FOAM Talent Call 2014
FOAM have announced their annual talent call, which gives entrants the chance to have their work published in the prestigious Foam Magazine and be exhibited in Amsterdam during Unseen Photo Fair. The Foam Talent Call is a springboard into the photography industry, giving young photographers international recognition and acclaim. Previous Foam Talents include Ina Jang, Alex Prager, Jessica Eaton, Shane Lavalette, Sam Falls, Pieter Hugo, and Mayumi Hosokura, as well as 1000 Words featured artists, Taryn Simon, Daniel Gordon, Daisuke Yokota, Melinda Gibson and Esther Teichmann.
Entrants must be between 18-35 years old and the entrance fee is 35 euros. 15 selected talents will receive an eight page portfolio showcasing their series along with an interview by an esteemed writer. The competition is open for entries until the 12 March via their website or through their Facebook page. Click here to apply or watch the video preview below for more information.
How This Michigan Theatre Performed Godspell in a Pool on a Stage
When you think of Flint, Michigan, the first thing you think of is water. Or rather, the 2014 water crisis which made the water in the city undrinkable for many residents, until 2020. But for director Michael Lluberes, who has lived in Flint for six years and runs the Flint Repertory Theatre, the city is more than that catastrophe. So, when he came up with the idea to do Stephen Schwartz’s musical Godspell and set it in a working swimming pool, with actors splashing around—it felt like a natural fit for Flint.
“Flint has this really complicated history and relationship with water. So I thought it could potentially be really beautiful and healing and magical to do something joyful in water,” he explains. “That’s part of what led me to do it—to show the world, to show the country that Flint is actually a beautiful place, and that the water is just fine. Dive in.”
And audiences are. Flint Rep is a young theatre, just six years old, with a modest $1.2 million operating budget. But Godspell has been its most successful production so far—its initial six-week run sold out and the show extended by two weeks to November 3. And it has attracted theatre lovers far and wide. “People are coming from all over to see it, which is crazy,” marvels Lluberes. “They’re driving, like, 10 hours. I mean, it’s been overwhelming, the response.” Flint Rep is even in talks with bigger theatres for an encore engagement.
To clarify: No, this production of Schwartz’s musical, based on the Gospel of Matthew, is not site-specific. Flint Rep is not doing it at a local pool. They’re doing it on a stage, in a real-working pool. The audiences sing, dance, and exalt about Jesus Christ while in water. The front row is the splash zone, or as Lluberes jovially puts it, it’s a baptism zone.
“The show starts with this baptism—John baptizes Jesus,” he explains. “So my thought was, what if the whole thing were a baptism? What if the whole thing were in water? And it became this theatrical baptism for the audience?”
And for the actors as well. When Lluberes was casting for the show, he asked the actors if they were comfortable performing for two hours in water. One of the actors, Gia Mae Chessa (who sings the rollicking solo “Bless the Lord”) is a former lifeguard. Talk about transferable skills.
“They have to be these quadruple threats: Singers, yeah, actors, dancers, and swimmers,” he says. Granted, there’s not much swimming in the show since the pool is four feet deep. But the cast rehearsed in a public pool at the YMCA of Greater Flint, so they could strengthen their limbs so they can dance underwater, and train their lungs so they can dive underwater and then sing when they come up. They also learned to work with the props—which are all pool themed: Pool noodles act as canes, colorful diving rings become money, and there’s numbers that use buckets, squirt guns, floaties, and rubber duckies.
As Lluberes describes it, “We do the Good Samaritan story using the rubber ducky as a little puppet show. The duckies light up. I just really wanted it to be fun and to be silly, and the audience to have a belly laugh. And then hopefully, it goes somewhere transformational and special and beautiful.”
Michael Lluberes
Dan White
As for the pool itself, Flint Rep actually purchased a working above ground swimming pool that’s 16 feet in diameter. The pool also heats so the actors can stay comfortable. “It’s a self-cleaning pool,” says Lluberes. “We’re constantly cleaning it and skimming it, and it’s constantly monitored for the temperature.” Lluberes credits the four-person stage management team who are in charge of pool upkeep: “They make it safe, they clean it, they dry it off at intermission. They put a cover on it. We’ve invested in industrial dehumidifiers rather. It’s been crazy!” He then laughs, “We’re doing the show, but we’re also running a pool.”
On the stage, the platform the pool is placed on looks like tile but it’s actually treated wood so the actors don’t slip when they have to get out. To keep the cast comfortable, the temperature at the theatre is slightly warmer than it would normally be. On the tech side, the actors are not mic-ed—instead the sound is captured through hanging choir mics.
Though while the cast practiced hard at performing in the water, how do they stay healthy with all that moisture, not to mention the chlorine? “Lots of moisturizer,” answers Lluberes. “And ear plugs, and they drink electrolytes.”
