Copperpott's Cabinet of Curiosities.

Apocalypse POW!

2009-09-17T21:19:00.002-07:00

I have a new blog up at Apocalypse POW!, where I'll be posting about all the cool videogame-related art, toys, design, music, DIY, and so forth that I happen across. If that's your poison, head on over and check it out!

Mega Man and Assistants

2009-05-21T02:38:00.002-07:00

(left to right: Batman, The Maxx, Wolverine, Juggernaut, Mega Man, Hellboy, The Punisher, Deadpool, Savage Dragon.)

Click through for full-size, or here for the original version.

By Jon Sommariva, AKA Red-J.

Just thought I'd share that.

Indie Games Are Go!

2009-04-21T18:15:00.001-07:00

A while ago (well, two and a half years ago), I posted about Limbo, an independently-developed game which, it seems, never made it off the ground. It's a shame, as I thought the monochrome style and retro 2D side-scroller engine were very original and unlike anything else to be seen in the then-current crop of games, indie or studio.

Things have changed since 2006, though. There's been an upswing of independent games released in the last few years, motivated not by a desire to tap into and exploit a particular market of gamers by rehashing the same old genres and tropes, but instead to take the medium in new narrative and stylistic directions. Some pretty incredible games have come out of this movement. Here's my quick rundown of recent indie games that you should make a point of checking out.

11. Judith (distractionware, free, PC)

Judith is everything an off-the-cuff indie game should aspire to: simple interface, lo-fi graphics, and a focus on plot. There are no monsters to kill, no real puzzles to solve, just an interactive story which you can run through in about half an hour. It's built on the Wolfenstein 3D engine, but the textures hearken back to the old AGI look of the Sierra adventure games of the 1980s and will be eminently familiar to anyone who grew up playing PC games during that decade.

10. Fez (Polytron, upcoming, platform TBA)

Although it's not yet released, Fez is worth keeping an eye on for no other reason that it looks to be graphically breathtaking (It won the Excellence in Visual Art award at the 2008 Independent Games Festival, and was nominated for the Design Innovation award as well). It's nominally a platformer, in which Gomez, a two-dimensional character, explores a world that has become three-dimensional. Much like the classic novel Flatland, Fez delves into the nature of dimension, space and geometry in a way that games have rarely done in the past.

9. Audiosurf (Dylan Fitterer, $10 through Steam, PC)

One of my fondest videogame memories is of playing the classic DOS game SkyRoads on my 386 PC in the mid-90s, and so when I discovered AudioSurf, I was enamored with it from the start. AudioSurf builds on the racer format of SkyRoads and allows the player to create a track synchronised to an MP3 of their choice: by analysing the song, AudioSurf determines your level's speed, position of blocks and obstacles, and background environment. There are a number of ships available, as well as an impressive array of game-mode options. In all, the game manages to take a done-to-death genre and inject new life into it.

8. Kingdom of Loathing (Asymmetric, free\donation, browser)

Kingdom of Loathing is the xkcd of MMORPGs. Visually, the game is nothing to write home about (in fact, with the exception of a few crude stick-figure icons, it's primarily text-based), but it has gained a considerable following thanks to its clever design and often surreal sense of humour and wordplay. KoL is an antidote to the current, bloated MMO market, playing with and subverting the conventions of that genre with open glee. It warrants a mention here because, underneath the mockery, cheap artwork, and non sequiturs, KoL is actually a fantastically well-designed game, offers a startling amount of content, and has an interface which is both unique and totally intuitive.

7. Minotaur China Shop (Flashbang Studios, free, Flash)

The name says it all. While playing this, I couldn't help thinking about Steven Sherrill's criminally-overlooked "The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break", if only in that both the game and the novel present the Minotaur as a regular working-class schlub trying to make ends meet. In the game, you play the titular Minotaur, who has found it necessary to obtain gainful employment, but the only available work he can find is in a china shop. Breaking the shop's wares loses you money; do too much damage and you enter Minotaur Rage mode, which really needs no explanation. Appropriately, the controls have been designed to make your Minotaur unwieldy, slow to stop, and, well, literally a bull in a china shop. Simple, straightforward and graphically appealing.

6. Darwinia\Multiwinia (Introversion, $16.60 each through Steam, PC\Mac\Linux\XBox 360)

Darwinia, and its multiplayer sequel Multiwinia, is unlike any other game ever made. Nominally it draws on the real-time strategy model, but the end result bears little if any similarity to games of that genre. The game takes place inside a digital universe created by one Dr. Sepulveda, populated by AI polygon creatures, and the player is tasked with combating an invading virus which threatens to undo all of Sepulveda's work. RTS elements come into play here, but over time an element of artificial evolution is introduced, hearkening back to Conway's cellular-automata model and its ilk. Like many indie games, Darwinia and Multiwinia embrace a distinctly retro-gaming approach to design and interface, and ultimately result in a totally immersive universe which is better experienced than described.

5. Citizen Abel: Gravity Bone (Blendo Games, free, PC)

Gravity Bone is a short, first-person adventure game built on the Quake II engine, but revamping it so drastically that it has become an entirely new beast. In the game, you play a secret agent inhabiting a 1960s spy-flick world attempting to unravel, as is your stock in trade, a mystery. All the characters in this world resemble papercraft dolls a la Cubees (an artistic decision both clever and practical, given the Q2 engine's limitations) and one can't help but be reminded of LucasArts' legendary Grim Fandango or Terry Gilliam's Brazil (from which it plunders its soundtrack). It can be played from start to finish in under half an hour, has a plot that makes absolutely no sense, and - without giving anything away - seems to serve little other purpose, in the end, than as an elaborate prank on the player. But practical jokes, if designed well enough, can be an art-form unto themselves, and Gravity Bone is a case in point.

