welcome to the future

this. is. sick.
Adobe just released a preview for Photoshop CS5 with a new feature called "Content-Aware Fill". forget the clone stamp tool. now whenever you want to delete something yet make it look like nothing was ever there, just highlight the area, hit content-aware fill, and boom. done. wait. what's that noise? oh, listen closely and you can hear the screams of professional photo retouchers everywhere.

The Artist is Present

I've gone to the Marina Abramovic exhibit at MoMA twice in as many days and plan many more visits during the next 3 month period. It is all kinds of fabulous and simply fascinates me. The artist is and will be present at the museum throughout the length of the exhibit sitting across a table from participating audience members who wish to enter into quiet contemplation with her. Also in the show are live models recreating pieces she did in the past with her collaborator and partner, Ulay. The models are, for most part nude, and stand or sit for long periods of time. One piece is a naked man and woman standing in opposite ends of a doorframe and viewers are encouraged to pass between them. In another 2 people stand facing across from each other with their index fingers extended but just shy of touching and remain like that motionless. There is also video, photo, and sculptural representations of her past work. Most are about pushing the body (and hence the mind) to the edge of their limits. Others seem to portray the monotony and repetitiveness of life and routine. One is particularly funny, recreating Slavic superstitions like exposing your genitals to the rain will make the rain stop? Every time I go I see something new or see it in a different way and then its somehow reassuring or comforting to look down at the 2nd floor atrium and see Marina herself sitting there, in quiet contemplation. Her work brings up so many questions in my mind and really generates alot of thoughts and ideas about her, life, and my own perceptions.

This performance retrospective traces the prolific career of Marina Abramović (Yugoslav, b. 1946) with approximately fifty works spanning over four decades of her early interventions and sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, solo performances, and collaborative performances made with Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen). In an endeavor to transmit the presence of the artist and make her historical performances accessible to a larger audience, the exhibition includes the first live re-performances of Abramović’s works by other people ever to be undertaken in a museum setting. In addition, a new, original work performed by Abramović will mark the longest duration of time that she has performed a single solo piece.

bingo

(via CFH)