Aside from potential encore engagements, Lluberes isn’t sure what Flint Rep will do with the pool after they close the show (joking “We’ll have staff meetings in the pool”). But for him, this six-week run has exceeded his expectations—both for showcasing how Flint has persevered and grown after the water crisis, and for bringing joy to audiences.
The musical may be called Godspell,but to Lluberes, the real church is theatre. “The show was never a show about religion,” he says. “I’m culturally Jewish, I’m not religious at all. It’s not a show about religion. It really isn’t. It’s about community. It’s about a group of disparate people who come together and through telling stories, they form this community. And that’s what the theatre is.” He then adds, “It’s just fun, too. What could be more fun than the actors splashing and singing and dancing this amazing score in water?”
Ice Spice review – rapid-fire hits from rap’s new princess | Ice Spice
Seeing a room full of teenagers, some as young as 14, screaming their lungs out to a version of Aqua’s 1997 track Barbie Girl in 2024 is a surreal experience no one could have predicted a few years ago. But not many artists embody the unpredictable world of contemporary music more than Ice Spice. After appearing from seemingly nowhere and going viral with her track Munch (Feelin’ U) in 2022, the Bronx rapper went stratospheric and was quickly being declared “rap’s new princess” before collaborating with Nicki Minaj on the Barbie soundtrack.
Merging drill, hip-hop, and Jersey club music with a pop sheen – a “rap bitch on a pop chart” in her own words – Spice’s tracks never break the three-minute mark and so within 10 minutes she’s rattled through a bunch: from the bass heavy gurgles of Princess Diana to the melodic synth loops of Phatt Butt, the rapper letting rip some of her most animated and tight flows on the latter.
Spice’s near-constant twerking gets audience squeals, as a cohort of dancers move gracefully and powerfully around her, while the DJ fires off air horn and broken glass sound effects with almost comical regularity. The venue isn’t full at all but it pops off regardless, with giddily high octane pace and energy from artist and audience.
In the end she performs 21 tracks in just 45 minutes. This rapid-fire approach is impressively succinct, allowing pop hooks and booming beats to fizz and bubble before quickly settling down and disappearing – but it can also feel slightly bitty and restless. However, the final run offers up some pleasing variety and range: there’s a thunderous Did It First, the slowed down yet slick Fisherrr, and the squelchy bounce of closer Think U the Shit (Fart).
The visual backdrop for the evening is all Internet Explorer pages, Nokia phones and Tamagotchis in line with her album title Y2K, but Spice’s musical approach feels distinctly more modern. It’s less like a prolonged game of Snake on a black and white screen, and more like a frantic scroll through endless Technicolor content until you have 90s Eurodance hits and flatulent rap anthems blurring into one.
🎃Here is Your Strictly Come Dancing 2024 Halloween Report 🎃
It’s Halloween on Strictly Come Dancing, and the couples danced to these spooktacular songs:
- Chris and Diane performing a spooky Samba to “Stayin’ Alive” by Bee Gees
- Jamie and Michelle with a scary American Smooth to “The Addams Family Theme” by Vic Mizzy
- JB and Amy with a frightful Foxtrot to “Dancing in The Moonlight” by Toploader
- Montell and Johannes with a chilling Cha Cha to “Love Potion No. 9” by The Clovers
- Pete and Jowita gliding through a wicked Viennese Waltz to “That’s Life” by Frank Sinatra
- Dr Punam and Gorka with a terrifying Tango to “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics
- Sam and Nikita in a jump-scare Jive to “Time Warp” by Richard O’Brien (from The Rocky Horror
Picture Show) - Sarah and Vito attempting the first “Argh’gentine Tango” to “Ready Or Not” by The Fugees
- Shayne and Nancy showcasing a petrifying Paso Doble to “In The Hall of The Mountain King” by
Edvard Grieg - Tasha and Aljaž with a spooky Samba to “I Like To Move It” by Reel 2 Real
- Wynne and Katya in a scary Salsa to “Canned Heat” by Jamiroquai
Wednesday, on a Saturday. A disco sequin graveyard. Scarecrows, pumpkins & wheelbarrows.
The Strictly Come Dancing Halloween scoreboard looks like this :
Click the image below for all things Strictly
HW and SW Architecture Approaches For Running AI Models – SemiEngineering
HW and SW Architecture Approaches For Running AI Models SemiEngineering
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The city of Linz is all about the future – but that wasn’t always the case
From the November 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here. On 17 September 1979, officials from the Austrian city of Linz, including its mayor, congregated at the local airport. A red carpet had been rolled out in honour of a ‘special guest’ arriving from New Jersey to speak at the launch of Ars Electronica Festival the following day. His name was SPA-12, a robot with an orb-like head…
ART TREKS: Legion of Honor—Mary Cassatt at Work
The “Modern Madonna”
During the last 15 years of her life, Cassatt became increasingly focused on creating artwork about women and children. This mother-and-child imagery helped Cassatt start a conversation around Old Master precedents—specifically, the religious images of the Madonna and Christ Child depicted by Italian Renaissance masters.
