An Art Invasion

July 15, 2009

by Dave Caputo

TOP 10
by extermitent

Can puzzles be art? The french artist Invader certainly thinks so and I for one am obliged to believe him. His latest show, TOP 10, uses Rubik's Cubes to recreate "what he believes are the top ten album covers of his generation". The cubes are a perfect medium for his pixel/pointillist style, each representing a configurable grid of nine pixels. There is an art movement known as Rubikcubism that Invader is actually believed to be the creator of. But it was not always maddening puzzles for this crafty street artist. Invader's first pieces were made of colorful mosaic tiles. With them he recreated video game characters from the 1970's. Probably the most recognizable and the source of his name being Space Invaders. These little murals would be placed at predetermined locations, usually in very public and heavily trafficked places. Since starting in Paris these Murals have spread to over 40 different cities and 5 continents. All of the invaders are catalogued and their locations mapped out so you can witness the spread of their infiltration. It is also possible to use the mapping to plan a local or even global tour of this ongoing installation.



Invaders pieces do not seem to get taken down or destroyed very quickly as is the case with most illegal art. Part of this may be because the tiles are fairly robust and not easily removed. Another reason may have more to do with the nature of street art that we are most familiar. Invaders mosaics become a part of the buildings and structures that they adorn. I do not mean "a part" to simply state that they are affixed to the structures surface but to push the point that they seem to belong there. You see them and accept them instead of being jarred by them. These pieces do not act the same way that graffiti, paste ups and advertisements do. It didn't look like a tag or an act of vandalism. It didn't try to sell me something or influence my opinion, at least not in any sort of active blatant way. They strike me in a similar way that Chip Tune music does. It is a re-purposing of a nostalgic icon that is embedded in our subconscious. I know myself and countless others spent a large part of our childhood staring at these little guys, our attention fully focused on their glowing pulsing pixels.



Thanks to Invader these little creatures from our past have been freed from their cathode ray tube prisons and are invading the streets of a city near you. Be sure to check out his show, TOP 10, at the Jonathan Levine Gallery that is running until July 25th.

Book Worm + Tech Nerd = The Future (?)

July 14, 2009

By Liz Suman

I spent the last two and a half hours in the Columbia School of Journalism (on the sixth floor in a really uncomfortable chair). Had I thought to tweet, the message I would have shot into cyberspace would have read something like: “Listening to the Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book Bob Stein tell a room of 100 aspiring book editors, writers, publicists and agents that the print publishing industry as we know it is dead or at least will be soon.” After over two hours of lecture and discussion, half the audience wanted to run and the other half wanted to stay and fight. * Traditional print book publishing should move away from the printed page and onto the screen in an online, subscriber-based community of readers. * “A book is a place where readers (and sometimes authors) congregate” (Stein). * Authors should be paid not for selling physical copies of books, but for turning on their monitors and engaging with readers about their work via online comment boards and paragraph-by-paragraph annotations.

These are some of the new roles Stein envisions for readers, writers and books within Comment Press, a user-based reading concept he has developed at the Institute for the Future of the Book, “a small think-and-do tank investigating the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts from printed pages to networked screens.”

Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, one of the Institute’s reading projects, in which seven readers discussed a digital text with one another online. Photo Courtesy of Apt.

Stein’s ideas are timely and provocative as well as jarring and controversial. We all know that the Kindle, Sony Reader, eBooks, and other eReaders are quickly catching on with consumers (Stephen King’s latest novel was originally released straight-to-Kindle), but no one who loves books wants to be told that their tattered copies of James and the Giant Peach and Where the Wild Things Are aren’t sacred let alone obsolete. Stein’s argument that his online, interactive book publishing model will replace the book as a physical object is fundamentally at odds with the traditional, definitive reading experience of sitting down (alone) to read a book (that we can hold in our hands), an experience tonight’s audience was quick to defend with a sea of hands right around the time Stein prophesized that, “Our great grandchildren will think of reading as a social experience.”

