TV is making it work
Bravo could not have planned it any better ? WGA strike right as their reality television show premiers! Now, not only is Project Runway the best reality show on televison, but it’s also the only thing I feel like watching anymore, now that there aren’t any new episodes of The Office after tonight.
Just thought I’d weigh in ? Chris’s dress was my favorite:
I mean yeah I loved Rami’s winning design, but I really wish I had Chris’s dress to wear somewhere. Somewhere.
And in other fashion related fun … Marc Jacobs is out of his mind! This isn’t news … he’s been all over gossip sites and Page 6 and Gawker and all else. But it’s always fun to see how the NYT tries to pretend they’re all professional, whilst discussing Marc Jacobs, who is a crazy creature of nudity. Who canoodles with Perez Hilton. With blue hair. And enjoys creepy ads featuring Dakota Fanning. No, no. Marc. We love you!
Thou shalt always steal
The Village Voice’s Lynn Yaeger wrote a nice little piece about fashion fraud. Apparently, Anna Sui is su-ING (zing!) Forever21 for their knock offs. Nitrolicious offers a side-by-side here:
But right now, honestly, it’s not like someone who could afford designer clothes would be caught dead in a Forever21. Forever21 is for we, the people, the plebians. The proletariat. Those who find it ridiculous to have to spend thousands of dollars to look how we feel: Young, healthy and beautiful.
Anyway, Yaeger Bomb’s got a point with her story. Our whole culture, right now, is one of collage, pastiche, and general remix. Fashion’s no different. So, designers, keep designing, and please leave Forever21 and H&M and Zara and all others alone. For the sake of the poor college student who tries, desperately hard, to look good and not drink so much coffee all the time. I need the under-$30 dresses. They’re such a nice gift to give oneself.
This is why I have to make the money
Oh. Em. Eff. Gee. I just saw the coverage of Oscar de la Renta’s Spring 2008 collection. It makes me wish, oh so much, that I, too, could be one of the beautiful people. This gown, for instance. Grecian goddess with sass and class.
Someone, please, would you buy it for me? The shoes, too. I’d never take ‘em off.
Anyway, the beauty of that made me forgive him for all the belts (enough with the belts! It’s O.K. for me to wear them all the time, obvs, but can’t you designers give us something new to draw attention to our waists?) and for the grotesque thinness of his models. BONES!
When will it end?
The virtual world never ceases to amaze Brink. That College Ave. guy (recently returned from a three-week hiatus) sent me this heads up: Artists are bringing your virtual selves back into the real world.
Fabjectory creates scultptures of avatars, including your Nintendo Mii ($50 for a 3-inch piece, $100 for a 5-inch piece); your Second Life avatar ($99 to $200); or your SketchUp creations ($50 to $150).
So basically, you create your virtual self, which may or may not look like you (some people prefer to have tails and wings in-world). Then you pay Fabjectory a (pretty hefty) commission to bring a virtual-specific creation into the physical world.
Fabjectory might be on to something here. But it doesn’t have to end there. I for one would like to see residents in Second Life set up an in-world business that makes virtual replicas of the physical replicas of residents’ original virtual selves (which may or may not look like them).
So, wait, which one is the real you?
We’ll miss you, Captain Zissou
Yesterday was a sad day for Brink. For the past couple weeks, on a pillar at the entrance to the communications school, there was a stencil of Steve Zissou (of The Life Aquatic fame). No idea who put it there ? I just know his little red beanie made me smile every time I saw it.
I told myself to get a photo of it for you Brink readers because, clearly, you’d appreciate it as much as me. Yesterday afternoon, as I walked back from class, I found a wall of dripping white soap where Captain Zissou’s face once was. The college washed it off! Boo.
The Big Spoon was also deeply affected by this event, so I grabbed a camera to capture his moment of mourning.
Dancing on the ceiling
Brink’s a sucker for cute, colorful wellies (granted, I have those pale green wooly ones from Banana Republic, but hey, they were on sale). This funky mobile installation is at the venue Harry Klein in Munich. StyleClicker posted a photo of it, but there’s not much more information available. All you need to know: The wellies in this project beat all the rubber boots hitting the streets in this country. Time to invest in some Krazy Glue and plastic toy cars.
Super Duper Scary
I know, I know, you’re probably sick of looking at Colani and that yellow car. But Brink is back after a short vaca at South Beach. Not much to report on the Miami fashion end ? for the dudes: bare chests or white polos with popped collars; for the ladies: short skirts and high heels. A common theme between both the sexes? Lots of alcohol from Wet Willie’s.
