Apple installation art! wahey.
Good discussion on the video about the symbology on the apple, although very specific to Washington State.

byebabies are finally online!!!! :D

http://byebabies.blogspot.com/

Although photography session cut short by trip to E.D with my baby brother.. broken arm! hooray. -.-

Wild Apples in Kazakhstan

Are on the endangered species list. :( Especially the variety that most apples can be traced back to.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8305211.stm

Green spaces improve health!!!

Which completely justifies my public art project proposal.
ehehe.
"Research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health says the impact is particularly noticeable in reducing rates of mental ill health.
The annual rates of 15 out of 24 major physical diseases were also significantly lower among those living closer to green spaces.
One environmental expert said the study confirmed that green spaces create 'oases' of improved health around them."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8307024.stm
so good on ya Wangas for having so many trees :D

I really hope this is a hoax.

Whale-penis-skin leather seats...

Wrong on so many levels.

New AES+F Video. :D

have only watched once so far, and it took me about 10 views of their last riot video (2007) to form a valid opinion, so will watch again later, but on first view, REALLY love it. Surreal and critiquing society and.. yay! I want a budget to make works like this...


UPDATE:
Ok, so I've watched the whole thing through a couple of times now, and still really like it. There are so many subtle references to so much, that even though it's 30 minutes long you have to concentrate on it hard to pick things up. Each time I watch it I notice new things. I like that they're still using art historical references, there are a few deposition poses in their, and the lifting of the cross(surfboard in this case), as well as the three graces and various other things.
The racial stereotypes  and their tension filled slowmotion interactions are also very effective. The animation is much smother than Last riot was, and it's much nicer to watch - the colours are so rich. The whole thing speaks aboutexcess and consumerism, international travel, and exploitation and racial division/coinhabition.
It's interesting on a lot of levels, and entertaining to watch.

For crying out loud!

Ugh. PEOPLE are so frustrating sometimes. Never underestimate the potential for damage caused by stupid people in large masses....
bloody journalism also... should be filtered.

For those in the population struggling to overcome the limitations of a room temperature IQ: NOT EVERYTHING YOU READ/SEE ON TV/HEAR IS TRUE. OK? Do some of your own research and form a valid opinion, instead of reiterating conflicting opinions like you believe in both sides of any given argument.


/end rant

Another video. Contains Nudity.

Grass Art.

Nice little timelapse video of the Fly Tower installation. 
Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey  have been covering buildings and monuments in grass for quite some time now. There's a good interview with them here and a great, simple explanation of how they make grass photographs here.

 

“we work with a living material, and life is compelling.”-Harvey
I really like Harvey and Ackroyds stuff, 

I also found, during the course of my meanderings, these grass flipflops: Where The Green Grass Grows (WTGGG) Flip Flops by Seoul-born, London-based artist Hyock Kwon, which are very cute.

I like the playfulness of grass. The greenery that we all have an inbuilt longing for...

the grass is always greener...

It's also a very natural, resiliant thing, that covers at least 25% of the earth's land mass (according to BBC's planet earth series), although human maintained lawns are controlled versions, it's still a living organism.

I also just really love green. It's something I'm just coming to. My favourite colour as a child was blue, but now I think there are a lot of colours that I really like, and grass green is definitely one of them.

Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years @ City Gallery, Wellington

Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years @ City Gallery, Wellington. (Photos of the exhibition here)
Best exhibition I've ever been to. Hands down. For the pure euphoria and childlike state that her work induces, with just a hint of the darkness of the artist's neurosis and troubled past. There's a really good article on Kusama from the UK's Guardian here.

I'm not sure which work was my favourite.
Of the Dots Obsession, Day and Night installations, I liked the night room better. The yellow room was playful and childlike and exciting, but I felt like the black room was more effective. After visiting them both a couple of times, I figured out that it was an aesthetic issue that was making the dark room more appealing for me: the shadows of the amorphous blobs in both rooms were casting non circular shadows on the floor.
In the yellow room, the shadows disrupted the uniformity of the dots far more so than in the black room, where the shadows merely gave weight to the shapes.

Although I still found the yellow room much more playful, I think there's a darker side to me that appreciated the more sinister yellow dots on black. It reminded me of wasps. The two worked so well together, though, and it seemed to be a very good expression of that bipolar nature that Kusama seems to have. The convex mirrored hallway leading up to both rooms was amazingly effective, with the reflections of the installations adding another element; the circular mirrors continuing the patterns, yet changing them and providing new perspectives from which to view the work.

The firefly room, OH MY GOD. Sorry, slightly carried away. But it was so surreal. It was like you were floating in the blackness of someone elses consciousness.... seriously. The experience is enhanced by the fact that there is a maximum of 3 viewers allowed in the room at any one time. I was very glad to be in there with my partner because going alone would have been almost too overwhelming.

The rest of the works were equally as impressive, and the overview of her life's work was just staggering, both in the amount of work produced and the depth of it. The documentary in the auditorium was also worth watching, and really gave you an insight to how she thinks and where she's come from to be making art the way that she does.

Quite interesting too, because I can still understand a lot of the Japanese, that the translations, although correct to the nearest natural English, do not quite cover all the unexpressed sentiments.

Overall, an awesome exhibition. Well worth the $8 to get in. I'd go again.

Glass and Sarjeant Review Openings

The work in the glass show was really varied, both in skill level and concept. It's very interesting seeing work that is primarily conceptual displayed alongside work which is primarily technical. I think glass needs both in order to stand alone - some of the works displayed worked well as part of the group show because the show carried the context, without the show, it would become merely decorative. Other works had great concepts but the execution was not quite polished. Although, that's from a fine arts point of view.

The review was, as always, an interesting mix of artworks. Very pleased the sculpture department did so well: tutor Brit Bunkley took the open award, Kate Walker got the student prize and both Tom Turner and I got highly commended awards. So that was pretty sweet.

I particularly liked the 'Artistic Block', the artist's name escapes me. But I thought that was a nice bit of conceputal humour. It was good to see lots of student work in there, and it was good that the space was limited this year: less work meant higher overall quality (IMHO).
Good that the ceremony was as short and sweet as they could make it, too.