» I, pet goat II by Heliofant

It's name comes from the short story George W. Bush was reading along, on the morning of September 11 of 2001, with a group of schoolchildren at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota County, Florida. "The Pet Goat" from the book Reading Mastery II: Storybook 1 by Siegfried Engelmann and Elaine C. Bruner. 

This great short film is a "surreal" symbol orchestra on today's human condition. It’s packed with symbols of spiritual, philosophical and conspiracy matters remixed with our recent history and culture. The story is less of a narrative and more like an interpretive dance on America’s war on terror, religious fundamentalism, militarism, totalitarianism, deceitful media, exploitation, etc. If you are interested in a brief description of some characters you can visit the gallery section in Heliofant's site. 

Motion capture was used for about half the animation adding a much needed real touch to the surrealism and it's theatrical staging.

Heliofant is a new animation studio based in Montreal.

"HELIOFANT IS A NASCENT INDEPENDENT COMPUTER ANIMATION STUDIO FOCUSED ON CREATING EXPERIMENTAL AND CHALLENGING CONTENT. BRINGING TOGETHER ARTISTS FROM THE FIELDS OF DANCE, MUSIC, COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VISUAL ARTS, THE COMPANY IS VERY INTERESTED IN EXPLORING THE COMMON GROUND THAT UNDERLIES MANY SPIRITUAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS IN A LYRICAL FORM."

The great driving score was created by Tanuki Project.

» Cultural democracy or mediocrity? PressPausePlay Full Movie Online

In February I posted this:

"PressPausePlay, a film about fear, hope and digital culture". The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with influential creators of the digital era. To name a few interviewees, Ted Schilowitz, founder, Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, Scott Belsky, CEO & founder, Behance. The film was shot globally between August 2009 – January 2011, covering more than 150 hours of interview footage with international creatives and thinkers - representing the state of digitized culture today.

Now it's out, you can download it from their website, full HD.

» Croix Gagnon, 12:31

Project 12:31 reassembles the corpse of Texas killer Joseph Paul Jernigan, who was put to death by lethal injection in 1993. Jernigan’s body was documented using computed tomography and magnetic resonance imagery after his execution. Images from the National Library of Medicine’s "Visible Human Project".

The animation above represents the entire data set (1,871 slices) of the male cadaver. The resulting images are long-exposure "light paintings" of the entire cadaver. 

Concept and Art Direction: Croix Gagnon, Photography: Frank Schott, Post Production: Alex Katz/Blinklab, Digital C-prints: Dickerman Prints.

This reminds me of this Dentsu London's project.

» Swoon, Interview by Acclaim Magazine

Acclaim Magazine just posted this interview with Swoon.

Swoon is a New York artist renowned for her paste ups and large scale installation work.

She recently made a trip to Melbourne for her exhibition at the Metro Gallery in Armadale. In this interview by Acclaim, she spoke about space, context and participation and how these inspire and impact her work.

» James Alliban, Konstruct, Augmented Reality App

James Alliban is an augmented reality specialist and media artist. His work is regularly featured or mentioned in design magazines. He is the founder of the company knowned as Augmatic.

His projects include installations, mobile art apps and online tools that employ a variety of computer vision and image processing techniques. His main tool of choice is the open source arts based programming toolkit openFrameworks.

This iphone app is a sound reactive "AR" experience that allows the user to create a virtual sculpture by speaking, whistling or blowing into the device’s microphone. A variety of 3D shapes, colour palettes and settings can be combined to build an endless collection of structures. Compositions can be saved to the device’s image gallery.

Konstruct is a free app available on iPhone 3GS and 4 running iOS 4+. A version for the iPad 2 is planned in the coming months.

» Iain Macarthur

Illustrations by Iain Macarthur, UK.

» Against All Odds, Gettin Tail

Tolle PSA für AIDES ("First French association against HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis") commissioned this spot to Stockholm based directors Against All Odds. It maintains the serial-sex theme of previous virals but veers away from stylized 3D in favor of an early Ub Iwerks style.

Music: "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

» Martin Allais, Pilot Evolution

I tried to find more info about Martin Allais but there is no much data about him in his site or in the web, it's not clear if he is from Spain or Venezuela, or where did he study, but he is definitely a good director. He is represented by Boolab. 

This is a campaign promoting Pilot brand’s latest models, the Frixion, whose main feature is that it lets you both write and erase.

» Google's Online Magazine, Think Quarterly

Without any grand announcements, Google has launched it’s own online magazine, Think Quarterly. The first quarterly issue looks clean and well put together. The internet based reader neatly displays the magazine in a simulated magazine format, with pages that appear to turn. Quarterly remains firmly aimed at Google's partners and advertisers. Leaned towards info graphics and large photos makes the magazine as interesting to look at as to read. One highlight is the table of contents which cleverly guides readers through the pages in standard linear fashion or on an exploratory path based on how articles relate to one another. The articles themselves are prominently thought pieces centering around business and technology topics, with contributions from a variety of freelance writers and contributors.

