Mad Art Lab

Sunday Morning Illusion AI

Ryan — Sun, 27 May 2012 14:07:10 +0000

The following has been floating around for a while. Have a read. Note, tough, that this is not a real study.

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Regardless of its authenticity, it’s a neat trick. I had a debate with a friend as to whether or not this counts as an illusion, though. I thought I’d drag you into the debate.

Is this an illusion? What makes an illusion?

Mad Group Art: May 25

Elyse — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:05:20 +0000

Today’s Mad Pic Lab word is: Rats, you know, like our mascot!

Yesterday’s submissions are pending, because I have to leave for the airport in 3 hours and I haven’t considered things like packing and running to the store to pick up essential travel supplies or that I haven’t even pinned yesterday’s submissions to Pinterest. So come back for awesome poetry later today.

This weekend’s words are:
Saturday: Vibrations Keep it clean. (Just kidding. I don’t care.)
Sunday: Lurkers

Mad Quickies 5.25

Donna — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:30:47 +0000

It’s the Friday Quickies! Pencils down- surf’s up!

The August 2012 SIGGRAPH roundup of the newest ideas in computer graphics.
Geeks versus Nerds, a podcast of debate on serious religious issues such as, “who is the smarter master of mysteries, Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Who?” {via Julianne H}
Cali getting it right. Artists and scientists connect in 16 collaborative explorations. {via Amy}
Announcing a new podcast: Mad Science with Princess Scientist! Theme song by Devo Spice, logo by JC Hutchins. {via Steve D}
This will bake your noodle: Resonate is an extraordinary interactive sound and light installation. Video after the jump.

Neil, Scott, sound art, and 5,000 images in 1 minute.
Plus, more SpArkLecoRn scatology.

The thesaurus lists the following synonym for flatulence: grandiloquence. And here it is, unicorn-style. {via Anne}
Thanks to Steve D, we now know that amazeballs unicorn clip is excerpted from The Mighty B! Amy Poehler is one of the creators.
And then there’s this: Unicorns Farting Rainbows. It’s educational! {via Steve D}
I don’t know how they narrowed it down, but Wired reports on 10 insanely cool things they saw at Maker Faire, including 5 videos.
In which Elyse inspires Treelobsters to create comics here and, very recently, here.
John Scalzi’s Star Trek spoof —even more clever and moving than you’d expect.
Aussie artist, Erica Seccombe combines photographic screen prints with digital media. She’s exhibiting Nanoplastica at So Far, The Future in London.
Want! Typography scrabble.

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For inspiration…
Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Speech
{via Maria}

Neil Gaiman addresses the Class of 2012 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. And anyone who is an artist.

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For beauty…
From love to bingo in 873 images
{via Elyse}

from the page
Patient research work involving more than 5 thousand photographs resulted in a 1 minute film that AlmapBBDO created to advertise Getty Images, the world leading image database for creating and distributing visual contents. The film is surprising when showing 873 images in 15 images per second, sufficient speed to transform the series into a video that, without any text, tells a beautiful story. All photos, without any exceptions, are from the Getty Images archives.

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For art…
Resonate at Luminale 2012

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For fun…
Tentacles, Tentacles and More Tentacles

The first story ever written by Scott, recorded by fans at Dragon*Con 2010 in Atlanta. Brace yourselves for the most frightening story ever told!
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Featured image is by Zizi.

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Painting with Microbes

Ryan — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:54:39 +0000

Evolution in Action is a fantastic little RocketHub funding campaign to study how bacteria like e-coli evolve as they pass through the GI tract of a host. It’s an interesting project and it has the potential to expand our knowledge of bacterial infections so that we may better combat them in the future. Also, they paint your name in bio-luminescent bacteria if you donate $50 or more.

Isn’t that awesome? Don’t you want one for yourself? I think bacterial cultures are an under-utilized artistic medium. Slime moulds, too, should be used more but that’s off topic.

Good luck with your project Siouxsie and thank you for a beautiful and possibly contagious logo.

More info on the project after the break.

http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7491-evolution-in-action

Mad Group Art: May 24

Elyse — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:53:19 +0000

Today’s MadPicLab word is: Poetry Don’t forget to tag it #madpiclab

You people really love candy!

Source: seelix instagr.am via Elyse on Pinterest

A cool one, signing “candy”

Source: Katelyn twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

And GiGi Chickee not only consistently wins MadPicLab, but she has this somewhere in her house. We may need to find this house.

Source: GiGi Chickeetwitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

Awful featured image, mine, just to continue to prove to you that your photos don’t have to be good, they only have to be relevant… and that Hipstamatic has special filters designed specifically to make terrible photos look even worse. Also, I don’t have candy.

What is a cross Between a leotard and a TARDIS? A LeoTARDIS!

Seelix — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:00:22 +0000

Some ideas are just too good to pass up. No, really, they are. Even if the person who originally had the idea thinks it’s a horrible idea.

Well, we at Mad Art Lab have never been stopped by something possibly being a horrible idea. What’s the use of having a blog focused on science and art if you can’t experiment with art?

So, consider this my most recent experiment.

It all started with this. A couple weeks ago The Bloggess had an idea as she woke up.

“a leotard… with a TARDIS on it. A LeoTardis.”

