Taking it to the third dimension - Polaroid style.

Here's a question for ye: What do ye get when you combine Polaroid photography and sculpting?

Nope. The answer isn't 'a tourist in an art gallery'.
Instead, say hello to Korean sculptor Osang Gwon.

Neither of these chaps is the artist, of course.

They are, in fact three dimensional sculptures fashioned out of hundreds of polaroid photos, attached to a blank skeleton/dummy. Life-size sculptures, by the way. This, my friends, is what ye get when collages break out off the flat page. Naturally, it all takes a huge amount of time and effort - and no small amount of patience on the part of the subject(s).

See this sculpture of Tom Chaplin from the band Keane?

I know he looks more than a little like Jimmy Carr in this (poor bugger), but ye can see just how much work has gone into this. According to O.G., he took between one and three thousand pictures per band member. All to promote their album, Perfect Symmetry.

Below, you can watch the maestro in action - just look at the expression on Chaplin's face. O.G. must have started at the head and worked his way down and be nearly finished. Nearly finished taking almost 3,000 Polaroid pictures. And don't forget; those cameras need very frequent loading.

Osang Gwon, talented wee so-and-so that he is, worked his way up from humble beginnings. Considering the pace of his work, he had to begin with subjects that didn't mind sitting rock-solid fer three hours or so - his family, in other words. As his talent and  acclaim grew, Keane approached him for their promotional work and he's now being courted by the big names (like Nike) for advertising work.

I'll leave you with one final image. Here, O.G. stand in front of his sculpture of a mounted police officer. And yes, the horse was also snapped...

For more on this hugely talented guy, you can visit osang.net or drop by the page on Environmental Graffiti where I first came across his work.

Getting good and steamed.

Steampunked, that is.
For those that don't know what steampunk may be, it's a genre of art and fiction that essentially shoehorns modern machinery and ideals into Victorian English/European technological levels. Since the tech at that time was basically steam-driven (or horse-drawn), everything must be powered by steam. No electricity, just steam.
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The general results are plenty of gadgets and gizmos built in wood and bound in brass and leather, leaking steam or having little smokestacks on the top. Also, since this is obviously well within the realms of science fiction, there ore steampunk robots and other such genre standbys.
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It's long since left the realms of the word and the screen, though. Often as not these days, artists will specialise in creating Steampunked* versions of familiar items and/or people. A cracking example is Sillof. He specialises in steampunking sci-fi characters from Star Wars and the Marvel and DC comics.
Here's a great article via Wired showcasing a whole mass of familiar items that have been steampunked:

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This? It's an eye-pod of course...
Go HERE to see the whole glorious lot.
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*wondering why I haven't shortened the word 'steampunk' to save wear and tear on my fingers? Well, considering you also have cyberpunk and now greenpunk, there needs to be some indicator for a difference. Unfortunately, that leaves us with 'spunk'. Yeah. Not happening, mate.

I want this T-shirt.

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Just how awesome is this T-shirt design from Headline Shirts?

Intelligent with just a touch of geeky and a whole bunch of Pete Townsend-style rock.

If you're like me and want to have this item of pure brilliance, you can get it HERE. Actually, it's worth going there just to read the fun little article about the 'newly discovered' designs and drawings made by Leonardo da Vinci.

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Of course, the above design is really a rip-off homage to da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man. (see below)

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Defusing panic has never been so artistic.

 

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Yeah, I know, snappy title, eh? Unfortunately, the quote I was going to use (the alternative title for the film Dr. Strangelove) had already been used by the guy whose work I'm featuring today; David McCandless. He's been a bit of a writer (The Guardian, Wired), a bit of a satirist (Crackbook is hilarious and clever) and is even responsible for a fun little flash game (Fly it here). The particular skill that concerns us today, however, is his ability as a "visual & data journalist" (his term).

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Basically, David got pissed off with all those so-called helpful diagrams that newspapers used to accompany news items. He found that, like us, he couldn't really make head nor tail of what the diagram was really supposed to be telling us. And that's in spite of - or maybe because of - all the clever pictures tagged with apparently exciting facts and figures.

Reckoning that he could do a lot better, he decided to sit down with a batch of relevant facts and figures and come up with his own set of diagrams with which he could make a point.

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The things is, he's managed to do the job far more clearly and far more objectively than any other person/committee of graphic designers ever could. In fact, to rub salt vigorously into the wound, he's even managed to do so with just the right pinch of humour and made the diagrams look aesthetically pleasing into the bargain.

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Take, for example, the following diagram:

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(click on the picture to see a larger view - or just go to the main article.)

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Essentially, the diagram above is a response to the one featured in The Grauniad (sorry, Guardian) attempting to illustrate just how 'fragile' the state of nuclear affairs are in the world:

 

Messy, isn't it?

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By contrast, David's work is almost beautiful - and it dispassionately presents the facts that humanity is a lot safer than the panicmongers seem to want us to think.

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To see more of his work, got visit his site; Information Is Beautiful. You'll be glad you did.