Fine Art News

CES 2015: The CUBE Action Camera, Polaroid's Answer to the GoPro

Polaroid's answer to the masculine-fueled GoPro comes in the form of a tiny family-friendly square, fittingly named the Polaroid CUBE. Starting at a very modest $99.99 , the water-resistant action camera comes in all different colors, shoots HD video at 1080p, allows users to take 6MP pictures, and supports a microSD card of up to 32GB. Attached to the bottom of the cube is a magnet that allows you to stick the camera in many places, including the side of a car (though the Polaroid representa...

Extreme Light Painting: Artist Uses Just One LED to Trace Entire Rooms with Light Waves

How many trips up and down the stairs do you think it took artist Janne Parviainen to create this incredible topographical light painting? Apparently, quite a few. Using only one LED, he moves around his house, tracing all of the surfaces. Sometimes the exposure times are up to 30 minutes to achieve this effect. He's done similar projects in the past, like these fun, but slightly creepy skeletons. Check out Janne's website and Flickr profile to see more of his work.

News: The Iridescent Beauty of Bursting Bubbles Captured with High-Speed Photography

Swiss photographer Fabian Oefner wanted to capture the moment right before a bubble bursts, a feat that required surprisingly little equipment, but a lot of time and patience. The result was well worth it though. Here's a quick before and after: The trick to the color, he says, is lighting the bubbles from all angles. He placed illuminated panels all around and used a high-speed flash. The bubbles were blown through a sugar funnel. The trickiest part, not surprisingly, is capturing the exact ...

Font-Face: Design a Typeface with Your Mug

If you've ever used a font editing program to create a font, you know that one generally shapes the various forms by arranging points on a screen with a mouse. But what if those points were controlled by something other than fine motor skills? Andy Clymer of high profile type foundry Hoefler & Frere-Jones was interested in exploring alternative methods for how a typeface is developed; hence, "font-face" was born. Font-face employs facial recognition to control the design parameters of a font....

News: Artist to Schlep Mammoth Chunk of Ice from Greenland to NYC

It's an ambitious How-To project to say the least, or more specifically, an over-the-top political art installation by San Francisco artist Brian Goggin. You may have previously heard of Goggin for his "Defenestration" project—an installation of "frozen" furniture, being tossed mid-air from a San Francisco apartment building. But Goggin's latest project sounds significantly more challenging to execute, considering the elaborate game plan involved:

News: Polish Artist Recycles 300 Dead Computers into Giant Installation

Electronic waste (or e-waste) is becoming a bigger and bigger problem thanks to the rapid growth of technology. In 2009, the United States produced 3.19 million tons of e-waste in the form of cell phones and computers. It's estimated that 2.59 million tons went into landfills and incinerators with only 600,000 tons actually being recycled or exported. Recycling programs just aren't cutting it, so what's the next best thing? Art.

News: Mechanical Sculpture Spits Out 441 Perfectly Sphered Water Droplets

Beauty is a fine line between art and science for Pe Lang, a Swiss sculptor living and working in both Berlin and Zurich. The autodidact artist specializes in graceful, hand-built kinetic sculptures made of magnetic, electrical and mechanical devices, all of which are elegant and completely mesmerizing. "Positioning Systems - Falling Objects" is one of his newest contraptions, which feels like a mix of home waterfall fountains, mechanical metronomes and a busy manufacturing plant.

News: Cut & Fold Your Own DIY Prada

Prada is genius. If you're a hater, you've never been to the flagship store on Broadway in NYC. The fashion powerhouse enlisted the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Rem Koolhaas to design the space, a stunning retail location with impeccable service, rotating installations, beautiful architectural details, hypnotizing music, and a gigantic, monolithic glass elevator. (You can go on an interactive tour here).

News: From Puppy to Adult in 40 Seconds (+ 3 Methods for Creating Time-Lapse)

What's cuter than a puppy? Not much, especially when you omit all the peeing, barking and furniture chewing, as Remedie Studio did with this sweet time-lapse homage to their beloved pup. Below, watch Dunder the German Shepherd grow from 8 weeks old to 1 year in 40 seconds. Inspired? Make your own time-lapse video and post it to the WonderHowTo company blog. We'll show off the best ones. Here are three different methods to get you started:

News: Fashion Loves the Pixel

Not since JC de Castelbajac's infectiously fun LEGO fashion line have I seen such energetic geek-inspired ware. Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga pays homage to ye olde 8-bit days with his extensive catwalk of video game inspired womenswear—ranging from dresses to suits to streetwear. The pixel-printed Fall/Winter 2011/2012 collection debuted during Tokyo Fashion Week under his label Anrealage. Not only did the models don classic pixel prints, but they also strutted to a live pianist perfor...

