Copyrights

Copyrights (2011- Ongoing) is a project by Phil Thompson:

“The Google Art Project contains several paintings which have had a blur filter applied to them so as to make them unrecognisable. Google explain this decison stating that they were, ‘required to be blurred by the museums for reasons pertaining to copyrights.’
After collecting all of these images by taking screenshots and cropping out the blurred images, they were emailed to oil painting reproduction companies in China (chosen for its own issues with internet censorship and for its ongoing difficulties with Google), where they were painted to the scale of the original painting. These reproductions were shipped back to the UK and now become the art work.”

 

On Pessimism

This lecture by Alain de Botton is inspiring, entertaining and even mindblowing. Have you ever thought that sometimes embracing sadness and pessimism could help you achieve better things in life? It may seem a little odd but it does make sense. If you have half an hour to spend, I suggest you listen to this.

“In this secular sermon, Alain challenges the great bourgeois promise that everyone can find happiness in love and work and suggests that we take on the joys of pessimism instead. He argues that the chances of anyone succeeding in both areas (let alone in one) are extremely remote – and that it is therefore peculiar, and deeply cruel, to base our societies around these values. Indeed, in denying a place for misery and despair, the modern world denies us the possibility of collective consolation, condemning us instead to solitary feelings of shame and persecution. ”

3D printers as teleporters

Anil Dash has some great ideas about 3d printing and teleporting:

“Every 3D printer should seamlessly integrate a 3D scanner, even if it makes the device cost much more. The reason is simple: If you set the expectation that every device can both input and output 3D objects, you provide the necessary fundamentals for network effects to take off amongst creators. But no, these devices are not “3D fax machines”. What you’ve actually made, when you have an internet-connected device that can both send and receive 3D-printed objects, is a teleporter. I know that sci-fi nerds will point out that this is hardly teleportation, since you’re cloning the shape of the original object rather than actually sending the original object somewhere. But sci-fi correctness is not nearly as useful for the 3D printing industry as a totally futuristic concept that can get normal people excited. Imagine a simple television ad with a clean, well-designed (not a kit!) device saying “when you lose the wheel for your kid’s toy car, her friend can teleport her a replacement”.

Full article here.

[via boing boing]

Fake Holidays

Fake Holidays is a photography project by Reiner Riedler:

“When wishes are out of reach, simulation is taking over our leisure time and our holidays. Imaginary worlds are created, often under massive technological exertion, in order to offer us experience as reproducible merchandise. Although the quality of these adventures on demand sometimes proves to be rather dubious, the boom does shed light on one thing: the yearnings and dreams underlying people’s daily lives.”


 

 

Francis Ford Coppola Predicts YouTube in 1991

“Suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is gonna be the new Mozart…and make a beautiful film with her father’s little camera-corder, and for once this whole professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever, and it will really become an art form.” – Francis Ford Coppola

The excerpt comes from Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about Coppola’s 1979 cult-classic Apocalypse Now.

(via Brain Pickings)