Kinetic Hotwheels Installation - Metropolis II

Metropolis II is an insightful short film about a really cool installation by Chris Burden currently on display at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Featuring at least a few thousand cars set in an infinite loop, the installation was created in order to capture the spirit of a metropolitan city bustling with traffic. Chris offers his insights into his goals behind the project to the folks at Supermarché, who put this project together.

Nonotak Studios' Daydream V.02

This awesome installation by the Nonotak Studio collective (Comprised of Noemi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto) called Daydream was shown off at the Insanitus art and music festival in Lithuania held earlier last month.

The mesmerizing experience that the installation centers around momentarily detaching visitors from reality via the usage of some truly mesmerizing projection work amplified by glass panels and an effective ambient score. The synchronized marriage of sound to the abstract spaces created by the light definitely looks like it would be an engrossing experience.

The Faile Arcade

The Brooklyn based art duo called Faile have already done 2 separate pop-up arcades in the past, taking vintage cabinets, gutting them and reloading them with custom videogames and art. The goal of the duo is a mixture of a tribute to their own childhoods spent in dimly lit arcades as well as recreating that distinct atmosphere for a new generation to experience. This third installment of the Deluxx Fluxx arcade will be popping up in Miami from December 3-7.

It’s a connection for us to a time and a place. Not only to the games but the whole experience – the environment, the artwork, the lighting, the sense of losing yourself in this world.

Face-O-Mat Travels Around The World

While our interaction with machines does facilitate our day to day life and make us more efficient, machines cannot replicate a simple smile..Until now that is. A rather silly idea by Tobias Guttman called the Face-O-Mat has ultimately ended up taking him around the world since it's inception in December 2012, creating over 700 abstract portraits for participants. From Stockholkm to Dar Es Salaam, London to Tokyo and beyond, the Face-O-Mat continues it's journey to generate smiles.

You can follow the progress of Tobias' ingenious invention and it's journey over on Facebook and Tumblr. Check out the original video for the Face-O-Mat right after the break!

Turning Weapons Into Instruments - Pedro Reyes' "Disarm"

Pedro Reyes 'Disarm' project is a pretty interesting look at an artist using his ingenuity to turn weapons of destruction into those of expression. Reyes sourced his raw materials from seized cartel arms, which were later used to assemble his pretty sophisticated robotic band installation. As he put it best: It's the redemption of metal that could have taken your life or mine.

Disarm is actually the second generation of instruments built after his 2012 project Imagine, which also used remnants of the weapons that the Mexican army had collected and destroyed. This series however was made in collaboration with a team of musicians and Cocolab, and media studio in Mexico City. These new pieces can be programmed and operated via computers, making them capable of performing music concerts with compositions prepared beforehand.

Untitled

Untitled is a highly surreal video installation currently being crafted by Italian artist Donato Sansone (Who goes by Milkeyes) as a strange, unsettling series of highly surreal video vignettes masterfully crafted with plenty of experimentation in compositing and video post techniques using a mixture of Photoshop and Aftereffects. Coupled with the surreal sound treatment by Enrico Ascoli and Portrait is a truly Lynchian endeavor, effectively accomplishing the goal that Milkeyes set out to execute: Creating living paintings with an unnatural, strange sense of life.

(Portrait) is a video where in fact nothing happens unless the staging of these beautiful abstract portraits 'live' with the possibility 'of animated inserts of foreign elements within the scene that interact with the portraits. the project may 'have different destinations and purposes' such as art exhibitions, video installations artistic events related to art in general, but also the festival of animation, experimental video, galleries etc. 

Cocoon

Created by Helsinki based art collective Woland, Cocoon is a beautiful, interpretative piece featuring multiple protagonists suspended underwater, slowly flowing to the beat of a minimal electro score. Originally created as a visual art installation for a Casino in Helsinki (The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas has a similar visual installation in their lobby), director Petri R shared his thoughts on the project:

Cocoon is an aesthetic exploration in underwater movement. The short film was originally a part of a commissioned work for the Casino Helsinki for their large scale public screen, but is now released as standalone short film.

The Pirate Cinema (NSFW)

This truly fascinating project by Nicolas Maigret was developed over the last 2 years for usage as an interactive art exhibit, turning raw streams of monitored Bit torrent data into visual snippets at a machine gun pace. As well as displaying the jarring tastes of audio-visual content, IP addresses and countries are displayed to give viewers an impression of the global nature of content consumption and distribution. Considering that the data being extracted is from incomplete torrent chunks, the entire project also turns into an amazing glitch fest.

