The Art of Conversation: London – Berlin

Playing broken telephone over VoIP, or why predictability is overrated.

Collaboration and the cross-pollination of ideas are a crucial part of the creative process. (Contrary to what some rampant creative egos may lead you to assume.) An inspired new art project titled The Art of Conversation: London – Berlin explores the potent realm of collaborative creativity by pairing ten London-based designers and design studios with ten based in Berlin to create twenty original works.

For 90 days, the designers will play a visual game of Chinese whispers, with each pair involved in a single step in the chain. Here’s how it works: Once the first participant comes up with an idea, they present it to the next participant via Skype, and that designer or studio has three days to interpret and forward their results to the next participant, creating a series of ongoing conversations.

These interpretations can take the form of any creative medium — from sculpture to performance, photograph to written word — aiming to showcase the rich, diverse and unpredictable nature of creativity.

The exhibitions will be an exemplification of the design process itself laying bare the ways in which ideas are realised visually through a multiplicity of techniques, materials and cultural influences. ~ The Curators

In addition to their contribution, each participating studio will also produce a limited-edition screen print inspired by their involvement in the project, which will be available for purchase both in the offline exhibitions and online.

The curators hope this will allow the viewer to explore the fringes of the creative process rather than merely the finished works, making for a more immersive and engaging experience.

The London exhibition opens May 11th and runs through May 24th. The Berlin one goes from June 12th to July 3rd.

The Art of Conversation: London – Berlin is conceived and curated by Berlin-based design outfit BANK and London-based studio Inventory.

via Creative Boom London

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Stolen Moments: Secret Glimpses of Neighbors’ Lives

What Lower East Side kisses have to do with oil painting and the age of surveillance.

We love the intersection of art and voyeurism — from PostSecret to AnthroPosts to We Feel Fine to The Apology Line. But Yasmine Chatila takes it to new heights in her Stolen Moments series, an indulgent and fascinating glimpse of raw, private human existence amidst the orchestrated public chaos of New York City.

On a quiet winter night, I looked out a window. I could see a building far away, the windows where illuminated, and I could vaguely make out people inside their apartments. When I imagined what they might be doing, my mind fluttered between wild fantasies and mundane clichés. I was curious to compare my expectations to the reality of their lives.

Chatila spent months staking out NYC apartment interiors with her photographic and telescopic equipment, working from well-situated apartments across the street exclusively under the cover of night. The intimate, painting-like, noirish black-and-white results are part Hitchcock, part Shakespeare, part ephemeral postmodern visual poetry.

woman standing on kitchen counter - Upper West Side, Sat 4:03 AM

At times, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of human nature when it was not guarded, not self-conscious and completely uninhibited. This provided me with a stage where it was possible to observe myself in the most secret and vulnerable moments of others.

the kiss - Lower East Side, Sun 11:37 PM

To preserve both the privacy of her unaware subjects and the authenticity of the art, Chatila spent countless hours in post-production, transforming the recognizable into archetypal, often displacing her subjects from their original habitats and transplanting the unedited human moments into another building in an entirely different location.

fat girls in devil window - Soho, Friday 6:36 PM

Chatila is actually a painter by training, which makes this project all the more interesting as she trades the brush, oil paint and canvas for digital tools while still managing to capture these candid scenes in an incredibly delicate and analog way.

office romance - Tribecca, Thu 5:46 PM

Explore Stolen Moments in its entirety for an unexpected encounter with the city’s most human undercurrents.

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Retro Revival: Vintage Posters for Modern Movies

Helvetica, Hitchcock and what Saul Bass can teach J.J. Abrams about mystery.

The retro revival design trend has been around for a while, but over the past few months we’ve seen one particularly interesting and wonderful niche manifestation — vintage-inspired, retrostalgic posters for modern television and film. Here are seven of our favorites, plus some extras.

HEXAGONALL

A few days ago, we tweeted a delightful what-if: Spanish digital creative Hexagonall‘s vision for what Tron and Lost opening sequences would’ve looked like if the iconic Saul Bass had designed them.

It gets better: Hexagonall has an entire poster series under the Tron vs. Saul Bass umbrella — and they’re all fantastic.

And despite curmudgeonly remarks disputing whether Saul Bass would approve of these, we think what’s important here, and what Bass would certainly approve of, is the fact that almost half a century after his heyday, his visual heritage is still being celebrated and is still a force of inspiration. What more could a creator ask for?

TY MATTSON

Speaking of Lost and past Twitter raves, these fab vintagey Lost posters by designer Ty Mattson are an absolute treat.

Our favorite: This distinctly Saul Bassean hand.

OLLY MOSS

Count on one of our favorite illustrators, Olly Moss, to reimagine iconic film posters with brilliant vintage-inspired minimalism.

His Films in Black and Red series is a piece of quiet genius.

Bonus points for the mandatory Helvetica overuse.

NICK TASSONE

In another bout of brilliant minimalism, designer Nick Tassone reimagines his 10 favorite Stephen King films.

The only downside: All this slick and stylish designerliness makes the films appear considerably less creepy, which makes them technically counterproductive.

TAVIS COBURN

After BAFTA (the British Academy for Film and Television Arts) announced this year’s nominees, London-based designer Tavis Coburn set out to illustrate each of the films as unspeakably gorgeous vintage-inspired posters.

Needless to say, we’re back to the age-old question of why everything is better in Britain.

BRANDON SCHAEFER

Designer Brandon Schaefer may be only 25, but he’s got a knack for the vintage aesthetic that he employs brilliantly in his retrofied posters for modern movies.

The collection also includes Schaefer’s reenvisionings for older, iconic movies, like Rear Window and Star Wars.

TOM WHALEN

Tom Whalen has some classically vintage renditions of contemporary horror and scifi films, in a style that’s both recognizably retro and distinctly his own.

BONUS

Also of note: Penney Design reimagines modern movies as vintage games; the brilliant I Can Read Movies has been around for some time now, but it never ceases to amaze and amuse with its assortment of vintagey film-based mock book covers; Ibraheem Youssef’s has a delightfully vintage-minimalist take on Quentin Tarantino movies; though not designed as posters, these typographic covers for the new digitally remastered box set of Hitchcock films are just as indulgent; speaking of, British designer Matt Needle’s Modern Hitchcock series is utterly fabulous.

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