The Empire of Light, René Magritte, 1953

False Mirror (1928), René Magritte, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Serge Gainsbourg - L'Anamour

L'anamour de Serge gainsbourg
Aucun Boeing sur mon transit
Aucun bateau sur mon transat
Je cherche en vain la porte exacte
Je cherche en vain le mot exit
Je chante pour les transistors
Ce récit de l'étrange histoire
De tes anamours transitoires
De Belle au Bois Dormant qui dort
Je t'aime et je crains
De m'égarer
Et je sème des grains
De pavot sur les pavés
De l'anamour
Tu sais ces photos de de l'Asie
Que j'ai prises à deux cents Asa
Maintenant que tu n'es pas là
Leurs couleurs vives ont pâli
J'ai cru entendre les hélices
D'un quadrimoteur mais hélas
C'est un ventilateur qui passe
Au ciel du poste de police
Je t'aime et je crains
De m'égarer
Et je sème des grains
De pavot sur les pavés
De l'anamour
Je t'aime et je crains
De m'égarer
Et je sème des grains
De pavot sur les pavés
De l'anamour

La leçon particulière - Scène de ski

La leçon particulière - Scène de conduite Miura

Teenage student Olivier (Verley) meets 25 year-old Frédérique (Delon), wife of race car driver Enrico (Hossein), and start an affair. But guilt and doubt storm over Olivier's mind.

Film release ... 1968
Michel Boisrond ... Director
Nathalie Delon ... Frederique Dampierre
Renaud Verley... Olivier Fermond
Robert Hossein... Enrico Fontana
Bernard Le Coq... Jean-Pierre
Katia Christine... Christine
Martine Sarcey... The Mother
Nicole Desailly... La concierge Car : Lamborghini miura

Tout Ma Vie (The Story of My Life) The Best Short Film Ever

Alessandra is walking in the city when she is hailed by a man she doesn't recognize. Even though he keeps telling her about important moments of her life, his face remains totally unknown to her...

Tout Ma Vie, Short film, 6 minutes, 35mm
Directed by Pierre Ferriere
Caterina Murino
Vincent Desagnat

Breathtaking photos of Liliroze

 

Breathtaking photos of www.liliroze.com [thx @StellaPrime] /via @lascasartoris

Something beyond sexy - Photographs of Liliroze

Carla Bley - Lawns (from the album Sextet 1986)

Jennifer Steinkamp, Mike Kelley, 2007, multimedia installation, courtesy

Animated tree by Jennifer Steinkamp. This mesmerizing tree twists and sways in an undetected wind as it grows and sheds leaves and flowers

Freud's intimate portrait of his friend Bacon sold for £5.4m

A rarely seen oil portrait of the artist Francis Bacon, painted by his friend Lucian Freud, has been sold for £5.4m. The work, which offers an intimate glimpse into the collaborative friendship of two giants of post-war art, is one of only two oil portraits of Bacon painted by Freud and the last remaining: the second was stolen from an exhibition in Berlin in 1988.

The portrait, estimated to sell for between £5m to £7m at Christie's auction house in London, was painted in 1956 and shows the artist with a downward gaze. Bacon, who sat knee-to-knee with Freud while he worked on the painting, is said to have "grumbled but sat consistently" during the first six months of sitting, according to Christie's. It is thought Bacon left suddenly, most likely to pursue his lover, Peter Lacy, in Tangiers.

Although it remained unfinished, art critics agree it offers a snapshot into the working methods of the younger artist at a critical point of his development; Freud had begun to work in a more expansive way, using thicker brushstrokes, liberating the paint and creating a more worked complexion, more seasoned and full of life.

The portrait was part of Christie's sale of post-war and contemporary art and it was sold for £5.4 million.

Graham Sutherland, a mutual friend and artist, introduced Freud to Bacon in 1945, inviting them to his house. They formed a close friendship and saw much of one another in the following years.

Bacon had a great influence on the younger Freud and is often credited with liberating his style and fuelling his desire to depict human life. In the early 1950s, the artists sat for each other; Bacon's first portrait of Freud came in 1951, and many others followed. Freud painted Bacon just twice.

Source: The Independent, via Arifa Akbar, arts correspondent, Monday, 20 October 2008

A self-portrait of Lucian Freud sold for £2,841,250 (U$ 4 million) - Sotheby's

A self-portrait of Lucian Freud nursing a black eye after a punch-up with a taxi driver sold for more than £2.8 million. Sotheby's described the rediscovered oil on canvas Self-Portrait With A Black Eye, painted in 1978, as 'the artist's most important self-depiction ever to appear at auction'. The auctioneer revealed the painting sold for £2,841,250. (U$4 million) This was under the estimate of £3 million to £4 million.

In the picture, Freud, aged almost 60 at the time, is shown sporting a swollen left eye, as the result of a row between the artist and a taxi driver, during which Freud was struck in the face.

Francis Bacon’s Study of Nude with Figure in a Mirror

Francis Bacon’s Study of Nude with Figure in a Mirror, 1969, a rare full-length portrait of the artist’s close friend Henrietta Moraes, which achieved Ј19,956,500 ($39,779,291) selling to a European private collector bidding on the telephone. This remarkable price follows last year’s record $52,680,000 (Ј26,581,895) for the artist at auction, achieved for Study From Innocent X at Sotheby’s New York in May 2007.

Soft Machine (with Allan Holdsworth) Montreal Jazz Festival 1974

SOFT MACHINE - Montreal Jazz Festival 1974

New Cayenne Explored

Porsche have always developed vehicles that can cover different types of terrain quickly. This is no more apparent than with the new Porsche Cayenne. Watch the latest Cayenne S and 500 bhp Cayenne Turbo put through their paces both on track and through a variety of extreme terrain courses at the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone.

Find out more at http://www.porsche.co.uk/experience

Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria

The Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria, also known as the Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument, is a large monument built on a plateau above the city of Shumen, Bulgaria. It was built in 1981 to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of the First Bulgarian Empire.

