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Museum Shows Its Most 'Liked' Paintings In Crowd-Curated Exhibition #SocialMedium

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In most exhibitions, especially in mainstream museums, the curator is an elusive and scholarly figure, applying his or her knowledge and ever refined tastes to meticulously craft a show that will engage and enlighten. #SocialMedium does things a bit differently.

For this hyper-contemporary exhibition, the Frye Art Museum in Seattle invited an unusual guest curator to organize the show -- the entire internet. Over a two week period in August, the Frye shared 232 of their collection's paintings on various social media sites including Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. Internet enthusiasts from around the globe transformed into "citizen curators" simply by "liking" an image.

While most museums exhibit contemporary content via traditional means of curation, #SocialMedium turns the equation on its head, organizing classic 19th and 20th century paintings according to the preferences of the global internet user.

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In total, 17,601 votes were cast by 4,468 citizen curators around the globe -- from Bangladesh to Canada to Indonesia to Romania. Every painting received at least one vote.

"I think that one of the key aspects of this is that the project is truly global," Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, director of the Frye Art Museum, explained to The Huffington Post Arts. "We have very different perspectives on view than we would have had available to us if, for example, I had curated the show. Instead we have the knowledge and perspectives of over 4,000 people from very diverse backgrounds."

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Ludwig Dill. Birkenwald (The Birch Grove), ca. 1900. Oil on canvas. 28 1/2 x 36 1/8 in. Frye Art Museum, Charles and Emma Frye Collection, 1952.037.


The spirit of global connection and communication leads back to the Frye's original mission. "We have a collection that [dates back to] 1893 up until the 1930s. It was put together by a Seattle couple, Charles and Emma Frye. It's a global collection. They were both traveling to Europe and across the states acquiring the work. That spirit of reaching out to afar is something that I also really like about #SocialMedium. It opens up a lot of perspectives that we'd not have access to."

The most popular work was Julius Scheuerer's 1907 piece "The Peacock," which went "viral" on Tumblr with 3,525 Likes. The second most voted artwork, with 210 votes, was Franz von Stuck's "Die Sünde," which Danzker identified as the most important work in the Frye's collection.

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Julius Scheuerer. Peacock, 1907. Oil on canvas. 36 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. Frye Art Museum, Charles and Emma Frye Collection, 1952.148


"Some of the commentary around the show ends up being a question of whether or not, in doing this show, I had abandoned my curatorial responsibility and the necessity for formal, careful, scholarly, excellent work. But what was interesting is that the consensus, even though we had all levels of participation from 500 cities... in the end our single most important painting came in second to 'The Peacock.' It's what I refer to as the wisdom of the internet. The question of excellence as addressed by the general public; it's interesting to see how tight the consensus is."

"It's sort of a questioning of your own authority," added Jeffrey Hirsch, Director of Communications at the museum. "How works of art should be perceived... We're always looking for ways to deepen the engagements of our visitors and reach beyond our existing audience. This was a tremendous means of amplifying our message."

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Franz von Stuck. Die Sünde (Sin), ca. 1908. Syntonos [tempera] on canvas. 34 7/8 x 21 5/8 in. Frye Art
Museum, Charles and Emma Frye Collection, 1952.169.


Another interesting aspect of the crowd-sourcing experiment is its relation to the city of Seattle, where the Frye is based. "Seattle is a high-tech center as well as a world headquarters for companies like Microsoft and Starbucks," said Danzker. "It's been fascinating moving from Europe to Seattle, to be one of the people in the city that are experimented on by these international companies by working with the public. With Starbucks, it's the individualization of what we drink. The context in which we're working here is extremely interesting, in relation to the role of a citizen curator."

#SocialMedium is not only a beautifully condensed cross section of the world's taste in art, but also a compelling portrait of our present day modes of connection and communication. "What's interesting to me is it also paints a picture of the internet," Danzker said. "It's a demonstration of how visual information and preferences can go viral. To me it's still something of a mystery. That we were able to reach out to that many people over a single image. It was a concrete demonstration of the very different world in which we live and the potential we have to communicate with one another."

