One of the most intriguing artists that has used, abused and appropriated the www with freshness and creativity is Han Hoogerbrugge. Artist, animator, designer, interactivist, call him what you want, but he’s always been intriguing, if only for his constant consistent attire of pin-striped suit.

And this week seems to be Hoogerbrugge’s week.

If you happen to be in Rotterdam, go check out his interactive installation ‘What You Say Is What You Get’, commissioned by the Boymans van Beuningen museum. He’s been developing a keen interest in installations recently and this is a next step. 

And then there’s the release of ‘Modern Living’, a book-cum-DVD all about Han and his wide range of work. A monograph as they say. It’s been a while in the making, but it’s all yours now. Check out Submarine Channel for more info.

And if you like the darker side of Han’s work, you should visit his new project, Prostress 2.0, an intriguing series of  ”Daily fresh servings of professional stress”. Different, as they say. 

I like the man. 

When bands ask their audience to participate in their new music video, it generally doesn’t get much further than a cameo in the audience of the ‘club-performance’ or at best, the chance to use the artists music to send in your own creation. Apart from the fact that cynics see it as a cheap way of getting result, it’s pretty standard fare. But here’s an interesting one: a music video project that’s based on technology and a global community of UGC-makers.

For their next video, Chemical Brothers and Nexus Productions are asking people around the world to upload a still or short video, documenting “the insanity that goes on at the stroke of midnight”. That’s a nice idea in itself, but the makers want to have material that’s “related to the specific point of origin”, so it can be uploaded and tracked via Google Earth. 

Collaborative, open, global and creative. Who knows what the end result will be, but I like the idea of it already.  

For the full brief, go here (open until August 25).

This ‘music video multiplex’ for Pop Levi is already a few weeks old, but at the time I hadn’t started the noble art of blogging yet, so I thought I’d post it again. In case you hadn’t seen it. 

Although I really like the idea, the execution isn’t overly great. So it won’t be long before someone really explores the interactivity opportunities. I’d like to see more screens. And why not more moments where you have to pause/play/rewind to complete the video. Or make your own version for that matter. 

I reckon this could be something for director/artist Roel Wouters, you know: him from the live-installation trampoline concept for the rather fantastic zZz video.

Which by the way has just been re-used for this car ad. Quite badly re-used, I should say. Bit missing the point really.
Does anyone know whether Roel got to make that himself? It’s the same music, but I heard that he declined.