Your Crazy Childhood Nerd Arguments Are Now A Card Game

Looks like a lot of fun, I bet I could be amazing at this

 

 

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Your Crazy Childhood Nerd Arguments Are Now A Card Game

via Kotaku by Luke Plunkett on 2/26/13

"I'M OPTIMUS PRIME AND I SHOT YOU IN THE FACE", "WELL I'M A NINJA TURTLE AND I BLOCKED IT THEN KICKED HIII-YAH", "WELL I USED MY FORCEFIELD TO STOP IT THEN TURNED INTO A TRUCK AND VVRROOMMM DROVE OVER YOUR LEGS". More »

 

 

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Flexible Paper Sculptures Bend Reality + Warp Perceptions

I may have posted this before, but I love the whole concept and process.

 

 

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Flexible Paper Sculptures Bend Reality + Warp Perceptions

via WebUrbanist by Delana on 2/23/13

[ By Delana in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

At first glance, these sculptures look just like delicate porcelain or ceramic – but they hide a surprising secret. Beijing artist Li Hongbo's sculptures are actually made of thousands of layers of plain white paper, glued together into heavy accordion-like shapes that only appear totally solid when they are still.

When grabbed and manipulated, their true nature is revealed. They are flexible and complex, capable of stretching long distances and looking altogether otherworldly, particularly the human figures.

Li Hongbo was inspired by traditional Chinese toys made from intricately folded and glued pieces of thin paper. The toys are stored flat but open up to reveal fun, playful shapes.

Likewise, Li Hongbo's sculptures exist in two different states. Their static shape is stable, solid and beautiful – but when they are moved, their true nature is revealed. They are ephemeral, not stable; airy, not solid – but the beauty of these flexible sculptures remains.

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[ By Delana in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Prêt-À-Poundo: Tai Chunn Presents Elie Kuame Couture [NYFW]

Inspirational.

 

 

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Prêt-À-Poundo: Tai Chunn Presents Elie Kuame Couture [NYFW]

via Okayafrica. by Poundo on 2/21/13

*Elie Kuame Couture – Black Fashion Week Paris (Photography: Nicolas Romain)

Ivorian/Lebanese designer Elie Kuame has never been the type to back down from the challenge of bringing together contradictory styles. Kuame has designed incredible pieces over the years that combine his distinct, stylish signature with creativity. His creations show a unique ability to assemble materials that worlds apart from one another  like lace, leather, silk, gazal, crepe, fur pearl, tree bark, precious stones, and many others.

*Elie Kuame Couture — BFW Paris                                                        *Designer Elie Kuame — BFW Paris (Photography: Nicolas Romain)

Born in Belgium and raised in the Ivory Coast, Kuame rapidly developed a contemplative gaze on women in his family, particularly his mother. He claims he was fascinated by feminine grace, elegance and beauty. In 2006, while he was living in France, Kuame merged his artistic talents with his passion and founded his own line Elie Kuame Couture. Since then, he's dedicated his designs to enhance women's beauty with elegant, stunning, striking, and breathtaking attires. Elie Kuame crafted his art in France, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, China, and has demonstrated his talent in Gabon, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and French West Indies.

*Source: Joe Kohen/Getty Images North America

His New York Fashion Week event was organized by fashion expert Tai Chunn for the Monique Vanessa Chunn Foundation for Cerebral Brain Aneurysm Research. In 1997, Chunn founded the MVC Foundation in honor of his sister who suddenly died from a cerebral brain aneurysm. Since then, the foundation has become one of the leading runway production companies in the fashion industry.

"I have had two loves my entire life: fashion & sister," stated Tai Chunn, "I used to sew outfits from the sleeves of our old clothes and help my sister create cheers for her cheerleading squad (she was captain of course). We shared many secrets and dreams; it's only suitable that I combine both loves during the legendary NYFW! MVC Foundation is a homage to my sister Monique Vanessa Chunn and Elie Kuame is what kept me in fashion for over 20 years! He has that twinkle in the eye of a young designer that gives you that grumble in the pit of your stomach. What keeps me honest is being able to give back to the world the love my sister gave to everyone she you touched in her short time on this earth."

*Source: Joe Kohen/Getty Images North America

*Source: Joe Kohen/Getty Images North America

*Source: Joe Kohen/Getty Images North America

*Source: Joe Kohen/Getty Images North America

 

 

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Film: ‘The Fade – Its More than Just A Haircut’

Looks good.

