After 9-11, that sick, sinking feeling many weary commuters experienced stepping onto a crowded NYC subway car was magnified by the MTA’s stentorian banner campaign, “If You See Something, Say Something.” Artist  Caroline Woolard has found a delightful way to strip away the defensive layers of suspicion and dread that can accompany a subterranean commute, replacing default anxiety with spontaneous joy by crafting a backpack that transforms easily into a swing! Using 1000 mesh “L-train grey” cordura, webbing, sliders, hooks, velcro, and snaps, Woolard’s “bag swing” is fitted with sturdy straps that hook easily around the handrail of the subway:

Says Woolard: “I hope that the innocent amusement of swinging on the subway eclipses the current atmosphere of insulation and suspicion.”

Much of Woolard’s creative output seems to revolve around the idea that we should all strive to come into the moment, moving actively through the world rather than shuffling absently through it. Her emphasis on exploring pedestrian space and “cultivating everyday magic” in an urban environment encourages viewers (and participants) to reexamine their relationships with the overwhelmingly massive, immovable urban architecture they live in.

What is the relationship between play and revolution? Creating fissures in reality opens up the possibility for change: change in the everyday/monotonous routine, change in assumptions about ‘facts’, change in the world in general. The act of “making strange” allows a new perspective for reassessment and critique. Nothing is fixed and anyone can make the environment around them better.

Adventurous New Yorkers will definitely want to get on her email list.

Recently, presumably to take her site specific explorations a step further and be even more fully in the present, Woolard has stopped updating her art blog. “My projects are lived and may eventually lose any connection to Art…” In other words, she’s just doing it without defining it. “Many things are happening, but you must discover them in real time.” Bravo, Caroline.

Via the lovable guerilla art wunderkind SF Slim, thanks.

The future really is here! Not only do we have a black president, but Mattel has finally sanctioned a fishnet-wearing, corseted doll titled Goth Punk Barbie. Here she is. Goth. Punk. Barbie:

GPB (above, left) was released as a $70 collector’s item for Hard Rock Cafe, and makes quite a pair with Black Canary Barbie (right), a version of Barbie based on a comic character that drew fire from religious groups earlier this year for her BDSM appearance. But you know what? I like my Barbies in pink, frilly dresses. I like my Barbies to come with a miniature Easy-Bake Oven. I like my Barbies saying “Math is hard, let’s go shopping!” Because it makes it all the more satisfying to see shit like this:

However, my favorite products of a Barbie vivisection may be these classy adornments by artist Margaux Lange:

I love the idea of wearing little ears as earrings. So precious! Writes Lange, “Barbie has become the accessory instead of being accessorized. I take pleasure in the contrast and contradiction of something mass-produced being transformed and revealed as a unique, handmade, wearable piece of art.”