River helps herself to a rare treat. The second photo is River’s Do you mind? face.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
River helps herself to a rare treat. The second photo is River’s Do you mind? face.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Production still.
Producers have been fretting about how to do feature films in VR, because the format doesn’t lend itself to traditional Hollywood techniques. However, it’s about to be used on one of the best-known tales of all time for Jesus VR — the Story of Christ, slated to arrive in Christmas, 2016, according to Variety. The 360-degree, 4K film will work on all major VR platforms, including the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear and PlayStation VR. Produced by Autumn Products and VRWERX, it’ll tell the story of Christ’s life from baptism to crucifixion.
[…]
The filmmakers behind Jesus VR haven’t said how they’re approaching the story, but appear to be focused on the immersion aspect. … That approach will let the camera operator “be” in scenes and should make for very high-resolution video, though it’ll require a lot of data post-processing to stitch everything together. “The viewers truly feel they are there with Jesus and his disciples,” director David Hansen said. “This is the most powerful story of all time and virtual reality is the perfect way to tell it.”
The most powerful story of all time. Goodness. I think that could be seriously argued against. Personally, I find it to be a weak and pale pastiche of earlier tales, featuring much better and more compelling characters, with great backgrounds. Virtual Reality? No. Virtual Bad Mythology, maybe.
Via Engadget.
Credit: Shutterstock.
It might seem that the world is full of only terrible news these days, but from post-Brexit U.K. comes a tiny point of light. People around the country are wearing safety pins to show solidarity with immigrants and take a stand against racism.
The road to Brexit, as the U.K. decision to leave the European Union is called, was marked by blatant anti-immigrant rhetoric. And since last week’s vote, in which the Leave side was ultimately victorious, there’s been a significant increase in hate crimes. According to the National Police Chief’s Council, reported hate crimes have jumped by 57 percent since the vote.
In response to the open environment of hatred, people across the U.K. are now wearing safety pins — and tweeting pictures of themselves wearing them — in an act of solidarity with immigrants. The viral campaign was started by an American woman living in the U.K., who told indy100 that as a white woman, she doesn’t often get the same hate as other immigrants.
“I’m always having to remind people I’m an immigrant,” she said. “You know, I’m white and speak English as a first language so I get a pass. They say ‘oh you don’t count, you’re not the kind of person we’re talking about.’”
[…]
While the campaign was a bright spot of inclusive push-back online, it was unclear how it translated into real world action. The woman who started the safety pin idea, who goes by the handle @cheeahs on Twitter, said she hopes the safety pins will be a real-world signal to people who may feel threatened that there are allies around.
“It’s just a little signal that shows people facing hate crimes that they’re not alone and their right to be in the UK is supported,” she told indy100. The little signal has now taken off like wildfire.
[…]
While most reactions have been positive, others have pointed out online that simply wearing a safety pin might do little in actuality to fight racism and xenophobia, raising specters of “hashtag activism” — which critics argue allows people to feel they’ve done something, without actually doing anything tangible. Others, however, say that social media campaigns are a vital organizing tactic that can spark a real-world effect — which seems to be the approach adherents to #safetypin, including its originator, are hoping for. On its own, she tweeted, the safety pin means “jack shit,” and it needs to be accompanied by both a decision to both actively speak out against public acts of violence, racism, and xenophobia, and also a decision to actively listen to those who have been marginalized. … “The first step is just getting it out in the open. The more people you start a conversation with, the easier it is to combat violence and abuse,” she said.
Full Story at Think Progress. Got Safety Pin? I do, mine are now in my ears.
I have, at best, been vaguely aware of Fort Abraham, having gone past it often enough. That vague awareness has now been shattered, and not in a good way.
Fort Abraham State Park in North Dakota offers a Saturday morning kids’ program called “Becoming a Soldier of Fort Abraham Lincoln”. The free program states that “children will learn about soldier life at Fort Abraham Lincoln and what it takes to be part of Custer’s 7th Cavalry.”
Fort Abraham is located just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, home of Tatanka Iyotake (Sitting Bull).
The program, which runs from late May to early September, says it will “introduce kids to military life on the Dakota frontier as a solider living at Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1875.” Kids will also take the ‘official oath of enlistment’ into the U.S. 7th Cavalry.
[…]
Custer’s surprise attack happened at dawn. He ordered his men to destroy “everything of value to the Indians,” and in a few hours over 100 Cheyenne’s had been killed including Black Kettle, his wife, and over 800 horses. Custer also took over 50 women and children into captivity.