The exhibition runs until January 4, 2015 at Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Enjoy a glimpse of the images below.


A New York Artist Turned Her 170-Year-Old Farmhouse Into A Rainbow Playground

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If you happen to be walking through the woods in High Falls, New York and stumble upon a sizable, candy-colored house, don't fret. You are not hallucinating, nor have you walked into a terrifying, Hansel and Gretel-like situation. You've found artist Kat O'Sullivan's abode, a 19th century farmhouse she converted into a rainbow paradise.

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O'Sullivan bought the house in 2009 and she, along with her partner Mason Brown and a few creatively inclined friends, began hand-painting the stone and wood edifice of the 170-year-old home. It morphed from "the kind of house you would drive by and never notice" to a structure you could spot from miles away. The white walls were doused in purples, yellows and reds, and visions of eyeballs and smiles were squeezed below windows and rooftops.

"I walked into the paint store and basically said, 'I will take one of each!'" O'Sullivan explained to HuffPost. "Then I just started painting away without a clear plan. I make patchwork clothes for a living, so I approached the house the same way -- each section was its own little quilt square to play with. Every now and then I would step back and tweak it a little to make it more balanced, but I just followed the instincts of my inner five-year-old."

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O'Sullivan, known for her up-cycled clothing, dubbed her house "Calico." While the inside certainly grabs an onlooker's eye, the inside vies for attention too. There's a black-and-white staircase reminiscent of Beetlejuice, a corridor lined with dummy heads, chandeliers dripping from ornate ceilings and vintage furniture and appliances tucked in every multi-colored corner.

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The artist promises that the house is in constant renovation -- a "weird" playground that's only going to get weirder. We reached out to O'Sullivan for some photos of her unusual creation, and she directed us to an ongoing album on her website. Check out a preview of "Calico" below and head to her Facebook page for more.

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Artist Turns Heavy Metal T-Shirts Into Slightly Frightening Quilts

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The world of textile art is an interesting place. We've seen knitted zines, woven pixels, Fiona Apple lyrics as tapestry and a very phallic take on fabric sculpture. You name it, someone's sewn it.

So when we came across San Francisco-based artist Ben Venom's heavy metal-inspired quilts, we can't say we were surprised. We can say, however, that we were sufficiently impressed with his ability to turn "your grandmother's sewing circle" into a celebration of vintage tattoos, the occult and motorcycle gangs. Blending, as he puts it, B-movie horror film style with the delicate intricacy of quilting, he creates the perfect mashup of traditional and unconventional. Behold:

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"I’m interested in juxtaposing traditional handmade crafts with extreme elements found on the fringes of society," Venom writes in his artist statement. "My work can be described as opposing forces colliding at lightening speed."

Images that frequently pop up in Venom's works include ax-wielding skeletons riding tigers, eagles adorned in chains, knives embedded in animal heads, skulls, eyeballs, anchors, more skulls and more knives. Threaded together from the artist's old t-shirts, with bits of denim and leather tossed in for good measure, the decadent blankets are the perfect piece of art for a Megadeth fan who enjoys a toasty night's sleep. Or a Slayer enthusiast who appreciates the perfect piece of wall art.

Take a peek at Venom's extreme and beautiful designs below and let us know your thoughts on his particular brand of quilting in the comments.

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         quilt3      quilt4

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                skull         hat

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     whip      anchor

Venom sent a batch of his newest works, not yet seen on the internet, below:

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H/T Flavorwire

Architecture's Most Legendary Surfaces Transform Into Hypnotic Illustrations

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This post originally appeared on ArchDaily.
By Karissa Rosenfield


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Portuguese architect Andre Chiote has shared with us his latest illustration series, this time exploring the graphic potential of surface’s patterns from some of architecture’s most iconic structures.

“Each building holds an aesthetic essence by which it stands recognizable. Some stand out for its volumetric expression while others remain in our memory because of their skin, the texture which builds its surface,” describes Chiote. “The universe of those textures is extremely rich and plays with different elements which alone or combined create expressive compositions. Colors, materials of diverse nature, light and shadow set in a random way or organized according to geometric rules, form patterns with such a visual impact that allows them to stand as icons themselves.”



