SUNDAY AUGUST 22 2010
Steampunk is an oft abused term these days as every man and his gadget tries to jump on the fashionably retro-futuristic bandwagon; however, there is no doubting Japanese watchmaker, Haruo Suekichi's steampunk credentials. His timepieces are steampunk defined.If you are are sure what steampunk is, Suekichi's watches are it.
"Steampunk" is a sub-genre of the speculative science fiction popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in a world where steam power is widely used—usually the 19th century and often set in Victorian era England. Incorporating retro-futurism styles of fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells.
Leather, copper, technical-looking parts, tubes, dials, usual curves and impractical designs.Haruo Suekichi's watches have it all!
From an interview in Ping magazine, " . . . I made a watch for a guy with only one arm who couldn’t wear a watch at all before. When you slid in your arm, the watch on the arm snaps closed by itself. From that experience, I realised a watch can be any shape and it just opened up so many creative possibilities. I’m so spontaneous that whenever I think of something, every watch has an impulse behind it. The idea comes to me and I end up just forgetting about it because I’ve made so many."
Flashes of Jules Verne, influenced by Japanese manga comics, Suekichi’s finely crafted timepieces are the epitome of the futuristic vintage style that is steampunk .
SUNDAY AUGUST 15 2010
Based in the suburbs of Yokohama, Horiyoshi works from a secluded, quiet atelier, crammed with skulls, Japanese Noh theater masks and even a dragon-print umbrella from Vivienne Westwood. His status as the most respected tattoo artist in Japan is confirmed by his adoption of his master’s honorific title, which he aims to pass down to his son, Kazuyoshi Nakano.
Horiyoshi considers each symbolic figure, dragon or floral motif as a component of one great masterpiece—for which clients will pay tens of thousands of dollars, making weekly, hour-long visits over the course of several years to obtain an indelible, corporeal artwork.
Horiyoshi for the most part draws the tattoos freehand on the body, using an electric needle for the outlines and traditional bamboo tools for filling in color.
“It’s important to remember that ‘Hori’ means ‘to carve,’” says photographer Johnnie Shand Kydd, who made the film below about the living legend for NOWNESS. “They are called skin carvers because the process involves] sharpened bamboo being pushed again and again into the skin, creating gradations like you would in a brush stroke on a painting.”
The designs stop sharply at the wrist and ankle and often a gap is left down the middle of the torso so that clients are able to entirely cover their bodywork, even when wearing a traditional kimono.
You can view a higher resolution version of the film on NOWNESS Skin Deep: Horiyoshi III
SUNDAY AUGUST 01 2010
In 1991 a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo Kompakt Automat when on holiday in Prague. This mass-produced Soviet camera was so cheap and easy to use that they shot rolls of film, ignoring the established rules of "serious" photography. The resulting snaps were often strange to look at, out of focus and, due to the character of the Lomo lens, garishly coloured. But they were wonderfully fresh and thanks to some clever marketing, the craze for Lomo spread worldwide.
Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, "happy accidents," and alternative film processing are often considered part of the "Lomographic Technique" Lomo photographers are encouraged to take a lighthearted approach to their photography document everyday life.
The Lomo LC-A's small size, simple controls, and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage, and following the 10 Golden Rules, with particular emphasis on No.10.
1. Take your camera everywhere you go.
2. Use it any time – day and night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.
4. Try the shot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don’t think.
7. Be fast.
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
9. Afterwards either.
10. Don’t worry about any rules.
Since the introduction of the original Lomo LC-A, Lomography has produced and marketed an entire line of cameras, most designed to produce just a single photographic effect. For example, the Lomography Fisheye camera features a built-in wideangle lens and shoots fisheye-distorted photos.
Similar to the "Kodak moment," the Lomography motto of "Don't think, just shoot" presumes spontaneity, close-ups, and ubiquity, while deemphasizing formal technique.
Typical lomography cameras are deliberately low-resolution and inexpensively constructed. Some cameras make use of multiple lenses and rainbow-colored flashes, or exhibit extreme optical distortions and even light leaks.
Today the Lomographic Society has embassies across the globe with Lomography.com as its base. Hundreds participate in international Lomo events and add to the ever-growing LomoWorldArchive.
Visit the Lomographic Society website to find out more about Lomo.
SUNDAY JULY 25 2010
The advertising world is used to tough demands from challenging clients - but none can quite top this brief from the Tel Aviv-based agency. Through the website theimpossiblebrief.com they are asking people worldwide to put their creative minds to good use and submit ideas on how to unite the Israeli and Palestinian communities.
"We are not naïve enough to think that The Impossible Brief will solve all the problems in the Middle East," explain creatives Eran Nir and Tomer Gidron, "however, what excites us about creativity is that one brief can lead to many different perspectives and creative solutions. In our agency group, the team includes both Israeli Jews and Arabs. Together, we wanted to create something we felt passionate about. We share the common vision of wanting to bring our two nations together and decided to open it up to the creative community to consider creative solutions on how to do this."
