Short film: The Black Hole

Award-winning short film with clever CGI. Very dark and twisty.

Epic frozen cops and robbers scene

Just rediscovered this gem. Astonishing CGI, atmospheric SFX, very clever plot twist. Watch it, watch it now.

Amazing water/ink drawings with a powerful message

Water ink _ BDDP Unlimited and Solidarités International - UK from BDDP Unlimited on Vimeo.

Secret Diary of a Call Girl

*Cough* lose all cutesy preconceptions of Piper as Rose Tyler.

All right, all right. This one's a bit of a guilty pleasure. But Secret Diary of a Call Girl is one my all-time favourite TV programmes. Starring Billie Piper, the series follows the exciting escapades of a London call girl known as Hannah by day, and Belle by night.

It's clever, sexy, sarcastic and actually not as fictitious as you might think, because believe it or not it's based on a true story. Dr. Brooke Magnanti, the real Belle de Jour who revealed herself to the press in 2009, wrote the two autobiographical books that inspired the television series.

Contrary to the vicious slighting the show got for 'glamorising' prostitution, I feel that this interview between Piper and Magnanti really clears things up. Both of them call themselves feminists and have some interesting counter-arguments. Go girls! More power to ya!

You can watch all four series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl here, and you can check out Brooke Magnanti's blog here.

Satirical Illustrations

Saw a bunch of satirical illustrations over on Demilked and decided to post some here - they're just ingenious. Go check out more here.

Time-lapse Landscapes/Skies

Here are a couple of breathtaking, high-definition time-lapse shorts. Watch at 4am with Rainy Mood and/or an Alan Watts / Carl Segan talk in the background and you've got one indulgently philosophical evening on your hands. Prepare yourself for an existential crisis.


The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.


Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Demilked

"Demilked is a design milking magazine. We milk the world's most creative minds and make you tasty inspiration cocktails by mixing industrial design, technology, concepts, advertising and a little bit of web design. Don't be afraid to take a sip - the drinks are on us!"

Demilked.com is absolutely brilliant. Whereas with many art and design blogs you have to tediously trawl through long catalogues of unoriginal, uninteresting content to get to the juicy bits, Demilked is chock-full of intelligent, pristine, aesthetically pleasing designs, concepts and products as well as snapshots of artists' work. Here are just a few of my recent finds:

   

Carved book landscapes by Guy Laramee

Mesmerising gourd lamps by Calabarte

Amazing book waterfall sculptures by Alicia Martin

Non-classical portraits of classical musicians

20,000 flowers installed at an abandoned mental institution by Anna Shuleit

Underwater ink photography by Alberto Seveso

Video Art: Echo, Dynamic Blooms, Forest

Here are some of the latest pieces of video art I've found, this time focussing on bodies and metamorphosis...


Echo from bart hess on Vimeo


Dynamic Blooms from Tell No One on Vimeo


Forest from Tell No One on Vimeo.

Animation: Topo Glassato Al Cioccolato (Frosted Chocolate Mouse)

Here's some really sinister animation I found over on Vimeo. Incredibly dark but very beautiful stuff. Something I admire about these kind of animated sketches is that there are no boundaries - a human being can suddenly explode into ten or so hummingbirds. Limitless fun with metamorphosis.


TOPO GLASSATO AL CIOCCOLATO by milkyeyes (shortfilm) from MILKYEYES - donato sansone on Vimeo.

Somebody That I Used to Know (Gotye) cover

Everyone's heard Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know, right? And everyone's heard that amazing cover by Walk Off the Earth with five people playing one guitar? I didn't think any Gotye cover would be able to compete with that, but look what this guy's done...



Pretty freaking sweet, no? This man is beautiful. Check out his YouTube channel.