fantastic planet

do you remember this animation from your childhood? the images are so surreal, the music is eerie but yet so pretty. here's a bit of information about the movie from wikipedia:

La Planète sauvage, lit. The Savage Planet) an animated 1973 science fiction film directed by René Laloux. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and has been distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. It won the special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. The story is based on the novel, Oms en Série, by the French writer Stefan Wul.

paul villinski

beer can butterflies. check out this artist from york, maine. villinski who now resides in new york city recycles everyday beer cans into one of a kind butterflies. his installations are amazing, to see more here's his site.

palmas

this young girl is selling hand crafted palm leaves for easter.

las fallas

this past week some friends & i checked out las fallas in valencia. las fallas is valenciano for "the fires". beautiful wood crafted sculptures are set ablaze.



the entire city celebrates for 5 days. there are parades, beauty contests, paella contests and bull fights.



the center of the city is closed off to traffic. people wonder around celebrating with firecrackers and just about anything that'll make a loud boom.




these beautiful sculptures are burned on the last day of the fiesta, called la crema. they're filled with fireworks and at the stroke of midnight lit.




the fiesta celebrates the patron saint of carpenters, st. joseph.




ladies in traditional spanish clothing.




partying all day, all night.

"swarm intelligence"

thank you to everyone who participated in my title query for this piece! i love the ideas that i recieved and am looking forward to working on pieces inspired by your ideas- keep your eyes posted for the pieces.

the title for "swarm intelligence" came from baltimore based architect, david pindell. david sent me the wikipedia definition of the term.

(from wikipedia) swarm intelligence is:
artificial intelligence based on the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in the context of cellular robotic systems.

SI systems are typically made up of a population of simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of complex global behavior. Natural examples of SI include ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, bacterial growth, and fish schooling.

The application of swarm principles to robots is called swarm robotics, while 'swarm intelligence' refers to the more general set of algorithms.

title query

this new piece is in need of a title. i'm interested in hearing from all of you out there on your take of this piece. leave me a comment or email me. i'll post the title as soon as i hear one that sounds clever.

-acrylic on canvas
-27cm x 19cm

dengue fever

check out this video by dengue fever. you can find out more about them on myspace.

billie cook

billie cook is a local javea artist that i had the pleasure of meeting recently. the warm colors in her paintings reflect a sense of understanding & love for spain. billie has worked in many mediums and her website can be found here.