The Immersion Project

From the Daily Telegraph: “Robbie Cooper’s film stills capture children’s faces as they play violent videogames and form the basis of an art project that could also help us understand the effects of spending time in a virtual world.”

Read Sam Leith’s entire “Immersion Project” article here.

posted by: Harold Johns III

“Center for Urban Agriculture” by Mithun

Many people know that the Northwestern coast of the United States, with cities like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, is a hotbed for liberal and civically progressive initiatives when it comes to environmentalism and sustainability. And the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (GBC) is no exception. Its parent organization, the USGBC, is a non-profit organization pushing to foster interest in green building technologies in hopes that all construction will be sustainably built within a generation. These are lofty goals indeed, but with areas like Cascadia setting the example the end result does not seem so far out of reach.

The Cascadia GBC also hosts the Living Building Challenge, a project that presses architects to find new, creative and affordable ways of enhancing our built environment with sustainability in mind. A few characteristics of their ideal building include: generating all energy with renewable resources, capturing and treating all water, and operating efficiently while maximizing beauty. For projects to attain living building status they must cater to six performance areas, or Petals as they say: site, energy, materials, water, indoor quality and beauty + inspiration.

In 2007, the Center for Urban Agriculture by Seattle-based design firm Mithun won “Best of Show” at the Living Building Challenge, and for obvious reasons. It is an entirely self-sufficient urban farm that will grow both vegetables and chickens for local consumption. While its footprint occupies a mere 0.72 acres on the site, the 23-story building contains 318 one- and two-bedroom apartments and produces enough food to feed 450 people annually. The building is also sheathed in over 34,000 sq ft of south facing solar panels that will theoretically match 100 percent of the building’s energy consumption. The ground level features an organic café that will serve food grown on the site to reinforce the importance of travel-free food consumption. As famed suburban polemicist James Howard Kunstler quoted in a 2004 TED Talk, “the age of the 3,000 mile Caesar salad is coming to an end.”

by: s.a.johnson

Free Music Archive

Free music is something we have grown accustomed to in a post-Napster world. Peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella continue to help millions of people download free music every day. However, doing so is technically illegal, could lead to a lawsuit, and ultimately takes money from the artists who made the music.

WFMU, a renowned freeform radio station out of New York, has the perfect compromise for those still want free music but with none of the guilt. This December, thanks to a grant from the New York State Music Fund, WFMU will unveil the Free Music Archive. “An online digital library of music that will allow music fans, webcasters and podcasters to listen, download, and stream for free, with no restrictions, registration or fees. And it will all be legal.”

Inspired by Creative Commons and open-source software, the Free Music Archive utilizes special copyright licenses that allow musicians to waive some of their rights to the public while still retaining ownership of their work.

As a preview, WFMU has already selected 40 tracks by artists like Silver Jews, Vivian Girls, and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti from their Free Music Archive, repackaged them into two sampler cds, and made them available on their website as free downloads.

What could be better than free, legal music?

posted by: Brent Carter

Cinema Style: The Last Emperor

Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 film The Last Emperor is regarded as a visual masterpiece. Nominated for nine Academy Awards, the film swept all categories including Best Picture and Best Director, Best Cinematography for Vittorio Straro, and Best Costume Design for James Acheson. The Last Emperor follows the true life story of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, the last ruler of the Chinese Ching Dynasty, from his takeover of power in 1908 at age three till his death in 1967. Told through a series of flashbacks, Pu Yi is shown in his childhood restricted to the Forbidden City, living a “westernized” lifestyle in Tientsin, Japan after being stripped of power, ruling the puppet state of Manchukuo with the support of the Japanese, imprisoned as a war criminal by the People’s Republic of China, and eventually in the last stage of his life as a gardener in a Maoist society. For Bertolucci, The Last Emperor came after six years spent in a self-imposed exile from filmmaking and represents one of his greatest artistic achievements.

Bertolucci on set with actor John Lone

After becoming the first production authorized by the Chinese government to film in the Forbidden City, Bertolucci allotted a $25 million budget to recreate the sets and costumes that would pay tribute to the history and culture. In conjunction with the cinematography, costuming within the Forbidden City is bold and bright, using reds, yellows, and oranges to accentuate the traditional dress and lavish lifestyle of the young emperor. Contrarily, the prison camp scenes of Pu Yi’s later life make use of blue tones and very simple, uniform clothing. However, the section of the film following Piyu’s expulsion from the Forbidden City interestingly combines these two techniques.

While living in Japan and embracing westernization, the characters are dressed in richly colored western styles of the 1920′s. However, the overall composition of the scenes are dull and shadowy, using the blue tones of the prison camp scenes to allude to the fact that Pu Yi is losing control. This combination is then flipped during Pu Yi’s reign of Manchukuo. While the cinematography again captures the brightness of the scenery, the 1920′s western costumes have become much darker and more subdued.

Though the cinema style of The Last Emperor may not easily translate to the here and now, the beauty of the film itself is a great inspiration. Due to a lack of available photos, The Rathaus was unable to include many pictures of the costuming during the time of Pu Yi’s 1920′s westernization. For a snapshot of these scenes please enjoy the following video.

Fun fact from Wikipedia: The Buddhist lamas who appear in the film could not be touched by women, so extra male wardrobe helpers were hired to dress them.

by: Tricia Rock

Aaron Storck’s “Wizard Ningxt”

“Drywall screws by the 100k, tape it in series up and down. Quick time labor magic, and sodas, ice teas, crumpled lunch wrappers of chipotle burrito and sandwich lunch are added as extra reality for time capsule between stud boards entombed”.

A quote from the narrative written by artist Aaron Storck to accompany his latest multimedia creation that was on display at the DotDotDot Artspace in Lawrence, KS from Nov. 1st -8th. Although Storck entitled the installation “Wizard Ningxt,” it had nothing to do magic and everything to do with our current economic environment. Unless, of course, you consider talking people into sub-prime loans to be a form of magic.

Using found objects, performance video, and original 2-D and 3-D works, Storck built a microcosm of an America that is currently facing its own failed housing system. The installation feels a part of some 21st century ghost town, where construction has been abandoned due to the credit crunch and only trash is left behind. Duct tape barely holds together two by fours, a power saw is frozen in time, a Mountain Dew can seems to be pissing on a bowl, and a single bright light hangs in the midst of it all, illuminating the scene. The message is clear, Americans should reexamine not just our economic system but ultimately our entire value system, which seems to reward only the greedy.

Aaron Storck’s website

DotDotDot Artspace website

posted by: Harold Johns III
photos by: Tricia Rock