The monument is built in concrete in a Cubist style. It is reached by a processional concrete stairway from Shumen, or by road. It stands at a height of 450 m above sea level and can be seen from 30 km away.

Mahler Symphony No. 5, 4th Movement: Adagietto

Symphony No. 5 4th Movement:  "Adagietto. F major"

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Vienna Philharmonic






"I only wish this video could have been put in a single partition".


[Source] YouTube

YouTube Users Comments:

billyguns2 (2 weeks ago)
I think this is one of the greatest things ever conceived by the mind of man.

katalindre (2 months ago)
Wow.

cutebirdies (3 months ago)
I wonder if the people there knew how special was the concert they were hearing.

CkRo (3 months ago)
Can't listen to this beauty enough, especially with the beloved Lenny.

cutebirdies (3 months ago)
Extraordinary.... Agreed that the orchestral sound is bar none. And Bernstein has the orchestra following every gesture he makes as he crafts this sculpture of sound.

janainaclemon (3 months ago)
Talvez a mais conhecida sinfonia Mahleriana... sempre que escuto lembro do Luchino Visconti em Morte em Veneza.

SEMPRELISZT (4 months ago)
Such a pleasure to see this! This orchestra is out of this world, It's so inspiring to see how Bernstein lives the music at its fullest.

rhumbagirl0912 (5 months ago)
I love this piece of music. Thank You for posting. Simply Beautiful!!!!

berto41 (6 months ago)
Simply sublime. Bravo, Lenny.

FungoBoy (6 months ago)
3:38 lenny filling in for the missing bass drum part =D

MingusDisciple (7 months ago)
how about that cello tone! WOWOWOWOW

learningtobreathe94 (8 months ago)
this piece is amazingly beautiful and it brings tears to my eyes everytime i hear it. thanks so much for posting =)

MUST-HAVE Gadgets for Frequent Flyers

If you're a frequent flyer who spends substantial amounts of time at 35,000 feet above mean sea level. it's easy to justify few luxuries to make the experience more bearable.

These are some of my favorite gadgets that have eased the travel burden of my numerous hours in flight.

Noise Cancelling Headphones

Until I tried a set, I deemed noise-cancelling headphones a waste of money. Once you have actually listened to your favorite collection of MP3 music free of unwanted ambient sounds from the engine noise or inside of the aircraft cabine, you will change your mind. Engine noise is reduced to a mere background hum, making sleep on those long haul or red-eye flights seem possible. This is the gadget that separates frequent flyers from the in-frequent flyers.

My favorite is the Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Canceling Headphones. They run on two AAA batteries, folds into a small pouch for storage, and sells for approximately $350 on the retailer.

Dual time watch 

If you travel across time zones, keep your home and away time on your wrist with a dual time wristwatch. Watches retail from $20 to thousands. I personally own a Jaeger le Coultre's Reverso Grande GMT and cherish it. You can flip its case front and back. On the front it features a small seconds hand, a large date and a day/night display. The hours and minutes of a second time zone are displayed on the back, along with a 24-hour indication, an 8-day power-reserve and the GMT time difference. (Picture shown the back of the watch)

Unlocked GSM Cell Phone

An unlocked GSM cell phone is gold for the international frequent flyer. Most cell phones sold by US carriers
are locked to their networks, which means you need to activate global roaming with that carrier to make phone
calls overseas. Global roaming rates are expensive. For the frequent international traveler, it may be prudent to purchase an unlocked handset and use a local SIM at your destination, avoiding global roaming charges altogether.

The advantage is clear—cheaper calls—many international countries charge only for calls you make, not incoming calls, but there is also one big disadvantage.

iPhone / iPodTouch

If you can purchase a unlocked iPhone you can find it absolutely versatile for your travels, which you can not only use a local SIM at your destionation as a local communication device but can you do a lot of things as well. Apple's venerable i Phone comes with tons of goodies and fun applications that will make your in-flight travels rather enjoyable. Oh, by the way, with a unlocked iPhone, you can easily keep up with your Twit friends real time anywhere you are. Needless to speak, i Phone / i Pod offers the best MP3 player features in the market. Coupling with the Noise Cancelling Headphone, you will find it inseparable for your in-flight travels.

Netbook / iPad

In the close confines of the coach cabin, you will want a small laptop if you intend to work on your flight. if you're concerned about prying eyes invest in a privacy screen. Even if you chose not to work on your flight, nothing passes time more quickly at 35,000 feet than your own entertainment options.

Every frequent flyer can not avoid travel connection flight especially when you are a frequent international flyer.
Unless you have a way to call out for chartered private jets, it is inevitable to spend sometime at the terminal waiting for your connecting flight to get ready to board you. Any one of the items above will make a frequent flyers life more pleasant. Newly released iPad  and Kindle offer eBook feature, which adds reading as a new option for your in-flight entertainment, unless you want to abide by your conventional paper back.

So next time the connection flight lay-over incurres or dreaded "canceled" or "delayed" flashes against your flight number, take your noise cancelling headphones, plug them into your iPhone, iPod, iPad or wifi enabled netbook, then watch the delayed hours pass quickly by (in two time zones) while catching up on your favorite movies, reading your choice of book among wide variety of e-book titles or listening to your iTune collection of MP3.



Followings are additional items I would like to add to the set of Frequent Flyers' Gadgets.

- Skype Headset or VoIP handset (Some place it is the "MUST")
- Extended Battery Pack for your iPhone/iPod Touch : Richard Solo offers a pocket-sized solution to top up your iPhone/iPod Touch, BlackBerry or Palm under $100.
- Your Beloved Laptop Computer (with the photo of your loved ones set as desktop background)

The worst crash ever: 24 Hours of Le Mans 1955

In the early days of racing, safety wasn't a top concern. The technology protecting both the spectator and the driver was minimal, and was considered part of the exhilarating experience of racing. Today things have changed, and we understand the proper way to build safety barriers and tracks so the audience isn't in harms way. The following footage is considered the worst crash ever, and took place during the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1955. Driver Pierre Levegh lost control of his car into the crowd, killing himself and 84 spectators. One hundred additional injuries were reported, making this the worst accident ever reported in motorsports history.



