A Hand-Drawn Animation of Merging Faces and Morphing Bodies by Daniel Zvereff

Brooklyn-based artist Daniel Zvereff works in a combination of drawing, photography, and videography and all three come into play in a animated short. The three minute long film is a music video for Norwegian singer-songwriter Okay-Kaya‘s song “Emulate”. It is a departure from her other music videos, which usual feature the singer herself in live action scenarios. Throughout the video, pieces of unbound notebook paper show shifting blue drawings. Ranging from moving faces to animals and planets, as well as abstract shapes, the drawings are all executed in simple line work, in a unified blue hue. You can see more of Zvereff’s work on his website and Flickr. (via Vimeo Staff Picks)

Spools of Colorful Tape and Piles of Painted Canvases Transform Subjects Into Living Works of Art

French creative studio Akatre was recently asked by Centre Pompidou to create a series of visuals that would further engage the Paris-based institution’s audience. For the project, Akatre knew they wanted to humanize the museum’s visitor communication materials, while also speaking to the act of creation. The studio shot a series of seven portraits that covered their subjects’ heads with arts and craft materials such as spools of colorful tape, dozens of paintbrushes, and drips of neon paint. The works will be incorporated into Centre Pompidou’s communication materials, with three of the images printed on upcoming membership cards. You can see more projects by Akatre, including these slime-covered portraits, on their Instagram and Behance.

LEGO Launches a Rotating Wind Turbine With Trees Made From Plant-Based Plastic

LEGO recently launched a new 826-piece set that includes a three-foot tall wind turbine. The fully functioning power source features aircraft warning lights and adjustable blades, and towers above a cottage surrounded by trees and a garden. This is the first LEGO set to use a new plant-based plastic formulated from sugarcane, which comprises the kit’s spruce trees. The turbine, which is a collaboration with the Danish sustainable energy company Vestas, was previously developed in 2008 but was never released to the public. The updated set will be available through LEGO stores and online on November 23, 2018. (via Designboom)

 

A Cafe in Seoul Uses Clever Contour Lines to Appear Like a 2-Dimensional Cartoon

Photo by @bulaiern

Since 2017, a small cafe in South Korea has been transporting its visitors to a two-dimensional world. Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20 in Seoul features all-white walls, floors, furniture, and fixtures accented with black contour lines that give the space the flattened look of a cartoon drawing. Illustration-inspired elements include drawn cacti, a curious puppy, and blank picture frames. Some of the beverage containers even sport defining lines. You can take a peek inside the playful cafe on Instagram and Facebook. (via My Modern Met)

Photo by @benjamin_liang

Photo by @cg__shinwonho

Photo by @__elsalovetravel__

Photo by @tsaichialing_kelly

Photo by @mmarichell

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Photo by @adayinthelalz

A Porous White Aluminum Sculpture Encourages Exploration and Play at the Jinji Lake Biennale

All images by NAARO

For the 2018 Jinji Lake Biennale in Suzhou, China, Marc Fornes and his art and architecture studio THEVERYMANY (previously here and here) installed a porous outdoor pavilion crafted from white aluminum. Holes that span the bulbous structure allow light to pour in from each direction, sprinkling the interior with a variegated influx of miniature light beams. The piece is titled Boolean Operator after the search function that determines relationships between statements, concepts, or forms. Its experience is detailed in a statement on THEVERYMANY’s website:

The intricacy of the skin asserts a density: of limbs, of openings, of parts and their connections. You have to let your eyes adjust to the resolution of the experience. Unfocusing your gaze again, the whole scene overwhelms, strikes awe, compels you to move closer, deeper, and through an edgeless space. The doubly-curved surfaces cast no regular shadows, giving little information to the eye to perceive its scale or depth.

The winding nature of the installation encourages play, as the curvature of the outside walls turn inward to form the interior, and vice versa. You can see more projects by the New York City-based studio on their Instagram. (via NOTCOT)

Extraordinary Pigeons Take Flight in Large-Scale Feathery Murals by Adele Renault

Artist Adele Renault (previously) paints realistic portraits of the common pigeon, often highlighting real examples of pigeons whose stories are anything but ordinary. This year she painted a mural of “Baby Girl,” a New Jersey pigeon who won a 366 mile race 19 minutes ahead of the other feathered contestants. A few years ago she dedicated a series of smaller paintings to “Camp,” a pigeon adopted by a Chicago couple after finding his egg left on their kitchen table.

By focusing on these inspiring stories, Renault highlights the often overlooked bird as a magnificent creature rather than an urban nuisance. Her brightly hued public murals and paintings on canvas bring purples and blues into the bird’s feathers, and accentuate the iridescent tones one might not notice at first glance. Recently she published a book combining her avian works titled Feathers and Faces. You can view more of her large-scale paintings on her website and Instagram. (via My Modern Met)

An Early 20th Century Guide to Wave Designs for Japanese Craftsmen is Now Available Online

In 1903, Japanese artist Mori Yuzan’s wave designs were published in a resource guide for Japanese craftsmen looking to add aquatic motifs to their wares. The three-volume series, titled Hamonshū, includes variations on contained and free-form wave patterns suitable for embellishing swords, religious objects, and ceramics. The collection has recently been digitized and is available for free on Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library of free books, movies, and software. (via My Modern Met)