Jeff Frost's "Flawed Symmetry of Prediction"
A breathtaking combination of time lapse and 3D optical illusion by California-based multimedia artist Jeff Frost:
“Over 40,000 high resolution still images were shot on Canon DSLR cameras for this film. I roamed the deserts of California and Utah looking for abandoned structures in the same manner that my Grandpa, Alfred, explored the Four Corners area looking for ancient Native American dwellings. This film is dedicated to him.”
Pressure Molded Skrillex Sausage
YouTube user frannintendo64 has made a beatmatched mashup out of scads of Skrillex dubstep/electro house tunes, with no pitch-shifting. Pretty darn funneh:
Via Ariana, who says: “The whoa-that’s-off-pitch of the first ten seconds or so fades fast. And then it’s… well it’s basically just Skrillex, innit. If you hold out (or skip ahead) to 1:20 it kinda starts to get a little magical. Honestly, I think this is a lot like what the internet sounds like when I’m scrolling fast.”
WUB WUB WUB.
Sharp, Funny, Thought-Provoking "Crazy Watering Can" Short by Vania Heymann
Last year, Vania Heymann, a first-year student at Bezalel art school, took a Canon 7D out into the seething spiritual/cultural microcosm of Jerusalem and –over the course of two very busy afternoons– shot the footage for this remarkable satirical short. Beautifully done. Can’t wait to see what Heymann comes up with next!
(Via Reddit / Sam Harris / GreatDismal )
BTC: World's Largest Rope Swing
Morning!
This shiznit’s already megaviral. But just in case you haven’t seen it yet, here’ a video of filmmaker Devin Graham and chums swinging sweet and low from the Corona Arch (that’s 130 full feet of freefall, folks!) in Moab, Utah:
Pussy Riot Rocks Russia
Great googly moogly:
The riot grrl ethos is alive and well… in Russia! The above footage of an anonymous feminist punk band called Pussy Riot was shot earlier this month. From the Guardian‘s coverage:
Eight women stood in a line opposite the Kremlin, neon balaclavas hiding their faces, fists pounding the air in rugged defiance. Before police carted them off, the members of Pussy Riot managed to shout their way through a minute-long punk anthem: ‘Revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest / Revolt in Russia, Putin’s got scared!’ [Full lyrics here.]
(via)
Since the band formed last September, they’ve been attracting all kind of press with their colorful, expletive-laden anti-Putin protest performances. Huffpo reports:
The group’s current membership, including crew, stands at around 30 people, most of whom are college-educated, hardcore feminists, according to founding members of the band who spoke to the Guardian. They told the paper many members of the band met at small protests and monthly demonstrations aimed at voicing a range of grievances against the government, including political corruption, state monopoly on the media, and banned gay pride marches.
All members of the band are sworn to anonymity, even when giving interviews, because “it shows we can be anybody,” a member told the Guardian.
More recently, Pussy Riot crashed Moscow Cathedral to perform an impromptu rendition of their song “Holy Shit”, and a surrreal, even sublime sort of inverse Benny Hill hilarity ensued:
No doubt, they’ll be striking again soon. Revolution girl style now! (Via Cal Trumann, thanks.)
Greta Alfaro's "In Ictu Oculi" and Other Works
“In ictu oculi” is a somewhat loaded Latin phrase that translates roughly as “in the blink [or twinkling] of an eye”. It’s also the title of a famously (and beautifully) grotesque Baroque painting created in Spain in the 1670s by artist Juan de Valdés Leal. Said painting depicts a skeletal Death, coffin tucked under its arm and clutching a scythe, hunched gleefully over a smorgasbord of earthly spoils.
With her video/photo-documented installation by the same name, modern-day Spanish multimedia artist Greta Alfaro –seemingly familiar with the layered meanings of the Latin shorthand and well-aware of the ensuing painting– has found an elegant, rather startling way to revisit many of the same themes Leal did. Alfaro was hidden from view mere meters away as she shot this footage of vultures descending on a feast she had prepared for them.
Alfaro has crafted several video/photo-documented installations in recent years, all of them fastidiously produced, to stark and haunting effect. She states:
“I work about the hidden and the unexpected. We live our lives governed by rules created in order to control chaos and vulnerability, but I am interested in the facts we try to hide or repress, in the differences between the private and the public, in the visibility of our everyday life hypocrisy.”
Via Aaron Diskin / Triangulation Blog. A couple more of Alfaro’s videos after the jump.
Skyrim Dance Warmup
Friday night, wooooo! Untold legions of open world action role-playing gamers are about to tumble down a weekend-long Scroll Hole. In honor of their impending battles, here’s footage of a young, frisky, ostensibly naked dude gettin’ his FUS RO DERP on:
Japanese Fart Scroll from 1847
WOW. Wow…
Over at Tofugu, author Hashi states:
I was doing research for another post a while back, and found something a bit…unusual. It was an old Japanese scroll about farting. No, you didn’t misread that last sentence. The whole scroll, which is called He-Gassen (“The Fart Battle”) is just about people farting. Farting at other people, farting at cats, farting off of horses, farting into bags; just farting everywhere. […] I kept expecting to find some deep cultural explanation as to why these guys made whole scrolls about farting. But I think it really just boils down to one universal truth: farts are funny. We can pretend that our senses of humor are more sophisticated than that, but let’s face it: when somebody lets one rip, you’re going to chuckle.
Couldn’t have put it better myself!
Click this link to read and see more. Click it now. Trust me. You may not know it yet, but you need more 19th Century Japanese fart scroll in your life. Delve deep into this dubious cleft of cryptohistory.
{Via Jessica Joslin, with fragrant thanks!)