4. Alien Hominid (The Behemoth, $10, Playstation 2\XBox 360\Gamecube\Xbox\GBA\PC)

Amongst its other virtues, Alien Hominid could be seen as the indie game that finally broke indie games into the public arena. Though it started as a humble flash game on Newgrounds, it quickly developed into a cross-platform juggernaut, thanks in large part to The Behemoth's remarkable business savvy. But Alien Hominid is more than just a well-marketed indie success story; the frenetic 2D sidescroller features entirely hand-drawn artwork by Dan Paladin, boasts an outstanding soundtrack by Matt Harwood, and contains numerous subtle asides and humourous in-jokes. There's also a bit of self-reflexivity going on here: when the player accesses the alien's PDA, they're able to play a simple Pitfall-style game-within-a-game. Recently, Alien Hominid was released in a High Definition edition on XBLA, and the updated resolution proves without a shadow of a doubt the talent that went into the game's design.

3. Castle Crashers (The Behemoth, $15\1200 Microsoft Points , XBox 360)

If Alien Hominid was built on the engine of run-and-gun side-scrollers like Contra and Metal Slug, The Behemoth's followup Castle Crashers takes it up a level and riffs on the arcade four-player beat-'em-up engine of Golden Axe and Final Fight. The game's graphics are of a similarly hand-drawn style as its predecessor, but are cleaner, more detailed, and far, far more bloody. What makes Castle Crashers stand out, like many of the games on this list, is that it breathes new life into a familiar genre: it brings in elements of RPGs, player-vs-player, and 'cute animal sidekicks', each with a different supplemental ability, it contains more cartoon gore than one might ever reasonably expect, and the character, monster and level designs are both original and stylistically consistent. Perhaps its greatest appeal, though, is that the creators offer downloadable-content packs, unlocking new characters, weapons and abilities, resulting in an entirely playable work-in-progress with near-infinite replayability.

2. World of Goo (2D Boy, $20, PC\Mac\Linux)

World of Goo is the indie-gaming equivalent of a Fellini film: impressionistic, dream-like, and justifiably critically-acclaimed (the game has even inspired some Svankmajer\Fellini-esque short films). At face value, World of Goo may be best described as a Lemmings-style puzzle game - players construct towers and bridges out of sentient Goo balls in order to overcome obstacles and achieve obectives. What is most impressive about World of Goo is how it juxtaposes visual artistry with physics - gravity is your primary foe, and the solution to most of the game's levels lies in building the most structurally-sound architecture. The excellent soundtrack by Kyle Gabler was released as a free download (it can be grabbed here) and designer 2D Boy has maintained an admirable on-going dialogue with players and fans through his blog.

1. Braid (Jonathan Blow, $14.99 on Steam or 1200 Microsoft Points on XBLA, XBox 360\PC)

Jonathan Blow's Braid is the Citizen Kane of indie games. It completely overhauls the concept of what games can and should do, and playing it is a near-transcendental experience. You are cast in the role of Tim, a tie-wearing 2D sprite who must travel through six worlds of his own memory, searching for the "Princess" (here, his ex-girlfriend), but this goal might better be described as not a straight-forward 'save the princess' adventure a la Super Mario Bros. but more along the lines of trying to figure out why his relationship went sour. It's heady and philosophical - each world is intercut with Tim's simple but heart-breaking journal entries - but what Braid does that no other game has every managed to effectly pull off is how it plays with time. In, for example, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the player was able to undo mistakes and reset levels by making use of a time-rewinding device, but Braid adds a layer of bittersweet nostalgia and remorse to the mix, and the time-shifting element becomes not merely a tool of convenience but an integral part of the story. Each world uses time in a different way - in the first world, Tim is able to, for example, jump into a pit and then rewind himself back to an earlier part of the level, while in the second world, he is able to carry objects with him as he rewinds - and consequently each new world requires a reconsideration of the strategies learned in the previous one. There are also self-aware references to its inspirations (ie: Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong) and clever and unexpected solutions to the various puzzles which he encounters (at one point, Tim must assemble the puzzle pieces he's collected thus far in order to form a new platform and reach an otherwise-inaccessible area). Through it all, Blow's extraordinary vision and skill as a game designer, David Hellman's (creator of the webcomic A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible) superb and supernal artwork, and unconventional classical score by Jami Sieber, Shira Kammen and Cheryl Ann Fulton come together to produce a kind of elegance rarely if ever encountered in the sphere of videogaming.

Dotter Dotter and Bill Mudron.

2008-12-06T12:27:00.001-08:00

I don't make a habit of posting videogame-themed art. For that matter, although there is some pretty amazing CG artwork out there, I prefer to stay away from that as well; it's sort of outside the parameters of Cabinet of Curiosities. That said, every once in a while I come across something astounding enough that I have to pass it along. Such is the case with Japanese artist Dotter Dotter's rendered NES-inspired work. Click for larger versions.

Unfortunately, I don't read Japanese, so I don't know the titles of any of these.

Anyway, while we're on the topic of Nintendo art, Bill Mudron (who's Anne Frank Conquers The Moon Nazis web-comic is long-time favourite of mine) has recently redesigned his portfolio site with an NES theme and is featuring a number of his Nintendo-y illustrations.

(Dotter Dotter's blog)
(Dotter Dotter at pixiv)
(Bill Mudron)

Baby Tattooville

2008-09-07T12:13:00.001-07:00

From October 3rd to 5th, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa will host Baby Tattooville 2008, featuring the work of Joe Ledbetter, Shag, Brandi Milne, Glenn Barr, Ana Bagayan, Bob Dob, Amy Sol, Michael Whelan, Daniel Peacock and Dave Cooper. It's highly unlikely that anyone reading this will be able to snag tickets, as a) there are only 13 remaining, and b) tickets cost $2,000 apiece, but if you are lucky enough to get in, feel free to drop me a line and let me know how it was. The event is intended to be a "weekend-long event geared toward the art community", with only 50 tickets available, special collectible gifts, panels and presentations, and of course (at that price) accommodation.

