Paul Curtis aka Moose is no regular graffiti artist. In fact, he’s the reverse-graffiti artist. He created his street art by *cleaning* the dirt and grime off of surfaces!

Authorities are baffled: is selective cleaning a crime?

The tools are simple: A shoe brush, water and elbow grease, he says.

British authorities aren’t sure what to make of the artist who is creating graffiti by cleaning the grime of urban life. The Leeds City Council has been considering what to do with Moose. "I’m waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks," he jokes.

Warning: Gez Fry is painfully good. For me, looking at his Japanese-influenced commercial illustration was two parts intimidation and one part inspiration. via Drawn!

He says in a PingMag interview,

My original plan was to be a diplomat … but I realized that I then could only be living in Japan for four years. I really wanted to be in Japan with my future wife and thought that freelancing in art would allow me to live wherever I want.

If code is poetry, then it is also art. This site allows you to graphically display your web site as a rather elegant hierarchical graphic. This is what happened when we inserted BARKSBookmARKS.com/engine.  via Drawn!

Here’s the legend:

Inhabitat explores the growing epidemic of our overly and unnaturally bright planet plagued by light-overdosing in manner such as sky glow, glare, and light trespass. Major issues include safety, energy efficiency, and infiltration of personal space. New innovations are on the rise, such as "full-cutoff" streetlamps that direct all light downward, wasting no energy to light the night sky.

Light pollution affects the vast majority of the inhabitants of this planet. Right here in the US, 19 out of 20 people live under skies that are clouded by light pollution. In fact, more than 2/3 of Americans live in places where they can no longer see the Milky Way at night. This sad state of affairs that speaks volumes about the wasteful nature of our society. In a nutshell, Light Pollution is misdirected or misused light… generally resulting from an inappropriate application of exterior lighting. Light pollution is not simply a by-product of outdoor lighting. It is a by product of improperly directed lighting. With just a bit of thought and ingenuity, light pollution could be virtually eradicated.

via Core77

London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor, famous for Chicago's 125-ton stainless steel "Cloud Gate" sculpture in Millenium Park (looks like a trippy mirrored jellybean), will install his 3-story tall "Cloud Mirror" in NYC from Sept. 19 to Oct. 27. To be situated at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the dish-like sculpture's concave side will show an inverted reflection of the skyscraper.  via Core77

"To complete the Microzine for New Balance trilogy, Microzine MD Chris Lee has created Stingray III, for launch in July.

The New Balance 576 has once again been blessed with the Microzine touch, resulting in a classic navy leather sneaker with the now renowned stingray fabric coating the New Balance logo and heel tip.

With just 60 pairs worldwide, exclusive to Microzine, 10 will arrive as Stingray III:F*ck*d Up; pre-scuffed at New Balance and very rare.

To celebrate the launch, Microzine have collaborated with Liverpool based graphic superstars JUNO. Having already produced album covers for The Arctic Monkeys, The Zutons and The Dead Sixties, JUNO have now tackled the humble shoe box, giving very special shoes some very special packaging.

Will there be a prequel? Only time will tell."

With Lomo's reintroduction of their popular Sidekick camera bag today, the quest for the perfect unisex photo bag may in fact be over. Available in two sizes and two color variations, charcoal with purple lining or khaki with blue lining, the updated model is a slightly slimmer version of the all-time classic, done in natural and timeless cotton canvas. Both bags are comprised of two separate components that can be worn together or separately, a large rear bag—big enough for large books or a 15-inch laptop—and a small camera case that holds two Lomo LC-A-sized cameras. More diminutive, the Sidekick "Lite" also features a two-in-one modular design. Its main bag is a bit more compact, but still large enough for a book and your choice daily necessities, while the camera case holds one Lomo LC-A-sized camera and a cell phone or equivalent electro-gadget. Both bags feature an adjustable webbed canvas strap to keep it securely over your shoulders while leaning over a railing to get that perfect shot. Pick up the Lite ($50) and the large Sidekick ($65) from the Lomo Shop.  via coolhunting

Despite some high profile closures, the independent publishing industry is still alive and well, with the launch of a new London title, Issue One. It’s the usual mix of so called ‘ground breaking’ fashion reporting (we’ve heard that one before) and photography, but what’s most interesting is that each issue the magazine allocates 12 photographers 14 editorial pages each to fully ‘realize their vision’. We’re looking forward to the results.  via thecoolhunter

The request of the e-zine Designspotter is to offer young designers a platform for publication. We want to give young designers the chance to publish their work without having any major problems concerning her/his own pupularity. We will bring your design into the spotlight!

