Sunday, May 30, 2010
What Santa Rides During Off Season - Video
Santa Car Mark III. Actually the full name is Lincoln Santa Is Coming To Towne Car and was created by Brian Taylor who also created the Metro Santa Car and Machete Betties Roller Derby Art Car. I just came across this video of him riding his latest Santa Car that gives you a glimpse into what its like riding an art car around town. I know its Summer time but I needed cheering up today so Brian's Santa Art Car is just what the doctor ordered.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Mercedes Truck Painted with Russel Crow - Finland Truck Show 2010
These art trucks were seen at the Finald Truck show recently which sorta reminds of the Japanese Decotora Trucks I wrote about some time ago. I love this first one, a Mercedes tanker truck covered with the face of Russel Crow actor of my favorite movie Gladiator. These truck drivers go all out with leather seat, LED lights, lots of chrome and of course all out airbrushed works of art that completely cover their trucks.
Russel Crow Truck |
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Worm Harvesting Using a Car
In my opinion there are much better ways to harvest worms and growing them on a car is not one of them. This is what happens when you leave your car unattended under a tree for some time. Worms, Worms and MORE Worms, maybe he is harvesting worms for fish baitvia
ELBOW ROOM
There are artists who make great big pictures of great big subjects:
Albert Bierstadt's "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains" is 12 feet wide.
And there are artists who make tiny little pictures of tiny little subjects:
A page from a gothic illuminated manuscript (circa 1494) at Peacay's superb Bibliodyssey blog.
But it takes a special talent to make tiny little pictures of great big subjects.
Observe how some of the masters of the graphic arts-- Mort Drucker, Leonard Starr and Noel Sickles-- squeeze a feeling of great space and weight into pictures that are not much larger than a postage stamp.
Here you see the difference between digital compression by a computer and artistic compression by a true draftsman. Mort Drucker had a mere 3 inches to convey a school bus crossing a yawning chasm. His radical foreshortening of the bus and his condensed treatment of the bridge preserve our sense of perilous height despite the miniature scale.
Look at the wonderful clarity in this small drawing. Drucker conveys the great distance between the two planes, and the even greater distance to the ground below. His description of the ground contains just enough information to explain our altitude, but not enough to confuse or distract us from the men performing various complex functions. This is an amazing example of visual problem solving.
In Leonard Starr's On Stage, the artist convincingly portrays a huge snowball rolling off the side of a cliff.
In just a few inches of space, Noel Sickles gives us the feeling of immense heft of a battleship listing.
All representational artists create the illusion of three dimensions on a two dimensional plane. However, it requires an excellent draftsman to convey great scale under such extreme limitations.
These are artists who have slipped the bonds of space limitations. You get the feeling they have the technical ability to implement anything their mind can conceive.
Albert Bierstadt's "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains" is 12 feet wide.
And there are artists who make tiny little pictures of tiny little subjects:
A page from a gothic illuminated manuscript (circa 1494) at Peacay's superb Bibliodyssey blog.
But it takes a special talent to make tiny little pictures of great big subjects.
Observe how some of the masters of the graphic arts-- Mort Drucker, Leonard Starr and Noel Sickles-- squeeze a feeling of great space and weight into pictures that are not much larger than a postage stamp.
Here you see the difference between digital compression by a computer and artistic compression by a true draftsman. Mort Drucker had a mere 3 inches to convey a school bus crossing a yawning chasm. His radical foreshortening of the bus and his condensed treatment of the bridge preserve our sense of perilous height despite the miniature scale.
Look at the wonderful clarity in this small drawing. Drucker conveys the great distance between the two planes, and the even greater distance to the ground below. His description of the ground contains just enough information to explain our altitude, but not enough to confuse or distract us from the men performing various complex functions. This is an amazing example of visual problem solving.
In Leonard Starr's On Stage, the artist convincingly portrays a huge snowball rolling off the side of a cliff.
In just a few inches of space, Noel Sickles gives us the feeling of immense heft of a battleship listing.
All representational artists create the illusion of three dimensions on a two dimensional plane. However, it requires an excellent draftsman to convey great scale under such extreme limitations.
These are artists who have slipped the bonds of space limitations. You get the feeling they have the technical ability to implement anything their mind can conceive.
