Always a treat to discover a new artiste, especially one who is original. You’ve probably read those exact words here before, so they’re anything but original, but would you want it any other way. Repetition is lame, and thankfully Esther Stocker is far from it. Regarding her work, and space as a medium, Esther says: “It is ironic, as the ‘fact’ of space somehow enters the work unasked. All I ever wanted to know is how a relation functions. What one thing is doing next to another, why we can differentiate things or why we want to differentiate things. Even if we cannot describe the point where one thing becomes another, we seem to somehow know that it happens. That fascinates me.”

The work we’re featuring is pretty monochromatic, and that said, Esther is a huge fan of black and white. She explains this preference, as: “the highest differentiation that I can build up in a relation – something you can easily distinguish on a formal level; something that at first sight seems like a clear thing to distinguish, where you immediately know what one thing is compared to the other. The fuzziness is still there, just lying within how the things are positioned or what they do. If they slightly disappoint your expectations, you might loose your orientation. It is about doubting our sense of control.” I had no idea black and white could mean so much, but I get it, and I dig her work.

I don’t think it’s any secret to my regular readers, but I have sort of a love hate thing going on with the world of celebrities. It’s like the car accident on the side of the road that you can’t help but look at when you pass by. About one year ago, I gave up my cable television subscription, which has nullified my Access Hollywood, and Entertainment Tonight viewing. I now cringe at the sight of gossip rags when I’m in the line at the Supermarket, although I never was one to pay attention to this trash. Like I could care that Tom Cruise is an Alien, and that Elvis and Clay Aitken had a love child named Hannah Montanah. I’m getting off topic, but the bottom line is that I don’t know what’s going on in Hollywood, and for the most part, I don’t care.

I do care about art, and when it collides with the world of celebrity, I tend to pay attention. Steve Ellis new series of “trashy glamour and disposable, dangerous pop still lifes” demonstrates broken high heels to a stripping pen, guns that blast and a crashed Swinger. His neo-pop artworks glorify and vilify the detritus that Man leaves behind him. “The crumpled magazines he paints are simple appropriations from an already trashy subject”, Ellis explains. “By distorting the glossy celebrities and text, a new ugly truth is unveiled. Gossip magazines and downward spiralling celeb stories printed weekly in glossy rags trumps real news about our world today because somehow people can’t get enough.” How true.

The Halloween episode of the Mercury Theatre “On The Air” series on the 30th of October, 1938 and aired over the CBS Radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. The first half of the 60-minute broadcast was a series of news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that a Martian invasion was in progress. (Because the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a ‘sustaining show’ [without sponsorship], the broadcast had no commercials). This resulted in people who fled their homes, and terrified millions of other listeners. The news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode launched Welles to fame. It was and will always be a crowing achievement of his genius.

The first Tripod from H.G. Wells’ mind has now place of honor in the town it destroyed: Woking, England. This War of The Worlds sculpture is certainly a beautiful thing, giving respect and a tip of the hat to great scifi writers from the past. In that same vein, I think there should be a giant sandworm looped in and out of a desert somewhere for Frank Herbert, an army of robots lined up, terracotta warrior style, as a tribute to Isaac Asimov, and even Liberty’s head on some beach to give a shout out to Planet of the Apes. If only we took scifi a bit more seriously.

Seeing is believing. I mean, the first time I heard about the inflatable sculpture known as “complex shit” was when it broke free of it’s shackles and trampled a children’s playground. No seriously, I am not joking, this really exists, and that really happened in Bern, Switzerland. No lie. The sculpture is the brainchild of Paul McCarthy, who is not to be confused with the singer who shares a similar but not the same last name. In any case, I am really unsure about this piece. I mean, we’ve featured inflatable art in the past here, including tentacles and plant life, but dog poop? Really, is this even something we should be celebrating. I mean it stinks, and as such is not associated with the most pleasant of thoughts. Thanks to the chaos caused by this sculpture, I’d say that there is little chance that this steaming coil is going to be associated with happy thoughts.