"At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest," Matt Brittin, Google’s managing director of U.K. and Ireland operations states in Think Quarterly‘s introduction. "We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service. But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters".

» Dan Mountford

Illustration, design and photography by Dan Mountford, UK.

» Xaver Xylophon and Laura Junger, Joy Of Destruction

"Joy Of Destruction" it's a film about the human drive to destroy and the entertaining value that's attached to it. It was made using paper collages and stop motion.
Xaver Xylophon, 25, studied Visual Comunication at KHB Berlin Weißensee, he did a 10 week internship at Foreign Office, one of my favorite studios. Now he is releasing this great piece with Laura Junger, 25, a  bachelor from La Cambre in Brussels, a visual arts school.

» Saam Faramand and Absolute's Blind Pig, NSFW

It's been a couple of months since this video came out, I was waiting for the right moment to make this post, but after the Cédric Blaisbois post I can post almost anything.

London based Partizan director Saam Faramand and Absolute's little brother Blind Pig created this clever orgiastic siamese video for the Klaxons track “Twin Flames”. He has chosen to execute his video with the use of motion control rigs and computer blending. Using techniques of the modern combined with inspiration from the old, Saam creates a wonderful homage to Brian Yuzna’s "Society" in this NSFW video for the band. This piece also highlights the current trend in directors being able to push the  boundaries.

» ScanLAB

The Bartlett School of Architecture runs ScanLAB, a series of research projects exploring 3D scanning in architecture and design. This projects are run by Matthew Shaw and William Trossell, in 2010, they produced 64 scans of the Bartlett Summer Show 2010 using a Faro Photon 120 laser scanner. These have been compiled to form a complete 3D replica of the temporary show which has been compiled into a navigable animation and a series of architectural drawings. These drawings represent the closest record of the exhibition. The process of 3D scanning captures full color spatial data of the models, drawings and exhibition spaces and allows them to be revisited long after the show has finished.

» Cédric Blaisbois, NSFW

Cédric Blaisbois is a director and producer based in France. He works with Partizan, an award winning production company with offices in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Shanghai and Mumbai. The amazing thing, besides the raw, gore and violent images, is that he also did the vfx. I know that the night vision effect helps to cover some stuff, but the edition and vfx are really cool and well done. This music video for Huoratron´s track "Corporate Occult", under Last gang Records tells the story of an after hours drunken one night stand that becomes a blood feast soul massacre. Maybe a great analogy.

» The Animation Workshop, Mighty Antlers

Mighty Antlers is a bachelor film project from The Animation Workshop, a school in Denmark, with strong reputation due to the top education they provide for the international industry. This short film was created by Sune Reinhardt, Mikael Ilnæs, Michael L. Fonsholt and Jouko Keskitalo. The story is great and the images are carefully treated; lighting, textures, characters, animation, environment, etc., are all packed and styled together, awesome job from this students. There is a making off here.

» Field, Muse

Field is a studio for digital art and graphic design based in London. Led by Marcus Wendt and Vera-Maria Glahn. Their projects take shape in illustration and animation, interactive installations and realtime generative visuals. Field has created work for global brands and cultural institutions, while their experimental films and installations have been shown at festivals and galleries around Europe and in the U.S. This experimental short film, "Muse", was commissioned by Netfilmmakers gallery. Their concept is based on how inspiration is now digitally delivered or acquired by taking a deep breath under the vast digital ocean of data and information, at least is what I understood, and that it's know a whole different process to filter such data and reflect its input. Beautifully done. Soundtrack by David Kamp. Chect out this other video in which they used mocap to create a digital choreography here, making of here.

» Andrei Muratov, GTLK

Andrey Muratov is a director and prodcuer based in Moscow, Russia. There is no much info about him out there, except hi runs a company named Proxell. He made this piece for Gosudarstvennaya Transportnaya Lizingovaya Kompaniya, a finacial company in Moscow. He directed and produced it, the sound was made by Nebulo. The images are quite rythmic and beautiful, sure he's talented.

» National Parks Project, trailer

The National Parks Project (NPP) was created by Joel McConvey, Geoff Morrison and Ryan Noth, it was produced by FilmCan NPP Films and Primitive Entertainment in partnership with Parks Canada and Discovery World HD. This film is a collaborative art project that features 52 musicians and filmmakers from Canada, and 13 of its national parks. From May to October, 2010, the project sent different groups formed by one filmmaker and three musicians to a park in each province and territory of Canada, to capture their experience in a short film and soundtrack. The groups spent 5 days in the parks, exploring sights and sounds, collaborating on music and images. For now, you can watch 2 of the 13 pieces that conform this film in their website, check it out.

