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An ART Webby – Photoseed

14 April 2012

This is the time of the year when the creme de la creme comes forward and we get to know some of the best web-based (or related) projects in the world, many of them which just appeared over the past 12 months, but also a few old blogs, on-line publications projects and Google invading many categories (jeeeez!). These are the Webbys, which have become the industry’s most famous awards.

Die Bärentreiber - Julius Strakosch - Vienna 1891
Die Bärentreiber - Julius Strakosch - Vienna 1891 - One of the many photos found in the Photoseed collection

We’ve already covered many of those projects in the past here @aqnb but it’s always good to discover some new fresh ideas that have been appearing lately on the net. Photoseed is one of the lucky 5 who made it into this year’s art website category, a new attempt to create an on-line mini-record like Smarthistory or Google’s famous Art Project (which is also nominated).

Photoseed however isn’t as ambitious as the Google project nor as comprehensive as Smarthistory, it simply hosts a wisely chosen selection of 19th & 20th century photography…. “a private archive with simple goals: beauty, truth, scholarship and enjoyment for all who visit“. Although their blog is a monthly-must visit.

Photoseed screencapture
Photoseed screencapture

David Spencer, a passionate photographic historian and leading collector of vintage fine-art photography, has managed to put together his personal collection (and more) with the help of Mark Katzman, Tyler Craft and a long list of friends and collaborators (a few from St Louis’ TOKY agency) all passionate about photography.

Schmied Am Ambos - Dr Konrad Biesalski and Dr Kruger - 1899
Schmied Am Ambos - Dr Konrad Biesalski and Dr Kruger - 1899

Much like big G’s AP, you can’t simply expect to experience Photoseed in less than 5min and only one visit, so please, take it as one of your main vintage photography references from now on, this is probably one of the best personal projects to cover photographic history on the web. Enjoy!

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Bar Code

8 October 2011

You are what you eat, or…. something like tell me what you buy and I’ll tell you what you are. There are 3452345 variations of these 2 affirmations. Both extremely simplistic but very truthful.

The latest project by two of our most beloved public art conglomerates (Canada’s National Film Board & France’s ARTE) comes  to explore the way 100 daily objects influence our life. The way they ensure our survival, how they measure the passage of time, their sentimental value, emotional power…

Because each object has a different cultural value, its own identity, its own hidden codes.

The idea comes from NFB producer Hugues Sweeney and ARTE program director Marianne Levy-Leblond who’ve been working together with their teams over the past couple of years to bring to life an interactive and experimental approach to object explanation. 100 short films (the list is quite reduced so far unfortunately) by 30 film director from Canada & France along with BarCode website, an iPhone app (with which you can scan objects and track their stories) and a gallery installation. And please please please even if you hate all this interactive-object thingy, visit the website just for the great music put up by some music geniouses such as KnowinglooksMarc Houle, Mosa or the insane  Cacheflowe.

The good thing is that you can help growing their object stories list by submitting  and sharing your own stories.

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FLUD

8 September 2011

For sexy news rss readers Pulse used to be my main … and unfortunately only choice. As an Android user no NYT’s News.me reader or Flipboard are available as of today, maybe that will change in the coming months as slowly but steadily Google’s platform takes over the world and most developers have no other option but bring their ideas to the green market. That or stick to Apple’s stagnant ecosystem… as both a nostalgic & a cute design niche option.

And because nowadays it’s no good to stick to niche markets Bobby, Matthew and the rest of the FLUD team decided to go green … right now precisely after signing a nice partnership with AOL so some of their websites flux get pre-installed … and you can’t remove them! (you can tick them off, but never remove them from the choice options). A partner thing you know…

And regardless of partnerships and revenue sources it’s always nice to have a wider (and beautiful) choice in our robotic devices right?

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RGB

15 June 2011

Web art? Yep, we have a few of those pages listed here @aqnb, when it’s not infamous Internet girls, it’s blabla nonsense, or bad black & white dreams

In the case of Mr Ewoudt Boonstra McDonald, besides working for international ad agencies (Y&R, BBH, BETC Euro RSCG…) he also finds some time to create some Internet art…. like his latest RGB wild experience or his highly informational full banner site…. nonsense crap we know, useless… but fun! And we need more of this for our daily pause!


Oh, did we mention  he’s behind some great ads? (probably it’s the Whitey effect we like…)

more stuff on his nonsense website!

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Museum of Me

10 June 2011

These Intel guys…. when they’re not partnering with D&C, they’re organizing something with Vice, or Jotta, or…. whichever digital artist. Just like Google they’re new kings of data-visualization projects and their latest hit is the “Museum of Me“…

It’s just another data aggregation page making your facebook friend network & key info look great on virtual museum “of your very own”. We’ve seen 43564356 examples of this using twitter’s APIs, but still, it’s another 3 great minutes of useless but beautiful wowing aiming to convince you how powerful and “oh so extraordinary” Intel’s processors are.

So…. you got the message? Will you consider an ix Intel processor the next time you buy a laptop or a Tablet? (even if for these Intel is still out of the market itself).

This way pipol! (thanks Izmir)

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TargetMap

5 April 2011

Ahhhh the power of data visualization tools and in general… the power of information availability. Here’s a new site that may come extremely handy for your future university works, power points … etc: TargetMap!

Basically TargetMap allows you to reate your own data maps from any data set and topic you can think of using Google Maps as a base and all the parameters you choose. Our first thought? Great! Now we can falsify any ppt or work making up our own data maps (and if they ask for the source we shall say… “TargetMap”)!

Such a powerful and subjective tool that as soon as you get into their site you’ll be able to see some complete random & personal maps like the “To visit / to avoid” one where it states France as the highest mark on this very personal (and frankly pathetic… everyone knows Belgium is the best place for vacations…).

As you can see from the tour below (or test it yourself) this tool is pretty easy to use and allows plenty of customization, using excel spreadsheets, map data combination… oh and the best part… it’s embeddable!

I think they explain it way better than us:

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rockdelux.es

15 February 2011

There are so many music blogs, so many “specialized” indie music webs appearing each week that it’s impossible to keep track on which one is a teeny tiny bit more underground that the previous one, and here comes another one…

Continue reading rockdelux.es

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Graze

19 September 2010

We just simply love these “from farm to home” websites who deliver the freshest, tastiest, organiquiest and nutritioniest foods locally available. Sometimes is just chocolate ( remember chocri?) and other times is a full snack & menu pack…

Continue reading Graze

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