Holi Phagwa

Making culture visual!

 

I bet you all heard about the holi fest. This holi fest is about the celebration of the spring, the good over the evil and a celebration for the new year. This Hinduism celebration is really popular, not only amongst te locals, also more and more tourists attend this celebration and this is even held in parts of America nowadays. During this celebration everyone goes into the streets and they throw colored powder to each other. Why is this related to visual culture I hear you asking? Just take a look below at the images and this will become clear. A lot of photographers have made amazing pictures of this celebration, therefore this cultural celebration has been made visual!

 

Tip for the weekend!

Amsterdam Art Weekend

This weekend November 30 and December 1 and 2 is the Amsterdam Art Weekend. Explore the contemporary art scene throughout the entire city. 27 leading and best-known art institutes will participate and present some interesting contemporary art pieces. And to get you warmed up a bit I will show you some of the exhibitions that can be seen this weekend.

If you are interested to visit, or just interested, take a look at their website http://www.capitala.nl

Nicole

Jazz music as driver for creativity and innovation?

Today I have attended a conference about Creativity and Creative Industries in Challenging Times at the NHTV University of Applied Sciences Breda and one of the keynote speakers has elaborated on the topic of ‘creativity in postnormal times’.

I will not go much into detail but what has been stuck in my mind was his example of Jazz music being an engine for creativity. It was mentioned that we need to become aware of the creativity that already lies within us and that we have lost the ability of improvisation due to educational systems that, frankly, do not leave much floor for creativity and adaptability. And so the example of Jazz musicians came up and I was inspired by this example and have been thinking about this topic the whole day.

When I hear the word Jazz, I immediately think of a setting in a smoky nightclub and of saxophones and skillful drummers. Jazz musicians are known for their talent to improvise – I am thinking of jam sessions here and the way they create new songs without the limitation of sheet music. I always thought that Jazz is inspiring (and also kind of throws you back in time and lets you indulge in nostalgia and melancholia) and I was always impressed by the improvisation skills of the musicians. Connecting this talent to creativity and innovation, Jazz musicians have always sort of driven themselves to find new ways to play their instruments in order to create unique sounds and to distinguish themselves from other musicians. It is kind of a ‘hands-on’ thing because a Jazz musician (actually musicians from all genres) needs to be able to immediately translate an idea into practice, a new sound. And this has always fascinated me, the ability to improvise and be aware of it.

So I was thinking that if we all had the mindset of a Jazz musician, would there be more creativity and innovation? Is Jazz music the key to creativity and innovation? Should we all become Jazz musicians?

Let me know what you think!

 

GZM

 

Recommended links on the topic of ‘creativity in postnormal times’:

‘Welcome to postnormal times’ – Sardar

‘Beyond postnormal times: the future of creativity and the creativity of the future’ – Montuori

Green up the city!

Street art or graffiti has always been and always will be the guerilla kind of visual culture. One of my colleagues has recently posted about Banksy in her post ‘Banging your head against a brick wall’.

Today I would like to write about guerilla gardening, specifically about the technique Moss Graffiti.

I have seen posts and instructions how to make moss graffiti on several websites and blogs and was really impressed and inspired by this movement. Moss graffiti is basically the green version of regular graffiti – mixing moss with natural ingredients (here is a tutorial if you ever want to try this out) and painting this mixture on walls and other objects. The difference, apart from the obvious, is that this kind of graffiti needs to be watered – it is a living object!

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Most of the people are opposed to graffiti because in their opinion it is vandalism of public and private properties – but I believe that graffiti adds value to the character of a city and makes it unique in its own way. And moss graffiti is a great new approach to turn this much hated illegal guerilla art movement into something that is socially more accepted. Everybody is talking about eco-friendliness and sustainability – eco-friendly graffiti that green up cities? Nothing wrong with that!

Unfortunately I have not seen any moss graffiti in real life yet but I hope that these pieces of art will pop up everywhere soon.

Green up your cities!

GZM

Glow 2012, Eindhoven

Yesterday I went to an event in Eindhoven called glow. For those who are not familiar with this event; it is an annual, weekly forum of light in art and architecture. This year it runs from November 10-17.

