The Tiger Woods Incident

I've been pretty fascinated by the recent Tiger Woods incident. It's a news story with as much intrigue as the best fiction. I'm curious what all of you think really happened. Can you fill in some of the blanks?

Here's the beginning of the nydailynews article, which is one of many....

By Saturday morning, nothing much had changed in the Tiger Woods story, which means that we were still supposed to believe that his wife, Elin Nordegren, somehow turned one of Tiger's Nike SQ drivers into the Jaws of Life.

Woods was driving a Cadillac Escalade out of his own driveway, which is the same as driving a tank. He wasn't going fast enough to deploy his air bags. But we're supposed to believe that in a rescue worthy of the new series, "Trauma," his wife had to bust a back window to pull her husband to safety after he ran over a fire hydrant and into a tree.

Not even the people who reported that can possibly believe a version like that. Neither can the Windermere, Fla. police. And neither can all the people Woods employs to insulate him and protect him and cover his assets, the people who made him unavailable to the police for the second straight day Saturday....

Spike n' Kanye--see for yourself...

A Spin On Bohemian Rhapsody

My cousins were telling me about this YouTube video tonight while at dinner. It is the muppets doing a rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. An interesting creation....see what you think.

Beck vs. Palin or Beck/Palin or Palin/Beck or whattt

This is a funny article. Apparently Glenn Beck said some sexist things (surprise...) after Sarah Palin mentioned running with him as her VP would be a "hoot".

Strange to see two of these "populist" figures of America's right-wing media and political power potentially at each others' throats...

From Rap to Romance

As we all know, Lil John has had some great chart-topping hits in the past couple years and has been making music for close to ten years. However, as Lil John gets older and more wiser, he has adapted his business ventures to better match his tastes. For this, America's favorite rapper has turned a more romantic cheek to Lil Jonathan's Winery. There's not a lot to the site, but I thought it was interesting how he has felt the need to broaden his horizons and how he did so. Most artists that attempt to add to their repertoire do so in acting or creating a fragrance, but not Lil John. Maybe it speaks to his creativity, or maybe it speaks to his greater desire to exploit the American people for more of their money. What do you think?

The Burqa - A sign of cultural recognition of oppression of women?

I found this clip the other day as I was catching up on world news, and found this really interesting. I thought about what the makers of Barbie meant when they created the Burqa Barbie, and then I thought about the way it is portrayed to different cultures around the world.

What do you think the intentions were with the Burqa Barbie?

twiminals

Here's an interesting article I found on www.gawker.com about criminals who tweet from prison. Wish we had known about this one for our twitter read!

Also, this might be old news, but here's the first tweet from space.

Mini skirt starts riot, leads to expulsion

Maybe some of you saw this in the news recently, a Brazilian girl started a riot at her school and was later expelled for wearing a mini skirt.
here's a link to an article
check it out here

And here's a video of it, unfortunately it's in Portuguese, but you can clearly hear people yelling "Puta" which means slut/ whore/ bitch




Why did this happen? This really changed how I imagined Brazil, before they were so sexualized-- I mean, "Brazilian waxing", Brazilian thong bathing suits.... Can this riot and those things co-exist?

Banana Man

I was looking at an older site I used to frequent and found this awesome video. It is so well done, and as simple as the lyrics, it's pretty catchy too. Hope you enjoy

Person Swap

Here is a video by Derren Brown that explores the idea of how observant people are. It kind of ties into the conversation 180 was discussing yesterday about being an island and how to create art, you need to step outside of yourself. The participants are not artists, but it's interesting to see how absorbed in their own lives they are that they take no notice when the person they're talking to completely switches. Embedding is disabled by request

What It Feels Like to Kill Someone

I am laid over in JFK for nine hours, so surfing the net is my saving grace at the moment. Loving the blog posts recently, but here's something a little heavier. I'm sure you've heard about this murder of a 9-year-old girl by a 15-year-old girl...what interests me is her motive. Apparently, she wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. There are a lot of teen girls this age who get into "emo" and self-expression/individuality through such styles and alternative trends.

But for some reason this case goes beyond a simple emo teenaged girl who cuts herself. How unbelievable the departure is from a few shallow cries for attention on a wrist to a 9-year-old with a slashed throat. Hard to get my mind around it.

Gawker's article, with pictures.

German fake washroom mirror prank

My friend showed me this video, and it is hysterical! A pair of twins mirror their actions in a bathroom, so that when people come in... it looks like there is a mirror... The only problem is they can't see there own reflection. Take a look. I think the music is particularly amusing with this video too.

Youtube is Dying

So another video by our favorite mayne Mr. Chi City. If you feel that you're tired of this guy take notice that this video is four days old. It has earned over 285,000 hits so far. And to further entice you this post takes the charm and personality of "Mr. Chi City" and uses it to tackle some more interesting issues like the relation between youtube and google as a corporate entity and more importantly the types of control that youtube has on its posted videos.