Art Car Book by Harrod Blank - A must have for your coffee table
What got me started in the journey with my own art car the Mercedes Pens and now with Art Car Central was a book called "Art Cars: the cars, the artists, the obsession, the craft" by Harrod Blank.I walked into the library one day and was browsing the car section when I came upon the most amazing book I had seen in a long time. In it was filled with images of people who had decorated their cars with paint, glued objects, car modifications and everything in between. Many of those cars have since been featured on Art Car Central like the Fruit Mobile, Hoop Car, Camera Van, The Phone Car, The Button King, Glass Quilt, and many more from Harrods Blanks Art Car Agency.
If you have ever seen an art car around town and wondered why would someone do that to their car. Or where curious about the type of person who would drive an art car, then this book is definitely for you. I now have my own copy and it never gets old. You never now, you might end up making your own art car and one day it could end featured here on Art Car Central, I look forward to your art car submission.
Labels:
Art Car Book,
For Sale,
Harrod Blank,
Multi Media,
USA,
Van
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
CarPuchino - Car Powered by Coffee Grinds
For those of us who plan their trips from coffee shop to coffee shop finally a better solution. A car that is powered entirely by roasted coffee grinds is now a reality, I can feel my hear raising as I write this.
The car is called the Car-Puchino and was created using a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco that sorta looks like a time traveling DeLorean from back to the future. It was created by a team from BBC1 science program Bang Goes The Theory and driven 210 miles between Manchester and London.
It does about 60mph and uses about 2.2 lbs of coffee for every three miles or 56 espressos per mile (56epm). Its going to take 154 lbs so price depends on the type of coffee you use:
via
The car is called the Car-Puchino and was created using a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco that sorta looks like a time traveling DeLorean from back to the future. It was created by a team from BBC1 science program Bang Goes The Theory and driven 210 miles between Manchester and London.
It does about 60mph and uses about 2.2 lbs of coffee for every three miles or 56 espressos per mile (56epm). Its going to take 154 lbs so price depends on the type of coffee you use:
- Premium = Kona Coffee = $30/lb = $4,620
- Plus = Starbucks Breakfast Blend = $10/lb = $1,154
- Regular = Folgers = $5/lb = $770
via
Labels:
Carpuchino,
Coffee Car,
Coupe,
DIY,
Europe,
Super Mod,
UK,
VW
We cannot go back
Maybe art, maybe some art, maybe this art, maybe some of this art, serves turning the absence opaque, that is, making it at once palpable and impenetrable, so we cannot go back, so we are stuck in the appreciation of this strange, utopic now, and any attempt to overcome it, to look for the actual empty space, meets the opacity of an object, an image, a substitute, substitute not of a reality, but of what ceased to be, of the void that hence remains beyond us, happily or unhappily, hard to say, replaced by the fundamentally meager and helplessly sublime moment of a hesitant, aesthetic, experience, too private to be credible, too credible to be intimate, and yet ours, because we want it to be, because we claim it as such, because we know we inherited it from the silence that came before.
The picture - entitled (...) - is by Marek Wykowski. (Found by Gocha)
The picture - entitled (...) - is by Marek Wykowski. (Found by Gocha)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Ride the Anti Anti Smoking Ban Liberty Van
Lynda Farley is the creator of the Liberty van, and doing her part to creatively express her First Amendment Rights. Lynda believes in the rights of smokers to be able to smoke anywhere at anytime. She also believes that smoking dangers are a total myth perpetuated by "those" who are lying to us about the whole thing. She has taken pictures of her car in front every statehouse in the lower 48. She hopes to repeal smoking bans across the nation, restore our constitution, and get the word out on the smoking "hoax". Lynda is all "fired up" and has taken plenty of pictures of her journey, be sure to check out her Fall and Christmas tour pictures.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
The Art of Amazing Car Sound Effects
In this a video a talented kid shows off his skills in replicating the sounds of a hot rod import, a two stroke mopped, dirt bike a VW bug that keeps stalling and ends it with the sound of a hand held weed wacker. Great video, Rated R for some language.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
inCARnation - Apocalypse Mobile/Time Machine
inCARnation - Apocalypse Mobile/Time Machine
inCARnation, the Apocalypse Mobile/Time Machine was sent in by Meg (Hint, the one with the pink hair). It was built over the course of a few years at her apartment in Minneapolis and is under constant construction. The frame is an early 1990s Honda Accord that belonged to Adam. Adam Lutterman (Atom), Andy Rennert (MN Phatts) and Meg (Dee Zaster) all contributed to its creation. They take it to Burning Man every year and it made its debut this year at the Houston Art Car Parade and promise to be back, I guess that's the time machine aspect of the inCARnation. They also participate in Art Car events in the Twin Cities on a regular basis. They are beginning work on radically altering the appearance, but the plans are under wraps. It will be bigger and badder the next time around, so keep a look out!
