Creativity « 360Photography

RSS

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

14,000 Refugee Life Jackets Wrap Berlin Konzerthaus Entrance

19 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

life jacket art project

In an effort to raise awareness about the growing refugee crisis, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has wrapped six giant entry columns to a landmark concert hall in central Berlin with life jackets collected in Greece.

life jacket installation berlin

Weiwei has been living on and working from the Greek Island of Lesvos, a destination currently swamped with income refugees, many coming across Mediterranean Sea from Turkey.

life jacket columns berlin

life jacket installation

He regularly shares images and videos of asylum-seekers from his stay on the island via social media accounts, but the installation takes things a step further, bringing the point home to those living inland on mainland Europe.

life jacket materials

life jacket installed

life boat hangs center

These 14,000 jackets are by no means a complete collection, and that is also part of the point: they are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, a sampling of the suffering and strife. Hundreds of refugees have also died trying to reach safety away from conflict (images via mompl and Frank Löschner / Konzerthaus Berlin).

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Pigment Library: Harvard’s Collection of 2,500 Global Colors

19 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

pigment glass cabinetry

Looking as much like a mad science laboratory as a conservator’s dream workshop, this pigment library is populated with color samples from around the world, all helping preservationists maintain and restore historical works of art and design.

historical pigment collection

pigment sample jars

The Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums puts is jars, bottles and glasses on display for the public to see in glass cabinetry, but also uses them like a witch doctor would employ esoteric medicines. An analogy could also be drawn to seed vaults, which likewise store and preserve precious and sensitive materials for future use.

pigments of the world

From Colossal, “The Forbes pigment collection was started by its namesake—Straus Center founder and former Fogg Art Museum Director Edward Forbes who began the collection at the turn of the 20th century. Forbes would collect his samples from his travels all over the world, bringing back pigments from excavated sites at Pompeii to rare lapis lazuli found in Afghanistan.”

pigment library harvard

Forbes became interested in preservation when a 14th-Century piece he purchased began to visibly fade, sparking him to learn more about the materials and processes around paintings and their preservation.

pigments on display

The origins of the various colors are often stories in themselves, from modern synthetics to obscure organics, like an ‘Indian Yellow’ made from the urine of cows fed only mango leaves. (Images via Peter Vanderwarker, Zak Jensen and Andrea Shea/WBUR)

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Top Secret City: Oak Ridge, Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb

18 Feb

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

atomic oak ridge 1

Thousands of people who lived and worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during the 1940s had no idea what they were actually doing every day, performing their tasks as directed without asking questions, surrounded by constant reminders that they needed to keep their traps shut or else. It wasn’t until the United States bombed Hiroshima in 1945 that they learned they were processing uranium as part of The Manhattan Project, many of them exposed to radiation for years.

atomic oak ridge 3

atomic oak ridge 2

Nicknamed the Secret City, the Atomic City and the City Behind the Fence, Oak Ridge was developed by the government on 56,000 acres of former farmland and remains a center of nuclear research and development today. In photos from the World War II era, published by the U.S. Department of Energy and taken by Oak Ridge’s only authorized photographer Ed Westcott, we see the many signs reminding residents that their discretion was paramount, even if they didn’t exactly know what they were keeping secret.

atomic oak ridge 4

atomic oak ridge 5

atomic oak ridge 6

atomic oak ridge 7

While part of the city was open to the public, all visitors were required to go through military checkpoints on their way in and out. Other areas were strictly restricted. If anyone asked too many questions, they were out of a job and a home.

atomic oak ridge 8

atomic oak ridge 10

atomic oak ridge 11

atomic oak ridge 12

In the decades that have passed since then, some workers have spoken publicly about their experience, talking about the strange clicking instruments they had to wave over all sorts of objects, including uniforms. That instrument, of course, was checking for radiation.

atomic oak ridge 13

atomic oak ridge 14

atomic oak ridge 15

In addition to its many official facilities, Oak Ridge became home to ten schools, seven theaters, 17 restaurants and cafeterias, 13 supermarkets, 17 churches, a symphony orchestra and enough prefabricated modular homes for its 75,000 residents.

atomic oak ridge 17

atomic oak ridge 18

atomic oak ridge 16

Two years after World War II ended, Oak Ridge transitioned to civilian control, but retains the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where the supercomputer Titan was developed in 2012. Tours of the original facility are offered, but there’s so much interest, you have to add your name to a waiting list if you want to get in.