Mr. Chi City Kills a Bug

So, I have to admit, Matt B. got me into watching some Mr. Chi City (who I'd never run across before) with his post of a few days ago.
Larger than life personalities have a certain charm, whether it be comic or otherwise. The melodrama of him killing this bug is pretty entertaining. I didn't think he was gonna do it.

cool song, cool vid

I dig this song, I like the imagery of this video. Check it out,

Mr. Chi City

Just thought this was hilarious.

I Want A Goat

This video is spoofing the song "I'm On A Boat", for charity by making it "I Want A Goat". Personally I feel like this song really doesn't fit and it makes almost light-heart of this serious issue. I did not feel like was effective at all. See what you think.

sexual selection: which mates are prefered?

I was reminded of this video by the Windowlicker post where two men are trying to pickup the two women. Just like the male spider in this video, at first they are calm, but ultimately one gets very aggressive. Also, the female spider here is fake!

Matt Bangcaya's C.A.S.A. dance crew

Check out 280's own Matt Bangcaya tearing it up at cakes for C.A.S.A. last week.
Matt, you should have let us know about these skills earlier! They're useful!
Hope this link to facebook works for everyone.

Seventh title for Manny Pacquiao

This is really more of a visual culture moment for myself and the the people of the Philippines as of Nov. 14th, 2009, Pacquiao is now the WBO welterweight champ of the world. But moving beyond the monumental ass kicking of Miguel Cotto I would like to compare the likes of Pacquiao to that of an endurance artist like that of Chris Burden or David Blaine. With the actual sport aside, physical pain inflicted upon others is something that attracts humans. Watching 12 rounds of this fight is brutal. That means over 36 minutes of two people bashing each other's faces, not in disgust of the immediate crowd but of mass camaraderie for their respective boxer. Although something like Endurance art is meant to be an expression of "artistic expression through acts of physical pain, trauma, survival or deprivation" (wikipedia) as you can tell from one of the attached videos that many people find meaning in this fight even if that meaning is relatively shallow. So watch the highlights and check out the audience reactions taped from a Filipino perspective.

It's So Cold In The D

There's not a lot of artistic value to this video, but the more I think about "It's So Cold In The D" I can't help but think about how smart it is. In my politics course we are talking about globalization and the use of technology in order to get your voice heard and have people understand your cause; the use of technology as a vessel of knowledge. In terms of this video, I think it is very clear that the use of technology is implored in order for other people to understand Detroit's condition and how it's affecting the people who live there.

Sometimes I wonder if this movie is really this horrible and if it could have been helped. But if it could have been made better, it wouldn't fit their message of the fact that Detroit, and effectively the state of Michigan, is falling apart.

Lady Gaga...Mathew Barney...Chris Cunningham

Sidney and Sydney recently posted the latest Lady Gaga video. It's definitely a visually attractive montage, and a high energy song per usual gaga. But other than its potent eye candy feel and catchy sound, I'm not sure it goes much further than a variety of luscious cliches, upgraded by all the latest glitzing tech (which are real nice! I admit, and an art in and of itself). It's pretty digestable and I suspect that people find just the right tolerable amount of edge in her. She seems to be at peak popularity these days. I'd like to hear more in depth critique of this video--and just generally about her persona as a a pop star - from some of you, actually. There are some interesting precedents to her imagery, also, in particular the figures/styles of many of the characters in Matthew Barney's Cremaster films. Here's a little sample of that.



and also, I think you get that same fantastical, beautiful, and sometimes disgusting feel in Chris Cunningham's work, like for example this now classic video for Aphex Twin's Windowlicker. Highly entertaining (IMO)....watch all the way through to see the imagery which I'm talking about.
BTW, 280, "This is The Flow" contains an essay about Chris Cunningham and in particular discusses this video. I think it will interest you even more after you watch this.

Ray Tintori's "Death to the Tinman"

Ray Tintori started making films DIY style and then made the interactive video "Electric Feel" with the popular band MGMT (who he was friends with). After this his work caught the eye of Spike Jonze and with his endorsement started doing larger budget projects. "Death To The Tin Man" is one of his earlier films. It was featured in the Wholphin series and also won an award for short films at Sundance some years ago. It is on youtube in 2 parts (watch them both to get the full of effect of this work!). It does some pretty interesting things with convention. Very cool music used throughout here too. Enjoy.

Bad Romance

So I am one of the biggest Lady Gaga fans out there. After seeing her live in Madrid, I was totally in love with her weird, bizarre yet creative flair. Her new video is example of this weirdness and I believe that her gestures, actions, music and even her clothes, fashion and video ideas are just fantastic... check it out

Ted.com: Sociologist Stefana Broadbent on How the Internet enables intimacy

Ethics of Vid Games

Can video game designers go too far?