Designspotter is a design web magazine dedicated to everything related to young modern contemporary design including: accessoires, audio furniture, books, design-contests, exhibitions, fashion, furniture, hotels, lighting, new materials, residential architecture, interior design and prototypes.

The web magazine is published by Gunnar Schmidt [Berlin/Vienna] and Markus Gogolin [Cologne].

In an increasingly global economy, where the profit margins of huge multinational coffee companies continue to rise, prices paid for coffee harvests have reached an all-time low, forcing farmers in some of the world's poorest countries to abandon their once bountiful fields.

This seemingly Sisyphean endeavor takes him on an international journey to some of the biggest coffee marketplaces in the world, where he discovers that there are no easy solutions for the trade issues facing his impoverished countrymen.

Black Gold is a moving and eye-opening look into the 80-billion-dollar global coffee industry, where the spoils of overpriced lattes and cappuccinos are sparsely shared with the farmers who make it all possible.

- Adam Montgomery, Sundance Film Festival, 2006

After 27,000 years of extinction, wooly mammoths may plod the earth again. A team of Japanese scientists, who have succeeded in using a similar technique with mice, are trying to impregnate an elephant with semen extracted from frozen mammoths.

Earmecca presented its new earring-type earphone 'EP series'. It has a clip to wear on an earlobe like an earring and you can adjust the length of the body while the unit covered with smooth silicon swivels 360-degree to give comfortable feeling to users.

The EP series are available in 10 different accessories such as star, cross, heart, and pearl. Customers can personalize the item with an order for gold or silver earphone.  

Alison's strong, nostalgic images tell tales of “every day heroes” that seem to be set upon a surreal stage in a back alley during some long forgotten era.

Taking in elements of electro-rock, 80?s pop and indie and dropping in loads of pop culture references, Death from Above 1979, and Paris Hilton to name just a few, Cansei de Ser Sexy (Tired of Being Sexy) have managed to create a modern Brazilian pop album that is perhaps one of the few that can have an actual international impact. The fact that they have been touted to Malcolm McLaren doesn?t hurt their reputation either or the fact that a certain Mr. Simon Reynolds was making agreeable noises during their live show at his stay in S?o Paulo last year.

The group consist of five girls and one male drummer, Adriano Cintra, who does a fine job in also producing the album. Cintra, who previously played with energetic John Spencer wannabes Thee Butchers Orchestra, was perhaps the catalyst behind the band moving on from their amateur beginnings, using a show supporting 2 Many DJs to encourage them to take their music making more seriously. via stylusmagazine

Trailer here (12.7MB)

The film, Solntse (The Sun), is the critically acclaimed work of the Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov, who has also made films about Hitler and Stalin. It has been around for almost two years but, fearing the kind of violent reaction anticipated by police, Japanese distributors have been reluctant to buy the screening rights. Just two cinemas — one in Tokyo, the other in Nagoya — are scheduled to show Solntse and instances of violence are certain to hamper a wider release.

“People were really worried about the chance of violence from right-wing groups, so companies were fearful of buying the rights,” said Michio Koshikawa, who is distributing Solntse in Japan. “But I think the movie will be a good chance to discuss the whole issue of Emperor Hirohito.”

The film catches Japan at an ideological crossroads, where deeply divisive issues such as the Yasukuni war shrine and school history textbooks are increasingly important in domestic politics. Many believe the country is heading to the Right.

The film’s release on August 6 will coincide with the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. A week later the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, may visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which will infuriate China and South Korea, both victims of Japan’s wartime past.

A mysterious DJ is sent to a busy street corner to fix a chain reaction of bad events. Can the power of music overcome fate? Put the needle on the record and find out!