Cite: Rosenfield, Karissa. "Patterning Iconic Architecture: Andre Chiote Illustrates Surfaces and Textures" 12 Nov 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed 14 Nov 2014.

High-Tech Ballet Shoes Hypnotically Trace The Physical Movement Of Dancers' Feet

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Trying to keep your eye on a dancer's ballet shoe is not unlike attempting to follow a hockey puck as it glides between packed bodies on ice. A ballerina kicks and twirls, pirouettes and arabesques, throwing his or her body into a flurry of motions guided by the precise movements of carefully trained feet. Those feet meet floor and space in graceful yet chaotic ways, moving from one edge of the stage to another in hypnotic patterns that pull the eye along with them.

Designer and amateur dancer Lesia Trubat has a true appreciations for this frenzied action of dancers. Her past projects have sought to illuminate the movements of ballet, transforming the fleeting image of a physical dancer into a whole new visual language (think two-dimensional reliefs that turn the drag of a pointed toe into alphabet-like artworks). More recently, Trubat has taken this fascination with footwork into the digital realm. Introducing "E-Traces":

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"E-Traces" starts with a small electronic device affixed to the bottom and sides of a dancer's shoe, developed by master of the "sewable electronics," Lilypad Arduino. This device records the foot's contact with the floor, allowing the dancer to effectively "draw" his or her movements in a constellation of data strokes sent to a custom mobile app program. The result is a dazzling mapping of choreography, demonstrated in the video below.



Trubat cites dancers like Meghann Snow, Tiit Helimets, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Luis Casanova Sorolla as inspiration for the project. She pointed out to HuffPost that many artists have explored the intersection of dance and technology, and that more than a few apps track motion and vital constants in similar ways. "E-Traces" combines the best of both worlds, presenting a functional application that allows dance fans to interact with ballet in a new way.

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"The idea is that this project could be extrapolated to other dance disciplines (even [disciplines] not related to dance like other sports)," she explained to HuffPost. "The applications are varied. From self-learning -- or showing the steps in dance classes -- to the graphical representation of live performance." Dancers could view the movements they've made in video format, extract stills and analyze them. There's room to correct choreography and document it in new ways -- even on a phone.

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You can check out more images from Trubat's Final Degree project -- which she created in three months -- below. Let us know what you think of the future of dance in the comments.

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13 Fun Facts About 'Friends' You Might Not Know

Hollywood Is Just One Giant Web Of Jennifers

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Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Garner. Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Hudson. Jennifer Connelly. The famous Jennifers list goes on and on ...

And clearly, so do their connections. All of Hollywood's Jennifers are related in one way or another, and we have a visual guide to prove it.

Hover over the chart to zoom around.



Infographic by Jan Diehm for The Huffington Post.

David Hockney: ‘When I’m working, I feel like Picasso, I feel I’m 30’

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David Hockney wants to tell you a joke. A man goes to a doctor and informs him that he wants to live the longest life possible – what should he do? The doctor asks the man to list his vices and then he says: “Right, I want you to give up smoking, I want you to give up drinking, I want you to give up rich food, I want you to give up sex.” The man is shocked and mumbles: “OK. Will I live longer?” The doctor replies: “No, but it’ll certainly seem that way.”

As he delivers the punchline, the 77-year-old Hockney howls like he’s heard it for the first time: a throaty roar that culminates in a hard-earned smoker’s wheeze. We are sitting in a pair of paint-spattered armchairs in the studio annexe of his house high in the Hollywood Hills. He spends most of his days in here. It has everything he needs, not least a few gallons of mineral water and a stash of 2,000 Camel Wides cigarettes, just in case Los Angeles is hit by an earthquake.

New Look At 'Marco Polo,' Netflix's Sexiest Drama Yet

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Netflix released a teaser for its upcoming historical drama "Marco Polo" last month, and now the first full trailer has arrived. The 10-episode series stars Lorenzo Richelmy as the titular explorer and tells of his travels as a merchant and servitude to Kublai Khan in 13th century China.

