sky3000

 

Banksy is one of the today’s most prolific artists yet his identity remains unknown. Best known for his satirical street art, the artist debuted his first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop in 2010. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature the following year.

Banksy’s work has been thoroughly documented online and the artist remains active to this day. Most recently Banksy took over the streets of New York, unveiling a new artwork each day for the month of October 2013. The self-proclaimed ‘artist in residence‘ for the city of New York also released two new pieces which can be seen below (#2 and #106).

In this comprehensive post that spans much of Banksy’s artistic career, we enjoy 127 outstanding examples of the artist’s work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ’Mukashi Mukashi’ & ‘A New Tenant’

I was asked to contribute to the Heroes in A Half Shell: A TMNT Tribute Exhibition for Gallery Nucleus, which will be opening this Saturday.

I thought it would be fun to show Splinter and crew with Shredder’s vanquished helmet, only kicking it back to the feudal age of Japan it’s based off of. No mutations and a samurai helmet.

I grew up with the 90’s TMNT and finding out that the new Krang was no longer the campy robot kangaroo pouch with alien brain baby left me nostalgic. It felt like Krang had left his out dated model back in ‘87 for a shiny new ride, and I couldn’t help thinking it’s probably still sitting around somewhere collecting dust, overgrown with plants.

nevver:

Edwin Ushiro

Acrylic on paper, A3

 

Should you find yourself in a situation where you need to put on your pants and do not have access to your upper extremities (i.e., your arms), this video will demonstrate the way to do it with style and grace :)

 

 

Sculptures with everyday objects by Gilbert Legrand

I will admit it: I’m one of those oft-maligned non-sports people who becomes a football (okay, soccer) enthusiast every four years, seduced by the colorful pageantry, cosmopolitan air, nostalgia for a game I played as a kid, and an embarrassingly sentimental pride in my home country’s team. I don’t lose all my critical faculties, but I can’t help but love the World Cup even while recognizing the corruption, deepening poverty and exploitation, and host of other serious sociopolitical issues surrounding it. And as an American, it’s simply much easier to put some distance between the sport itself and the jingoistic bigotry and violence—“sentimental hooliganism,” to use Franklin Foer’s phrase—that very often attend the game in various parts of the world.

In Argentina, as in many soccer-mad countries with deep social divides, gang violence is a routine part of futbol, part of what Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges termed a horrible “idea of supremacy.” Borges found it impossible to separate the fan culture from the game itself, once declaring, “soccer is popular because stupidity is popular.” As Shaj Mathew writes in The New Republic, the author associated the mass mania of soccer fandom with the mass fervor of fascism or dogmatic nationalism. “Nationalism,” he wrote, “only allows for affirmations, and every doctrine that discards doubt, negation, is a form of fanaticism and stupidity.” As Mathews points out, national soccer teams and stars do often become the tools of authoritarian regimes that “take advantage of the bond that fans share with their national teams to drum up popular support [….] This is what Borges feared—and resented—about the sport.”

There is certainly a sense in which Borges’ hatred of soccer is also indicative of his well-known cultural elitism (despite his romanticizing of lower-class gaucho life and the once-demimonde tango). Outside of the hugely expensive World Cup, the class dynamics of soccer fandom in most every country but the U.S. are fairly uncomplicated. New Republic editor Foer summed it up succinctly in How Soccer Explains the World: “In every other part of the world, soccer’s sociology varies little: it is the province of the working class.” (The inversion of this soccer class divide in the U.S., Foer writes, explains Americans’ disdain for the game in general and for elitist soccer dilettantes in particular, though those attitudes are rapidly changing). If Borges had been a North, rather than South, American, I imagine he would have had similar things to say about the NFL, NBA, NHL, or NASCAR.

Nonetheless, being Jorge Luis Borges, the writer did not simply lodge cranky complaints, however politically astute, about the game. He wrote a speculative story about it with his close friend and sometime writing partner Adolfo Bioy Casares. In “Esse Est Percipi” (“to be is to be perceived”), we learn that soccer has “ceased to be a sport and entered the realm of spectacle,” writes Mathews: “representation of sport has replaced actual sport.” The physical stadiums crumble, while the games are performed by “a single man in a booth or by actors in jerseys before the TV cameras.” An easily duped populace follows “nonexistent games on TV and the radio without questioning a thing.”