But Cassatt’s ability to create endlessly varied compositions from this theme also connects her late work to fellow Impressionists Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne, who treated the same subjects (water lilies and apples, respectively) again and again.
Event details:
Where: Legion of Honor (100 34th Ave., San Francisco, CA 94121)
When: Oct. 5, 2024-Jan. 26, 2025
Hours: 9:30 am-5:15 pm, Tuesday through Sunday; Closed on Mondays
Tickets: $20 for adults, $17 for seniors (65+), $11 for students (w/ valid ID), Free for youth (17 and under) and Legion of Honor members
Pro tip: Skip the line and book your tickets online.
The Artful Cakes of Yip.Studio and A.R.D Bakery
In a world where creativity knows no bounds, the food industry is increasingly becoming a canvas for artistic expression. As professionals from various fields shift careers and venture into the kitchen, we are witnessing a remarkable fusion of aesthetics and flavor elevating the food industry to an even more sophisticated art form. This shift is not only reflecting the change in consumer tastes but also highlighting the ever-growing desire for visually striking food experiences.
Amid this evolution, two extraordinary cake artists – Alison Dunlop of A.R.D Bakery and Amy Yip of Yip.Studio – are redefining what it means to bake a cake. Their journeys from design-centric backgrounds to the world of baking demonstrate how interdisciplinary skills can lead to innovation.
A.R.D Bakery Photo: Alison Dunlop
A.R.D Bakery Photo: Katherine Rose
A.R.D Bakery Photo: Katherine Rose
Based in Glasgow, A.R.D Bakery is the brainchild of Alison Dunlop, who specializes in bespoke cakes and chocolates with a unique, graphic style. After studying sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art, she moved into fashion accessories and completed her MA at the prestigious Royal College of Art. Dunlop spent a decade working in the industry, designing bags, shoes, and jewelry for many high-end brands. Then, while on maternity leave, she decided to experiment with integrating a heavily design-led aesthetic into her love for baking.
A.R.D Bakery Photo: Alison Dunlop
Drawing inspiration from diverse fields – architecture, textiles, and graphic design – Dunlop’s work captures a playful essence, making her cakes true sculptural pieces. Her cakes are visually striking, characterized by bold geometric shapes and vibrant colors that seem to pay homage to both Bauhaus and Memphis. Each creation is a feast for the eyes; the incorporation of hand-painted chocolate work and graphic patterns elevates her desserts beyond mere confections.
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
On the other side of the Atlantic, in Brooklyn, Amy Yip of Yip.Studio is carving her niche in the world of bespoke cakes with an artistic flair that echoes her background in textile and print design. Yip.Studio is known for its unique rock-shaped cakes and Asian-inspired flavors. Operating on a micro scale, each cake is a meticulous labor of love, design, and craft.
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
Yip’s cakes are distinguished by their unique color palettes and sculptural qualities, emulating various rock textures adorned with fruit and meticulously arranged flowers. This blend of aesthetic beauty and culinary skill allows her to transform desserts into ephemeral works of art. While her creations come at a premium price, the investment reflects the artistry and expertise that go into every custom piece.
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
The journeys of Alison Dunlop and Amy Yip exemplify how passion can reshape career paths and lead to unexpected fulfillment. Their unique artistry in cake baking serves as a testament to the broader trend of merging culinary and visual arts. As they continue to push the boundaries of cake design, Dunlop and Yip remind us to celebrate life’s moments in style.
Yip.Studio Photo: Amy Yip of Yip.Studio
For more information on A.R.D Bakery, visit ardbakery.com, and for more on Yip.Studio, visit yipstudionyc.com.
Arnold Schwarzenegger endorses Kamala Harris: ‘I will always be an American before I am a Republican’ | Arnold Schwarzenegger
The former Republican governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he is backing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in next week’s election.
In a long post on X, Schwarzenegger, 77, said that while he doesn’t “really do endorsements” … “hate[s] politics” and doesn’t “trust most politicians”, he felt compelled to formally endorse Harris and her pick for vice president Tim Walz.
I don’t really do endorsements. I’m not shy about sharing my views, but I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians.
I also understand that people want to hear from me because I am not just a celebrity, I am a former Republican Governor.