While originally labelled as a “Battle” the slaughter at Washita River was later called a “massacre of innocent Indians” by the Indian Bureau.
[…]
In 1890, a blood thirsty and revenge driven 7th Calvary rounded up a peaceful band of Lakota, primarily Ghost Dancers, under Chief Big Foot and slaughtered over 300 women, men, and children known as the Wounded Knee massacre.
It is incomprehensible that the Fort Abraham State Park would find it appropriate to encourage children to find out what it takes to be a part of a legacy soaked in genocide.
I agree, it’s incomprehensible. When there’s a tacit refusal to teach children actual history, warts and all, they can hardly be blamed for developing untruthful and biased views. (There was a recent discussion about Custer here.) It’s not surprising that white attitudes towards indigenous people remains so negative when this whitewashing is taking place in the heart of Indian country. It’s sad and burdensome to see that lying about Custer is still so very important to some people. “History comes to life”. Yes, a very whitewashed, colonial version, which celebrates the largest mass murder in U.S. history, the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
https://youtu.be/v68KVexu628
Full Story at Last Real Indians.
Moving on to a Christian camp in Arkansas called Camp War Eagle. You already know it’s bad from the name alone. You just don’t know how bad. Yet.
AP photo.
“The United States Supreme Court has spoken clearly on the constitutional principles at stake,” wrote Reeves in the ruling, citing Epperson v. Arkansas. “Under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, a state ‘may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another.’”
Reeves said the Mississippi law “grants special rights to citizens who hold one of three ‘sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions’ reflecting disapproval of lesbian, gay, transgender, and unmarried persons. That violates both the guarantee of religious neutrality and the promise of equal protection of the laws.”
An enchanted forest! Oh, what a wondrous thing it would be to walk this forest. I love things that can make me feel like a small child, completely lost in wonder, and I had that moment a time or two just watching the video.
Stock up on breadcrumbs and magic beans: inspired by folklore and fairy tales, Foresta Lumina is an illuminated, spellbinding night trail created by new media and entertainment studio Moment Factory. Transforming Parc de la Gorge in Coaticook Canyon, Canada, into a multi-sensory installation, the dark forest becomes the canvas for an immersive public exhibition. Step into this mesmerizing environment in our new documentary, above, and join us on our private tour of the magical woodland—we just hope you’re well enough versed in The Brothers Grimm to find your way out.
Open through October 11th, the semi-permanent installation is a supernatural symbiosis of varying arts media, set along the route of one stunning pathway. As visitors enter Foresta Lumina, they’re brought on a mile-plus-long journey wherein light art, video mapping, architectural installation, and more fuse within one seamless environment. Split into seven sections, each folk tale and character arc is represented by a unique multimedia effect.
Full Story at The Creators Project.
Lina Iris Viktor uses only 24-karat gold and a color palette of black, white and royal blue for her geometric paintings. Her work is beautiful, complex, and overwhelmingly luxurious. Visit her gallery here.
PULSE PLAY curators Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Jampol. Photo by Ventiko.
It can be tough for any artist get their work to a fair, but at PULSE Miami Beach, one initiative is trying to change that. PLAY is the contemporary art fair’s dedicated platform for video and new media work, and for the first time, the 2016 edition will open submissions to the public, allowing artists to bypass the traditional necessity of gallery representation—and the hassle, networking, and expense that can entail—and directly submit their work to the cutting-edge platform.
Works included in PULSE PLAY are curated by new minds each year, and this year, PULSE director Helen Toomer selected Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Jampol. The duo are known for their 2012 founding of Gateway Project Spaces, a Newark, NJ arts hub with 50,000 square feet of studio spaces, 7,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, and a multidisciplinary residency program. The space morphed out of the non-profit Project for Empty Space, which is now included in the Newark complex. As a curatorial team, Wahi and Jampol tell The Creators Project, they aim to “poke and prod” the audience, showcasing socially-engaged work by artists whose narratives might otherwise slip under the radar.
“We aren’t concerned with whether an artist is the ‘biggest name’ in a gallery’s roster, or if he/she/they has a big social media following. Our big motivator is conceptually strong, aesthetically solid, and technically sound video and new media work,” they explain.
The Creators Project has the full story. This is a great opportunity, artists, jump on it if you can.
Juvenile Robin. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
An ex-military photographer, Aaron Ansarov retired from the Navy in 2007, transforming his skills to create commercial work for magazines and focus on his own practice. Fascinated with marine life since his days growing up in Central Florida, his series “Zooids,” focuses on detailed images of Portuguese Man o’ War. Ansarov photographs the creatures on a homemade light table while alive, then immediately releases them back into the wild where they were found.