inCARnation, the Apocalypse Mobile/Time Machine was sent in by Meg (Hint, the one with the pink hair). It was built over the course of a few years at her apartment in Minneapolis and is under constant construction. The frame is an early 1990s Honda Accord that belonged to Adam. Adam Lutterman (Atom), Andy Rennert (MN Phatts) and Meg (Dee Zaster) all contributed to its creation. They take it to Burning Man every year and it made its debut this year at the Houston Art Car Parade and promise to be back, I guess that's the time machine aspect of the inCARnation. They also participate in Art Car events in the Twin Cities on a regular basis. They are beginning work on radically altering the appearance, but the plans are under wraps. It will be bigger and badder the next time around, so keep a look out!
Labels:
Burning Man,
Coupe,
Honda,
Mad Max,
Mutant Vehicle,
Plastic,
Sculptured,
USA
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Scrapertown - Inspirational Scraper Bike Video
Scrapertown from California is a place. on Vimeo.
I wrote about Tyrone Stevenson Scraper Bike Kind who was at Maker Faire last year. Today I found another inspirational video about scraper bikes, which talks about the philosophy behind the movement and the positive affect it has on kids in the Oakland area. Below are the requirements for becoming a member of the Original Scraper Bike Team.
"In order to become a member of the Original Scraper Bike Team, you must: Be a resident of Oakland, CA. Be at least 7y/o or older. Retain A 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA), Create your own Scraper Bike…(It Has To Be Amazing, Or Else You Can’t Ride.) A single-file line when riding. After 10 rides The Scraper Bike King and his Captains will decide if your bike is up to standards and if you can follow simple guidelines. After your evaluation we will consider you a member and honor you with an Original Scraper Bike Team Shirt. Only worn when Mobbin’ Stay posted to our website for all upcoming Scraper Bike Rides..." -- The Scraper Bike King
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Russian Flower Power - BWM Ar Car Riddled With Bullets
Russian Bullet Flower Power BMW Art Car
BWM Art Car Bullet Flower
via Jalponik
Russian Flower Power took on new meaning when a Russian artist commissioned some gun enthusiasts to take aim at a BMW 3-Series with riffles and draw pretty flowers with the bullet holes. As you can see by the closeup on the car they missed a bunch of the marks, but it looks like they had a blast. More pictures on English Russia
BWM Art Car Bullet Flower
via Jalponik
Russian Flower Power took on new meaning when a Russian artist commissioned some gun enthusiasts to take aim at a BMW 3-Series with riffles and draw pretty flowers with the bullet holes. As you can see by the closeup on the car they missed a bunch of the marks, but it looks like they had a blast. More pictures on English Russia
Mondo Spider - Electric Powered 8 legged walking machine
Mondo Spider
The Mondo Spider is a 1600 lb, 8 legged walking machine originally built by a Vancouver-based team of artists and engineers in 2006. Initially gas-powered, the spider has been converted to run entirely on battery power, making it the world's first 100% electric, zero-emissions walking vehicle. This vehicle will be at this weeks Maker Fair
Mondo Spider from flimflamfilms on Vimeo.
The Mondo Spider is a 1600 lb, 8 legged walking machine originally built by a Vancouver-based team of artists and engineers in 2006. Initially gas-powered, the spider has been converted to run entirely on battery power, making it the world's first 100% electric, zero-emissions walking vehicle. This vehicle will be at this weeks Maker Fair
Mondo Spider from flimflamfilms on Vimeo.
