Laurie Anderson 2012 SVA Commencement Speech

Filed under: Art, Design, Ideas, Inspiration, Music, Performance, Talks & Lectures

Fashion Films

I’ve been skeptical in the past about fashion films. Watching models sway to soundtracks in desolate/pretty places for several minutes just never really did much for me as a viewer. However, last night I went to a screening put together by Portable, and here are a few of the short films that were pretty memorable:

Still from Between Time

The best was BETWEEN TIME Directed by Zoja Smutny & Guntar Kravis (music composed by Arcade Fire’s Sarah Neufeld with costumes designed by Kym Chambers), which had it’s North American premiere at the event. It was less about fashion and more about dance, but the two mediums really complemented each other and I hope more fashion films head in this direction – not necessarily using dance, but using other creative disciplines to enhance the experience of looking at clothes.

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“What’s Up?” from gia coppola on Vimeo.

Gia Coppola’s “What’s Up?” for wren told a little story about last July’s “Carmageddon” in LA. Using a more narrative approach to a fashion film should be left to those who know how to tell stories, and fortunately Coppola does.

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THE MODERN UTOPIAN. The Dark ( So Below) from MANIAMANIA on Vimeo.

THE MODERN UTOPIAN – The Dark (So Below), Directed by Cara Stricker (featuring the lovely Dree Hemingway wearing MANIAMANIA’s jewelry) stood out from the other abstract/experimental films by pushing the effects pretty far, and it really works.

Filed under: Fashion & Textiles, Film, Inspiration, Uncategorized, Cara Stricker, dree hemingway, experimental films, Gia Coppola, maniamania, Portable, sarah neufeld, wren, Zoja Smutny & Guntar Kravis

September Industry

TEDxPortland Invite from SeptemberIndustry on Vimeo.

TEDxPortland Titles from SeptemberIndustry on Vimeo.

Filed under: Design, Motion, TED

The Hand Drawn Map Association

At the New York Art Book Fair last fall, I picked up a copy of From Here To There: A Curious Collection from the Princeton Architectural Press table (see B02 on map above). After a few months of sitting on my shelves, the first good snowfall of the year provided me the time to really look at it more closely. About the book:

The situation is as familiar as it is mundane: planning to visit friends in an unfamiliar part of the city, you draw yourself a basic map with detailed directions. In 2008, artist and designer Kris Harzinski founded the Hand Drawn Map Association to collect simple drawings of the everyday. Fascinated by these accidental records of a moment in time, he soon amassed a wide variety of maps, ranging from simple directions to maps of fictional locations, found maps, and maps of unusual places (such as a map of a high school locker), including examples by such well-known luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, and Alexander Calder.

Ranging from the crude to the incredibly detailed and imaginary, the book inspires a notion that mapping as a way to communicate our understanding of place is an instinct we all share; an intuitive act of record-keeping that can transcend time.

(n.b. When I came across last year’s NY Art Book Fair map to use in this post, I left the map just as I found it on my shelf, with the Karma bookmark inside.  Karma is a bookstore, gallery and publisher in the West Village.)

Filed under: books, Ideas, accidental records, princeton architectural press

The Pleasures of Letters

Printing for Kingdom, Empire & Republic: Treasures From the Archives of the Imprimerie Nationale. The Grolier Club, NYC.

Syriac

Classic Phonecian

Heiroglyphics

Description de l’Egypte, ou recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Egypte pendant l’expédition de l’Armée française. 1809-1828

Le Sacre de S.M. l’Empereur Napoleon dans l’Eglise Metropolitaine de Paris, le 11 frimaire an XIII, dimanche 2 décembre 1804. 1804-1814

Calligraphic upper-case typesort (bronze swash capitals), Pierre Moreau, 1639-1648

Claude Garamond, Paris, 1540-1541

Filed under: Design, Exhibitions, typography

The Little Annual Creatures

“The little annual creatures solicit your regard-”

Date Unknown

A letter from Emily Dickinson to Mrs. Henry Hill

Currently on display at Poet’s House in New York City; along with several of Dickinson’s letters

Mrs. Henry Hill (Anna Barrett), Date Unknown

Filed under: Exhibitions, Inspiration, poetry, typography, emily dickinson, poet's house

Photo of the Day

This Fecal Face Photo of the Day made my day (it’s me last year in Maui photographed by Justin James King.)

Filed under: Art, fecal face, photo of the day

LIVE from the NYPL

Hours of inspiration to be found at LIVE from the NYPL.

Filed under: Ideas, Inspiration, Interviews

Sally Mann: What Remains

Not long ago, I asked a few friends what would be the last song on earth they’d like to hear. As in, if you were walking across the street and got hit by a truck, what song would you want to be playing on your headphones? A friend answered anything by Rachel’s. After digging a bit on their website, I came across this film, for which they wrote and recorded the score. The music and subject matter are perfectly aligned, and it’s definitely one of the best artist documentaries I’ve seen. Highly recommended.

Filed under: Art, Film, Inspiration, Interviews, Music

The Proust Questionnaire

Vanity Fair has built an interactive version of the Proust Questionnaire – and after you fill it out, celebrities who answered similarly to you are revealed. My answers resembled those of Dustin Hoffman (91.56%) and Joan Didion (75.37%). I try to do this questionnaire with my family every year during the holidays, if we get the chance to see each other – I’m fascinated by the multitude of ways in which people ask and answer questions, and how the answers might change over time.

Filed under: Interviews, Thoughts