Submitted by Jeremy “Lügarshz” Bloom. Text is from Google Sightseeing by Alex, August 22, 2008:

Face of Cowboy Jesus Found in Desert!

The proof is now clear for all to see - Jesus was a cowboy! As demonstrated by this ridiculously large example of Pareidolia in the Australian Outback.

These images have been colour-adjusted for clarity.

Actually, you’re not just seeing things, this is in fact Mundi Man, and not only is he really there, but he might just be the world’s largest work of art. The vision of an artist known as Ando, he covers a staggering 4 million square metres - meaning that his smile alone is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall!

The image of an anonymous ‘stockman‘ (Australian cowboy) was chosen to represent those who pioneered the Outback plains of Australia. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever method Ando used to put our cheery-looking cowboy here hasn’t lasted too well, as he seems to be slowly fading away…

thanks to adrbr

Kansas university fires mooning debate coach
by Roxana Hegeman
1010WINS
August 22, 2008

Wichita, Kan. (AP) — Fort Hays State University has fired its debate coach for losing his temper at a tournament, engaging in a videotaped shouting match that included pulling down his shorts to expose his underwear.

University President Edward H. Hammond also announced Friday that the school was immediately suspending its debate program until problems are addressed at the national level. He said it was important to take a stand against the declining standards of college debate.

The argument between Fort Hays State debate coach William Shanahan and another coach following a tournament match at Cross Examination Debate Association event at Wichita State University in March received nationwide attention after it was posted on YouTube on Aug. 2.

Shanahan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that while his reasoning might seem convoluted, he argued with the other coach because he respected her and her opinions.

“Obviously it got out of control, but to be honest I thought I was in a safe house,” Shanahan said. “I thought I was part of a community that handled its problems internally and that recognized the dangers of exposing ourselves - no pun intended - to the rest of the country.” Read the rest of this article here.

image: sf0

Here are links to parts five and six of an eight part series of articles about UK-based street artist Banksy with an array of examples of his work from WebUrbanist, written by Delana.

August 12, 2008: The Art of Being Banksy: Interviews, Films and Videos Featuring the Elusive Street Artist: Part Five in an Eight-Part Banksy Series

(more…)

author: mkrivoz - Smotri.com, via Dark Roasted Blend

From Gaffbhala:

Ali’s bedroom gets pranked!, by wig, August 20, 2008

My fellow housemate Ali went on holidays for a week… meanwhile the rest of us decided to wrap his entire room in newspaper just in time for his return home. Here’s the short video that Dan put together from all the footage we took along the way. Check it out, and enjoy!

Posted on YouTube by Dream Not of Today, August 18, 2008:

On 16 August 2008, a (d)N0t camera crew was caught in the middle of a horrific zombie mob rampaging through San Francisco.

This terrible attack by the walking dead tore through the city for four full hours, claiming many casualties.

This video captures that terrible day and the human cost it totaled.

Video by Rob Spectre (more…)

From A Life Less Mediated, August 20, 2008:

The Iraq War Moves To Manhattan

It’s not often that I come across a story in the L magazine that is really post worthy. Mostly i just pick it up when i don’t have anything else to read on the train. Even then i usually thumb through it, reading only the sex columnists page, the funny little columns where they interview taxi drivers (a habit that I’ve picked up myself since moving to NY) and the movie reviews.

This last issue however provided me with a new gem, disguised as a typical best of NYC review. Under the POLITICS heading, under Best Agitprop Public Performance Art was the tragically tiny description of Iraq Vet[e]rans Against the War’s demonstration over memorial day weekend [2007]. (more…)

The MIT OCW August 2008 Newsletter is promoting a course originally offered in 2007 called How to Stage a Revolution

Course Description:
21H.001, a HASS-D, CI course, explores fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions. How do people overthrow their rulers? How do they establish new governments? Do radical upheavals require bloodshed, violence, or even terror? How have revolutionaries attempted to establish their ideals and realize their goals? We will look at a set of major political transformations throughout the world and across centuries to understand the meaning of revolution and evaluate its impact. By the end of the course, students will be able to offer reasons why some revolutions succeed and others fail. Materials for the course include the writings of revolutionaries, declarations and constitutions, music, films, art, memoirs, and newspapers.

For the last four years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has made all of it’s courses free to the public. Through the Open Course Ware program, anyone, anywhere can download entire courses, syllabi, readings, lecture notes, videos, exams and more at any time. No registration is required. To date OCW has posted 1,800 courses ranging from Introduction to Aerospace Engineering and Design to Writing on Contemporary Issues: Imagining the Future. Watch a video about this amazing resource here.

German police seize teens’ motorized office chair
1010WINS
August 18, 2008

Berlin (AP) — German police have confiscated what may be the world’s fastest office chair. Police say officers happened on the contraption - the work of two inventive 17-year-olds - in the western town of Gross-Zimmern on Saturday.

The pair had added a lawnmower engine, bicycle brakes and a metal frame to the revolving chair - making into a go-kart-like vehicle.

Police said in a statement Monday the inventors insisted they had only tested it over a few meters, but witnesses reported seeing it on several streets.

They are being investigated over a variety of possible offenses, including defying insurance regulations, driving without a license and violating registration requirements.

Police did not say what top speed the chair could reach.

image: Dallas Arts Revue, Dennis Harper - Flying Carpet, circa 2004

Tinfoiled again: Epic squirt-gun battle proves fierce fun
by Gabrielle T. Dunn and Ryan Kost, Globe Correspondents
Boston.com
August 17, 2008

The Yankees gathered near the Hatch Shell in blue shirts and cocked hats. The British assembled south of the Esplanade in red shirts and makeshift war helmets.