Once shot and the Man o’ War are returned, each image receives minimal manipulation, as Ansarov makes only slight adjustments to the photograph’s exposure, contrast, and vibrancy to highlight the vivid details of each venomous siphonophore. The completed works are otherworldly, appearing like alien illustrations rather than portraits, with deep blues, purples, and pinks unfurling in every direction.
As if that wasn’t impressive enought, Ansarov does some amazing work with humans, too, which you can see after the jump, because naked people. NSFW.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Cliff Owen
“This case is an ominous sign,” Justice Samuel Alito begins one of the final opinions released on this last day of the Supreme Court term. He then proceeds to complain for 15 pages that pharmacy owners do not have enough control over whether women can fill their birth control prescriptions. Along the way, he manages to imply that anyone who does not believe in a god or gods is inherently immoral.
The political issue underlying Stormans v. Wiesman is familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the Supreme Court’s involvement in the birthcontrolwars. The owners of a pharmacy in Olympia, Washington object to certain forms of contraception on religious grounds, but a state regulation requires pharmacies to “deliver lawfully prescribed drugs or devices to patients.”
So people with religious objections to birth control want an exemption from the law. We’ve heard this story before.
We certainly have. This is one of the more devious RWC moves in their insistence on ruling every part of any person’s life. Contraception? Oh, no, no, can’t have that. It’s sinful. If you sinners are going to insist on this work of the devil, well, you’ll have to pay through the nose and jump through one hundred red tape hoops, and you might have to get your evil fix outside the state you live in, no big deal, right?
Samuel Alito is now weighing in on this issue, and he skews straight into the infamous I am using the Science of Logic territory. He ends up deciding that laws which are in place to protect both consumers and pharmacists are secular, therefore, it’s only right to hold up religious bias.
The cover of Midnighter & Apollo No. 1, which will go on sale in October. Credit CD Comics
Gay Pride Month ends today, but DC Comics is giving fans something to look forward to this fall. In October the company will publish Midnighter & Apollo, the first part of a six-issue mini-series that reunites the two heroes, who are gay and have an on-again off-again relationship.
“They have a firmer idea of who they are, and they’ve become stronger and more confident together,” said Steve Orlando, who will write the comic, which will have interior art by Fernando Blanco and covers by the artist known as ACO.
The characters, who made their debut in 1998, were gay analogues of Batman (Midnighter) and Superman (Apollo). They dated, eventually married, adopted a child and, thanks to comics, had their history rebooted. Midnighter most recently headlined his own series, which ended in March. The comic, written by Mr. Orlando, was lauded for its portrayal, which balanced the hero’s volatile global adventures — and a friendly flirtation with Dick Grayson, the former Robin — with a domestic life that included using dating apps and being sexually active.
I’ve never been much of a DC fan, but when they do something like this, I’m happy to get onboard. Way to go, DC! Full story here.
Boyan Slat wants to start the largest ocean clean up ever with the help of nets and ocean currents. He began testing his prototype this month.
Boyan Slat was just 16 when he realized he wanted to rid the oceans of plastic. It all happened after he dove into the problem in the most literal way while snorkeling in Greece and finding more drifting plastic than fish swimming.
“I thought, that’s a real problem. How can we come up with a solution for that?” Slat recalled during an interview with ThinkProgress.
Indeed, the problem is real and large. Around eight million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year, according to a 2015 study. In addition, recent research found so-called garbage patches in every major ocean. Plastic is so pervasive that it’s been found in sea ice, and also inside 50 percent of all species of seabirds, 66 percent of all species of marine mammals, and all species of sea turtles.
Once back in his native Netherlands, Slat delved into the topic as people told him that cleaning up the ocean was impossible. Still, Slat, a young inventor who by then already held the world record for most high-pressure rockets simultaneously launched, persisted until he found what he was looking for.
“I saw this animation where they used computer models to show that plastic actually moves” through ocean currents, Slat, now 21, said. “And then I thought, why should you move through the ocean if the ocean can move through you.”
Slat, chief executive officer of The Ocean Clean Up, has taken his eureka moment and turned it into a collection system based on floating barriers attached to the sea bed that use the ocean’s energy to gather plastic waste. After obtaining over $2 million through crowdfunding and more from Dutch government financing, Slat unveiled the first prototype last week in the North Sea, just off the coast of Netherlands.
I am so impressed, I just don’t have words. This is so very important. There is much more at Think Progress.