If you’ve been to our front page lately, you’ll notice that we have a bit of an unscientific poll going on to see what our readers and visitors are into in terms of social media and networking applications. It pains me to say it, but Twitter is at the top of the heap, and has been for quite some time. Now, I know how Twitter works, but to be honest I’ve never been with any of my friends when they log in, so I’m relatively unfamiliar with the GUI. That said, I do now what happens when you try to access Twitter when it’s out of commission. In that regard, you are met with the famous “fail whale.”

Some of you will have no idea what I’m talking about, and again, if you have know idea what Twitter is, try this new thing called Google. Anywho, the fail whale is the brainchild of Yiying Lu, a fantastic graphic designer who has in essence created a brand within the brand that is Twitter. All this around an image that signifies that their servers are down or overloaded? Wow. TweetHunt.org has even joined in the fun, with a new brew dedicated to the Tweet-broadcasting app, and a contest to give said ale a logo. Really cool stuff, and as I said, very interesting extension of the main brand.

Have you ever seen the movie Fight Club? One the most disgusting parts of that movie, and there are many, is when Brad Pitt and Ed Norton are digging through the dumpster at a medical clinic to recover bags of liposucked fat. Sure it was all cake mix and Mountain Dew, but the idea of it being real is sick. From this amazing concoction they created soap, which they sold back to buyers who had no clue what they were really buying. I mean, like they were going to indicate that one of the main ingredients was human thigh, belly and ass fat. That said, some people aren’t afraid of what’s in their soap product. Take for instance the Apocalypse by Swedish designers, Jenny Norberg and Petra Liljas, who’ve created soap out of recycled frying pan grease. Nothing like cleaning your mitts with a slice of bacon. Still, very inventive, and eco-friendly!

If you’ve been keeping up with us over the course of the past few months, you know how things work. We go out and find some sort of artist, architect or creative spirit and write about their latest endeavour. Each day we do this, which means that after a year we will have at least 365 new ideas for you to explore and help inspire your next big project or spirited dinner conversation. The idea of sifting through all our finds at the end of the year, to compile a best of is not something I personally am looking forward to. Thankfully, we will have a bit of help from our friends. Today we’re focusing on body painter Emma Cammack, and it pleases me to announce that she’s the first such artist we’ve ever written about.

Madame Cammack is a widely acclaimed and world-renowned British body painter and artist who works for the film, TV and advertising industries. Some of her clients include such powerhouses as Motorola, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, BBC, Sky, Nike, Disney, BMW, and Ikea to name a few. Her bodypainting has a modern and contemporary edge and can also be combined with her 2d art to create truly lavish. Her “Top-to-Toe Body Painting” has been showing at the Barbican Art Gallery in London since June 19th 2008. If only we could get there. For now, the photos will have to suffice. Unbelievable.

If I said that “cuprocking” has become the newest street trend du jour, would you have even the slightest clue what I’m referring to? Sydney-based artist Andy Uprock gave birth to this new type of art, which is simple yet ingenious. Using a wire fence as his canvas, he strategically places plastic cups into holes to create various patterns and shapes. His idea began when he was a child as he noticed other children would often squash their bottles and rubbish into the fence. All his installations are temporary and he reuses his cups for each art work. What is also interesting about his work is that he has learned to create his work from braille. Uprock has begun a 40 day world tour to showcase his work visiting Barcelona, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and many more. The beauty of it is that any one can rock this style, with little financial outlay or worry of prosecution that typically faces graffiti artists.

I am not an American. I am proud of that, but that’s not to say that I hate American’s. I suppose I just hate their President, their foreign policy, and how the government treats the citizens. But I love other things that are uniquely American. Like the light bulb, automobile, comic books, and Google. So I suppose it’s more of a love hate thing. In any case, with the pending Presidential race gearing up, we’re seeing an incessant amount of flag waving going on down south, and delightfully, a solid amount of politically inspired art. In the past we featured Shepard Fairey’s awesome Obama print, which may have inspired others to put brushes to canvass.

