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With Song 1, New York artist Doug Aitken transformed the drab concrete exterior of Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. into a panoramic canvas for a mesmerizing audio-visual spectacle. The site-specific installation, which ran until May 20, featured 11 high-def video projectors working in tandem to blanket the building’s entire surface with video. The song in question is the 1934 standard......read more
Fresh off his amazing video installation projected on the facade of the Hirshhorn Museum, L.A. artist Doug Aitken is installing a new exhibition at a 19th-century train station in Arles, France. The show, entitled Altered Earth, explores the ever-evolving geography and ecosystem of the Camargue region in France. "It’s so remote, a natural place that does not seem to change,"......read more
Doug Aitken's film installation 'Migration,' in which wild animals of North America are placed in curiously human domains, makes a powerful statement on the domestication of the wild and our isolation from nature. For the piece, the California artist hired animal wranglers from the TV and movie industries to bring the creatures in front of cameras in rented motel rooms. The work......read more
Tea made from Douglas Fir spring tips? Surely that would taste like, well, a tree? Not so. This selection from our friends at Juniper Ridge will surprise you with its light, lemony flavor and earthy aroma. Made from 100% Douglas Fir spring tips, sustainably harvested in the Pacific Northwest, this enlivening tincture offers the pure experience of a distinctly Northwestern wild herb delicacy.......read more
I recently met Beth Terry, the author of a great blog on plastic pollution called Fake Plastic Fish (the definitive resource on our culture’s obsession with plastics) at a very sobering event – the return from an expedition to Midway Island with photographer Chris Jordan, who traveled there with a film crew to document the “plastic graveyard.” Midway is literally “midway” from......read more
This is the first in a series I’m writing for SHFT called Ars Natura: art in nature, nature in art. Though I typically blog abut media and technology I have become increasingly aware that the problems our civilization faces are not going to be solved by technological ingenuity alone. Yes I believe we can solve the energy problem and perhaps even find a way to deflate the planet’s overheated......read more
The Finns are a thoroughly modern people. They are world-famous for their uber-modern design aesthetic and are wont to include any historical references of any sort in their architecture or design. And while the country revels in its modern history, it is next to impossible to find any information on the ancient roots of the Finnish people. In contrast to Norway and Sweden, Finland is not......read more
Reuben Margolin is a visionary Bay Area artist who creates totally singular kinetic wave sculptures from a variety of found materials. Graceful and mesmerizing, Margolin’s work is inspired by natural reference points like water droplets, wind gusts, and ocean eddies. Here, MAKE: television takes a look at the artist and his process. ...read more
The key to a successful business is good margins, the difference between what you buy stuff for and what you sell it for. So when what you're selling costs you nothing to buy, and it retails for $50 or $100, you're in good shape. Such is the case with Justin Gignac's New York City Garbage project, in which the artist/entrepreneur gathers trash found on the streets of Manhattan,......read more
The sketchy, ephemeral blue globe which served as the official logo for the COP15 climate talks in Copenhagen has in interesting story. The UN in conjunction with the Danish Ministry of Culture launched a design competition in the early part of the year to create an identity for what would become the most important climate summit in history. The judges received hundreds of entries and selected a......read more
