10.31.2006

Chaotic Beauty

There not much that can be said about the "grotesque" that hasn't already been mulled over with excessive discourse. Yes you can find beauty in it and yes it conjures more intense emotions... A friend of mine sent me this website of a German artist. While I'm not convinced that the words "limited and digital" should be in the same sentence, I am convinced of the shear intensity of this work. From Tim Borgmann's website: Since the mid ninties I have been working mainly as a freelancer in the area of 3D graphics/illustration and animation. Besides my commercial work I spend my time on different personal art projects. While working on art projects, I see image creation as a dialouge between the nascent image and myself. Sometimes the image influendes my work by itself, leads my towards its own direction. Sometimes it's just me, pushing the image into the form I want. Although I tend to be someone who must have total control on every aspect of the creation process, it's very interesting to take a step back and let the image take over some control. Some of the images are available as high resolution limited edition prints. You will find more information under limted edition prints

Buff Monster Interviewed on Archinect

Archinect recently interviewed Buff Monster. Read the interview

10.30.2006

new aNYthing tee

I thought this tee deserved some recognition. Made me laugh.

Samhain was in Brooklyn Saturday...

So Yeah, I am well aware that All Hallow's Eve is in reality Tuesday night. That being said, I'm moving Tuesday night into my new apartment and we decided to celebrate this pagan holiday on Saturday [along with most the people in the country]...
We went to the Mad Suspect Halloween Party. Some really great costumes - Eazy E, Eddie Munster, Sashimi, ect. Patrick's got some more pics on his blog, but here are a few shots from night that I took.










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10.25.2006

What's heavy, hot, sweaty and blinks really fast?

Give up?... Trouble and Bass again next Saturday. This shit pops off till the wee hours, so roll in around 12 or so - bring ya moves and ya smiles. T&B brings you the best Baltimore Club, Dubstep, Anthems and Hip Hop - Drop the Lime, Star Eyes, Zach Shadetek and Passions bring it like no one else in the burroughs. See ya there! [p.s. don't drink the red Ginsing Drink]

And again...

... I've been working on some more models and renderings. The newest one is a model of a staircase that's going in the penthouse of a project in Chelsea our office is working on. The client wants the stair to be open and well-lit without the use of lighting fixtures. We decided to recess the handrail and since the stair width is under 40" we only need one... Inside this recessed handrail, we've added some LEDs. These along with the stair lights [small, pin-hole LEDs] are the only lighting going in the stair. With high GI settings, all I have in the space is one sky illumination volume and one sun light. There are no other lights. The renders took a while with a diffuse depth of 6 and a max ray resolution of 450. All in all, they seem pretty crisp. Take a look...

10.24.2006

Gentei

Bmore's spawned some pretty fresh steez in the recent years. With Baltimore Club reaching an all new high [people know who Rod Lee is outside of Baltimore], the scene there is getting a lot more coverage, spawning it's own sense of design and harboring some pretty cool shit! Gentei is, in my opinion, the result of such "incubation". Their Track Bike-infused, streetwear boutique sports some of the hottest brands in the area and their models are all decked out in Izumi track chains, Nitto Gold series and Velocity Deep Vs. Makes my mouth water just looking at the bikes... Again, it reminds me of the "track or die" snowman spoke card I made.

Speaking of Compilations...

When I was just getting into music, I started off with Led Zeppelin, Marley, Johnny Winter, ect. At that time, my parents controlled a lot of what I listened to and watched. Being the oldest of 3 boys, they were apprehensive about what was going to be playing in my stereo for fear of introducing my younger brothers to inappropriate music. My Dad gave me a lot of cassettes that he had recorded for me and my dad's friend gave me tons of Reggae and early Dub cassettes.
I was flipping through Kim's cds today and I came across this CD. It's Studio One's older compilation series. My dad's friend had all these artists on Vinyl and he had made me cassettes of the artists. I found a few last time I was home in my old closet, so I was stoked to find this series on CD. I've been a long-time fan of Horace Andy and his older recordings are all scratchy still. I'd like to think they'll remaster these at some point.
Studio One's reggae is true Reggae and it's worth checking out...

10.23.2006

Blanka

This Saturday, at Commonwealth in Williamsburg, Blanka's [London] new experiment will be on display.