The story effectively illustrates Borges’ critique of soccer as an intrinsic part of a mass culture that, Mathews says, “leaves itself open to demagoguery and manipulation.” Borges’ own snobberies aside, his resolute suspicion of mass media spectacle and the coopting of popular culture by political forces seems to me still, as it was in his day, a healthy attitude. You can read the full story here, and an excellent critical essay on Borges’ political philosophy here.

via The New Republic

Related Content:

Borges: Profile of a Writer Presents the Life and Writings of Argentina’s Favorite Son, Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967-8 Norton Lectures On Poetry (And Everything Else Literary)

Jorge Luis Borges’ Favorite Short Stories (Read 7 Free Online)

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

Jorge Luis Borges: “Soccer is Popular Because Stupidity is Popular” is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

The post Jorge Luis Borges: “Soccer is Popular Because Stupidity is Popular” appeared first on Open Culture.

Back in 1977, San Francisco filmmaker Ernie Fosselius had the brainwave to make a spoof of a movie that had just come out. It was a risky move. Nobody had any sense that Star Wars would become the worldwide cultural phenomenon that it did. And just as George Lucas’s space opera earned staggering amounts of money, so did Fosselius’s parody, Hardware Wars. You can watch it above. Made for a mere eight grand, the 13-minute movie became a pre-internet viral hit and a staple on the festival circuit, ultimately earning over $1,000,000 – an unheard of haul for a short film. In fact, in terms of money spent versus money earned, Hardware Wars ended up being far more profitable than Star Wars. And it’s considered the most profitable short film ever made.

“I think a lot of the charm of that movie is the fact that we didn’t really know what we were doing,” said Scott Mathews, who donned a blonde wig to play the movie’s lead, Fluke Starbucker. The movie’s production is so gleefully cheap and half-assed that you can’t help but be charmed by it. Irons, toasters, and tape players are used in place of spaceships. A canister vacuum cleaner stands in for R2D2, and Chewbacca appears to be a Cookie Monster puppet dyed brown. At one point, while on a desert planet of Tatooine, you see a beach-goer sauntering in the background. And Star Wars’s famous cantina scene is in this movie simply a stroll through a crowded tavern. If you know anything about the bar scene in 1970s San Francisco, you know that it was at least as weird as anything George Lucas managed to put up on the screen.

The often litigious Lucas reportedly really liked the movie, called it “cute.” He even invited Fosselius to voice the inconsolable sobs of Jabba the Hutt’s animal trainer after his beloved Rancor gets killed by Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.

Hardware Wars ended up launching an entire subgenre of movie – the Star Wars fan film. And with the advent of Youtube and digital filmmaking technology, the ability of nerds and mavens to make increasingly sophisticated takes on Lucas’s universe became easier and easier. One of the better, and older, ones is Troops. A mash up of Star Wars and the reality TV series Cops, the short shows the challenges and the struggles of being an Imperial Stormtrooper. Check it out below.

via FilmmakerIQ

Related Content: 

How Star Wars Borrowed From Akira Kurosawa’s Great Samurai Films

Freiheit, George Lucas’ Short Student Film About a Fatal Run from Communism (1966)

Watch the Very First Trailers for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi (1976-83)

Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers Break Down Star Wars as an Epic, Universal Myth

Hundreds of Fans Collectively Remade Star Wars; Now They Remake The Empire Strikes Back

675 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc.

Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.

 

Hardware Wars: The Mother of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Profitable Short Film Ever Made) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

The post Hardware Wars: The Mother of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Profitable Short Film Ever Made) appeared first on Open Culture.

 

Baboons always have a secret supply of water but getting them to reveal the location is another story. When the Machalahari people go hunting, water is scarce and knowing where a fresh supply is located is invaluable.

This is a clip from the 1974 nature documentary Animals are Beautiful People. The film is about wildlife in Southern Africa and was filmed in the Namib Desert, the Kalahari Desert and the Okavango River and Okavango Delta. It was directed and written by Jamie Uys, who is most famous for his later film The Gods Must Be Crazy.

