Chair Prototype 001 by Chengtao Yi

The chair is made of lenticular prints and wood.

Artist: Antti Laitinen

 

Voyage (2008)

Broken Landscape (2017-2019)

via https://anttilaitinen.com/

Alexander Calder

Composition (Pyramids and Sun on Target), 1973

Sony PSP Advertising (2004)

In 2004, Sony created 30 mannequins to advertise the new PSP (PlayStation portable). They scattered the mannequins throughout Tokyo. Each mannequin was named and had an extensive backstory.

The Cover Uncovered: How Spiritualized created the art for 'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space'

The history of Spiritualized's 1997 album art and their approach to making music as a form of therapy –

The title of the album was taken from Jostein Gaarder’s 1991 philosophical fiction novel Sophie’s World from the line: “Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ they yell, ‘we are floating in space!’ But none of the people down there care.” This context of philosophers feeling perhaps a tad lonely in their pursuit of knowledge is reflected in the lonely tone of the music throughout the album.

If you are feeling lonely and worthless, however, fear not, Spiritualized produced the cure through not just sound, but vision too. The marketing for this album coupled with the novel and quite frankly astounding music made for an incredible work of art. The cover art for the album was a triumph due to its intense simplicity which draws the eye in an unexpected manner. The artist Mark Farrow was inspired by the words “music is medicine for the soul” which he recalls Pierce saying when they first met to discuss the aesthetic direction for the album. With this, Farrow set about designing the sleeve in a way that made the album appear like a medical product... [read more]

Dishes by Till Nowak (2009)

Artist statement via digitalarchive.siggraph.org: 

Dishes is a digitally manipulated photo that reflects the absurdity of our society, which has been flooded by media as people lose human contact with each other. This ironic social statement connects today’s advanced techniques in computer-generated imagery with the craftsmanship of art forms like traditional photography. 

Hundreds of satellite dishes infect a skyscraper like a disease. Or is it mankind’s unconscious desire to barricade itself from real life, to slow down social life by consuming endlessly accelerating media input? The dishes are pointing in the direction of a distant satellite, expressing the disconnect between people as social beings.

The image is based on a real photograph of a building that was extended to double its original height in Photoshop. The natural perspective distortion was corrected to give the real photo a constructed and unreal feeling. It is derived from photos of real satellite dishes, which were used as texture maps for 12 different 3D models, then duplicated to form groups of instanced geometry and manually arranged in 3ds Max.

Herman Miller Archival Ads + Prints

Check out these limited-edition posters and archival advertisements that will be available at Herman Miller on October 26.

L’invisible, The Rock Boat

 

L’invisible is an artificial rock that can be driven and moved around. The sea-faring boat comes from the mind of a French artist named Julien Berthier.

According to Berthier’s website, the boat was designed to explore and ask questions about the boating industry and the unintended environmental effects of humans. 

I am always drawn to work that subtly modifies an environment or object. The unexpected alteration or juxtaposition that can turn something ordinary into art or a statement has always been really interesting to me. It caught my attention and I thought it was worth sharing.

The same artist previously made a floating sculpture from a large sailboat that had been modified to appear as if it is capsizing – it was called Love-love and the artist described it as a permanent and mobile image of a wrecked ship that has become a functional and safe leisure object.

Underground in the 1940s: Alex Katz's Subway Drawings

In the 1940s, before he found acclaim as a painter, Alex Katz, now eighty-nine, was a student at Cooper Union. Uninterested in the models his teachers asked him to draw, Katz rode the subway for hours, often into the early hours of the morning, sketching the passengers who caught his eye... [read more via The Paris Review]