From Maxalot

Blanka (London) has invited 28 leading designers to produce 28 black and white A1 posters representing 28 graphic design terms. The exhibition poster and catalogue are designed by Build, with posters from Wim Crouwel, Saville Associates, Madethought, North, Trevor Jackson, Spin, Tom Hingston, Experimental Jetset and 20 other leading creatives.

All contributing designers received an identical brief, providing each individual with the same level playing field to create something unique, and express their own personal skill or style.

This exhibition was launched at the London Design Festival in September 2006, where each poster was displayed in a different location across the capital including Vitra, Magma, and Design Museum.

As well as stopping at Maxalot in Barcelona, this show will travel to Dublin, Paris, Bath, Sydney, Leeds, Newcastle & New York.

Paper: GFSmith. Printing: Generation Press. Design: Build.

www.maxalot.com www.commonwealth.nu www.blanka.co.uk

Press launches / Private views: 19:30hrs 6th October at Maxalot Gallery c. Palma de Sant Just 9 (ab) 08002 Barcelona Spain +34 933101066

18:30 27th October at Commonwealth Espeis 90 Wythe Avenue N11, Williamsburg L Train <> Bedford Avenue

Move with the Bass

So, I'm well aware that this is an older mixtape, but I've been into it a lot since I downloaded it back in May. Brooklyn's Team Shadetek makes ya move with the bass, even if you don't want to... from their blog, Glaciers of Shade: This is a DJ Mix I did for Resonance FM, a show on Resonance FM in London. 60 minutes of grime, dancehall, hiphop and international crunk wierdness. This one was done solo by me, Matt Shadetek, but theres another one by me and Zach together coming soon. Hold tight Mr Trick, Waxfactor and everyone who let me use tracks on this, and everyone who didnt, its for promotional use only dontchaknow. Here's the link And the artwork's below...

Halloween Alleycat

This Saturday, the New York Bike Messenger Association will throw it's 42nd annual Halloween Race. Should be a lot of fun, and as the forcast says, very cold. Get outcha tights! Also, I just came across this interview with Squid on Youtube. Check it out!

10.17.2006

They're onto us...

Amanda's brother was in town this weekend. Since Friday was kinda relaxed, we decided to go out in Brooklyn and take it easy. So, once again, we spent our Saturday night at Savalas for the Mad Suspect party. As always, it was a lot of fun, except for the pot-cake that was being passed around from some party. Towards the end of the night, a woman began walking around taking notes. Then, I noticed another woman taking pictures. Upon confrontation, we determined they were from the NY Times doing an article on "Brooklyn Dance Parties". Cool enough, some more exposure for the Thug Wizzardry. Here are some shots:

10.12.2006

In Chrysalis

Le Corbusier is, in many ways, the father of modernism. While modernism may not need an introduction, Corbusier does. Through all of his architectural investigations; Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp, Villa Stein, Maison Domino and his book 'Towards a New Architecture', Corb looked at Architecture as a machine for living. Breaking down fundamental Architectural tectonics to slab and ceiling with little vertical obstructions, Corb created new dichotomies in the way in which a building's programme can influence design. In our office, this is what we took as a precedent for our "newest old" project. A while back, a client came to us with a design problem: 'how to liven up a space that is 3,000 sqft with only 4 windows. The space is practically a cave. We decided to create an object, or machine for living, that would transform the occupants to focus on the object and not on the lack of natural light. In the Corbusien sense, we moved the bathrooms into this object and created 'dynamic living spaces' around this sculptural piece. With it's red skin of shimmering plaster, the shape glows in the space that is practically all white except for the kitchen cabinetry and hardwood flooring. Here are some initial renderings:

10.11.2006

Respect the Architects

So every once and a while, it's interesting to make correlationships between Archtitecture and different creative fields. Architecture has been teamed up with musicians; see The Venice Biennial for Architecture (year 2000), DJ Spooky and Lebbeus Woods (AIA NY 2006) and the lecture led by Christopher Janney at Cooper Union (2005), ect. It's interesting to see how large-scale forms can influence smaller, more intimate forms. ‘Respect the Architects’ is another such pairing in a sense. The following movie interviews Tinker Hatfield in an attempt to pick his brain about his role at Nike and development of the Air Max 1. Hatfield states the Pompidu centre in Paris was a precedent for the studies of the Air Max 1. Images courtesy of SlamXHype and here's a link to the video via lamjc