(Baby Tattooville, incidentally, is organised by Baby Tattoo Press, who have published some incredibly cool, graphically stylish books for kids and adults alike, including Gris Grimly's Wicked Nursery Rhymes and Ragmar's Chromaphile, which is sadly out of print at the moment.)

Below are some highlights from Baby Tattooville 2007. Click the images for higher res.

(Detail) Gary Baseman's contribution to the 12-in-1 painting.

"Severed Possessed Head" Luke Chueh and Dave Bondi
Ltd edition of 100.

(Detail) Tara McPherson's contribution to the 12-in-1 painting.

"Spooketto", Ragnar

Eric Joyner

2008-09-07T11:50:00.001-07:00

Eric Joyner clearly has an obsession with donuts and classic 1950s robots. His upcoming show at the Corey Helford Gallery, "Artificial Enlightenment" - his second solo show - is a testament to this. Since donuts and robots are two of my favourite things, I won't question what inspired the juxtaposition of metal men and baked goods, and merely pass along the goodness to you.

Click through to see images in higher resolution.

"Too Many Choices"

"Fall Outing"

"Detained"

"Titanticus"

"The Chasm"

CRAZY4CULT 2: Andrew Wilson

2008-08-29T09:42:00.001-07:00

A quick update today, since I'm in the process of moving.

Andrew Wilson's Crazy4Cult 2 poster blows my mind. I'm planning on buying a print for my new apartment and I've been drooling over it every day for the last week. You can pick up a print yourself for $35 at Stuff88.com (along with similar posters by Chris Lee and Scott Campbell).

I'll be making a full post on Crazy4Cult 2, which happened last week at Gallery 1988, once I'm settled into my new place. In the meantime, take a look at the above link and see how many cult movie characters you can identify. Personally, I'm hoping the print comes with a legend of some kind, as I've only managed to recognise about half of the featured characters.

In other news, I've upgraded the blog's template to Blogspot's new modular-styled version, which meant that a lot of my previous modifications were lost in translation. The most notable was my inability to transfer Extreme Tracking's code over, so there's a large chunk of hit data missing between August 13th and the 27th. After futzing with it for a couple of weeks, I ended up switching over to Google Analytics, and I couldn't be happier. If you run a blog or website yourself, I highly recommend Google Analytics. I haven't tried SiteMeter so I can't compare the two, but between Google Analytics and Extreme Tracking, Google Analytics has the edge in every instance.

Soopa Coin-Up Bros.

2008-08-13T13:12:00.008-07:00

(via infinitelives.net)
Now this is how you do a blank figure ripe for customisation. Erick Scarecrow molded the 7" Soopa Coin-Up Bros. sculpt and offered up a limited edition vinyl run for sale for the paltry sum of $30 through Esc-Toy (sadly no longer available through official channels, but UrbanRetro is selling the white edition for £22.99 while supplies last). The blank comes packaged with a hoard of stickers for the screen, marquee and cabinet.

The Soopa Show was held in April at Concrete Jungle in NYC and the pieces on display were impressive, to say the least. Click on any of the images below to bask in the glory of full-size.

"Archadic", Andrew Scribner

"Centipox", Brandy Anderson

"One-Armed Bandit", Bucky Lastard

"Battleship", Diego Paz

"Game Over", Doktor A

"Dug Rush", Dynomight NYC

"Toy Break", George Gaspar

"Soopa Koopa", Jared Deal

"Cock Blocker", Jude Buffum

"Chicano-Up Bros", Marka 27

"Bello Bello Beeeeh!", Massa Mas

"Soopa Boombu, The Vinyl Toy Killer", Matt Beers

"Keep Your Day Job", Steff Bomb

More photos over at Vinyl Toy Freaks and Esc-Toy's Flickr stream.

I Am A Bad Blogger

2008-08-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry, folks. I know my last post was two years (two years?!) ago, but life has had a habit of intruding. In my defense, I have a couple of really good excuses for neglecting this blog - namely, that I was in China for a year and all user-maintained blog websites, Blogspot included, are blocked behind half a dozen firewalls there - but now that I'm back I have a backlog of over a hundred cool art and music projects to catch up on.

Strangely, in the last three months, I've been getting increased traffic from all over the world, for reasons unbeknownst to me. It might just be search-engine spiders, but I'm not complaining. What I AM complaining about is that none of the visitors (assuming they are biological visitors) have left any comments! It's a thankless job, blogging about the underground\low-brow\avant-garde art scene, but I'd be mighty encouraged if people were responsive to what I was posting about. If you stop by, say hi! Tell me which posts were interesting and which didn't do much for you. Give me a head's-up on cool things you've stumbled across.

I'm also looking for co-bloggers. I'm going to try and increase my update frequency to at least once a day, but even that doesn't get the Cabinet up to the output I'd envisioned for it. If you think you have similar sensibilities and you'd like to take a crack at posting here, drop me a line.

Limbo: The Game

2006-10-09T20:59:00.001-07:00

(Click for larger version)

I'm not really in the habit of posting about videogame art (just art inspired by videogames,) but every once in a while, something comes along that grabs my attention. Limbo is one of those. You can tell from the above screenshots that the game is highly stylised - My impression that that you, as the small Boy in Silhouette, have to run around a forest and an industrial factory and avoid being smushed by falling boxes and impaled by spikey trees. The 2-dimensional, sidescrolling aspect of the game reminds me of classics like "Out Of This World" and "Flashback" (both by Delphine Software), but the fact that the designers of Limbo have chosen to present the game not only entirely in black and white but also almost exclusively in silhouette appeals to me.

The website is perversely void of information about this game - how far along it is, when it might be released, even information on the storyline - but what is there is more than enough to pique anyone's interest. If anyone knows anything more, feel free to email me.

Miscellany.

2006-09-29T22:37:00.002-07:00

. Tony Millionaire, comique artiste extraordinaire, has just released Der Strewwelmaakies, his third Maakies collection (and the followup to When We Were Maakies and The House at Maakies Corner.) If you've never opened your town's local independent-press news-rag and have thus deprived yourself of the chance to experience that which is Maakies, you could do worse than to pick up a copy. Unless you have an aversion to drunkenness, bodily excretions and the nautical life, that is.

