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ARTCODES is Emily Chang, an award-winning web and interactive designer, consultant, and technology strategist.

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Art/Pop Culture

Robot Sculptures

Sunday, July 29, 2007

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Gordon Bennett makes robot sculptures out of old and new found objects.  “The parts are found in various places including garbage dumps, basements, construction sites, and garage sales. They are inspired by Norman Bel Gedes and Raymond Loewy whose visions of the “Modern Age” helped shape industrial design of the 40’s and 50’s.”

I love that each robot is unique and comes with its own numbered metal tag.  As a former metal sculptor and current robot-head, I’m also drawn to his mix of old and new design. The retro becomes modern and vice versa. Each robot has such personality.

Visit his site to purchase and see the current robots.

Posted by emily chang on 07.29.07
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superflat platform art

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

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This superflat mural is showing in the London Underground.  Each of the arches has a different part of the scene.  The artist is “chiho aoshima, born 1974, tokyo, japan. she uses computer technology to create detailed and complex images of fantasy worlds. hybridized creatures are participants in the composition’s narrative as well as elements in a decorative scheme.” More at designboom.

Posted by emily chang on 01.10.07
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dreamlands

Monday, November 27, 2006

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“Aurora borealis casting it’s glow over Seltún geothermal area in SW-Iceland.”
By Helga Kvam, All Rights Reserved.

Visit Helga’s flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hkvam/308089177/

Posted by emily chang on 11.27.06
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The Cloud

Friday, November 10, 2006

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The Cloud by Monica Forster is a portable room that can be used as a relaxing workplace retreat, a unique meeting place, for meditation, or as an ideal escape for creative brainstorming. A space of its own that can be used within any space, Cloud instantly defines an area and a mood apart.

Easily transported from place to place, when the Cloud is unpacked, a silent fan continuously keeps the chamber inflated as long as required. The room inflates in three minutes and stays inflated until its folded away into its connected carrying bag. Cloud is entered and exited via a self–closing slit door alowing ample ventilation. The Cloud is made of rip-stop nylon and includes the carrying bag with integral fan unit.

This combines so many elements that I’m drawn to into one functional environment - beyond object.  It’s meditative, ethereal, and draws from camping technology (rip-stop nylon, portable).  These concepts work well together.  Camping in my tent has always been highly meditative and creative for me.  At one point many years ago, we even had our tent set up in our living room as a getaway and sleep spot. 

See it at UrbanPeel.

Posted by emily chang on 11.10.06
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Karl Lagerfeld Bearbricks at Chanel

Sunday, October 15, 2006

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Another art-meets-couture spotting caught on camera.  These Karl Lagerfeld Bearbricks are on display here in SF at the Chanel store, Maiden Lane, Union Square. 

Posted by emily chang on 10.15.06
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Damien Hirst Manolo Blahnik's

Monday, October 09, 2006

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We were strolling through Union Square and I caught this great display of Manolo Blahnik shoes by Damien Hirst (a favorite artist of mine) at the San Francisco Neiman Marcus Manolo Blahnik retrospective.

Posted by emily chang on 10.09.06
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less - alternative living strategies

Sunday, May 28, 2006

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maxi capsule luxus by atelier van lieshout, 2002

Some of my favorite artists are showing in “less - alternative living strategies” at the Padiglione d’arte Contemporanea (PAC) in Milan from April 5th - June 18th 2006. 

on show are works of 18 artist which did an artistic research on the concept of ‘living’. the living space to live in is both necessity and a catalyst for needs and desires. this exhibition features new ways of living for a more sustainable future. the artists have investigated this theme by moving between micro-architecture and macro-design (and mobility). they seek to critically address complexity of our society down to its most crucial and urgent needs.

installations by following artists: vito acconci, keren amiran, siah armajani, atelier van lieshout, mircea cantor, jimmie durham, carlos garaicoa, N55, lucy orta, maria papadimitriou, marjetica potrc, miachael rakowitz, luca vitone, dré wapenaar, krzysztof wodiczko, silvio wolf, wurmkos and andrea zittel.