Comment Press isn’t the only project Bob has pioneered. Click here for a sample of Comment Press and visit the Institute’s website to learn more about what is probably the most complex, nerdy, and sophisticated set of alternatives to traditional printed matter out there ("Sophie", for example, includes multiple versions of the same text (i.e. The user can view original and revised drafts of the Gettysburg Address just by clicking different links).

I don’t believe physical books will ever become obsolete, whether digital books come to dominate the marketplace or not - The experiences are simply too different. But while online books may not have won the populist reader vote, they definitely give book nerds a lot to think about.

Bob Stein, Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book. Photo Courtesy of New York Magazine.

Hydroponic Window Farms

July 13, 2009

By Joanna Burgess

When people think hydroponics, often the fist thing that pops into their mind is the pretty little plant that is illegal in most states. However, for years hydroponic gardens growing other varieties of plants have flourished in rural and suburban areas. The recent trend towards eating local has given rise to more and more people wanting to produce their own food. In response, hydroponic farming has packed its bags and moved to the city.

Jonathan Coulton Machinima

July 10, 2009

Dave's post on Jonathan Coulton is pretty popular so we're leaving it at the top of Nerdabout today. A few months back Joanna interviewed Spiffworld who makes World of Warcraft machinima videos using Coulton's songs. Mythbusters Adam Savage says Spiff's video using Coulton's,"The Future Soon" is "maybe the best piece of machinima art evar!" We've got that one and a few others. Click here to see 'em.

Jonathan Coulton Interview

July 09, 2009

by Dave Caputo

Jonthan Coulton is many things. He is a Yale graduate, a computer programmer, a father and an Internet superstar to name just a few. Some have called him a “Song writing machine” referencing his first major musical project called “Thing-a-week”. At that time Jonathan had just quit his job of 8 years as a programmer and decided to be a musician. Did I mention that was the exact time that his daughter was born? Some people might see this and think it quite irresponsible, to quit a lucrative job when you have a daughter to support. His mind set at this moment is something that I was extremely curious about and since talking to him I have come to understand it completely. He decided to take the plunge and follow his dream not only for himself but for his daughter. He was telling her to follow her dreams, but he did one better than just preaching it, he actually did it.

Since quiting his job in 2005 Jonathan has written over 52 songs and toured the country. He has collaborated with his old schoolmate John Hodgman on a literary tour and audio book, he’s written the theme song to a best selling video game and has just released a concert DVD entitled "Best. Show. Ever.".

So why exactly are we writing about Jonathan Coulton? Simply put, because he is our nerd troubadour. His songs are the themes to our obsessions and quirks. Love songs between moons and planets, zombie office negotiations or sad ballads of giant squids that, well, just crush everything. His songs span other topics as well such as furniture stores, creepy dolls and shop vacs. There is a common thread that ties them together, however, and that is their humor, wit and downright cleverness.

Be sure to check out the interview. We had a good chat and he was nice enough to play Code Monkey and a bit of Future Soon for us. Part two (at left) concludes with a Mad Lib so be sure to tune in till the end!

Top 10 Facts About Rigor Mortis

July 07, 2009

By Joanna Burgess

I've been watching the series True Blood and while it's my understanding that vampires do not go through rigor mortis before rising to walk the Earth for the ages, it got me thinking about death (more than usual I suppose) which in turn made me want to know some scientific facts about rigor mortis to both fulfill my macabre interest as well as to gross out my family and friends with information they would probably prefer not to know. Here are my Top 10 Facts About Rigor Mortis.

photo: obo-bobalina

Top Ten Things You Probably Didn't Know about Book Publishing

July 06, 2009

By Liz Suman

I recently began a summer graduate program at Columbia called the Columbia Publishing Course, so for the next couple of months I’ll be living uptown in Morningside Heights and writing some posts on books, magazines, electronic readers, the Institute for the Future of the Book, and anything else that’s geeky in the world of printed and digital matter.

