DMX is back! The rapper’s newest album, “Undisputed” was scheduled to drop today (March 27, 2012). For his latest music video, “I Don’t Dance”, DMX collaborated with Machine Gun Kelly. The Behind the Scenes video short was directed by film maker, Jake Janisse, who Jessica Czeck and I had the pleasure of meeting along our journey in the Visual News Van. [Read more...]
You might be wondering why you are looking at a bunch of intriguing, yet slightly disgusting still life photographs of rotting food. This over the top collection titled “One Third,” is Austrian photographer Klaus Pichler’s reaction to the nature of global food waste. The visually elaborate pieces of art, temporal by their very nature, are an appropriate and fascinating way to capture our attention, make us aware of a global issue and call us to stand up for the cause. [Read more...]
Just how much does energy does that building across the way use? Unless a buildings lights are on all night, every night, it’s probably hard to see just how much it consumes. For the lucky residents of the Big Apple, however, a new and fascinating map has appeared on the web to help solve the mystery. From the Flat Iron building to individual buildings in Crown Heights, the map takes an astoundingly detailed look at each and every block in the five boroughs, giving it an energy consumption estimate. Not surprisingly, the gleaming Manhattan skyline easily tops the list as the biggest energy hog. [Read more...]
Paul Caridad and I have been on a Visual News road trip throughout the US to connect with artists of all kinds since the beginning of March. At our first stop in Carpenteria, California, we were introduced to one of Brooks Institute’s most highly regarded film students, Jake Janisse. The 27 year old from Windsor, Ontario, Canada is in his 2nd year at Brooks Institute and is excited to be finally fulfilling his dreams of becoming a feature filmmaker. [Read more...]
Sam Wolfe Connelly’s Twitter says “I rob graves and draw the treasure I find” — and that may be the very best description of his fantastically macabre illustrations. Each has a dark and blurred atmosphere to its execution, a foggy essence that like a good storybook, only reveals its hidden secrets upon closer inspection. Connelly’s subjects are ghosts, death, eerie creatures, the unknown: all rendered in his highly polished graphite to digital style. [Read more...]
Over the last six months, Pinterest has seen itself explode all over the Internet, quickly becoming the rising star of the social media scene in a big way. From September 2011 to February 2012, the monthly unique visits to the Pinterest site grew over 866 percent. Pinterest is also beginning to give its rivals – Tumblr and Facebook – a run for their money when it comes to time spent on the respective sites. There are a few reasons why Pinterest has been performing so well: the design of the site, its massive appeal to a broad audience, a place of refuge from Twitter/Facebook, and its accessibility. [Read more...]
There are many beautiful places in the world, but we often miss a lot of that beauty until we look at it from “up above.” Stratocam, a program developed by former Google and Dreamworks employee Paul Rademacher, allows visitors to take their own aerial snaps with the help of Google Earth and later vote for their favorite photographs from the community of images. [Read more...]
Some people just see the world in a more colorful way… and this new web app from Stamen proves it. Working much like any other web based mapping system, users simply type in what town or city they want to see and swish… the page is populated with a beautifully rendered watercolor-like map. Towns appear awash in colorful blues, greens and reds that neatly bleed into their neighbors in gradient pools. Lines appear sometimes wide and sometimes narrow in the organic, rounded style of the wet art form. [Read more...]
The profound impact social media has had on our society (and the world) in the past years has led people to take it far more seriously and think differently about how it can affect social issues. Not only are people sharing content with family and friends, but they’re standing up and supporting issues they feel strongly about. In 2010, TBWA/Worlwide posed the question, “How can brands engage young adults in social responsibility?” The answers were critically important, yet simple: make it easy, make it social, make it fun. Two years later the study has been updated, and insights into engaging this crucial audience of pro-social consumers, as well as ideas about creating a better world have been found. [Read more...]
All the wildest sports, the fastest moving objects, the most intricate parts of science, seem to have been captured in beautiful quality over the years. Thanks to slow motion video technology we have seen time slowed down to a crawl, showcasing the most amazing things in a kind of clarity that cannot be seen at full speed: from a speeding bullet to a monstrous wave at Teahupoo, It’s as if slowing things down gives us the godlike ability to see even the most intricate of details. This technology has been around for many years, but recently it has become far more affordable, and as a result, many more visuals from athletes to animals have been captured like never before. What can be thanked for such advances? The Phantom HD camera is largely the culprit. [Read more...]
