: Chris Haycock

Project: Beat Konducta In India Viral Site
Client: Uber | Stones Throw Records

Following the example of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Argentinian center will remove 40 thousand billboards (approx. 60% of all billboards) that have been ruled to infract on the city’s code.

The agreement was reached between the city government and a committee of advertising associations.

In September 2006, Sao Paolo initiated a similar effort, which was documented by photographer Tony de Marco and his Sao Paulo No Logo project.

Source: Treehugger

With the name Andy Uprock popping up in my RSS feed this morning, of course I had to investigate further. Right away I recognized the article. Spawned from early childhood sports, when everyone used to cram their plastic cup at a respective spot in a chainlink fence, Andy Uprock has taken it much further, and has created fence installations worldwide.

Not to worry, the cups used during the Cuprocking, are recycled.

There are many ways to track the current presidential election, but this site has rendered over 500 websites into one ever-changing visualization map. The sources are quite evenly distributed to not lean heavily left or right.

Check out where the blogosphere seems to be leaning at Presidential Watch 08.

Source: PSFK

Data visualizations galore: Visual Complexity

Leading the new school of Detroit techno and electronic music in general, Ann Arbor’s Ghostly International has surged into the forefront internationally thanks to personal favorites like Matthew Dear and Dabrye. Established in 1999 by Sam Valenti IV, the label has recently released an Adult Swim comp as well as experienced growing success with its Spectral Sound sub-label geared more for the dance surfaces.

My good friend Travis Kirschbaum along with Adam Fox at Current TV recently produced this pod, which focuses on the Ghostly phenomenon

Good job TK and Adam! I’m looking forward to the next pod from Great Lakes trip, a look at the Underground Resistance label.

Ghosts of Techno on Current.com

Visit the Ghostly International website

Download the Ghostly Swim album for free

From space, the surface of the earth has some visual surprises, some of which don’t look very naturally developed. Of these, one can argue that they are not. In the case of the deforestation of Bolivia, or the red dots of Garden City, Kansas, this is very much the case.

“This image of the once vast carpet of rainforest in the Amazon basin is reminiscent of the cubist masters. Fanning out from the large blocks of land cleared by ranchers and loggers radiate arrangements of fields and farms, the remaining healthy vegetation appearing in bright red.”

“Home to the largest zoological facility in Kansas, Garden City is known for its depiction in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.The croplands surrounding the city are irrigated by a vast underground aquifer, creating bands of bright red healthy vegetation that dot the image.”

View more images at EnvironmentalGraffiti.com

It seems Adidas has found a new use for Nano-Engraving (which is basically a microscopic engraving method). New Zealand’s All Blacks team is the first case study.

Some habits are hard to break, although the effort to break them may lead to new habits, which in result, could lead to new creativity. The brain becomes conditioned and finds safety in a habit. This “safety” is what the brain has become “familiar” with. If we consciously develop new habits, the path to this habit creates new brain cells and shifts our trains of thought significantly.

“HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation.

So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try - the more we step outside our comfort zone - the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.”

Read the full article
Source: NY Times
by Janet Rae-Dupree

The OBEY x Fingercroxx show in Hong Kong was a hit… The posse asked me to be a part of the show in which we all designed a set of bike wheels. I was amongst some amazing artists and very happy to even be asked. I took the cut vinyl glossy black on black route with a bit of gold flake touches on one side, keeping it pretty sublime:

Here is a close up the morning before I shipped them out to HK (better contrast):

Big ups to Romes and the rest of the OBEY crew, as well as all the other artists…

Big (belly full of beer) ups to this photo of me taken deep into my birthday night by Romes:

Check out the OBEY blog for full coverage here