Great New Artists

January has been a successful month so far here so I thought I would do a little time-out housekeeping-type post for all my lovely readers.

So far 2009 has seen a lot of new artists from YouTube and other sites on the internet but I thought it would be in keeping with my more academic nature if February took a slightly different track. I feel it is neccessary to understand old art in order to truly appreciate new art so the month of Feb will be dedicated to some of those old favorites with short descriptions of why they were so great.

Hopefully the rest of 2009 will get back to my roots here at Great New Artists and find some more great painters &ct. making great new art for everyone. Since the summer is usually pretty heavy with this kind of thing floating around we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that around that time.

The new changes to MySpace which they call (MySpace 2.0) came as quite a shock to me I have to admit. While the site does have more user-friendly features than it did it poses some new problems which it did not have before.

It is easier to customize the pages than ever before and eliminates the need for going to third-party sites to design your own layout or to get a pre-made one (which is kind of a bummer for all those other sites) which also makes it easier to avoid viruses and malicious ads showing up.

The main problem that I have had with it is how easy it is to turn off features that you want to keep on. I never really noticed that the about me section was actually called blurbs before until I wondered where it went. But once you figure it out it’s not so bad.

It’s mroe visually oriented which I like also. So I guess when all is said and done I like the new MySpace. I even have a page there: http://www.myspace.com/worldgirl84_itgirlfilms (which I had to get after one of those horrible third-parties destroyed my other page).

OK this site transcends a few different types of artistic interests. It’s for fashionistas who want to try on a lot of different looks without a lot of time or money, it’s for web design students who need something great to write about in class and of course it’s for readers of this blog. It’s called Taaz a free virtual makeover tool that not only allows users to try on new make up and hair on virtual models or their pics but also will show you which brands and colors you are using. You can come up with some pretty great high fashion stuff or some pretty prctical looks that look awfully realistic with minimal effort.

I got a Flip Video Ultra for Christmas so I think I can review it with some authority albeit very quickly. The Flip Video Ultra is not HD but it sure comes close enough for me. I got mine for making videos for YouTube in particular art videos and vlogs and I didn’t see paying $500 on a camera that I was going to carry with me everywhere.

I quickly found out I didn’t have to! There are two versions one 30 minute and one 60 minute and they record using flash memory technology which means, no tapes or cards and the camera can be plugged directly into the computer.

Here’s my first video (goofy but it was a test anyway) and here’s the website, check it out for yourself! I’m looking forward to getting the HD version in the future.

In keeping with the tradition of counting down and looking back which seems to transcend generations and religions every year round about this time I decided to write about some of the best new artists I found this past year.

Valsartdiary I actually found out about her a while ago before 2008 started but her style is classic.

Katarina Sokolova one of the best digital painters I have ever seen.

Kawaii Goods.com great little shop full of pink stuff.

Graffiti Paris is a book not a person or organization but it still counts as one of the best art related things I found this year.

Of course there have been a lot more great things this year than just these but it’ll be more fun if I don’t tell you what else to like

As if this blog wasn’t strange enough already you’ll have to forgive me for finding some of the strangest chairs I’ve ever found. Yes I said chairs.

Trendhunter Magazine published an article called “50 Outlandish Chairs” which included chairs from Mario Philippona, Pharrell and Michael L. Wendell who designed my personal favorites the milk splash chairs. Not only because of the unique idea but because it was pulled off incredibly well. When I first saw it I didn’t think it was a chair I thought it was just a cute photo manipulation done for an ad. They would look cute in a Got Milk kind of ad actually.

Talk about Star Trek the immersive cocoon is coming in 2014. Designers are developing it right now and it sounds like Second Life for the real world. Among other things it will be used for education and is touted as something that will “revolutionize the way we interact with computers.”

What interests me about it is the fact that it operates sort of the same as SL as in players would go in and be able to touch what they see and get information about it. What’s weird about it is that users will also have to walk in place inside it to get anywhere. Of course it will also be used for games but there are a million other possibilities for it too.

Paul St. George is an artist based in the UK who creates work based on unusual sources. His exhibitions include Supermoments—which is based on what people see when we the lights are turned out in a room; the amazing Telectroscope—based on plans for the device by his great-grandfather; Sequnces—a traveling exhibit of chronophotography; Rabbitduck—which has to be seen, and several others all of which explore the ambiguity, presence and unreality of the world around us.

You can read about the artist and his exhibits here and you can read about the Telectroscope here. As a matter of opinion I think his work is a good example of art bringing people and the world together.

The Telectroscope is something that happened quite some time ago (May 22- June 15 of 08) but it’s still amazing.

Years ago artist Paul St. George found some mysterious papers in his grandmother’s attic which turned out to be plans for a device his eccentric, Victorian-era great-grandfather had invented. This device turned out to be the Telectroscope, a device consisting of a network of mirrors and a long tunnel which stretched from one side of the world to the other allowing people on either end to see each other.

The two sides of the world turned out to be London and New York and the exhibit ran from May t June of this year. Read the full story and biography of the artist and his ancestor here.

Artichoke has been around since the early nineties creating some spectacular and unusual exhibits. They say their main purpose is to put on shows that have something to say to the widest possible audience. Their most popular project around England happened in London in 2006 with The Sultan’s Elephant which was a show that lasted four days in the streets of London beginning with the arrival of the giant mechanical elephant in a giant wooden barrel and culminating in a large and colorful parade including the elephant and a giant little girl in a green dress walking through the streets.

These are also the people behind the Telectroscope which was touted as a magic tunnel which allowed its viewers in one city to see to the other side of the world and hit Brooklyn earlier this year. Viewers on the NY side could see people on the London side and vice versa.