Capturing the contradictions in everyday life, Iranian photographer Shadi Ghadirian draws on her environment and culture to create her work. Born in 1974 in Tehran in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ghadirian “fell into photographing women” after completing a B.A. at Azad University. Soon after, Ghadirian gained an international audience for her innovative images, depicting Iranian women in stark contrast to the way most Western media portrays them.
“Quite by accident, the subject of my first two series were women,” admits Ghadirian. “Perhaps the only mentality of an outsider about the Iranian woman is a black chador, however, I try to portray all aspects of the Iranian woman.” The results, two exceptional collections, reflect the duality of a modern Iranian woman’s life.
The first, “Qajar,” features women in headscarves interacting with items thought to be typically Western—a ghetto blaster, Pepsi can and bike helmet—posed against traditional Iranian interiors. The “Like Every Day” series takes an image of a woman in a chador and replaces her face with an everyday household item such as an iron, dishwashing glove or cooking pot. “I wish to continue speaking of women because I still have a lot to say,” says Ghadirian. “These are my words as a woman and the words of all the other women who live in Iran, where being a woman has its own unique system.”
Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi released his debut solo album, “Go,” earlier this month to near universal acclaim, since embarking on a world tour of theatrical stage performances to rival the epic grandeur of his album.
A collaborative effort between Jónsi’s team in Reykjavik and the London-based stage production company 59 Productions, the live show incorporates a variety of elements including film, animation, light projection and set design from core contributors Phil Eddols, Bruno Poet, Mark Grimmer, Lysander Ashton and Peter Stenhouse.
Departing from the heartrending swells and crescendos that fill Sigur Rós’ albums to the brim, the arrangements on “Go” often sound quite jubilant, calling to mind the wide-eyed exuberance of a child dashing through forests and fields. Indeed, nature and the animal kingdom in particular, are recurring motifs. Borrowing heavily from these thematic elements, the group at 59, led by creative director Leo Warner, envisioned the production as something of a visual score.
Their point of departure for the physical set design was the book 1000°C: Deyrolle (previously covered on Cool Hunting), a photographic record of the charred remains of a Parisian taxidermy shop largely destroyed in a fire two years ago. Projected onto this set, a series of filmic vignettes includes processed video footage of butterflies in flight, water in motion, and flames licking paper in concert with animated mammals, birds and insects. (Watch several “making of” videos on Jónsi’s media page.)
Does this multidisciplinary production signal a new standard for musical performance? Perhaps, fan reviews of the tour thus far include the words “mindgasm,” “transcendentally beautiful,” “astounding,” “breathtakingly beautiful,” “metamorphosis,” “ingenious,” “soul-shaking” and “spellbound” to call out just a handful. Tickets are still available for upcoming performances in the Midwest, eastern Canada and the East Coast, not to mention Europe. We suggest you grab yours now.
Check out the slide show below, featuring stills from the opening night performance in Vancouver, BC.
The video exhibit “Ouroboros” at ISE Cultural Foundation explores the creation and history of the universe, using the iconic image of a snake eating itself as center to the work. The piece consists of six projections in 3-D, using geometric shapes and imagery to transform the space.
This compellingly unique mix of science and art fits the talents of Ourobos’ creators exactly. Renaissance man Ali Hossaini, and video artists/programmers Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy of Sweatshoppe, collaborated on the piece. Ourobos combined Hossaini’s “investigations into the psychology of vision” and Sweatshoppe’s software and tech know-how.
In an interview with the artists, they discussed the project.
What’s Ouroboros about?
Ali: It was an ode to the history of the universe in three layers: the physical, the biological and the psychological. The material world, the life world and the cultural world. I did about 30,000 into different files, just arranged them sequentially. And then we talked about what would work where.
Bruno: When we came down to the gallery, we realized there’s more of a story that can be told. We had been doing this basic geometry and these shapes for awhile. And what we really liked about them was they had this energy, and this thing where you look at them and you become entranced.
How did you meet?