The 1955 Le Mans disaster all started with the typical manufacturer battle. Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Aston Martin, and Maserati were all battling for the poll position for a total of two hours before the accident occurred. Levegh's Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR was following the leading Jaguar D-type along the pit straights. The Jaguar had just passed a much slower Austin-Healey 100 and decided to slow down for a pit stop. Due to the Jaguar's superb disc braking system, it stopped much quicker than the competition's drum brakes. The recently passed Austin-Healey was forced to swerve to center track without paying attention to the location and trajectory of opposing vehicles. This is when disaster struck.

Pierre's Mercedes-Benz simply was not equipped to react quick enough to the proverbial circumstance presented. Hitting the sloped rear of the Austin-Healey, the Mercedes-Benz went airborne. Flying towards the left side of the track, it struck the earth barrier that is supposed to protect the audience. However, this barrier was not properly built to handle the speed and angle presented by the flying Mercedes-Benz. The barrier then became a ramp, of which sent the flying mass of rubble into the audience creating the worst accident crash ever recorded in motorsports history.

Loose parts were sent flying towards the audience like shrapnel from a IED. The hood, axle, and engine block flew into the crowd killing dozens and injuring many. Pierre was also thrown from the car and died upon impact. But wait, it's not over yet! Next the fuel tank exploded and the heat created turned the magnesium body panels into bursting white hot metal particles into the crowd. Because of the burning magnesium, water was not capable of putting out the fire and only encouraged the inferno for several hours thereafter. The result of this chaos was the withdrawal of Mercedes-Benz from such events until the 1980's.

This horrible catastrophe could have been prevented by Le Mans imposing more strict vehicle and safety requirements. To start with, all vehicles should require the use of the same braking system. Had all vehicles been disc or drum, this would have never occurred. Second, they should have known magnesium's properties and banned the use of this light weight metal despite it's speedy properties. Finally, the audience should have been situated in such a place as to avoid disaster, no matter the trajectory or speed. The barriers used should have been more wall like instead of just a pile of dirt. These were the days of early racing, and just like everything else we only learn from mistakes.

[Source] March 16, 8:50 PMTampa Sports Car ExaminerMichael Berenis

Google Goggle - Visual Search Application for Android

Google Goggles is a visual search app. Instead of using words, take a picture of an object with your camera phone: the application attempts to recognize the object, and return relevant search results. Goggles can also recognize English, French, Italian, German and Spanish words and allow you to translate to other languages.

Apple: 2 Million iPads Sold in 60 Days

It’s official: Apple’s iPad is definitely not a flop. The company announced that just 60 days after its release, more than two million iPads have been sold.

These numbers got a boost from the international release of the iPad this weekend. In the U.S., Apple stores remain sold out and customers have had trouble getting their hands on one of the coveted tablets.

Here’s the full press release, via Apple. Uses of the word “magic” included in the text? Two.

__________

CUPERTINO, California—May 31, 2010—Apple® today announced that iPad™ sales have topped two million in less than 60 days since its launch on April 3. Apple began shipping iPad in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK this past weekend. iPad will be available in nine more countries in July and additional countries later this year.

“Customers around the world are experiencing the magic of iPad, and seem to be loving it as much as we do,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We appreciate their patience, and are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.”

iPad allows users to connect with their apps, content and the Internet in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is 0.5 inches thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Developers have created over 5,000 exciting new apps for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch user interface, large screen and high-quality graphics. iPad will run almost all of the more than 200,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

[Source]  Dan Fletcher, Time News Feed

Bill Gates Praising Apple Computers; Steve Jobs Burning Microsoft

Bill Gates Told Steve Jobs About the iPad in 2007

Steve Jobs next to him: An iPad-like device being used alongside an iPhone-like device. Then watch Jobs saying that, actually, the future was the PC.

First, Bill Gates' idea of the future of computing:

I don't think you'll have one device. I think you'll have a full-screen device that you can carry around and you'll do dramatically more reading off of that... yeah, I mean, I believe in the tablet form factor [...] You'll have some way of having a hardware keyboard and some settings for that. And then you'll have the device that fits in your pocket, which the whole notion of how much function should you combine in there, you know, there's navigation computers, there's media, there's phone.

Nowadays, Steve Jobs agrees with this vision. He thinks that the iPad is the future and the traditional PC is dying. Like he told Ryan Tate: "The times are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away."

Back in 2007, however, he believed otherwise:

It will be the PC, maybe used a little more tightly coupled with some back-end Internet services and some things like that. And, of course, PCs are going mobile in an ever greater degree. So I think the PC is going to continue. This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it's a tablet or a notebook or, you know, a big curved desktop that you have at your house or whatever it might be. So I think that'll be something that most people have, at least in this society. In others, maybe not, but certainly in this one. But then there's an explosion that's starting to happen in what you call post-PC devices, right? You can call the iPod one of them. There's a lot of things that are not. … I think there's just a category of devices that aren't as general purpose, that are really more focused on specific functions, whether they're phones or iPods or Zunes or what have you. And I think that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative and we're going to see lots of them.

In a way, you can argue that the iPad and the iPhone are personal computers. PCs evolved into different form factors, with different UI paradigms. But that's not what Steve Jobs meant back then. To the question about what device will be the future of computing, Jobs clearly answers "it will be the PC, maybe used a little more tightly coupled with some back-end Internet services and some things like that." It's not surprising. Back then, he was always repeating the same message: The PC as the digital hub, the center of our digital lives, with specialized devices like the iPod orbiting around it. That was Apple's marketing message at the time.

Only a few months later, the iPhone changed that vision. And the iPhone or the iPad are anything but specialized devices around the PC. They have a life on their own. They are general purpose computing devices in a phone and tablet format. Jobs later pointed this out:

We're getting to the point where everything's a computer in a different form factor. So what, right? So what if it's built with a computer inside it? It doesn't matter. It's, what is it? How do you use it? You know, how does the consumer approach it? And so who cares what's inside it anymore

That's true. But it's funny to see that, back then, Bill Gates was the one truly believing in a future beyond the PC, while Jobs was still playing the "PC as the digital hub" tune. I wonder if the latter ever anticipated the iPhone effect. If only I had a time machine. I could go back to 2007 and send him an email asking him about it.

