flooding, why not just hit up the source below and help water this multimedia garden.
Google takes you on a tour of the White House, still no sign of Lincoln's gold
With all of the hubbub around the race for the White House, have you ever wondered what actually lies behind the doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? With some help from Google, the first family is taking users on a tour of the famous residence without having to jump on the 'ole Megabus to the District of Columbia. Google Art Project has documented the White House's public areas with a 360-degree Street View-like tour of the presidential home. The White House is the latest tour in a list that includes 46 top galleries around the globe. You can check out a video introduction courtesy of Michelle Obama after the break, and click the source link to check out her digs.
Solar Sinter solar-powered 3D printer turns sand into glass, renews our faith in higher education (video)
Where would we be without the world's graduate art projects? In the case of Markus Kayser's Solar Sinter, we might never have seen the day when a solar-powered 3D printer would turn Saharan sand into a perfectly suitable glass bowl. Well, lucky for us (we suppose) we live in a world overflowing with MA students, and awash in their often confusing, sometimes inspiring projects. Solar Sinter, now on display at the Royal College of Art, falls into the latter category, taking the Earth's natural elements, and turning them into functioning pieces of a burgeoning technology. Solar Sinter uses the sun's rays in place of a laser and sand in place of resin, in a process that is perhaps more visually stunning than the results. See for yourself in the video after the break.
NYU prof sticks camera on the back of his head, just as promised (video)
Remember when your parents told you they had eyes in the back of their heads, and part of you wanted to believe? Well, NYU professor and artist Wafaa Bilal recently had that done, though it's not as permanent as we'd hoped -- it's a removable dealie, affixed to a titanium plate implanted in the back of his skull. The resulting lifecast gets piped to a satchel at his side, which will be used in his art project The 3rd I at the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art on December 30th... but you should be able to get a sneak peek at the images at his website in just a little over a week. No word on whether he'll also hook up the whole kit to some sweet LCD goggles. Here's hoping. Video after the break.
Nike Air Maxes get a Wii Balance Board infusion
Recently Nike -- a shoe company that seems to enjoy a side dish of tech from time to time -- challenged 78 artists to "hack" its shoes and come up with something decidedly different than your typical Air Force Ones. Now, a lot of the projects were more art and less tech, but that can't be said for entrant Nick Marsh's contribution to the experiment. The designer fused the internals of a Wii Balance Board with a pair of Air Maxes to create a gaming experience that may not be nuanced, but certainly seems capable of making you break a sweat. According to Nick, games are played exactly as they would have been previously, but since you can't step of the board, you're required to lift your foot or sit down when you need to back off on the pressure. Nick finished the project in April, but it sounds like a slightly more polished version could be in the offing. Check out a quick video of the shoes in action after the break, and hit the source for a slew of pics.
Real-life WoW-style name tags
Now this is the sort of thing YouTube was made for. Aram Bartholl, a German artist "famous for his exploration of the relationship between the digital and physical world," did a WoW-inspired project at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, CA yesterday afternoon. It looks like it was a repetition of the project in the video above, which took place in Germany Belgium (sorry!) in 2008. Essentially, he has participants construct big floaty name tags, like the names that show up over your characters' heads. The people then walk around the city with the tags floating over them, held by additional participants. The overall effect is pretty cool. If anyone was in Laguna yesterday, I want pictures and/or video, please.
MIT student arrested for fake bomb at Boston's Logan airport
Boston authorities have once again put their hair-trigger reactions on display for the world today in a case involving an MIT student and bad fashion choices. In a situation eerily similar to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle, Star Simpson (the student in question) was placed under arrest at gunpoint (submachine gunpoint, that is) at Boston's Logan airport because of an "art project" she was wearing. Simpson, who was at the airport to meet her boyfriend, was sporting a black sweatshirt with a circuit board and flashing LEDs attached... and was inexplicably holding Play-Doh. Authorities mistook the combination for some type of explosive device. Maj. Scott Pare, the airport's commanding officer said, "I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport," and then lovingly added, "She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue." Here's our suggestion to authorities next time: just ask, "What's up with the bad art?"
Second Life "walkie talkie walks" project connects real / virtual worlds
Multimedia artist Sander Veenhof looks to be doing his part to bridge the gap between Second Life and the real world with his latest project, which is set to offer simultaneous walking tours between avatars in the virtual world and folks out in the open. To get things going, a person with an Internet-connected cellphone simply dials up a virtual walkie talkie in the game, and the two then set out on a journey through their respective environs, chatting it up along the way. This being an art project, the two will also be required to participate in some photo assignments documenting their trek, which then get posted on a website. While anyone in Second Life can participate, only those attending the Conflux Festival in New York City can take part in the real-world component, where the event is set to kick off on September 13th.[Via textually.org]