Blake: We started trying to figure out a way to create 3-D video in real time about a year ago, writing a piece of software that allowed us to create anaglyph video, which is like the red and blue glasses. But we quickly realized that that effect is old and outdated, and it also gives you a headache quickly. So we started working with ChromaDepth. Right about the time that we finished the software, we were doing a performance at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. And it was an event that Ali was producing for the Metropolis Art Prize. Instantly when he saw our effect he went, “Oh man, that’s awesome!”
Ali: It was pure chance, actually, because I was producing this art competition and the awards were going to be given at the Jonathan LeVine gallery. And I walked in when they were setting up. I’d been wanting to do 3-D for this concept of Ouroboros, which was a history of the universe told through juxtaposed images, and I’d worked in 3-D before. When I saw what they did, it just seemed so on target for what I wanted to do and I think their work is really expressive and it’s a really powerful aesthetic. I’d never seen anything like it before.
What led you to combine images and geometry?
Bruno: we just have these really simple geometric shapes that are being animated through space, or through depth, and they’re connecting and recreating other shapes when they cross. We basically have these three different layers that are looping with different start and end points. So they’re kind of looping on top of another on top of another and creating different shapes. And when they cross, they create different colors.
We’ve been really into mandalas and yantras and all these symbols or these machines that are meant to be these geometric shapes that you look at that elevate your consciousness. But we would almost rejuvenate them or recreate them using this psychedelic, technology driven 3-D media. And try to bring them to life.
Blake: We’re looking at simple geometry as the atomic unit. And we’re moving from simple geometry to more complex geometry. And then from complex geometry to representational imagery. And we’re also trying to address the higher experience of the cosmos. Considering we only can understand the world from our immediate human perspective, we’re trying to break you free of that and open your consciousness to greater dimensions of reality.
Ouroboros runs through 30 April 2010. Read more of the interview after the jump.
The marriage of music and projections, set to a pervading beat, help create this transcendental space. How did you create the music?
Blake: Ali appropriated all these images from the internet. So I thought it would really be appropriate to make the music with audio appropriated from the internet. But we were really trying to create something that was soothing and very meditative, and really something that brings your heart rate down and allows you to relax and be in this heavy space.
Bruno: Since we were sometimes making video for performances, which are live performances which go to a certain bpm. We were looking into different binaural frequencies that affective the brain and stimulated the brain or created meditative states.
That’s also really important when you’re trying to create an environment that you want people to spend time in. I think it’s pretty awesome, people just seem to sit here for along time.
How do you hope people will think about and experience Ouroboros?
Ali: I think what we’re aiming for here in the installation is a feeling of psychological integration. I think art can connect all the different parts of the universe together. And artists don’t really try to do that. But I think all of us are coming to that place where we feel a social responsibility to make art.
And even the layout of the installation—it’s roughly inspired by a mandala or a sybil, an alchemical walk, or even the stations of the cross where you have a psychological journey. You start with the geometric symbols and then you move to the yantras, and then you move into the scientific or representational world, and then you move back into geometry. As you go to the end of the room and look at this piece it’s completely different. I think overall people seem to have that feeling, peacefulness, when they come out of here, which is what we’re looking for, to feel whole again.
Bruno: We didn’t know how people would generally react. We didn’t know, in the space, if people would pass out on the floor and hang out for a bit, or think it was corny or cheesy in a way. And I think for us it’s really about creating this experience, it’s about art as experience.
Ali: By putting this stuff together, people start to interpret, start to create meaning. There’s this creative act on the part of the audience that is really, really important too.
Blake and Bruno, you recently formed art duo Sweatshoppe, which creates and plays with much of the technology used in Ouroboros. What does Sweatshoppe do?
Blake: We do this thing where we paint video on the street. like, we roll up to a wall and we plug this paint roller in that we made and it allows us to create the illusion that we’re painting a video on the wall.
Bruno: The reason why we invented that, actually, was we wanted to have this performance where people could come out at some point in the performance and start painting the walls of the space, so that the walls were evolving, and all of a sudden you’d been in the desert, and things flying around and we started playing with mapping software because we wanted to change the environment of the space.
Ali, where do you come from with your work? What drew you to telling a history of the universe through film?