With naked sword-fighting, lush landscapes and slow-mo neck-snapping (all to the tune of Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullabye") "Marco Polo" looks like one of the sexiest historical dramas we've ever seen. Think "Game of Thrones" meets the gorgeous cinematography of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon."

"Marco Polo" premieres on Dec. 12 on Netflix.

Nothing About This Music Video Makes Sense But It's Gunning For World Domination Anyway

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Every so often, a music video pops up on the Internet that does whatever is necessary in order to dethrone the most recent viral champion. There has been Psy's "Gangnam Style," and there has been Ylvis' "What Does the Fox Say?" But both of those videos seem like child's play (well, more like adult's play) in comparison to the latest release by Chinese pop star Wang Rong, "Chick Chick." It's difficult to quite say exactly what is happening in the video for "Chick Chick," as listeners are bombarded by lyrics that consist entirely of animal noises.

There are some female dancers dressed like chickens ...

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... some shirtless men with random animal masks on ...

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... some animated farm animals ...

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... and they are all dancing and singing for the pleasure of some shape-shifting sorceress?

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At 5.4 million YouTube views and quickly climbing, "Chick Chick" is destined for Internet domination. The video's description labels it as a "divine comedy," and that it is meant to "subvert your knowledge of popular songs." It's impossible to say exactly what the song achieves, but it's probably outrageous enough to scare any stoner straight, and that's got to count for something, right?

Kristen Bell's 'Text Me Merry Christmas' Is A New Kind Of Holiday Tune

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The warmth of a holiday greeting is not necessarily felt in a one-dimensional, emoji-filled text, but a text is as good as it gets for some in 2014.

Kristen Bell and the a cappella group Straight No Chaser teamed up to poke fun at the modern seasons greeting with a little ditty titled "Text Me Merry Christmas."

"Text me Merry Christmas / Let me know you care / Just a word or two / Of text from you / Will remind me you’re still there / You don’t have to add much to it / One smiley face will do / Baby text me Merry Christmas / Cause I’m missing kissing you," Bell sings.

SNC said they knew immediately that Bell would be the perfect choice for the duet.

"We wanted a Christmas song that spoke to how informal communication has become,” singer Randy Stine told RyanSeacrest.com. Adding: "[Bell] nailed every note and delivered the lyrics with the perfect comedic tone. We were hanging on her every word … when we weren’t looking at our phones.”

LOL SMH :-P

Brienne Of Tarth Would Win The Hunger Games, According To Natalie Dormer

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Which "Game of Thrones" character would win The Hunger Games? Let Natalie Dormer, who plays Margaery Tyrell in "Game of Thrones" and Cressida in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1," provide the definitive answer.

"Brienne of Tarth, because like Katniss Everdeen, she's a woman who is playing what would traditionally previously be given as a male role," Dormer said when asked that question during an AOL BUILD session on Friday. "She's had to work extra hard to get where she is. She's full of determination, like Katniss."

Brienne of Tarth is played by Gwendoline Christie on "Game of Thrones," and the actress has a small part in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1" as Commander Lyme, a leader in District 13 and prior Hunger Games winner. Synergy!

Watch Dormer and "Mockingjay" director Francis Lawrence discuss the new film, "Game of Thrones" and more during AOL BUILD below:

First Official 'Peanuts' Movie Trailer Wants Us To Dream Big

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The first official trailer for "The Peanuts Movie" wasn't supposed to debut until Thanksgiving Day, but Fox Family released the two-minute clip early. "Did you hear? Snoopy leaked THE PEANUTS MOVIE trailer," the studio said in a statement. "...Good grief."

We can let the corniness slide because the trailer is all kinds of "Peanuts" perfect. There's Christmas, flying Snoopy, popcorn-eating Woodstock, a movie theater full of the gang and, yes, Charlie Brown's signature catchphrase. Due out Nov. 6, 2015, "Peanuts" will mark the 65th anniversary of Charles Schulz's beloved comic strip. His son, Craig Schulz, is producing and writing alongside producer Paul Feig and director Steve Martino.

