middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

Saw this before watching Indy 4 (OK film, but felt slightly ‘empty’ afterwards) the other day. A short animation incorporated into a Mini ad as part of the Mini Shorts/Future Shorts campaign.

(Mini opinion - The ad felt a bit patched together around this piece of creative content rather than blended nicely with it and also, where’s the SEO/keyword bit of the campaign?)

The animation was by a guy called Lev Yilmaz and his home on the web is here. I’ve just spent half an hour or so (procrastinating) checking out loads of his other work at his YouTube Channel. What strikes me is how very human it all is. How just like all the best art, it connects with you as a human being because it is so real and obviously comes from his heart.

Here’s some more of these little movies which touch on loads of things in life like depression, breaking up with girlfirends, seeing your mates succeed in a band that you could have been in and the random conversations you have with your mum.

“The cool guys”

“A typical conversation with my mom”

‘I’m not going to think about her”

There’s also a touch of Lev in the Common Craft videos and the latest Social media one was released last week.

“An ambiguous animation painted on public walls”. Really rather good indeed and I can’t believe how long it lasts for! More here.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Amazing interactive installation that scrapes data from dating sites. Really beautiful and tip of the iceberg when it comes to the web powering art. It’s all about human beings and we’re slowly but surely coming back to that. Being human on the web is something I am extremely passionate about.

The interactive installation “I Want You To Want Me”, by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition.

I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. It chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, using real data collected from Internet dating sites every few hours.

The piece is presented on a 56″ high-resolution touch-screen, hanging vertically on the wall, and was installed at MoMA on February 14, 2008, Valentine’s Day.

[Via Noah Brier]

I love Howies and always have done. They are starting to print their own T Shirts and to mark the occasion they are running a competition to design the very first T Shirt that is printed. Get your entries in now. (Instructions below or follow the link)

- - -

The brief is there is no brief, just make it thought provoking, make it bold, make it
beautiful, make it entertaining, or make it plain old dumb - it’s upto you. Do what
you love, but make me want to wear it.

Get doodling.
Pete

Remember that? Blimey how things have come along. Accidentally hit the Insert>Picture>ClipArt button today and it bought back lots of memories.

Seen this over on Nathan’s ever impressive blog. “Using ‘always on’ technology, cell phones with SMS allow an audience to interact with public space through projections on the structures that surround them”.

Can’t get enough of stuff like this. Mobile phone projectors are just round the corner too.

Also want to be able to use my mobile to actually graffiti posters - would be great to stand on a tube platform and write on an ad across the tracks . . . (not that I would because that would be illegal. But just want to know that I could).

Just a quick one while I’m thinking of things I love. It’s old now, but still fascinates me. The ultimate combination of old school and new school. Bring on more stuff like this (nice video of it in action). Enjoy it if you happen to have not seen this before.

Also, I’ve found ImageWell an incredibly useful little app to do quick image manipulation such as changing sizes and turning TIFFS into JPEGS for the blog. Download it here (Mac only PC peeps. Sorry).

Love this. Nice live project using humour and art to tackle a very difficult issue. Plus the beauty of the web allows the impact of it to travel much wider, more quickly.

Via Wooster Collective.

Technology and underground culture go hand in hand, with technology enabling all sorts of new and interesting ways for urban artists to get their messages out there. The Graffiti Research Lab is up to lots of intersting tricks, the latest being the L.A.S.E.R Tag.

A massive green laser, teamed up with a projector, camera and laptop running open source software all crammed into the back of what looks a bit like a mini mobile home and used to beam live graffiti installations onto incredibly tall buildings? Yes please.

Also, have you seen Draw Here? When I saw this, it made me think all sorts of interesting things about the potential for secret layers to be added on top of the web. Plus I did get kicks from being the first person to tag the (virtual) Whitehouse.