» Visiophone, Kinect dancing with swarming particles

Visiophone is Rodrigo Carvalho, a portuguese graphic designer and new media artist born in Porto. He studied design at University of Aveiro and he is now based in Barcelona where he studies a masters degree in digital arts at Pompeu Fabra University. 

This video is a demo of "Dancing With Swarming Particles", an interactive installation and performance that intends to explore the relationship between a physical user and an “avatar” which has the physical characteristics of morphing flocking particles.

It was made in Unity3d, using Kinect and Osceleton.

» Norman Fairbanks, Kraftwerk geo location based music generator app

Norman Fairbanks is a conceptual audio artist.  He says his mission is to freely alienate, process and melt artefacts from the panopticon of American mass media with found noise, selected field recordings and specifically generated electro-acoustic elements. His purpose is to investigate new tonalities in sound and create a context free, unbiased, neo-expressionist audio witness and reflection of contemporary American culture. While all this, he developed an interactive 24hrs music generator as an iphone app for Kraftwerk. It’s a system that creates music and sound based on realtime data depending on your geo location, the Kling Klang Machine No 1 differences from other generative music apps because most of them use preprogrammed algorithms and in this particular app they are continuously feeding. He says that for now the functionality is still basic but the original concept will be more and more implemented in future updates and releases. You can watch a demo here.

» CRCR

This video named "Todor & Petru" is the unofficial music video for The Thunderclaps "Judgment Day". It was made by Gobelins students Remi Bastie, Nicolas Dehghani, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Nicolas Pegon and Jérémy Pires during an internship at Paris based WIZZ. They are known as CRCR, it's not clear if they are some kind of collective or studio but together they also created the "Jesus2000" animation 2 years ago, and the opening for the 2010 Annecy animation festival named "Junkspace". I was quite impressed with the combination of drawn animation and live action. It was done in such a way so that the piece has a cinematic style while retaining the organic and expressive qualities of drawn animation. It’s a worthwhile combo experiment. 

» NOVA documentary, 75min online premiere

A documentary film on new art and the young artists behind it. Directed by Isaac Niemand, and produced by Rojo, an independent creative organization, founded in 2001 by David Quiles Guilló, in collaboration with BossaNovaFilms, it was all filmed at Nova Contemporary Culture which happened in July and August 2010, in MIS-Museum of Image and Sound, and SESC Pompeia, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Starring: Yoshi Sodeoka, Rebecca Ward, Tofer Chin, KRINK, Base V, Yochai Matos, Max Hattler, Lucy McRae, Kit Webster, Jimmy Joe Roche, Flavio Samelo, Matt W Moore, Zeitguised, Mulheres Barbadas, Gustavo Gagliardo aka Defi, Filippo Minelli, Quayola, Javier Longobardo, Renaud Hallée, Mark Jenkins, Ljudbilden & Piloten, Sosaku Miyazaki, Anna Taratiel aka Ovni, Robert Seidel, B. Fleischmann, Koen Delaere, Taras Hrabowsky, Cristopher Cichocki, Yusk Imai, to name a few.

Music by: Bradien, Roll The Dice, Fuck Buttons, to name some.

» Petra Mrzyk & Jean-François Moriceau

Working collaboratively since 1998, France based artists, designers and animators, Petra Mrzyk & Jean-François Moriceau are known for their detailed black and white ink drawings, their work surrounds the absurd, humorous, and even the perverse. With an ironic connection to commercial stuff, comics, and design, they have created their own vision on the contemporary visual culture. In their work, anything is possible and the surreal is their emblem. The have exhibit their work in several solo and collective shows around the world. You can watch some of their art works here. This is their latest music video, Sebastien Tellier´s "Look" clip, it's been a while since this but in case you haven't watched it or haven't heard about them I decided to make this post. I also recommend to watch Air's "Sing Sang Sung" and "don't be light" clips, some clever and detailed pieces. They also created this iphone app in collaboration with Sam Vermette for Recordmakers anniversary, it's free and it's fun.

» The Thomas Beale Cipher by Andrew S. Allen

I watched this film a couple of months ago and I wanted post it immediately but I waited and researched more about the story behind it. The story says that a group of men came across with a treasure while on expedition in New Mexico, and they buried it in Virginia. One of them, named Thomas Beale, left three cipher texts with a friend, who forgets about it for more than 20 years. One day realizing that Thomas is not coming back, he opens the box and tries to solve the ciphers. Being unable to, he passes along the texts to a friend, James Beverly Ward, who cracks one of the three ciphers, but not the one that actually gives the precise location of the treasure. More than a hundred years go by, and no one had been able to solve the remaining two ciphers texts, if it exists, may still be out there, buried in Virginia. Everything now known about the Beale Cipher is based on a single text, published by Ward and submitted to the Library of Congress in 1885. The first cipher text allegedly describes the location of the treasure. The second text, the only one deciphered, explains what the treasure is, and the third supposedly details the names of the people that should get the treasure. Some people say that it´s all a hoax perpetrated by Ward, but the tale of the Beale ciphers, as I found on the web, continues to intrigue codebreakers and treasure hunters. Also, there is a Cheyenne legend dating from around 1820 which tells of gold and silver being taken from the West and buried in Eastern Mountains.