Trust Us... You've Never Seen A Harp Get Handled Like This Before

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Ever see someone truly go crazy on a harp? Now you can.

Colombian jazz harpist Edmar Castañeda demonstrated what the instrument is capable of in an expert’s hands on Saturday at the 11th annual Encuentro Colombian Music Festival in New York City.

If you think of the harp as a tame relic of yesteryear, check out Castañeda’s blazing fingerwork and percussive slapping on this jazz-inflected joropo, a style of music that comes from Colombia's plains. Prepare to be amazed. ¡Arriba Colombia!

Watch Edmar Castañeda go totally ballistic on a harp in the video above.

Japan's Most Notorious Photographer Defends His Love For Women

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Nobuyoshi Araki has long courted controversy in his native Japan. The photographer who shot to fame after intimately documenting his wife during the couple's honeymoon, is, by his own admission, obsessed with the opposite sex, and has become known for his graphic depictions of young women in sexualized situations. He's also a master stylist with a preternatural sense for color, a strength that gives supporters leverage in the battle over whether the Araki oeuvre celebrates the female form, or exploits it.

Now a new book allows the provocateur to explain his stance on women in his own terms. The 568-page tome -- a Taschen imprint titled, simply, "Araki" -- splits decades of photographs by themes, so a single section tackles sensual photographs of flowers, and another, Araki's images of women tied up in the tradition of kinbaku, an Edo-period rope play that came of age in 1950s Japan. Perhaps the section that will most intrigue followers of the photographer's work however, is the forward, an interview with Araki divulging thoughts he claims never to have shared before. He says he does this because the book is not set to be translated into Japanese, and so we are treated to his unfiltered views on women, bondage, and his wife Yoko. Read on for a few of these unprecedented quotes.

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"Women have all the charms of life itself. They have all the essential attributes: beauty, ugliness, obscenity, purity … much more so than nature. In woman, there is sea and sky. (This may sound affected.) In woman, there is the bud and the flower…"

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"I met Yoko, who became my wife. Till then I’d taken women, by shooting their vaginas, as sex-objects. As soon as I photographed Yoko I began to grasp the relationship between me and the woman before me as a mutual, two-way thing. For the first time I was photo-ing a woman the way she was, not as an object."

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"A photographer who doesn’t take photos of women is no photographer, or only a third-rate one. Women teach you much more about the world than reading Balzac’s Human Comedy. Whether it’s your wife, a one-night stand or a prostitute, women teach you how the world goes round. Besides, I stopped reading when I left primary school. I’ve built my life on meeting women."

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"I tie women’s bodies up because I know their souls can’t be tied. Only the physical self can be tied. Putting a rope round a woman is like putting an arm round her."

'Selma' Cinematographer Bradford Young On Challenges As A Black Artist: 'This Is All I Have'

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Ava DuVernay's "Selma," which chronicles Martin Luther King's struggle to get Lyndon B. Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965, is the Oscar contender everyone has been waiting for this year. But following the film's first New York screening on Monday night, awards chatter wasn't the only thing press members were buzzing about. It was Bradford Young, the 37-year-old cinematographer, who is credited with harnessing the film's power.

"This is a collaboration I cherished. This is an artist who I believe speaks to us," Young said about DuVernay during a Q&A after the screening. "Whatever image you see up there that you like, it was generated by her brain first and transfused to me."

But it wasn't just the work Young and DuVernay did together that left such an impact on the audience. Young's words about being a black artist in America were profound and moving. "This is all I got," Young said when asked by Adepero Oduye, who starred in "Pariah" (also shot by Young), how he balances anger at a lot of issues happening in this country right now with being a filmmaker and storyteller. "If I lose this ... my wife is a midwife, I'll just assist her or something."

