Power - Kanye West

New Kanye West - 'Power'

Dulux Walls - Let's Colour Campaign

Shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India. What sets this film apart is that it is not actually a film. Every location is real. The stairs in Lapa-Brazil, the council estate in Aulnay-Paris, Virginia Primary School in Tower Hamlets-London and the boys school, main street and community centre in Jodhpur-India.

All these places remain transformed by a palette of 120 wonderful vibrant colours of paint. The people you see painting are not actors, they are real people from the local areas who rolled up their sleeves with us to paint. 260 of them from all over the world. These are the people who fill the pages of this blog, whether by flickr slideshow, interview or in one of our documentaries posted below. The track behind this film -’Go Do’ by Jonsi- could not be better suited and acts as an emotive anthem or call to arms for the world to start colouring.

Grey is out. Gloom is gone. This is the beginning of a colour crusade that is spreading around the world. The more of us who join in, the bigger the splash will be. Come colour the world with us.

Jónsi - ‘Sinking Friendships' + 'Go Do’ Live

Jónsi performing ‘Go Do’ on the late late show with Craig Ferguson.

Loving the album 'Go', check it out!

Chiddy Bang - 'Opposite Of Adults' & 'Truth'

Love the MGMT and Passion Pit samples

Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson

"It is said that the Pharaohs built tombs to reveal their lives to future generations. Michael Jackson sacrificed his childhood to the calling of his musical gift. Neverland was the pyramid he constructed to a lost childhood. The artefacts captured in this book return us to the Neverland he lost."

source: http://neverlandlost.com/

Suburban Type - Greg O’Connor

Suburban Type are the designs of Greg O’Connor, a Sydney based Graphic Designer who has a love of maps and a passion for typography. Inspired by designs he has seen overseas he has developed these quirky maps for areas in Australia.

Suburb + Typography = SUBURBAN TYPE. A funky & different approach to the way we look at the areas in which we live, work, play, dance, love, holiday, were born in or just like the feel of. Starting off where we work and live Sydney’s Inner West SUBURBAN TYPE captures suburbs such as Marrickville, Newtown, Balmain, Stanmore & Leichhardt. We will be expanding into more areas across NSW & Australia throughout 2010.

Love these prints, waiting for a Melbourne Bayside design.

http://www.suburbantype.com/

Microsoft's Courier 'Digital Journal'

"We've been dying to know more about Microsoft's Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We're told Courier will function as a "digital journal," and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed.

As we've heard, the interface appears to be pen-based and centered around drawing and writing, with built-in handwriting recognition and a corresponding web site that allows access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format complete with comments. We're also hearing that there will be a built-in camera, and there's a headphone jack for media playback."

OMG! Awesome! I can't wait to get my hands on one of these, this is what Apple should have come up with, hopefully Microsoft go through with it and all the proposed features. I want one!

EDIT: Microsoft have scrapped the Courier..shed a tear....however parts of it may appear in future offerings.

source: engadget.com

'Alone' - Dan Black

This is some creative vid, and one of many great songs off Dan's latest album 'Un'.

Sydney Tower Skin - Laboratory for Visionary Architecture

"An interesting concept for retrofitting buildings in Sydney has been shared with us thanks to Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA). This innovative plan, which is sustainable and cost effective, is known as “re-skinning”, and can easily be applied to other aging icons around the world. LAVA developed a simple skin for the University of Technology [UTS] Broadway Tower that promises to transform it into a sustainable and stunning building. “The speculative project, ‘Tower Skin’, offers a unique opportunity to transform the identity, sustainability and interior comfort of the once state-of-the-art building,” said Chris Bosse, Australian director of LAVA. 

The three-dimensional lightweight, high performance composite mesh textile acts as a high performance ‘micro climate’. The skin generates energy with photo-voltaic cells, collects rain water, improves day lighting and uses available convective energy to power the towers’ ventilation requirements. Surface tension allows the membrane to freely stretch around walls and roof elements achieving maximum visual impact with minimal material effort. In the evening time, the Tower Skin becomes a dynamic sculpture on Sydney’s skyline, an intelligent media surface, communicating information such as performances and campus events in real time."

The Bund Restaurant - Melbourne

© Photos by Craig Mullins

The Bund Restaurant, designed by myself - Craig Mullins and Nicole Shen, is now open! (however not fully finished, still missing booths, timber feature wall, bronze mirror feature wall, curtains, sharks etc - all the usual things). 206 Bourke St, Melbourne CBD (Chinatown entrance, level 1 behind Dragon Boat). Come and try some delicious shanghainese cuisine, bookings can be made on 9663 0005.

Plaza del Torico - b720 arquitectos

"This projects is the remodeling of a square of 1,798.76 sqm surface and arcades that surround it of 1,047.01 sqm, with the renewal of its pavement with basaltic stone pavers. Under gradient, a gallery of connection between the two tanks, Somero and Fondero, and museum area with a total of 409.56 sqm has been projected. This campaign has sought to improve the flow and public participation through the connection between the two tanks that allows the display Albellón and reuse cistern Somero as space for future exhibitions.

The intervention focuses on the complete renovation of the appearance of the square, its pavement, their porches and facades, following a carefully designed lighting. And assumed, in addition, the recovery for the public of the tanks that are placed under the square, elements of great value and artistic heritage."

Architectural Fashion: Frank Gehry for Gaga

"Gehry designed a hat for Lady Gaga to wear to a benefit at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art. It sounds like the move from buildings to headgear was a little challenging for our favorite Canadian-born starchitect, who drew the initial design for the hat on his iPhone: "Since I've never designed a hat before, I was afraid she wouldn't be able to walk....I did have an idea that involved people with sticks holding it up, walking behind her. I didn't know how far I could go with this thing."

