One of the reasons we ventured outside of Tokyo on our recent Japan trip was to see a few recently built museums (I was traveling with some architects). 

The first one was the great 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa. If you’re familiar with the work of design studio Sanaa, you’ll understand it when I say that the space is quite minimal. Still, it works very nicely, also because they had a few art works commissioned as part of the architecture. There’s one of those James Turrell sky-windows, but the real clincher was this clever, but beautiful piece by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich. 

They also had a really nice collection, mixing Western conceptual chaps like Jan Fabre and Damien Hirst with local artists and incorporating more ‘popular’ platforms like animation and figurines. I particularly liked this great installation by Yoshitomo Nara, in collaboration with graf. [Read more]

I’ve always floated around the music industry in some shape or form and I’ve always been surprised how un-creative the environment (and its output) is; despite the fact that there are so many talented people involved.

When I was commissioning music videos (I still do the odd one), I always felt there were quite a few other ways of translating music into moving image or into a (dirty word coming up) ‘campaign’. But there weren’t many examples and everyone kept making music videos; some great ones, lots of disposable ones.
But it seems the music industry is coming round and is no longer completely averse to exploring non-traditional routes. [Read more]

I’ve worked on a few pro-social and environmental video campaigns, trying to bring across a message that no one really wants to hear. So I know it’s not easy to come up with something efficient, let alone creative. Because in the end, the client just wants to show polar bears or big lumps of ice falling into the sea. 
But this film-slash-installation by director Tim Godsall tackles that challenge pretty well, me thinks.

And a YouTube link, just in case the Quicktime version is taken down at some point. 

I’ve always found that the Dutch are pretty good at exploring the opportunities of digital platforms. And this widget from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is a very good example. 
Bringing a 15th century painting into the digital realm is not that obvious. But this plugin is a simple, quick and inspiring way to sample art. 

Bloody Radiohead. They’ve done it again.

While the music video industry is nervously looking around, trying to avoid gloomy nose-dive scenarios, those Radiohead fuckers do something no one else has done before. Again. 
An interactive, no-camera-just-code, ready-to-remix video experiment.
Genius, right? Or is it just another marketing ploy, as cynics were keen to point out  last year when the band gave away their album on a pay-as-want basis?

I think you can judge from a few angles. 

[Read more]