. Electric Tiki is releasing a limited-edition 3-D sculpture (a full dimension higher than the two you are currently experiencing reading this!) of Ragnar's "The Maltese Chimp" - in four delicious flavours, no less. There's nothing like a drunk monkey harrassing a hot skeptical chick to liven up your work-station. You lily-liver.

. Displaying depths of hitherto-unknown hipness, "Weird" Al Yankovic has hired a number of very cool animators to create videos
for many of the original songs on his recently-released album, Straight Outta Lynwood: Bill Plimpton tackles "Don't Download This Song", John Kricfalusi and Katie Rice accomplish the astonishingly unlikely and "sex up" Weird Al in the video for "Close But No Cigar", and the kids behind Robot Chicken try their hand at "Weasel Stomping Day". All of these videos (and more!) are available on the DualDisc edition of the album currently for sale on Amazon, along with a Dolby 5.1 mix of the entire album. Sweet, sweet parody never looked, or sounded, better.

Remixing The Magic

2006-09-29T11:57:00.002-07:00

Greg Simkins
(click image for larger version)

Rich Tuzon
(click image for larger version)

Jose Emroca Flores
(click image for larger version)

Joe Ledbetter
(click image for larger version)

Ryan Bubnis
(click image for larger version)

Alex Kirwan
(click image for larger version)

Last February, Los Angeles-based Gallery Nineteen Eighty-Eight opened their "Remixing the Magic: 50 Artists Reinterpret Disney Classics" exhibit (photos courtesy of Vinyl Pulse,) another entry in their series of themed group exhibits. It is, in a word, awesome. The list of contributors is comprised of an equal mix of underground pop artists (Jose Emroca Flores, Luke Chueh, Tim Biskup) and contemporary animation artists (Katie Rice, Alex Kirwan.) I'm particularly fond of Kirwan's homage to Ub Iwerks and his classic dancing-skeleton cartoons (pictured above,) and Greg Simkins' deliciously malevolent, yet somehow spot-on, tributes to Pinocchio and Disney's golden age.

While I'm hoping that "Remixing the Magic" gets the same treatment as their "I AM 8-BIT" group exhibit and is eventually released in book form, I'm not altogether optimistic, primarily because Disney has a virtual copyright stranglehold on their mascots. If the collection is ever published, chances are Disney will want to be involved in everything from layout design to distribution, and while this may result in wider availability and greater exposure for many of these artists (which would be far from awful,) it would also mean that Gallery Nineteen Eighty-Eight would play a much-reduced role and may in fact be cut out of the process altogether. It has been pointed out elsewhere that these artists are reclaiming what essentially, these days, amount to corporate logos, but which were once symbolic of the wonderful, whimsical power of the animation of our childhoods.

It's a ballsy move, especially in a cultural environment where copyright law has been so blown out of proportion that accidental violators are dragged into court and sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it brings up the question, "Does an artist's visual style constitute parody in and of itself, thereby freeing it from litigation under the fair use doctrine? Or is any drawing of Mickey Mouse a potential infringement?"

I AM 8-BIT, pt. II

2006-09-26T17:57:00.002-07:00

Back in April, I wrote about the I AM 8-BIT group exhibit at Gallery Nineteen Eighty-Eight (who, incidentally, with their recent Disney-themed "Remixing the Magic" group exhibit - expect an update on that sometime this week - along with I AM 8-BIT, are rapidly becoming one of my favorite L.A. pop art gallery.)

Today I finally received my copy of "I AM 8-BIT: Art Inspired By Classic Videogames of the 80s" from Amazon, and... wow. Considering the remarkably low price ($15 plus shipping,) I was not expecting it to be even half as lovely as it actually is. Every one of its 156 pages reproduces a glossy, full-colour print that was featured in the show, and although it doesn't provide complete coverage - there are a few works from the exhibit that are nowhere to be found here, and a few that I suspect were actually done after the show, specifically for inclusion in the book - it is certainly a comprehensive look at 8-bit videogame-inspired art.

There are art books and there are art books. This is the sort of book you actually want on your coffee table: anyone under the age of 30 is going to freak right out when they see it. Forget "Historic Barns of Minnesota" - Do yourself a favour and order this book right now. Or wait for the second volume to come out (no guarantees, of course, but they've had at least two seperate I AM 8-BIT shows, so Gallery 1988 has no shortage of material) and order them together. You won't regret it.

Femke Hiemstra

2006-09-23T16:47:00.001-07:00

Cheery Cooky

Heartbroken

Lucky the Cat

Dutch artist and designer Femke Hiemstra has an incredibly unique and quirky Lowbrow style that evokes the work of Mark Ryden, Robert Williams, and Gary Taxali. I'm quite fond of her cheerful, cartoonish characters and innovative concepts, and I find her to be considerably less cynical than the artists mentioned above (who, as much as I love them, all tend to be rather consistently creepy in their work.) On her website Femtasia, Hiemstra sells prints, shirts and buttons, and while it all looks to be of excellent quality, I'm most impressed with the button designs. Unlike some artists, Hiemstra seems deeply unpretentious and down-to-earth, recognising the convoluted, interwoven relationship between art and commerce, and the fact that she is willing to translate her art into merchandise and sell it to, well, anyone (and not just the people who can afford five hundred bucks for a print) is refreshingly egalitarian. I highly, highly recommend ordering a handful of her buttons or a couple of patches (which she has awesomely dubbed "Gewgaws") or even a Giclée print, which are a veritable steal at 145 Euros each. Prints can be ordered through her website, and buttons, Gewgaws and shirts can be ordered either directly from her or via Buzzworks.

Femke Hiemstra will also be participating in the international "Ladies Only" show at Vancouver's own Tart Gallery, March 8th and 9th. Since it's in my hometown, I'll be making a point of checking it out, and I encourage anyone in the area to do so as well.

