Santa Fe Opera illustrations by Stuart McReath
London-based illustrator Stuart McReath was commissioned to create posters for new season of Santa Fe Opera
BIFF
“Biff is a multi-faceted illustrator, designer and creative personality. A limitless imagination and diverse skill-set not only enable him to champion a brief but also stand him in great stead for generating impulsive projects and original ideas. His relaxed yet distinctive and on-point style has won him clients from all over the world, and his ever-expanding use of new tools and media is a testament to his versatility and professionalism. Inspired by every aspect of the world around him. Biff's creations are fresh, current, comedic and instilled with immeasurable character." - Emily Beeson, Young Gold Teeth.
London Fireworks 2019
As a small tradition we share the most beautiful New Year Countdown Firework that’s taking place in London every year. “London is Open” is a new campaign for this multi-cultural melting pot went as a red line during the show last night.
Full recording from BBC Live
Dots and Lines by artist Butler
Butler is a Nigerian born, London based multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on the intentional removal of informational excess through a subtle, minimalistic approach. His work fixates on the significance of clarity in content, while upholding an uncompromising attitude towards achieving figurativism in a minimalistic art form. Butler grasps at the purity of objects in their rawest form, depicting just how possible it is to dissect the physical personality, without eliminating the elementary aspects of allure that many contemporary individuals relate to.
FIRMAVERA
FIRMAVERA is the artistic practice of Natalia Romanova, based in London. Her product design ethos stems from her soviet childhood’s constructivist heritage and her experience as an industrial designer. She is influenced by an appreciative knowledge of engineering and industrial processes as well as the radical honesty of utilitarian and brutalism architecture.
The unpretentious beauty found in these disciplines informs her artistic practice which expands into experimentation through shape and perception. The frequent use of ceramics is a suitable canvas to convey a truthfulness to material while elevating the functional aesthetic into objects that are celebrations of that raw utopian vision.
Exposed overstructures, pattern repetitions and modularity hint at mass-production techniques and a brutalist rejection of ornaments. Ethical and functional intentions incidentally become malleable materials. The objects of FIRMAVERA are therefore playing with the notion of form and function, reconsidering their relationship in order to question the traditional norm of beauty.
firmavera.com
BBC2 Idents by Future Deluxe
Future Deluxe recently worked with BBC Creative and Superunion to design and produce a set of unique idents to help launch BBC2’s first identity update in over 25 years.
The Scroll Sketches by T.S Abe
London-based illustrator T.S Abe shares her latest pencil sketches that she animates smoothly by using no technologies only painstakingly drawing parts of each new frame
Artist Leni Dothan
Leni Dothan: Portland Stone Rehabilitation Centre
This innovative art project by Leni Dothan was prompted by the desire to raise a stronger awareness towards the invisible enemy that is air pollution. Together with the Chemistry department of UCL, Leni created these photographs on 200 Portland stones using London’s air pollution
Texts by Marine Tanguy MTArt Agency
This project is a perfect conceptual and chemical symbiosis between science and art, aiming for awareness and a response to air pollution through public art in between London and Portland Isle. During the b-side biennale, the artist will transform the Verne High Angle Battery into a rehab centre for air polluted sculptures made in London.
These sculptures will be the outcome of an ongoing research based collaboration with Dr. Raul Quesada-Cabrera, expert in photochemistry at UCL, prof. Andrea Sella and Sana Ali. Together, they developed a pollution-reactive material in UCL’s Chemistry lab.
Artist Leni Dothan
Leni Dothan will bring these polluted sculptures to Portland for them to be cleaned while on display at the Verne High Angle Battery for nine days. The audience will witness the colour changes on the sculptures as the artworks react to a healthier context. The sculptures will become a powerful tool for public awareness towards the growing issue that is air pollution, especially in cities.
Marine Tanguy
About Marine Tanguy MTArt Agency
Founded in 2015, MTArt is the first artist agency in the world for the world’s most exciting up and coming visual artists. While the art world concentrates on selling art on walls, the agency focuses on investing and supporting the artists. Every month, the agency reviews 200 portfolios of artists. Its selection committee select artists with innovative techniques, inspiring content and strong visions.
Marine Tanguy at Portland (UK) installation of Lent Dothan
For the artists who sign with the agency, MTArt covers their studio costs, sells their works, implement cultural & commercial partnerships and offers press exposure. This is how the agency accelerates their artistic reputation, visibility and success.
Coralarium - Inter Tidal Museum in the Maldives
UPDATE: Maldives authorities are destroying it now (Sep, 2018)
The Coralarium is a 200-ton tidal building filled with sculptures, creating a partially submerged gallery in the Maldives.