News: Lasciviously Lathered in Superhero Body Paint

It's perhaps every male Comic-Con geek's lecherous daydream: Pretty girls slathered in bodypaint, but not just any design or pattern. Superhero bodypaint—a crest of Superman slashed across the chest, a mysterious mask enclosing sultry eyes, a Spiderman hand clutching at… ugh, I just creeped myself out. I sound like I'm composing an Anaïs Nin novel for Marvel geeks. I'm going to stop now so you can scroll down and see for yourself.

Sewing the Invisible: Jum Nakao's Paper Couture

The challenge of creating garments with unconventional materials has become an all too familiar gimmick for most first year students at fashion schools. The end result is more often than not a catwalk of garbage bags, zip ties, plastic bottles and cans, assembled into a menagerie of mediocrity. Enter Jum Nakao. But while the Japanese-Brasilian artist/fashion designer does use an unconventional and impractical material (paper) for his collection "A Costura do Invisivel"(translation: "Sewing th...

News: Birds as the Ultimate DIY Architects

The widely used expression "free as a bird" intimates an enviable existence: delicate, yet mighty wings transporting to destinations no human could so breezily venture. But despite their fanciful, superhero ability, in truth, the avian race leads one of the most difficult existences in the animal kingdom. Yes, birds have existed for eons—they likely evolved from small dinosaurs of the Jurassic period—but for these creatures, life can be ruthless.

News: 10-Year-Old Girl Imitates Banksy

When children's book author Aaron Zenz took his family to see the highly acclaimed Banksy documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, his 10-year-old daughter Gracie was immediately inspired to become a street artist. Aaron quickly explained that "while the art was fun and the story was great, vandalism isn’t a good thing" so the family was challenged to come up with an appropriately stealthy public art project that didn't entail defacing public property. So, what do you get when you cross an in...

Photo of the Day: Meanwhile, in Afghanistan...

From Boston.com's The Big Picture, what a real-life version of the Green Hornet's gas gun might look like. Taken in Afghanistan in February of this year, an Afghan army recruit is pictured shrouded in a cloud of shocking green smoke as he participates in a graduation parade after an oath ceremony at Ghazi military training center—an American effort to strengthen Afghan forces so they can fight against Taliban strongholds.

News: Build Your Own AT-AT Imperial Walker Snow Sculpture

It's been a legendary year for snow art. First there was the Eiffel Tower penis. Then the crash-landed AT-AT. Then the beautiful snowdecahedron and the skull-shaped igloo fortress. Found on Unreality Mag, the latest newsworthy snow sculpture is every Star Wars-loving little kid's dream: an AT-AT "pony ride". Okay, so it's freezing cold. And it's technically immobile. Who cares. It's awesome.

Eye Candy of the Day: WiFi Networks Visualized

Norwegian designers Timo Armall, Jørn Knutsen, and Einar Sneve Martinussen visually capture invisible WiFi signals by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. The trio set up a four-meter long WiFi-detecting rod with 80 LED bulbs to depict cross-sections through the WiFi networks of various Oslo neighborhoods. Armall says:

News: Pour! Paint Puddle Psychedelia

Holton Rower's Pour recalls the lysergic 1960s at their most saturated. So much so that, had Timothy Leary been an abstract expressionist, it's easy to imagine that his work might have borne more than a passing resemblance. The process is essentially self-evident: build a flat, geometrical sculpture and pour cup after cup of paint on it. Gravity does the rest. But, gee, what an effect! SOURCE Holton Rower via poppytalk.

News: Gadgets Exploded in Mid-Air

Ever wonder what's inside those old vintage typewriters and analog phones? Canadian photographer Todd McLellan dissects old electronics and then captures their innards— some assembled in a painstakingly orderly array, others caught in a mid-air explosion. More images and process video here (under "New Work").

News: Amazing Tape Sculptures

In the DIY community, much is said about the versatility of duct tape. But it's hardly the only game in town. For proof, one needn't look any further than the impressive, diverse tape sculptures submitted to Scotch's second-annual Off the Role tape sculpture competition.

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