Design

The Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC) recently visited local studio Burlesque of North America and made a pretty nice video of their studio tour and interview with Mike Davis. For those not acquainted, “Burlesque is a collective of artists and graphic designers best known for their poster and album cover work with a multitude of musicians.” It’s worth checking out:

Or view it on the ever-changing WACTAC page.

Several months ago, as part of the exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, we asked you to tell us a story about your suburb and put it on Youtube for the world to see. We received over 30 submissions, which is extraordinary. We’ve whittled the list down to the best submissions, which will be shown in the “family room” in the exhibition at the Walker and featured on the Worlds Away exhibition wiki (more details on that here). Next week, I’ll be blogging about the interesting way we’re putting the videos in the gallery on the New Media blog. Congratulations are in order to the selected participants, and a huge thanks to all those who submitted their work. Here is a player with all the selected submissions and a list of them following:

• West St. Paul, by mnwebb
• Suburban Opera, by echucho
• Continuous Fence, by lgilge
• Suburbs, by myspacesubby
• “The City of Tomorrow, Today” (a suburb of Detroit), by jtondera
• loopty, by gabrielbbrown
• My orange push reel mower,by bbqpope
• The Last Tree by rythom
• Suburban Satellites, by kditullo
• Problems With Suburbia, by joshoakhurst
• this was actually a nice place to grow up, part 2, by sonicmaneuver
• Westlake - Spot #10 Enter Sandman, by moresmc

Coudal links up More Party Animals, which is playful design with a bit of a point:

More Party Animals is an apolitically-political idea born out of a heartfelt disenchantment with the status quo. As the current system continues to polarize this country, we strongly believe America is in need of a wider selection of political parties.

We say our idea is apolitical because More Party Animals is steadfastly devoted to being policy-free. Our animals represent a potential symbol for new beliefs, not the beliefs themselves. That, we leave up to you.

Our purpose is to encourage and help people start their own party, promote their own ideas and create a genuine alternative that might actually catch on. More choices leads to better results…it’s the American way.

Are red white and blue so engrained in the design palette of the American political system? Apparently so. At least the quixotic usage of the elephant and donkey provide some fodder to build upon for political design fun. And the animal logos look good on t-shirts, too.

This entry also posted at The UnConvention.

Do you live in a suburb?
Do you work or go to school in one?
What is your experience of the “burbs?”

Whether you love them or hate them we’re interested in your thoughts on the phenomenon of the American suburb. We invite you to make a 5-minute video about strip malls, cul-de-sacs, office parks, and green lawns or whatever suburbia means to you. A select number of videos will be chosen to screen as part of the exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes in the Target Gallery from February 15 to May 18, 2008.

To participate, upload your video to YouTube and add the tag “walkerworldsaway” or post it as a response to our video above. We’ll feature all videos on the Walker’s YouTube page. To be considered for gallery screening, entries must be 5 minutes or less and be online by January 18, 2008.

Design Director and Curator Andrew Blauvelt will be selecting the videos to screen in the gallery. We’ll contact selectees via YouTube to notify them and follow up for any additional contact information.

If you have any questions, email witt(dot)siasoco(at)walkerart(dot)org.

P.S. Thanks to Witt and Brent for helping to create this video. Brent knows a lot of things about Maple Grove.