Surry Hills is city's hot spot of creativity, GPS study reveals.

Surry Hills is a Mecca to Sydney's artists.

That's the preliminary findings of a study that ''tagged'' a group of designers with satellite technology and tracked their movements around Sydney, in an attempt to find out where the people who fuel Sydney's creative economy live, work and play.

Fifteen designers wore small GPS tracking devices, similar to the ones used in cars, for several days, which recorded their location every five seconds.

While the fact that almost everyone in the first group of 15 visited the inner-city artistic hub of Surry Hills will come as little surprise, the study found other areas like the lower north shore or south-west rated strongly, too.

The results, said the head of the study, Wollongong University's Professor Chris Gibson, suggest state and local governments may need to rethink where public galleries, artists' studios and other pieces of ''creative infrastructure'' are located in the future.

''The story that we're getting is that there is a more complex geography to their activities than you might expect,'' he said.

''It tells different councils that they're part of the creative economy … incubating the creative industry should not just be left to the City of Sydney or Marrickville Council.''

Designer Simeon King, who admitted he was probably ''a stereotype'' because he lives in Glebe and works in Surry Hills, was one of the participants in the study. He said he would consider moving further west in Sydney if the cultural activities and spaces were there to support the arts.

''You need to move some of the critical cultural infrastructure out there,'' he said. ''Otherwise there is always going to be this magnetism towards the inner city.''

The findings of the pilot study, called Catch and Release, were presented as part of the Creative Sydney program at the Vivid festival on Saturday.

Urban planner Rod Simpson told the audience former industrial areas such as Surry Hills and Newtown were once natural homes for the creative industries because of their mix of cheap, dense housing, small warehouses and bustling, cosmopolitan main streets.

The Catch and Release project will tag the movements of several other creative industries in the coming months.

Be Content: my favourite piece of local graffiti

Reuben Margolin's kinetic wave sculptures

Kinetic artist Reuben Margolin uses salvaged wood, metal, cardboard, and other recycled materials to create massive mechanical wave sculptures.

... further adventures in Inkscape

Learning Inkscape: day 2

.. I'm much happier with this one, though much more progress to be made.

.. Late night Inkscape doodlings..

Banksy in New York

He is best known for his graffiti art but for his first official New York show, the British artist Banksy has turned his hand to moving figures.

The Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill is set in a faux pet supplies shop, complete with actors playing assistants, and features animatronic fish-fingers swimming lazily around a goldfish bowl, hot dogs frolicking in terrariums, a monkey wearing headphones and watching television and an aged, bald and miserable Tweety swinging back and forth in his cage.




Nuggets features two bite-sized chicken pieces pecking at a single-serving carton of tomato sauce, watched over by mother hen. Big Cats shows what appears to be a leopard resting on a branch in a cage which, on closer inspection, turns out to be an ingeniously arranged fur coat.

Juxtaposed with the animatronic displays are real pet supplies, packages of luncheon meat and odd foodstuffs, such as quail eggs and pork titbits.

The animatronic hot-dogs have reportedly sparked complaints from people unhappy about seeing two hot-dogs performing a sex act. Other passers-by have complained about the lack of space for the caged leopard and monkey.



New York had been buzzing with rumours that the elusive artist was in town, as giant rat murals appeared throughout the city before the show's opening last week. In a written statement, Banksy said: "New Yorkers don't care about art, they care about pets. So I'm exhibiting them instead."



He added: "I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing."

Banksy's graffiti is so valuable that the surfaces on which it is daubed have been removed and the work sold. The actress Angelina Jolie spent £1 million on a work by the artist at a London auction last year. In this show, nothing is for sale and nothing is signed.



The New York Times said: "Banksy's statements, like much of his pranksterish oeuvre, should be taken with a grain of salt. But there's no denying the show's attention to comically pointed detail."

Stephan Ludwig, the chairman of Dreweatts auctioneers in London, thinks Banksy might have moved into sculpture "partly in response to his street work being taken off the streets and sold at auction".



The Village Pet Store is on show at 89 Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York, until October 31. Go to www.thevillagepetstoreandcharcoalgrill.com/

The fantastique visions of Michael 'Pooch' Pucciarelli

Wednesday doodle

Yesterday afternoon we went to see the Michel Gondry flick 'Be Kind Rewind' at Pavillion. While it wasn't anywhere as striking as his previous film 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (which we watched last night actually), it was still really nicely done.

He's quite an experimental director, and it's interesting to see how he accomplishes various special effects in this film with such lo-fi technology.



I posted one of the videos he did for Chemical Brothers yesterday, 'Let Forever Be', check that out.
I might as well post the trailer for 'Eternal Sunshine' while I'm at it.

Here you go:

Chemical Brothers: Let Forever Be

Sci-fi films as Russian Woodcuts

Can you guess these ones?

.. there are more here

.. Nocturnal Architecture ..

.. a short series of photos that I've taken recently while out & about after dark.

These pics were actually captured by my phonecam (a htc touch cruise), and came out better than they appear here, I've distressed them a little in an image editing program.

..hope you like them.

Duck Lamp

Made by artist Sebastian Errazuriz, this creepy, creepy desk lamp is a one off art piece.

I want one.

.. found at ohGizmo!

The art of Adam Bell

I went to university with Adam, great to see that he's still putting out some amazing stuff.

The dark art of David Ho

Hari Raya sand art
in the foyer of our office

...see also wikipedia article on Hari Raya

Ceramic soft-drink cans

I know nothing at all about these, but I found them here.

The Secret History of Video Games: Pac Gentleman

“When this game was first released in 1880 it was so hugely popular in taverns and inns that the bank of England was forced to mint more threepenny bits to keep up with demand. The game was created by messrs Nam & Nam and Co. as a novelty pastime for the masses. Outdoing the previous top public house game of Shove Ha’penny. “

from kidRobot

monkey frog?