Posts Tagged ‘ Art

Lichtfaktor lights it up..

Wow, these guy do amazing work with light trails in motion. I found this video on Hobnox as one of the great entries to the Hobnox Evolution Contest. I was of course very impressed and needed to see more of the lights fantastic! So I navigated my way through the interweb to discover the Lichtfactor website and was treat to two more great videos. The Youtube video above does this no justice, I implore you to go see the better quailty version from Hobnox or their own site! Youtube is the big box store with woeful bad encoding don’t ya know!
The soundtrack on this and another on the site is by The Green Man. I hear the Mac trash empty!

2007 in Music

headphones2007

Well lots of people seem to be throwing their top ten albums of last year about in the blogosphere so I guess I will throw my hat in the ring. But I’m not going to write it in any particular order as I couldn’t be that organised about my music tastes! Besides, is the album not dead with the advance of digital music? – Well, no I don’t really believe that, but it is true to say I have been a little bit out of the loop when it comes to keeping up with the latest releases over the last year or two. I’ve been listening to a lot of old stuff and mixes and the like. My Last.Fm quilt here on the side of the blog and profile will give you a better idea of what I’ve been listening to when I have the scrobbling turned on. Meanwhile my vinyl collection has been gathering dust and taking up space, perhaps I might sell it all.

So back to the topic at hand, here’s a few I enjoyed that were released in 2007 :

The Pale – Contents Of A Shipwreck
Sarsparilla – Karahee
Grinderman – Grinderman
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Saul Williams – The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!
Paul Hartnoll – The Ideal Condition
Herv – Flot and Retent
Dan Deacon – Spiderman Of The Rings
Cathy Davey – Tales of Silversleeve
Bjork – Volta
Battles – Mirrored
Chemical Brothers – We Are The Night
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

No need for reviews for the above, they were all (and still are) a joy to my ears!

I also liked Zoid vs The Jazz Musicians of Ireland although technically I only got the CD in 2008, I performed the visuals for the launch in Crawdaddy a few months back and was very impressed by the sounds.

Other music I really like was that which is on the Tara Compilation CD, which is a lovely mix of many types of music, both contemporary and traditional. There is an another one for the Vigil camp also which I don’t have, but by no doubt it is good too and worth checking out. Support the warriors!

On heavy rotation from previous years, there was a whole lotta Serge, Íse, The Clash, Tool, Mouse On Mars, Howie B, Hot Chip, Neutral Milk Hotel, Halfset, Four Tet, MC Paul Barman, Dangerdoom and more in that mixed bag.

As far as mixes are concerned I’ve been kept entertained by the ThinkToy podcast and in recent weeks by offerings from the Freebird (Vinyl Room) crew; Halfdutch, Pasta Masta and Goldy.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Alan Watts which is music to my ears and I sometimes blend him with some tunes using Djay or by more ad-hoc means!

Miniature Civilisations

Capitalism is about using money to make money for people who already have more of it than they need. Its institutions, by their very nature, breed inequality, exclusion, environmental destruction, social irresponsibility and economic instability while homogenising cultures, weakening the institutions of democracy, and eroding the moral and social fabric of society. – David Korten

The Miniature Earth is powerful piece of multimedia that shows us the statistics of life on earth. The message? = Be thankful for what you’ve got and help others, especially those you don’t know, by treating them as human beings no matter what the differences are. The world is not the way it is by accident. It is like this because of greed and fear. Greed is NOT what we need and fear should NOT be let near. Be bold, but be nice. Share.

This was sent to me by a friend on Facebook and duly passed around. But I need to put it here alongside some related videos, especially given the time of the year, as a reminder of how unjust this world is. Don’t close your eyes.

The Miniature Earth

Next up is a piece from Avaaz.org Avaaz (meaning “voice” or “song” in Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, and other langauges) is a community of global citizens who take action on major issues around the world. The video is made by Agit-Pop and features the music of Dj Spooky.

Stop the Clash of Civilizations

And the final word goes to Alan Watts, with the help of the animation skills of the South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Prickles and Goo