The Euthanasia Roller Coaster

Euthanasia is an interesting subject, both the ethical side, and the mechanism. How would one kill themselves in a nice way?

Julijonas Urbonas at the Royal College of Art has created the Euthanasia Coaster. This is a Roller coaster where the rider is subjected to a negative ten gforce for one minute resulting in the brain being starved of oxygen and the death of the riders. I am not sure wither one minute is enough to kill someone, but I am sure Julijonas has done his research. The riders would experience a feeling of euphoria as their brains are starved of oxygen. And I think this is a very interesting art project. Roller coasters try to terrify riders with sirens and warning singes as they queue for a ride, but here we have one that I am sure most of us wouldn't want to take, but it's design is simple and elegant. And I am sure if it was built, it would be ridden.

Video Link

Goon The Collaborative 8Bit Art Project

Goon City and Goon Tower are both rather fun. If you have a look around you will find more subtle references in Goon City.

The World's Largest Art Gallery

Stockholm Metro is said to be the worlds largest Art Gallery. And it is easy To See Why.

Adult Fans Of Lego

This is a documentary about some AFOLs. I remember seeing some well constructed things as a kid, but what the hobby is doing now is on a new level of interesting.

AFOL A Blocumentary from AFOL on Vimeo.

What America Does With It's Tax Dollars

An artist named Mibi On Deviantart has created A Graphical Representation Of What America Spends It's Tax Dollars On.

The surprising thing is that 68% of what Americans pay in tax goes to Security, either military or none-military. I don't know how much of the tax I pay goes to security, but looking at the size of the US army and the equipment that they have compared to to the UK forces, I suspect that it isn't even close to as much as 68%. It is interesting to think wither that money is well spent or not.

I suspect that most people presently will say no because America uses it's military to solve some of it's problems. Problems that could been avoided if less money was spent on the military.

[Source Digg]

Fantastic Aminated Wall Art

Some fantastic animated wall art. I think this video is better without sound, but maybe that is just me.

Tweaked Out 911 Space Invaders Commentary

Kotaku did a news article on an artist who created some crappy art piece where (simply to be a media whore) he Combined Space Invaders and The World Trade Centre.

The reason why I mension this is because Dripp was a little tweaked out when he vlogged about it, lol.

BMW Did Something Truly Innovative

Innovation is about taking two technologies that might not necessarily have anything in common and combining them to produce something new or solving a problem by applying a technological technique or idea as a solution. In the early years of aeroplanes, they where constructed from wood and cloth. In later years aluminium was used and now we use composite materials. Cars have always used hard body shells, so BMW tried using a flexible cloth-like material as a concept design and they have produced something fantastic:



No I don't think we will all be driving clothed cars in ten years time, but as a concept this is has all the hallmarks of an iconic design.

Awesome Photographer Matt Stuart

I just finnished looking at some of Matt Stuart's work and I think he is the best street photographer I have ever seen. Here are links to a Gallery of his work and his Official Site.

Forza 2 Artwork

The Car Artwork that is being produced by users, is very cool.

Gamasutra Does the Art Thing Also

As an odd coincidence Gamasutra today posted an article titled Are Games Art? (Here We Go Again...) By Bryan Ochalla which surprised me because I only Posted on the Subject Yesterday and this article comes at the question from the other side of the discussion suggesting that games are indeed all art.

I have a few problems with the article and his first mistake:

That, however, is a question to be tackled at another time and in another article. Instead, the question of the day is “are games an art form?”

Unsurprisingly, the answer among game developers is a resounding “yes.”

Hideo Kojima was the first developer I ever heard to give his outright opinion on the subject and his stance is that, although games contain art, they are designed as mass entertainment and are not art. I am not sure I agree with his stance from the Official PlayStation Magazine on art, but this was what got me first thinking about the subject. A few other developers this year at GDC also from Japan shared a similar stance (I am sorry I didn't write down their names now). So to say all developers agree that games are art is plain wrong.

Then on the second page of the article Ochalla shows a screenshot from Okami next to a picture of Fountain by Marcel Duchamp and asks below as a caption "Which of the above is art?"

