Cinemagraph by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg - http://cinemagraphs.com

I found an absolutely stunning bit of photography and animation on the web today. I went to google and searched for “sophisticated GIF” and found some work that blew me away. Each shot is like a time capsule, a magical micro-moment – and they’re [...]]]>  

Cinemagraph by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg - http://cinemagraphs.com

I found an absolutely stunning bit of photography and animation on the web today. I went to google and searched for “sophisticated GIF” and found some work that blew me away. Each shot is like a time capsule, a magical micro-moment – and they’re animated GIFS!

There’s a good chance you associate the concept of an animated GIF with something like a garish early nineties website along the lines of a Geocities homepage. Remember Borat? His original tongue in cheek website is no longer online but has been preserved by the good folks at the Internet Archive, and you should read my post on his insane animated GIF strewn website here: http://iam.strongandfree.ca/blog/the-internet-is-forever-wayback-machine-retrieves-borat

Above you’ll see an example of this amazing visual art. It’s like a throwback to the original days of cinema, when even the most primitive frames could spark delight and capture the imagination. Mind you, the duo of Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg are operating in modern NYC and their spin on the “cinemagraph” is very sophisticated in its execution. I going to encourage you to check out two websites for dozens of examples of the incredible imagery, before I ask you to analyze the image at the top of this post (you’ll see some teensy tiny flaws in the crosswalk area at right).

So be sure to spend a few minutes at the main page, and the blog by Jamie Beck (each site has different content)

Cinemagraph site: http://cinemagraphs.com/

Blog by Jamie: http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph

I don’t really frequent art openings and [...]]]> Two art show / exhibitions open this Friday that explore the geography of Ontario, one focusing on the man-made spit at the foot of Leslie St. in Toronto, and the other on the remote wilds of northern Ontario, north of Thunder Bay by and reached via Highway 11.

I don’t really frequent art openings and I’m a marginal participant, but in the last year I attended Contact Photography Festival, the Gladstone on an occasion or two, and a handful of cool shows involving friends (including the amazing YYZ shopping mall at 401 Richmond that my friend Ulysses participated in). I was really stoked to get emails from two gallery spaces early this week. This weekend two shows open which document explorations of urban/wilderness spaces and concepts at the geographic extremes of Toronto and northern Ontario (easily 24 hours driving north of the megacity).

The first email came from Ranko Pavic, who operates Gallery Out / Aut on St. Clair Ave West. I first met him about two years ago. He was preparing an exhibit with punky/graffiti-inspired manipulations of found materials, and I got stoked on his originality and bright quirky works. He hosts a number of other artists at the gallery throughout the year. On Friday the photography exhibition “As Far North in Ontario as the Road Goes,” by Noah Cole, opens for a one month run.

The second email I received was from Laura and John, who operate the innovative Labspace Studio at 2a Pape Ave. in the city’s east-end. Two years ago I did a DJ-Live performance there as Mikooshka, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere and eclectic acts and art. John and Laura strive to present interesting evenings of music and performance, with a backdrop of funky edgy art, and it looks like they are going to be stretching novel concepts to the limit with their new and future projects. I think the description below should pique your interest (and be sure to keep your eye out for a future “Toronto explorations through art” event called “Rumblings from the Rouge”). Labspace’s event is just over the weekend so you have a brief window to catch it! (Performances Friday night and exhibit Saturday.)

Here are descriptions and links for the shows and artists:

As Far North in Ontario as the Road Goes

“Inspired by stories of northern travels; bears, beautiful lakes, remote hiking trails, historic canoe routes, logging roads, and the potential promise of seeing caribou, I headed on a journey along Highway 11, past Kapuskasing, and Thunder Bay, as far north as the road travels in Ontario. I drove to a remote community, and drove 300 kilometers north of it, where there are no cell phone towers, or gas stations – at the end of the road there is only wilderness, and the result of the impact people have made on the lands. I had the chance to see big rivers, blue sky, expansive lakes, pickerel, remote villages, mountains, ancient forests, and the stars in the northern sky. Along my journeys I enjoyed blueberries, fresh fish, and along the many miles of open road and wilderness, I enjoyed my own company, as well as the company of loons, a fox, and the campfire. On my journey, I hiked along many ancient trails, and I stood on the shores of lakes where voyageurs, and ancient first nations people stood, enjoying the landscape that brings peace of mind in an otherwise busy world.”

Noah Cole

A Night with Leslie
Adventure 2 – led by Laura Mendes and John Loerchner

Nine adventurers set out on a two-day expedition to explore and research the strange and beguiling landscape of the Leslie St. Spit; a 5km man-made peninsula, wildlife sanctuary and active construction dumpsite.

Join them as they present their research and “Spit”
inspired works: Performance, Dance, Sound, Installation & Found Sculpture.”

Labspace Studio

Links:

Noah Cole

greenravenphotography.com

Labspace Studio

labspacestudio.com

This year’s theme is “Pervasive Influence: Exploring the social and political consequences of the medium of [...]]]> The annual Contact Photography Festival is taking place through the month of May. Unlike the other famous Toronto festivals, including HotDocs and TIFF, this one is completely free – so there are no excuses – check some stuff out!