About Andrew S. Allen and the film aesthetics, he has embedded ciphers of his own in the film, there are 16 hidden messages, that´s kind of a interesting thing to do if you are already immerse in this story of mystery and riddles. He used a combination of old school hand drawn design and rotoscoping with fabric and paper textures. The look is simple and elegant, perfect for the story, it won numerous film festival awards. Check out the website here.

» Kim Holm, Matta - Release The Freq

This is the official video for ¨Release The Freq" by Matta, from the album "Prototype" under AD Noiseam label. Kim Holm did direction, design, cinematography, editing, 3D and animation, pretty much everything. He created a poetic and  dreamy look, some great images, very beautiful to watch, unfortunately I had to watch it on mute.

» Solaris, Low-Rez Stories by Manuel Schamlstieg

This work is part of the project Low-Rez Stories by Manuel Schmalstieg, it´s a semi-narrative video installation based on the use of remote webcam feeds which are tracked by spider-bots, captured and combined into a self-generating cinematic video landscape. Solaris is an exercise of dynamic camera motion in google street view, inspired by a sequence of the motion picture Solaris (Tarkovsky 1972), you can watch the sequence here. Manuel Schmalstieg studied in Geneva and Krakow. In 2001 he was nominated as artistic co-director of N3krozoft Ltd, an international art and technology research group.

Check out the video installation here.

» Clemens Wirth, Macro Kingdoms

Clemens Wirth, Salzburg, Austria, is a multimedia art student at the University of Applied Sciences FH-Salzburg. He created this videos playing and exploring with a MP-E 65mm Canon lens, Macro Kingdom I, II and III are visual ongoing poems showing us the unseen micro world.

» Brian Dettmer, book sculptor

Brian Dettmer,1974, is noted for his alteration of preexisting media, such as old books, maps and record albums to create new transformed objects. He lived in and around Chicago, where he studied fine arts at Columbia College. He carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures, he uncovers in his conceptual explorations and sculptural dissections, he manipulates elements as a way to allow new interpretations and ideas to emerge. He use clamps, scalpels and tweezers to recontextualize his found objects and reveal hidden meanings. His work has been exhibited and collected throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe. , He is currently represented by Kinz + Tillou Fine Art in New York, Packer Schopf in Chicago, MiTO Gallery in Barcelona, Toomey Tourell in San Francisco and Saltworks in Atlanta. For additional images of current and cataloged work click here. Also check his website, he has great pieces.

» Situationist

Situationist is an iPhone app that attempts to make your everyday life more experimental and unpredictable. Inspired by the Situationist International of the 50′s, who advocated experiences of life being alternative to those admitted by the capitalist order, for the fulfillment of human primitive desires and the pursuing of a superior passional quality, the app takes on the “situation” element of the movement, attempting to create random rendezvous and interactions with strangers to induce the unpredictable. Using the iPhone and it’s geolocation features, the app alerts members to each other’s proximity and gets them to interact in random “situations”. These situations vary from the friendly “Hug me for 5 seconds exactly” or “Compliment me on my haircut”, to the subversive eg “Help me rouse everyone around us into revolutionary fervour and storm the nearest TV station”. Members simply upload their photo and pick the situations they want to happen to them from a shortlist, in the knowledge that they might then occur anywhere, and at any time. If you want to go out to the streets everyday and expect the unexpected, maybe this app can help you. Situationist was created by Ben Carey and Henrik Delehag aka Benrik.

» Butterflies feat. John Malkovich, Gentleman Scholar and Sandro Miller

Sandro Miller directed his friend John Malcovich in this kind nigthmare-ish dark piece. He is an award winning photographer that has been in the business for over 30 years and has numerous big campaigns under his arm. He collaborated with Gentleman Scholar, a collaboration between veteran Executive Producer, Rob Sanborn and Director/Designer Duo, William Campbell and Will Johnson. This is what Gentleman Scholar has to say: "I have this idea in my mind for a painting about butterflies. Blue and green and yellow butterflies, tumbling out of my brain. I think it’s going to be good. I feel like I can almost touch them... like they’re right there for me to grab as they’re flying away... out of my skull and taking all those dark thoughts and little devils with them. Just fluttering away and leaving the good stuff behind. Butterflies. I’m going to get my canvas and my paints. I think I’m all better. I think I’m ready to leave."