 

 

I first met Julian’s work through a submission, he submitted this beautiful artwork to AFA, I’m just so very glad he did that, I became a huge fan since then and he owns one of the most popular post on AFA 

Julian Landini is now also on tumblr, worth following!

natalie foss is also working on an exclusive art for AFA, I don’t know about you guys but I’m dying to see what she will present for us! I bet it will be something unforgettable…

lalalalalala

and if you are an artist and whant to go up there sweet talk to me

Paintings by Felicia Olin

A quick note: After digitizing over 15,000 books, Routledge has made 6,000 of these e-texts free for viewing during the month of June. You can browse the complete list of titles in Routledge’s e-catalog by clicking here. Once you have selected a title, you can then click the blue “View Inside this Book” button to start reading the text. The collection includes lots of works focused on Economics, Finance and Business; Politics and International Relations; and Philosophy and Cultural Studies.The latter category will undoubtedly interest our many philosophically-minded readers. Among the texts you will find Foucault and Education; Cultural Analysis The Work of Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas; Heidegger and the Romantics: The Literary Invention of Meaning; The Notebooks of Simone Weil; and A Historical Introduction to Phenomenology. The image above comes from The Phenomenological Mind by Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi.

via Leiter Reports

Related Content:

600 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices

Free Online Philosophy Courses

Michel Foucault: Free Lectures on Truth, Discourse & The Self

170 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection

Read 9 Books By Noam Chomsky Free Online

 

Routledge Gives Free Access to 6,000 eBooks in June (Including Philosophy & Cultural Studies Texts) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

The post Routledge Gives Free Access to 6,000 eBooks in June (Including Philosophy & Cultural Studies Texts) appeared first on Open Culture.

This week's job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is a position for an interior designer/architect at Wilkinson Eyre Architects, whose award-winning cooled conservatories at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore are pictured. Visit the ad for full details or browse other architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.

News: Ikea has said it will rethink legal action against fan site IkeaHackers, which publishes user modifications of furniture bought from the flat-pack giant. (more...)

 

CONTEST CLOSES 30 JUNE 2014!

The 26th annual National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest is well under way, accepting submissions until 30 June 2014. Official categories include: Travel Portraits; Outdoor Scenes; Sense of Place; and Spontaneous Moments. The grand-prize winner will receive an eight-day National Geographic Expedition to Alaska for two aboard the National Geographic Sea Lion or National Geographic Sea Bird.

The entry fee is $15 (USD) per photo and there is no limit to the number of submissions per entrant. Judging consists of two rounds of evaluation based on creativity and photographic quality. The second-prize winner will receive a five-day National Geographic Photography Workshop for one in Santa Fe, N.M., and the third-prize winner will receive a six-day cruise for two on a Maine windjammer schooner. Seven merit-prize winners will receive a print of their photo, matted and framed by the National Geographic Imaging Lab, a $200 gift certificate to B&H Photo and “The Art of Travel Photography” course on DVD from National Geographic and The Great Courses.

The Sifter’s friends at Nat Geo were kind enough to share 12 amazing photographs already entered into this year’s contest. Stay tuned for additional coverage of this always fantastic annual contest.

 

 

While on a trip to unhook live sharks from fishermen’s longlines, we were lucky enough to run into a massive school of mobula rays. The rays were moving quite fast and it was hard enough keeping up with them from the surface, let alone dive down to take a closer look. This photo was taken freediving to a depth of about 60 ft. Location: Baja, Mexico. Pacific Coast

 

 

After hiking for twelve hours out of a nineteen hour trek, it was time to watch the sunrise at Dinosaur Ridge. When we first looked out, the mountains were completely covered by clouds, but within an hour the clouds dropped and this was what we saw. It felt like heaven, and you could hear everyone present for this moment screaming and shouting for joy! I’d never seen something so incredible, I had to meditate and have gratitude to have experienced this. Some locals said that they’d never seen the mountains like this, even in their 40+ years of hiking there. Location: Seoraksan National Park, South

 

 

This is a Western Grey Kangaroo caught lounging in the wineries of the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. This past Autumn has been a spectacular time for wildlife viewing and I got lucky to spot this guy while mountain biking in the hills. Such a funny stance it just begs the question… Have you been drinking? …and or… Are you here for the Winery Tour? Such a spontaneous moment I figured it would be perfect for an entry. I hope you like it! Cheers. Location: Adelaide Hills, South Australia, Australia

 

 

