Do you like art? Music? Maybe both? Check out this gorgeous clip from ArenaNet’s talented artists and excerpts from Jeremy Soule’s score from the game.
HD is definitely a must for this one.
blog 
gallery about rss archive| Sunday | August 8th | 2010 |
Do you like art? Music? Maybe both? Check out this gorgeous clip from ArenaNet’s talented artists and excerpts from Jeremy Soule’s score from the game.
HD is definitely a must for this one.
| Wednesday | July 21st | 2010 |
“The Moon Asked the Crow” by CocoRosie, Grey Oceans. 2010
Plinky plonk music box chords begin this strange dive into the subterranean weirdness of the music of sisters CocoRosie. This song, off their 2010 offering Grey Oceans, sees their unearthy Donald-Ducky voices carried by a funky baroque tune that lends a gravity to this otherwise weightless song.
Less a fan of their singing style and lyrics, I was literally stopped in my tracks when this song first played across my headphones, its outright oddness soon subsumed by the diverting build of its disparate instruments.
Is it weird for the sake of being weird? Possibly. Is it pretentiously arty for the sake of being pretentiously arty? Probably. Still, it isn’t every day you hear something entirely, utterly new. And some days, that’s enough for me.
| Wednesday | July 14th | 2010 |
io9 contributor Lauren Davis writes a lovely review of Evan Dahm’s Order of Tales, which wrapped up its 700+ page story last week. Next up for Dahm? Another Overside tale (in color!) titled “Vattu.” Stay tuned.
| Sunday | July 11th | 2010 |
Definitely took me an eye-boggling moment to figure out if it was nature built into a house or a house built around nature.
Nature stairs?
| Tuesday | July 6th | 2010 |
EVAN DAHM drew Janelle Monae! So cute.
| Wednesday | June 16th | 2010 |
via www.rice-boy.com
This sumptuous image is a teaser for Evan Dahm’s next huge comic project. Order of Tales will finish very soon this summer, and it looks like Dahm will be humming along straight to his next epic tale. Can’t WAIT.
| Tuesday | May 25th | 2010 |
Dutch Artists Bring the Rainbow to Rio Slums
“After an assignment filming a hip-hop documentary in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro,Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn (better known as Haas&Hahn) decided to add their own flair to the neighborhood and help the community at the same time. There is rarely anything sexy about charity work, but Haas&Haan have succeeded in “bringing art to unexpected places” and creating some hope in an otherwise drab atmosphere. And you thought no good could ever possibly come out of an MTV hip-hop documentary.” —Flavorwire
How exactly does painting a wretched slum in rainbow colors help the community?
“Hey, extremely famous and wealthy archi-artists, thanks for traipsing through our poor favela with your expensive cameras and cool-hunting producers! We’re so thankful that you’ve decided to splash eye-searing colors all over our houses in an attempt to cover over the desperate, grinding poverty in our area, and then use it as a publicity stunt to claim you’ve helped our community! We’re certainly glad you didn’t use your influence and monetary backing to open a community center, a drug rehab facility or an after-school program to steer youth from street gangs. Rainbows for all!”
| Thursday | May 20th | 2010 |
Girl with Glasses -- Roman Muradov
Oil Rig -- Vasili Zorin
Photo -- Anna Cattish
The Roma -- Anna Cattish
R Team - Vasili Zorin
I was gleeful to stumble upon this excellent online artist collective, evocatively intitled HonkFu. Six contributors post comics, in-progress commissions, doodles and pet projects at random, with little commentary but a lot of spunk. Some of the contributors adhere closely to anime tropes, while others are of a more graphic novel calibre and style. Need a new desktop wallpaper? They’ll have the perfect thing for you to snatch.
| Saturday | May 15th | 2010 |
Titanium Sporkestra crashed one of Seattle’s neighborhood art walks this week, marching their gypsy-steampunk-wigwearing percussivphonics in and out of galleries, cafes, bars and basements. (They stayed for hours in the bar. Hmm.) Their site claims they can be hired to play at any event, from birthday parties to bat mitzvahs to brises. However, since we keep stumbling upon them playing uninvited and unpaid in empty parking lots and jamming in parades, we think we’ll just crack a few beers on our balcony and assume they’ll make their way to us eventually.
Janelle Monae’s first album—Metropolis: The Chase—debuted in 2008 with a stupendous sci-fi android-fugitive love-story concept. Monae’s voice was a more powerful version of Gwen Stefani’s, the music was a crazy mish mash of retro seventies, energetic pop, sensuous balladry and high-brow orchestral (sci-fi effects thrown in for fun), and the plot was pure space operatics. With just an album’s-worth of songs Monae described an entire futuristic society built on the backs of enslaved androids who yearn for equality, justice and the chance to love whom they will—including humans. A winner all around, and an important introduction for an ambitious musician.
When the official video dropped for single “Many Moons” (above) it represented a second revelation. Set at a high-stakes android auction where dubious and powerful players vie for the best droid to come down the line, the video combined slick special effects, fabulous costumes and a caliber of dance not seen since, well, since MJ himself. The dizzyingly high production values and completeness of its vision make it play as if plucked from a longer, larger film: it stands on its own, but could easily be the dazzling centerpiece of an entire movie. One element I particularly adore about the setting is how it screams “the future” without having to rely on sci-fi tropes. No eighties neon, no sixties bodysuits, no aliens: just smart, sexy technology, and a cast of unique characters ready to fly off the screen. (Those elegant, prepossessed characters? All created by Monae. That guy in the sunglasses? ‘The Haitian’ from Heroes. Monae’s charismatic and confident performance? Her very first music video.)
