Talib Kweli @ Occupy Wall Street on: What Is The End Game?

Monday, October 10th, 2011 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Public Art/Interventions | No Comments

Tight.

Talib Kweli at Occupy Wall Street from Eddie Pages on Vimeo.

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FOR iPhone, iPad, etc:

Talib Kweli at Occupy Wall Street from Eddie Pages on Vimeo.

The Nature of College by James J. Farrell | Milkweed Editions

Thursday, November 4th, 2010 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Tonky Graphic Design | No Comments

Check out the cover I designed for the book The Nature of College by James Farrell.
The Nature of College | $16 | Milkweed Editions
It’s a very nice read and especially worth buying for people in or entering college.

I pitched various ideas to the publisher Milkweed Editions and they went with the “Modern Day Vanitas” concept.

Each chapter sheds light on a different aspects of college life: The Nature of Parties, The Nature of Sex and (Sometimes) Love, The Nature of Politics, etc.

So I created an allegorical still life, much like the Dutch ‘vanitas’ paintings. In this modern day example, each object symbolizes a different facet of the book’s contents. Special thanks to Ward Yoshimoto who photographed the still life for me. The raw hi-res image is simply gorgeous.

enjoy,
Tonky

The still life wraps around the spine and back. Here is the full spread sans text and title.

VOTE Today – Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 | Power & Politics | No Comments

Civic Duty Y’all. Get on out to the polls!

The image above is a crop from a much larger image I made for the cover of a newly published book called “The Nature of College” by James J. Farrell. Just $16 at Milkweed Editions: The Nature of College

I’ll post the full cover design this week if you promise to VOTE!

-Tonky

Billion Dollar-o-Gram

Saturday, October 16th, 2010 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, The American Diorama | No Comments

Sheisa,

A killer visualization from David McCandless and InformationIsBeautiful.net. Pretty to look at and shitty to think about.

-Tonky

AT&T Plagiarizes Christo & Jeanne-Claude

Sunday, June 27th, 2010 | Contemporary Art, Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Under The Patina of Knowledge | 25 Comments

Dear AT&T,

Please take the money you shower upon the hacks at your advertising agency ( BBDO Worldwide ) and instead install more cell phone towers or hire more nerds or do whatever it’ll take to improve your stinkpie of a network. I can’t make calls from my studio in Redhook, Brooklyn so that’d be a good place to start.

love,
Tonky

Background:

2005-
Artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude finally realized “The Gates,” a massive ephemeral art installation covering NYC’s Central Park with thousands of yards of flowing orange fabric suspended from orange plastic gates.

The concept was 20 years in the making and was funded entirely through the sale of concept sketches/collages rendered by the artist.  In the words of the artist, “an expression of joy and wonder.” No corporate funds, no government sponsorship, just pure aesthetics ( open to argument of course )

2010-
AT&T steals the work to sell its snake oil to the masses as part of its sponsorship of the World Cup soccer tournament. Despite a disclaimer stating, “The Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have no direct or indirect affiliation or involvement with AT&T” the advertisement is a straight forward pillaging of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s intellectual property.

Old SNL Potuses Advocate Consumer Financial Protection Agency

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments

BUAHAHAHA!

MainStreetBrigade.org has teamed up with Funny or Die to put a muzzle on the snouts of corrupt Wall Street Bankers with the founding of the CFPA.

I snort laughed when George Bush 1.0  mistakenly calls President Obama Borat… then Barbar.

CAST:

Fred Armisen: Barack H. Obama
Will Ferrell: George Bush II
Darrell Hammond:  William Jefferson Clinton
Dana Carvey:  George Bush I
Jim Carrey:  Ronald Reagan
Chevy Chase:  Gerald Ford
Dan Aykroyd:  Jimmy Carter

Enjoy:

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