I stood at the base of Niagara Falls in Ontario Canada with my camera, tripod and ND filter and 10 million gallons of water per minute. My camera was soaking when I was done and didn’t think I had achieved the effect I wanted, but later found out it was worth taking an involuntary shower compliments of mother nature to get this photo. Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

 

 

Camping beneath the beauty of the Aurora Borealis in Southern Iceland in the Fall of 2013. An odd sort of reflection with the tent and the sky happening. Location: Southern Iceland

 

 

Nikon D3100 Obj : tokina 10-17 fish eye Housing : liquid eye + Big dome. Location: French polynesia, Moorea, Tiahura

 

 

Taken at Mishima town in Fukushima prefecture, Japan. The first train goes across the railway bridge through in morning mist. The train moves forward little by little slowly. Location: Mishima, Fukushima Pref, Japan

 

 

The sun sets as the majestic fog of the Pacific coast glides under the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. The long exposure of the fog reveals a silky texture as the low clouds rise and fall over San Francisco’s trademark hills. All the while, tourists and locals alike make their drive along the mountainside, to try and capture the moment for themselves. Location: San Francisco, CA

 

 

A returning Gentoo on the shores of New Island, Falklands with a belly full of Krill for its young ones. Location: New Island, Falkland

 

 

The most extreme place we put ours kayakers to paddle till now. Location: Big Island – HI

 

 

On my trip up north to Washington, we discovered a very unique location in the Olympic National Park. I couldn’t believe my eyes when we first arrived. This was something so out of this world, and nothing I’d expect to find in the USA. We only had an hour to explore before sundown. We immediately fell in love with this Rain Forest and the feeling we got being inside.
Shot using a Canon 5Dmk3 with a Canon 24-70 2.8. Location: Hoh Rainforest

 

 

Hang Son Doong is located in central Vietnam and is the world’s largest cave. It was only explored for the first time in 2009 and is just now opening up to very limited tourism. This photo shows some members of our party beginning the climb up one of the two collapsed roof sections or dolines that are prominent features in the cave. The vegetation that can be seen is entirely inside the cave, with the real jungle floor some 150m further above. Two-way radios and a laser pointer were used to get people in position and to ensure their headlamps provided just the right amount of illumination. Location: Hang Son Doong, Quang Binh, Vietnam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Overview Effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface. From this perspective, pattens in nature and human development emerge and you see the world in an entirely different light.

Daily Overview is a new project that was inspired by the Overview Effect. Each day they provide a new satellite image of our planet in an attempt to, “fully appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things we’ve constructed, the sheer complexity of the systems we’ve developed, or the devastating impact that we’ve had on our planet.”

Using satellite imagery from Apple Maps (powered by DigitalGlobe), Daily Overview has already amassed a fantastic archive. To see the latest, check them out at the links below.

 

 

 

 

Bourtange is a village with a population of 430 in the municipality of Vlagtwedde in the Netherlands. The star fort was built in 1593 during the Eighty Years’ War when William I of Orange wanted to control the only road between Germany and the city of Groningen. Bourtange was restored to its mid 18th-century state in 1960 and is currently used an open-air museum. [source]

 

 

 

Central Park in New York City spans 843 acres. That’s 6% of the island of Manhattan. [source]

 

 

 

Eixample – a district in the city of Barcelona, Spain – is characterized by its strict grid pattern, octagonal intersections, and apartments with communal courtyards. [source]

 

 

 

 

 

Vineyards swirl on the hills of Huelva, Spain. The climate there is ideal for grape growing with an average temperature of 64 degrees and a relative humidity between 60% and 80%. [source]

 

 

 

 

 

Luecke Farm in Smithville, Texas, USA uses a selective clearing of trees to spell out the surname of its owner “LUECKE.” The distance from the “L” to the “E” is just short of 3 miles. Consequently, NASA uses the text to focus and optimize photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope. [source]

 

 

 

Seaweed farms on Nusa Lembongan – a small island located southeast of Bali, Indonesia – have an average harvest of 50,000 pounds per month. Once the seaweed is extracted from the water, it is dried by the sun for 3-7 days, depending on the season. [source]

 

 

 

Our Lady of Almudena Cemetery in Madrid, Spain is one of the largest cemeteries in the world. The number of gravesites – estimated at five million – is greater than the population of Madrid itself. [source]

