Nothing But Water

You know what they say about being lonely in the middle of a crowd? This little pig in renaissance Lisbon feels isolated and alone in his own city.  As explorers arrive home to be greeted with love and adulation he remains sequestered in himself.

Yet perhaps all is not lost for him in this lovely yet somewhat intangible animated short by Carlos De Carvalho.

Air Balloon - Lily Allen

Following the success of her cover of Somewhere Only We Know (the soundtrack to the Christmas ad for a certain department store) and her escape from the several hits of a non-musical nature ordered after a number of individuals had gone demented after seeing it for the 100th time (that day), Lily Allen is about to release her third album.

Alasdair and Jock from Trunk have created the video for Air Balloon the second single from the yet to be released album.   As per it’s full of the usual Allen pithiness and it is horribly, horribly catchy.

If this song drives you mad in the near future I can only apologize. Yet I owe Lily one too.  She may admit (in the song) to Kurt Cobain that Elvis got to first base with her before him but in terms of solo singers of the female variety, Lily, Cilla got to me way before you were born. However, it’s the lyric animation here that I really, really like (and I hope you do too!).

Nothing Really Mattress

Although Dalston in North London is home to a plethora of wonderful street art, this temporary, ahem, installation immediately catches the eye. Naïve, somewhat introspective but with a dark humor, this bears all the hallmarks of one of the UK’s foremost artists and should really be saved for the nation before the elements destroy it. Although the name of the artist is not known for certain, I suspect that Tracey Emin may have been slumming it again.


Image Credit Flickr User Boring Lovechild

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

The question that has been bothering you since your childhood may finally be answered – why exactly did the chicken cross the road?  Here you can follow Mr Chicken from his early, troubled, childhood to that pivotal – even infamous – moment later in his life, courtesy of Wonky Films.  Plus if you are taken by his cuteness, why not go and play the games available on the app which has recently been released?

Comeliness

You might be forgiven for thinking at the beginning that this is a documentary. Yet this short film about the peaks and pitfalls of the modern American Beauty is very much a drama.

Written and directed by Freddie Favar, Comeliness stars Katarina Duma as Jesse Latham, a top model who has moments where her career and personal life come crashing together.

The Neptune Memorial Reef – An Under Sea Cemetery

When you think of dead people, concrete and underwater, you might be forgiven if your mind produces images of mafia gangsters and of their victims swimming with the fishes.  All that has changed - in the future what might spring to mind is a remarkable new underwater cemetery.

Image Credit Flickr User Elkman

Off the coast of Miami in Florida a new reef is forming. It is not, however, the result of nature playing its course but the bi-product of people’s desire to have a last resting place which is both unusual and creates a new ecosystem. This is a cemetery under the sea, the Neptune Memorial Reef.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Motion Poster

While we are waiting with baited breath for the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in April, here is something to (hopefully) help allay the impatience.  Illustrator and designer Berkay Daglar has teamed up with animator Alper Balkis to create this very cool unofficial motion poster (nice!) for the upcoming Marvel movie.  It may be short but it put a smile on my face so I thought I would pass it on!

Star Wars Classical Painting Mashups

Graphic designer Leaf Scott has recently created a wonderful set of Star Wars mashups.  Taking the works of some of the world’s most renowned painters, Leaf has placed a selection of Star Wars characters in to the world of classical oil paintings.  Above we have Yoda in Alexandre-François Desportes’ Landscape with a Dog.

How the Grand Master of the Jedi Order might react to replacing a dog in this painting is anyone’s guess.  However, you can only imagine that Yoda would be as pragmatic as ever.  He might say something along the lines of ‘always two there are, no more, no less. A master and a, erm, dog.”

State of the Union

You are about to witness the broadcast of the final address of the President of the United States.  Do not panic.  Find shelter as deep underground as possible as soon as you can.  What you are about to is happening in real time.

Well. OK, maybe not. Yet this standalone pilot by BranitVFX, responsible for work on Breaking Bad, Lost, Fringe and Revolution is very, very cool.  Please, more, soon!

Ocean Serpent Washes Up on French Shores

Stranger and stranger objects seem to be washing up on beaches and shores around the world. Recently the citizens of the French seaside town of Saint-Brévin-Les Pins have been witness to the arrival of the vast skeleton of a giant sea snake (serpent d'océan in French).

Yet it hasn’t had the world’s cryptozoologists rushing to France.

 It is the new work by Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping and its message is more environmental than pseudo-scientific.

Image Credit Flickr User cch44

This huge sea serpent fantasy is made from aluminum and is a massive 130 meters in length. Stretching along the beach the serpent (created for the local Estuary Festival) affords the viewer dramatically different perspectives depending on the angle from which it is viewed and whether the tide is in or out.

Quenum - Face to Face

This video by False Manners Productions is cool not only because it features a rather trippy track by Quenum but because everyone in it is hopping around Berlin on space balls.  It looks like enormous fun, and it seems to me to be existential without being nihilistic. 

Or, perhaps as my grandmother used to say with (almost) a straight face – no wonder kids are daft…

Zombillenium

This great animated short was directed by Arthur de Pins in the universe of his comics Zombillénium for the French band Skip the Use.  The band have been around for two years but have yet to achieve international recognition so this may be the first time you have come across them.  Their lead singer revels in the name Mat Bastard which may or may not be his real name.   This very cool video for their single Nameless World will hopefully bring them to a much larger audience!