Artgig Artist Series - Steve Featured in 59x59 Photographic Exhibit

Fri, May. 1 2009

Yes, that Steve.

Our very own code wizard, funk drummer, and lensman extraordinaire, Steve Grosmark, is a featured artist in The 59x59 Photographic Exhibition, kicking off this weekend at the GAGA Arts Center in Garnerville, NY, as part of the GAGA Arts Festival.

Steve's work has such an influence they've actually taken to calling it "The Steve Grosmark Show."

The 59x59 concept originally started as 59 photographers shooting on a single day along a 15 mile stretch of Route 59 in Rockland County, NY.They ended up with 31 photographers but the name stuck.It was almost a year ago when the photographers hit the road to get their shots and there were times along the way that it seemed the show might not happen at all.

On May 9, 2008 Steve got up at 3am and shot until 6pm - mostly in the rain.Fortunately, the wet and dreary conditions really suit his shooting style and the results are quite powerful.He came in one morning last week after hanging the large format prints in the space and I've honestly never seen him so excited.Looking forward to the show...

The Exhibition runs through June 6th.

Note to the GAGA Arts Center - you should also talk to Steve about a new website because...well, it should be obvious.

You can check out Steve's pics here:

59x59 Photographs

American Flag of Faces Website Launches

Wed, Apr. 29 2009

We're very pleased to be a part of the new American Flag of Faces website, produced by Artgig and ESI Design for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.

From the official release:

"This interactive website invites all Americans to submit photos of their families, their ancestors, even themselves to become a part of this living, ever-changing American mosaic.

Participants can upload digital photos at www.FlagOfFaces.org with a tax-deductible donation of $50 to become part of the American Flag of Faces™. This dynamic website, created and produced by ESI Design and Artgig Studio, opens with an animated red, white and blue flag populated with user-submitted images. Each image can be clicked on and enlarged. Users can also search by name to call up specific individual or family photos.

The American Flag of Faces™ will also become a central exhibit in the upcoming Peopling of America® Center, an exciting new expansion of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The Flag of Faces exhibit will consist of a large video installation providing a mosaic of all the portraits submitted by individuals and families who have made America their home throughout the generations."

Now a peek under the hood:

Constructed as a hybrid Flash/HTML website, flagoffaces.org opens with a waving flag of faces created in Actionscript which utilizes the Papervision 3D library to recreate realistic motion.

From the homepage, visitors are encouraged to add an image to the flag along with a donation. The image upload interface was built using an Ajax library which enables users to perform basic edits such as cropping, rotating, red eye reduction and contrast adjustments prior to submitting their photo.

The Flag of Faces itself is a Flash module that taps into a Microsoft SQL database to dynamically generate the flag and apply red, white and blue color overlays to the individual user submitted images.

The result is an American flag that is a virtual mosaic of individual user-generated portraits.

Pretty cool.

Check it out:

flagoffaces.org

Bonnie and Clyde in Pleasantville

Fri, Apr. 24 2009

They're young...they're in love...and they kill people.

So goes the famous tagline for the film classic, "Bonnie and Clyde."

I caught a special screening last night at Jacob Burns, featuring a discussion with screenwriter, Robert Benton, after the show.

Unlike my scoop on Slumdog Millionaire before it broke out, this was an evening in retrospect.

After living through the Tarantino age of ultra-violent cinema, it's difficult to imagine the impact this film had on film culture when it hit American theaters in 1967.

Incredibly violent and heavily stylized for the day, Bonnie and Clyde was accused of glorifying violence and was largely panned by critics upon release.

But audiences loved it, and the critics eventually came around...

I'd seen Bonnie and Clyde previously some years ago, at home, on a not particularly big screen and I remembered liking it, but seeing a film in a real movie theater puts it in an entirely different light.

Two big things that jumped off the screen:

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were mucho caliente.

The film is violent.

Yes, the film romanticizes the story of two criminals, but as Benton commented, it's not about the violence, it's about the fame.

It was really fascinating to hear Benton's story about his big break–boy grows up wrestling dyslexia, finds film as a creative outlet, becomes a young hotshot art director at Esquire, hangs with other young creative types–all are passionate about French New Wave cinema, Benton decides to write a screenplay with pal, David Newman, who can actually write, they get some good momentum but the screenplay languishes for years until Warren Beatty comes knocking.

Benton recalled his big break–the call from Warren, and how it was also his first big mistake in his marriage, only six months young. Warren called Benton at his little apartment in New York and told him he'd heard about the script and he wanted to stop by and pick it up (remember, no email, no fax...) Benton was happy to oblige but he neglected to tell his young wife that WARREN BEATTY was dropping by, so she was just kind of bumming around with curlers in her hair and no make-up when Beatty came knocking. According to Benton, she didn't speak to him for some time after that...

Good stuff.

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