16th century alphabet drawings

Planned downtime for Art Crimes late this week

Just a heads up: On the 30th and again on the 31st of January, we expect our network provider to do some scheduled maintenance, so Art Crimes, Wild Art Media, Eyegasm, Escape, and The Bench will all be offline for several hours both days. This might also mean the AC February update (which is looking pretty exciting so far) will happen later on the 1st than usual, depending on when they finish on the 1st. Thanks for your patience.

12 tips for managing your information footprint

What can people find out about you online? How can you try to control it? This list is a good place to start. The article it links to, "What the Web knows about you," is excellent further reading.

BeatBearing Drum Machine

Online Etch-a-Sketch

This is better than the real thing because you can use arrow keys instead of knobs to draw with. No more dropping it on the floor, either.

Best of all, with computer sketching, you can get screenshots to preserve your work. Firefox users, for example, can use an extension called Page Saver for easy screenshots. Unlike most screen capturing software, it can be set to capture the entire page even on very long pages. (Use PNG format for best results.)

Devious Behavior

Proving once again that graffiti is an equal opportunity sport.

Blast-wall murals in Baghdad

Roadside electronic sign hacking

We've all wondered how it's done, and now we know.

via BoingBoing

NIN - Seattle show 2008

I saw Nine Inch Nails on this tour, and no recording technology of today could do the show justice. I sincerely hope NIN tried to capture it for us to see later on DVD anyway. So this youtube vid is just to give you a tiny little taste of the mind boggling things that concertgoers experienced. It was stunningly good and used technology I've not seen before, such as something that looked a lot like a mesh LCD screen (stage size) and some, well, interactive 3D visualization topographical mapping software merging recorded and live ... well have a look.

Thanks to Joker for digging up the video link.

Here's Wired's technical explanation and more photos of the hardware.

Official NIN site and tour info.

Diar is getting better, blogging too!

After a horrendous car accident in 2008 that left him paralyzed, Diar's recovery continues. He's selling t-shirts and paintings to help pay the bills. The site has more info.

He could sure use some moral support and good wishes, so please check out his blog and leave a comment if you have time.

Guia Rivera does "Graffiti"

Thanks to Breaker Ray for the tip!

The Seventh Day Project - Persue

More time-lapse goodness from the Known Gallery, with Persue a special guest appearance by BunnyKitty.

Legal walls worldwide: map

Everyone: Be careful not to post walls that will be ruined by tourist traffic. Unless you are intimate with a particular wall's situation, don't blow up the spot for the people who paint there!

Writers: No wall is arrest-proof, because some police are not very interested in permission walls, so please keep that in mind when you plan what to take with you and what to say if confronted. Be good guests and take your litter with you. If you tag nearby buildings, the wall will soon be ruined and everyone will know who ruined it.

Photographers: Graffiti is covered by copyright, so don't think you can go to a wall to do commercial photography and get away without obtaining the artists' permission. It's much cheaper to make advance arrangements.

How "Rock and Wrap It Up!" helps rock stars feed the hungry in 500 cities worldwide

Volunteers redirect food to where it's needed most, one catered gig or lunchroom at a time. This idea is catching on like wildfire too. Now in 500 cities worldwide.

Rock and Wrap it Up is "an independent anti-poverty think tank based in New York."

Frank Frazetta, Rough Work

Boingboing has some page shots of Frazetta's sketchbook book, which is still availalble in bookstores and quite reasonably priced.

Hardcover: 128 pages
Publisher: Spectrum Fantastic Art; 1st Hardcover Ed edition (September 28, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1599290138
ISBN-13: 978-1599290133
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches

Amazon has it at US$13.57 for example.

Table on trucks, $1700+

I'm sure you all can do better than this. It looks like a business opportunity.

via boingboing

Blade, King of Graff

Check this graffiti gallery in Denmark for Blade's artwork from the show and other Danish graffiti delights.

