The photo series “Bodies in Urban Spaces” is the result of a collaboration between art director Willi Dorner and photographer Lisa Rastl. The touring exhibition involves temporary, well choreographed human “sculptures” leading an audience through different urban environments as it’s all captured in photographs. These live performances have been taking place across the globe since 2004 when Dorner came up with the idea.

“The body is the tool for perceiving the dimensions of space,” Dorner wrote on his website. “By putting himself in relationship to space and architecture, body is not only measuring the space around him, body gives it a meaning. By literally filling up spaces that are left free in the designed space (architecture) not only dimensions become visible, it tries to make clear and point out how bodies stand against architecture and how they can change the perspective on it.”

TAGS: Things We Like

Since we last saw him in Issue 12, musician Big Phony aka Bobby Choi has acquired fans, lost pounds, and gotten more sociable. Well, kind of. After listening to him croon to a packed crowd at the Living Room in June, we invited Bobby to the Theme office to perform for us and then peppered him with questions. 
Look for a YouTube video of Bobby’s latest songs soon. For now, he talks about changing diapers, hating karaoke, and reverse psychology.

What were you doing before you turned to music full-time?
I was working for the Apple store for a couple of years. I started out as a sales guy. It was not a good fit for me because I was so annoyed with people asking the same questions about their iPods. They were like, “How do I turn this on?” or “I dropped this in the water, and it’s not working. And I want my money back.” And I got sick of that so I changed from sales to inventory, where I didn’t have to deal with anyone. [Laughs.] It was better that way.

Are you really good with technology then?
I’m really not, so working at Apple was kind of weird. I would pretend like I knew what they were saying, but really I was just watching their lips move and not listening at all.
[Before that] I was taking care of my brother’s kids for good five or six months. At the time (last year), my nephew was three years old and my niece was just two weeks old. I started taking care of them like nine-to-five, five days a week. It got me ready, and kind of scared me as well. I’m not going to want to have kids for a while, but I can change a diaper with one hand. 

Continue reading »

TAGS: Things We Like

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message. Thanks to SwissMiss.

TAGS: Things We Like

It’s easy to be haters—and often more fun. So it comes as no surprise that the Beijing Olympics has been the subject of much vituperation in the media.

To combat all that negative energy, Hong Kong creatives Ed Tam and Hoon Kim decided to design a graphic T-shirt celebrating the spirit of the Olympics. The graphic displays the names of the participating countries linked into a unified chain to express pride for global solidarity.

http://www.thisisschool.com

TAGS: Things We Like

The Coke side of life.

“Truck art has its origins from the region. The idea was to promote local culture so that general masses can relate to the value of coke.” Done by an agency called Soho Square in Lahore.

TAGS: Things We Like

Peep the Band of Outsiders for Manolo Blahnik Canvas Spectators.

I love Band of Outsider’s BOY label. As we ease into the late summer season and start looking towards fall, what could be better than anticipating the fun fall fashion by checking in with some of my favorite lines. T-Magazine’s blog surprised me with a preview of whats to come from BOY with Michelle Williams rocking some great fall looks. check for some more great polaroids from the lookbook after the jump…

Continue reading »

TAGS: Things We Like

“Chasing Rainbows”

John and I stumbled upon this site http://www.idiomsbykids.com last night while we were randomly googling some words. The site posts illustrations by 9-11 year old kids in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The kids are given an idiom, like “On Fire” or “Chasing Rainbows” and told to draw what that would look like. They often take the literal meaning of the word which often makes for some really clever and witty images. Like the creepy guy chasing the frightened rainbow. That guy looks like a serial killer in the making, but the kid drawing it probably didn’t do that intentionally. We spent an hour scouring through over 1000 illustrations rolling on the ground laughing our asses off. Ah, to be young and naive again.

“On Fire”

TAGS: Things We Like

Photos courtesy of the Glass House

I’ve been on the board of the AIGA/NY (American Institute of Graphic Arts) for the past two years. My tenure ended this June, and as a sort of thank you, the board members were treated to a tour of the Glass House, the famous Philip Johnson structure in New Canaan. The tour is sold out through 2008, so it was an especially nice treat.

New Canaan is a short 90 minute train ride from Grand Central Station. It’s an affluent, sleepy town with equal measures of large McMansions and quaint farmhouses. Philip Johnson (a practicing architect and MoMa’s first architecture curator) began buying property in New Canaan in the 1940s, and built the Glass House in 1949. It was the first glass house to be built in the United States, with Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House being the second. It is, as the name suggests, a house made of glass. I felt initially a little underwhelmed by the house itself, mostly because by now, we’re so used to the open plan, and also to the notion of glass being used as structural elements of a house. But keep in mind, this was pretty radical in the 1940s. And besides, the house and its furnishings are as relevant and stylish now as it was back then. Everything in the house is beautifully composed and thoughtfully selected: from the furniture (mostly from Johnson’s friend Mies van der Rohe) to the pastoral painting by the classical painter Poussin, the house is pretty much the same as it was when Johnson first built it in 1949. 

Continue reading »

TAGS: Things We Like

The above graph is a simple, elegant tool for figuring out what is important in your to-do list. It’s Randy Pausch’s adaption of Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix. Once you sort your to-dos into the quadrants, the real goal is to be able to say, if it’s not important (the to do falls in quadrants 3 and 4), do I really need to do it? Wouldn’t it be nice if the answer is no? The ultimate goal is to be able to finish your work so there’s enough time for the other things, like living life.

If you haven’t seen Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture” video, you should take the time to do so. The video contains some invaluable lessons on living life, from a man who had less than a year to live when he gave the lecture. Sadly, Randy Pausch pass away two days ago, from complications related to pancreatic cancer. You can find his “Time Management” video on the same site.

TAGS: Things We Like

Ssinjin on far right.

Sir Hayes is best described by Khalym Schell, the founder and designer of Sir Hayes, as “fresh clothing for stylish young knights.” Schell recently shot her Spring 09 catalog and we took Ssinjin, our kid, to the shoot. There he is, on the far right, sitting like a little monkey and making faces. ‘Cause, that’s all he can do at the moment.

Ssinjin on far right.

It seems like everyone is having kids in NYC these days, which is going to make Khalym a very rich woman as there’s a dearth of good-looking baby clothes and she’s way ahead of the curve.

TAGS: Things We Like