The Light Field Camera

The Light Field Camera

This is amazing, a new way of taking photographs where focusing can be done after the image has been captured. No I don't know how it works either.

The very first light fields were captured at Stanford University over 15 years ago. The most advanced light field research required a roomful of cameras tethered to a supercomputer. Today, Lytro completes the job of taking light fields out of the research lab and making them available for everyone, in the form of the world’s first Lytro Light Field Camera.

Lytro lets you take pictures like never before. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space.

Guy Laramee

For the better part of three decades multidisciplinary artist Guy Laramee has worked as a stage writer, director, composer, a fabricator of musical instruments, a singer, sculptor, painter and writer. Among his sculptural works are two incredible series of carved book landscapes and structures entitled Biblios and The Great Wall, where the dense pages of old books are excavated to reveal serene mountains, plateaus, and ancient structures. Of these works he says:

"So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are".

Laramee’s next show will be in April 2012 at the Galerie d’Art d’Outremont in Montreal.

Haluk Akakce Artist

This is a Turkish and American Artist Haluk Akakce who works in a range of different media. Above is titled 'Come Dance With Me'. It is a video animation first seen in the Summer at the Tate in Liverpool. stunning work but youi have to see it to aprieciate it. It is like a model of a building and all the panels move and flow, bit like a dance.

More traditional work by Haluk Akakce, title unknown.

Central Library, Stuttgart, Germany

Fantastic new library by Korean architect Eun Young Yi. His proposal was selected in 1999 from 235 competition entries as the plan for the new central library of the City of Stuttgart.

Yi has created a monolithic cube with two floors underground and nine above. Essentially all of the building, both inside and out is white. The main library floors circle an open-plan with the levels connected by open staircases. Books line the outer walls of each floor.

Now could this be the insparation for some exciting production design?

Ai Wei Wei

For the past 15 years, he has consistently been one of the most innovative figures in China’s art world. Through not just his own artistic production, but also via his curatorial and editorial work, his own blog and under his design company, FAKE Design, he is one of the most influential artists currently working in China

“We continue our curiosity with bicycle art.. Here is the latest installation by the activist Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. This piece is one of 21 works by Ai from 1983 to present that form the “Ai Weiwei Absent” exhibition, opened at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum at the end of October”.

“Forever Bicycles” is made of 1,000 bicycles installed in a 10-meter high space in a moving, abstract shape to symbolize the way in which the social environment in China is changing.

 Ai Weiwei is known for example for his cooperation with Swiss architects Herzog & Meuron as the consultant for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Birds Nest building.

 Ai is prohibited from leaving Beijing and cannot attend the exhibition. In a Reuters article, Ai was quoted as saying: “This is the first time I’m having an exhibition of my art works in the wider Chinese world. I’m really happy that it can be exhibited in Taiwan, because recently it has not possible to have an exhibition in my own place of residence. I have been notified that I won’t be allowed to go -- that was the outcome of my application -- so right now I cannot attend. But my family members will attend.”

Written by Bill Tikos, the cool hunter.

http://www.thecoolhunter.co.uk/art

Ai Weiwei at the Albion Gallery in London

An exhibition of new work by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is on display at the Albion Gallery in London.

Things seen

This section illustrates some interesting concept design from around the world

As my landline telephone gathers dust each day, I wonder if the classy ‘Hello Tomorrow’ concept will tempt me to use it more often! The thing is that snazzy smartphones and competitive cellphone rates lure us to use them more than the desk phones. But with features like a touchscreen, intuitive functions and customization options like home or office; this iteration looks at reviving the grandeur of the good ‘ole desk phone.

Fountains Abbey

This is a dull photograph from Fountains Abbey. Again the levels have been changed the background sky removed and a more dynamic sky has been added.

Some Photographers hate this but I don't care anything which helps to make better images is good with me.