Labels:
Electric,
Maker Faire,
Mondo Spider,
Mutant Vehicle,
USA,
Video
Monday, May 17, 2010
No More Traffic Tickets - The World's Slowest Porsche - Ferdinand GT3 R-S
The World's Slowest Porsche - Ferdinand GT3 R-S
Do you drive fast and are Tired of Red Light Camera Tickets? Austrian artist Ferdinand Johannes has solved this problem by creating the most advanced Porsche ever, called the Ferdinand GT3 R-S, The World's Slowest Porsche. He has come up with a way to avoid all traffic tickets by installing a revolutionary new power source under the hood called the "bike" with a whopping 1MP (Man Power). Not only will it NOT go 0-60mph in 10 seconds, but probably wont go past 10mph, EVER.
Let me tell you what it DOESN'T have:
Do you drive fast and are Tired of Red Light Camera Tickets? Austrian artist Ferdinand Johannes has solved this problem by creating the most advanced Porsche ever, called the Ferdinand GT3 R-S, The World's Slowest Porsche. He has come up with a way to avoid all traffic tickets by installing a revolutionary new power source under the hood called the "bike" with a whopping 1MP (Man Power). Not only will it NOT go 0-60mph in 10 seconds, but probably wont go past 10mph, EVER.
Let me tell you what it DOESN'T have:
- No turbocharge,
- No 450hp
- No 3.8 flat-six engine
- No Disk Brakes
- No Manual gearbox
- No Sound System
- No Club sport package
- No Leather Seats
- No Airbags
- No Roll cage
- No 6-point drivers racing harness
When movement becomes dance
11 min, 16 mm film, B/W, no sound
Camera: Bill Rowley
Edit: Elaine Summers
Dir: Elaine Summers
Prod: Hans Breder, Iowa University
There are two things about this short fragment I love.
The first is the choreography of joy. The slow-motion allows us to better appreciate the flow of the common movement, the combining of the bodies, the contrast between them and everything that happens around them.
But there is something else. The dance becomes obvious at the end, when the movement continues beyond what we expected. Yet there is one earlier moment, one step of the girl coming from "our" side, which makes that clear. At a very precise point, she deviates from the way she has been running, her body bends like a bow and then moves sideways. That is when the simple vectors of meeting become something else - something more complex, less obvious. The bodies, now, create a space for our meeting to go beyond the embrace.
CHAINED TO THE GOAT-GOD OF ART
They invented perfect beauty, those ancient Greeks.
Of course people made beautiful things before the Greeks, but it was the Greeks who dreamed there could be a perfect version of beauty out there waiting to be attained.
Aristotle made the first serious attempt at defining "perfection" but even before him Pythagoras and other pre-Socratics speculated about an ideal beauty. They pursued it with the language of mathematics, asserting that objects look better when proportioned in accordance with the "golden ratio." They believed objects would appear more "complete" and "perfect" if they were symmetrical, with clean shapes in harmony with classical archetypes.
They hoped these principles would lead them to perfect beauty. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far before the goat-god yanked them back.
The Greeks were so confident that their culture was superior, imagine their surprise when the good citizens of Athens began to lose interest in high culture and stray back to the more earthy, passionate cults of their barbaric neighbors. Historian Arthur Koestler claims that Athenian gods lost their attraction as they became more formal and detached from base human emotions:
Greek poets bemoaned the effect of Bacchism on their womenfolk: "Theban women leaving/Their spinning and their weaving/Stung with the maddening trance/Of Dionysus!"
Today we still admire the Greeks' smooth, classical ideals of beauty but we too remain tethered to the goat-god part of our nature. Art becomes less satisfying as it becomes too orderly, smooth and formal. We cannot polish and refine our way to perfection; beyond a certain point, perfection begins to weaken art rather than strengthen it.
Koestler described how the savvy Greeks absorbed and blunted the threat of wild Bacchism:
Jeffrey Jones carefully captured facial features, but then indulged in a frenzy for her hair
Note how the great Ronald Searle gains power with from uncontrolled spatters and ink drops.
This sensitive portrait by Jack Unruh would not be nearly as potent if he had not gone back and roughed it up with that dense black and spattering.
Even the erudite Steinberg bows to the virility of non-cognitivism: he draws the icons of civilization with a light and lacy line, but adds strength with a rough, black scrape of a brush.
