Crashpop is an intersection of contemporary art, music, photography, robots, YouTube, graffiti, technology and net.art with politics, psychology, journalism and the can-do spirit of the DIY spiderweb.
Very cool reverse-graffiti process in action. Artist "cleans" scummy surfaces to form patterns, in this case, said artist is drawing douchey skull iconography that we've seen a billion times on a ton of Hot Topic shoes, socks, neckties and armbands.
MAQ - a Japanese design team - has come up with the best idea ever: Manufacturing garbage bags that don't look like trash. The above is a fish design. There are also some red ones with flowers and green trees; these colors co-ordinate with Japan's garbage classification system. The boxes only cost $3.00, so you aren't paying significantly more, but garbage day looks a lot prettier and (because of the color coding) is significantly more convenient.
"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," [Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga] said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious." - Yahoo! News
That eternal soldier of the journalistic vanguard, The Weekly World News, has broken stories of Aliens in the White House and Jesus' prophecies of the Next Great Depression of 1994. It broke pictures of Big Foot at McDonalds and Bat Boy on the loose. Now, it's just broke.
The last issue of the newspaper is on sale today. RIP.
Skip past the whole walking around to Lou Reed music part to enjoy the '06 Hipster Standoff. This one care of Inspire to be More.
I should also advocate that we all feel terrible about ourselves for enjoying this kind of thing. What makes me love/hate hipsters so much? It's bordering on a spiritual dilemma.
When I think "entertainment," I think, "Early 90's industrially-produced Hip Hop Music Videos recorded and filmed to spread the word about behaviors which lead to the loss of corporate profits."
This video starts out slow, but if you still have a soul after watching the "Toothbeef" video from a few days ago, you will be unable to look away from this gem after the 1:30 mark. Until maybe the part where a bunch of programmers - er, "The Posse" - talk to you about how great teamwork is, and how they're all going to stop making their stupid games for you damn kids if you don't shell out your summer job money to buy extra copies of every program you own every time you get a new computer, because that's totally the law and not a lie, at all.
But then "DP" the rapper comes back, with those eyes filled with self-hatred! Self-hatred that we can only assume is about some illegal 3.5" floppy disk he's got stashed away in his closet, and not at the brutal manner with which the Software Publishers Association has slaughtered hip-hop. After that, you're hooked again.
Alan Watts is a Zen philosopher, most notable for serving as an intermediary between Buddhists like DT Suzuki and Western culture. Something of a patron saint of psychedelic drug users, Watts was more or less a product of the 60's fascination with LSD, but not an advocate on par with Timothy Leary by any means.
"Once you've got the message," Watts said of psychedelics, "hang up the phone."
These videos were produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (you could probably tell) which makes me respect those guys even more. There's another good one here.
Oh and here's a quote, all obligatory-blog-post styled:
"Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes."
I've been in love with the electro-fuzz racket of Hearts Revolution for a while now, but since they finally made a video I can post it. The video may not look expensive, but my guess is they probably spent millions building a time machine so they could film it in New York circa 1981.
Go download the mp3 over at Pitchfork, or something.
The video is kind of pretty, but the mp3 is worth hiding away for safe-keeping. I'm reminded a bit of Broadcast or early-90's Stereolab; but mostly I am reminded of hopping in slow motion on a trampoline with a cute girl with barrettes who might get my early-90's Stereolab references.
The album, "Now You Are This," comes out on Kill Rock Stars on August 21. That's this Tuesday!
I was watching this at work in the library when someone approached me during the last few minutes, with the blood. I was sure that it was just too frightening for them to even object to.
I just stumbled across T-post, a Swedish Magazine that is published on the inside of T-shirts, with the "cover" being the front of the shirt.
This reminded me of the subscription-art service provided over at The Thing, in which common household objects are emblazoned by text and mailed to you, to be used in your daily life. The first issue is by Miranda July, and the whole thing costs $120 for four issues per year.
This is a picture from a Dutch beach, where an 8-foot tall Lego Man was fished out of the water today. Reuters has the story here with more amazing pictures. His shirt says, mysteriously, "No Real Than You Are."
Some of you may have heard the new M.I.A. track "Jimmy," which features a sample of the above song from the beloved early-80's Bollywood Hit, "Disco Dancer," essentially "Saturday Night Fever" set in India with no kissing and five years too late.
I have a somewhat sizeable collection of Bollywood music, because that's what record store hipsters do, and a personal favorite comes from the same film: It's an almost note-for-note rip-off of the Buggle's early-80's classic, "Video Killed The Radio Star."
You know the fastest growing social networking site, Twitter, which allows you the devastatingly useless option of sending out one-sentence "status updates" on your life from your cell phone?
Well, it just got kind of useful! Jenny Holzer, one of my favorite artists, is now using it as a slogan-delivery system.