An email sent from my iPad. [Thanks Daniel Smith!]

[Source] Jesus Diaz, GIZMODO

Future iPhones could identify users by heartbeat

Biometrics still absent from real Apple products

A newly-published Apple patent application proposes identifying iPhone users by their heartbeat, rather than by more conventional means like a passcode. The filing, Seamlessly Embedded Heart Rate Monitor, describes a system of leads that could be built into an iPhone, and register EKG data collected from a person's hand. Specific traits of a heartbeat can be used to tell people apart, Apple notes.

"For example," one section reads, "the durations of particular portions of a user's heart rhythm, or the relative size of peaks of a user's electrocardiogram (EKG) can be processed and compared to a stored profile to authenticate a user of the device."

The leads would have to be connected to a conductive part of an iPhone, most likely the bezel, although a metal back could serve a similar purpose. As people's heartbeats can naturally vary based on circumstance, Apple proposes sampling heartbeats at different times to increase accuracy. These variations could in fact be used to choose music according to mood, or the demands of a workout. Angry listeners could be fed ambient music, for instance, while people at the peak of a workout could be given trance to push them harder.

An iPhone could also register heart data through a headset sensor, though this would be for purposes like exercise, not identification. Apple has shown regular interest in biometrics, but it has yet to implement the concept in any of its Macs or handhelds. That could change with the next-generation iPhone, the prototype of which has a front-facing camera. Such a camera could be used to scan the faces of people trying to use a device.

[Source] Thu May 6, 2010 MACNN

The Android Achilles Heel

The Android Operating system is quickly becoming a very popular platform of choice for smartphones… with literally millions flocking to devices built upon it. In fact, research firm Gartner has predicted that 75 million Android phones will be sold in 2012, making it the second most popular mobile OS in the world.

Add to that, Android is an open source solution, free for manufacturers to use on a slew of constantly refreshing lineup of handsets, and it would seem that the Android movement is unstoppable. And, in many ways, that is true. But underneath it all there is a problem.

The Problem Of Excessive Choice

What is this problem, you ask? Well, the problem is what would at first seem a good thing – choice. The end consumer is free to choose which Android phone they want and what software source they want. The smartphone manufacturer is free to choose what flavor of Android they want to implement, and even what hardware specs they use. The choices are practically endless. And we have been taught that choice is good. But therein lies the problem. Let’s explore this.

Android Flood

If all the phone manufacturers have equal access to the Android OS, then how are they going to make their wares stand out in a crowded marketplace? Simple – they are going to tweak it, with either hardware refinements, operating system supplements, or both. The highly competitive market almost guarantees this to happen. In fact, more than one smartphone developer is seemingly competing against itself with the latest and greatest Android model.

Let’s just stop for a moment and consider the offerings from HTC. Fresh from their website I found five Android smartphone choices: Droid Incredible, Droid Eris, HTC Hero, MyTouch 3G, and the G1. If I were to choose, I would go with the Incredible. But until very recently I would have jumped on the Hero. What if i had done so? Then I, my friends, would have envy. Hardware envy. I would want the bigger screen with more pixels, and the nicer camera is definitely on my envy list. But as soon as I buy the Incredible, I just know that the Ultimate is around the corner. And this leads to an interesting conclusion.

Hardware Envy

That conclusion? Android is fostering Hardware Envy as a way of life. The G1 buyers wanted the Hero, the Hero users want the Incredible, and so on. And that’s just from a single source – add in the other manufacturers and it gets wacky. It’s extremely easy for the average consumer to get lost when trying to make the best purchasing decision. And the contracts in place from the carriers don’t help, so hardware envy may be yours for a while.

Maybe we can look at it like this – imagine a hundred buffet restaurants on the strip, but you don’t know what they have on the bar. Sure any one may have something good to eat, but later when you meet friends and they talk about how wonderful the Lobster Bisque was at their choice, well, the meatloaf just won’t cut it. Too bad you agreed to eat at your restaurant for the next couple of years. In fact, the next time around you may just go to the burger joint and avoid it all.

Paradox of Choice

We’ve touched upon how consumers may be lost when it comes to making the right Android choice. In fact, a lot of research has shown that, on average, consumers don’t always do so well with a lot of choices. Barry Schwartz, in his 2004 book, The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less, argues that reducing consumer choices can ease consumer buying anxieties. As Barry writes:

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.
—Ch.5, “The Paradox of Choice”, 2004

It would therefore suggest that by reducing the choices and easing the consumer anxiety would lead to more sales. As an example, consider the iPhone user that has been carrying the single flagship product the entire time that the Android model shuffle has been taking place. It is easy to see how customer satisfaction can remain high when you remove the hardware envy, and this satisfaction can drive other sales in the long term. You end up with customer loyalty instead of the drive-bys, if you will.

Wireless Carrier Impact

Even if you step back and say that the Android self-competition is fueling innovation in the mobile market, with which I would tend to agree, the agreements with wireless carriers are at best incompatible with the concept. Once the consumer buys a particular Android phone, they are locked into a contract with that carrier (and perhaps rightfully so, since the carrier subsidizes the phone). That means when the next Android model hits, the consumer may or may not even have access to an upgrade unless they pay to break their contract.

The smartphone maker, if they do want to update their device lineup, has to work with the carriers to determine who gets which device. The drive for each manufacturer to shine in the market creates a short device turnover period, and this is in contrast to wireless carrier contracts. The end result is that each new Android phone “style”, if you will, needs to be tweaked for each carrier. This creates even more choices that confuse the consumer. The different carrier policies can even make the same phone have different capabilities, making it difficult for developers to count on a given feature.

Developer Quandary

Having Android across millions of phones would seem like a great thing for a given developer. That is a lot of potential customers, and to a large degree that is true. However, for each “tweak” by a given handset manufacturer you have a potential incompatibility that will prevent your app from working as intended. The developer needs to test, test, test – losing valuable time and complicating delivery.

