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Powerpoint Karaoke

“Imagine this: You have to deliver a PowerPoint presentation about an unfamiliar topic, with slides you’ve never seen, to an audience eager to heckle and laugh at you. If you’re in your underwear, you’re having a nightmare. If you’re clothed, it’s called PowerPoint Karaoke…”

Golden Aliens

Common Task

Common Task is a project by Pawel Althamer.

“Common Task is a documented group activity, a social sculpture, realised within the science – fiction formula. The artistic project is a combination of an activity performed in public spaces with the social aspects such as exclusion related to the systemic transformation process, self-organisation and bottom-up initiatives which may change the world and shape the future. In broader terms, the Project alludes to the ideals of freedom and solidarity.”

[via new art]

Jacko’s monument

LIVE FOREVER - The Michael Jackson Monument Design Competition!

Archinect.com launched a design competion for a monument dedicated to Michael Jackson. Entries are available on the website from today. In the picture above you can see one of them: The Freedom Tower by Harrison & White, “a 1km high gold statue of him with anti-terrorist laser scanning/disintegration rays from his eyes”. LOL

David Byrne on Italy

david byrne's blog

Here‘s a funny (but also depressing for us to read) report written by David Byrne after his trip to Rome. Featuring Radisson Hotel, the Vatican (with all the kitschy souvenirs), Renzo Piano’s Auditorium, Altare della Patria and much more… He seemes to understand very clearly what’s wrong with Italy’s sense of history:

“Do we have to respect every piece of rubble? What can we really hope to learn from these pathetic foundations and remaining stumpy bits of wall? Have the Italians sacrificed some part of their future in honoring and maintaining their glorious past? Am I being cynical? (I would certainly rather see ruins than block after block of ugly, concrete apartments!) The Italians must, I imagine, feel hamstrung by their past, which must justify in their minds the escape from the past represented by the ugly apartment and office buildings that fill these cities outside their historic zones.”

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Also on Internazionale this week (in italian)

The Fox in the Museum

Francis Alys, Nightwatch

In 2004, Francis Alÿs collaborated with the National Portrait Gallery to create a piece generated by the gallery’s state-of-the-art internal CCTV system. Surveillance cameras observe a fox exploring the Tudor and Georgian rooms of the Gallery at night…

3D and the Reinassance

Avatar

According to art critic Jonathan Jones, James Cameron’s new 3D film Avatar has something to teach us about the Renaissance:

“In the 15th century, artists discovered how to paint bodies and landscapes as if they had depth and solidity. Painting triumphed over the flat surface to create the illusion of a real scene glimpsed through the square enclosure of the wooden panel or canvas, as if you were watching a play on a stage. The effect was just as dazzling, just as unexpected as 3D cinema – and it has lasted a lot longer than the gimmicks of 1950s science fiction.”

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