The blue Colonials faced their general, an American flag duct-taped into a Betsy Ross original waving behind him.

“Give us liberty or give us death!” the general called to the crowd, a flag bandanna on his arm, a tri-cornered hat on his head and a tiny green squirt gun in his hand.

“Company,” he shouted, “move out!”

The slightly anachronistic reenactment of the Revolutionary War was a summer farewell by the Banditos Misteriosos, a group of a dozen twentysomethings whose goal is to create wacky events throughout Boston. (more…)

Arturart at the Institute of Arturart, Edinburgh
Art for Arthur’s sake is more than a joke - it’s a prank sustained by skill and a wonderfully mordant wit
Times Online
August 18, 2008

Arthur Smith’s satirical sally into the world of conceptual art won him a Spirit of the Fringe prize in the if.comedy Awards last year. This year the plexiglass trophy itself is the first exhibit you come across in the hall of the Georgian townhouse that he has filled with his Dadaist digs at sense and sensibilities. “If.comedy Award,” reads the caption. “£10 per 100 grams.”

[Watch the video "Edinburgh festival: Arturart" here]

If Arturart were just here to knock the likes of Tracey Emin, it would be a one-note joke - albeit a cute one. One room features a print of Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe screenprint, with some words scrawled over it: “In the future everyone will be dead for 15 minutes.” Below it, there’s a three-foot canvas that says, “Yeah, but let’s see Damien Hirst do ten minutes down the Comedy Store.”

But like all the best parodies, this has an identity of its own. Arturart, one of the slogans posted around the building tells us, “is the rigorous application of the lackadaisical”. And much though Smith likes to depict himself as a bloke just having a laugh, there is a commitment to the art of comic surprise here that is touching in its deftness and detail. From the moustachioed security man patrolling the landings (played by Smith’s old double-act partner Phil Nice) up to the world’s most hazardous paddling pool on the third floor, this is laid out with the care of a real exhibition. But with a lot more gags. (more…)

Crank callers have new way to hide identify
‘Spoofing’ services let dialers input another number that displays on a victim’s phone
by Stephannia F. Cleaton, Advance Business Editor
SILive.com
August 17, 2008

Staten Island, N.Y. — The crank caller was relentless, phoning at 10, 11 and 12 o’clock at night.

The content of the calls was inane: “One time, she asked me if I liked chicken,” said Susan, who requested the Advance not publish her surname.

And Caller ID was no help in resolving the situation.

The Sunnyside resident called the police and did some investigative work of her own. She learned she was a victim of Caller ID “spoofing,” a method that allows anyone to display any phone number he or she wishes — except 911 — on the called party’s phone.

It’s a service that formerly was used by law enforcement, private investigators, collection agencies and telemarketers, but is now made widely available on the Web. (more…)

East Village Memorial for NYC Renaissance Man
1010WINS
August 17, 2008

New York — Mark Chamberlain’s life screamed New York, New York.

He was 15 when he ran away from home in Seattle to make it in the nation’s biggest city, becoming a club kid, a model, a Web pioneer, one of CNN’s first blog reporters — and finally, a spiky-haired, tattooed artist called Cal Chamberlain. To fans of his Internet-based TV program, “High Weirdness,” he was the charming, darkly witty Judge Cal who spoke of politics while getting his lip pierced.

He had done everything right to become a hip, high-tech New Yorker.

Then, suddenly, he was dead at 41 — the cause still a mystery three weeks later.

Friends attended a memorial Saturday night at the Theater for the New City in Manhattan’s East Village. With Chamberlain’s body in a Manhattan morgue, a rose-filled casket on a makeshift altar was to hold objects reflecting a life both thrilling and sad.

The casket and its contents are to be burned in effigy later this month at the Burning Man arts festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, where Chamberlain’s ashes are to be scattered. For the festival, he recently helped create a mammoth metal sculpture featuring parts of 18-wheelers. (more…)

smArt speak Proudly Presents Pulitzer Prize Winner Art Spiegelman

Asheville, NC - The Asheville Art Museum ’s smArt speak: Distinguished Artist Series proudly presents Art Spiegelman: History of Comix 101 on Thursday, September 11 at 7:00 p.m. at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium.

As part of its 60th Anniversary Celebration, the Asheville Art Museum brings, for the first time to Western North Carolina audiences, Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Art Spiegelman. Spiegelman is the creator of Maus, a gripping graphic novel about the Holocaust, and In the Shadow of No Towers, a personal work about his experiences during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Because his graphic novels are powerful, autobiographical and universal, Spiegelman was chosen to help us explore the theme of “Graphic Memory” for the Asheville Art Museum ’s smArt speak: Distinguished Artist Series. After college he joined the underground “comix” movement rife with social and political commentary. In addition to a prolific career as a regular contributor to various underground publications, he also co-edited a comix revue, Arcade . In 1980, he started the avant-garde comics magazine RAW with his wife Françoise Mouly and more recently, is co-editor of the children’s comic series Little Lit. He has drawn for Topps Bubble Gum Co. and The New Yorker, in addition to teaching history and the aesthetics of comics. (more…)

GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself
Created by Ubermorgan.com, Ludovico, and Paolo Cirio:

We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on a network of hidden Websites. With this money we automatically buy Google shares. We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself - but in the end “we” own it!

By establishing this autocannibalistic model we deconstruct the new global advertisment mechanisms by rendering them into a surreal click-based economic model.

After this process we hand over the common ownership of “our” Google Shares to the GTTP Ltd. [Google To The People Public Company] which distributes them back to the users (clickers) / public.

In 202,345,117 years, GWEI will fully own Google.

For more info, visit GWEI and check out the slideshow.

via makezine.com