Beyond just potential incompatibilities, new features must be taken advantage of if you want your app to be popular. For example, consider the HTC Hero and the HTC Incredible. If you had written a really cool game for the 320 x 480 Hero, and looked forward to it be being popular on Android devices for a while, then the Incredible’s 400 x 800 screen is going to present a problem. At best, it is not going to look as good as new apps. At worse, it will not run at all.

In the meanwhile, the iPhone version works with all iPhones to date without a hitch, including the iPod touch. In the time you have tested with all of the major flavors of Android, crated specific media to take advantage of the different screens, and verified that the feature set from each carrier encompasses what you are using, the iPhone developer has created multiple titles. The Android aspect of choice has made the developer’s job more complicated.

History Repeats Itself

The Android Mobile OS is not the first OS to have this problem. Consider the Windows Mobile platform. While not free, WinMo was sold to the manufacturer, which then was free to tweak as desired (see the similarities?). The end result was a plethora of devices that sported 12+ different screen configurations and varying hardware. Developers were forced to pick and choose what they would support, and quality software lagged.

Despite having an immense lead in the mobile market and brand recognition with the world’s most popular desktop operating system, Windows Mobile has fallen far from where it logically should be. You would probably not be surprised to find that a lot of iPhone developers cut their mobile teeth on Windows Mobile, but have no interest in going back after the simplified mechanics of the iPhone and its AppStore – Apple frustrations included.

Even the fact that Android is open source could lead to its open choices being a downfall. Anyone remember J2ME? The open source mobile platform splintered among development efforts, and its promise is now all but forgotten. While Windows Mobile avoided that due to Microsoft’s control, Android, being open source, is in actual danger of this as time progresses.

As we know, Android is a flexible open source mobile operating system that is spreading like wildfire across the smartphone market. However, without some kind of standards and control, we may find that a few years down the road we will be looking back at the dominating mobile OS that almost was. And that would be a tragedy.

Porsche Turbo Exclusive First Drive by Inside Line

Opera: The Smallest and Fastest Browser

The Opera browser is the smallest and fastest browser in the world!

Opera started out as a research project in Norway's telecom company, Telenor, in 1994, and branched out into an independent development company named Opera Software ASA in 1995.

Opera Software ASA has redefined Web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices.

Opera's cross-platform Web browser technology is known for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience.

Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA.

Opera supports all major Web standards in use, such as CSS, HTML, XHTML, HTTP, DOM, XML, XSL, ECMAScript (JavaScript), PNG, WML, SVG, Unicode, the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm, and more.



Download Opera from opera.com

Apple iPad to be used as sales tool by Mercedes-Benz dealers

The resounding successes of the iPhone and iPad have Apple shareholders dancing in the streets, but one area in which Apple hasn't been as successful, however, has been business applications. In fact, until recently, Apple retail stores used Windows-based devices to ring up orders. Now, Mercedes-Benz aims to be among the first companies to change that paradigm by bringing the popular iPad tablet into its showrooms.

The program, called Mercedes-Benz Advantage, puts the iPad into the hands of the automaker's sales force. With the iPad and Mercedes' new sales tool app, associates will have lightning-fast access to the latest deals, while also providing a quicker turnaround time for customer credit application processes. Benz also says the iPad will help speed up the time it takes to turn-in a leased vehicle. Andreas Hinrichs, Vice President of Marketing for Mercedes-Benz Financial, contends the Apple tablet will "provide a competitive advantage to our dealers by increasing their service levels through a more flexible financing process."

We dig that Mercedes is thinking outside the box to deliver an expedited shopping experience, but even better, we love the fact that the Apple iPad might help customers avoid the dreaded trip to dealership's finance room. Hit the jump to read over the press release.

[Source: Mercedes-Benz]

McLaren boss calls Veyron "junk," claims Top Gear race with F1 staged

When you've been responsible for as many Formula One World Championships and devastatingly fast supercars – including the new McLaren MP4-12C (pictured above) – as Ron Dennis, you're entitled to speak your mind... and for others to listen up. The executive chairman and part owner of the McLaren Group, Dennis has earned a reputation for his outspoken opinion, and this time directed his criticism toward the venerable Bugatti Veyron.

In a recent interview, Dennis characterized the Veyron as a "piece of junk" and "pig ugly". Why don't you tell us how you really feel, Ron?

The speed guru went on to allege that the race staged by Top Gear between the Veyron and McLaren's own venerable F1 supercar on the streets of Abu Dhabi was exactly that... staged. According to Dennis, the McLaren had the Bugatti handily beat on every run, and that the video footage was edited to make it seem like the Veyron was the quicker of the two. Check it out after the jump and decide for yourself.

Source: Wheels24.co.za

 

Acquistion: Letter to the World (The Kick)

Warhol, Andy (American, 1928-1987)
Letter to the World, (The Kick) (Martha Graham) (Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann #389) 1986
Serigraph printed in colors on Lenox Museum Board (36 x 36 inches)

Published by Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance Inc., New York to commemorate the 60th anniversary, with the Rupert Jasen Smith Pencil signed and numbered HC 1/10 on the reverse (Â signed and numbered in pencil on the reverse.

Printed by Rupert jason Smith, NY
Framed in black wood measuring 50 x 50 inches

Estimate $15,000 - $25,000
Acquired for $12,500

MoMA owns up to Warhol rejection letter from 1956

Culture Monster has reported on many art museums and we know firsthand just how humorless they can be. (No, we will not name names.)

So we take our hats off today to New York's Museum of Modern Art for its ability to have a chuckle at its own expense. The institution has tweeted a recent blog post featuring a rejection letter that the museum sent to Andy Warhol in 1956.

In the letter, the museum notifies Warhol that its collections committee has decided to turn down the drawing "Shoe," which the artist had offered as a gift.

"I regret that I must report to you that the Committee decided, after careful consideration, that they ought not to accept it for our Collection," wrote the museum's Alfred H. Barr Jr.

