Ektopia

Even if you try and imagine what a game based on Escher-like eye-trikery would be like I don’t think it would look quite as intriguing as Echochrome does. Its minimalistic appearance and approach looks great to me. Hopefully it’ll be released on the other consoles at some point soon. [via]

Susan Kniffin Davidson has produced some seriously disturbing porcelain babyware. [via]

Audrey Kawasaki recently armed herself with a new set of coloured pencils and a new brown paper sketchbook. Now she shares some of the pages. Have I ever said how amazing I think her work is?

Thomas Doyle’s miniature dioramas are probably the best I’ve seen…and I’ve seen and posted links to quite a few excellent projects. I love the dark twists that these tales have taken. [via]

Really love Bill Henson’s Opera shots but was of course reminded of Dark Daze’s similar low lit images. [via]

A chrome rhino because it looks nice!

The Seventh Day Project - Retna> Can’t get enough of seeing that script.

So Nine Inch nails have done another interesting thing; they’ve released another album, The Slip, for free. It’s pretty good too. There are a number of different download options and each one includes a great file with individual images for each track proving that Trent really knows how to give the people what they want.

Johnny Lee introduces a couple of great hacks using a Wii Remote (video). The spacial placement hack is extraordinary and I can imagine that it’ll be the biggest change in gaming since the FPS. Probably best to check the videos out to see how the gameplay actually works as it doesn’t translate in a single image.

Where do you begin talking about Blek Le Rat? What can I say that really sums who he is and what he’s been doing. I thought about just writing “Influential influential influential Banksy Banksy Bansky!” but that doesn’t cut it (although it’s true and Banksy is the first to admit it). I guess it’s a story spanning three decades and it’s never been going better for Blak (whose real name is Xavier Prou). There aren’t many people that have been doing art on the street in the way that we’re used to and that’s because you could easily say that he was among the first how took aerosol to the stencil on urban architecture. Simple black images painted on whatever got in his way.

Getting Through The Walls has been released today in the UK via Thames & Hudson and it’s a close look at the man, his art, his message and just how influential he has been to the art and advertising world.

After an detailed interesting introduction, where we learn exactly how it all started, the book simply divides into two sections, Pochoir (stencil) and Posters and inside each section it remains as simple; each of his subjects (each stencil) has a dedicated section with a collection of images and a detailed explanation of each piece.

There’a a competing battle for me when I look at Blek’s work. On one side there are Blek’s relatively simple stencils that don’t always appeal to me visually but at the same time (the other side) they seem to demand my attention. I think it’s because it isn’t always the actual stencil itself that makes the piece and quite often the placement that’s just perfect. He certainly has and eye for the placement and I suppose if he didn’t he would have been forgotten about 20 years ago! In fact, the best images in this book in my opinion are from a project in a derelict building called the Chateau de Bagnac (pictured above). His finest stencils seem so fitting on the decayed walls of the building.

Another of my favourite sections is from an ongoing project called The Man Who Walks Through Walls where a man, based on Blek himself, appears to do exactly what the title suggests (above). He carries a large bag and a suitcase full of stencils and looks ready to do his work in his dark glasses. This particular images has travelled the world so is a good metaphor for Blek going out and doing his thing.

It’s hard to comprehend the effect that Blek’s had on the art-world. Like all artistic genres, it’s difficult to remember when they weren’t around but it’s always rewarding to be able to pinpoint a true beginning and this books marks that well, as well as celebrating everything that’s happened to date. I can’t imaging that this will be the first and last book that shows off his work; I’m sure they’ll be more in the future but for the time being this is an excellent look into Blek’s artistic world. Getting Through The Walls weighs in at 128 pages and has 300 photos of his work in-situ and is a soft-back edition. It’s available from Thames & Hudson and from all the usual places including AmazonUK.