Jason Levesques portraits, a speciality, succeed in capturing the many facets of female personality: Alluring, pensive, innocent, sexual, funny, disturbing, bold, funky, nonchalant but mostly just beautiful, it is hard not to fall in love with some of the women in his illustrations.  via Graphola

REVOLUTIONART is an international magazine edited in pdf format as a collective sample of the best of the graphics arts.  The objective of this magazine is the one to serve as a inspirational source to artists, advertisers, photographers, designers and communicators in general who wish to explore new alternatives of expression through graphical samples of design, photo, ads, and arts in general. via Dlounge

Issue #1

Issue #2 

Tavis Coburn has created some superb posters that are stirring up a bit of a frenzy down in the U.S. Highly skilled illustration (as opposed to lo-fi, badly drawn, vectorized photos, etc.) is alive and kicking via amoebacorp

I think this image perfectly captures what the work of Tavis Coburn is all about — it’s a fusion of vintage illustrative styles and printing techniques with a bold and contemporary digital technique. via Drawn!

Here's an art project that you old-school videogamers may like. Guillaume Reymond has recreated the classic arcade game Space Invaders in stop-motion animation using the seats in an audiotrium as the screen and people in green and white t-shirts as the "pixels".

via Rocketboom

This one’s hot off the press! Remember that hot mashup The Grey Album by DJ Dangermouse which featured Jay-Z vocals over Beatles tunes? In an ironic twist, the DJ duo who go by the name Sound Advice, have chopped and screwed Gnarls Barkley tracks together with the lyrics of the Notorious B.I.G. The result is a mashup album called The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie. The tracks have been removed several times from MySpace, but can now be listened to at Gnotorious.com. There’s no telling how long this site will be up, as I’m sure the record labels are having a fit over this one. Listen now while you still can. via Josh Spear

July 13, 2006 - IGN is pleased to bring you the first 24 minutes of Richard Linklater's new film, A Scanner Darkly! You can watch the streaming video by clicking the link provided above.

A Scanner Darkly, is set in suburban Orange County, California in a future where America has lost the war on drugs. When one reluctant undercover cop is ordered to start spying on his friends, he is launched on a paranoid journey into the absurd, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. It is a cautionary tale of drug use based on the novel by Philip K. Dick and his own experiences.

Like a graphic novel come to life, A Scanner Darkly uses live action photography overlaid with an advanced animation process (interpolated rotoscoping) to create a haunting, highly stylized vision of the future. The technology, first employed in Richard Linklater's 2001 film Waking Life, has evolved to produce even more emotional impact and detail.

Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane star.

Scanner has been rated R by the MPAA for "drug and sexual content, language and brief violent images." You'll note that the extended excerpt featured below is age-gated -- you will have to enter your date of birth to view it.

The film, from Warner Independent Pictures, is expanding to more theaters this weekend.

Ryan McGinness is part of the Saatchi Gallery's USA Today exhibition opening in 2007. This page showcases his artwork, biography, and more.

After three years of collaboration and friendship, Nicolas Dhennin (Meda1) and Thibault Choquel (Cheekysweetgraphics) are joining forces to become Studio Poana.

When we first met him, about 3 years ago, he was a time bomb, even though he hadn't the countdown sign on him. Well, he exploded, as a bomb, and pieces of Tokidoki (aka Simone Legno) went over the web wall to reach the whole world. His style, a mix between game, transgression and sensuality, is driving everybody crazy (in a positive sense!). We've interviewed him and it's been hard catching him while he was flying all over the world, meeting important internacional companies. The time zones of Los Angeles (where he lives now), Tokyo and Milan obliged us to make acynchronous contacts. But here are his images and an exclusive interview with the prodigy of the trendy design, born in Italy... by chance. via jumper.it

From Vitamin, A Life Less Ordinary - the ones who brought you the incredibly cute IV Drip Plant Pot…. also have this funky twist on the garden gnome. The Gno’s are a black and white glossy bone china “urban gnomes” - ready to take on those old school guys with little red hats, fishing poles, etc. I think they’d frighten me if i woke up to a troop of them lined up like in the picture all over my lawn. Are these possibly almost cooler than the vinyl figurines that are everywhere?  via NOTCOT

Renaissance deftly walks the line between mainstream American animation and Japanese anime. There are no annoying animals here to perform lame songs written by has-been musicians and no esoteric detours through alternate dimensions. Instead, Renaissance is a gritty, innovatively drawn thriller with an engaging central story.