Pictures still pay tribute to the goat-god, and are rewarded with his strength and vitality
Of course people made beautiful things before the Greeks, but it was the Greeks who dreamed there could be a perfect version of beauty out there waiting to be attained.
Aristotle made the first serious attempt at defining "perfection" but even before him Pythagoras and other pre-Socratics speculated about an ideal beauty. They pursued it with the language of mathematics, asserting that objects look better when proportioned in accordance with the "golden ratio." They believed objects would appear more "complete" and "perfect" if they were symmetrical, with clean shapes in harmony with classical archetypes.
They hoped these principles would lead them to perfect beauty. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far before the goat-god yanked them back.
The Greeks were so confident that their culture was superior, imagine their surprise when the good citizens of Athens began to lose interest in high culture and stray back to the more earthy, passionate cults of their barbaric neighbors. Historian Arthur Koestler claims that Athenian gods lost their attraction as they became more formal and detached from base human emotions:
At an unknown date, but probably not much before the sixth century, the cult of Dionysus‑Bacchus, the 'raging' goat‑god of fertility and wine, spread from barbaric Thracia into Greece. The initial success of Bacchism was probably due to that general sense of frustration ... [that] the Olympian Pantheon had come to resemble an assembly of wax‑works, whose formalized worship could [not] satisfy truly religious needs.... A spiritual void tends to create emotional outbreaks; the Bacchae of Euripides, frenzied worshippers of the horned god....The Greeks discovered that their lofty aspirations were chained to their earthy goat-god origins. High culture could only take them so close to "perfection" before they ran out of chain.
Greek poets bemoaned the effect of Bacchism on their womenfolk: "Theban women leaving/Their spinning and their weaving/Stung with the maddening trance/Of Dionysus!"
Today we still admire the Greeks' smooth, classical ideals of beauty but we too remain tethered to the goat-god part of our nature. Art becomes less satisfying as it becomes too orderly, smooth and formal. We cannot polish and refine our way to perfection; beyond a certain point, perfection begins to weaken art rather than strengthen it.
Koestler described how the savvy Greeks absorbed and blunted the threat of wild Bacchism:
The outbreak seems to have been sporadic and short‑lived. The Greeks, being Greeks, soon realized that these excesses led neither to mystic union with God, nor back to nature, but merely to mass-hysteria.... The authorities seemed to have acted with eminent reasonableness: they promoted Bacchus‑Dionysus to the official Pantheon with a rank equal to Apollo's. His frenzy was tamed, his wine watered down, his worship regulated, and used as a harmless safety‑valve.The Greeks' wise technique for co-opting wildness is still employed by artists today. A carefully controlled picture often includes an uncontrolled splatter or eruption or rough line-- not enough to lose control of the picture, but enough to show that wildness still has a seat in the artist's pantheon:
Jeffrey Jones carefully captured facial features, but then indulged in a frenzy for her hair
Note how the great Ronald Searle gains power with from uncontrolled spatters and ink drops.
This sensitive portrait by Jack Unruh would not be nearly as potent if he had not gone back and roughed it up with that dense black and spattering.
Even the erudite Steinberg bows to the virility of non-cognitivism: he draws the icons of civilization with a light and lacy line, but adds strength with a rough, black scrape of a brush.
Pictures still pay tribute to the goat-god, and are rewarded with his strength and vitality
Thursday, May 13, 2010
8,000 Ping Pong Ball VW Art Car by Katherine Smith
via
Katherine Smith, of Jarrettsville, glued 8,000 colored ping pong balls on an old 1971 Volkswagen Beetle named "The Last Cup". Her art car features different scenes each section of smiley face hood peace sign on a even the hub caps and bumpers are covered with ping pong balls.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Bikes with Shoes
Bikes with shoes instead of tires is definitely a better alternative to using bike tires which need air and tend to go flat. All you need is a bunch of shoes and you are good to go, oh and a helmet would be good as well.
Todd Kundla rides his Shoe Bike via
Walking Bike by Max Knight via
Travis Pastrana Shoe Motorbike
Be sure to check it this cool video with Travis Pastrana doing flips with his shoe motorcycle.
Todd Kundla rides his Shoe Bike via
Walking Bike by Max Knight via
Travis Pastrana Shoe Motorbike
Be sure to check it this cool video with Travis Pastrana doing flips with his shoe motorcycle.
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