spread is new underground: underground news. underground features. underground art. underground literature. underground culture.

unblog - the underground blog


Battle of the New Atheism
"The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking..." Here for ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


9/11 Press for Truth
Here is one interesting site: 9/11 Press for Truth is "a documentary based on Paul Thompson's 'The Complete 9/11 Timeline'..." Click here for more of ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Tactical Sound Garden
"Given the ubiquity of mobile devices and wireless networks, and their proliferation throughout increasingly diverse and sometimes unexpected urban sites, what opportunities (and dilemmas) emerge for the design of public space in contemporary cities?" Here for more of ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Imagine Earth without people
"15,589 Number of species threatened with extinction. 9.7 Average eco-footprint of a US citizen, in hectares. 18.7 Percentage of Earth's surface affected by light pollution..." More on ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Out of sight
Photography: "An exhibition of photographs chronicling 20th-century Europe tells a familiar story - but their real power lies in what they leave hidden..." Here for more of ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


The SimpsoMaker
Imagine Avatar finally gone cartoon-mad. This sleek flash machine allows you to create and customize your own 'ala Simpsons' character with a twist. Here for '
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Surfworthy...
Here's a shortlist of surfworthy sites you might lose yourself into:






3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Yesnation
"A Flash application developed by Yes.net. On a U.S. map (with states borders) in the background, the aired tune's titles by the vast radio stations networks pop up in real time. The titles appear, related to the particular place where the radio station is placed (on the map is a red dot), and then suddenly disappear without a trace..." Here for ':' Visualizing the map of U.S. radio tunes.
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Absolute Crazy Innovations
"A mad collection of twenty-five absolutely crazy 'German' everyday innovations you may or may not use in real life. Call it stupid. Call it silly. Whatever you call it, don't call it a day before you see this..." Here for more of ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Fear Mongering
"We're not afraid-- we're just stricken with paralyzing terror. October slips in this year, bearing both a Friday the 13th and Halloween. Frenetic searches for "triskaidekaphobia" have been terrorizing the Buzz as the fateful day approaches—which of course just spurs our fear of long words. Fear of the number 13 creeps past our usual haunting aversions to heights and open spaces into the number one spot. As we breathe into a paper bag, take a gander at what other anxieties freeze us in our tracks with our top 20 phobia searches..." Read the rest of ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Phonethica
"Project Phonethica: Combining scientific technology and art, Phonethica is an interdisciplinary project which explores the diversity of the world, through the phonetics of its 6,000 languages..." Here for more of ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


The printed organism
"They designed a jacket inhabited by a Printed Organism, that appears and grows on the garment only when it is being worn for long enough.When you wear the cotton jacket, the pattern, like a parasite or a wine plant, slowly comes to life as color until it reaches full visual bloom..." Here for ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Distant Views/Culture Catchers
"Installed as Distant Views for the 2005 Boston Cyberarts Festival and subsequently as Culture Catchers at the gallery g-a-s-p. Shortwave radios, digital recorders and players, motion detectors, micro computers and antennae were hung by suction-cups on a wall of windows or sheets of plexiglass. The movement of visitors triggers sounds from around the world to fill the environment and to be twisted together... Here for ''
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Onward to Capitalism 3.0
"The twenty-first century can't be a continuation of the twentieth. We're too close to too many tipping points for that. But if it's not a continuation, what then? Then, it seems to me, we'll need a new economic operating system, because if we stick with the current one, huge bills will come due, tipping points will flip, and with some likelihood, things will spiral out of control..." More on ':' A new guide to reclaiming the commons and saving the planet
3:30 AM 10/30/06 |


Personal Kyoto
"Track your residential or commercial electric usage automatically and achieve your own Personal Kyoto. Personal Kyoto provides New Yorkers the means to measure, track and share their progress towards meaningful electric use reduction. Achieve your own ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


American Mugshots
"'Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots' provides photos from the American underbelly. A rogue's gallery: A century of mug shots is on view in 'Least Wanted', at Steven Kasher Gallery. Above, a 1943 forgery suspect..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Paper record player
Check out Simon Elvin's paper record player: "To play the record the handle needs to be turned in a clockwise direction at a steady 331/3 rpm. The paper cone then acts as a pick up and amplifies the sound enough to make it audible..." Here for more of Elvin's ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Play Nice: A peaceful video game's virtuous reality
"Imagine that you are a resident of the subtropical nation Infeliz, suffering under the brutal reign of a dictator named Michael Kosanic. You decide to launch a nonviolent resistance movement to force him out. You're seeking a brilliant, charismatic leader who can pull it off. My advice: Don't pick me. That is, unless you want your movement to end up scattered, bankrupt, and imprisoned, while Kosanic crushes the nation in his ever-tightening grip. In that case, I'm your man. That is my lesson from a week spent playing 'A Force More Powerful' The Game of Nonviolent Strategy, a SimCity-like computer game that pitted me—as the strategic brains behind a grassroots democracy movement— against various evil and repressive governments..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Reformatting the Still Life
"Artists now have the tools to transform collections of everyday objects in ways previously unimagined. What if Matisse had created his Red Interiors and paper cut-outs with laptops and photomedia technology? What might these now-possible imaginings look like? A good example would be the recent work of Clay Bodvin. Using planned intentional-accidents Bodvin controls every aspect of his pixelated, flat-colour shapes and juxtaposes them with lush, continuous-tone textures and surfaces. Onview at Artrom Gallery (Rome, Italy) until; October 24, 2006..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