More at designboom.

Curated by gabi scardi
http://www.pac-milano.org

Posted by emily chang on 05.28.06
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Bubble portraits

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Julianne Swartz’s Bubble portraits are playful and refreshing, where the ordinary becomes ethereal.  Given my own work with translucent water bubbles, I appreciated her perspective.

ps - happy bday e!

Posted by emily chang on 05.28.06
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Jenny Holzer: For London

Friday, April 07, 2006

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As part of the Beckett Centenary Festival at the Barbican, American artist Jenny Holzer presents a series of light projections on the Barbican and buildings around London including City Hall and Somerset House. Writings from Beckett and a selection of works by celebrated poets, are cast onto well-known London landmarks, allowing light and text to flow over the cityscape, creating an extraordinary visual experience.

Full story and more info about the festival at the Barbican Gallery website

Posted by emily chang on 04.07.06
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Grandmaster Flash

Sunday, March 12, 2006

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It’s cool to know that as we’re listening to a compilation of Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel and the Furious Five here at home, DJ Grandmaster Flash is at SupperClub tonight, literally just down the street a half a block away on Harrison!  He’ll be on the turntables starting in one hour - at 12:30 AM.  Go check it, yo.

Posted by emily chang on 03.12.06
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Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations

Sunday, March 05, 2006

I’m definitely part of the Lego generation - played with them as a kid, went to Lego world in Holland, and was a fan of Lego Mindstorms.

This Lego Volvo is crazy:
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More amazing Lego creations at TechEBlog’s Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations.

Posted by emily chang on 03.05.06
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guimp

Saturday, February 25, 2006

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This reminds me of the artweb projects that I first fell in love with in the late 90s and the pixel art sites that followed.  Check out guimp, the world’s smallest website.

Posted by emily chang on 02.25.06
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A-Z West

Monday, February 06, 2006

Andrea Zittel has always been one of my favorite artists since I saw her work in NYC in the late nineties.  The NYTImes has a review of her latest work in Rethinking the World by Cutting it Down to Size.

That she puts her money where her mouth is, so to speak, is evident in the ingenuities in “Andrea Zittel: Critical Space,” a show of more than 75 of her habitats, installations, models, drawings and other objects from 1991 to 2005, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. The show was organized by Trevor Smith, curator of the New Museum, and Paola Morsiani, curator of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Another Zittel exhibition, of her individually customized mobile units, “Andrea Zittel: Small Liberties,” opens on Thursday at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria.

A native Californian who now lives and works partly in Los Angeles and partly in the Mojave desert town Joshua Tree, Ms. Zittel is heir to a long list of 20th-century tweakers of the human environment. They range from Bauhauslers like the German-born weaver Anni Albers and the Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky — whose prefab “Frankfurt kitchen” was built into 10,000 working-class apartments in 1927 — to Americans like Elizabeth Hawes ("Fashion Is Spinach"), Buckminster Fuller and the furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames.

Among Ms. Zittel’s earliest attempts at controlling space to make life easier is the “A-Z Management and Maintenance Unit” (1992), a three-dimensional setup that maximized the use of her cramped Brooklyn studio; and “A-Z Carpet Furniture,” partly tongue-in-cheek wall-to-floor coverings marked off by rectilinear arrangements that have a Constructivist look. One has a panel that serves as a “drop-leaf dining table,” on which you can serve meals if you don’t mind eating at floor level.

With a footprint of a mere 60 square feet, Model 003, the management and maintenance unit shown here, is built in a steel frame that can be folded up for moving. It contains a restaurant-style dining booth, a plastic sink, a stovetop, a closet, a cot, a stool and some work space, and like most A-Z productions, can be customized to a buyer’s taste and even moved as guest quarters into a host’s home. The use of the square steel grid and simple materials has been carried forward into her later work.