The theme of GLOW 2012 is Façades & Faces. Artists reveal the different faces and views on facades, squares and public spaces in Eindhoven through different creations of light. They use light to create art objects and at the same time let the public see the centre of Eindhoven in a different way. Artists challenge the public to not look at things in a ‘realistic‘ way, but try to let them envision architecture in a different way.

It was my first time to attend GLOW and I was surprised by the number of people that walked the route. Positively surprised. There were a great number of people that came to the city and it made it a cozy and social experience. (Last year the amount of visitors was estimated at 360.000!)

Eindhoven is a candidate for the European Capital of Culture 2018. This event also acts as a tool to create more awareness for the city and proves the city is a suitable candidate for the title. In the coming years the event aims to become an international and experimental meeting place where innovative developments of light will be presented.

I would recommend you to go visit the GLOW event in Eindhoven. It is a good way of spending your leisure time and get inspired. Glow is still on until Saturday 17 November From 11 pm – 1 am.

Enjoy your weekend!

Yvonne.

Turn ordinary objects into visual culture

 

Some people can turn everything into art! I won’t even try to explain it, just look at these examples below.

 

Dirty visual culture!

I don’t have to tell you that visual culture can be seen everywhere and on many different objects. But do you think of visual culture when you see the image below?

I guess not! However the artist Scott Wade thinks about this differently. He amazed me by this beautiful art that he makes on the rear window of a car. Below you can see some examples. Still haven’t seen enough? Check out his website: www.dirtycarart.com

 

Old fashioned cassette tapes and film reels

What can you still do with these things! Well not a lot according to most people. Due to the technology these products are almost banned from our lives, but not for the artist Erika Iris Simmons. She uses these products to make portraits. Just take a look below at these amazing art pieces.

 

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I guess I don’t need to explain more! So be inspired and when you are going to clean up your garage think about this again and see what you can do with objects that at first look useless.

 

Nicole

Expressing your thoughts through Art: Exhibitions in the East of England

As you might have noticed by the limited blogs over the last week, it’s the Autumn break in The Netherlands! I would however like to share a very cool exhibition I went to today at the East Coast of England:  Walton-on-the-Naze.

It took a lot of zigzaging and bumpy roads to get there, however once you’ve arrived you can’t miss the Naze Tower. It is based on a cliff which already increases the excitement, however the tower might look a bit ordinary at first. Once you’ve entered the tower and climb up the stairs you’ll find three different exhibitions spread out over six different floors of the tower. All artworks were made by East Anglian artists.

There was one exhibition which I personally liked most. They were called ‘Mixed Media Paintings’ by Sarah Baird. Next to the beautiful paintings she made on wood, I really liked the small parts of text that seemed like newspaper titles and articles. I think she tried to make a point by expressing that point in her work, which I think is always very intriguing but she expressed it in a very subtle way. One painting only had an inspiring quote, another painting had actual parts of a newspaper article, which were (as far as I know) about banks and big companies making a mess of our welfare  I must say that these were all my own interpretations of her work, however isn’t that the fun thing about art?

Below are some pictures I took during my visit.

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Photo of The Naze Tower on cliffs retrieved from NazeTower

A few more things about the tower: Around the tower and the first two floors are arranged as tea rooms. One floor is arranged as a museum of the Walton-on-the-Naze area and if you climb all the way to the top of the tower you have a great view of the town and the coastline. If you happen to visit the East Coast of England (Essex/Norfolk), you should definitely pay a visit. Have a look at their website and the webpage with information on the different exhibitions all year around.

Sarah Baird has a blog too! Click here to have a look what she’s been up to and other work she has done.

Madelon

Google ‘reef-view’ & Art on your desktop

Google “Reef-View”

Do you all still remember my last topic about the 9 eyes of google? This time I came across something interesting related to that. Instead of the street view Google introduced the underwater view within Google maps. From now on you can take a look at six different reefs around the world, just as you were used to looking at the streets.

Art on your desktop!

