NY Photog Wows with Minimalist Sky Color Gradients

February 22, 2012

New-York based photographer Eric Cahan seems to be ‘suffering’ from a common syndrome affecting inhabitants of major cities. He is obsessed with the sky. Unlike most of us, however, Cahan is also immensely skilled at capturing the sky in photo format and presenting it before our very eyes in manners we’ve never previously imagined possible. His Sky Series is essentially a photographic essay depicting nothing more than beautiful color gradients. It is a muted meditation on the conjoined transience of time and light, and their impact on our daily lives.

Ever knew the sky could be pink, orange, purple and then black to blue? Ever fathomed that all these changes can occur over a span of minutes? Eric Cahan figured this out earlier than us, so he set out with his color photo filters and no fewer than four digital and film-format cameras. He declaredly aimed to “create a window into a time and a place, and to play with the abstract through color gradients, shifting, and manipulation.” In doing so, he haunted the same places across the United States, from New York to California and then back again. He woke up early, used dozens of filters, but also managed to come up with results that are breathtakingly beautiful.

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The Pulse Surface Controller

February 21, 2012

At the core of all music creation lies a pulse. In an age of gear-overload, many of us have forgotten the most effective and intuitive pulse generator – a finger tap.

The Pulse Controller is a hardware / software solution that liberates computer-based musicians and performers from conventional input devices by allowing a surface – i.e. desk, laptop, objects and more – to become a playable MIDI controller. An included piezo microphone coupled with a simple yet powerful software interface converts acoustic impulses into MIDI Note messages for playing your software instruments in an intuitive, responsive and connected manner.

The idea behind Pulse Controller was born out of the belief that as computer-based musicians and performers we should not feel relegated to a grid of small 1×1″ pads or a keyboard to create our rhythms and provide pulse to our music. Controllers once intended to give us the immediacy of playing an instrument often end up feeling more disconnected and distracting. With the Pulse Surface Controller System, controlling percussive instruments has a more visceral, immediate quality, and via a powerful MIDI generator that generates notes in predefined musical scales the user can easily extend into the melodic domain to tap into an inspiring world of happy accidents. Power to the fingers!

LED Cube and Volumetric Display

February 17, 2012

The volumetric display is a combination of a 10x10x16 LED matrix and Microsoft Kinect technology. Here, we have focused on creating volumetric imagery by using the depth camera to visualize information as a 3-dimensional display. To communicate with the LED cube and send information over the network, we used Microsoft .Net Micro Framework.

Skeleton tracking is another technology that we took advantage of in this research. By using the newest Kinect for Windows SDK inside the Unity 3D environment we were able to create simple games for our LED cube. In one of the games, the player can control the size of particles inside the cube by using their hands and in another game, they can interact with a bouncing ball.

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Jacob Sutton’s L.E.D. Surfer

February 17, 2012

Fashion photographer and filmmaker Jacob Sutton swaps the studio for the slopes of Tignes in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, with a luminous after hours short starring Artec pro snowboarder William Hughes. The electrifying film sees Hughes light up the snow-covered French hills in a bespoke L.E.D.-enveloped suit courtesy of designer and electronics whizz John Spatcher. “I was really drawn to the idea of a lone character made of light surfing through darkness,” says Sutton of his costume choice. 

Filming in the suit was the most surreal thing I’ve done in 20 years of snowboarding

“I’ve always been excited by unusual ways of lighting things, so it seemed like an exciting idea to make the subject of the film the only light source.” Sutton, who has created work for the likes of Hermès, Burberry and The New York Times, spent three nights on a skidoo with his trusty Red Epic camera at temperatures of -25C to snap Hughes carving effortlessly through the deep snow, even enlisting his own father to help maintain the temperamental suit throughout the demanding shoot. “Filming in the suit was the most surreal thing I’ve done in 20 years of snowboarding,” says Hughes of the charged salopettes. “Luckily there was plenty of vin rouge to keep me warm, and Jacob’s enthusiasm kept everyone going through the cold nights.”

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This 10-Year-Old Destroys 99% of Producers These Days

February 15, 2012

Diana sampled her own piano playing, chopped up the notes and arranged a song for yalls. The kid has got some style!

Meet Dexter

February 11, 2012

 

Downtown Portland, 1954

February 10, 2012

January 1954 Published; Decmeber 14, 2000

Still One of the Best Things I’ve Ever Heard In My Entire Life…

February 10, 2012

This is definitely a re-post but some things are so nice you gotta post it twice.

The Odd Future Sessions Part 1.

Fast forward to 5:03 (word to Portland), turn it up and close your eyes.

Happy Friday.

#LINNING!

February 6, 2012

We had Wang Zhizhi, Mengke Bateer, Ha Seung-Jin, Yuta Tabuse and of course our hero Yao Ming.

Jeremy Lin means so much more to this generation of aspiring, young Asian ballers than all of the previously named players combined. Lin may not be the first Asian NBA player in history but finally, the youth have a rising star they can relate to (for the most part). The former Palo Alto High star turned Harvard grad got his big break last year for the Warriors and when he got waived, everyone let out a sigh of disappointment as if his (our) ship had sailed.

But Lin is back, starting for the New York fucking Knicks… and better than ever (and most of the Knicks).

But Lin is back, starting for the New York fucking Knicks… and better than ever (and most of the Knicks).

So go forth young Asians. Get good grades, go to Harvard and you too may one day grace the front page of ESPN and numerous blogs.

Here’s a bonus:

Inside Supreme

February 5, 2012

Read this a while back. Keep going back and re-reading it though.

NEW YORK, United States — When the controversial young rapper Tyler, The Creator won the award for Best New Artist at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in August, he offered an enthusiastic, yet expletive-laden acceptance speech. “Yo, I’m excited as fuck right now, yo,” he said. “I wanted this shit since I was nine. I’m about to cry.” But with MTV’s censors on high alert, the speech was broadcast more like this: “Yo, I’m excited as - -— -- -, yo. I wanted -- -- -- – —- --. - -— - --.”

With the audio missing for about a minute straight to avoid any profanities and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fines, viewers were left with no choice but to absorb Tyler’s image in mute. Clad in skinny dark jeans, an oversize tie-dye T-shirt with an image of a cat’s face on it, and a Supreme baseball hat with a leopard print brim, Tyler, who is 20 years old, was the only artist at the award show who could be said to actually embody how young people dress today. No outfit made from meat, no fancy three-piece suit with a cocked fedora, no oversize bling: Tyler looked exactly how certain young men at this very moment choose to wear their clothes on the streets all over the globe.

It’s no coincidence that the only logo the image-conscious Tyler wished to communicate was the one on his Supreme hat. After all, Tyler’s hodgepodge street aesthetic – a big chunk of skateboard culture and urban hip-hop with a dose of American sportswear prep and a winking, intelligent take on hipster irony – is the one Supreme has been cultivating for the past 17 years since opening its first shop on Lafayette Street in 1994.

The flashy sartorial sensibilities of, say, Russell Brand or Kanye West have mutated into their own category of sub-entertainment and, more often than not, their personal styles do not reflect the current vogue. So how then did the Supreme aesthetic finally become one of the most honest representations of how men choose to wear their clothes in the global mainstream today?

Read part 1 here and part 2 here.