The initiative was launched at the Cannes Festival and grew from frustrations that, after six decades, political leaders have still failed to reach an acceptable diplomatic remedy. But after so many failed solutions, what do Nir and Gidron believe the ad industry can offer? "We view advertising as creative problem-solving," they say, "and the advertising community is home to some of the most creative minds in the world. We want to channel the creativity, innovation and the 'give-it-a-go' fearless attitude that is so characteristically found in this industry and see what the fresh perspective can bring."
The agency is looking for any "out of the box" inspiring ideas that have the potential to bring the two communities closer. Submissions can take any form - be it a written description, multimedia presentation or hand-drawn sketch - and the best will be presented to the Palestinian and Israeli parliaments. And if the thought of receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for your efforts isn't enough, the overall winner will also bag a free delegates pass to next year's Cannes Lions Festival.
You can follow the progess and take part in the discussion on Facebook and contribute your own great idea at theimpossiblebrief.com.
SUNDAY JULY 04 2010
An excellent example of teh latter was exhibited at the Swiss Center of Technorama near Zurich. Artist Reuben Margolin worked with museum staff to suspend 450 aluminum rods by 256 wires and connect 3,000 pulleys and sliding bars.
The resulting specimen is one of the most complex kinetic sculptures in the world and uses pure mechanics—not computer-controlled servomotors—to create almost limitless figurative shapes.
A net of 450 aluminium bars is transformed into a dynamic wave landscape powered by a marvellous mechanical mechanism that turns 4 circular movements into 4 sine waves of different wavelenghts, amplitudes and frequencies.
Reuben Margolin creates totally singular techno-kinetic wave sculptures using everything from wood to cardboard to found and salvaged objects. Reubens sculptures range from the small to the large, from motorized to hand-cranked and he focuses on natural elements from a single water droplet to a powerful ocean wirlpool.
For more information, please visit www.reubenmargolin.com
Haruo Suekichi - Steampunk Watchmaker
Steampunk is an oft abused term these days as every man and his gadget tries to jump on the fashionably retro-futuristic bandwagon; however, there is no doubting Japanese watchmaker, Haruo Suekichi's steampunk credentials. His timepieces are steampunk defined.If you are are sure what steampunk is, Suekichi's watches are it.
"Steampunk" is a sub-genre of the speculative science fiction popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in a world where steam power is widely used—usually the 19th century and often set in Victorian era England. Incorporating retro-futurism styles of fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells.
Leather, copper, technical-looking parts, tubes, dials, usual curves and impractical designs.Haruo Suekichi's watches have it all!
From an interview in Ping magazine, " . . . I made a watch for a guy with only one arm who couldn’t wear a watch at all before. When you slid in your arm, the watch on the arm snaps closed by itself. From that experience, I realised a watch can be any shape and it just opened up so many creative possibilities. I’m so spontaneous that whenever I think of something, every watch has an impulse behind it. The idea comes to me and I end up just forgetting about it because I’ve made so many."
Flashes of Jules Verne, influenced by Japanese manga comics, Suekichi’s finely crafted timepieces are the epitome of the futuristic vintage style that is steampunk .
SUNDAY AUGUST 15 2010
Horiyoshi III: The Skin Carver
Horiyoshi III is Japan’s undisputed tattoo master. He found his calling when, as a young boy at a public bathhouse, he first saw a Yakuza (Japanese gangster) sporting a full body tattoo—or “suit”. He was inspired to have his own tattoo and visited the studio of his later master, Horiyoshi I, and at 25 became his apprentice.Based in the suburbs of Yokohama, Horiyoshi works from a secluded, quiet atelier, crammed with skulls, Japanese Noh theater masks and even a dragon-print umbrella from Vivienne Westwood. His status as the most respected tattoo artist in Japan is confirmed by his adoption of his master’s honorific title, which he aims to pass down to his son, Kazuyoshi Nakano.
Horiyoshi considers each symbolic figure, dragon or floral motif as a component of one great masterpiece—for which clients will pay tens of thousands of dollars, making weekly, hour-long visits over the course of several years to obtain an indelible, corporeal artwork.
Horiyoshi for the most part draws the tattoos freehand on the body, using an electric needle for the outlines and traditional bamboo tools for filling in color.
“It’s important to remember that ‘Hori’ means ‘to carve,’” says photographer Johnnie Shand Kydd, who made the film below about the living legend for NOWNESS. “They are called skin carvers because the process involves] sharpened bamboo being pushed again and again into the skin, creating gradations like you would in a brush stroke on a painting.”
The designs stop sharply at the wrist and ankle and often a gap is left down the middle of the torso so that clients are able to entirely cover their bodywork, even when wearing a traditional kimono.
