+ all of the above

“When we did the big meeting with Interscope, Jimmy Iovine was telling me all about how badly their business has been harmed by the internet,” Ninja says, sipping black coffee. ” I can understand that but I said, ‘Jimmy, I want to give you a piece of samurai advice: Become the enemy.”

Freshjive is taking their logo and name off all products, website, and promotional materials starting in 2010. This will certainly be interesting to see as one of my biggest problems with street brands is that while much of their clothing may be very good, there is inevitably some huge logo slapped all over it ruining the whole thing.

I don’t doubt that the move will be a successful one however I wonder if it represents the first in an industry wide sea change or will it be only successful for the early bird (a la Radiohead’s donation system of In Rainbows)

The company is still Freshjive. It’s just that none of our product will have any of our logos or even our name AT ALL. Not even in the labels. And after the turn of the year, no promotional material, nor our website will have any logos. It’s really invigorating to approach designing a line WITHOUT the constrictions of how the logo is gonna be placed or used on the garments.

via the Strange Attractor

Click here for the first one. Some NSFW language. Thanks to Neal for the heads up.

Just a few nights ago on the 30th of January, David Letterman had Mary Hicks, Bill hicks’ mother, on his show to discuss why Letterman cut Bill’s last appearance from his show. You can watch Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview on youtube, and part 3, the actual performance which was cut, is below.
You can also read about the whole thing here, including Bill’s reaction: the Konformist

via Every Day I’m Tumblin’

A while ago I linked to a report about Japanese Scientists who had made a break-through in understanding brain activity to the point where they were able to correctly reconstruct the images inside a persons brain, effectively reading their mind. This is the accompanying video.

I love the beginning of this story:

“It all started with Lego”

via Fresh Creation

This is interesting:

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”

Pink Tentacle has more, or you can go directly to the results of the experiment published in the December issue of the science journal Neuron. Unfortunately to read the article online costs $35, so maybe try your local University.

On the Road of Knives is an ongoing battle pitting illustrator versus illustrator. Below is Move #87, see the rest of the series over at the Road of Knives website or see the exhibition at the Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in NYC.

Full text of Obama’s acceptance speech is at The Jed Report
The text of Senator McCain’s eloquent concession speech can be read at The Associated Press
Pic is via live jamie

This makes me sick. Why not admit the gaffe, accept responsibility for the mistake and move on rather than inventing a new addition to the Newspeak dictionary? Gotcha Journalism? Please. I’m committing thoughtcrime on McCain and Palin right now.
via Steven Beelen

This is an absolutely fantastic find, its re-writing Australian history

In a find that has stunned archaeologists and anthropologists, a vast wall of about 1500 paintings chronicles the history of Aboriginal contact with outsiders, from Macassan prows and European sailing ships to 19th-century steamships and a World War II battleship.

photo by Rick Stevens

Photographer Jill Greenberg is a freelance photographer who was hired by The Atlantic to photograph Presidential hopeful John McCain. Greenberg has an iconic, Photoshopped style and creates vivid portraits of people and animals. It’s almost guaranteed you’ve seen her work in an advertisement somewhere, and if you ride the NYC Subway you are well acquainted with her Monkey Portraits. When photographing McCain however, Greenberg has created controversy by boasting about deliberately casting him in harsh light and also by denying him the photo-retouches which is the customary post-production for magazines.

“I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad … Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for [The Atlantic] to hire me.”

Apart from the Atlantic accepting and running with the Cover Shot (click to see), which I think is actually quite a good picture, Greenberg also took another few shots, the most notable of which involved a bloody shark’s jaws super-imposed on top, which is the picture you see below.

Without casting judgment on any of the parties involved, I think that this is only the beginning of a renewal of the debate of the role of Artists in politics. Remember the Dixie Chicks? And after seeing how the brawl over Bill Henson’s work was handled (Kevin Rudd thinks Henson’s work is revolting? So what?), I am a little fearful. However at the very least, and putting aside any moral incursions which may or may not have happened here, I’m glad there’s a debate going on. Especially since I happen to agree with Jill Greenberg’s opinion. This is game-changing, it’s guaranteed they’ll be talking about this for years. Jill Greenberg has cemented her position as political discontent and this picture will be referenced for many years to come. If it was hard taking photos of politicians before, it will be impossible now. We’ll be seeing it on Illegal Art soon enough, pending a court case of course.