The film's greatest asset is its stunning "film noir" animation. The animators have created a distinctive and haunting look through the use of a black & white colour scheme and the constant manipulation of shadow and light. The result is something akin to an animated lino cut or a manga version of Sin City. Equally impressive is the film's ability to move seamlessly from simple two dimensional outlines to scenes involving the most intricate animation imaginable. This is displayed to good effect during an extended car chase in the middle of Renaissance which contains the kind of dazzling animation usually only seen in the works of Otomo, Oshii and Miyazaki.

Regardless of the calibre of the animation, the film would become boring very quickly without an involving storyline. Renaissance also succeeds in this department with an interesting, if unnecessarily convoluted, plot revolving around a corporate kidnapping and demented scientists. The film benefits greatly from a winning central character in Karas, an unorthodox cop voiced in the English version by Daniel Craig. The voice work and dubbing are generally good, with Catherine McCormack particularly impressive as the voice of Bislane.

Renaissance is one of the best animated film aimed at adults not to originate from Japan. The pace is brisk, the tone is evocative and the direction manages to be effortlessly stylish. Highly recommended for the anti-Pixar crowd.

I don’t miss much about owning CD’s, I’m pretty glad to move away from broken jewel cases and scratched CD’s– except I miss one thing: The cover artwork. iTunes, iPods and the like have pretty much taken over my music world for good. I’m not entirely digital though, I still have a pretty solid collection of vinyl records because like many, I love album artwork! (And, I swear they sound better too). Finally released, CoverFlow is a new application that allows OS X users to browse their entire iTunes collection by album cover. If you’re missing an album’s artwork it can easily be downloaded and added. Smooth UI and great all around application, check it out.

Via Cool Hunting, Josh Spears

The Rise of Bright Green Computers is an excellent overview of computers and sustainability, with info and links galore. Here's a paragraph from the intro:

The modern world's greatest tool is among our most disposable and resource-heavy. Performance-wise, computer design has progressed staggeringly well and astonishingly fast. But looking at it from a green perspective, the work has barely begun. When our laptop dies and we toss it, it either rots in a landfill, or children in the developing world end up wrestling its components apart by hand, melting toxic bits to recover traces of heavy metals. Did someone forget to design for them? And of the $250 billion per year spent on powering computers worldwide, only about 15% of that power was spent computing--the rest was wasted idling. Did we really get what we paid for?  via WorldChanging

One of the Magnum photo essays in Slate last week focused on Body Art. It's an interesting collection of tattoo images from around the world at different time periods: a US street shop in 1959, a backpiece in Germany in 1965, a French convict in 1976, a body-suit in Tokyo in 1998, and this model shown above in 1993, among others. Well worth the click.  via Needled

Tara McPherson’s art is striking and memorable, often filled with Gothic images mixed with childlike whimsy, animals, and people grappling with emotional drama, smoking, crying, playing, sometimes with heart-shaped holes cut out of them. You may have seen her rock posters for bands such as Beck, Sleater-Kinney, The Shins, Green Day, Duran Duran and Modest Mouse or her album covers, or numerous comic book covers such as The Witching, The Sandman Presents: Thessaly and Lucifer #45. Her clients have included everyone from Fanta to Punk Planet to New York is Book Country, and her work appears in several books, including The Art of Modern Rock and SWAG and has been seen on the sets of TV shows such as Sleepover, Veronica Mars and Point Pleasant. Coming this fall is a Lonely Heart Stationery Set from Dark Horse Comics, featuring four sheets of artwork which deconstruct the theme of a broken heart, literally tearing it up and rearranging it, adding vitality and nuance to this familiar situation. Her striking imagery is immediately recognizable, which is her goal. “I think the worst compliment someone can say is that my art looks just like someone else’s,” the 29-year-old painter, illustrator, businesswoman and bass player proclaims on her website.  via Gothamist