Larrie Vs. Carrie

Who wins?

New Lady Gaga

You never know what she's gonna do... Here's the new video. Pretty cool.

Baby-Sitter's Club Blog

So I came across this blog, Claudia's Room, over the summer and proceeded to read the entire thing over three very boring days at my internship.

If you were a BSC fan, or even read one book, this blog is worth a look. It's quite hilarious.

Douchebagery

Here is a video that relates to 280's most recent project. We read a live streaming feed of twitter posts based on any word that we searched for. Our favorite was Douchebag.

It seems they are tired of being put in a bad light.

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Celebrating 40 Years of Sesame Street

Jim Henson was a creative genius. He helped create this educational children's tv series, that combined both education and entertainment by making the very well known "muppet" characters. My personal favorite was Ernie singing about his rubber duckie in the bathtub. So you can watch this video and relive your childhood memories of those days spent watching Sesame Street.

Thinking of You

This video is from the same person as the last one. I think the story is pretty entertaining even though there is no dialogue and the music fits very nicely.

Also, here is another really funny one with Sam Alden and Caitlin Tortorici from the T-Sports (Varsity Nordic). I didn't post it directly because it's 10 min long.

Watching You

Someone is watching your every move... 

Synesthesia

This video reminded me a bit of what Tessa was trying to do in the last assignment. I think this video is beautiful and does a great job blurring what we usually consider to be fairly defined senses.

I love ART!!!!

Here it is!!!

U.S. Cellular AD Campaign

I love U.S. Cellular's new ad campaign. They are very arty creations that are very well edited. They also seem to present a more social form of art. This attached clip is a really neat gesture. Tonight I saw another one of their commercials that I thought was absolutely the coolest thing I have ever seen but it is not on youtube yet, but when it is Ill post it. I hope you enjoy this cheerful ad...

Public Toilets

I found this clip of the greatest public restrooms today. It reminded me of Sidney's post of the really cool playgrounds and instilled in me the sense I got when I watched the piano stairs video. Bathrooms are so common-everyday use structures. Public bathrooms are usually dirty, stinky and unpleasant. But they dont have to be. Take a look here and some of the really awesome and artistic structures you could be peeing in next.

Can Vegetarianism Stop Global Warming?

I read this article in The New York Times and found it fascinating.  Humanity seems to be oblivious to eating habits in terms of Global Warming.  The first sentence really got me: "IS eating a hamburger the global warming equivalent of driving a Hummer?"  Check it out!  

Camille Utterback / Interactive Installations

We've been talking a lot in class about the essential role of the audience. This artist creates interactive digital paintings that change to reflect the physical presence of people in the room:


Some thoughts:

• The piece is entertaining and appealing for the same reasons the subway piano stairs are: it's fun to play with.
  
• There's a sculptural aspect to the gestures participants make while interacting with the projection. It's also interesting to think of the room and people inside as one form with negative and positive space.
  
• If the space and bodies in the room are considered part of the work, the piece becomes a system. The shapes on the wall respond to the human movements, which then affect the humans, etc.
  
• What if a future version could sense the moods of the humans in the room? This would make the feedback effect extremely powerful. The projected images are traditionally beautiful: their colors, size, light, and lines have the capacity to make viewers feel a certain way. What if the emotive qualities of the piece changed to either amplify or switch the feelings of the people in the room?
  

Advertising

I watched this advertisement in my History of Social Theory class today and thought it might be relevant to the Levi's Go Forth discussion.

This ad is for a microchip that is inserted under your skin and keeps track of all your health records so that they may be accessed in emergencies. The advertisement really plays into a lot of emotions-- fear, health, safety, family, etc. (Sidenote: there's a shoutout to Wilfred Brimley in there too!) While the product is I believe inherently creepy and violating, the frame in which the advertisers use to promote the product is fascinating. You don't even learn what the product is at the end of the advertisement. This ad is creating is as I see it a new disturbing status quo.

Also, I'm not super blog saavy-- can anyone fill me in on what 'IMO' means?

Owl City- Fireflies

This is a really awesome video!! It is so fantastical. I always thought my toys came to life!!!

Harry Smith

The art history department has brought Rani Singh to campus this week to present the very avant-garde, experimental films of Harry Smith. She spoke to my senior sem class this afternoon about her work as an archivist at the Getty Institute. She seems like a really fascinating person and Smith seems even cooler. There is a screening of Smith's films tonight at 7 in Olin and another screening of Singh's documentary tomorrow at 7:30 in Maxey. Should be pretty awesome of you have the time to check it out.

Levi's Go Forth!

Let me start this post by saying I love commercials. I especially love commercials that are completely ambiguous until the very end. The new "Go Forth" campaign by Levi Jeans is attempting to bring back the American jean company to a more homely, down-to-earth visual aesthetic. I think we've all seen this ad but tell me what you think.