ModernArt
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Google creates an online exhibit for contemporary art
Some artists actually like it when you say "my four-year-old could do that," because it means you've a) questioned whether a work is art, and b) wondered why or why not. I just learned that from Google Arts & Culture's brand new Contemporary Art digital collection, packed full of information on the notoriously opaque subject. It includes videos, explanations from experts at 180 institutions and, best of all, gigapixel-resolution images that let you experience the pieces as if you were at the MOMA.
Nendo's ceramic circuit board speaker gives the rest of the audio world body image issues
We've seen slick hand-crafted ceramic speakers in the past, but this one millimeter-thick collaboration between potter Mitsuke Masagasu and design firm Nendo is in a different league. An entirely different league. The set is result of the so-called Revalue Nippon Project, created by Japanese footballer Nakata Hidetoshi to revive traditional Japanese art forms. Nakata selected five curators -- in this case the director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazaw -- who were then tasked with pairing a ceramicist and designer to collaborate on a one of a kind form. Not satisfied with simply being 31 times thinner than the emaciated Mythos XTR series as a sole basis for artistic impact, the speaker's ravishing circuit design is also made without a human touch. Instead, a computer-controlled process cuts thin slices from a ceramic substrate slab, fixes them with mercury vapor, and then mounts them via a robotic arm. Amazingly, sound quality is still also touted as being top notch. There are no plans however for these speakers to ever be mass produced, so if you were hoping to snag one as the ultimate accessory for your über-modern flat... well, let yourself down easy, alright champ? %Gallery-108170%
NYU prof installing camera in the back of his head, JW Parker Middle School teachers insanely jealous
You've wished you had a camera implant, right? We mean, it's pretty common: you've been on the bus or the incline and something went down and you were like, "I wish I was recording this right now." Well, we know of at least two folks looking to replace their prosthetic eyes with webcams, and now an artist living in New York wishes to sport an implant of his own. Wafaa Bilal, an NYU photography professor, plans on having a camera attached to a piercing on the back of his head for one year. Throughout that time, still images will be taken at one minute intervals and displayed at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. The work, titled "The 3rd I," is billed as "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience," although it really sounds like the dream of every teacher and parent since time immemorial: to have eyes on the back of their head. Of course, the privacy of Bilal's students is being taken into consideration, although the school is not exactly sure how they're handling that one yet -- either the camera will be covered while he teaches or shut off altogether while in NYU buildings.