Ali: I think art has to adapt to the time, and people obviously take most of their experiences in from screens. I think if Americans are watching TV screens like six hours a day, they’re comfortable with screens. One of the things that makes me happy about Ouroboros and working with Sweatshoppe is there’s no feeling that people have to be reverent towards the art. I think actually art should be just this thing that you come to when you feel like it, and then you leave, but it’s always there: you can tap into it. Also I love the medium of video and computer digital technologies. I think they’re really empowering and you can do these things that twenty, thirty years ago people couldn’t imagine doing.
To me it’s been really liberating working in this medium, but I do want to push the boundaries of what we’ve done here. Ok, people can make YouTube videos, but how do you make a whole video environment? That’s something that really intrigues me. I think we’re going to be living in these video environments more and more.
30,000 images is a lot to work with. How did you organize and sequence them?
Ali: There’s three layers: matter, life and spirit. Originally, I’d assigned each one to a color. But then I found that got really monotonous, and originally this was supposed to go from the Big Bang up to the present day, and go chronologically. But that felt really didactic and monotonous, too. So, that’s were the poetry of it came in.
If you try to be too conceptual or consistent then it just feels sterile. The technology is really fresh, the techniques, this stuff is just being created as we were making the installations. So there was this feeling of discovery throughout.
The imagery also includes logos, like Starbucks. Why did you decide to include logos?
Ali: It’s supposed to be a history of our environment, and logos are so much a part of our environment; they represent the rise of corporations. The logos actually evolve. You see these organic forms like vegetables, and then leaves and flowers, and then you’ll see these japanese crests, which are based on organic forms. And they’re early logos. And then you see actual designed logos. But below that you’ll see the development of agriculture, and the corporitization of agriculture that goes on. So the logos actually encroach on a lot of things. And then at some point it’s just all logos.
Corporations and these imperative are about the colonization of the life world, and the mental world. And I’m not saying corporations are all bad, but they are related with a lot of the developments, like war and things. I thought that was just an integral part of the story—of our universe, anyway.
To support its program giving skateboards to Canadian kids in need, Contributor teamed with Society6 and Club Mumble to curate a second collection of skateboard art.
The first show, “Smile On Your Brother,” featured a talented group of artists—Thomas Campbell, Andy Jenkins, Matt Irving and Parra, to name a few. This year’s show, “One Way or Another,” looks at the skateboard as an object of personal significance.
A group of judges—our friends at Furni Creations, Color Magazine and Bend Press—will pick an international set of 25 artists and collectives to design the boards. They’ll sell through Contributor, and all proceeds will go to providing skateboards to youths in Canada. Instead of buying completed works, supporters will commission artists to customize their boards.
Artists chosen from the open call can design up to ten decks. Along with a stipend of $50 per board, they’ll have four weeks to complete the designs. Selected artwork will go to the “One Way Or Another”; collection on Society6 and will also be available for purchase as prints, t-shirts and laptop and iPhone covers. For each product sold in the collection, artists will receive royalties and Society6 will donate $3 to Contributor for its skateboard program.
Interested artists have the next couple days to sign up for the open call on the Society6 site, with artists selected to participate in the show announced in the next several months.
The forthcoming witty guide to the world of cycling called “Bike Snob” is the brainchild of NYC’s eponymous blogger. Choosing to remain anonymous, Bike Snob explains why the bicycle is truly a great invention (even the Amish use it) and takes his readers from bike basics to advanced cycling, waxing lyrical about the various types of cyclists, safety tactics, and how non-cyclists should engage with their two-wheeled friends.
With its increasing rise in popularity, this essential primer on proper bike knowledge comes just in time—especially for crowded metropolises like NYC. Bike Snob realistically dispenses advice on how to prepare for inclement weather, “getting doored,” and the perils of biking under the influence.
A true devotee, Bike Snob’s contagious outlook comes through whether dropping historical information or slapping his seal of disapproval on bikes around town. The nearly pocket-sized book (illustrated by Christopher Koelle) is available for pre-order from Chronicle Books or Amazon.
Now available in book format, “Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?” is artist Kate Bingaman-Burt’s winsomely self-conscious take on transparency and consumer culture. Beginning in 2002, in the face of growing credit card debt, Bingaman-Burt resolved to give new meaning to the term “retail therapy” by documenting her daily purchases, first with photographs and then with ink drawings.
