Tag: Arts

Welcome into what we are sure will be a STUPENDOUS second year of JOVA.. and we mean that in a (2000 and) great way... In fact lets top what for us was a phenomenal year. We've been hanging out a lot on Twitter, so we thought we'd kick off this year by sharing some of the inspiration and creativity that we find everyday... Tweet!

 

FOR STARTERS - our favourite story has to be about the GUERIILA KNITTERS called KNITTA  - instead of graffiti or stickers, they  KNIT their mark around the world...  We love it!

 

"Knitta began in August 2005, when the soon-to-be-Knittas were discussing their frustration over unfinished knitting projects: half-knitted sweaters and balls of yarn gathering dust. That afternoon, they knit their first door handle. Then it dawned on them… a tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings. With a mix of clandestine moves and gangsta rap — Knitta was born! Today, Knitta is a group of ladies of all ages, nationalities, and… gender."

In a JOVA first we attended a festival virtually, thanks to two cyberspace souls that were able to Represent us at the last minute at the PICNIC Crossmedia creative festival in Amsterdam last week. They've kindly blogged the highlights for us, big shout outs and thanks go to Laetitia Dam and Bertrand Robinne for hanging out on our behalf. Of special interest to us was the Suprising Africa day, that they covered in detail for us. See their photo-story here (video still to come) and read their review below:

 

A new Ecosystem conference

Being music lovers we first stepped in the Flexbar where “A New Music Ecosystem” conference took place. “The music industry is changing. Artists and developers everywhere are working on new ways of connecting fans and bands and developing new businesses along the way”. As MySpace users we were mostly interested in the presentation of new Music websites. The one that caught our ears was Twones introduced by the dynamic and young Tim Heineke. Twones is a music service and a new way to store, organize, find & share music played all over the web

The Saatchi online gallery has initiated an innovative democratic art appreciation project online, where signed-up members of their virtual gallery can submit their artwork for a weekly 'public voting' competition. The public are invited to appraise the uploaded artworks and choose those that they love the most by rating their aesthetic appeal from 1 to 10. At the end of each voting week, the two artworks with the highest votes are announced - the public then get another week to vote for the winner of the two most popular pieces. A total of 12 rounds will roll out over the next few months, soliciting 12 overall finalists, until the big bad final Showdown when the most popular of the 12 will be voted for, again, by the public. Our only criticism is the prize money, a paltry 1000 pounds for the winner and 750 for the runner up. We've seen bigger prizes given out at a country fair. Come on Saatchi, surely all the effort, promotion and click traffic is worth a lot more than that? We challenge you!  Read more about the initiative from Saatchi online below:

So apparently the beloved Polaroid camera and film as we know them, are on their way out... according to megafan website, SavePolaroid, the company announced in February this year that it will discontinue production of all Polaroid instant film. SavePolaroid is doing whatever they can to find a new owner to continue producing the film and keep the legacy going. Inspired by this 'potential death' of polaroid, two arts graduates in the states kicked off their own Polaroid project entitled "Before I die I want to..." The duo take photo's of people using their polaroid and then ask them to write a promise to themselves about something they'd like to do before they die. The  images are then posted on their site "Before I die I want to..." for everyone to enjoy... and bear witness to!

All JOVA community members will have read the interview with eminent young South African furniture designer, Ryan Frank , whose latest fabulous creation, ‘Isabella’, was launched at the London Design Festival this September. It's an ingenious totem pole style stacking stool made from straw and wool. Drawing inspiration from traditional hand carved African seating, but wanting to avoid the use of exotic hard woods, the stools are made from a solid section of Strawboard.

 

Members of the JOVAcommunity will know all about papertoys and flatpack toys from JOVAreport edition 001, here's a fine twist on the concept - doodle box toys.... German website box doodle project has some simple rules: rearrange a box to make any kind of figure or object, and make the most of 'the least'... doodle away in other words, and create a character. Go an do a bit of online doodling for practice first . 

We've recently been (re)learning all about colour hues and saturation, not being overly confident in our artistic or rather drawing/sketching/designing abilities, we were delighted to discover a hidden talent thanks to the FM 100 Hue Test: Hue allignment. Yes, we're officially super skilled in alligning colour chips according to their hue which means our colour IQ is HIGH! Or low... If you have no idea of what we're talking about, see if you can beat our first timer score of 4, Test Your Colour IQ at FM 100 Hue Test .

DQ is an online magazine site presenting the work of a range of illustrators and graphic artists in four slick volumes. Each volume has a different theme and a different artist matrix (volume two features artists from Brazil, Italy and France sketching their wild party nights all in blue bic pen, while volume two shares the work of 16 illustrators talking about women and seasons) that you can smoothly glide through at the click of your mouse, accompanied by an (eery) homemade soundtrack for each storybook. It's a gorgeous way to tell a story, sharing the voices of many in one. More volumes to come, we hope. 

‘Sudan Under My Skin’ is a photo exhibition comprising 35 images encapsulating the recent seven-month experience of Cape Town-based journalist and photographer Yazeed Kamaldien . Please note that this exhibition is also part of the official Cape Town Month of Photography which opens on October 2 2008. "Sometimes a place or experience can leave you scarred. Sudan did more than that. It didn’t just brush my surface; it crept under my skin.I first ventured to this African country’s troubled Darfur region in October 2004. Back then I was working as a journalist with a national daily newspaper based in Johannesburg. I never guessed that I would be back in Sudan. It was a hot afternoon on July 1 2007 when I landed 

Since we stumbled onto the beautiful concept that is Reverse Graffiti , the world just seems like a better place, filled with so much potential. Walking around now looking around, the cities' dirty stained walls all cry out for this one-of-a-kind temporary artwork. If we had a list of our favourite urban concepts, this would definitely be in the top three ideas. It's simple: brilliantly skilled artists CLEAN dirty surfaces to create Graffiti. Make sense? See the picture of the skulls from the Brazillian Reverse Graffiti artist Alexandre Orion above? The skulls (which took TWO WEEKS to 'clean') are simply where he's cleaned away all the dirt, grime and mess of the tunnel wall. Under much duress from cops.Absolutely Breathetaking. Click here to find out more and take your time to go through at least the top three names - on each of the links you can watch a video of their work. NICE!!!! So Nice. ahhh. Flickrpics. This made my week. Now if only we can convince some of the useless taggers around to use their fingers and some spit....

 

Pieter Hugo is a young South African born photographer whose much-vaunted photographic  exhibition entitled Street & Studio: An urban history of photography is currently on show at the Tate Modern in London until the 31 August. Check out the Michael Stevenson gallery/ art historian website where you can feast your eyes on his extraordinary body of work, Nollywood, that explores the vibrant Nigerian Film Industry: "In his new body of work, Pieter Hugo explores the multilayered reality of the Nigerian film industry. Nollywood is, surprisingly, the third largest film industry in the world, releasing onto the market between 500 and 1 000 movies each year.