Writers, performers, artists, musicians, designers!
Take a look at this cool opportunity and please pass on to fellow artists you think would be interested. The Orphan Works series at The Chicago Underground Library is looking for participants:

Orphan Works is a reinterpretation series, which will begin appearing again in 2009 on a bimonthly basis (third week of every other month) in May. The Chicago Underground Library is calling upon a variety of the most creative minds in Chicago to burrow deep into their collection of anonymous works or ones for which no further information on the author can be found. Commonly referred to as “Orphan Works,” these lost publications will be brought back to life: read, reinterpreted, and reunited with the audience they’ve been missing. These works may never see the light of day again unless you adopt them. (Each show features three interpreters performing, displaying, reading or otherwise showing their work.)

To participate please contact:
Hannah Kushnick
[email protected]

About the Chicago Underground Library’s archive:
The Chicago Underground Library is a location-specific archive of independent and small press media. We are always seeking books, magazines, zines, journals, broadsides, newspapers, and art books of all types, genres, and print runs as long as they were produced outside of mass media outlets. We accept everything from the area, regardless of perceived quality or importance, in order to create a detailed index from which connections among the publications will emerge.

The CUL seeks to give the underexposed a voice, give the community something new to chew on, and encourage artistic producers to make connections between different media, different backgrounds, and different social groups.

Image via Knot 84 Rooms

P.O.S.’s latest release Never Better comes with a one-of-a-kind transparent plastic Digipak with artwork cards you can mix and match to enhance and change the look of the album:

For street artists who struggle with the legal implications of their often hard-to-remove art, Buff Diss has found a solution: masking tape art. His creations are striking yet ephemeral - it must be neat to watch them battle wind and rain over time.

Here Buff Diss creates the work “Huw Moran RIP”:

Photos via BuffDiss

I’m happy to report that graffiti culture appears to be alive and well in Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

For this episode of DanweiTV, the original Internet TV station about Chinese urban culture, host and producer Adam Schokora (小石) meets up with three of Shanghai’s best known graffiti artists: Popil, Zhang Lan (AKA: Mr. Lan), and HKer, to get their perspective on the local graffiti scene and catch them in action painting a few pieces.

Photos via oopsilon

This just in from Chicago-based art collective Material Exchange, a group that deals with objects and materials whose “valued properties have diminished”: low-tech, homemade games are sought for a project that challenges the dominance high-technology.

The idea strikes me as a reverent albeit nostalgic look at simplicity for modern lives consumed by the newest, the latest, and the next big thing. Submission deadline is March 22nd, 2009.

Photo: Material Exchange Analog Pinball Machine

Check out the sweet music video for the new release “Money” by N.A.S.A. featuring David Byrne, Chuck D, Ras Congo, Seu Jorge, & Z-Trip. It was directed by Syd Garon & Paul Griswold, featuring the artwork of Shepard Fairey (of Obama poster fame).

N.A.S.A. “Money” feat. David Byrne, Chuck D, Ras Congo, Seu Jorge, & Z-Trip from Paul Griswold on Vimeo.

Ten artists going to Berlin to make street art? You had me at hello. The Antagonist Art Movement, an artist collective that was started in New York City in 1988, has recently released a DIY adventure film about their raucous trip to Berlin.

As Flavorpill notes,

Berlin looks like a creative paradise. Whether turning abandoned apartment blocks into installation pieces or kicking it with likeminded hosts over dinner, the group uses the city as a perfect backdrop to break out of comfort zones and reflect.

That’s it - we’re all moving to Berlin!

You can buy the DVD here.

The Balloon Project started with the idea to send a video camera over the city of San Francisco, no strings attached: just the wind, gravity and chasing it down wherever it lands. As they explain on the website,

In 2005, Ira Mowen and Luca Antonucci had an idea to capture an aerial vie of San Francisco. After only a few days of planning, they strapped a video camera to 30 red, helium-filled balloons and let it go from the highest point in the city, Twin Peaks. As this Eye-in-the-Sky slowly lingered over the city, the co-conspirators stood spell-bound. Quite suddenly, a gust of wind blew the camera south and the adventure started.

Here is a balloon’s eye view from above Paris. It was created by Parisian artist ydl with music by in broken english.

And this is a unique video dedicated to the Balloon Project that was created with the use of a projector:

NARAL Pro-Choice America’s new free.will.power initiative is definitely one of the most innovative and creative campaigns to come out of the pro-choice movement. In an effort to reach out to a new generation of activists, NARAL has turned to web video and social-networking to spread awareness of reproductive rights. And they’re doing it with STYLE.

The campaign has released three videos featuring young spoken word artists Shira Erlichmann, Alvin Lau and Deja Taylor as well as music by DJ Spooky. The free.will.power website also features a quiz, interactive map and t-shirt contest (winning prize is a 1,000 bucks people!)

The thing I like about the videos is that they all go together but each have a different flavor:

Free.

Will.

Power.

I’ve always had this strange idea that urban centers are like gigantic coral reefs for humans. Don’t ask me why. So this music video for the song “Reef” by Baby Kites & Nokea stood out with its surreal urban landscapes. It was directed by PanOptic out of New York.