"Let me explain that because of our severely limited gallery and storage space we must turn down many gifts offered, since we feel it is not fair to accept as a gift a work which may be shown only infrequently."

At the bottom of the correspondence is a postscript: "P.S. The drawing may be picked up from the Museum at your convenience."

Needless to say, it was an extremely poor decision in retrospect. The artwork, which the museum would have acquired for free, would probably be worth thousands of dollars today.

So how exactly did this 53-year-old letter come to circulate online? A spokeswoman for MoMA told Culture Monster today that the "letter has been out for years."


A few phone calls reveal that the letter is part of the archives at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, according to the Andy Warhol Foundation. The letter is dated Oct. 18, 1956, and is addressed to Warhol at 242 Lexington Ave., New York.

The correspondence has been posted on various blogs and is reproduced in the 2002 volume "Andy Warhol Pop Box: Fame, the Factory and the Father of American Pop Art," which is published by Chronicle Books and the Andy Warhol Museum.

Apparently, Twitter makes everything new again -- at least for a few minutes, which no doubt would have pleased Warhol.

-- David Ng

Culture Monster October 29, 2009 | 2:42 pm

Monica Bellucci se pose à Deauville

Monica Belluci arriving Deauville Hotel by chopper before a photographers and press.

Rothko in Tate Modern

Tate Modern's Rothko exhibition is a great show, and I say that as someone who is not much drawn to the artist, and especially not to the aura of religiosity that hangs over his work. Rothko was a painter, not a religion, and the curator, Achim Borchardt-Hume, has made an effort to rescue Rothko from his fans - even, perhaps, from himself.

At the heart of the exhibition is a large selection from the cycle of paintings originally commissioned as murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, in Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson's 1957 Seagram building on Park Avenue. In 1958, Rothko hired a studio in which he could duplicate the proportions of the restaurant. But instead of committing himself to a specific suite of canvases, he made more than 30 large works of varying sizes. Eventually he pulled out of the commission, and later donated a number of the paintings to the Tate, devising a room plan for their display. Like Rothko's plans for the restaurant itself, the final choice and arrangement of works was never finalised, although a Rothko Room (as it has come to be known) is almost always on view somewhere at Tate.

The Tate's own holdings of this group are augmented here by paintings from the Kawamura Memorial Museum in Japan and museums in the US. Hung high on the walls, and lit at a higher wattage than is usual, the paintings can now be seen afresh - though fresh is not exactly the word. Some have not worn well, and have suffered poor restoration and relining at certain points in their histories. But this happens: paintings change their appearance throughout their sometimes long and eventful lives. In any case, these problems are part of the paintings - they give us an insight into Rothko's working process, which is intimately linked to his thinking, to his fantasies about what a painting is, what it could do, how it could exist.

The show makes a careful study of Rothko's technique, his materials and paint application. One painting, owned by the Tate, is shown alongside close-up photographs of details seen under ultraviolet light, revealing the complex layerings and reworkings the artist subjected his work to. The painting is displayed on a false wall, with an aperture behind that enables us to see the back of the canvas.

With their plum and red grounds, their orange and russet and grey and brownish hovering forms, the Seagram paintings always risked being taken for an overly tasteful colour scheme. Their mutedness can seem a kind of deluxe sumptuousness, to offset the brownish tinted windows of the Seagram building. On a bad day, and to an unsympathetic eye, Rothko can look cheap rather than deep. But he was also an intensely dissatisfied artist, who at his best pushed his paintings beyond his innate taste. He kept on working until the works became unfamiliar to him, as awkward in the world as he probably felt in his own skin. For all their premeditation, Rothko's approach to the Seagram paintings is often revealed in blunt and even slapdash touches and swipes of his house-painter's brush.

The dim lighting and contained feeling of the Rothko Room at the Tate has always given it, for some spectators, an air of immanence and mystery. I prefer paintings in plain sight, without the heavy breathing, never mind the intimations of tragedy in the shape of Rothko's suicide at the age of 66. His death tends to obscure his achievements even more than the peculiarly low light levels he preferred for the work's display. Rothko is supposed to have said that he wanted people to cry when they looked at his paintings, and that he wanted his work to be miraculous. But artists are sometimes their own worst advocates, and Rothko's remarks seem to have become more portentous and bellicose as other artists overtook the first alumni of the New York school, the so-called abstract expressionists.

Rothko was interested in the simplified forms that inhabited his paintings, the spread of pigment across the canvas, and how different coloured areas meet; he was also much concerned with the layering of his paintings, from the bare canvas up. He painted from the inside out. Atmospheric photographs of the artist have him seated before an incomplete canvas, smoking and looking into the painted void. Somewhere in the world, an abstract painter is undoubtedly doing the same thing right now. The difference is that it is impossible to do this today without method-acting Rothko. Even he staged these scenes, for the photographer Hans Namuth.

During the 1960s, Rothko's paintings become poised between the materiality of their surfaces and forms, and the emergence of an image, even if it is an image of nothingness, or an image denied: a blank black screen, or a simple near-horizontal division which we unavoidably see as a horizon, between grey and brown, or black and grey. Rothko cut out the clutter, and in his later work tried to make every single thing count. Someone once said of American abstract painting that Barnett Newman closed the door, Rothko pulled down the blind and Ad Reinhardt turned off the light. Rothko was much vexed by Reinhardt's black-on-black paintings, with their exquisite impenetrability, their cruciform shapes revealed only as one's eyes grow attuned to their close tones. Rothko was undoubtedly jealous of them, and even had an affair with Reinhardt's widow.

While he could never be seen as a minimalist, Rothko's insistence on his Nietzschean individuality did not make him impervious to other artists' work, or even immune to fashion. The stripped-down formats and the blacks and greys of his later works find many parallels in the art of their time, and in particular the work of younger generations of artists both in New York and Europe. Rothko's late paintings may look as if they emerged from some mysterious cave, but he didn't live in one.

