Today, photographs are taken from devices in our pockets, then beamed to a worldwide audience in a matter of moments. At the dawn of photography, the equipment was large and cumbersome, developing glass plates to reveal images was an intense process, and color, of course, didn’t exist. To take photos required an expedition of [...]

At this Ted Talk, Ravin Agrawai presents an overview of 10 upcoming contemporary Indian artists. Below is the talk, and more in depth information about each artist.

More about the artists

Bharti Kher at Hauser & Wirth
Alwar Balasubramaniam
Chitra Ganesh
Excerpt from Rabbithole

Jitish Kallat
Perspectives on contemporary art, interview with The Economist

N.S. Harsha
Dhruvi Acharya
Raqib Shah
A group show including the [...]

Back in 1993, people of Inakadate in northern Japan began planting four types of rice in patterns, which when mature, would form huge images when viewed from above.
Here’s a timelapse of several of the paintings growing into place.

Farmers use computer-aided plotting to design images and determine where the different varieties of rice should [...]

Nichitsu was a mining town in Saitama Prefecture, about three hours from Tokyo. At it’s peak in 1965, there were about 3,000 people living there. Now the town is completely abandoned.
Here the Tokyo Times blog posts many Haikyo photographs (廃墟写真, usually meaning photographs of modern ruins) of the ghost town.

To the Doctor’s Office
A [...]

In live sand animation, sand is lit from underneath using a lightbox and manipulated by an artist in real time to create images. This performance can be projected for a live audience or filmed.
Many commercials have been popping up lately which use sand animation. Who are these artists? There are four well-known [...]

In this post I pondered whether dolphins blowing bubble rings were a form of art.  After all they serve no purpose except aesthetic ones – the dolphins are having fun and stare at them.  So now we have this video of an elephant painting a self portrait.
Whether methodically trained to do this or not, how is it [...]

In Bethlehem, artists from all over the world, including local artists, have been making art on the barrier wall separating Israel and Palestine.
Video from the BBC:

Read more from
The Washington Times
National Public Radio

Collaged photographs form a kaleidoscope of beautiful patterns.
Visit his blog: Pallalink.net
A story from Wired

In the past when I’ve thought about moving to a new place, some cities don’t quite fit me because they aren’t eroded enough. I’m drawn to erosion for some reason, it’s like seeing all of history inside an object or scene. David Lynch said it better – “When you see an aging building [...]

When you do your own work, it’s your own point of view. It’s how you see the world, your own perspective on things reflected in the artwork. But with advertising or marketing, you’re helping other people get their points of view across. You’re just an interpreter.
To me, that’s the fundamental difference between designers and artists. [...]

The current issue of Wired is all about manga – how the industry works and how it conquered America.
Two stories:

(pdf) How Manga Conquered the U.S., a Graphic Guide to Japan’s Coolest Export, the story of Manga in the US told using Manga.
Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex

Read some manga and learn how to draw [...]

I’ve seen similar things, but nothing as insanely complex as this… what I can only describe as Performance Animation. From South Korea:

Inside Japan (a bit like Berlin), there aren’t really serious art collectors. Inside Japan, people like Murakami and Nara make their money by doing corporate identity (Vuitton, Roppongi Hills) or mass-producing souvenirs… Art is collapsed into the mass market. Galleries are often in department stores, and often show what we’d think of as commercial work; [...]

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese this year. I’m making progress but it’s definitely slow. While I took Spanish in high school, my brain didn’t shift the way it is now. As I started to write and learn these brand new characters, I started noticing all the things I take for granted, [...]

Each scene rolls on quietly with poetic light and ambient sounds, with the few words spoken coming from the Iraqi people themselves. Each of the three parts of the film focus on one person, and simply shows what they see and hear, as their voices sparsely speak about their lives. The first person [...]