A visualized torrent chunk of PSY's Gagnam Style being transferred from Italy to Australia

In the context of omnipresent telecommunications surveillance, 'The Pirate Cinema' reveals the hidden activity and geography of Peer-to-Peer file sharing. The project is presented as a monitoring room, which shows Peer-to-Peer transfers happening in real time on networks using the BitTorrent protocol. The installation produces an arbitrary cut-up of the files currently being exchanged.

Urs Fischer's Decay

(Via)

That sampling was from Urs Fischer, who caught me off guard with his unsettling installations centered around beauty, creation and decay. The Zurich born artist has become well known for creating pieces that are organic and ever changing via his application of factors that alter the materials he works in. From wax sculptures that transform over the course of a few days with the application of wickers and fire (Like the 'Untitled' piece above) to sculptures made out of bread, fruit, wax, styrofoam, clay, paint, sawdust and a mind boggling other array of materials, his pieces reflect the ever changing, chaotic nature of the world.

I really loved his unique take on his art and the message, and invite you guys to check out more of his massive gallery over on his official website. This man definitely struck an interesting chord with me.

Giant Spider Projection Mapping

Fredrich Van Schoor's installation is a perfect example of creatively using projection mapping techniques, and a great reason to keep hating spiders. By using a scaled down replica of his studio filled with normal sized spiders as the means of getting footage for projection, Fredrich was able to turn his house into an arachnophobe's worst nightmare. This is quite possibly the most creative application of the technique I've seen yet.

Dead Media By Noah Scalin

Noah Scalin, the author of the 'Skull-A-Day-Project' was commissioned by the TCC Visual Arts Center in Virginia to create this anamorphic installation featuring his favorite subject matter. Anamorphic is a term typically used to describe a film format, but has recently been adapted for a type of art installation, which requires viewers to view it at a certain angle to reveal the true nature of the image. Noah used a total of 497 VHS tapes to assemble this awesome installation, a commentary on video formats long gone. I could see Mr. Scalin expanding on this concept, starting with 8-track, cassettes, laser disc, betamax, all the way up to HD DVD (Remember that fiasco?).

Wafaa Bilal's Meme Junkyard - TechnoViking

Wafaa Bilal created a pretty awesome art installation at the Festival Of New Cinema, Digital Culture and Art, featuring the head of technoviking, a meme past it's 'digital prime' featuring a half naked nordic dude dancing his loving face off in public. The concept revolves around giving Twitter users the power to keep his head, or as Waffa put it, 'his ego' literally inflated by mentioning him in Tweets featuring the #technoviking hashtag.

The Meme Junkyard is somewhat of a silly concept, but it's meant to let users reflect about being constantly connected, and the strange cyclical concept of going viral, and how memes generate a ton of interest before abruptly fading into darkness again. The Technoviking meme went on to generate 40 million views in it's prime, spawn countless imitators, remixes and become a staple of internet pop culture. Check out a compilation of all the imitators, 'We Technoviking' after the break!

Ping Pong Country: Sabotage Edition

If you've ever had a chance to play a shooter with bizarre modifiers to spice up the gameplay, this Ping Pong concept will be right up your alley. Imagine playing ping pong with the threat of getting strobed, hit by wind gusts or having a few dozen balls dropped on your table at any time. The entire system is operated via a master board, designated to fulfill the inner troll in you.

Locomotive Place Des Arts

This bizarre video mosaic setup is a current work in progress at the Place Des Arts in Quebec. The entire premise of this installation is to showcase the human body as a machine, a patchwork of flesh all working in harmony synchronized with music.

The Many Mirrors Of Daniel Rozin

Wood Mirror-1999

Daniel Rozin is a New York based artist who has set out to create interactive experiences in which the viewer would become part of his high tech mechanical mirror based installations. Over the course of 13 years now his various mirrors have traveled the world and engaged people in just about every country imaginable. I loved the fact that each of his unique mirrors were created out of stranger and stranger components as the supposed 'reflective' surface. Check out six more of his mirror creations after the jump.  My favorite by far was the Trash Mirror. I'm not sure he'll be able to top his latest creation, the 'Mirrors Mirror.'