With all the generic slogans we’ve come to expect in the political showdown of the century, Obama would have us believe that a vote for him is a vote for hope, change and “insert anther pipe dream here”. Not to sound negative, but we’ve all heard the promises before, and we’ve all been let down. If I were American I would still be voting for Obama because he is the lesser of two evils, and that’s really what any political showdown is all about. Not that I question his integrity, but do you really think much change will come about on his watch? Perhaps I’m too weary of having my heart broken, because I truly want to believe that the US can turn itself around before it’s too late.

It’s been a while since we featured a book, or coffee table piece. Today’s find will certainly fill the void. In one way or another we are all looking for happiness. Some people even say that man’s sole purpose for existence is to hunt down and capture this intangible and elusive treasure. In 2006 researchers at The University of Leicester concluded that Denmark is the happiest country in the world – this was good enough for Alex Ostrowski. In March 2008 Alex made the decision to visit happiness, and embarked upon a pilgrimage to find it. His experiences are presented in this book, dubbed “The Happiest Book in the World“.

The book includes random pictures and drawings from his journey, as well as a variety of passages he created including: “Imagine that the key to happiness is following your own intuition instead of other people’s opinions and advice.” Did we mention that only one copy of this book exists, and I doubt that Alex is willing to give it up, no matter how much you offer him.

Last month, London’s Selfridges department store devoted the busiest street corner in Europe to an installation by art and design company Haberdasherylondon. On display on the corner of London’s Oxford Street and Orchard Street was ‘Untitled 13? – a huge contemporary sculpture made up of 653 pieces of reclaimed Victorian wood, perspex and steel.

Haberdasherylondon explains: “Selfridges was the department store which pioneered the concept of the window display before the First World War. Now the store is pushing the envelope on what a window display can mean. The installations by Haberdasherylondon pose vital questions to the public about the very environment they are in, and invite shoppers to explore the nature of consumerism, ambition and the metropolis.” The six hundred and sixty three columns of carefully sourced reclaimed pine were arranged to build up a sculptural representation of an urban environment. Forming the climax of Selfridges two-year experiment to give a platform to new artists and designers, Haberdasherylondon were the first designers to be given all four windows at once. We love the sculpture and are excited to discover the sustainable focus to this pilot installation!

A few weeks ago we saw the Octopied Building, featuring inflatable tentacles that were essentially gushing from a building, and warning of an imminent attack. Is this becoming the new trend in urban art? HC2 has just unearthed another inflatable piece of art, which resembles a small sprout and leaf. Strategically placed in construction sites and in the middle of fields, it reminds us that nature is all around us. Especially when faced with the concrete jungle, a blow up stem and leaf stresses the importance of a green approach to life. Save the trees, save the planet. Did I mention that our web servers are now entirely carbon neutral, thanks to HC2′s sound investments in new environmentally friendly energy solutions?

When I was young, my parents used to bring me into the office and put me to work by stamping and stuffing envelopes. I loved it because it was a mindless job. I mean, right now I am painting the entire first floor of our new abode, which has already spanned two weeks and will probably take another two weeks to complete. I don’t mind, because it’s a really mindless task and lets me listen to my new favourite podcast, and generally get my mind right. This has led me to think about what other sorts of fun mindless activities I might enjoy. Is origami the next frontier?

I recently stumbled across the Origami Blog, which is, you guessed it, a blog that’s all about the wonderful world of folding paper into awesome. I mean have you ever heard of Sexigami, or tried to make a chair entirely out of carefully creased cardboard? Sure a lot of the origami on the site features advertisements and computer generated models that would be impossible to create, but the rest of it is 100 percent real and authentic. I can picture it now. An entire living room decked out in paper ants, cranes, and window treatments. I will have to post a sign: Keep away from open flames.