He did, however, retreat to his studio in the last year of his life, having separated from his wife. He had heart trouble and emphysema, and drank and smoked too much. He tried to set up a salon in his studio, but the younger artists who came proved uncongenial to him. Maybe they brought too much of the world in with them. Here he painted the works that occupy the last two rooms of the Tate show.

There are fewer than 40 paintings exhibited at Tate Modern, give or take some smaller studies and a few photographs. This allows us to concentrate on individual works, all of which bear close scrutiny and demand time, even though little seems to be happening in them. The paradox is that the more hermetic and emptied-out Rothko's last works seem, and the more similar to one another they become, the more crucial every single detail gets. These paintings stop being Rothko's and become entirely themselves. We see that Rothko smeared into the grey in the lower portion of the paintings with his fingers, rubbing out areas of paint, as though he were rubbing fog from a window with his sleeve, only to reveal more fog outside. He applied water or solvent, as if to unpaint the built-up surface. The later works in acrylic cannot, in any case, stand having too much paint on them. As the paint gets thicker, it begins to acquire a nasty plastic sheen, like a vinyl car seat, which Rothko wanted to avoid. Every single thing that Rothko did and undid to these last paintings matters. They refuse to be the landscapes they at first resemble. In a way, they are unreadable propositions.

These are his best works. But walk out of the show and you are plunged straight into merchandise: T-shirts, and winter scarves in Rothko reds and browns. Rarely have I seen merchandising so at odds with the spirit of any artist's work, and so impervious to the curatorial drive of the exhibition - even if the show gives us Rothko the materialist, not Rothko the religion.

Adrian Searle
The Guardian, Wednesday 24 September 2008






 Mark Rothko Exhibition

On Form (or from Polykleitos to Janine Antoni)

When we look at art, are we only seduced by what we think is beautiful? Do we only respond to things that resonate with our sensibilities, our taste, or our history? As an artist is it our role to make beautiful things (paintings, sculptures, film, ideas etc...)?


















Dan Flavin
Untitled, To Donald Judd
1964

Everyone has their own path, so everyone will have to choose for themselves but for me, I do not think that art has anything to do with the beautiful. In my own experience, my tastes are constantly evolving as I am interacting with the world and learning new things. How can I stand in judgment of what is beautiful and what is not? What I find ugly today, I might that I find that is urgently needed and beautiful tomorrow. At the least, I would have to conclude that my taste has to be fickle and arbitrary at best, because it is never absolute and it is always changing. Now this an example of my personal experience, but what if we apply these questions across to a group of people? A community? A whole profession? Am I the only one? Maybe, but probably not.


















Polykleitos
Doryphoros
450-440 B.C.

How often do we find something that we think is absolutely beautiful, only to get tired of it a few weeks later? Are we like the Greeks always striving for the beautiful form, looking for the absolute embodiment of perfection? Kenneth Clark tells the story of the famous Greek sculptor Polykleitos. He made two sculptures of human figures, one made according to popular taste, read naturalistic, and one according to his own needs as an artist. The first sculpture was ridiculed while the latter was admired. Of course he also thought that the body made of perfected proportions could transcend the real thing. I think that he felt that the form of our bodies and the things that we make are the most perfect expression of ourselves.

Is that really what art is about? Is art about what we know or what don't know? For me, one of the greatest things about twentieth century art is that we finally came to grips with understanding the best things in art are the things that we do not know, maybe it is what we can't know. When we go into our studios, do we go to work on things that we already know and reinforce our perceptions about the world?


















Jasper Johns
0 Through 9
1961

I think that when we strive only for the beautiful form or the beautiful object, it is only about ourselves, our preconceptions of beauty at a single moment in time. It is not really beautiful but only a dull reflection of ourselves, but we love it because we see ourselves in it. That is what makes beauty so unsatisfying when it is the goal of the process, there is not a sense of life and the unexpected. It reflects back everything that we already know. We aren't nurtured and we do not grow from the experience. Frank Stella always believed that as soon a part of canvas was really beautiful you had to paint it out immediately. It is the whole painting that has to work and not just one part. If you try and paint around to highlight that one spot the result will probably be a disaster. I think that this is a common misunderstanding in art, that the beauty has to be protected. In the best works of art the question of whether something is beautiful or ugly is irrelevant. When you are confronted with a Pollock, the question of whether or not it is beautiful is beside the point.















Rachel Whiteread
Library
2001

The best art, as an artist and as a spectator, is that which helps us transcend our own limits. It separates us from our preconceptions and our fixed ideas about the world. It helps us grow and to become more than what we were before. It might make us more aware of our surroundings, or our experience as human beings. That is a very different experience than just looking for the beautiful form. When you are confronted with a beautiful form, it is like advertising, either you like or you don't but it short circuits a deeper experience.


















Mark Rothko
No. 9
1954

Barnett Newman was famous for saying that aesthetics for artists must be like ornithology is for the birds. Almost across the board, the best artists of the twentieth century did their best work when they finally got by their own preconceptions about art. More often than not they eventually moved awayed from beauty. Take a look at an early Rothko, especially his multiforms. They are beautiful but they are full of all his ideas about painting: bright colors, interesting technique, great composition. A few years later he learned that all of that was not necessary at all. Each painting was not a demonstration about everything that he knew about painting, it was a way of getting away from his own preconceptions. The same transformation occurred not just in the work of Rothko but in Newman, Pollock, De Kooning, Reinhardt and Kline just to name a few. How did they all figure out the same thing if it wasn't true? In each case, they made the process more difficult to get themselves out of the painting. De Kooning drew in the dark, Pollock dripped his paint so that he had to collaborate with physical properties of the paint on the canvas. The process was not about what they knew but what they didn't know.


















Willem De Kooning
Door to the River
1960

This a quote from Chuck Close interview in Art in America from 1972 that is worth quoting at length because I think that it articulates something that is fundamental for a lot of the better artists:

"When everything in the world was a possibility I only tried three or four things over and over... I didn't take advantage of that supposed freedom, and once I decided I was going to have relatively severe limitations, everything opened up... I was never happy making interesting shapes and interesting color combinations because all I could think about was how other people had done it... Now there is no invention at all; I simply accept the subject matter. I accept the situation. There is still invention. It's "how to do it," and I find that, as a kind of invention, much more interesting."














