TINY: Art From Microscopes – UW Madison

Monday, January 18th, 2010 | Contemporary Art, Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments

Welcome,

There is a delicious show in the gallery at the airport (Truax Field) in Madison, WI that features photographs and rapid prototypes (3D objects “printed” layer by layer) by scientists from UW-Madison’s various research departments in collaboration with Tandem Press.

The exhibition text surveys the history of medical illustration and explains how “as early as 13,000BC, drawings of body parts aided Egyptians during the mummification process.”

The fancy colored 3d objects shown above and in the gallery below (click image to see larger) are upscale versions of such tiny molecules as DNA and RNA and also molecular motors that will some day propel themselves through our body to perform repairs and deliver drugs  like chemo to affected regions.

The grey electron microscope image of a tree-looking tendril is a “trichome” on a mustard plant leaf. These structures are what make a leaf feel “fuzzy”

The crystalline image shows nanorods – a material being developed for use in solar cells.

This show is stimulating beyond the aesthetic joys these images provide because we are reminded that we live in the future. These scientist are inventing tiny robots that will repair fatal aneurysms and new materials that will allow us to harvest sunlight for energy and thus avoid wars cause by lust for the buried sunlight that is crude oil.

-Tonky

Steve Martin : One Wish For Christmas – SNL

Friday, December 25th, 2009 | Pop Culture Notions | No Comments

Merry Christmas Everyone!

-Tonky

Health Care Propaganda: Public Option Please

Friday, October 30th, 2009 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Tonky Graphic Design, Tonky Limited Editions | No Comments

Just wrapped up some health care advocacy propaganda for PublicOptionPlease.com. I designed these in the spirit of those great WPA posters advocating everything from worker safety to supporting the war effort.

The contest winner gets a cold $1000 and national distribution. The contest is being judged by Arianna Huffington, Margaret Cho, Aaron Rose, Jesse Dylan, Robbie Conal, Marshall Ganz, and Arlene Holt Baker

Hopefully they like the work!

I am selling an extremely limited edition of each design.
20″ by 30″ – Archival Ink Jet Prints
$50 ea. ( framed – $105 )
<CLICK HERE>

Every penny of profit gets donated to PublicOptionPlease.com. So feel comfortable voting with your wallets.

Click the thumbnails to see larger images:

-Tonky

6 Year Old UFO Pilot Found Hiding in Box – HOAX ?

Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | Pop Culture Notions, Tonky Graphic Design | No Comments

Well,

All is well that ends well. Apparently 6 year old Falcon Heane has been found alive hiding in a box in the Heane family attic. When the craft landed and he wasn’t inside I was afraid he had fallen to his demise – however after NYtimes.com commenter nerds calculated the lift/buoyancy of a balloon that size, it was clear it couldn’t lift a whole kid.

It remains to be seen whether the youngster released the family’s experimental craft and hid out of shame or whether his weird parents stashed him away as part of a staged hoax to get publicity. Apparently the couple appeared on the reality TV Show “Wife Swap.”

Anyhow isn’t it amazing how desaturating the news footage dates the images and evokes Roswell and UFO imagery?

One thing can be for sure, little Falcon Heane’s game of hide and seek likely cost the world MILLIONS of hours of lost productivity as we watched the event unfold LIVE. I like seeing this sort of harmless spectacle rather than violence.

I for one have been honing my SketchUp skills and decided waste a couple of hours modeling the craft in 3D.

I might make a poster commemorating the drama.

-Tonky

VP Joe Biden Moonlights as Cruise Ship Captain?

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | Pop Culture Notions | No Comments

Spotted this ad at NYtimes.com.  I wonder why Joe Biden is moonlighting as a Princess Cruise captain. Do you think he isn’t getting paid enough by the Federal Government or is it just his love of the open sea, cheap margaritas, and food borne illnesses?

-Tonky

WTC Fence – Design Competition Submission

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | Contemporary Art, Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Tonky Graphic Design | No Comments

This is a rendering from my submission to the design competition being hosted by The NYC Department of Transportation in collaboration with the Port Authority of NY & NJ to transform the currently drab construction fence that lines the WTC perimeter to something a little more amicable to tourists and local gentry.

Gound Zero is the more colloquial name for the World Trade Center construction site, no doubt the most politically charged patch of land in the country.

Project Statement:
The organic super graphic meanders through an underlying colorful grid along usable sections of fence. The viewer identifies with the flourish and in it sees their own navigation of the city. In this way, the composition reflects the vitality of the bourgeoning downtown commercial and residential neighborhood.

The rebuilding has proven slow due to infighting between powers that be: Larry Silverstein (leaser of the site) NY & NJ Port Authority (owner of the site), and victim’s families, to name a few.

The challenge it seems is to find a development solution that properly honors the lives of the victims and that also utilizes that highly valuable downtown real estate in a way that is best for the city’s future. Is the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower really the best we can come up with? ( USA founded in 1776, get it? )

Proposals due Oct. 5 – Get yours done now! $7500 design fee.
Submit Here

“Blank” Insurance Card

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments

Teeheehee,

After receiving my new health insurance cards from Freelancer’s Union, this unintentionally delightful card accompanied the perforated set. They must have bought the blank templates and needed to print only 3 cards not 4.

I would love to have heard the copy editor argue that leaving a card unprinted may have alarmed their customers and led to unnecessary customer service costs to explain the situation.

-Tonky

[UPDATE]: Apparently I’m not the only one – click below to see a similar insurance card that my DC based artist/designer friend Ben carries.