Art Collaboration Trifecta

My Facebook friends got this memo (and are surely sick of my self promotion by now), but for everyone else I want to ‘yell’ about how cool this is.  Unable to embed my audio player into this blog post, I’ll provide the direct link to the sound piece I’m referencing in a sec.

I drew the following piece, entitled “Theater of the Mind” (2011)

My friend Tom Curry, a Chicago poet, was inspired to write about it and my other friend, Mike Hayden, a San Diego musician, created music to enhance that spoken poem. Tom is a member of the Waiting 4 The Bus Poetry Collective and Mike is a member of the band Sleep Lady.

This fantastic collaborative project can be heard here. Just scroll down and click play.

Tom has also written a poem on my 2010 drawing “The Springheeled Piper“.

I’m so proud that I am surrounded by talented folk and that in this digital age, this type of collaboration can occur across the country or globe. I’m grateful to live in the age of Web 2.0 – where consumers are publishers. I will consume. I will publish. And I will invite others to get involved in “group art” and communal promotion. There are too many unsung talent heros out there.

Additionally, this slick link was posted to my Facebook wall by a friend and I would highly encourage everyone who has a Facebook account (because login is required) to try this. Even though it is a very egocentric interface (all social media is) it is a cool way to visualize your network.

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What’s Black and White and Read All Over?

Please enjoy my website : )

A shout out and thanks to fellow grad student Zoe Kind for the heads up on the very timely and interesting topic of QR code (or, Quick Response code) generators. You see these black and white blocky patterns everywhere. Fodder for smartphones, these little information thumb prints link to further information and websites once scanned. They are on billboards, fliers, menus and even clothing. I’m guessing tattoos are next. Acting as a redirect for details, these unique image blocks can be generated online through sites such as http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ among several others. The patterned blocks can connect to text, URLs and other information and the aforementioned generator offers code blocks in sizes tall, grande and venti — sorry, still jacked up on caffeine. With so many carriers of smartphones and the future of mobile tech, it is crucial that traditional marketing utilize these codes. The QR code is the Rorschach inkblot of the Web 2.0 generation. And we’re all going crazy for it.