The Guggenheim’s Wright Restaurant

"It would have been easy to design the Guggenheim Museum’s new Wright Restaurant, which opens to the public Friday, exactly as Frank Lloyd Wright himself would have wanted it: among the 400 drawings he made for the 1959 building, a few were devoted to a ground-floor dining space, though not one particularly suited to a contemporary audience. “The layout was very simple, almost monastic, with clusters of tables aligned with the portholes,” said the architect Andre Kikoski, who designed the restaurant. But, as he explained, “it wasn’t conducive to social interaction, and it certainly wasn’t about the integration of art.” Rather than executing Wright’s original sketches, Kikoski turned the space — most recently a generic cafeteria with brown carpeting — into a modern homage to the legendary architect, who designed the museum to harmonize with the artwork within.

But most of Kikoski’s efforts were spent attempting to evoke the movement of the building’s signature ramp — short of making diners seasick, of course — by exaggerating the arced perspective of the room and filling it with highly tactile materials. “The same way you view the art differently from different points in the spiral, what you see from across the space isn’t the same as what you see when you get closer,” he said. The wall behind the Corian bar is lined in fiber-optic wood; the metal bar front has a textured patina; and mesh stretched behind the blue leather banquettes is patterned with a tiny version of Wright’s “primitive initial,” the football-like shape of the rotunda’s columns and fountain, which formed the basis for Kikoski’s floor plan. Wright, whose many utopian fantasies were on view in the Guggenheim’s recent 50th anniversary retrospective, was never shy about embracing the future. It’s nice to see the museum thinks along the same lines."

'1901' + 'Lizstomania ' - Phoenix (Live Street Performances in Paris)

'Alive' Where the Wild Things Are Version - Kid Cudi feat. Ratatat

'Crawl' - Chris Brown

Best song off Chris Brown's new album 'Graffiti', awesome vid directed by Joseph Kahn.

World's tallest living wall takes root in Sydney

"Renowned French botanist, Patrick Blanc, has created the world’s tallest vertical garden at a residential development in Sydney’s inner west. However, the 33-storey north-facing green wall is merely a “practice run” for Blanc’s even bigger installation planned as part of the $2 billion Central Park development at the former Carlton Brewery site on Broadway.

The living artwork, currently installed at Frasers Property’s Trio development in Camperdown, uses 4,528 native Australian plants from 69 different species that are fed by a grey-water, dripper-irrigation system. “You can observe many of these species growing wild on maritime cliffs or along the cliffs and rocky slopes in mountainous areas, making this project a kind of ‘Botanical Vertical Garden’,” Blanc said.

In collaboration with Pritzker prize-winning French architect Jean Nouvel, Blanc will also add vegetal wall panels to two residential towers as part of the Frasers Broadway development. These living walls are set to reach up to 150 metres in height and cover up to 10 times the area of the Trio prototype. Blanc, who is credited with inventing the concept of a vertical garden, told Architecture & Design that he is experimenting with the use of tubes and pyramids that can be entirely clad in plants as part of his work on the Frasers Broadway project.

As well as providing a green aesthetic, vertical gardens can also offer a reduction in energy consumption through thermal insulation, Frasers Property managing director, Dr Stanley Quek, said. “Not only are Patrick’s vertical garden installations captivating, but also by putting these sustainable pieces in cities we are able to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and have them act as a natural air purification system,” Quek said.

The Trio development, which was designed by Fender Katsalidis, gives every apartment a balcony edged with louvered screens that acts as passive sustainable design and gives the building a “dynamic”, ever changing aesthetic, Karl Fender said."

Tim & Jean - The Next Big Thing

"What is it that makes Australian electro duo Tim & Jean so special? That's not meant as a corny opening line for this feature, that's a genuine question. We really want to know what kind of magic potion is running through the water in their hometown of Perth or how many virgins one needs to sacrifice in order to have what they have. With just one song circulating around at the moment, the blissful synth-pop jam Come Around, Tim & Jean have already blown bloggers and industry types away. Indeed, after wowing Australian audiences as part of Triple J radio’s Unearthed competition, the duo has found itself in the middle of a major label bidding war in the US, cementing its buzz as the next big thing set to go supernova in 2010. On Come Around the kids, and yes I do mean kids as the two are just 15 and 18 respectively, show off a surprisingly masterful knack for melding mirror-ball electronics with stomping choruses and irresistible hooks. With more gold like this on the way now's the ideal time to fall for Tim & Jean as you can bet you'll be hearing a lot of them very soon."

source: http://www.thecoolhunter.com.au/

check them out @ http://www.myspace.com/wearetimandjean

Empire of the Sun - Album of the Year @ ARIA's

"For years, Luke Steele has been hailed as the Next Big Thing in Australian music. Last night, the eccentric Perth performer climbed to the pinnacle of Australian music when his band, Empire of the Sun, dominated the 23rd ARIA Awards in Sydney.

Steele and his collaborator Nick Littlemore were the toast of the town when their electro pop duo collected four gongs including Album of the Year, Best Group, Single of the Year and Best Pop Release for its critically acclaimed debut album Walking on a Dream.

These accolades came after the band's success at the recent ARIA Artisan Awards, where it was awarded Best Video, Best Cover Art and Best Producer.

The awards consolidated a big year for the band, which counts Barack Obama and Jay-Z as fans and whose upbeat, sci-fi themed songs have been on high rotation on radio stations."

source: theage.com.au