Jasper Jones
Flag
1958

When Jasper Johns started working with letters and numbers, it wasn't because he thought that they that would allow some kind of original formal invention. He was working with them because they were common, effectively empty and available to anyone. The American flag literally belongs to every American. Looking back at the late 1950's, Johns' work should have been a dead end, except that he is genius and probably understood the work of the Abstract Expressionists better than they did. I mean what is the difference between De Kooning drawing in the dark or in front of the TV and Johns using stencils of things that are so common that are practically invisible any more. De Kooning found it in separating his eye from his hand, Johns in the objects that we use every day but are so common that we do not see them anymore. In both cases it is about reaching out to something that is beyond the preconceived ideas about art that it allows you to see the world in a new way.


















Agnes Martin
White Flower
1960

Agnes Martin took a different path in that she found that she could escape form by using grids and horizontal lines. They are full of feeling but empty of form, empty of the object. There is nothing to hold on to: no ideas, no language, just your experience, just who you are at that moment. What more could you want from art? The art really isn't in the painting at all, it is already within you and the experience of the painting unlocks it in you. Art is the experience, the exchange that happens between you and the work.













Donald Judd
Untitled on the third floor of his studio on Spring Street

When Donald Judd starts using rectangular boxes out of wood and then later out of metal, it is not because he thought that the form was really interesting or that the form itself was some profound idea about sculpture. I think that this where a lot of people having misunderstanding of minimal art. They think that the idea was about stripping down everything except the form of the work. That might be an accurate description of Robert Morris' work but it does not apply to Judd because his work is about how you relate to the work with your body. Judd thought that his great innovation was the removal of the pedestal, or the device that separates a sculpture from its environment. Most galleries are an empty, more or less rectangular room. Judd's work is about how the volume of work measures and defines the volume of the larger space. The large empty rectangles capture the void, the emptiness of the room and changes the way that you perceive the space. Not to sound too Taoist but it is an example of the void, the hollowness, being more important than the form. It also why it is so difficult to separate the object from the installation. In the best contemporary art, the space that you inhabit and the space of the work become fused together. You can't have one without the other.

Judd's works gets more complex when the material properties of the rectangles are emphasized to clearly differentiate the material differences that exist between the work and the space. The form is the vehicle but the perception and experience of the space is the message. In the work installed in the artillery sheds at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, the work changes along with your perception of the light. In a way, the work is a ruler that allows you a new way measure your experience in the volume of space that you are in.


















Roni Horn
Things that Happen Again
1986

Roni Horn placed the two copper tapered cylinders in an empty barrack at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa. The cylinders are identical but are placed at opposite ends of the barracks and they are placed at different angles, so that when you first see them you are not sure if the cylinders are similar or are exactly the same. When you are looking at one of them, you are always comparing it to the other one with your mind's eye. It is more difficult than it seems because the tapering tends to exaggerate the perspective so you are never exactly sure if they are the same object. Your own memory and the way that you recall the experience of a space is the whole point of the work. While the cylinders are very beautiful, they could have been any shape, although because they are attractive you might look at them longer, and hence have a better recall, than if they were ugly. I think that Judd liked the work because it uses a language that is similar to his own but to completely different ends. Each and every viewer is an integral part to the experience of the work. No one else could remember it for you.
















Felix Gonzales-Torres
Black Rod Licorice
1991

When Felix Gonzalez- Torres places a pile of candy in the corner or places a pile of posters on a wall of an exhibition space he takes the idea of viewer interaction to a new level. He literally lets you take the art home with you, or eat it there if you are really tired of walking through the museum. The work is a little bit of head scratcher because everything that you thought you understood about art and the formal object goes out the window and you have to start over. The work is formally beautiful because it is all wrapped up in silver foil and it looks good up against the wall. But what happens when one person takes a piece of candy and then so does the next person and so on until they have to pour more candy on the pile. How can the art be in the object if you can take it with you? How can it be art if it is continually dissolving as people walk through the room? Where is the art in that? The answer is that it is in lots of places but probably in his gift of candy to you. It is the exchange that is important. It is the expression of generosity at the literal expense of the formal object. When I ever come across one of his pieces, I always feel like he is pulling back to the curtain on the mystery of the museum. He is subverting the Victorian authority of the idea of a museum in a subtle way. I also think it is funny that whoever buys the work, is buying the right to effectively give away candy and the right to continuously replace it while it is on view.


















Janine Antoni
Saddle
2000

The last work that I wanted to talk about is Janine Antoni's Saddle from 2000. I thought it was fitting to end an essay about form with a work that is about the emptiness in form. Saddle is about presence and absence. You can feel her presence in the work but she is not there. It is a little strange that you associate the contours of her body with her skin, but in the work you do not see her skin it is the skin of a cow. So there is a spatial and tactile dislocation that is central to the experience of the work. It is not a representation of skin but real skin, except that it is not hers. The skin was part of a living breathing animal not long before it came part of this sculpture. So you thought that the work was about her body but is it really about this cow, whose natural shape that you don't see but whose skin defines the work. Never having touched the work, I can imagine that it is very stiff like a dog's chew toy. So sooner or later you realize that you really do not understand about the human body. Once we understand something, we change again. Is the expression of ourselves about the form of the body or our memories and associations of it? If what we value does not have a form, how can it be perfected?

The best work has always been about freedom. Freedom to explore, freedom to see the world with fresh eyes, freedom to be more than what we were yesterday. Sometimes if we are very lucky we feel like particular work of art seems like it was made espeically for us, for who we are at that moment. Unfortunately, I think that most art that is based on form and aesthetics is the opposite of that experience. It is about closure, nailing down, perfecting an idea that like Polykleitos might not be able to exist in the real world. Ultimately, it is about the artist and not the viewer. There is nothing for the viewer to hold on to, nothing that they can make their own. Art that is based only on its formal properties is about the end of a process while the best art has always been about finding new ways to begin again.



By Arcy Douglass On February 18, 2008