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Van Gogh’s Iconic Bedroom Brought to Life & Available to Rent

17 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

van gogh 3d

The Art Institute of Chicago has brought one of the most famous paintings of Vincent Van Gogh to life like never before: a complete replica realized in three dimensions and available as a rental to art fans in for a night of surrealistic immersion. The details, furniture and decor have been painstakingly drawn from the image, right down to crooked chairs, suspended paintings and heavily brush-stroked colors.

van gogh original yellow bedroom

For rent on AirBNB, the project is part of a larger exhibition around Van Gogh’s various bedroom paintings made in the late 1880s, one of which was made during a stay at an asylum. The recreated room is located in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, next to one of the AIC’s campuses.

van gosh 3d recreated

At just $ 10 a night, this place is likely to rent out entirely if it has not already. For whatever reason, the space also comes with a television and internet connection, though authentic experience-seekers may want to skip those, turn down the lights and just enjoy a night living inside of a classic work of art. The exhibit runs through early May and features over 30 of the master’s works.

van gogh interior replica

More from the AIC: “Van Gogh’s life was short and nomadic. By the time he died, at the age of 37, he had lived in 37 separate residences across 24 cities, mostly as a boarder or a guest dependent on the hospitality of family or friends. In 1888, he finally moved into the only home he truly considered his own: his beloved ‘Yellow House’ in Arles.”

van gogh rental exhibit

“Of his many bedrooms, Van Gogh immortalized only the one from the Yellow House—three times in fact. He first painted the room in 1888 shortly after his move to the Arles and then painted the composition twice more in 1889: once to record the first version that had been damaged when his home flooded and then again as a gift for his mother and sister.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Mattel ThingMaker: New Device Lets Kids 3D-Print Their Own Toys

17 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

mattel thingmaker

Toy-maker Mattel has announced a 3D printer with a novel application: a way for children to make their own custom toys using a simple digital interface. The app, designed by Autodesk, is easy to learn, fast to use and simple enough even younger kids can use it. The gadget itself is priced at $ 300.

3d home printer

The ThingMaker program comes with a number of templates and basic characters that can be customized in terms of color and texture, but also allows for from-scratch designs. Each design can be saved for future editing and printing as well, in standard formats that work with or beyond the printer.

3d custom toy printer

Finished objects are only one piece of the puzzle, however: the idea is to also allow for printing, connecting and assembling larger creations from smaller parts. Ball-and-socket joints can be easily included for attachment purposes, helping facilitate complex dolls and action figures. Eventually, Mattel may also facilitate combinations and accessories associated with existing branded toy lines, like Barbie and Hot Wheels.

3d printer interface

Various safety measures have been included to keep kids safe, from an automatically-locking door to a retractable print head. For liability reasons they are listing it as a device for kids ages 13 or older.

mattel device

“In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever for families to transcend the digital world and make their ideas real,” said Aslan Appleman, senior director, at Mattel. “ThingMaker pushes the boundaries of imaginative play, giving families countless ways to customize their toys and let their creativity run wild.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Augmented Reality: Aerial Footage of Distorted Alien Landscapes

16 Feb

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

alien landscapes 1

“Technology can help nature understand itself,” says AUJIK, a self-proclaimed cult that melds faux mythologies, fictitious landscapes and wildly distorted architecture with a philosophy they call “animism for the Digital Age.” The quasi-spiritualist Japanese collective gives us a look into the world of their imagination via simulated drone footage, swooping us over and through their vision of nature awakened in a new way by technological integration.

alien landscapes 4

aujik 14

“Since the late 2000’s, the online presence of mysterious nature/tech cult AUJIK quietly spread across video platforms featuring proposed active members and fabricated histories. These virtual appearances suggest decades-old lineage through theoretical schematics outlining their transgression emission, citing faux reports arguing the life of inanimate matter and modern forms of animism from fictional anthropologists and philosophers.”

alien landscapes 2

alien landscapes 3

alien landscapes 5

“For AUJIK, nature is divided into Refined and Primitive categories. This separation presents a conflict that is the root of all chaos in the world, and in order to reach a sublime state, AUJIK generates rituals to harmonize the organic and synthetic realms. Refined nature consists of evolved technology such as robotics, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, DNA manipulations, and body enhancements. The Primitive includes fauna, flora, and the Earth itself with its precious stones, minerals, and metals.”

aujik 12

aujik 13

aujik 11

Natural settings, rocks, plants and even living creatures become something more than themselves, infused with a new power, growing in a way that they never actually could in our current reality, bound as it is by the laws of physics. Digital forces invade and transform everything from dark forests to dense cities, warping the architecture, creating a bizarre parallel universe.

