Hasta La Ideas

Troika’s dripping lights at Design Miami

We’ve long been fans of the tech-savvy collective Troika (check out our 2006 video), and the trio recently inspired us again with their beautiful installation piece “Falling Light” at Design Miami.

The Cool Hunting Rough Cut here will give you a little glimpse of the piece (as well as a preview of our coverage of the fairs), which creates the mind-bending effect of light droplets dripping from the ceiling onto the floor. The installation is composed of 50 seperate mechanical devices with custom cut Swarovski crystal optical lenses, a computer controlled motor and a white LED light. The LED moves away from the crystal lens, which acts as a prism, and the resulting diffraction gives the light droplets a flowing life.

Created in response to poet John Keats’ commentary on Sir Isaac Newton’s experiments with rainbows, the light experience, combined with the hum of the motors, provides a multi sensory experience and enforces, “Troika’s agenda that science does not destroy, but rather discovers poetry in the patterns of nature.”

Dossier magazine’s creative director Skye Parrott tests the limits of autobiography in her first solo photo exhibit

In today’s hyperreal visual landscape, erasing lines between fact and fiction has become a controversial trope. “First Love, Last Rites”—photographer Skye Parrott‘s new solo show at Brooklyn’s Capricious Space—does just that, revisiting a year-and-a-half of the artist’s tumultuous teen years, beginning when she was 15 and in a relationship with her first love. Casting her real-life ex-boyfriend and a model as herself, Parrott recreated and photographed the events of her youth—defined by the couple’s drug addiction. The resulting works not only shed light on this hazy period of her life, but also provide real insight into the subjectivity of memory and the possibility of ever having a “true” experience.

After comparing notes with her then-boyfriend Alex, Parrott began to realize that what she so firmly believed to be the reality of their years together was not exactly cut and dry. “I was struck by the discrepancies between his memories and mine. The more I delved into the story, the more I had the feeling that we were both, in a way, telling the truth. We had both made choices—conscious or not—about what to remember based on what narrative we needed to tell. I found that memories are something more layered than I’d thought them to be, and that truth can be a bit more fluid.” To make these disparities explicit, she even goes so far as to deliberately change a detail in a photograph from corresponding text in the accompanying book (featuring personal artifacts like letters, photographs of Parrott herself and items discovered inside old pockets) so that the two fail to tell exactly the same story.

There’s no question that the work is deeply, almost shockingly, personal. (A sensibility not unrelated to Nan Goldin, with whom Parrott used to work.) Originally, the project was for her eyes only, so there was no limit on the details she divulged in the work she assembled. But the night before the show opened at Capricious, what she was about to do finally struck her: “It seemed kind of insane. And I think it probably is a little insane, but it’s also honest. I know that’s something I really respond to in other people’s work, so I hope this work will give someone else that feeling.”

Whatever it ultimately evokes in others, it was a cathartic experience for Parrott, whose other ongoing project is the magazine Dossier that she founded. “One of my drives in working on this originally was a real feeling of disconnect between who I was then and who I am now, and I feel like examining that history helped me to bridge that gulf. The whole experience was therapeutic in the sense that I felt, in finishing the project, like I was putting that time in my life, and that relationship, to rest.”

First Love, Last Rites is on view now through 15 January 2011 at Capricious.

An interview with the lensman behind “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking”

The lead lensman and photo editor behind the forthcoming book “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking,” photographer Ryan Matthew Smith captures food and drink with a keen eye for composition, detail and delectability. In a recent interview with Feature Shoot, Smith discusses the making of the 2,400-page tome and his contribution to making the book renowned chef Ferran Adrià says “will change the way we understand the kitchen.”

From compositing several individual exposures for one enticing cutaway shot of hamburgers on a grill to shooting a lineup of eggs with a 308 sniper rifle at 6200 frames per second, Smith masterfully executed and edited the cookbook’s selection of images down from the 1,400 he shot. Smith explains that while he had little studio experience before beginning the project, his extensive portfolio of architecture- and nature-focused photos helped prepare him and that “having a strong artistic sense towards photography in general can easily transfer through any of the disciplines from advertising all the way to fine art.”

Smith primarily used a Canon 5D Mark II with zoom and macro lenses to create “minimalist, high contrast imagery that really pops off the page.” The small team of food stylists and cooks were generally led by chef Maxime Bilet, who Smith says “endlessly contributed cool photo ideas and did excellent styling on the food plating shots,” as well as played an instrumental role in the production and engineering of the cross sectional photos.

Building the sets, shooting (and sometimes reshooting) the food and finally editing the photos was a three year process in total, Smith says. The upshot—a meticulously photographed book that demonstrates the full art form of cooking. “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking” will sell online starting 14 March 2011.

Holland’s new museum paying tribute to some of the world’s rarest classic cars

A 1914 Dodge Type 30 was the initial inspiration for the Louwman Collection of classic cars and automotive art housed in the newly-constructed National Automobile Museum of the Netherlands in the Hague. Located near the Queen’s Palace, the collection dates back to 1934 when a Dutch car importer happened upon the 20-year-old Dodge that was already vintage classic. The Louwman family continued to expand over the years to its current size, boasting over 230 cars.

The cars are divided up into sections consisting of Dawn of Motoring, Motoring, Racing and Luxury. Highlights include a 1900 Georges Richard, which is rumored to have been found in a Parisian side street and “Genevieve,” a 1904 Darracq from the 1953 film. Rare 1948 Tatra T87 and a Spatz Victoria bubble car with central tube chassis, are both designed by the legendary Hans Ledwinka.

The collection includes an impressive range of vehicles, ranging in year and stature from 1944 Willys Jeep Model MB to a 1875 Thirion Modele N 2 Horse Drawn Steam Fire-Engine and 1922 American Lafrance Hook and Ladder Aerial Type 31/6.

Conceived by architecture firm Michael Graves & Associates, the 185,000-square-foot structure with its peaked roofs and woven brick facade, consists of temporary and permanent exhibition galleries, a reception hall, an auditorium and workshops for conservation and car repairs.

Artist Jon Rafman’s cleverly-edited Google Streetview images get a New Museum group show

Montreal-based artist Jon Rafman pores over thousands of Google Maps Streetview images, amassing the most intriguing assortment of real life literally captured on the road. Publishing a book in 2009, Rafman continues to explore how—like an admissible Peeping Tom—the Internet changes the public’s perception of personal space with his Tumblr blog Nine Eyes.

A selection of photos from Nine Eyes is currently on view in the “Free” exhibition at NYC’s New Museum. A group show, “Free” explores the expanded shared space and how artists are interpreting this. “Although the Google search engine may be seen as benevolent, Google Street Views present a universe observed by the detached gaze of an indifferent Being,” writes Rafman in an essay explaining his project. “Its cameras witness but do not act in history. For all Google cares, the world could be absent of moral dimension.”

The quality of the images captured by the roving fleet of Google’s vehicles vary in quality as do the reaction of the subjects captured. Some court the attention, others hide their faces. Google intentionally blurs the faces, but it’s a moot point—for our outdoor lives are on parade.

“Free” is on view at the New Museum through 23 January 2011. See more images from Nine Eyes after the jump.