And then the topic for today, art on your desktop! Kuvva introduced a app for your computer (Mac and Windows) which shows you beautiful wallpapers from some of the worlds leading photographers, designers and artists. Whether you want to have new wallpapers every hour every day or every week. This even works for your twitter account. When you see a wallpaper and you are interested in this artist just with a few clicks you can find out more information about the artist. And that is how I came to know more about Icy and Sot. These street artists from Iran make artworks about: Love, hate, peace, human rights, Iranian Culture, hope, despair and children. Their work has been exhibited around the world. One ‘wallpaper’ I found really interesting is the one you can see below.

The reason why I think this is such an interesting project is because they show the reality of life as it is in Iran. People are working to build the country, but at the same time it gets torn down. In my opinion they can really inspire people by these street art projects. At least I am already inspired by this single image. And I hope a lot of you will be inspired as well.

Are you interested to see more beautiful arts just straight onto your desktop? Take a look at the website from Kuvva. And if you want to know more about the artists Icy and Sot take a look here.

Keep inspiring and stay inspired!

Nicole

Help needed: Art projects of your interest!

I will start this blog with apologising to our non-Dutch speaking followers as I came across a website which is only in Dutch. At first I wasn’t sure whether to share it with you because I want everyone to understand it, but I liked this initiative that much that I decided to do anyway and I’m hoping to hear about similar initiatives around the world!

The website I’m talking about is online platform voordekunst.nl . If you haven’t heard of this website already or did not have a proper look at all the different projects to be found on the website, I will explain it to you and I hope you will pay a visit! Voordekunst.nl is a  website that enables professional but also amateur artists who started a project to share these initiatives with anyone who would like to support them financially.

Projects that can be found on the website vary from music to debate, from fashion to mime and of course: Visual culture (In Dutch: Beeldende kunst). The thing I like most is that anyone who has a creative idea  is enabled to realise this with the help of people and companies who believe in this idea. Whether you’re a big company with interest in art, a family member of someone who is working on one of the projects or just someone like me who feels empathy for people who try to get a message across by approaching people in a creative way: anyone can support them. A donation starts at only 10 Euros with a maximum of 750 Euros.

The first project I liked in particular is the one below. Maybe not relevant to ours but no less interesting! FYI: It has English subtitles.

I also came across a project that is pretty relevant to our project: The importance of the pollination of bees, regarding food (We lose bees = we lose food!) They say it’s a cross-over art and environment festival. No English subs this time but I don’t think you really need it so please do have a look!

For more information about Voordekunst, the different projects, how to support them or if you would like to enrol your project, have a look at their website: www.voordekunst.nl

Madelon

The influence of artwork or the phenomenon of record heads….

I would like to dedicate this blog to something that I am particularly fond of, music. I have always loved music and bought many CD’s and even some vinyl. Next to the music being an art itself, the artwork in my opinion has a very strong influence on the record. The art work reflects the intention of a record, it can become a symbol for the record and sticks in people’s minds. We probably all remember these records, because of their artwork:

Next to the well known artworks, there are many records by smaller bands with impressive and very creative artworks, like this one:

Touche Amore – Parting the sea… (designed by Nick Steinhardt)

Besides enjoying to buy records with great artwork and owning some of my own, I have friends that own shelf’s full of vinyl: vinyl with great artwork designed by creative people. I have the honor of being friends with some very creative talents from all over the world, working for example for companys like Smog Design in Los Angeles, who design covers for famous artists like Britney Spears, Katey Perry and Disney movies like Brave. You should check out their portfolio, it’s impressive. Click here to visit their website…

While we are on the subject of records, I came across something interesting a while back and have been fascinated and amused at the same time ever since. A phenomenon with many different names: sleevefaces, record heads, LP Portraits: People cover a part of their body with an LP sleeve to create an illusion. They create funny and/or authentic pictures with different record artworks. There is a book about this form of art, as well as websites, flickr pools and millions of pictures all over the internet.

These are a few of my favorites that I found over the time, to share exclusively with you:

If you are interested in looking at some more sleeveface, LP portraits or record heads you can find the flickr pool here, the website here, a tumblr here and the google picture search gives you a great choice of pictures.

You could also go ahead and buy the book, I am definitely going to do the same. Enjoy! SH