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Amazing Animal Art: 50+ Creature-Inspired Creations

16 Feb

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

animal art hammered 9

As seen through the eyes of sculptors, painters, street artists, photographers and even knitters, the animal kingdom flourishes in curlicues of steel and paper, splatters of ink and trailing thread. Working in styles that range from the hyperrealistic to the fantastically surreal, these artists manage to capture some of the complexity of Earth’s incredible wild creatures.

Swirling, Ornate Animal Sculptures by Ellen Jewett

animal art jewett 1

animal art jewett 2

animal art jewett 3

Flora and fauna come together in stunning ceramic compositions by Ellen Jewett. The animals themselves consist of flowers, snails, vines and other plant matter, leaving hollows within each creature’s body to make them seem weightless.

Urban Swarms by Pantonio

animal art urban swarms 3

animal art urban swarms 5

animal art urban swarms 6

Fluid swarms of blue-toned fish, birds and other animals flow across urban surfaces on a large scale in a stunning new series by Portuguese street artist Antonio Correia, aka Pantonio. Set against stark white, the colorful creatures provide a striking contrast to the gaining historic settings in which they’re painted.

Delicate Paper Animal Art by Calvin Nicholls

animal art nicholls

animal art nicholls 2

animal art nicholls 3

animal art nicholls 4

Tiny scraps of paper are cut and layered to create birds, dogs and other creatures in the relief sculptures of Calvin Nicholls. Using an X-acto knife, scalpel and scissors, the artist shapes pieces of paper that can be just fractions of a millimeter in size and builds them on to p of each other until a three-dimensional form is created. Each piece takes three weeks to an incredible two years to complete.

Vivid Microscopic Underworlds by Robert S. Connett

animal art underworlds

animal art underworlds 2

animal art underworlds 3

Creatures too small for us to see with the naked eye are revealed in brilliant color by illustrator Robert S. Connett – whether they’re representations of actual living microorganisms, or plucked from the artist’s imagination. Connett refers to these scenes as “underworlds,” shining a light on fantastical pockets of flourishing life lurking in dark, wet places.

Hammered Steel Animals by Selcuk Yilmaz

animal art hammered

animal art hammered 2

animal art hammered 4

animal art hammered 5

animal art hammered 6

animal art hammered 7

Turkish sculptor Selcuk Yilmaz forms thin strips of steel into mask-like animal heads, including a lynx, tiger and fox., as well as the full body of a majestic lion. Hammering and welding the pieces into form, the artist produces incredibly powerful-looking, life-sized creatures that shimmer in the light.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Amazing Animal Art 50 Creature Inspired Creations

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

3D Four Letter Words: Robert Indiana’s LOVE Sculptures

15 Feb

[ By Steve in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

LOVE-sculpture-0
Looking for love in all the right places? Replicas of artist Robert Indiana’s iconic Pop Art “LOVE” sculpture have spread to the 4 corners of the globe.

LOVE-sculpture-1d

LOVE-sculpture-1b

Robert Indiana (formerly Robert Clark) first expressed the essential iconography of “LOVE” in 1958 but it wasn’t until 1964 that the image garnered wide public notice, via a Christmas card commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the first three-dimensional LOVE sculptures has stood, since 1970, in front of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

LOVE-sculpture-1c

LOVE-sculpture-1a

Like many metal artworks designed to stand out in the open, the IMA’s LOVE sculpture is made from Cor-ten steel, an alloy that weathers to a rich, slightly iridescent, purplish-brown patina after years of seasonal changes. The sculpture measures 12′ x 12′ x 6′ and has recently undergone a structural and aesthetic restoration.