 

 

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Film: ‘The Fade – Its More than Just A Haircut’

via Okayafrica. by Beatriz Leal Riesco on 2/20/13

Offori Upac' Mensah owns a small barbershop in Accra which allows him to have a decent life and save for his daughter's education while he teaches boxing classes in his spare time and dreams of becoming a singer. Johnny 'Cakes' Castellanos, who everybody calls "Hollywood", is a workaholic, taking helicopters and private jets around the US to meet the needs of his VIPs while keeping his fashion boutique in New Jersey rolling with an ambitious staff.  Shawn Powis is a different kind of itinerant barber, forced by the chaotic but insouciant pace of Jamaica to have his bag of tools ever ready to rush off to cut and shave his customers, many of whom belong to the music community.  Faisal Abdu'Allah, a recognized artist from London's African Diaspora scene, opened his own shop after finishing art school as a space "where anything can happen," and it has become the inspiration and monetary base for his creative work.

A Brit of African descent, Andy Mundy-Castle is the director of The Fade, a documentary that follows the lives of these four barbers around the world over the course of seven days. The independent film and television producer, who holds a Masters in Documentary from the Goldsmith College of the University of London, is presenting this brand new documentary, his first for the big screen, in NYC this February. His previous experience in animation can be seen in the opening images:  a razor slicing the distances separating Accra & Kingston and Englewood & London, the sites where the four protagonists ply their trade, which marks the commonalities in their cultural heritage as the credits appear superimposed over afro picks, combs and scissors.

The audience follows the lives of these young men, rendered in a vibrant, quick-cut editing style, discovering numerous similarities in their work, particularly in the intimacy established between barber and client, as well as broad disparities in their backgrounds and individual aspirations. The film is structured around six chapters, each composed of four vignettes starting in Ghana, moving to New Jersey and Jamaica, and finishing in England.  These chapters could have been named as follows: presentation, philosophy of life, passions and dreams, outside the shop, important clients, and miscellanea. They are followed by a short epilogue featuring the four men staring into the waters of the Atlantic, rich with memories of hope and despair that bring together all people of African roots, each from his respective shore.

Throughout the film, the viewer is party to countless clever asides from clients, coworkers, and the barbers themselves, in a confidential space from which family and friends are excluded.  The ability to listen and share, supported by great manual and creative skills, have made the best barber shops a kind of sacred space for ages, where the customer may express himself freely and enjoy the sympathetic responses of a chorus of listeners and of the barber himself in his role as confidante and counselor; this is an aspect of the profession that cannot be altered by new technologies or trendy products.

Barbershops have also long served as a focal point for the transmission of stories and news. In the words of noted rapper and producer Pharrell Williams, the barbershop is the "hood Twitter." It is not idle talk when Faisal Abdu'Allah affirms, on being invited to the CAAM gallery in the Canary Islands to present his own retrospective: "my shop is a living museum. There is the place where I find my stories both as an artist and a barber." The barbershop is also important as a democratic space where even the rich and famous are brought down to the level of the common man. As an African proverb states:  "Even the high and noble bow before the barber".

Patronizing preconceptions may still relegate such realms as fashion design and hair styling to a second tier of artistic activity — thankfully, though, this has begun to change — but the processes of making an art object and of giving a perfect haircut share a great deal in common, and it's clear that for the protagonists of the film, their profession has a much deeper meaning than a mere job. Offori Upac' Mensah, thinking from Ghana about his compatriots, says: "if I would meet other barbers around the world, I would tell them to keep the spirit of barbering alive." In the coda to the movie's final scene, a New Jersey customer looks directly into the camera and offers the following closing words:  "If you have an ability, use it to the fullest, and keep going."  There is no other secret to mastery, and very few professions in which human beings commit greater trust. Who else would you let lay a razor against your neck?

Follow the film's progress on Facebook and @thefadefilm and catch it when you can.

 

 

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Build Custom Creatures on Your iPad, Bring Them to Life Through 3D Printing

So happening.

 

 

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Build Custom Creatures on Your iPad, Bring Them to Life Through 3D Printing

via Kotaku by Mike Fahey on 2/13/13

The latest entry in Autodesk's 123D line of 3D design tools, 123D Creature gives iPad owners the power to sculpt and paint their own three-dimensional creatures and then share them with the community, export them as a 3D mesh, or have them sent to a 3D printing service to be transformed into real stuff. More »

 

 

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