British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor has once again left his mark on the environment with a stunning new installation. Created for the Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi, Coralarium is a semi-submerged art gallery filled with nearly 30 sculptures that will act as a habitat for coral and other marine species (via MyModernMet)
The Sculpture Coralarium is situated in the centre of the largest developed coral lagoon in the Maldives, on the island resort of Fairmont Sirru Fen Fushi. The artwork by Jason deCaires Taylor is a semi-submerged tidal gallery space that exhibits a series of sculptural artworks on the skyline, inter-tidal waterline and seabed. As world's first semi submerged tidal Art Gallery it is cube shaped, six metres tall, with its front façade submerged up to median tide of three metres. The design of the walls is based on natural coral structures and is porous to allow the tides, current and marine life to pass through and the structure to “breathe” within its location
Hype Cycle: Smart Matter by Universal Everything
Leading UK "phygital" art and research studio Universal Everything continues its journey in Machine Learning exploring human-machine collaboration through performance and emerging technologies. The ongoing project Hype Cycle (previously)
These human-machine interactions from Universal Everything are inspired by the Hype Cycle trend graphs produced by Gartner Research, a valiant attempt to predict future expectations and disillusionments as new technologies come to market.
Creative Director: Matt Pyke
Animation: Joe Street
Sound Designer: Simon Pyke (Freefarm)
Senior Producer: Greg Povey
Motion Capture: Nick Dulake, Ursula Ankeny (Sheffield Hallam University)
Dancer: Tamar Draper
Choreographer: TC Howard
Meet Digital Decade x FutureFest Shortlist and Winners
Designcollector and FutureFest (by Nesta, London) present “Future Selves”, a special edition of the annual “phygital” art collaboration where Digital Decade was looking for Ello Artists to submit artworks (1 - 18 June) and imagine how we may reinvent and edit our identities in the future. The call was reflecting on one of the main programming areas of this year’s FutureFest, ‘Alternative You’. The best 3 artworks selected by 20 members of prominent Jury Panel will be part of a pop-up exhibition at the festival alongside other artworks (from Digital Decade Cyberia 2017) curated by Designcollector Network. The popup exhibition of 12 Artworks take place on 6-7th July at London’s Tobacco Dock and will look at the future of our ever evolving identities at the intersection of real and digital worlds.
SHORTLIST
Winners of Ello Artist Invite
Selected Artists
Future Selves is a pop up exhibition curated by Designcollector Network in partnership with Ello. It’s a special edition of the annual “phygital” art collaboration, Digital Decade which showcases the work of a new generation of visual artists. For this occasion we selected 9 artists from Digital Decade Cyberia 2017, to join the 3 winners of Ello Artists Invite
Popup Exhibition at FutureFest 18
6 - 7 July, London
Tobacco Dock, Wapping Lane, London E1W 2SF
East Mall Passage
Buy Tickets to FutureFest, London
About Digital Decade
Digital Decade is an annual recurring collaboration and exhibition run by Designcollector Network and partners devoted to emerging artists around the world it provides a platform for a new generation of artists who are shaping the current discourse of contemporary art and visual culture. Digital Decade was launched in 2013 at OFFF Festival in Barcelona and has returned there for the following two years. Since then Digital Decade has appeared as a standalone exhibition in London featuring 50 artists at Ugly Duck, Bermondsey in 2017.
Jack Torrance Trip by The Kissinger Twins
A story for the Edward Snowdens and Daniel Ellsbergs in all of us
The moon landing is one of the greatest milestones in human history. hat if the moon landing wasn’t real? eet Jack Torrance, the man who made it all happen. The Trip is an Instagram interactive storytelling experience that tells his story. Follow his adventure to the dark side of politics and manipulation and learn how surveillance technologies have changed since 1969. The story blends original NASA footage and unclassified FBI documents in an immersive experience. Truth? Lies?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The Trip is written and directed by The Kissinger Twins, award-winning director duo, and was inspired by a real-life event. During their holiday on American Samoa, the Kissinger Twins met Jack Torrance, a singular 80-year-old, who claimed that he was the mastermind behind NASA’s moon landing. "Jack finds mobile technology and social media as a threat to privacy, so telling his story via Instagram became a subversive choice. He was initially reluctant, but soon understood that we needed to use the most relevant tools of modern storytelling to amplify his message.”
www.kissingertwins.com
Sebastian Pons Photography
Sébastien has been in the advertising and photography for 15 years, having worked as a photographer, graphic designer and film director.
sebastienpons.com
In 2006, Sébastien moved to London to build his photographic portfolio working for Estée Lauder, the British Fashion Council, Apple UK, Vivienne Westwood and Lancôme. In 2015 Sébastien aside his advertising work has started developping fine art projects exploring effects of paint and deconstruction on his fashion photographs.