Finally, watch the hysteria unfold at Fox as the Atlantic’s editor is put in the hot seat (no matter what your persuasion, alignment, leaning or inkling I think we can all agree that Fox gets it wrong, on purpose, every time). One interesting thing to come out of this interview however is that photo re-touching now appears to be an expected right. Much different from the Kate Winslet fiasco of yesteryear. Aaaah, simpler times.

Read more at Gawker and at Digital Journal (which also has a full gallery of all of the manipulated shots, including the one with the monkey and the you know what…)

warning, nsfw language.
via Juxtapoz

What? Obama’s favorite song is the Fugees ‘Ready or Not’? Will we just hurry up and give him the presidency! I want an election promise from him though, the first item of business directly after being sworn in? A presidential order for the Fugees to reunite and record a new album.

and check Hushie out for internet music search goodness.

Source is BBC News

This is an excerpt from an 18 minute work by Omer Fast called ‘CNN Concatenated’. It’s very schizophrenic but it works because of it, it’s incredibly shocking and disconcerting to have so many different voices speaking together in such a clear manner. I find it to be very powerful but before I let myself decide on it completely, I should do it the fairness of seeking out the full length version first. via The Triumph of Bullsh*t which was via Remix America

…and yes, the breaths are the best part.

I’ve heard many people express reservations about Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming film ‘The Wrestler.’ However he is one of the few directors who I’ve always been surprised and delighted by, so I eagerly await his latest. It will be debuting at the Venice Film Festival on September 5th.

Aronofsky editing ‘The Wrestler’

In other Aronofsky news, a Robocop remake. This is all kinds of awesome.

The original Robocop trailer:
(my hot tip for the updated version? Robocop gets an upgrade and can now speed walk. You heard it here first)

Banksy’s identity has apparently been revealed. The story is a few years old but for whatever reason it’s being drummed up again now. However it has gotten enough noise that Banksy has released a statement in response via his website.

San Francisco to vote on naming sewer after George Bush

… However, Mr McConnell claimed to have only noticed two forms of opposition during his campaign so far. “First, we get people who say they just want to forget George Bush’s presidency,” he said. “Second, we hear from those who say that sewage plants perform a valuable public service and, as such, it does not make sense to name one after George Bush.”

USA Today writes about Tata and it’s recent acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover. Via Thomas P.M. Barnett’s blog who predicts Tata’s future place in the world economy:

Tata aims to produce for the bottom of the pyramid consumers, and all those sales will mean Tata becomes a global car kingpin. And global auto kingpins buy upscale brands to complete their offerings. This happens all the time in consumer goods industries, and it will happen here. It’s just that this time, it won’t be American companies in the lead, because car manufacturing tends to be driven by rising economic pillars, not mature ones.

Our High Priest of Frisbeetarianism has died. May his soul be forever lodged in that part where the drain meets the roof.

Herald Tribune – CNN – AP

Growing up in a religious and morally conservative household, having George Carlin tell me that it was okay to laugh at it all, because it was all funny, was a welcome revelation. He was the best kind of joker, the kind that had to laugh hard because he cared about it all maybe a little too much, took it all a bit too personally. To be exposed to Carlin’s particular style of obscenity was such a welcome smack in the face, he challenged my ideas about religion and life and demanded I form my own opinions.

WARNING: The following videos are humorous.

They are NSFW and if you don’t know what that acronym means or if you don’t know who George Carlin is, you should probably not watch it and just go here instead. Do not click if you are easily offended. In fact you should use that as your mantra while moving around this thing called the ‘internet.’ What are you even doing online if you’re easily offended? Haven’t you seen these figures?

It’s here. The end of everything. Well, I’m only paying half rent for next month then.

An interesting episode of Insight on the topic of music downloading. via Ali

I’ll keep my views to myself, but they align closely with Kate Crawford (who by-the-by I used to dance to at 2am when she was one half of b(if)tek).