Cartoon Skeletons

2006-09-19T17:35:00.002-07:00

"Hello Kitty", Michael Paulus

"Betty Boop", Michael Paulus

"Marvin the Martian", Michael Paulus

"B11 (Mus Animatus)", Hyungkoo Lee

"Geococcyx Animatus", Hyungkoo Lee

"Anas Animatus", Hyungkoo Lee

Michael Paulus' "Skeletal Systems" figure study of 22 cartoon characters has been around for a while - since 1998, in fact - and I've always considered it one of the, if not the, coolest and most novel take on the concept of anatomical analysis I've ever seen. Along with the characters pictured above, the series includes dissections of Pikachu, Charlie Brown, and the Powerpuff Girls - all of them, I might add, conforming to the precise anatomical requirements of their owners. On top of the tremendous novelty factor already present in this concept, I also find it highly amusing that Paulus has chosen to present his work in the way that he has, with semi-transparent overlays on top of parchment paper, in the style of a 19th C. medical textbook insert. Seriously, how cool is that?

Taking a cue from Paulus, Korean artist Hyungkoo Lee goes a step further with the concept of "cartoon skeleton" and actually builds the damn things, out of resin and aluminum. His series, called "Animatus", is currently featured in installation at the Arario Gallery in Seoul until October 8th, but luckily for anyone not currently living in Korea, the gallery has put up an in-depth video (Quicktime) taking a look not only at the installation itself, but also at Lee's process in designing and constructing the skeletons, apparently working from his lab\studio housed within the gallery itself.

Greg Broadmore and Weta Workshop

2006-08-24T13:08:00.002-07:00

"Act Now!" Poster
(Click for Larger Version)

Manmelter 3600ZX
Sub-Atomic Disintegrator Pistol
(Click for Larger Version)

Goliathon 83
Infinity Beam Projector
(Click for Larger Version)

FMOM Industries
Wave Disrupter Gun
(Click for Larger Version)

Introducing Dr. Grordbert's Infallible Aether Oscillators, for all your pachyderm-vaporising and martian-defying needs! Designed by Greg Broadmore at the Weta Workshops (the same guys who did all the creature effects and design for the Lord of the Rings and Narnia films,) these alternate-history rayguns are absolutely crammed full of steampunk goodness. They don't appear to have been released to the general public yet, but once they are, you'd better believe I'm going to be doing whatever it takes to get my hands on them.

Really detailed and inventive prop design is an art-form unto itself. While I must admit that I have a bit of a weakness for functional art and Broadmore's rayguns are pretty much the anti-thesis of "functional" (...unless they aren't, in which case I'm definitely buying them,) this is some of the best prop work I've ever seen - which should come as absolutely no surprise, considering the source. While effects houses like Industrial Light + Magic are known for the sheer overwhelming bombast of their mostly-CG design, Weta stands head and shoulders above anyone else working in the industry on the combined basis of realism and imagination: they don't just design a sword, they design a sword with bits of rust flake on the hilt and chips and cracks in the blade and possibly weathered fabric from an old tunic wrapped around the handle. There's a lot of enthusiasm and care put into everything they produce, and I can't help but admire them for it.

Ron Mück

2006-08-01T22:29:00.002-07:00

Ron Mück, who previously did special effects work for film, particularly the Henson Company's classic "Labyrinth" (in which he also contribued the voice of Ludo,) creates these incredibly detailed and realistic sculptures of people along a wide range of scales - some are merely a foot and a half tall, while others, such as the jolly bald fellow above, sit upwards of seven feet tall. (For more examples of Mück's work in context, see here, here and here.) The surreal atmospheres of his installations are fascinating in and of themselves - it's like walking into a large room populated by mostly-naked giants and pixies who glare at you, unmoving, out of the corners of their eyes, if they deem to notice you at all. Despite the painstaking attention to detail, however, there is a slightly surreal and even numinous quality to his sculptures, particularly in the context of a gallery showing. Mück is one of those artists whose work speaks for itself, but if viewed in relation to their environs gain an additional level of impact. A sculpture of a gigantic naked man sitting on a fluted marble pedestal is one thing, but when it is leaning against the gallery wall looking slightly perturbed in the direction of the viewers, it becomes something else completely.

For more of Ron Mück's work, see the James Cohen Gallery entry here and the Wikipedia entry here.

Matthew Barney

2006-07-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

From the "Cremaster" Cycle.

From "Drawing Restraint 9".

From the "Cremaster" Cycle.

Matthew Barney has a new film coming out, "Drawing Restraint 9", and while the style appears to be inimitably his, it also seems to be operating on a grander and simultaneously less contrived scale - it has something to do with Shinto, Japanese whalers, and a lot of blood, water and petroleum. I've always had a very ambivalent reaction towards Barney - I find his visuals remarkable and inspiring beyond words, but at the same time, sitting through the entire 400-minute run of the "Cremaster" cycle is simply interminable.

Which is why I'm excited about "Drawing Restraint 9". At 2-and-a-quarter hours in length, you won't end up falling asleep, and the collaborative influence of Barney's wife Björk (she composed the soundtrack and is prominently featured in the film) seems to have forced Barney out of his prior self-indulgence to some extent. While the "Cremaster" cycle was about digitally capturing performance art in motion, "Drawing Restraint 9" incorporates far more filmic techniques. If you're bound and determined to see at least part of the "Cremaster" cycle, take a look at the 30-minute excerpt "The Order", from "Cremaster 3" - it's currently the only part of the cycle available on DVD, and it gives a fairly good impression of the overall nature of the five films. Even more highly recommended, however, is the "Cremaster" book, currently available only in hardcover. It's a beautiful edition with a bevy of incredible photos and stills by Barney and Nancy Spector.