Young continued:

This is all I have. As a young black man, and as a black man with a family, this is how I keep myself from going to jail. I'm not going to let them undermine this. Every bit of energy I put into this is so we can collectively not be undermined. I know that seems utopian in the sense that this is just a movie, but for a lot of us who have been continuously shut out of it -- and for me in particular as a cinematographer of color -- I don't see myself. So, for me, I use this as a space to keep myself sober, a space for me to be a logical, healthy citizen. As much of a contentious relationship I have with this country, as my grandfather would say, "I respect Marcus Garvey, but I ain't going back to Africa with him. I'm going to get mine right here." Though I am going to go back to Africa, too, this for me is what keeps me sober. They can intrude in my house. They can make me wonder in fear the fate and destiny of my son, who is a 15-month-old black boy and it's real for my wife and I. That's something we talk about everyday. They can come in my house in many different ways. They can come in my space in different ways, but I refuse to let them come into this space. Because this is what makes me a good husband. This is what makes me a good father. This is what makes me good brother. A good collaborator. This makes me a good community member. So I think we just have to be focused on ... if it's just [one thing] in our life that's going to be sacred for us, so that we don't get intellectually destabilized and culturally imbalanced, we have to fight for that. And be confident that it's ours. This will keep us at peace.


"Selma" is out in limited release on Dec. 25 with a nationwide rollout to follow on Jan. 9. Expect it to be in the conversation long after those two dates.


How Looking At 'Contemplative' Architecture Could Be A Form Of Meditation

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A new study out of the Catholic University of America (CUA) suggests that architecture has a measurable effect on the mental states of onlookers.

Yes, architects have long been attempting to point out this fact. Philip Johnson in particular stated that "all architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space." But now some respected members of the scientific community are in on the game too.

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La Alhambra


CUA professor Julio Bermudez and a team of researchers from the University of Utah compiled “fMRI Study of Architecturally-Induced Contemplative States,” a study that sought to explore whether or not a building designed for contemplation -- be it a museum, a church or a library -- can stimulate brain activity similar to that of meditation. In essence, Bermudez and his team sought to investigate whether or not external phenomena like architecture could induce a meditative state similar to that achieved by "internally-induced (self-directed) methods."

To do so, researchers brought together a rather specific group of 12 white, right-handed, male architects with no previous experience meditating, and asked them to review images of buildings while undergoing an fMRI scan. Each participant viewed both pictures of "ordinary" buildings (a "control" block of schools, offices and houses) and pictures of contemplation-inducing, "experimental" buildings (temples, retreats, and churches like La Alhambra, the Pantheon, and the Salk Institute), "depicted through four images at 20 seconds each."

After the scan, the men answered a short questionnaire, "intended to collect behavioral/psychological data." This, compared with regression analysis of the fMRI data, was used by researchers to show that contemplative spaces resulted in "markedly distinct" states compared to those of the non-contemplative spaces.

In conclusion, the small group of participants experienced activity in unique parts of the brain while viewing buildings from the experimental group, specifically "cortical regions of sensory-motor and emotional integration, non-judgementality, and embodiment." Viewing the contemplative buildings also allowed "subjects to enter into a meditative state with diminishing levels of anxiety and mind wandering."

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This Oct. 3, 2013 photo shows The Salk Institute, designed by world renowned architect Louis I. Kahn. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)


In an interview with The Atlantic, Bermudez commented on the small nature of this study, one that involved a very distinct pool of participants. "Bermudez explained that the goal of the pilot study is to reveal something interesting that warrants additional funding for an extension of the experiment using the general population," Emily von Hoffman wrote. The conclusions are provisional, but they add to a larger community of scientific findings that focus on the effects of architecture on the people around it.

And of course, the findings affirm what architects have been emphasizing for some time: that the built environment can affect us on an emotional and psychological level.

"The study wasn’t entirely successful in showing that pensive architecture produces the exact same effect as meditation," Hyperallergic's Laura C. Mallonee pointed out. But it's a start.

Color Buffs, This Pantone Hotel Is Here To Make All Your Saturated Fantasies Come True

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The average hotel experience consists of Berber carpets, a kitschy abstract painting meant to evoke calm vibes, bedsheets that hopefully aren't too discolored, and, if you're lucky, a warm cookie at check-in. The Pantone Hotel operates a bit differently.