Okami is renowned for having a very unique painted art style and even has a brush that the player must use in the game to cast spells with. Okami is possibly the closest thing any game product has ever come to being considered art. However Fountain on the other-hand was submitted to an exhibition to challenge people's perception of what can be considered art. Even today thirty nine years after the artist's death Fountain is still debated, but widely accepted as art. This is because even though the piece wasn't crafted by the artist's own hands, by him placing the item in a gallery to be appreciated as art makes it art. So maybe the question shouldn't be "Which of the above is art?" but rather "Which of the above emulates art?".

If all games are considered art, then all films should be considered art. And if that is true that makes all the Harry Potter films art which are simply poor adaptations of the books in-order to make money. So if all crap films are art then our definition of art is so broad that I should be able to go to the toilet, shit into the toilet and then call my stool art because it is the result of artistic expression.

The Scope of What is Defined as Art

For the past few months I have been deliberating over this whole 'what is and is not art' discussion and Tuesday I came to a conclusion about the word art itself.

A broad definition of the word art would be the product of an artist and an artist being anybody who creates art. Further definitions include words like inspire and creativity. So analysing the definition of the word unlike with a lot of first line research in other areas doesn't result in any realisations or firm beliefs in what the word means as everything to do with the term is very broad. So then I had a look at the use of the word art in the wild (results in other languages may differ):

• Paintings
  An artist painting of something real is considered art. An artist painting of something they have seen in their mind and is not real is also considered art.



• Sculptures
  Much the same as paintings.



• Poetry
  Poetry is considered emotionally expressive on the part of the poet so is considered art.



• Stories
  Writers have to craft their creative ideas into single linear (no stories don't need to be linear, but this is how writing is taught) structures and the end result is considered art.



• Cars
  Some cars are considered works of art.



• Product Design
  Product design is also sometimes said to be an artform.



• Architecture
  A lot of architects are inspired by art. And a lot of artists have been inspired by architecture. This inspiration factor and expression through design make buildings widely accepted as art.



• Films
  Film is also considered art as the artists can express creativity through the medium.



• Video Games
  Video games are still debated as to wither they are art or not. And this seems odd since other areas like Architecture are easily accepted as art.

From reading that you probably think I am going to just say that because all those other things are art then video games must also be art. Well I don't think that at all because the interactive nature of games means that the player is the artist and not the designer. The game is there for the player to express their own creative intent and the designer is just there to give the player the tools to do that. So although games contain art, they are not in-themselves art as they are not an artists finished product. If you where to video somebody playing a video game, you would have footage of someone expressing their intent and creativity through the game, this then means that that video of the play session could be considered art, but not the tool that allowed for that expression of art (the game).

So to look at this another way, a gun is not a weapon it is a piece of engineered metal. The metal gun could be considered as an expression of creativity and thus art, but it isn't. Instead in the hands of a Human this lump of machined metal can be used to inflict harm. This potential in the hands of the holder is what makes the metal a weapon, just as a video game which is just software is a games in the hands of the player. Without the player, the game is just software, just as the weapon is just metal and neither is art.

So then their is the question of all the art assets that are placed into a game, doesn't that make a game art?

Well earlier this week I was thinking about Hollywood films as products and I came to the conclusion that maybe our definition of art is too broad. In the early days I can see that an art film would be very much like a 'made for profit' film and the film makers who make films for profit would of course want their product to be considered art because art is a highly cultured thing. So although some film can be considered art, films made by Hollywood studios for the purpose of making money should not be considered art at all. I understand that a lot of people who contribute to a commercial film will be producing art for the product, but the objectives of the product is to make money, not for the product to be an expression of creativity. So because our definition of art is so broad people have mistakenly classed games as art.

So to clarify
Monopoly is not art, it is a tool for expressing play. And although Monopoly consists of art assets created by an artist, the game was created to be played by players, to make money and is not the result of a purely expressive process.
And the world needs to stop using art to describe everything because not everything is art.

Artistic Expression on Consumer Culture

This is a Video of a robot that searches for pools of coke on the ground, sucks them up and then sprays it onto itself causing it's own eventual destruction.

I would say this is an accurate description of a drug addict, but with the artists use of Coca Cola it's expression on Consumer Culture is clear. And then that begs the question as to wither drug addiction is so dissimilar to modern consumerism.