"Drawing Restraint 9" trailer (youtube) (Quicktime)
"Cremaster" site (www.cremaster.net)

kozyndan

2006-06-24T13:03:00.001-07:00

"Metrohm-Peak Poster"

"Eureka"

"Uprisings"

kozyndan are a pair of artists out of L.A. who should be well-known to anyone who's ever read an issue of Giant Robot - "Uprisings", one of their most renowned pieces, was the cover of GR 28, and if there's a singular theme to their work, it would bean exploration of Asian pop culture. That and bunnies. And cute cartoon animals having sex.

I first discovered kozyndan's work while paying a visit to Blue C Sushi in the Fremont district of Seattle. They have at least two kozyndan prints on display there - "Uprisings", and "Portraits From The (Off) Center Of The Universe", a panoramic view of Fremont itself (as a side note, Blue C Sushi is probably the coolest sushi joint ever, and if you ever visit Seattle and don't take the opportunity to eat there, you've missed out.) They've also done cover art for two Postal Service EPs and a Japanese import-only Weezer EP, amongst other things.

Weird, wide-angle perspectives and an almost obscene attention to detail are kozyndan's forte. They're massively talented artists, but there's a slightly shaky, line-art quality to their work as well, which lends their paintings and sketches a moment-in-time, amateur-Polaroid quality. Most importantly, though, is that they obviously love what they do, and have immense fun just making art. Whenever I come across one of kozyndan's distinctive illustrations, I'm reminded of a quote by Neil Gaiman: "You mean I get to make stuff up and get paid for it too?"

kozyndan have a website and they also have a livejournal.

Nathan Jurevicius

2006-05-31T21:26:00.001-07:00

"Album"

"Shift"

"9 Lives\Fuji Film"

Australian artist Nathan Jurevicius is cool beyond words. Despite the fact that his website is teensy, he is nevertheless a profound and blinding talent. Juxtapoz magazine has a nice little feature on him in their latest issue, and I heartily recommend picking up a copy. Jurevicius is also a noted toy designer, and though his junk is notoriously hard to find nowadays, arguably he works better in three dimensions than two (and that is saying something.)

Kris Lewis

2006-05-26T12:17:00.001-07:00

Kris Lewis, "Promise Broken"

I admit it: I am a truly terrible blogger. In my defense, I offer the meagre excuse that although I believed school started two weeks ago, it in fact started THREE weeks ago, so my time has been spent madly catching up on all my courses - and unfortunately, in the process, neglecting the Cabinet.

To make up for it, today I give you the artwork of Kris Lewis. His work tends to feature elongated, willowy women with massive Margaret-Keane-ish eyes who are simultaneously beautiful and alien - although, if pressed to explain exactly what makes them seem so unnatural, I would mumble something incoherent about proportions and the law of thirds and finally admit that they aren't so much unreal as they are imbued with a quality only rarely seen in the natural world. In the words of the artist himself, "Artwork is love made visible", and it's obvious that he has a deep affection for the women he paints (not to mention, ironically enough, the truly odd-looking musical personalities he has captured.)

In regards to regular updates, I'd like to re-affirm that I'll update it 2-3 times a week - but you know what they say about wishes and fishes, and I'm simply under such enormous time constraints for the next month or so that posts will have to trickle through when I can find a few minutes to spare here and there. However! I'd like to extend the invitation to any literate-minded readers with an interest in pop art who might like to come on-board and fill in the gaps. Send me an email at quixote23 (at) gmail (dot) com if you're interested!

Miscellany

2006-05-10T17:10:00.001-07:00

Kentucky Art*O*Mat Machine
designed by Laurie Russell

First up, a shout out to For Crumb's Sake, my esteemed roommate's blog. Tim blogs about indie music, hipster culture, local politics, and self-drawn comics starring anthropomorphic turtles. Tim claims that For Crumb's Sake is "1 & 1/8 more fun than a shovel museum," but I've been in shovel museums, and I think he's underestimating their ability to entertain and, might I add, to educate. I'd put the ratio at closer to 1.09:1, myself.

I don't know much about David Normal, but "The Bicycle Ride", his short animation paying tribute to the very first acid trip, is hilarious, disturbing, and about as close to an authentic bad trip as you're going to get short of renting "Faces of Death 8" and dropping a postage-stamp-sized tab of blotter.

Art*O*Mat is a clever public-installation\kitsch-art\commentary on our culture of instant gratification, comprised of a group of artists who obtain dozens of old cigarette machines, modify them to distribute small works of art rather than cancer sticks, and then re-distribute them in art galleries, public libraries, coffeeshops, and museums. You can check this list to see if there's an Art*O*Mat near you - sadly, the closest one to me is in Tacoma, and I NEVER go to Tacoma. But maybe I'll have to start, now.

Jim Woodring

2006-05-06T12:54:00.001-07:00

I apologise for the lack of updates over the last week or two, and I have no excuse other than the fact that I've been very busy and very disorganised. With luck (and maybe some concentrated application on my part) I'll be able to stick to my 2-3 posts-per-week schedule, because God knows, there's enough going on to justify it.

Pictured above are forthcoming figures from Press Pop, based of course on Jim Woodring's Frank, Pushpaw and Pupshaw from his long-running and wonderfully weird "Frank" comic. I first encountered Frank about ten years ago, when a girlfriend who was taking a course in Comics As Literature lent me her "textbooks". I remember spending hours sitting in a park on a warm May morning, endlessly fascinated by Woodring's wordless, Dali-meets-Felix-The-Cat illustrations. Even now, I can't help but be amused by Frank's constant hand-to-the-mouth shock as he encounters a parade of bizarre entities, whose occasionally bad-acid-trip appearances run perpendicular to their oftentimes friendly temperaments.

The figures above will be available in June, and while colour versions are currently available via the Press Pop website, I think I'll hold out for the monochromatic ones. After all, the comic is published in black and white, so why should the figures be anything other than that?

