The newly described dinosaur Zhenyuanlong suni measured 5 feet in length and was a relative of the velociraptor. The fossil’s well-preserved wings bore complex feathers, not simple hairlike structures. Illustration by Zhao Chuang.
Click image for full size. I don’t know about you, but if something like that was chasing me…godsdamn. Feathers, much more terrifying than scales, hands down.
They Had Feathers: Is the World Ready to See Dinosaurs as They Really Were? (Via Pharyngula.)
Swale, a collaborative floating food project, is dedicated to rethinking and challenging New York City’s connection to our environment. Built on an 80-foot by 30-foot floating platform, Swale contains an edible forest garden. Functioning as both a sculpture and a tool, Swale provides free healthy food at the intersection of public art and service. With Swale, we want to reinforce water as a commons, and work towards fresh food as a commons too.
Swale is an artwork. Art is integral to imagining new worlds. By continuing to create and explore new ways of living, we hope that Swale will strengthen our ways of collaborating, of cooperating, and of supporting one another. At its heart, Swale is a call to action. It asks us to reconsider our food systems, to confirm our belief in food as a human right, and to pave pathways to create public food in public space.
This is a great way to get fresh, healthy food to known food deserts. Have a look around Swale’s space, and donate if you can.
© Sara Landeta.
http://www.saralandeta.com/2015/05/la-medicina-y-sus-metaforas-medicine-as.html
A most poignant series by Sara Landeta. Her description:
The project includes a collection of 120 boxes of drugs that have been consumed by different patients to overcome their illnesses. All boxes are illustrated inside with a broad classification of birds from different families, being the only animal that although it gives it a meaning of freedom, because it is the only one able to connect with the earth and the sky, is also one of the main animals in captivity. This juxtaposition of the natural and the synthetic interprets the patient as a captive animal, and the bird as its metaphor.Draw a collection of birds inside these boxes holding a single reflection ; l will learn to be birds in captivity, but they are wanting to fly, and that is what keeps them alive.
Esther van Hulsen at work on an octopus drawing using 95 million-year-old ink. Photo by Stian Steinsli
Dutch wildlife artist Esther van Hulsen was recently given an assignment unlike her typical drawings of birds and mammals from life—a chance to draw a prehistoric octopus 95 million years after its death. Paleontologist Jørn Hurum supplied Hulsen with ink extracted from a fossil found in Lebanon in 2009, received as a gift from the PalVenn Museum in 2014. After several millennia Hulson was surprised to find that the color had remained so vibrant, preserved all of this time in the cephalopod’s ink sac. “Knowing that this animal has used this ink to survive is absolutely amazing,” said van Hulsen of the prehistoric ink.
The Moldovan-born performer of Britain’s Got Talent fame appeared on Ellen to show off his acrobatic sword-swallowing routine. Magala not only swallowed two different swords—a typical Western-looking blade and a katana—but also managed backflips and pole-dancing with the swords. Inside him. Because gay men everywhere just needed to be knocked down a peg—or 20.
Ellen asks what we’re all thinking. Why—just why?
“I’m from Moldova, it’s in Eastern Europe,” Magala says. “It’s a poor country, pretty much nothing to do.”
I’d say something, but the screams are still echoing in my brain.
German multimedia designer Tobias Gremmier visually captures the poetic kinetics of martial arts in Kung Fu Motion Visualization. This four minute video is the latest project from the prolific author, musician and cyber-savant. Posted to his Vimeo, Gremmier materializes the physics of the human body through digitally analyzing the movements of a kung fu drill. Each motion of the fighter’s body is outlined and traced through by a trail of digital dust particles, a mesh of geometric planes, or a stream of fractal webs.
Via The Creators Project.
Ingrid Baars; all images courtesy of Joseph Gross Gallery.
Art LeadHER is a colorful tribute to the recent rise of female artists in contemporary art. The group show, opening today at Joseph Gross Gallery, is the inaugural annual exhibition for ArtLeadHER, a platform launched by the show’s curator Mashonda Tifrere in March of this year for International Women’s Day. The platform, like the show, is dedicated to “celebrating and bringing awareness to women in the art world.”
Motorbikes by yok and sheryo.
Traditional artists try virtual reality art for the first time.
We all know that art can exist in virtual reality, from games like Adr1ft, to films such as Collisions. Virtual reality has shown itself to be a unique medium for immersing audiences in a work of art. But what about creating art within virtual reality? Google’s Virtual Art Sessions set out to experiment with exactly that.
Google invited six artists who all work with different mediums and material, to test out Google’s new Tilt Brush software. Tilt Brush functions as a palette and a brush that simulates painting in a 3D environment. Jeff Nusz, one of the people on the Data Arts Team at Google, commented in the behind the scenes video that it was interesting to take artists accustomed to working with physical things and “hand them this new medium, this new tool that no one knows how to use.”
Frank Howarth once again does magic with wood. (Be warned, his galleries and videos are a serious time sink).
