art

Mr. Whippy, the ice cream machine for sad miserable overeaters

Do you eat ice cream when you're sad? I sure do. When I saw that my nasty co-worker Tim Moynihan had pitted the Beer-Launching Fridge against Keepon the Dancing Robot in his artificial intelligence showdown, I got totally emo because I had no idea who to vote for. Then I bought myself a pint of Phish Food and ate it for breakfast with a side of Kleenex, sunny side down.

But technology is always making our lives easier, and here's a gadget that can help me figure out just how much self-pity eating I'll need to do … Read more

The 'Eagle' has landed

Just for the record, turntables aren't the only types of audio equipment that occasionally resemble heavy machinery. It's just hard to resist singling them out when systems start to approach $1 million.

The latest example of industrial chic is the "Eagle Neo-Retro CD Player," whose prosaic name really doesn't do justice to its unique design. We would expect no less from the site of Art Lebedev Studio, the Russian design house that's been a darling among technophiles for such groundbreaking innovations as its "Optimus" and "Upravlator" keyboards.

The turntable is … Read more

Three guesses to identify this gadget

Hint: It's not a kitchen appliance. Another hint: It's not military equipment. And it's not both.

If you guessed turntable, you're either a true audio aficionado or a cheater. We thought it was some kind of high-tech meat slicer.

Modestly dubbed the "Work of Art" by Basis Audio, the player in question boasts a list of technical specs as long as long as the title track of "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes. Among its many attributes is an anti-vibrational technology called a "Resonance Annihilator," which makes us think that … Read more

Cultivating a market for plant porn

Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has few qualms about exploiting the behavior of nonhumans. For one of his projects, presented last year, he choreographed a ballet danced by honeybees. For his latest project--video pornography for plants--he has gone even farther off-species and, many would say, farther still off the deep end.

Keats calls the genre Cinema Botanica and billed its gallery premiere, scheduled for September 10 at the 1078 Gallery, in Chico, Calif., as the "world's first porn theater for house plants." The logic behind the project, which now includes a trailer on YouTube showing plants being pollinated, … Read more

Power Downloader finds free 3D-animation software

When Power Downloader received an e-mail from an artist friend recently, he wondered what he could do to help. Though Power knows a lot about software, he never had the type of talent needed to create art. His artist friend told Power that his work was going great, but that he was at an impasse. He wanted to get into the world of advanced 3D drawing and animation, but all of the software in the category was too expensive. That's when Power Downloader knew his friend was asking the right person.… Read more

Games as art

I love Bioshock. It's honestly one of the best games I've played all year, and has received consistently stellar reviews. I don't just like it because it's fun to play, though it is. The game itself features brilliant art deco-inspired level design and fascinating analysis of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and the Objectivist movement. However, do these factors mean that Bioshock is a work of art? I don't mean the colloquial, anything-that's-really-great "work of art," I mean a genuine work of artistic merit. I say yes. Bioshock, along with many other games, … Read more

Diamond skull art fetches over $100 million

While this certainly goes into the what-else-can-we-encrust category on Crave, it's also a coup de grâce for the art world.

This work by Damien Hirst, titled "For the Love of God," is made of diamonds, human teeth and the platinum-plated skull of a 35-year-old European male from the 1700s rumored to be a monk or minor saint (hence the name).

The diamond-encrusted skull sold for 50 million pounds ($101 million) on Wednesday. In fairness to Hirst, the skull did cost him $20 million to produce. Hirst is part of the investment group that bought the … Read more

Perk up your morning routine with coffee art

Face it: not everyone is capable of stunning latte art, but that doesn't have to stop us from having a bit of fun with our frothy beverages. We spotted these stainless steel cappuccino stencils on GadgetCandy and were immediately intrigued. Just set the disc atop your latte or cappuccino and sprinkle with cocoa, cinnamon, or another coffee topper for a quick decoration. Despite the cheesy clip-art design, we rather liked the idea of a quick way to fancy up our milky coffee drinks, so we Googled around and found these slightly more classy designs as well as this set of six stencils packaged in a round tin. … Read more

A perfect doorknob for loners

If you live alone, it's not long before you start giving your furniture nicknames. Cleon, my armchair, is a great conversationalist.

That said, I've never really gotten to know my door all that well. It keeps to itself. I don't even know its name.

All that can change with this door handle. Amsterdam-based designer Naomi Thellier de Poncheville's Hand-le, exhibited at the London Design Festival, would let you shake your door's hand to open it...or at least grab its hand and twist it. Doors need persuasion too, sometimes.

[Via Notcot.org]

Strayform offers platform to get you paid for your creative work

Once a month media creators from the San Francisco area gather together for the Bay Area Media Makers Meetup. Each meeting is a new opportunity to meet a wide variety of creative people, and occasionally someone comes to the meetup with a truly inspirational idea. Wednesday night's meetup was one of those nights. Brandt Cannici has a new start-up called Strayform that promises to offer creatives a new way to establish economic sustainability for their projects.