Category — art

Seems today is Pacman day.

First I find, via Rinzewind, a text-adventure version of the classic game.

Some hours later I run into a beautiful Steampunk reinterpretation (via Boing Boing).

Such anachronism. And yet such beauty. :: sigh ::

I want one of these for my desk. Pretty please?

More on Bathsheba’s homepage.

The need for a “proper frame” I talked about in this post is an important idea to have in mind when trying to get recognition for your work, be it artistic or not, professional or just a hobby.

In the case of artistic output, this might be quite obvious: a 9×15 photo print does not look as good as the same image when printed in a large format and professionally framed. Even a small black frame around a simple digital picture often makes a big difference. Look at all those Flickr pictures, if you don’t believe me.

But what is the “small black frame” for your professional, non-artistic output? You could try dressing to “look more professional” [1]. Of course, you should give as many good presentations of your work as possible, both in formal and informal settings. And send to colleagues/bosses/etc e-mails with bits of your output that you think can be useful to them is probably also a good idea.

If your main output is code, at the very least you should make it human-readable and well-tested (by unit tests, of course; stop bullshitting people with golden-file-based regression tests that you’ll never update again).

If your main output is in the form of a written report, choose a professional-looking font and layout (no more Comic Sans, no more than two or three fonts in the same document, etc). And, por dios, double-check your grammar and spelling!

Can you think of any more examples of how to better frame your work?

[1] Note that I use the concept of “dressing like a professional” in a broad sense. Where I work, “dressing like a professional” involves jeans and black t-shirts and/or looking generally nerdy. I bet those guys in the Ernst & Young building do not perceive our dress code as professional, though. So, when trying to look professional, study first the dress code for your chosen target audience.

The Washington Post set up an interesting experiment: they had a world-class violinist (Joshua Bell) play a famous Stradivarius outside a Washington DC metro entrance. Pearls Before Breakfast describes what happened. There is a video, too.

In a nutshell: he made 40 bucks in an hour, and hardly anyone stopped to listen.

The Post argues that nobody stopped because it was morning on a work day in Washington DC, and passers-by were all in a hurry to get to work. It was just not a good moment for them to indulge in art appreciation. The Post’s conclusion: we are all too stressed, we need to find more balance in our lives, etc. Breaking news, I know.

But the Post also mentions an alternate explanation, offered by Mark Leithauser, a curator at the National Gallery (the Washington one, not the London one):

Leithauser’s point is that we shouldn’t be too ready to label the Metro passersby unsophisticated boobs. Context matters.

I find this not only a better explanation, but also a more interesting one.

What would have happened if, instead of wearing jeans and a baseball cap, Bell would have been dressed as for a formal performance at a famous venue? What if there already was a small crowd planted around him? Would that validate passers-by desire to stop and listen, driving more people to the crowd? If there would have been some journalists taking pictures of him, asking questions and treating him like a star, would have people stopped then?

I think that if Joshua Bell’s “frame” during his performance in the Washington Metro would have clearly indicated that there was Something Big Going On, many more people would have stopped. It would have called their attention, and it would have also made it OK to stop for a couple of minutes. After all, what are a couple of minutes less work, if it will give you something to talk about at the watercooler?

(Article found via The Online Photographer, who writes his own commentary on the experiment here.)

The Online Photographer: Feet Are Optional:

What these straight-A kids wanted was for me to set the terms of their success for them. They wanted me to set up the hoop so they could jump through it for me. They wanted to be told how they could be certain of success. It was what they encountered everywhere else. But what I wanted was for them to set up their own hoop, or, better yet, look askance at the hoop and go, “Nah, not today,” and wander off somewhere and see what they could find. The fact is, you need to fail a lot if you want to succeed as an artist. That’s why the kids who were used to failing weren’t fazed by my classes: they weren’t threatened by the idea of falling flat on their faces 90% of the time. The good students definitely were.

I would go further: you need to fail a lot if you want to succeed. Not just as an artist.

I closed my first incursion into the world of comics with an introduction to the work of the Hern?ɬ�ndez Bros, for which I chose a collection named Chelo’s Burden, which contains stories by Jaime and Gilbert (Beto) Hern?ɬ�ndez.

The styles of both brothers are quite different, and so is the contents of their stories. As Art Spiegelman, they both write, paint and letter their stories, which is apparently quite uncommon in the comic world.

Here is a sample of Beto’s work:

During my last visit to Stockholm I discovered Carl Larsson, an interesting early 20th century Swedish painter. I like his colors and his themes. The picture below is called “Midwinter sacrifice”.

You can see some more of his paintings at The artist Carl Larsson’s official homepage.

Fabio Novembre is a stunning interior designer I discovered in today’s GP. He has some awesome work with organic forms and profuse decoration. The picture below is the interior of the Berlin showroom of Bisazza, a company that produces materials for mosaics.

Through Boing Boing, I have found Ray Caesar, who produces some beautiful disturbing images. Interestingly, his work is done entirely digitally, and then printed in a limited edition. Check out Caesar’s galleries.

Through Alternativa I find Color in motion, a site about the symbolism of colors. It is built in Flash and includes some (mildly) addictive toys to play around with the colors. It’s been done by Mar?ɬ?a Claudia Cort?ɬ©s as her thesis for the Master of Fine Arts Computer Graphics Design at Rochester Institute of Technology. Cool thesis, this one.

It is interesting to see what can communicate the color purple, the main color of this site. Some of the things that I like my purple to represent: ambition, art, beauty, balance, coolness, creativity, dream, dignity, enigma, feminity, independence, inspiration, intelligence, introspection, intuition, knowledge, luxury, magic, meditation, mystery, pride, reflection, responsability, truth, wisdom.

This summer, while during trips around southern Sweden, I had the pleasure to discover the John Bauer museum. He was a painter and illustrator, born in J?ɬ?nk?ɬ?ping in the late 19th century. He is famous for his illustrations of trolls, dwarfs and princesses for Swedish fairy tales.

The pictures are quite dark, but usually with bright spots of color and light. Very beautiful. You can see some in the museum?Ǭ�s online gallery, and also on project Runeberg.

Don’t miss the Zoom Quilt, a collaborative digital art project where you can endlessly zoom in and out of beautiful pictures. Be sure to try the Flash version, which has a trance-like effect.

(found via Boing Boing)

David Hogsholt is this year’s winner of the Ian Parry photography award. His pictures are visually appealing, even if the subject of his award-winning series is a dramatic one.

(found via BBC News)