Recently he participated in the only documentary of McQueen legacy directed by Peter Ettedgui and Ian Bonhote
The film was presented in London last week and here is a conversation after the premier at the V&A lead by film executive producer and visionary Kinvara Balfour
Digital Installations by Peter Tarka
London-based CG artist Peter Tarka shares his personal visual artworks done in between of heavy commercial projects. In his works he explores the interaction between real and surreal, physical and digital. We'd like to see his work in real made with the help of 3D printers to feel in the full the "phygital" nature of his experiments
Hattie Stewart's doodlebombing
Hattie Stewart is an Artist and Illustrator based in London, UK. Although she is best known for 'doodlebombing' over influential Magazines, her tongue-in-cheek artwork moves fluidly between many creative fields including Fashion, Music and Contemporary Art.
She is about to open an exhibition of new immersive works for NOW Gallery in London’s Greenwich Peninsula this month.
Hattie’s I Don’t Have Time For This exhibition is the gallery’s first collaboration with a young artist as part of its new programme, which aims to work with rising artists “who have an unusual approach and standout visual aesthetic”.
Commissioned by the gallery’s cultural curator Kaia Charles, the free exhibition from May 16 to June 25 will feature large scale floor-based artwork that invites participation with Hattie’s legendary doodle bomb illustrations, references to psychedelic art from the 60s and post-modern classics like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, offering the viewer a clean break from reality.
Contemporary Design Conjures the Russian Avant-Garde: Elit Proun Bar
"Inspired by El Lissitzky, a key figure of the Russian avant-gardemovement in the early 20th century, ELIT PROUN BAR is the result of a creative collaboration between London-based architectural practice Carmody Groarke and Wallpaper* Handmade. Part art, part architecture, it was developed under the auspices of elit® Vodka, a platinum, award-winning premium vodka, and unveiled at Wallpaper* Handmade’s “Wellness & Wonder” exhibition during Milan Design Week 2018, taking centre stage in the Mediateca Santa Teresa, an 18th century baroque church turned into digital library."
Hype Cycle: Machine Learning by Universal Everything
Hype Cycle is a series of futurist films exploring human-machine collaboration through performance and emerging technologies.
Machine Learning is the second set of films in the Hype Cycle series. It builds on the studio’s past experiments with motion studies, and asks: when will machines achieve human agility?
Set in a spacious, well-worn dance studio, a dancer teaches a series of robots how to move. As the robots’ abilities develop from shaky mimicry to composed mastery, a physical dialogue emerges between man and machine – mimicking, balancing, challenging, competing, outmanoeuvring.
Can the robot keep up with the dancer? At what point does the robot outperform the dancer? Would a robot ever perform just for pleasure? Does giving a machine a name give it a soul?
These human-machine interactions from Universal Everything are inspired by the Hype Cycle trend graphs produced by Gartner Research, a valiant attempt to predict future expectations and disillusionments as new technologies come to market.
Creative Director: Matt Pyke
Animation: Joe Street
Sound Designer: Simon Pyke (Freefarm)
Senior Producer: Greg Povey
Motion Capture: Audio Motion
Dancer /Choreographer: Dwayne-Antony Simms
Paintings by Esther Brown
Esther Brown is a British/South African artist and designer born and raised in Japan, currently settled and working in the UK. She completed a BA HONS in Fine Art in 2014, worked as a print designer and has won an award for her drawings.
Gleaning elements from her multicultural background, Esther’s work is based around the concepts of symmetry, beauty and Utopia. Brightly coloured birds sit on a background of patterns and golden halos, and animals are surrounded by a wreath of voluptuous flowers and butterflies. Her pieces often reflect the conflict between animals in decorative spaces and the desire for all nature to be wild and free. Both the small fragile creatures and those creatures considered more powerful are depicted and upheld in an other-worldly utopian environment, where their beauty and uniqueness is to be celebrated.
Gumshoe - shoes made of chewing gum
While some populists use "There is no Planet B" phrase without real input, guys from Amsterdam went further to prove the actual meaning behind that saying as "Start it from yourself". As we tried to think of "..Planet B" from visual perspective during our Digital Decade 4, in 2016, nearly in the same time GUM-TEC created the backward process to extract actual rubber from chewing gum (yes, it is no more an eco-tree rubber). Later on they were baked by Amsterdam official "I AmSterdam" municipal group and asked designers from EXPLICIT to come back with a pair of recycled sneakers "Gumshoe". Real shoes are ready for pre-order now
Gum Drop Bin was an actual diploma of Gumshoe designer Anna Bullus at Brighton Uni, UK
SOUP – Refused © Mandy Barker. Ingredients; plastic oceanic debris affected by chewing and attempted ingestion by animals. Includes a toothpaste tube. Additives; teeth from goats.
A(rt)wful plastic debris photographed by Mandy Barker
"Photographer Mandy Barker creates deceptively eye-catching images to document the pandemic of plastic debris in the world’s waterways. Barker, who is based in Leeds, UK, works closely with scientists to collect trash from our oceans and beaches on the edges of nearly every continent. One research expedition covered the debris field (stretching to Hawaii) that resulted from Japan’s 2011 tsunami and earthquake; she has also explored the Inner Hebrides in Scotland with Greenpeace." (see also Trash Isles)