Posted by emily chang on 02.06.06
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The Beat Museum

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Jerry Cimino opens the Beat Museum in San Francisco.  I wish I had been able to make the opening to see the guest of honor - Carolyn Cassady, the 82-year-old widow of Neal Cassady.

Nearly half a century after they flourished in North Beach, the Beats are back in San Francisco.

A modest enterprise called the Beat Museum is staging a grand opening at 7 p.m. today at its new digs at 1345 Grant Ave. featuring a collection of books, manuscripts and ephemera from the days when poets, artists, writers and all the rest made the scene on upper Grant.

In addition, on Saturday the San Francisco Public Library opens a display of the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” Kerouac’s manuscript beats all: It is a scroll 120 feet long that Kerouac used to produce his book on a typewriter in an amazing 20-day writing frenzy back in 1951.

Story at SFGate

Update: 
On the Road: The Jack Kerouac Manuscript at San Francisco Public Library
Steve Rhode’s Flickr set

Posted by emily chang on 01.14.06
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Cactus Friends

Friday, October 21, 2005

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One of my favorite new character designs is cactus girl from tokidoki, a series of art, t-shirts and accessories by Italian artist Simone Legno.  I’m pleased to see he’s launching cool new vinyl toys next month - cactus friends (shown above).  Tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese and cactus girl certainly exemplifies that attitude - cute and prickly.  I’ve recently started collecting “designer toys” inspired by the creative art book, Vinyl Will Kill!, but more on that in another post..

Update:  thanks to Jenny who wrote in to let me know Simone is a guy not a girl (oops!) and for these links to more of Simone’s work.  He designed two rooms for this competition and did a cover for a journal project.

I’m also happy to report I’ve now added Cactus Girl and Bastardino to my collection - bought them here in SF at the KidRobot store.  I’ll post some photos when I get a chance.

Posted by emily chang on 10.21.05
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We love Giant Robot

Sunday, October 16, 2005

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Our new t-shirts from Giant Robot SF (Max’s is 2K and mine’s Gamma-Go).

Posted by emily chang on 10.16.05
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Jeremy Blake at SFMOMA

Friday, March 11, 2005

I’ve liked the ideas of Jeremy Blake’s work for some time and his exploration of “time-based paintings” and digital video DVD layered animations, having felt something similar in my own experiments and visual thinking.  So I was excited to see his first work in person at SFMOMA here.

» More...

Posted by emily chang on 03.11.05
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The Creators Are Moving On

Monday, February 28, 2005

Article in the NYTimes about the closing of “The Gates”...

Like his wife, Christo says he isn’t bothered by the closing of “The Gates.” That’s what creating is all about, he says. You want to move onto the next thing.

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Posted by emily chang on 02.28.05
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Blobjects & Beyond

Thursday, February 10, 2005

The blobject has so much appeal.  Learn more at the exhibition page at the San Jose Museum of Art...

Beginning Saturday, March 5th the San Jose Museum of Art’s first floor galleries will brim with curvaceous, boldly designed products and prototypes as the museum opens its first-ever exhibition devoted to industrial design. The exhibition, Blobjects & Beyond: The New Fluidity in Design is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary look at the objects that fill our lives, chosen from a rich range of product, furniture, graphic, media and architectural work from across the globe.

Posted by emily chang on 02.10.05
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Exhibition Compostela

Friday, March 05, 2004

“Compostela is an exhibition which has been organized around ten individual projects by artists who share their use of photography and video, as well as a remarkable interest for the reflection on everyday issues and references to natural and human landscape, urban architectures, monuments or peripheral neighborhoods, but also to aspects, which are more difficult to symbolize, like the physiognomy - spiritual, sentimental and mood-related- of a city or even the human landscape.  More than a collective exhibition on the city, Compostela is a series of entwined projects, which try to compete with and to show the present of the town.”

» More...

Posted by emily chang on 03.05.04
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