 

 

 

 

 

The planned city of La Plata, the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, is characterized by its strict grid pattern. At the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, the new city was awarded two gold medals for the “City of the Future” and “Better performance built.” [source]

 

 

 

These circular patterns occur as crops are watered by overhead sprinklers, which are mounted to motor-driven, rotating towers that distribute water evenly throughout the fields. [source]

 

 

 

Brøndby Haveby, or Brøndby Garden City, is a community located just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. Houses with large front yards are centered around cul-de-sacs, providing cramped urban dwellers the opportunity to live outside the city and grow small subsistence or hobby crops during the summer months. [source]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this amazing series by Gregory Raymond Halili, skulls are hand carved and painted with oil on raw, gold-lip and black-lip Philippine mother-of-pearl shells.

Mother of pearl also known as nacre, is an organic-inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also what makes up the outer coating of pearls. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.

Halili was born and raised in the Philippines in 1975. He received his BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and currently resides in New Jersey. He is represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York City. You can see the complete series on Gregory’s Facebook page.

[via Bored Panda]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin De Pasquale is an artist and photographer based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Martin is currently an art director for an advertising agency but is best known online for his incredible photo manipulations and surreal digital artworks.

Using programs like Photoshop, Poser and 3DS Max, De Pasquale creates amazing images that distort the lines between reality and fantasy. While the digital artist is adept with the previously mentioned software programs, a great deal of planning goes into his composites. Photographing the various elements of his work at the right angle/distance and with the correct lighting is integral to making the photo manipulations appear realistic. There’s a good overview of Martin’s planning process on Gizmodo.

To see more of Martin’s amazing artworks, check him out on Facebook and Behance.

[via Sploid]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illustrations by Elena Shved

 

Bob Morehead is an American artist working out of Virginia Beach, Virginia. For over 30 years Bob has used toothpicks, glue and a lot of patience to create intricate sculptures and buildings. His largest undertaking, Toothpick City, is made from over 100,000 toothpicks. The city project has been ongoing for over eight years!

To see more amazing toothpick art from Bob, be sure to check him out on Facebook and deviantART

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 Day Challenge // Day 26 // Your Favorite Sweet Food

Let them eat cake~

I always tell my girl she doesn’t have cakes because she’s Hispanic, she has flan. Caramel Crema doe~ And I couldn’t forget about the ladies, so have yourself some cake too. Cupcakes!

I know, I know it’s been a while. And it will be another long while. I’m just too busy. I probably won’t be free to make another gif till July, which is why I did two.

But for now, eat up!

Common vole

 

Spanish artist Antonio Mora specializes in creating dream-like self-portraits blended with landscapes and other imagery. The results are similar to double-exposure photography, except these images are superimposed digitally. Mora even does custom ‘dream portraits’ for people if they provide an image of themselves along with some information so he can derive some associated imagery to blend with.

He also has sells murals and limited-edition prints through his website mylovt.com

[via Creators Project]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of history’s greatest figures achieved success in almost exactly the same way. But rather than celebrating this part of the creative process we ignore it. This missing chapter in the story of success reveals the secret to doing meaningful work. But in the modern world, full of distraction, do we have what it takes to do great things?

This is a two-part series on our distorted view of creativity and success.

Story Design and Production by Adam Westbrook

Published by delve.tv

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy Hartt was out walking her dog on the morning of 12 May 2014 when she spotted this ‘snowslide’ in Montrose, Colorado that shows a thin sheet of snow neatly folding over itself at the bottom of a slide in Buckley Park.

The photo was posted later that day to 7News and TheDenverChannel.com’s Facebook page where it netted over 35,000 likes and was shared nearly 16,000 times.

 

 

 

 

Illustrations by David Sala

 Vandaag bij De Tijd: De Kiesgids. Honderd vragen over de partijprogramma's. Alsook honderd antwoorden. En een vijftiental illustraties.

Onderwijs.

Moeten banken een groter kapitaalreserve aanleggen?

Verkaveling Vlaanderen.

Mobiliteit (op de Turnhoutsebaan).

Het Vlaams milieubeleid. Eén van de maarliefst 8000 hectares bos die tussen 2011-2013 zijn bijgegroeid!

Moeten we een paar miljard spenderen aan F-35 vliegertjes?