It’s been a while, dearlings. You can blame a trip to Montreal with some of my favorite people in the world, which was beyond lovely, except that on the journey home I contracted Tim Horton’s Revenge and lost a week to fever and despair.  REGARDLESS, I have emerged from the flu and I would like to share the following because they are rad.

First is from my Montreal trip:

This is Habitat 67, a modern housing complex on a skinny peninsula in Montreal with 354 cold concrete cubes stacked on top of each other such that people might live within them.

We didn’t actually see any people, but there are definitely signs of life:

If Escher had been an architect I imagine his building would like a bit like this place.

and THEN, just the other day, on Core77, I saw the following house-tree, which reminded me of the above:

Artist Wannes Goetschalckx from the Dutcherlands: “Nest (Home Part 2)“.

Dear The Internet:

For the next minute, quit all your worryin’ and imagine napping on the belly of a plush, pink rabbit-mountain in the alps, overwhelmed by both its familiarity and its majesty.  Thanks to the Gelitin art collective, you can TYPMIH:

here’s the rabbit from a plane:

here’s the original artwork:

The rabbit-mountain (which can be view from space) will be on exhibit, and decaying, in the Alps near Artesina, Piemont, Italy until 2025.

Yes, I know, I want nose-stacks on my wall too.  The above mural, by italy’s Blu, is part of the 2nd annual FAME festival in grottaglie, italy.  (called “FAME” to play on the different meanings of the word in english and italian, more here.)

After checking out all the artwork in progress on their site, I plan to immediately start accepting donations for the “Send Meredith All the Way to Italy” (or SMAWI) fund to witness this citywide-embeautification first-hand.  I’m particularly swoony over the following:

(above: italian artist erica il cane’s funeral for a chicken he painted in last year’s festival that was removed by the city.  more here.)

(above: UK artist Slinkachu’s little people art)

(above: more by Blu, part of another mural-animation – you may have seen Muto already, and if you haven’t, you really really should.)

(above by Spain’s Sam3)

Beat13 / Lucy McLauchlan – Fame Festival 2009. from Beat13 on Vimeo.

I meant to post this on Monday after the show, but a unicorn ate my homework and I have to walk uphill in the snow barefoot on the back of an angry moose just to get to my blog, everyday. So it is quite impressive that I have written this at all.

What is the ITP Spring Show? I will tell you what (and/or quote from their site a lot):  ITP is a “festival of interactive sight, sound and technology” – a science-fair-like showcase of the graduate projects for NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, a “a living community of technologists, theorists, engineers, designers, and artists dedicated to pushing the boundaries of interactivity in the real and digital worlds.”

I went on the 2nd day, and got the double-awesome opportunity to bring with me about 15 techie nyc public high schoolers (all of whom participate in the program I do for work). lots of opening-eyes and expanding-paradigms and what not, I have a pretty great job. yay.

Here are some (of many) of the ITP projects that I adored bigtime:

#1 Root Boots (Michelle Mayer)

from Michelle: “This image came to me of boots you can wear that look like the base of a tree with roots going into the ground. I like the irony of boots which encourage you to be still a moment and connect.”

The boots give you feedback when you behave the way a good tree should.  If you try to pick up your feet and move, the boots make increasingly scary root-tearing noises and when you stay still, the boots emit a calming deep vibration (that you can feel if you stand barefoot next to someone in the boots too – as my dearling friend jay is doing in the photos).

#2 Alter to Our Lady of the Shining Silver Sun (Eduardo Lytton)

Latin American retablo folk art + illustrated animation + dreams-vs-reality = this project (in a nutshell) which why I am so very very yay about it.

From Eduardo: “The Altar to Our Lady of the Shining Silver Sun holds testimonials of strange and powerful visions in the form of retablos, colorful votives often seen in Latin American churches that mix painting and text to show saints gratitude for moments of divine intervention or miracles. The retablos and the collection of small personal votives on the shelf that complement them will be offerings on the theme of “visions” and/or psychotic disorders that will become animated as one approaches the altar, hopefully presenting an environment where the perception of real and the unreal starts to stretch and rip apart.”

#3 Mechanical Storytelling (Eun Jung Park)

Automatons! Raw Wood! Sad-Clowns! Oh My!

These perfectly carved hand-cranked analog story-thingees might be my new favorite thing in the entire world.

From EJ: “Mechanical Storytelling is a contemporary automaton depicting an animated scene and featuring a clown character with a unique personality. My focus in this work is the creation of mechanisms that are appropriate to the animations necessary for giving personality and “life” to this wooden object.”

Check out the rest of my ITP photos here.

Looks normal, yes? well, you can’t judge a house by half its facade..

Canadian artist Heather Benning built this delightful people-size dollhouse with plexiglass walls and 60′s furniture in a field in Saskatchewan.

hooray.

via Bliss, via here.

Things I learned at the Florida State Fair*

#1. while slapping donkeys is unacceptable, feeding them by hand is where-its-at:

#2. Washing-machines : Socks :: Figs : Decapitated-bug-carcasses

#3. when advertising corndogs, one flag is never enough.

#4. Sometimes, I thank-my-lucky-stars for being born a female human.

* Tampa: Feb 5-16