2025-07-01 06:05:24
The fantastic art history YouTube channel Great Art Explained has a great two-episode series on Jackson Pollock.
In Part One of my film I look at how, post World War Two, the art scene shifted from Paris to New York. How America was searching for “The Great American painter”, and why he is so loved and hated at the same time. I look at just what Abstract Expressionism means, how we can “read it”, and I look at the myths surrounding Pollock and modern art itself. I also look at his influences ranging from Mexican sand Painting, to the Regionalist art movement, to Picasso and the modernists.
In Part Two of my film I look at how fame affected Jackson Pollock, and how alcohol destroyed his relationships. I look at the science behind why we are so affected by his work, and I also look at a lesser known story, of how art became an unlikely player in the Cold War and the global contest of ideas. How Abstract Expressionism was enlisted as an unknowing agent in a shadowy propaganda war, bankrolled by the CIA, to sell the story of freedom… and capitalism.
Tags: art · art school · Jackson Pollock · James Payne · video
2025-07-01 05:01:45
A decade-plus in the making and now on Kickstarter: a book of Pooja Saxena’s photography of signs and lettering found on the streets of cities all over India.
2025-07-01 04:06:24
Iris van Herpen has an on-going collaboration with CERN. The Dutch fashion designer’s latest project, with photographer Nick Knight, takes place in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment, which is maybe the most sci-fi looking thing on Earth.
(via susannah breslin)
Tags: CERN · fashion · Iris van Herpen · LHC · Nick Knight · science
2025-07-01 03:03:15
I Randomly Decided To Pay Off A School’s Lunch Debt. Then Something Incredible Happened. “Within a week, I’d raised $6,000. Within a month, $10,000.”
2025-07-01 02:11:58
Ok so this is weird and delightful. Swedish electronics company Teenage Engineering makes a collection of singing wooden dolls called the Choir. The dolls are basically speakers but with some autonomy and personality…and they can work together:
what you see are eight wooden dolls, made to serenade you with a repertoire of choral classics as well as perform your own original compositions through midi over ble. each member has their own characteristic vocal range. individually one can sing a dynamic solo, together they perform an immersive a cappella concert.
Composer Rob Simonsen used three Choirs together to help create the score for Elio, the newest Pixar movie that takes place in space.
we were looking for an otherworldly sound—something that sounded relatable, that echoed vocalizations, communication that humans could understand, but felt like it was from another world. i came across these choir dolls and heard their sound. it was beautiful — electronic, but human. each body is handcrafted. they have a robotic but organic sound at the same time. it felt like a perfect answer to what we were looking for.
In this interview with Simonsen, he talks about working with the Choir to create the movie’s sound; the relevant part starts at the 15:20 mark and includes some of the music they composed with it.
There’s a flip flop element to this too: they mic’d up the dolls to record the audio, just like they would with human performers.
Here’s another short clip of the Choir in action:
Like I said, weird and delightful. You can get your own full ensemble from Teenage Engineering for about $2000.
See also Dueling Carls, which this reminded me of for some reason.
Tags: audio · Elio · movies · music · Pixar · Rob Simonsen · Teenage Engineering · video
2025-07-01 01:28:39
Could Should Might Don’t. “This isn’t a book filled with predictions and prophecies, and it makes no assertions about what the future will hold. It’s a book which unpacks how we think about the future.”