The book chronicles three years of daily purchases, beginning on 5 February 2006. From the mundane (Tootsie Roll candies, pet food, Aleve pain reliever) to the more memorable (an iPhone, wedding bands, a dog), each image lends a permanence to the sometimes fleeting fulfillment that comes from the experience of buying something. To make her commentary—and spending patterns—an even more lasting and public record, Bingaman-Burt also includes monthly hand-copied credit card statements within the pages of the book.
Bingaman-Burt, who is an assistant professor of graphic design at Portland State University continues to catalog and post her daily purchases, revealing an obsessive but lighthearted compulsion that doesn’t end with her book’s publication. Her signature spare, hand-drawn illustrations can also be seen in the pages of ReadyMade magazine, as well as the craft-focused book, “Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design.”
Buy Obsessive Consumption online at Amazon, Powell’s, or directly through Bingaman-Burt’s website, where she’s offering a limited-edition daily drawing and book package for $30.
Bringing new bands to light, NYC clothiers Barking Irons‘ recently launched an acoustic video series The Collect, created in partnership with creative production agency Phearcreative. The resulting videos capture musicians as they write, perform and discuss their music.
So far, the Collect has illuminated the work of eight artists, including Riverboat Gamblers and Justin Towne Earle. Barking Irons will continue to show more of “cool rock & roll, blues, and country acts” in their monthly installments of the series.
To celebrate the new project and accompanying site, Barking Irons and Phearcreative will host a launch party 15 April 2010. Be sure to swing by The Collect as the project grows.
Olivo Barbieri‘s aerial photographs trick the eyes by scaling skyscrapers, historic sites, and famed destinations down to model-size minutiae. For his latest exhibition, “Site Specific_New York City O7,” the Italian photographer turned his camera on the Flatiron District, Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, Coney Island, and other urban locations. The pictures’ tiny, finely rendered features are worthy of blue ribbon-winning dioramas, where real-life automobiles and sunbathers shrink to toy-like objects.
Using a tilt-shift lens with a large-format camera, Barbieri skews the scale and perspective of landscapes with a shallow depth of field. This technique, called selected focus, deliberately blurs some areas of the photograph, producing a macro effect. Barbieri launched his “Site Specific” series of still images and films in 2003, shooting Rome, Shanghai, and Las Vegas. He also photographed some of the world’s largest waterfalls the same way for “The Waterfall Project.”
The series reveals Barbieri’s talents for distorting and recreating familiar landscapes. “Site Specific_New York City 07” runs 15 April-28 May, 2010 at the Yancey Richardson Gallery.
Whether designing graphics for Patagonia tees or an album cover, artist Jason Munn keeps it consistently simple with images evoking the spirit of the message while maintaining their own distinct charm. His new limited edition book “The Small Stakes” (named for his studio) shows off his skills as a thoughtful and conceptual poster designer, including over 150 of his works.
Included in the SFMoMA collection (where his book sold out in an hour at the recent signing), the Oakland-based illustrator has admirers the world over, creating works for magazines from ReadyMade to Wired and enlisted by almost every in-demand band to personify their album with one of his minimalist illustrations.
The book of mini music posters, printed on wood-free paper using a full six-color process, sells from San Francisco’s Chronicle Books or online from The Small Stakes for $25.
Beautiful/Decay‘s new book “The Underdogs” shows off the talents of the hundreds of artists the collective collaborated with, and is the third in their limited edition series.
The creative powerhouse has made its mark as a revolutionary fashion and arts supporter with the thrice-yearly books, merchandise and website. “The Underdogs” shows off the best of Beautiful/Decay’s aesthetic in the artworks, including a skull filled with balloon creatures and extraterrestrial portraits.
To mark the debut of this beautifully designed volume, Cool Hunting and Beautiful/Decay are giving away a copy of the book to one lucky reader. To enter, tweet @coolhunting why you need this book. We’ll pick a winner Wednesday, 14 April 2010 before midnight. “The Underdogs” will also be available from the Beautiful/Decay online store at $40 for a year’s subscription, or check their website for stockists in the U.S. and Germany.
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