Thingies: Banksy and shady art trade, gaming music, capturing everything
Banksy mural mystery
A U.S-based auction house recently withdrew the auction of a beloved Banksy mural that had been mysteriously removed from its home in a London neighborhood. Members of the neighborhood were furious with the auction house for putting the piece up for sale, saying at one point, “for you to allow it to be sold for huge profit in this way would be morally wrong, and completely contrary to the spirit in which we believe it was given to our community.”
For The Guardian’s Jason Farago, it’s another in a long list of recent shadiness in the high-octane world of fine art collecting, where forgery, fraud, tax evasion, and gray-market dealings run rampant as big-time collectors seek big, short-term gains from sales.
Ai Weiwei doc airs on Independent Lens
Prominent artist and Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei is the subject of an excellent 2012 documentary entitled Never Sorry, which was recently aired on the PBS documentary series Independent Lens. If you missed the premier broadcast this past Monday, Prairie Public has some repeat viewings coming up in the next couple days if you want to catch it on repeat.
Developments at Hyperallergic
Close observers of ARTSpulse will note our devotion to New York-based art blog Hyperallergic, which it deserves for its breadth, its bravery, and its humor. In the last week, they’ve announced two high-five worthy partnerships that affirm the impressive work they do and paint a comprehensive picture of modern arts/culture information exchange. Firstly is their Tumblr Art Symposium, which has resulted in plenty of gif-loving and critical thought about Tumblr as the platform for today’s most cutting-edge creativity. Secondly, they announced recently that they’re a media partner in Art21’s milestone celebration 100 Artists, which acknowledges the 100 artists profiled in their 11-year, ongoing Peabody Award-winning documentary series Art in the 21st Century. Bravo, guys!
A gaming soundtrack without a game
Bands and musicians like Anamanguchi and Truckosaurus have been playing chiptune and video game-inspired music for a long time. But they haven’t quite moved into the territory Tettix moved into for his latest project, Solace. Tettix, who offers all of his music for free download through his website, created Solace to be the soundtrack for a video game that doesn’t even exist, sort of like how Tolkien made up languages for people who don’t really exist. Check out this Boing Boing article on his inspiration and thought process for creating the atmosphere for a game that isn’t a game at all.
Capture everything, because why not?
Our intense global experience of the Russian meteorite had a lot to do with the fact that many Russians are constantly recording video through dashboard-mounted cameras, a tactic developed to protect against fraudulent lawsuits. Pop Photo suggests that this incident and the dozens of powerful resulting videos lend more interest into the “capture everything” notion and the idea that we’ll soon wear cameras (glasses? watches?) that will constantly be gathering sound, images, and video from our environment. Sound crazy? Well, there are plenty of products lined up that do just that.
And other nibblies…
- A sweater for a snake
- An excellent vertical garden concept
- The Library of Congress’ efforts to preserve our nation’s history of recorded sound
- Must read: Donna Minkowitz writes in Salon about her eyebrow raising experience interviewing Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender’s Game
- Steven Wright: master comedian, cool guy
Image: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images via NPR