While relaxing pool side, feeding my Internet addiction, I came across this brilliant (read: not so brilliant) idea: a human-powered rollercoaster. The eco-friendly Skycycle at Washuzan Highland Park in Okayama is powered by pedals and leg muscle. The cars come with a pink basket, and riders are strapped in by a seatbelt. But what’s really interesting is the design of the car. Picture those red four-seater carts families cruise the Jersey Shore in ? no sides, hardly any back support. Now put that on a rollercoaster track ? truly frightening.
Actually, the potential for the cart to tip at any moment might give riders more of a thrill than any loopy Batman coaster. And that Batman ride doesn’t come with a little pink basket.
(Thanks Reader Erin and Treehugger)
Mario’s German cousin rules
The Design Museum in London is featuring a retrospective of the work of German transport and architecture designer Luigi Colani through June. Titled “Luigi Colani: Translating Nature,” the exhibit will cover his work from the past six decades.
Colani, also posterguy for the gnarly handlebar mustache, has been creating new ways to think about transportation, design and style since the 1930s, when he studied art and aerodynamics. He began his career developing cars, and eventually moved on to planes, boats, furniture and commercial products.
?I am not a designer,? he says on Discovery’s ?FutureCar? series. ?I am a three-dimensional philosopher of the future.?
Check out a feature about him from this weekend’s Times. (Via The New York Times’ DriveTimes)
Speaking of philosophy: Jean Baudrillard ? or as The Guardian put it, his “simulacrum” ? passed away recently at age 77. Julian Baggini raised some interesting points about his death in The Guardian, particularly this one:
News of the death of Jean Baudrillard provokes mischievous and possibly disrespectful thoughts about how he would have reported his own passing. “It never happened” would be the obvious choice. For those of us who didn’t know him personally, the “death of Baudrillard” is an entirely media event, one which we only observe through the filter of news, the internet and television. To believe otherwise is to fail to recognise the nature of our “hyperreal” society, in which we are no longer able to distinguish between reality itself and its simulation.
Lots of people thought Baudrillard was a bit out there, but his work on simulacra and the hyperreal start making a lot of sense when you look at things like MySpace, Second Life and LonelyGirl15 ? especially LonelyGirl, who blurred the line between real and not real, not only with the medium (YouTube), but also with the narrative itself. Baudrillard is heavy reading, but enlightening.
Hyperart
Online worlds: Weird? Nah, to Brink it?s fascinating stuff.
Richard Minsky, an artist and founder of the Center for Book Arts in NYC, is publishing the first magazine dedicated solely to online world Second Life?s art scene this month. The publication, called Slart (read: Second Life Art), will cover issues with online art (one feature: “Is All Virtual Art Illustration?”). It will be an in-world publication, and there might be a print version, too.
Second Life is designed totally by its users, and people take their creations very seriously. Users make clothing, churches, houses in the sky ? you name it, and SL probably has the digital incarnation of it. SL already has about 100 online galleries. Actually, SL itself could be considered one big piece of art. Its open source model distinguishes SL from, say, a multiuser game like World of Warcraft, which doesn?t allow players much creative control beyond avatar design (that, and SL isn?t really a ?game game,? there?s not much of a goal involved).
It probably goes without saying, but digital art really does make you think of art in new ways ? in terms of presentation, production, and the traditional relationship between artist and viewer. Digital art is interactive and participatory, blurring that static relationship between the artist mounted on a gallery wall and the silent observer. It really all comes down to making connections, among people and ideas.
Sure, there?s plenty of net art out there, and has been for some time, taking its cue from Dada, Fluxus and conceptual art. But Second Life, already inhabited by about 3 million users (crazy!), makes the in-world art movement well worth following, even if the SL craze dies within a few years. Such a high profile network can only further the popularity of digital art and push it into new areas.
There is plenty of good reading on SL and digital art, but here are a couple of my favorites: Social Sim is a blog about SL and social networks in general. Written by Aleks Krotoski, a Ph.D. student in England and a games blogger for The Guardian, the blog takes a deeper look at the social networking trend ? really interesting stuff. And since I always encourage a good read, check out Christiane Paul’s book, Digital Art. Paul works in the new media division at the Whitney museum.
Keeping time
When I was in fourth grade, I was really into digital watches. I finally got one of those calculator watches through a school magazine drive ? that and a neon green stuffed hippo I still have today. I thought I was the coolest kid at school. After looking at Watchismo’s photo collection of vintage children’s watches, I now realize my calculator watch was nothing compared to the G.I. Joe watch. Nothing. Maybe this post will inspire a return to wearing silly kid time gear. (via Boing Boing)
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