Ancient search

[Via Ffffound]

Making inspiration of light (not light of inspiration)

First, I didn’t know Picasso had a name as short as: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.

But that’s not the point of this post. I was pretty interested to note that after photographer Gjon Mili visited him in 1949 and told him about ice skaters with lights attached to their skates who left a trail of light when they jumped, Picasso did a few experimental photos with light himself, with mesmerizing results. More here.

[Via CPLuv]

Talent or genius?

Via Today and Tomorrow, I spotted this image which messes with my mind, just like this one. Philip Ramette is the photographer – it was taken in 2001.

  Tim Walker created a similar photograph for Hermès recently.

There’s some debate about whether Walker was inspired by Ramette. At the end of the day, to me it doesn’t really matter. It isn’t blatant copying – he isn’t saying that Ramette’s work is his, and after all, as Faris says: talent imitates, genius steals. Plus imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that. As long as it encourages people to produce good stuff, it’s OK. It would be better to be attributed for inspiration of course, so Tim Walker, if you ever read this, then please let me know if you were inspired by Philip Ramette and clear up the confusion!

Imagination in an image

Found this on the rather entertaining Indexed. Holds true for me. 

Just when you didn’t expect it

Perhaps it was the novelty factor (not too many of these around as far as I’m aware), or perhaps it was because I wasn’t expecting it in the paper, but this advertorial for Kellogg’s Nature’s Pleasure made me smile. 

The value of value

Noticed this in Soho a few weeks ago. I admit the first thing that made me look was the Woolworth’s font. Except that it said ‘Worthless’…..which is not too far from the truth, though I was mildly interested to know that they’ve relaunched as an online store following their closing down a few months ago. Anyway, this group, called the Pollocks Group is ostensibly a network of young rebels that in this instance offered to transform any old piece of junk you brought in into a piece of art, and in return only asked that you pay what you thought the finished item was worth. It was a week-long event (I saw the poster only after the event), but it got me thinking about this sentiment of pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth that seems to be going around. This particular event was also ‘inspired by the recession’ and came about because the group was ‘compelled to create something positive’. 

In the end, the financial meltdown can be summarised as having happened because of greedy banks and non-creditworthy people entering into deals they shouldn’t have. (That word ‘worth’ comes in here too). Models like pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth are like a fresh start in some ways. The key thing is to ensure that this value that we place on things doesn’t get inflated to the point that people get greedy again, and even more crucially, that banks aren’t allowed by regulatory bodies to act on that greed even if they do get greedy. 

People definitely want to create a new world, one that is positive rather than negative and gloomy. I think it’s time we all move towards that. It’s up to the financial institutions to analyse how exactly to prevent a financial meltdown of the scale we have witnessed (recommended reading: some of Umair Haque’s thoughts on this), but the rest of us should try to move on.  

All is not what it seems

This image has just stuck in my mind. Spotted on Fubiz again. 

Straight and squiggly

I like this. Just because it’s a beautiful interpretation of an otherwise mundane object. Two objects, actually.

[Via Ffffound]

Connecting the dots

Image via We Make Money Not Art

This car reminds me an awful lot of Krang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, what do you think?

Image via MonStarKB’s Flickr stream

Yesterday I was at the Kuniyoshi exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, and noticed that he uses human bodies as building blocks of the central subject in many paintings, such as this one. 

No point really, just that I noticed similiarities in these three images. That’s all.  

Of course!

I really like the concept of these zip earphones. Whenever I want to listen to my iPod, I spend far too many minutes trying to unravel my knotted earphones. This is something that is so simple and so useful. One of those ‘Of course!’ moments that makes me think why no one thought of it before. It even has volume controls!

[Via Yanko Design]