(1) Why pirates save the environment
The pirate raids in the seas east of Africa have had a significant impact on the environment: international trawlers that were illegally fishing there for years have apparently been avoiding the shores, which led to a dramatic increase in fish stock. In Mogadishu (capital of Somalia), the growing supply has led to decreasing prices, thus people who live there can actually afford to eat fish for the first time in many years. So far, most of the fish was exported.
(Source: sz-online.de)

(2) Why there is beauty in architecture
I have not seen anything like that before … take yourself 12 minutes, relax, get a cup of tea and a blanket, and watch this. Please.
And after you realize that this is nearly 100% rendered (this is not filmed, it was created with a computer), I hope you’re as amazed as I am.

Read the rest of this entry »

(explodingdog.com, © Sam Brown)

I wish I could walk a mile in your shoes.
Right out into the ocean.

(© asofterworld.com)

Ich habe auf blog.justhuman.de vor ein paar Tagen einen kurzen Artikel über Kunst, Evolution und Wahrnehmung veröffentlicht mit dem Titel: Was will uns der Künstler damit sagen?

Vielleicht ist dieser Versuch einer Verknüpfung aus Kunst und Wissenschaft für den einen oder anderen ja interessant. Kommentare könnt ihr dort oder hier posten, ganz wie ihr wollt.

Gerade zufällig gefunden:

“Es ist ein grundlegendes Missverständnis, dass man Fotografie dazu verdammt, Abbild der Wirklichkeit zu sein.”

“Wirklichkeit ist überhaupt nur darzustellen, indem man sie konstruiert.”

Andreas Gursky

Worth living today: geek tattoos!

If you don’t understand this – go learn html!

What’s going on?

The short version:

• I had a photo-shooting a few weeks back for a theatre project.
• The photographs were published twice in the German newspaper AZ (Abendzeitung), and once in the German newspaper SZ (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
• You will find a report on the shooting, the project, a few final photos, and (of course) the parts of the newspaper my photographs were in!

The long version:
Most of you guys know that I’m doing photographs now and then.
A few weeks back, Julia, a colleague and friend of mine, told me that her and two friends were performing a theatre play in a few weeks, and asked me if I would be willing to do a photoshooting because they were in need of material for PR, advertising and such. The project is called “Orpheus & Eurydike”, and is a theatre play with an actor, a piano player, and a singer. You can find more details on the play on their website.

After recently completing an awesome workshop on exactly that kind of topic, I agreed, and we met on a very warm Friday afternoon in the “Hofgarten” (a public park) in Munich. The problem was that they needed the photographs *immediately*, and since I was going to go on holidays for a week on Saturday morning, I had to work the whole night. Another problem was that the sun was still very bright (even at 5 and 6 pm), so I had to use rather extreme flashlight. The idea was to get some photographs with a little bit of surreal flair (Orpheus & Eurydike, is, after all, quite an epic fantasy story).

We went to work, finished after around 8 hours. Julia came home with me, and we spent the night in front of my computer (till 6am), me working on photoshop, her telling me what details to keep and which ones to work on, what photographs to delete and which ones to take, et cetera.

You can see two final results here and here.

Now, due to many press-contacts, Julia was able to place infos on the play in different newspaper (twice in the AZ, once in the SZ).

Rock’n Roll!

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I want to write about one of the greatest inventions in the sector of art I’ve heard of so far: the Image Fulgurator.

It was invented by the 24 year old German art student Julius von Bismarck.

What does it do? It is a camera that is triggered when another camera that is not too far away uses its flash. But the Image Fulgurator doesn’t simply produce pictures, it uses a flash and and an analogue picture in the camera in order to project that picture onto an object for a very short time; it will therefor appear on the photographs of other people.

Imagine taking a picture of a famous building, just to see it on flames if you check it afterwards in your digital camera; or a huge brandname on a famous building, which clearly wasn’t there when you took the photograph. Or some text on the clothing of a star …

Julius calls the device (translated from German) “apparatus for minimal-invasive manipulation of photographs”, and he thinks of it as an analogue hack. I love the idea.

Here are the technical details, and here is an article about the Image Fulgurator (SZ magazine).

[ the photograph shown above was shot by Richard Wilhelmer; thanks to Verena for sending me the link! ]

Lass Dich fallen,
lerne Schlangen zu beobachten,
pflanze unmögliche Gärten,
lade jemand Gefährlichen zum Tee ein,
mache kleine Zeichen, die ‚Ja’ sagen und verteile sie überall
in Deinem Haus.

Werde ein Freund von Freiheit und Unsicherheit,
freue Dich auf Träume.

Weine bei Kinofilmen,
schaukle so hoch Du kannst
mit einer Schaukel bei Mondlicht.

Pflege verschiedene Stimmungen,
verweigere ‚verantwortliche’ zu sein,
tu es aus Liebe.

Glaube an Zauberei, lache eine Menge, bade im Mondlicht.

Träume wilde, phantasievolle Träume

Zeichne auf die Wände, lies jeden Tag.

Stell Dir vor, Du wärst verzaubert,
kichere mit Kindern.

Höre alten Leuten zu, freue Dich, tauche ein, sei frei.

Preise Dich selbst, lass die Angst fallen, spiele mit allem.

Unterhalte das Kind in Dir, Du bist unschuldig,
baue eine Burg aus Decken,
werde nass,
umarme Bäume,
schreibe Liebesbriefe.

— Josef Beuys

[mit Dank an Julia]