Cheap Paper Art

2006-05-01T19:22:00.001-07:00

"Link"

"Not All Your Ideas Are Good"

"It's Okay, He's Canadian"

"Time To Do Something Stupid"

"Dying Is Awesome"

Over at Wonderland, Alice has posted a nice little review of the work of one Kelli Nelson, and, given the connection between her work and my last post on 8-bit art, I thought I'd pony up with my two cents. Kelli has a unique artistic style and a quirky sense of humour, which in my books is an unbeatable combination. She is also responsible for a number of self-published comics which are available for purchase via her website, and not a few mini-comics and weekly comics, all of which can be viewed and appreciated online for the low, low price of free.

I AM 8-BIT

2006-04-26T16:59:00.001-07:00

Sean Clarity, Peter Gronquist, Gabe Swarr
(click image for full-sized version)

Another day, another reason to move to Los Angeles. Gallery Nineteen Eighty-Eight, located at 7020 Melrose Ave. in L.A., is hosting the second annual I AM 8-BIT exhibition, and... wow. The first series was pretty neat, but this new one is amazing. So much videogame love.

Michael Gagne, Martin Ontiveros
(click image for full-sized version)

The list of contributors is a veritable who's-who of the contemporary pop surrealism scene: Tim Biskup, Steve Purcell, Jim Mahfood, Luke Chueh, Gary Baseman, Brandon Bird, and dozens more. Who knew that Nintendo was so universal and profoundly influential? Most works draw their inspiration either from the NES roster (Super Mario Bros, Megaman, Metroid) or from the earlier Atari era (Pacman, Asteroids, Donkey Kong,) with few if any references beyond the late '80s. A handful even comment on the nature of videogaming itself.

Jose Emroca Flores, Love Ablan, Yosuke Ueno
(click image for full-sized version)

If you live in or near L.A., you could do worse than to plan a visit to Nineteen Eighty-Eight this weekend. If you don't, you're still in luck. The first I AM 8-BIT collection has been collected and recently published by Chronicle Books, and is readily available at Amazon.com. At under $15 USD, the book is stupidly affordable and you really owe it to yourself to add it to your own library.

Link: I AM 8-BIT website.
Link: Gallery Nineteen Eighty-Eight.
Link: I AM 8-BIT: Art Inspired by Classic Videogames of the '80s at Amazon.

(note: All above photos were originally posted at Vinyl Pulse, an art blog which I heartily endorse and recommend. I cropped them and did some other minor tweaks for presentation's sake but all credit goes to Vinyl Pulse and the original photographer.)

Mark Ryden

2006-04-21T23:13:00.001-07:00

The Creatrix

Chances are this will be merely the first of many entries about Mark Ryden - along with Camille Rose Garcia and Tim Biskup, Ryden was one of the first artists to introduce me to pop surrealist art, and there's something about his style - the attention to detail, maybe, or perhaps the fact that his figures tend to resemble a cross between dolls and Christina Ricci - that I find endlessly appealing. I could spend (and in fact have spent) hours staring at his artwork.

Ryden's recent hardcover book "Fushigi Circus" (aka "Mysterious Circus") is up for sale at Last Gasp (incidentally, an excellent, reliable and highly professional source for all your art book and print needs) for the insanely low price of $35.00 USD, so I recommend you take advantage of this and order your copy while supplies last. Even in the highly unlikely case that you've never heard of Mark Ryden, you won't be disappointed.

"Fushigi Circus" Cover

Sarina J. Brewer and the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy

2006-04-20T11:16:00.001-07:00

Frankensquirrel

Mummified Chupacabra

Winged Cat

I have a confession to make: I have a huge schoolboy crush on Sarina J. Brewer, the talented (and immensely hot) artist currently staging a one-woman taxidermy-as-art revival. Okay, so that part isn't strictly true... But she is the co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy, a cadre of individuals dedicated to advocating "the showmanship of oddities, espousing the belief in natural adaptation and mutation, and encouraging the desire to create displays of curiosity," a cause which I obviously consider more than worthy.

Brewer's works fall into a number of categories: traditional pieces; novelties; "gaffs" (or fantastic creatures); carcass sculpture (it's about as grisly as it sounds); preserved specimens, and so forth. I myself am particularly partial to the Griffin and the surprisingly angelic and lovely Capricorn... and of course, who doesn't love a little Jackalope? And then there are the functional pieces, like the Squirrel Decanter and Squirrel Lamp. I dream of a day when every item in my apartment is made from the corpse of an animal, and I owe that dream to Sarina J. Brewer.

(M.A.R.T. co-founder Robert Marbury's Urban Beast Project is worth checking out as well; his animals seem to fall somewhere between adorably fluffy pets and creepy plush toys come to life. You gotta respect any taxidermist who takes a cue from Jorge Luis Borges.)

Winsor McCay

2006-04-16T13:02:00.001-07:00

Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend

(Click image for full-size)

Winsor McCay is best known as the creator of the turn of the century strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland", in which a young boy has surreal nightly adventures in the land of dreams. What he is less known for is his concurrent strip "Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend" ("Nemo" ran from 1905 to 1914, while "Rarebit Fiend" ran from 1904 to 1913.) While "Nemo" was, for all its disturbing and occasionally violent imagery, ostensibly a children's strip, "Rarebit Fiend" was firmly directed towards adults, and seems bizarre and edgy even in comparison to today's bland, content-regulated funny-pages fare.

Each "Rarebit Fiend" strip is highly formulaic. A semi-realistic situation is set up, which escalates over the course of seven or eight panels into pure surrealistic chaos - until the punchline of the last panel, which is always the same: the protagonist of the strip wakes up in bed, looking stunned and sheepish, swearing off "welsh rarebit" (or simply toasted cheese) before bed for good. Within this formula, however, McCay (who was forced to use the pseudonym "Silas" by the editor of the Herald, wherein his massively successful "Nemo" strip appeared and his real name was practically a brand name in and of itself) was given free reign to be as strange and imaginative as he wished, and "Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend" is full of Masonic rituals (see above), people growing antlers, fat jockeys crushing their horses, dead stoles coming back to life, and so forth.

