eMusings

The joy of the Internet is also its drawback: there is simply too much information, much of it excellent, for the mind to absorb. I hope that in making these suggestions for your web surfing I have singled out some of the best.

You might want to start thinking of drawing in a new way, for example by using Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360. All you need to do is move, without controllers. I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of this applied to art, but this will give you a brief start.

The Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art in Berlin has received much praise, but especially for its innovative current exhibit designed by a scientist/artist. For roughly $1300. USD you can spend the night in this former train station as part of a huge experiment. Your stay will include one bed, twenty-four canaries, and lots more. Future exhibits planned at this "Museum of Now" can be seen here.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a laser camera that can see around corners, which they describe as "like having X-ray vision without the X-rays". The experimental camera uses bursts of ultra-short high-intensity laser lights lasting one quadrillionth of a second to show a scene. (For the mathematics addicts among you, that translates to 0.000000000000001 seconds.

Douglas Beube is a mixed-media artist and curator who has put together an exhibition called "The Book Under Pressure". Shown here is a mediated series of Life Magazines, designed to make you think about books and book-making in a new way.

A persistent British curator has succeeded in identifying Giotto's Ognissanti Crucifix, which has been a subject of dispute since its origin in the early fourteenth century. Abandoned in a small antechamber of a Florentine church, the true nature of its identity was revealed when Anna-Marie Hilling succeeded in lifting centuries of grime, allowing the true colors of the piece to shine.

Tom Lowe's dramatic time-lapse photography wil be featured in a new film called "TimeScapes" in 2011. Another view of the photography can be seen here.

Thomas Houseago's sculptures, combining media into unusually expressive solid forms, will be shown this winter at the Modern Art Oxford and the Renning Collection in Vancouver. More of the artist's work can be seen at CFA Berlin as well as at the Michael Werner Gallery in New York.

Markus Lupertz does not worry about public opinion. "I only work with students who admire me and think I am great. If I am not the one that takes their breath away, I don't feel like working with them, because this would be a waste of time", he states. His new statue of Hercules shows the mythical figure with one arm, a huge nose, and misformed legs. His statue of Mozart ruffled more than a few feathers, including Gerhard Richter, the prominent German painter, who called the sculpture a "depravation of public art". (The Mozart sculpture is on the right margin of the site.) More of the Lupertz oeuvre can be seen at the Bill Lowe Gallery website.

Darcy Padilla has received the W. Eugene Smith Grant of $30,000. USD for her work documenting how humans deal with deep poverty. Padilla's concern for the disenfranchised extends far beyond photographing them and into the stories of their lives.

c.Corinne Whitaker 2011