Yes, Pantone, the sovereign ruler of all things color, has opened up a boutique hotel in the city of Brussels. The company, most well known for its Pantone Matching System, in which every possible hue is designated a name and number, brings its obsessive aesthetics to the three-dimensional realm.

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Designed by architect Michel Penneman and interior designer Olivier Hannaert, the hotel contains 59 rooms utilizing seven distinct color palettes, in which sharp hues pop and glow against the clean white backdrop of the building. As the website states: "From vivid to subdued, for business or leisure, our unique boutique design hotel perfectly suits your savvy palette and colorful imagination."

Well, if you've ever had the strange desire to color block your entire life -- including the precious hours spent sleeping -- this is your chance. Every small detail, from folding chairs to coffee mugs to toothpaste holders, is drenched in a carefully chosen Pantone hue. The resulting phenomenon is a color-saturated world that, we're guessing, will make it pretty difficult to leave the hotel room. From the look of it, the surreal space allows you to spend days swept up in what feels like a Yayoi Kusama installation or one of Solange's ensembles.

Road trip to Brussels, anyone?

Scott Nevins To Host 'Sparkle: An All-Star Holiday Concert' In New York

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Out and proud "People's Couch" hunk Scott Nevins loves the sun, sand and surf of California, the state he now calls home. When it comes to the holidays, however, there's no suppressing the soul of this native New Yorker.

Fortunately, Nevins, 33, has found a perfect way to channel his yuletide glee with "Sparkle: An All-Star Holiday Concert," even if snow is in short supply in Los Angeles. Initially conceived as a one-off performance in Palm Springs five years ago, the show has evolved into an annual tradition, bringing together television stars, Broadway performers and Manhattan nightlife personalities on both coasts for an evening of spirited holiday music that Nevins describes as "one-part grade school Christmas pageant and one-part old-school variety special."

The New York incarnation of "Sparkle" at 42West on Dec. 7 will feature performances by Lillias White, Anthony Rapp, Lesli Margherita and Bobby Steggert. Also featured will be Erich Bergen of the "Jersey Boys" film, "On The Town" star Tony Yazbeck and celebrity blogger and entrepreneur Perez Hilton, who is included on this year's "Broadway's Carols for a Cure" album.

"I'm such a holiday fanatic and I love all of the buildup to Christmas," Nevins, who was born and raised in Queens, said. The show itself, he added, is his way of "getting together with loved ones and friends for a great holiday celebration. I want this to feel home-spun and like a real love fest between friends, performers and fans."

Nevins, who already had playlists of carols synced on his iPhone by early November, is tight-lipped in regard to the show's specifics, but says the evening will likely feature a nod to Mariah Carey's "Merry Christmas" album as well as Judy Garland's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which are among his holiday favorites.

"You could play me any track from Mariah's album and I could sing it and re-enact the music videos," Nevins quipped. "And if you don't get a lump in your throat when Judy gets to the line, 'Through the years we all will be together/If the fates allow,' well, I don't know what's wrong with you."

In keeping with the spirit of the holidays, "Sparkle" has a beneficent cause, with proceeds from the performances in New York and Los Angeles going to The Actors Fund, a nonprofit human services organization that assists entertainment and performing arts professionals.

"What they do is so important. They've helped so many friends of mine, so I can't help but want to give back," he says. "They help everybody, whether you're an actor, a dancer, a writer, a stagehand, a director or a grip. There are peaks and valleys to every career, so it's important in this industry to have that."

"Sparkle: An All-Star Holiday Concert" plays New York's 42West on Dec. 7. Head here for tickets and more information.

Grace Helbig Drops Rhymes As Shakespeare's Juliet In The Latest 'Epic Rap Battle Of History'

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Couples who rap battle together, stay together. Right?

The theory is put to the test in the latest "Epic Rap Battles Of History" face off between Bonnie and Clyde and Romeo and Juliet. YouTube star Grace Helbig plays Juliet, who shows prowess at crafting insults even while in the throes of love: "A moment's break from your gaze is an eternity past, so together we shall both put these bitches on blast."

Check out the full video above.

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