The course is divided into three parts: books, magazines, and online publishing. Each day begins with a guest lecture; this week alone I’ve had the fortune to hear a slew of book publishing legends, from Alfred Knopf Editor-in-Chief Bob Gottlieb to Grove Atlantic Publisher Morgan Entrekin. With seminars, workshops, and three speakers a day up to seven days a week, I’ve already learned more about the book publishing industry than anyone who isn’t a book nerd would want to know. Lucky for me, I am!

For all the other book nerds out there, here’s the inaugural post in this Nerdabout mini-series on the publishing industry:

Top 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Book Publishing

• The printing press was invented in 1454; page numbers were not invented until 1500.

• In 1740, Samuel Richardson published Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded, often cited as the first English novel.

• According to Little Brown Publisher Michael Pietsch, 275,000 new trade titles were sold in the US in 2007. This means that an emerging author had to compete with over a quarter of a million other titles upon the release of his or her first book. Pietsch notes that in 1937, the books that made the bestseller list involved losing weight, acquiring wealth, and “getting right with God” – many of the same themes that create best sellers today.

• Twilight sold 45 million copies in the first 18 months and the series has sold over 53 million copies since the first book was released in 2005. It is now selling faster than Harry Potter. In the original manuscript, Edward and Bella get married towards the beginning of the story. Little Brown Editor Megan Tingley convinced author Stephanie Meyers to delay the marriage until the end of the series.

• Sessalee Hensley, the national fiction buyer for Barnes & Noble, is widely considered the most powerful woman in publishing. Her responsibilities, which include deciding which novels the chain will carry, how many copies it will buy, and where the books will be displayed in the stores, in many ways determine whether or not a book is successful. Last week she made an appearance at the Columbia Publishing Course during the program’s infamous 7-day book workshop, where she purchased different titles from the students’ faux publishing companies.

• Grove Atlantic Publisher Morgan Entrekin made the deal for the Sex and the City book with Candace Bushnell at midnight at a dinner party at Bowery Bar, which Candace attended with her then-boyfriend Ron Galotti (The real-life inspiration for “Mr. Big”).

• Salacious but unconfirmed publishing rumor: Faulkner received a mere $700 for The Sound and the Fury.

• The New York Times established a “Bestsellers” list dedicated only to children’s books after complaints that Harry Potter was taking four of the ten slots on the general list.

• Ted Kennedy received an $8 million advance for his memoirs in 2007; Sarah Palin’s recent deal is rumored to be at $11 million, and Clinton received a whopping $15 MILLION advance for his 2004 autobiography, My Life, one of if not the highest non-fiction book advances in history.

• The Bible is not only the best-selling book in history; it is also the best selling book each year, according to The New Yorker. Annual sales average at least half a billion dollars, and between two and six billion copies have been sold overall. While the range is huge, it’s status as the highest selling book of all time is indisputable.

Jack Long, Flowering Cities and Fairytales at Giant Robot Gallery

July 02, 2009

By Joanna Burgess

The other night Noah and I went to an art opening for Jack Long at Giant Robot, a gallery and store (they also publish a magazine) on E. 9th Street in NYC. I've been thinking a lot about urban gardening and greening and growing things on my fire escape and window panes so this show was perfect. There was lots of that going on--flowering cities, water, plants. As the name of the show, Singing Her to Sleep suggests, Jack's art is like dropping into the middle of a story and peaking through the window. The colors are bright and beautiful, the details small and delicate. Each wooden canvas seems connected to the other, creating a long, winding journey, reminiscent of a fairytale. You can't always imagine what he was thinking when he was painting but that doesn't really matter. Like all stories, I take bits and pieces and fit them together in a way that makes sense to me.

Jack's show runs through July 15th. If you have a moment while wandering the E. Village during the next two weeks--which promise to be a hot, rainy, muggly ones--drop into Giant Robot and check out their walls. I think you'll like what you see.

photos: giantobotmag