"Little Nemo" was, without question, one of the first truly important newspaper cartoons (the first being "The Yellow Kid", published in the late 19th C. ) and it continues to have a phenomenal impact even today, on everyone from Matt Groening to Neil Gaiman - McCay set the stage for cartoonists to develop their own unique styles of illustration and storytelling, and the strip was of a consistently high quality from beginning to end. "Rarebit", on the other hand, tends to be a bit more uneven; it possesses a decidedly sketchy and compulsive quality, as if McCay were throwing each strip together in the middle of the night, inspired by his actual dreams.

Currently, there is no comprehensive collection of McCay's "Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend", but Dover has recently reprinted their 60-page trade paperback, which is worth picking up from from Amazon or your local retailer for the price alone. Dover has also re-released their "Little Nemo" collection, but it too is unfortunately incomplete. The best and highest-quality "Little Nemo" collection is the out-of-print "So Many Splendid Sundays", but until Sunday Press decides to release a 3rd edition, we'll have to content ourselves with the Dover collection and the McCay retrospective "Daydreams & Nightmares" (which is an excellent book in its own right, I should point out.)

Little Nemo in Slumberland

(Click image for full-size)

Parastone - Mouseion Collection

2006-04-13T20:21:00.001-07:00

(left: Original Bosch detail; right: Parastone sculpt.)

Dutch design house Parastone create what amount to action figures (although I'm sure they would prefer the term "sculpture" or "miniatures") based around famous works of art. While it's hardly notable to base a miniature around Rodin's "The Thinker" or Dürer's "Hände eines Apostel", you gotta throw it up for anyone who successfully attempts a three-dimensional undertaking of M.C. Escher's illustrations. My favorites, of course, are the Bosch miniatures -- that's class right there.

All of these figurines are available for purchase, but I'll be damned if I can figure out exactly how to order them. If you manage to do so, let me know - my life is severely lacking in Salvador Dalí miniatures. And you know yours is too.

Kropserkel Designs

2006-04-12T00:10:00.001-07:00

A quick update for you today, since I'm right in the middle of exam week: a couple of steampunk-inspired rayguns, and Captain Nemo's "light blade", from Kropserkel Designs (makers of the renowned severed horse-head pillow.) Besides their incredibly detailed replica work, Kropserkel have done some really beautiful original designs, including their "Robots"-looking mechanical men and my personal favorite, the Peter Pan series.

Link to Kropserkel Designs website.

(All images © 2006 Kropserkel Inc.)

Travis A. Louie

2006-04-09T11:53:00.001-07:00

Archibald Langston circa. 1897

Big Bill Gruff circa. 1887

Miss Sophie Grizzletooth

In keeping with this week's whole "Unnatural Creatures Posing For Formal Victorian-Era Portraits" theme, I give you Travis Louie's series of 19th C. goblins, trolls and ogres in upper-class formal wear. Louie has an upcoming show in May 2006 at the Roq La Rue gallery (if you've never been, drop whatever you're doing and book a flight to Seattle now!) alongside the equally-brilliant Robert Craig.

Travis Louie is another artist who works in the whole "chimaera" vein of half-human, half-animal portraiture, and goes even further than that into the realm of fantastic, imaginary beasts and beings incongruously placed in conventional everyday settings. His website is chock-full of ghoulish delights - go take a look.

Link to Travis A. Louie's website at Artroof.

(All images © Travis A. Louie 2006)

Brandon Bird

2006-04-08T18:29:00.001-07:00

King of the Cage

Those That Bind

Cash Comics

If his artwork is any indication, Brandon Bird resides in an alternate universe vastly superior to our own, where Bea Arthur wrestles velociraptors, Star Trek Captains are the subject of Renaissance spectacles, and Johnny Cash is a comic book superhero. Bird is like a pop-cultural reference clearinghouse. His website is a better introduction to his work than I could ever be, so if you have even a shred of love for Christopher Walken, Chuck Norris or Jabba The Hutt, you owe yourself a visit.

Floria Sigismondi

2006-04-08T14:54:00.001-07:00

I can't praise Floria Sigismondi enough. Her music videos for Marilyn Manson, Sigur Ros and David Bowie are haunting and beautiful, and her photography is even more stunning. Her second collection, Immune, published by Gestalten Verlag, was released this past November and it is from this volume that the above photographs were taken (the first volume, also published by Gestalten Verlag, was titled Redemption and is currently both out of print and in great demand - copies sell at auction anywhere from $60 USD to $600 USD.) Both books are incredible and worth every penny.

Studio execs of the world: give Floria Sigismondi lots and lots of money to make feature films. Palm Pictures: for your next series of Director's Label DVDs, I urge to you consider Floria Sigismondi for inclusion. Everyone else: visit Floria's website, and order a copy of Immune before it, too, goes out of print.

Link to Floria Sigismondi's website.

(All Images © Floria Sigismondi 2006)

Zohar Studios

2006-04-08T14:14:00.001-07:00

Study For A Painting

From Memory (Series)

The Raven

Stephen Berkman is the massively talented photographer and artist behind Zohar Studios (motto: "The New Instantaneous Process Employed".) He utilises a photographic technique called ambrotype which involves a silver nitrate development of a glass negative which appears positive when placed against a white backing. Ambrotype is similar to daguerrotype but less expensive, and experienced a short-lived popularity in the mid-19th century. I've always found this sort of antiquated look very appealing and Berkman's subject matter is perfectly suited to the technique.

Both the "From Memory" series and "The Raven" bring to mind Moreau's human-animal chimaera from H.G. Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau". "Study For A Painting" reminds me of the sort of awkward, ethnocentric posed portraits that were so popular during the heyday of the British Empire, wherein "noble savages" would be dressed up in stiff, European attire and photographed. All of Berkman's work is infused with a grim grotesque quality that I find fascinating. Take a look at his website.

Link to Stephen Berkman's Zohar Studios.

(All images © Stephen Berkman 2006)