The video cemented Monae’s debut as its own moment in music time, as well as setting the stage for the next movements in her futuristic Suite. And, happily, the second album—The ArchAndroid—will be released this very week. Keep fingers crossed for another incredible video to accompany the music of this totally groundbreaking artist!
| Thursday | May 13th | 2010 |
How long has it been since we’ve talked webcomics here? Couple of weeks, now? Too long!
Let’s talk The Meek, by ambitious web comicist Der-shing Helmer. Helmer is not only a trained biologist, a tutor, a student and a self-taught artist, but is also undertaking the daunting task of mounting a fully colored graphic novel online with a tightly set schedule. Also, he’s all of 24 years old.
How is that graphic novel? Aside from being sumptuously colored, emotively written and cleverly plotted, it’s also damned compelling. The Meek follows a young woman raised in the wilds who has been sent to the world of powerful men and vast kingdoms to save her world.
Granted, that’s a little vague as far as synopses go, but thus far we’re only two chapters into the story. Still, those two chapters are uniquely intriguing and gorgeously wrought, and have certainly hooked a sizable—and vocal—fanbase in just a few months. For the impatient, Helmer has posted the Meekipedia, which is (you guessed it) a searchable encyclopedia of characters, terms and events in his fantasy world. Helmer has clearly spent an inordinate amount of time building this world and plotting the tempestuous events that will unfold deeper into The Meek, and his care should be applauded.
With so much on his plate, Helmer occasionally misses updates or posts pages late—and quite understandably so. Knowing that the comic updates rather slowly is useful: it’s a good strategy to wait a few weeks and months and read the story a few pages at a time, rather than piecemeal. Things are ramping up and getting quite exciting, so head over and see what The Meek is all about!
| Tuesday | April 27th | 2010 |
Catherine Grisez has a new show opening at Seattle’s Traver Gallery, and it’s a doozy. Her previous work has focused on themes such as meticulously constructed music boxes which crack open to sing tinny tunes pinged by little golden mallets, and complicated faberge eggs which leak and pool delicate threads of gems and chain.
Her newest show, Lick, highlights wearable ‘jewelry’ crafted to resemble gaping, seeping wounds. Modeled by friends, fellow artists and even the gallery owner himself, beautiful strands of pearls and gems leak out of slits, crevices and punctures in a distinctly organic way. These wounds repel and surprise, then invite a closer look to the intricate threading and beading which mimics the processes of our far slimier, messier bodies.
Lovely paintings by young Japanese artist kmr. The ones that work best for me are those that seem like single cells chopped out of a reel from some lost anime. Evocative, sometimes haunting or fantastical, they seem destined to end up as covers to books or as poster art.
| Wednesday | February 10th | 2010 |
Do the names Ananth Panagariya and Yuko Ota mean anything to you? They should, if you’ve ever perused the techy happenings of Applegeeks or read the wonderful and varied vignettes presented on Johnny Wander. But everyone—the uninitiated included—should head immediately to Dark Horse Presents, where the comicking duo has just posted a short comic that is by turns mysterious, wry and creepifyingly excellent. (Click the fourth story on the menu, because, surprise!, their handy “link directly to this story!” link doesn’t work. Dark Horse, you fail in some many ways.)
Their combined sense of humor tends to combine the very cutesy with the very morbid, to often hilarious effect. This piece is a bit darker than their usual fare, but ends with a signature twist. Yuko’s artwork seems to have jumped light-years ahead in the past year or so—especially on the stellar “Delilah and the Basilisk” and “Girl with the Skeleton Hand” shorts on Johnny Wander—but this is another level entirely. Do yourself a favor and check out “Callie Eats Feathers” on DHP, since these two are definitely going places!
And, confidential to Dark Horse/MySpace Presents: why on earth would you set your pages to automatically scroll to the bottom when they load? Do you—the self-styled harbingers of new webcomic talent—not understand that the punchline of a comic happens in the last panel? On the bottom of the page? That place where my browser is forced to go when the page loads, thereby previewing the final panel of every new page before I can read the top of it?!
| Wednesday | February 3rd | 2010 |
You might believe it if I told you this was a photograph of a real place. You’d probably believe that this was a heavily edited photograph of a real place. You’d readily believe this was a painting—digital or tangible.
But, it’s none of the above. It’s just faux fur, cotton, tile grout and a lighting gel. And it’s no more than a few inches high.
Want to see how it’s done? Check out the tiny worlds of Matthew Albanese and see how he makes glowing volcanoes, twisting cyclones and alpine lakes in his backyard or on the edge of a table.
Leif writes words, music, code and bug reports; somehow he's still sane.
Nickherder is a science and engineering kind of guy, but we forgive him for it.
SaRRa is using her fancy university degree to blog.
Legal Drug makes the coffee, eats the food and drinks the booze.
Layout & design by Leif Chappelle.
Logo by Sam Lewontin.
Unless otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by the authors of Cloudherder under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
Posted by Leif on Sun Aug 8th at 1:12PM
Posted by various vapor, assembled. on Wed Jul 21st at 11:24AM
