Graphic Artist/Painter Coop, who you don't know that you know, has a great blog, chronicling his painting. Coop is responsible for creating "The Smoking Devil" you've seen, well, everywhere. Anyway, head on over to his site and read more about his latest piece
One of the things I dislike about the art world, is how it likes to take the art of the proletariat (yep, 4 years of art school got me that $10 word), and try to justify it by bringing it into the "Gallery." I witnessed this first hand while I was in school, where the "real" art that was graffiti, was being co-opted by small galleries, in the form of group shows featuring both lesser known and well known graffiti artist. Basically these shows would bring it all under one roof, make it a comodity, and sell it.
I always found this stupid, since graffiti's relevance was that it was on the street. It didn't need a nod from the establishment to validate its existence. I have always seen it as folk art, and thought it should not abide by the norms or etiquette of the capital "A" art world. If anything, the graffiti movement was due for an evolution (revolution?) on the streets of the worlds cities, not reduced to canvases (!) or found garbage scraps that trivialize its impact.
Street Artist Blu evolves the medium with these amazingly crafted, painstaking, animations.
A nice thing about Blu's work is that it doesn't fall prey to pitfalls of what we think of as "graffiti." His line seems almost a bit awkward, like that of an untrained artist. Surely there are better draftsman out there, but it would never capture the soul, or originality that Blu's pieces posses. His line is his voice. His style is uniquely proprietary, free from the any noticeable influences from the street art/graffiti world. It's both raw and alive, and perhaps that's why they are not static pieces, but rather small fragments of a larger, bigger than life, work. To view Blu's work in it's completed form of painstaking animations is to witness someone who's mind and talent is just that - bigger than life.
Few games have ever been based solely on the work of an artist or designer. Sony's Japan Studio has based the game Patapon on French artist Rolito (real name Sebastien Giuli) comical 2-D silhouette tribal eyeball like characters called Patapon's. A wild, and addicting romp of a game that shows just how much is still to be explored in the making games that have total immerse experiences in the worlds in which they create, and get the player involved.
Patapon is a key based rhythm game for PSP, like Pappa The Rappa or Guitar Hero/Rock Band. But it diverges from a rather simple setup that other rhythm based games have by adding elements of god games, and strategy play, all controlled by tapping out key patterns to infectious little ditty's that allow your tribe of Patapon's to hunt, attack rival tribes, or defeat large imposing monsters. The goal is to help your Patapons regain their once mythic glory.
This game ranks up there with other such unique game play experiences as Katamari Damacy, in which seemingly simplistic worlds offer a depth of insight into the characters you control. Where KD offered a world of seemingly infinite expansive obsessive collecting (that is until you have finished the game), Patapon offers a fun alternative to the music/dance/karaoke versions of rythm based game play that are popular right now.
Patapon offers a wonderful example of how games can act as a narrative as well as be just plain fun to play. Rolito's geometrically cute art work is reminiscent of online comics artists like Damian5 or the Japanese Neo style of drawing as seen in works like Matthew Cruickshank and Barry Baker (that is sadly, offline) re imagining of Mickey Mouse
Matthew Cruickshank and Barry Baker's Neo Mickey
With technology, we can bring the mountain to Mohamed, if you will. We can create a frightening Middle Earth in which all that is absent is the smell of the breath of the Orcs as their cast brought to life from the bowels of hell. Yes, we can do epic and monumental things that will always wow and captivate us. But it is moments like leading my Patapon's in a charge against the enemy that I truly value as an entertainment experience. Like reading a good comic book or doodling a character whose story comes to you as if they were alive, sometimes simplicity in narrative and form is better than "Gee Whiz" and "Bang! Bang!"
If there is one thing I can't get enough of on the web, in magazines, on T.V. is an sort of behind the scenes, detailed looks at how artists, musicians, writers, or just ordinary people do their work. I love anything - pix of tools, desks, computer set ups (drool). Today's post will take you over to Craig Thompson's blogDoot Doot Garden. Craig Thompson is author/illustrator of the fantasctic illustrated (or graphic novel, if you will) Blankets.
This blog is an off shoot of an idea I had formulated in a couple posts on my other blog, The Youngest Curmudgeon. I have found I am a sucker for anything relating to how something is made. What that something is, is as wide, diverse, and vague as...well, pretty much everything. I'm one of those people who will sit and watch How It's Made on the History Channel, read some interview with a guy who makes life size sculptures out of dry macaroni, or pour over blog posts of famous writers or internet people talking about their workspaces. I'm hooked. I just love seeing the process creative individuals use.
There must be something to this though, because my personality that I must have about a hundred projects (or...cough..blogs) in progress, only occasionally finishing a few of them. It must be about the process for me. So, in another attempt to keep blogging on a regular basis (even though I haven't abandoned the other blogs or projects), I welcome you to my blog on process.
Blue playfully destroys the notions of fixed planes and borders. Even his animation is subversive, as it moves off the wall and over floors, sidewalks, and ceilings. The animation is, for lack of a better term, surreal. Yet it has a sort of fourth dimensional feel where images and subjects envelope each other only to pull themselves out of themselves. In writing this, I realize how much harder it is to describe this than to understand it by watching it. This gratifying to watch loop of animation like this, and I can only relate to it in description to a non-animation work like René Magritte's La condición humana (1933).
Matthew Cruickshank and Barry Baker's Neo Mickey