[the] xxxxx [reader]
"xxxxx proposes a radical, new space for artistic exploration, with essential contributions from a diverse range of artists, theorists, and scientists. Combining intense background material, code listings, screenshots, new translation, [the] xxxxx [reader] functions as both guide and manifesto for a thought movement which is radically opposed to entropic contemporary economies..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Survival of the harmonious
"The evolutionary benefits of our affinity for food and sex are easy to explain, but music is trickier. What’s the survival value of music?" Read the full article: ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Postal Chairs
"True to their goal of 'empowering individuals to creatively alter and reclaim their surroundings from commercial and corporate culture,' the Graffiti Research Lab came up with a novel way of making New York City's privately-owned public spaces a little bit more 'people-friendly.' Inspired by the FedexFurniture project, the GRL team created a several of DIY chairs fashioned from free-of-charge US postal mail boxes and brought them to one of the locations in question. Thanks to these 'postal chairs,' the space was momentarily turned into real place where people could actually sit and relax..." Here for more of GRL's ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Architecture of Happiness
"More than any other art form, Alain de Botton argues, architecture invites the kind of personal response normally reserved for other human beings..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Get Your Grub On: Race, profits and healthy food
"Upset by Fast Food Nation? Grossed out by Super Size Me? Want to do something about it? Celebrate the future of real food... and getcha grub on! From the health implications of what we put in our mouths to the economic and environmental impacts of how our food is raised, the Grub movement is an A-Z activist's guide to eating. Read GNN's review: '' Or check out the site: ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Everyone wants to be an axeman
"A half century after the birth of rock 'n' roll, a primitive six-stringed instrument remains the pre-eminent tool of pop culture..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Media Mirror
"Media Mirror is an interactive video installation, in which over 200+ channels of live cable television are continuously arranged in real-time to form a mosaic representation of the person that stands in front of it. The piece is intended to explore the bidirectional relationship each of us has with mass media. It attempts to illustrate how we are inexorably shaped by the media, while at the same time, how the media itself reflects the demands of our society. The piece is also simply meant to evoke an overwhelming sense of the sheer scale of the medium..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Unstrung
"Is truth beauty and beauty truth? And is string theory beautiful, or true, or both— or neither? New Yorker's Jim Holt wonders..." Read the rest of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Reject Me
"The software is based on modeling typical job rejection letters. These were collected via internet searches. The software will generate letters that consist of rejection texts, company names, addresses and logos, dates and letter headers, automatically creating variations of layouts and typeface. It is then just a case of pressing 'Generate' and 'Print.' By photocopying the letters, it is possible to avoid the need of using different paper types. They have to be signed too..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Artquake
"L.A. may or may not be the new epicenter of the art world, but its art scene is at least an 8 on the Richter scale..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Footprint Mapping
"'Footprint mapping' is an attempt to create a digital map of streets and public spaces by gathering 'footprints' of participants of the project. The artist creates DIY style digital mapping system consisting of cheap pedometer (step meter), digital compass, micro processor, web cam and laptop computer. All the system will be set on a custom made backpack so that one of the participants can try..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Project: Call
Germaine Koh's 2006 Project: Call is an experiment in "intervention using vintage telephone modified with programmable microcontroller and electronic circuitry..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Cassette DJ
"Using wood panels and chunks of eletronics, two enhanced 'players' and a mixer, the Russian DJ Artyom has built himself an equipment for djing with cassette. With a little manipulation, this analog/digital hybrid device makes for a 'ductile sound source'..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


How Nike conquered the skateboard culture
"It wasn't so long ago that the corporate behemoth's name was a four-letter word (synonymous with team sports, conformity, and selling out) that was anathema to everything skateboarders stood for. But after trying and failing to co-opt this fiercely defiant clique for over a decade, Nike finally played it smart..." Read Adbuster's take on how Nike ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |


Leonardo's Paper Trail
"Pages can scarcely contain the scope of Leonardo da Vinci's mind as may be evinced from this exhibition in London, onview through Jan 7, 2007, which includes a 1505 study by Leonardo da Vinci of horses in action, with faces of a lion and a man..." Here for more of ''
1:13 PM 10/11/06 |





NEXT.



TECHNORATI PROFILE:UNBLOG[UNDERGROUND ART]