The 2016 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year is open, and accepting submissions until May 27, 2016. Those of you with travel photos, get them in! (Looking at you, Saad).
This picture was taken during Mt. Bromo eruption, the horse seems a little agitated due to the sound of the eruption, © Reynold Dewantara / National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest.
This image was captured very early in the morning after climbing Yellow Mountain at 3 am and waiting for few hours in the cold and wind at -4 degrees. No HDR and no Photoshop was used for the effect of this image, everything is 100% natural. The magic of the nature did its work and I have been lucky, © Thierry Bornier / National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest.
and other very cool stuff. Katybe alerted me to Canadian artist Jeff de Boer, and so far all I have is a host of “ooohs”, “aaahs” and “want!”. Other than that, I’m fair speechless. Textless. Something. The very first “Want!” was Rose:
Rose © Jeff de Boer.
Oh, there’s a lot of cat armor, too, for those who for some inexplicable reason, prefer them to rodents. Jeff is also nice enough to have some great pictorials on How to make a Samurai Cat, A giant tin toy, and a giant lighted ball.
Persian Cat, © Jeff de Boer.
Jeff has many galleries, and a whole lot of wonderful art to explore, so have a visit and look around.
Robin. Bronze, one of an edition of 12 copies, 22 x 32 x 18 cm. LEGS: springs , pieces of costume jewellery; BODY: children’s tricycle fender; FEATHERS: hood ornament of a Citroen; WINGS: petrol tank plates of a 50s motorcycle Monet-Goyon, bike chain guards; TAIL: car part, motorcycle decoration; EYES: marbles; HEAD: two seed scoops, ornaments for bike lights; BEAK: autoscope part, bike ornament.
Edouard Martinet does stunning work. For me, this is in the jaw drop category.
Martinet has become the art world’s virtuoso insectophile, transforming bits and pieces of cast-off junk culled from flea markets and car boot sales into exquisitely executed insect, fish and animal forms.
What sets Martinet’s work apart is the brilliant formal clarity of his sculptures, and their extraordinary elegance of articulation. His degree of virtuosity is unique: he does not solder or weld parts. His sculptures are screwed together. This gives his forms an extra level of visual richness – but not in a way that merely conveys the dry precision of, say, a watchmaker. There is an X-Factor here, a graceful wit, a re-imagining of the obvious in which a beautifully finished object glows not with perfection, but with character, with new life.
Martinet will open a new exhibition of work at Sladmore Contemporary in London starting May 5th, 2016. I wish I could see this in person!
Fly, 47 x 40 x 27 cm. LEGS : windshield wiper arms, bike brakes, bike chains, small typewriter parts; HEAD: motor vehicle rear light; PROBOSCIS: car hood hinge; ANTENNAE: ski boot fasteners; THORAX: motorbike headlight; On the top : 50’s kitchen utensil. WINGS: the glass is set in a windscreen brush holder, the wing ribs are made with soldering wire; ABDOMEN: motorbike headlight, part of ceiling lamp.
Sardine, 25 x 70 x 11 cm. BODY: Moped chain guard covered with multiple bicycle logo badges; HEAD: Solex front fenders, car bumpers. EYES: Flashlights; GILLS: Car door parts, bicycle chain guards. TAIL: Motorbike exhaust pipe; FINS: Cake tins.
Via Colossal Art; More of Martinet’s work (2016 Exhibition) can be seen here.
Plastic Jesus has been doing parking signs again, this time targeting Trump. The signs can be downloaded at Plastic Jesus.
and a lawsuit!
Illma Gore’s painting of a nude Donald Trump. Photograph: Courtesy of Illma Gore
An infamous nude of Donald Trump has attracted bids of over £100,000 after it went on display at the Maddox Gallery in Mayfair, London, last week, but the artist is being anonymously threatened with legal action if she sells it, due to its resemblance to the Republican presidential hopeful.
The piece by Illma Gore, titled Make America Great Again, depicts Trump with a small penis. It went viral in February after the artist published it on her Facebook page and has since been censored on social media sites and delisted from eBay after the anonymous filing of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice threatening to sue Gore.
The Maddox Gallery in London offered to exhibit the painting after galleries in the US refused to host the piece due to security concerns following threats of violence from Trump’s supporters. Hundreds of visitors have queued to see the work.
Gore said: “The reaction, especially in the UK, has been incredibly supportive. Everywhere apart from America has been great. Who knew it would be such a big deal? I think an artist’s job is to take the times we’re living in and then set the scene. It is a representation of where we are.”
The LA-based artist has received thousands of death threats and travelled to the UK to escape the frenzy, agreeing to allow Mayfair to manage the sale of the controversial painting, now priced at £1m.
The artist is offering free downloads of the art work on her website. (NSFW). The Guardian has the full story, but be aware the full art work is shown, and is NSFW.
The Watercolourist. Youtube link. I’ve painted with a lot of unorthodox media, cosmetics, and so forth, but I haven’t played with wine. Yet.