I LOVE New York

LOVE-sculpture-2c

LOVE-sculpture-2a

LOVE-sculpture-2b

There are currently around 50 LOVE sculptures installed in public and private spaces worldwide. Some are better-known than others, mainly due to their proximity to pedestrian traffic. One of the first NYC LOVE sculptures was installed at 59th Street and 5th Avenue in 1971, while perhaps the most prominent NYC LOVE sculpture stands at the corner of 6th Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan. Kudos to Flickr users Chee917 and Robert Wright (wrightrkuk), who snapped the sculpture in 2012.

LOVE Is Blue

Vancouver LOVE sculpture

LOVE-sculpture-3b

Most of the world’s LOVE sculptures have red painted facades with blue or blue & green sides to match Indiana’s original MOMA card and popular USPS stamp. This isn’t a must, however, as Indiana famously neglected to properly copyright the work. This bright blue representation outside 1445 West Georgia Street in Vancouver, Canada (later moved) shares its blue & green color scheme with another LOVE sculpture located at the Park Mall in Singapore.

Reflections of LOVE

LOVE-sculpture-4

Photographer Wassily from nl brings us the striking scene above. Featuring a large LOVE sculpture set into the reflecting pool outside the Langen Foundation’s main building in Neuss-Holzheim, Germany, the photo dates from 2005 shortly after the building opened.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
3d Four Letter Words Robert Indianas Love Sculptures

[ By Steve in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Rugged Landscapes: 3D Art Carpets Transform Indoor Environments

14 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

3d carpet art

Inspired by natural landscapes and crafted with carpet factory remnants, these labor-intensive creations are as much terrains as textiles.

3d room rug

Alexandra Kehayoglou is an artist from Argentina who uses leftover scraps from the family business, a carpet factory in Buenos Aires, to build her wool room-wrapping creations.

3d landscape carpet

3d island design

3d landscape tufted

Her use of materials mimics natural textures of natural moss, water, trees and ice, providing the functions of a traditional rug with a layer of artistic flair via memory-evoking scenery, often on creations that wrap vertically to become tapestries.

3d chair flowing

3d rug factory

3d creation proces

The source material, she says, are the landscapes of her homeland, from grasslands to deserts, lakes to glaciers. They are richly-textured when on the floor, but gain additional dimensions as they wrap up walls or onto furniture, becoming more than just a horizontal surface.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Never Grow Up: Man Quits Job, Builds Dream Treehouse Dwelling

13 Feb

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

dream treehouse 12

Fed up with his fast-paced life in New York City, Foster Huntington quit his job, hopped into a Volkswagen van and traveled around the country before settling in Washington state to build his dream treehouse dwelling complete with a skate bowl and wood-fired soaking tub. The photos alone are enough to make anyone daydream about doing the same. Set against a hazy landscape just across the Columbia River from the Oregon border, two compact structures are nestled high up in the fir trees, connected by a meandering bridge.

dream treehouse

dream treehouse 2

dream treehouse 3

The 27-year-old adventurer and photographer gathered a group of friends to help him make his dream into a reality. It took them about a year to complete ‘the Cinder Cone,’ as he calls it, with one building functioning as a sleeping cabin and the other a workshop. Each measures about 200 square feet, and the sleeping cabin has bunk beds and hammocks to fit a group.

dream treehouse 4

dream treehouse 9

dream treehouse 11

The getaway feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but it’s close to Portland. The spacious hot tub on a deck further down the hillside keeps things cozy in cold weather, and Huntington and his guests have their own private skate park just a few steps down from the workshop. The friends involved in the building process referred to the Cinder Cone as “big-boys camp” and “Neverland.” It’s all very Portlandia, and The New York Times called it ‘Bro-topia,’ which sounds about right, but it’s hard to deny that the place is incredibly dreamy.

dream treehouse 13

dream treehouse 5

dream treehouse 6

dream treehouse 14

Huntington has produced both a short film and a photo book documenting the building process, and lots of photos – from the very beginning of the project to its enviable usage today – can be seen on his Instagram.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

14,000 Refugee Life Jackets Wrap Berlin Konzerthaus Entrance

Pigment Library: Harvard’s Collection of 2,500 Global Colors

Top Secret City: Oak Ridge, Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb

Van Gogh’s Iconic Bedroom Brought to Life & Available to Rent

Mattel ThingMaker: New Device Lets Kids 3D-Print Their Own Toys

Augmented Reality: Aerial Footage of Distorted Alien Landscapes