You can view a higher resolution version of the film on NOWNESS Skin Deep: Horiyoshi III
SUNDAY AUGUST 01 2010
The playfully artistic world of Lomo photography
We don't like to take ourselves too seriously at MB&F - we save serious for our watchmaking - and the same could be said for Lomo photography.In 1991 a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo Kompakt Automat when on holiday in Prague. This mass-produced Soviet camera was so cheap and easy to use that they shot rolls of film, ignoring the established rules of "serious" photography. The resulting snaps were often strange to look at, out of focus and, due to the character of the Lomo lens, garishly coloured. But they were wonderfully fresh and thanks to some clever marketing, the craze for Lomo spread worldwide.
Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, "happy accidents," and alternative film processing are often considered part of the "Lomographic Technique" Lomo photographers are encouraged to take a lighthearted approach to their photography document everyday life.
The Lomo LC-A's small size, simple controls, and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage, and following the 10 Golden Rules, with particular emphasis on No.10.
1. Take your camera everywhere you go.
2. Use it any time – day and night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.
4. Try the shot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don’t think.
7. Be fast.
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
9. Afterwards either.
10. Don’t worry about any rules.
Since the introduction of the original Lomo LC-A, Lomography has produced and marketed an entire line of cameras, most designed to produce just a single photographic effect. For example, the Lomography Fisheye camera features a built-in wideangle lens and shoots fisheye-distorted photos.
Similar to the "Kodak moment," the Lomography motto of "Don't think, just shoot" presumes spontaneity, close-ups, and ubiquity, while deemphasizing formal technique.
Typical lomography cameras are deliberately low-resolution and inexpensively constructed. Some cameras make use of multiple lenses and rainbow-colored flashes, or exhibit extreme optical distortions and even light leaks.
Today the Lomographic Society has embassies across the globe with Lomography.com as its base. Hundreds participate in international Lomo events and add to the ever-growing LomoWorldArchive.
Visit the Lomographic Society website to find out more about Lomo.
SUNDAY JULY 25 2010
Can you help with "The Impossible Brief"?
Challenges don't come much bigger than this. BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Tel Aviv have called upon the advertising community to help solve what could be the most difficult brief in the world: to end 60 years of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.The advertising world is used to tough demands from challenging clients - but none can quite top this brief from the Tel Aviv-based agency. Through the website theimpossiblebrief.com they are asking people worldwide to put their creative minds to good use and submit ideas on how to unite the Israeli and Palestinian communities.
"We are not naïve enough to think that The Impossible Brief will solve all the problems in the Middle East," explain creatives Eran Nir and Tomer Gidron, "however, what excites us about creativity is that one brief can lead to many different perspectives and creative solutions. In our agency group, the team includes both Israeli Jews and Arabs. Together, we wanted to create something we felt passionate about. We share the common vision of wanting to bring our two nations together and decided to open it up to the creative community to consider creative solutions on how to do this."
The initiative was launched at the Cannes Festival and grew from frustrations that, after six decades, political leaders have still failed to reach an acceptable diplomatic remedy. But after so many failed solutions, what do Nir and Gidron believe the ad industry can offer? "We view advertising as creative problem-solving," they say, "and the advertising community is home to some of the most creative minds in the world. We want to channel the creativity, innovation and the 'give-it-a-go' fearless attitude that is so characteristically found in this industry and see what the fresh perspective can bring."
The agency is looking for any "out of the box" inspiring ideas that have the potential to bring the two communities closer. Submissions can take any form - be it a written description, multimedia presentation or hand-drawn sketch - and the best will be presented to the Palestinian and Israeli parliaments. And if the thought of receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for your efforts isn't enough, the overall winner will also bag a free delegates pass to next year's Cannes Lions Festival.
You can follow the progess and take part in the discussion on Facebook and contribute your own great idea at theimpossiblebrief.com.
SUNDAY JULY 04 2010
Magic Wave kinetic sculpture by Reuben Margolin
At MB&F we have an affinity for kinetic sculpture - just look at any of our Horological Machines - and we like our dynamic art in all sizes: from wrist wearable to museum installations.An excellent example of teh latter was exhibited at the Swiss Center of Technorama near Zurich. Artist Reuben Margolin worked with museum staff to suspend 450 aluminum rods by 256 wires and connect 3,000 pulleys and sliding bars.
The resulting specimen is one of the most complex kinetic sculptures in the world and uses pure mechanics—not computer-controlled servomotors—to create almost limitless figurative shapes.
A net of 450 aluminium bars is transformed into a dynamic wave landscape powered by a marvellous mechanical mechanism that turns 4 circular movements into 4 sine waves of different wavelenghts, amplitudes and frequencies.
Reuben Margolin creates totally singular techno-kinetic wave sculptures using everything from wood to cardboard to found and salvaged objects. Reubens sculptures range from the small to the large, from motorized to hand-cranked and he focuses on natural elements from a single water droplet to a powerful ocean wirlpool.
For more information, please visit www.reubenmargolin.com
