a roll of the dice » art

swine flu in adelaide

Paul — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:29:41 +0000

One of the “highlights” of Adelaide’s CBD are the bronze pigs on Rundle Mall (often the subject of late night, beer fuelled photos of people riding them). Some inspired person has seen fit to protect us (or them) from deadly swine flu:

Swine flu: there is no escape.

(Source of photo unknown).

tiny art director

Paul — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:30:31 +0000

This site is funny, in a slightly sickly-cutesy kind of way – an artist receives briefs from his toddler daughter who then critiques the results (read: gets angry and hurls abuse).

100 megacalorie warhead

Paul — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:00:22 +0000

Continuing with the emerging theme of “totally repulsive things you should never actually eat”, Erin points to this masterpiece of high-energy, low nutrient food: various McDonalds products on a pizza.

The gun in the final picture is presumably there so you can finish yourself off rather than waiting another 10-15 years for the effects of the saturated fats to kill you.

cat-related news roundup

Paul — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:08:13 +0000

Thanks to Sam, our roving feline news correspondent and long-suffering cat owner/victim:

Bush family cat dies (possibly of shame); Bush’s nickname for cat is “Kitty”.
Cats commence takeover of worldwide news media with German putsch; weatherman demonstrates excellent comprehension of cat psychology.
Nick Cave outed as fan of cat-related artwork; meanwhile artist’s cat gives him schizophrenia and causes him to start painting demon cats.

animated fish coming out of the street

Paul — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:30:43 +0000

My friend Sam forwarded me this amazing video of… well, I don’t know what it is. It appears to be some kind of interactive animated light display which is mapped precisely over the physical surfaces it is projected onto. Or something. In layman’s terms, cool animated fish and stuff on buildings and streets.

ham update 2: ham-related art, and more legal details

Paul — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 06:01:37 +0000

Further to previous posts (one, two), here’s some great “Jesus with the little dinosaurs” art (thanks to KO):

Meanwhile Legal Eagle points to this article on the actual details of the legal battle in the Ham v Anti-Ham lawsuit.

the only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen

Paul — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:01:39 +0000

This is an odd little piece of civil disobedience – the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen was draped in ‘Muslim dress’ and a headscarf.

Apparently a previous incident in which a Burqa was put on the statue was linked to disquiet about Turkey joining the European Union, and presumably by extension the fear of the influence of Islam in Western Europe. This was of course a huge issue in Denmark in relation to the publication of those cartoons in 2005.

desiccated coconut redux

Paul — Tue, 08 May 2007 03:32:23 +0000

Following on from our former PM’s recent comments in the media (Costello is “all tip and no iceberg” and the PM is a “desiccated coconut“), a friend points to this great site, which contains an archive of some of the best of Paul Keating’s insults to the Liberals, his colleagues in the Labor Party, the media, and anyone else who got in his way.

A highlight:

That you Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a f***ing dictionary when you were about 15 doesn’t give you the right to pour a bucket of sh*t over the rest of us.

Meanwhile, am I alone in thinking that the official portrait of Keating looks more than a little like the portrait of “The Kramer” from Seinfeld?

be careful not to touch the wall, there’s a brand new coat of paint

Paul — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:45:49 +0000

News.com.au reports on Canberra politician Steve Pratt, who managed to spend several hours destroying a commissioned mural in a stunt about reducing graffiti. The MP described the work as an

obnoxious piece of vivid graffiti vandalism

and proceeded to painstakingly scrub it off the wall on which it was painted.

Unfortunately for the well-named Pratt, it was actually a mural funded by a local sporting club, who are now asking him to pay for it to be replaced. Police are also investigating whether charges should be brought against him.

Squid points to a similar incident in Britain recently where the oldest surviving work by the world’s most (in)famous street-artist, Banksy, was painted over by council workers.

The whole thing shows what a disaster it is when the state gets involved in making aesthetic judgments (another good example of this problem can be reviewed here). It is perhaps also a reflection of Australia’s extremely underdeveloped attitude to street art – outside of parts of inner Melbourne most Australian cities and towns seem to regard public spaces as entirely off-limits to art not commissioned by the local Rotary Club.