The Arrow of Time

I first found Diego Goldberg's "The Arrow of Time" a few years ago whilst surfing the net. It seemed like such a simple idea, one of those "now why diddnt i think of that?" moments.
The idea is that ever year since 1976 the Goldberg family take head shot of themselves, alway on June the 17th, always with the same pose and expression. Its oddly compelling watching the family change. Diego himself hardly changes at all but his wifes hair flares around depending on fashion, his children also change rapidly as they grow older.
Goldberg maintains a page for the project at zero zero magazine

Mario Brothers Flash

I was first introduced to Alex Leon's Mario Brothers series thought BoingBoing.net about three years ago, the basic idea was to turn Mario from a simple game avatar into a fully fledged epic hero using only the original sprites torn from the NES game.
Originally the series was seen as a joke, a pretentious retelling of the Mario story but as new episodes were released the story became more ambitious. Leon has used the medium of flashed based sprites to create a story that more than punches above its weight. The series is finally complete and can be found here

The Back side of Fire

The Back side of Fire, originally uploaded by The Eye of Brad.

Something i found on Flickr, I've been fascinated with camera tricks like this for a while. I'd love to be able to emulate this work. Might do something similar when RUCS start up again

Post Secret

I first herd of Post Secret a few years ago when it had just started. The site is an art project run by Frank Warren from his house in Maryland. What participants are asked to do is to produce a postcard with one secret and decorate it, the idea is simple but the results can be stunning.
There is something comforting about people letting you into there anonymous little lives. Some of the secrets are tragic, some are romantic and some are just strange ("I stole your duck and took it to San Fransisco").
The site is run as a not for profit organization donating the majority of the revenue generated by its book for to the suicide help charity Hope and has overall been a massive success. Frank has said in interviews that he has had at times thousands of postcards a week as people rush to exercise there personal demons.
And sometimes the site publishes a short testimonial from someone who has had there lives changed by the site like the woman who was proposed to by her boyfriend after she wrote down all her secrets and left them by his bed or the man who phoned a suicide helpline rather than taking his own life.
The site continues to prosper and is currently number 8 in the Technocrati league table.
If your interested check it out at http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

The Avatar Machine

As reported in PC gamer, there is a strange idea coming from the internets. The avatar machine is an art project who's sole purpose is to simulate what it is to be a 3rd person perspective video game character, the idea is strange but the video is stranger and not entirely unlike like being a drink person walking behind someone. Check it out at http://www.marcowens.co.uk/avat.html

Colleen Coover

Colleen Coover is a comic book artist based in Portland Oregon. Coover is best known for her comic book Small Favors. Small Favors is a lesbian romance between a girl and her various friends both real and imaginary. Coover has also written Banana Sunday, a children’s book based about the adventures of a group of intelligent monkeys.

Coovers has a whimsical almost childlike style and her erotic work is fun and kinda silly (unlike a lot of cartoon erotica which can be dark and mean spirited). Coover is currently working on magazine illustrations and working on the comic book “Freckled Face, Bony Knees, And Other Things Known About Anna”

Coovers website is at http://cooverart.livejournal.com/

"MORE"

MORE is a short claymation film by Mark Osborne depicting the life of a factory worker who is sick of his job but has aspirations of making a revolutionary product that will change the grey world in which he lives. Although the protagonist does succeed in creating his product in doing so he looses a part of himself.

Through the medium of simple grey claymation and psychedelic hand drawn animation Osborne has created a dark story depicting the elation of success and the price that can be paid for it. MORE is a personal favorite of mine due to its dark beauty and thoughtful overtones.

If your interested in seeing MORE and finding out a bit more about it check out Osbournes site at http://www.gethappy.com

Fresh Spam

I came across the art of Kipling West when it was recommended to me by the vlog mobuzztv. The basic idea behind West's work is to take a nonsensical spam phrase such as "ye shall come to my voice; of unicorns. Therefore, shall be"and turns it into a surrealist illustration (shown here). In West's own words:

"I am inspired by spam; taking something that is intrusive, annoying & stinky, and seeing beauty (or at least a bit of entertaining weirdness) in it. Spam, like another common commodity, is plentiful, everyone deals with it daily, and it can be a rich fertilizer if cultivated appropriately."

I love the dreamlike feel of West's work as well as here ability to turn something that most of us see as a major irritation and turns it into illustration of otherworldly beauty.
If you'd like to see more of West's work check it out at http://fresh-spam.blogspot.com/