Montréal based artist Yoakim Bélanger has one seriously beautiful art studio. He’s been spending the last few months creating his multidisciplinary works beneath the vaulted ceilings of the city center’s unused Ste-Brigide de Kildare Church. Surrounded by tall stained glass windows and lines of columns, he has been working on a complete sensory experience which will include light, sound and imagery: a DJ, organist, large scale video projections and his beautiful paintings on plates of steel will fill the space. [Read more...]
Visual Bits #240 > All Around the World
Check out your links after the jump.
[Read more...]
Interview with Fire & Soot Artist: SPAZUK
Meet SPAZUK. He’s an artist who creates his works with fire and soot, producing the amazing forms of the human body. Based in Quebec, we had the pleasure of interviewing him to learn about his unique vision and see what’s in store for the future. [Read more...]
What has Edward Norton Been Doing?
We all know Edward Norton for his roles in blockbuster Hollywood films, but in the last couple of years he’s largely been missing from the big screen. So where has he been hiding? 2011 was declared by the UN as the International Year of Forests. It was launched with a film festival in February in partnership with the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and has been inspiring many more interesting spin offs. It’s here that Norton has been putting his passions, fighting for the future of one of the worlds most important resources. [Read more...]
InfographiKids: Live-Action Visualization With Kids
We’ve seen a lot of unusual ways to represent infographics lately, from in-the-field visualization tool-kits to a DIY stencil for pie-charts, it seems the ways to represent data is nearly limitless. This new advertisement for Canadian organization Active for Life, sees school children using their bodies to demonstrate the dwindling level of fitness in Canadian schools. While the precision of the data visualization may be inherently a little on the fuzzy side, the execution and over-all communication from the technique is spot-on. Check out those colorful arms! [Read more...]
Iraq War Casualties: Pixelated
Kamel Makhloufi created this simple yet stunning visualization of Iraq war casualties using just pixels to represent deaths. Looking like the defragmentation of a hard-drive, the image is split between a representation of casualties by volume (left) and one showing casualties over time (right). Casualty types are broken down into four different colors: blue represents “friendly,” green denotes “hosts,” orange “civilians” and grey “enemies.” Based upon data released by Wikileaks as reported by the Guardian, the sobering reproduction of the data speaks volumes and patterns begin to reveal themselves. [Read more...]
A Story Revealed Through Reflected Faces
If you’ve ever looked in the mirror and not quite recognized the face looking back, Alex Kisilevich’s meloncolic series “On the Surface” will really strike a chord. Each portrait features a main character seeming to contemplate some deeper meaning of existence, while reflected in the photograph we find their double has transformed into a different, yet surprisingly familiar person. Based in Toronto, Canada, you can find more of Kisilevich’s work at alexkisilevich.com.
The Difference Between Great Britain, England & the United Kingdom (and a whole lot more)
Ready for a geography lesson? If you’ve ever been confused about the difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England, this video by Colin Grey (@cgpgrey) will set you straight in an action packed 5 minutes. His fast talking dialog also covers the commonwealth countries, what it means to be ruled by the crown and more. It might take a few viewings, but with a little work you’ll get this complex 1000 year old system down pat. [Read more...]
Real-Life Reddit Towns
At the end of November we did a feature on the ghost town of Cairo, Illinois whose images of decay not only haunted us, but also many members of reddit’s community. The town became a buzz topic and creative spirits who hang out on the social news website started to come up with ideas that might help the town see a revival. This thread for Project Cairo is now filled with research, including a substantial amount of information about Ace of Cups, a not-for-profit coffee shop that closed this fall. [Read more...]
Environmental Voyeurism
Living in an energy-efficient home doesn’t have to be complicated or unstylish as this ambient ad for Power Smart Month in British Columbia shows. BC Hydro set up two shipping container condos — one energy-efficient and the other “wasteful” — in downtown Vancouver with plenty of glass for onlookers to spy on the people living inside. [Read more...]