This year’s theme is “Pervasive Influence: Exploring the social and political consequences of the medium of photography, in a world devoted to the image.”

The following is from the Contact website:

“…In this era of instant information the image is stimulating unprecedented change in the way we communicate… In 1964 Marshall McLuhan wrote of the photograph as “the brothel without walls”. He described photographs as “dreams that money can buy” which could be “hugged and thumbed more easily than public prostitutes.” If we consider his metaphor within today’s global culture rife with image saturation, is the illusion images create now preferable to reality? …Is its ability to convey meaning now diluted by the widespread dissemination of images?

CONTACT 2010 will consider the ways in which photography informs and transforms human behavior. The festival will recognize the influence of Marshall McLuhan, on the 30th anniversary year of his death. We will present images that examine connections between mass media, advertising, art and photography.”

Primary Exhibitions include:

The Brothel Without Walls – U of T Arts Centre

Susan Anderson, Evan Baden, Douglas Coupland, Jessica Dimmock, Marina Gadonneix, Clunie Reid, Stefan Ruiz, Joachim Schmid, Christopher Wahl
http://scotiabankcontactphoto.com/primary-exhibitions/182

Media satirist Barbara Kruger — AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario – installation
http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=2962693

Toronto Star Recommended exhibits by writer Murray Whyte
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/whatson/article/801893–contact-festival-plenty-of-eye-candy-in-the-brothel-without-walls

Murray Whyte’s recommendations (first 3):

1. The Mechanical Bride, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art: The festival is heavy on Marshall McLuhan this year — the exhibition title is borrowed from the legendary media theorist’s book of the same name — and, in a nutshell, tries to embody his remarkably prescient notion that photography was being enslaved by an advertising industry amping up seductive lifestyle appeals as a way to push product, with the female form as the main lure. Imagine that. Here, 60 years on, artists like LaChapelle, with a disturbingly robotic image of Lady Gaga, and Dana Claxton, who filters the appropriative gloss of marketing through her lens of First Nations’ experience, underscore McLuhan’s role as a soothsayer, proving him right, only more so. May 1

2. The Brothel Without Walls, University of Toronto Art Centre: Further on the McLuhan theme — in his landmark 1964 book Understanding Media, he called photographs exactly that, and “dreams money can buy”— this show includes work by, among others, Douglas Coupland, Jessica Dimmock and Evan Baden, whose images of amateur online exhibitionists seem to take McLuhan’s notion, of an artificial reality spurred by the easy ubiquity of picture-making, to its logical extreme. May 1

3. Untitled (It), Art Gallery of Ontario, Dundas St. façade: For decades — long before it became a de rigueur street-art standard—Barbara Kruger’s withering satires of advertising in the public realm made her an art-world superstar. Kruger’s iconic aesthetic of text and found images speaks advertising’s language of vapid non-sequitur-ese so fluently, at first glance, as to be near-indistinguishable; a double-take yields results both hilarious and sobering. Here, she festoons the AGO’s 90-metre-long Dundas St. glass awning with a new work commissioned specifically for the festival — a coup

Click image to view larger version.

This is two images layered in Photoshop – taken on Carlton St just west of College and Yonge, downtown Toronto.

Taken with Motorola cellphone.

View more of my photos!

It’s no secret that China has long been the world’s factory and is increasingly looking to change its position from that of producer [...]]]> Art by a Chinese artist named Liu Bolin. He specializes in camouflage painting. His work challenges us to think about identity and ambiguity in contemporary Chinese society. Click to view larger image.

It’s no secret that China has long been the world’s factory and is increasingly looking to change its position from that of producer to creator. Once upon a time the US, Japan and Germany were engineering new technical marvels and China was simply where the production would happen. That is starting to change, and China is developing new capability for aspects of design, and increasingly, seeking to grow by instigating a kind of new Cultural Revolution – one in which art and artists have new freedoms and the government recognizes that creativity needs to be encouraged to bolster the still emerging economy.

Here in Toronto we have long had government support for the arts and some long-standing galleries, museums and private art spaces, but even here artist zones or development are a relatively new idea. Liberty Village and the Distillery District are two such former industrial areas converted to live/work loft spaces with lots of cafes, galleries and condos in the mix. According to a recent TO Star article, China is incubating these new projects at a furious pace. They may not have pioneered this process but they’re ahead of the global pack (Beijing has dozens of these areas and Shanghai has hundreds). It’s all part of China’s quest to obtain what the article describes as “soft power.”

The article in the Star focuses on artist Yue Minju, one of a number of rising Chinese art stars who earn millions of dollars for their works. If you read the TO Star article 798 Art District doesn’t sound far off from Toronto’s Distillery District. Here’s a snippet to pique your interest:  ”As he spoke, Minjun sat perched at a chic outdoor café in Beijing’s 798 Art District, a massive former munitions factory repurposed by the government in 2002 as a home for artist studios, galleries and boutiques. Across the way, a tourist shop’s shelves were filled with versions of his personal brand-name icon: a self-portrait frozen in a cackle of grim hysteria, on coffee mugs, calendars, notebooks and picture frames.”

Read the TO Star article.

Read about and see more of Liu Bolin’s amazing urban camouflage work at the Inspiration Room blog.