Now, when she woke up more, she decided this was actually a bad idea. This didn’t stop her from making a photoshop version of this bad idea and really really wanting it to be a good idea.

Of course, this being the internet, we know better. A leotardis is not just a good idea, it is a FANTASTIC idea. The fact that there wasn’t one already is the source of roughly 90% of my disappointment with Pinterest. What use is a picture-based social network if no one has made a swimsuit based on a TARDIS to show me?

This was a sad, sad situation, and I pouted. I considered breaking up with Pinterest for good.

Then I realized that sometimes I can’t pin my happiness on anything else. Sometimes, I just need to solve my own problems.

So I decided to make a leotardis of my own.

There aren’t going to be detailed, step-by-step instructions in this post. This is for two reasons:

I didn’t think I was going to succeed, so I didn’t take the time to document each step.
Before I started, I had margaritas. Plural margaritas.

First (vague) Step:

Make leotard, or swimsuit in this case. Since I’m not really sure what the difference is. I could do gymnastics in this. Well, I could if I could do gymnastics without falling on my face. I suppose you could buy a swimsuit too, but what is the fun of a project if you aren’t swearing at your sewing machine at some point?

This was actually easier than I thought it would be. Stretchy fabric is forgiving. I took my favorite swimsuit and traced the fabric shapes onto the blue fabric and a lining. I didn’t really worry too much about getting it perfect, since I knew I would alter it to fit better once it was on me, or my dressmaker’s dummy in this case.

Second (vague) Step:

Draw TARDIS.

No, really. I don’t have better instructions. I used fabric paint markers and freehanded it. I’m not really a pattern person. There’s a reason I went into anthropology and not chemistry. Chemicals explode when you don’t mix them in the right quantities. Humans don’t.

Third (vague) Step:

Consider how to get a picture of the LeoTARDIS without your neighbors thinking you’re even crazier than they already do. Procrastinate for a week while you worry about this.

Fourth (vague) Step:

Realize that your neighbors saw you take out your trash in a Marvel Girl costume last week and stop worrying.

Ta-da! Leotardis! Now, I don’t have to break up with Pinterest. And it’s all thanks to The Bloggess.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go steal myself a Doctor and run off to see the universe.

Mad Group Art May 23

Elyse — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:07:50 +0000

Sorry for the lateness this morning. I’m crazy busy. Forgive me and I’ll give you pics! Thanks!

Today’s MadPicLab word is Candy.

Since I’m trying not to fail too much at paying attention to a webinar right now, and my daugher is running around without a diaper, I’m keeping it short and sweet:
Pinterest
Tweet with #MadPicLab

Fonts:

Bonus: http://youtu.be/OBibXwwLBts

Source: Chris Tucker twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

Source: akaMathChickinstagr.am via Elyse on Pinterest

Source: Gigi Chickee twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

And mine:

Source: twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

Let me know if I missed yours on the Pinterest board. I’m a little distracted this morning!

Mad Quickies 5.23

Donna — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:47:04 +0000

Ken Macleod and the European stem cell research consortium OptiStem have produced the illustrated Hope Beyond Hype. More on the launch here.
Heikki Lei’s Afterlife is a series on rotting food. And it’s gorgeous work. Read more here.
MAD Brag: San Fran’s The Bold Italic did a feature on Cocktail Lab, including our own Anne Sauer. We love her superhero self!
Time-lapse video of the solar eclipse.
Pictures of the solar eclipse. {via Madfishmonger}
Thousands of Species, Each a Work of Art. View the fun short of Joel Sartore after the jump.

Jump for more hijinks!

Faif’s street art criticism. More of Faif’s work at his flickr page.
Chuck Norris in the field of typography. Some letters are so afraid of him that they form ligatures.
Shayna Leib has created a Wind and Water, a series of sculptural glass landscapes, that resembles undulating coral reefs.
Makies! You design your doll. They make it for you. And, apparently ship it to you from the Uncanny Valley. {via Steve D}

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This place is a zoo.

from the page
Take a look at what really goes on during a shoot with National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore. See what it’s really like to be on assignment and bring back photos of some of the world’s most unusual wildlife.

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State Home for Manic Pixie Dream Girls
{via Anne S}

Found at Peggy Orenstien’s blog. More on the subject at Feminist Frequency.

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Featured image of potato mold by Estonian artist Heikki Lei.

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TTDH #3, Winning Randi’s Paranormal Challenge

Cloe — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:00:51 +0000

Mad Group Art: May 22

Elyse — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:23:51 +0000

Today’s Mad Pic Lab word is: Font

Holy crap are you people creative and funny! The Higgs Boson submissions for yesterday were great. I laughed… a lot. Seriously, Higgs Bison killed me. I’m writing this from the grave. I love you all. And our next 10 days together are going to be the best last 10 days of a project ever!

And if you’re still not involved yet because you don’t know what to take pictures of, come on, yesterday people were forced to take pictures of a sub atomic particle that we don’t even know exists. You can do this. It’s just one photo.
Higgs Bison:

Source: Beth Kingsley twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

Source: :Lauren T twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

An homage to Maki

Source: Anne S instagr.am via Elyse on Pinterest

And today I am reaplacing mine with Eskeptrical Engineer’s dog, who ate her Higgs Boson

Source: Eskeptrical Engineer twitter.com via Elyse on Pinterest

Have fun today, everyone!