Check out the new sculpture of Benedetto Bufalino. Reminds me of something that we would see in a Road Runner cartoon…
“In keeping with the theme of his humorous urban interventions, french artist Benedetto Fufalino has sent a residential caravan soaring into the sky. ‘la caravane dans le ciel’ is a mobile trailer situated atop a sky jack that slowly moves upwards towards the clouds. towering over trees and building-tops, the hybrid habitat is gradually lifted into the air and at night, the mysterious illusion lights up the sky with its illuminated interior windows”.
ITunes sells more music than anyone on the planet. They put just about every music store out of business with their new model of single song sales for .99. ( The same thing happened in the photo world via Getty Images and Shutterstock) In other words all the profit for most artists on this planet is now going into the hands of corporate America.
Beyonce did something that has never been done on iTunes. She struck a deal to release a full length album with not a .99 cent single to be found – anywhere. In other words for the first time in years you have to purchase an entire album to hear her new music. She did this without so much as a tweet of advertising and something no record company would of allowed. Now granted this album contains 18 videos as well – she wanted to do a visual album was how she put it (and of course she was influence by the last person to attempt anything this big which was her king; Michael J). One has to mention the millions of dollars that were spent to do this kind of thing is not within any normal musicians reach or reality. So can this be repeated by anyone else on the planet? Not really I am afraid…
What does this suggest for the future of music and images on the web? We have to wait and see but still it gives some hope to all visual content now being devalued on the web. Maybe photography has to create musical content to sell a still image? Maybe it’s all going to a video/music combo hybrid? What ever the new paradigm is it involves adding lots of expensive content to get a $15.99 sale apparently. That would be more bad news for the artists everywhere, musical or visual.
Peter Beard has spent his life fighting for the natural world. He knows more about the effects of man on nature than just about any other human being alive. (except for maybe George Monbiot , Jane Poynter or Bernie Krause ) He also just happens to be one of the great image-makers of all time. (His notebooks are legendary). Great interviews; one short and one long by Lars Bruun and Dereck Peck. Spend 30 min with a real genius and true warrior.
On Mankind: “…(Da Vinci) knew that only the creature that could appreciate all this beauty comes on the scene and sure enough, destroys what only what he can appreciate…”
On learning from the elephants: “…The entire ecology of the elephant is more similar to us than any other animal. What have they done to their habitat? They ate it, they trampled it, they died. You would think we would take a hint from their demise… “
Laura Mvula is brand new on the music scene this year and as we draw to a close on 2013 she stands out as one of the best. When she sings there seems to be something that could only be interpreted as pure joy emanating from this young woman.
Music Break: Laura Mvula- Green Garden (live the Bowery Ballroom)
“All the Light Projection prints are 8×10″ handmade, unique and one of a kind silver analog prints. Light is projected through an optical lens onto silver black and white photo paper and then developed in the darkroom via my entropicprocesses I have developed over the years to bring out certain varied aspects of the print grain by the manipulation of the silver metals in the paper using a variety of darkroom re-development techniques, brushes, bleaches and toners (and in these images a dash of Solarisation).
The prints are camera-less and film-less images – but they are not Photogram’s (nothing was placed on the surface of the paper). So I call them Light Projections. I am still trying to figure out if these have ever been made in the history of photography – in quite this way – as the circles are purely optical in nature and are really those “Bokeh like”Circles of Confusion that a lens can produce.”
