I was born after the 1960s. What I know is only from stories and grainy video, comprised of many heroic and striking moments, modern stories not unlike King Arthur’s Court or Hamlet. The difference is, these are modern stories from not that long ago, and you can see their effects clearly all around us.

When I think of the ’60s, I see beaded curtains opening onto a California beach. William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan play to smoky, …

This is a post for Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change.

A few years ago, I wrote a post for Blog Action Day presenting ideas for creating art in more environmentally friendly ways – Making Art Without Unmaking the Environment. Art supplies and other byproducts of our work is notoriously toxic. Just like businesses and construction are changing to be more green, artists must update their ways of …

Richard Florida’s latest book, Who’s Your City? , has a lot of interesting ideas. It is a continuation of his work which started with the often quoted, celebrated and vilified Rise of the Creative Class .

In essence, the original book argues that economic greatness in any given place depends on the place’s ability to attract creative people. Creative people like openness, night life, authentic …

… iTunes Music Store has an iTunes U section where universities put lots of classes, information and events up for everyone to use, all for free. Some other organizations have also put up some great information, audio and video. One of them is the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). If you have iTunes, check it out here.

City Hostel, in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, features 54 rooms, each designed and decorated by 47 Seattle artists. The hostel also features a 20 seat movie theatre, with frequent art events, screenings and openings. In 2008, City Hostel was voted the top hostel in the United States by Hostelworld.com.

Artists were asked to volunteer their efforts instead of being paid outright, which caused some controversy in the Seattle art community. As some artists pointed out, …

Category: Architecture , Design , Drawing and Illustration , Featured , Installation Art , Painting , United States

Most people have no idea what it takes to make good art, whether it’s music, film, painting or anything else. They don’t know how much training and study has gone into building the artist’s skills, and how much practice of that skill it took to allow them to make something, especially if it’s great. A lot of people take it for granted.

Most artists have other jobs that sustains their artistic habit. But time is a finite …

The New York Times explores the “global movement is hacking, subverting and critiquing the hardware, software, content, visuals — even the philosophy of the wired world.”

This work is created using and hacking the very same technologies and methods it is often commenting on.

Examples include

Hacking Nintendo cartridges to create new games, music and video art

Subversion and satire of sites and online experiences, such as …

This isn’t intended to be a partisan blog… I wanted to link to each of the candidate’s positions on The Arts. I could only find a position on Barack Obama’s site, so that’s what I’m linking to. If anyone has links to information about Hillary Clinton’s or John McCain’s positions on the arts, please post in the comments. (At this point Hillary is now supporting Barack Obama, but feel free to post …

Last week, David Byrne interviewed Thom Yorke of Radiohead for Wired, about their battle with record companies and their ultimate decision to produce and distribute their own music. This was punctuated a few months ago by releasing their latest album, In Rainbows, through their own site, and allowed fans to name their own price for the album. In the interview I am particularly happy with Thom Yorke’s invocation of the book No Logo by Naomi …

As with Parkour, Yamakasi and Freerunning, here is another endeavor that blurs the line between performance art and sport.

New suits that give the wearers the aerodynamics of sugar-gliders or flying squirrels allow people to do flying feats never seen before. Currently people must tackle landing with a parachute, but flyer and basejumper Jeb Corliss is trying to change that. Watch this incredible video.

Flying: …

When you watch cats, birds and flying squirrels jump, land and glide from place to place without a second thought, rarely injured, with great grace and efficiency, most people think this is simply encoded into their species. This ability comes from their animal form, nothing more.

Some people though see this movement as something to learn. David Belle, a French martial artist and gymnast, along with childhood friends, …

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese this year. I’m making progress but it’s definitely slow. While I took Spanish in high school, my brain didn’t shift the way it is now. As I started to write and learn these brand new characters, I started noticing all the things I take for granted, all the built in assumptions that come from the structure and vocabulary of my native language. The way your language is …

… of people involved in meditation of any kind is that they’re wimpy. They live in the clouds and forests among birds and silence, stay in big quiet stone buildings and don’t do much that actually affects the world. They’re just not realistic. “That’s nice and everything, you’re not hurting anyone, but get back to me when you have something I can use in the real world.”

The work of David Lynch is not tranquil, peaceful, naive, calming or any of those things you associate …

The Beijing Modern Dance Company created the piece Red Light set to the music of Pink Floyd’s The Wall . It toured the U.S. back in 2005, and has haunted me ever since.

For most people in the United States born after the 80’s, The Wall is something you see and listen to in high school. Many people adopt it to provoke and encourage all the rebellion they’re going through. It’s a natural desire to break away from your parents and become …

… a consolidated place. Using Google’s Street View technology, you can walk around the galleries and look at the art on the walls. At launch, museums include Tate Britain, MoMA, the National Gallery, the Van Gogh Museum and many more. For me though, the best part of this is the high resolution images of the artwork. You can zoom in on paintings like Van Gogh’s Field with Flowers near Alrles so far that you can see every brush stroke. Seeing images in a text book or in a standard …