Along the lines of my previous post of art created from the controlled movements of crowds, are the North Korean "Mass Games", an annual festival of choreographed gymnastics.
Also: in a stadium performance, a brain crushing dynamic mosaic created by more than 15,000 audience members holding aloft various colored sheets of paper:
The University of California has launched a new online archive of more than 150,000 digitized items, mostly primary sources — photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and more, illuminating the history of California.
Designed primarily as a resource for K-12 teachers and students (in alignment with the California Content Standards), but with plenty of random browsing opportunities.
Backpacking trips are temporarily out of our reach. But I can still dream. Here's "Unnamed Tarn near Mono Pass", along the Eastern side of the Sierra, around 4 pm. Photo courtesy of John Beach, who has many other spectacular photos from the same 5-day journey.
What's better than a week at a rented house near the beach?
A rented house near the beach chock full of magazines. The grownups passed around back issues of Harper's and The Sunday New York Times Magazine. Liam and Ronan were fascinated by the 3-D cover of the 1000th issue of Rolling Stone. A single copy of InStyle magazine was there to help us "cleanse the palate," and keep us up to date on Jennifer Anniston's New Year's Resolutions.
The offbeat subject drew me in. The writing hooked me. Fagone knows how to tell a story, and it helps that the IFOCE promoters are great showmen. The final page of the article online captures the amazing drama of the 2001 Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest.
Via Wooster Collective, a collection of advertisements featuring overhead/aerial shots of people dressed in colorful outfits, choreographed to form dynamic shapes.
Of course, Busby Berkeley didn't have access to computer-generated extras.
And as a bonus video by Michael Gondry:
What's great about the internet and YouTube is that we can collect all these things together in a single blog post. What's less great is the lack of context: are any of these by the same choreographer? Are some of these copycats of others? (Three involve liquid being "poured" out of a bottle.)
What's great about modern brand advertising is that there are creatives and account planners persuasive enough to convince companies like Coca-Cola to spend bucketloads of money creating a street art stunt that makes me want to watch their commercial repeatedly, but in the aggregate doesn't really do much to sell more corn syrup water.
At least, not enough to justify the cost of the production, agency fees, and media buys.
From 2004: "chickety china the chinese chicken" in (almost) four part harmony... either they don't quite hit it or the mic isn't picking up the bass.
The nerd rockers from Canada bring out the mandolin and bass for an acoustic version of their hit "One Week." YouTube page includes link to mp3 file, if you need it.