August 31, 2011 El Empleo El Empleo is a short film directed and produced by Santiago "Bou" Grasso about a man on his usual journey to work who is thrown into a world where the use of people as objects is a daily occurrence.
August 30, 2011 Graffiti Wars — Banksy vs King Robbo While graffiti writers face trial and prison sentences for their art, some street artists' work is lauded and protected behind Perspex. This issue is at the heart of a graffiti war being fought on the streets of London between one of the founding fathers of the British graffiti scene and the most famous street artist in the world. In London over the past 18 months the tension between the camps has played out in a battle of spray cans between freehand graffiti writer King Robbo and his nemesis, the stencil-using street artist Banksy
Augsut 26, 2011 NASA | Animation: Satellite Spots Black Hole Devouring A Star In late March 2011, NASA's Swift satellite alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from a new source in the constellation Draco. They soon realized that the source, which is now known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away that the radiation from the blast has traveled 3.9 billion years before reaching Earth.
August 25, 2011 Disney Does Dali — Destino An animated short film released in 2003 by The Walt Disney Company, Destino is unique in that its production originally began in 1945, 58 years before its eventual completion. The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, and features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez and performed by Dora Luz.
August 23, 2011 Should Banks be a Public Utility? Yves Smith beluieves that, since the finance sector controls the regulatory process, there needs to be a publicly controlled alternative to the private banking system
August 22, 2011 Rock Sculpture on Boulder Creek Mike Grab has made a habit of creating art with river stones on Boulder Creek. Watch him work next to Eben G. Fine Park.
August 19, 2011 24 Hours on Top of the World
Want to capture a stunning view of the night sky amidst an other-worldly landscape? The island of La Palma was the destination of choice for director Mike Moloney and photographer John Hooper, who shot this 24-hour time-lapse near the IAC observatory, nearly 2400 metres above sea level. Featuring galaxies, a volcanic crater and abandoned telescope control rooms, it's part of a series that captures an entire day at different locations. Moloney used a programmable camera head to create a 360-degree view of the area. But he ran into trouble at 4.30 am when a gust of wind blew over his camera rig, smashing the camera head. The rest of the time-lapse had to break free of the rotational format but still gives a creative take on the surroundings.
August 18, 2011 New Images of the Moon Buzz Aldrin described the "Magnificent Desolation" of the lunar surface. Rarely do those words ring as true as in these recent images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Revel in the detail of these images, and the severity of the Lunar surface, then be thankful you're relaxing on a green and blue world sheltered from the hostile environment of space.
August 17, 2011 God Grew Tired of Us — Cultural Differences A clip from the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award winner at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, God Grew Tired of Us. Orphaned by a tumultuous civil war and traveling barefoot across the sub-Saharan desert, John Bul Dau, Daniel Abol Pach, and Panther Blor were among the 25,000 Lost Boys (ages 3 to 13) who fled villages, formed surrogate families, and sought refuge from famine, disease, wild animals, and attacks from rebel soldiers. Named by a journalist after Peter Pan's posse of orphans who protected and provided for each other, the Lost Boys traveled together for five years and, against all odds, crossed into the UN's refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. A journey's end for some, it was only the beginning for John, Daniel, and Panther, who along with 3,800 other young survivors, were selected to re-settle in the United States.
August 15, 2011 MÖBIUS at Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia Twenty-one large triangles animated by Melbourne, throughout Federation Square. MÖBIUS is a sculpture that can be configured into many cyclical patterns and behave as though it is eating itself, whilst sinking into the ground. The result is an optical illusion and a time-lapse of people interacting with the sculpture and moving through Melbourne's landmark location throughout the day. See the making of this project here.
August 12, 2011 The Radioactive Orchestra: Making Music With Radiation This is a project with the goal to make radiation more understandable. By translating the isotopes different energy levels to sound frequences we can ad another sense to grasp nuclear physics.
August 10, 2011 Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle for Expression The official trailer for the upcoming feature documentary, Vigilante Vigilante follows a new breed of crime-fighter that now stalks the urban landscape: the anti-graffiti vigilante.These blight warriors stop at nothing to rid their neighborhoods and cities of street art, stickers, tags, and posters. Yet several of these vigilantes have become the very menace they set out to eliminate. In their relentless attempt to stamp out graffiti, they have turned to illegally and destructively painting other people's property.
August 9, 2011 Obama Broke Law Not Prosecuting Bush & Cheney Michael Ratner contends that the prosecution of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will have to be done in other countries as Obama has refused to pursue it.
August 8,2011 The Delicacies of Distress Temujin Doran's short film about what it means to be human, and how we see ourselves in relation to other animals. It is based on the work of John Gray, in his book Straw Dogs.
August 5, 2011 Metropolis II A short doc about a kinetic sculpture that took four years to build. Filming was done over three days in Chris Burden's studio before the sculpture was moved to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art (LACMA) where it is being reinstalled. The installation opens fall 2011.
August 4, 2011 Corporate Democrats Share Republican Wall St. Agenda Jeff Cohen discusses why voters should support a Democratic primary challenge to Obama's second term and finance candidates who fight the corporate agenda.
August 3, 2011 Taylor Mali: What Do Teachers Make? Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance."