New airbrush book: Overspray

This is a luscious coffee-table dominator full of glossy eye-candy from California. It's not a how-to book, it's a celebration of four great artists' work. Plenty of good visuals on their website too.

"Overspray is the comprehensive account of the rise of airbrush art, and of the equally bright and glossy Los Angeles culture in which it flourished during the 1970s. Inspired by surf graphics, psychedelia and Hollywood glitz, a generation of young artists made every lip and palm tree glisten, and every record cover slick as a well?lubricated sex toy. Fueled by a combination of intense demand, sleepless nights and brutal competition, the four men at the center of LA's airbrush art market -Dave Willardson, Charles E White III, Peter Palombi, and Peter Lloyd - embarked on careers that produced work for Playboy, Levi's, the Rolling Stones, American Graffiti and Tron. Overspray tells the unvarnished story of these four artists, through images of their best-known work, and frank, in-depth interviews. Viewed today, their surreal, funny and hyperslick imagery; seems all the more fantastic - which combined technical precision; and wild flights of imagination."

How to remove data permanently from your hard drive

Most people I know have the opposite problem: their computer has somehow lost data and they had NO BACKUP. Don't let that happen to you. Hard drives are very cheap now, so maybe you can buy one just to use for backups. Also there are some online services that offer backup over the net for small annual fees. If you can't do either of those things, it pays to have a stack of blank CDs and DVDs, and every time you do significant work or add to your media collection, make a copy on disc. It wouldn't be the end of the world to have to reinstall your operating system, but it is a very sad day indeed when you lose all your photos, music, homework, and email. Hide the discs in case someone steals your comp.

But anyway, the article explains how to delete stuff you really want to never see again. Throwing it in the trash is not enough!

10 facts everyone should know about Islam and the Middle East

This is a short clarification that explains a lot of who's who and what's what in the M.E.

via marshallk

Atom One - Tales from da Cans

Love that German hiphop. Not sure if we can get this in the US or not.

LWO light drawing

LWO calls this "graff video" but again, I think we need a new term. Anyone? Love the industrial hardcore music on this one by Tosaka and Brian, at the "Night of terror" party, at La Générale de Manufacture à Sèvres (France).
You can see more at LWO's site, which is devoted to this art form.

Bster, RIP

Bster, from Chicago, was killed January 5 in a car accident. 

Our sincere condolences to his friends and family.

You can see some of his work on flickr.

[Almost 40% of accidental deaths in the US are due to car accidents, so everyone please be careful out there!]

Manifest Hope Art Contest for President Obama's Inauguration

Hurry.

Persue's new blog

Persué brings us news of his recent trip to the Wall Lords jam in China, and more.

pronunciation key: per-sway, not per-soo. 

Vimby graffiti videos

Vimby has a bunch of free online videos, interviews with writers and stuff.

Lost Arts' photos of the Rio Whole Train project

(press the colored buttons to get into the photo albums)

More news from Brazil

The update about Carolina and this tidbit of goodness are from Lost Art:

Mural SP II by Os Gemeos, Nina, Nunca, Finok, and Zefix
(scroll sideways)

Photographers' rights, UK, US

BTP rail enthusiasts guidelines (UK)

A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography (US)

Amtrak photo contestant arrested by Amtrak police in NYC

The linked article shows what idiots some train company police can be (arresting a photographer during an Amtrak photo contest and then lying about why), but nonetheless it's legal to take photos in public places in the US unless a sign prohibits it.

If you actually resist arrest, though, train security might shoot you dead, like a BART officer in Oakland did to Oscar Grant, just days ago. Oscar was not taking photos, but there too, the train police confiscated cameras and phones from witnesses after one of the cops killed Oscar. Some youtube footage is surfacing anyway, because so many people witnessed the killing.

The right to take photos is one we must all continue to fight to keep, but take that fight to the courtroom for your own safety, and to benefit everyone.