My time as Governor taught me to…
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) October 30, 2024
“I will always be an American before I am a Republican,” he wrote. “That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m sharing it with all of you because I think there are a lot of you who feel like I do. You don’t recognise our country. And you are right to be furious.”
Schwarzenegger, who quit acting between 2003 and 2011 while he served in California, continued by writing that he was disappointed in all those who have been in power in the US over the past decades who have discussed addressing the national debt and “our broken immigration system” yet not managing to do so. This continued during election campaigning, he said, as politicians prefer “having talking points” for elections rather than performing “the public service that will make Americans’ lives better.”
“It is a just game to them. But it is life for my fellow Americans. We should be pissed,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “But a candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea – that won’t solve our problems.”
Schwarzenegger, who replaced Donald Trump as host of The New Celebrity Apprentice in 2016, has long been an outspoken critic of the former president and current Republican candidate. Schwarzenegger likened the 6 January attack on the Capitol to the Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany and described Trump as “a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever.”
He returned to the aftermath of the 2020 election on X, saying that “rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets. To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America [a] trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.”
Were Trump to be re-elected, he said, “it will just be four more years of bullshit with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful. We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that.”
“I want to move forward as a country,” he concluded, “and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz.”
mechanized flip-flops beat their ‘drums’ in meriem bennani’s exhibition at fondazione prada
meriem bennani’s mechanized installations at fondazione prada
At Fondazione Prada in Milan, Meriem Bennani presents For My Best Family, running between October 31st, 2024 and February 24th, 2025. It’s an exhibition that touches on connectivity and relationships – of being an individual that performs with others, and soon they function as one – using mechanized and kinetic-like flip-flops and slippers, rhythmic sounds, and an animated movie. During the opening of her exhibition, Meriem Bennani tells designboom that she doesn’t think she’s had much sense of belonging. She has always felt like she belongs in ways, but she recognizes that there are things in herself and in her life that are different.
‘I’ve definitely belonged, for example, in my high school circle and family, but there’s this feeling of something’s different, which everyone can feel. My femininity feels different too from the women in my family, but I think feeling different is just very formative. You’re already taking a step back, which is kind of what you do as an artist or filmmaker to be able to observe. So it’s maybe this ‘observing’ that I’m supposed to belong in a group that has made me appreciate the group as a collective,’ Meriem Bennani shares with designboom.
all photos by Delfino Sisto Legnani – DSL Studio, courtesy of Fondazione Prada (unless stated) | video © designboom
Art movie at the exhibition ‘for my best family’
Meriem Bennani’s exhibition at Fondazione Prada includes mechanical and kinetic installations where 192 mechanized flip-flops and slippers tap and thud on their wooden boards and steel plates in a rhytmic and performative sound ballet. These segmented sculptural works are laid down around the Podium floor, and they produce a cacophony of folkloric beats that ring out the entire space. The floor above shows the second part of the exhibition. Here, the Moroccan artist plays an animation art film she co-directed with Orian Barki.
The art movie tells the story of a mother and her daughter and what their relationship has weathered and gone through since the young woman came out to her parents. The plot pivots back to the mechanical installation on the Podium as they both attempt to dissect the meaning and essence of family and connection: the installation for being a part of a larger collective and functioning; the film for understanding the separation and growth of a kinship.
Exhibition View of ‘For My Best Family’ at Fondazione Prada
inside meriem bennani’s exhibition at fondazione prada
The staging of Merriem Bennani’s exhibition at Fondazione Prada is thorough and thought of. On the Podium where the Soul Crushing installations are, visitors see groups of flip-flops and slippers. When they enter, the first numerous footwear greets them on an undulating and ladderized wooden base to their right. To their left, there’s another stage of flip-flops, positioned as if they were in a choir. This part sits in the middle of two spiraling sculptures, still with slippers hammering out wooden planks. In the middle of the entire Podium, there’s an isolated island with two slippers tapping their circular metal plates, suggesting that they’re the conductors of the performance.
The sound ballet isn’t a random composition of noises. The Morrocan artist taps music producer Reda Senhaji, aka Cheb Runner, to orchestrate a soundtrack that the mechanical and kinetic installations play. It’s inspired by traditional Moroccan musical forms such as the deqqa marrakchia, laced with folkloric rhythms and beating often reverberated by tribal drums. These hundreds of flip-flops and slippers put on a show with an original soundtrack on their own as if they were living beings. There are wires and plugs connected to each platform of the footwear, and they’re all linked to the ‘pneumatic system’, programmed to sync all of the flip-flops and slippers’ beats.
Soul Crushing, Meriem Bennani
As viewers proceed to the first floor of Fondazione Prada, they find a cinema-like space for the screening of the animated art film, For Aicha, the next part of the exhibition. Meriem Bennani co-directs the 73-minute movie with documentarist and filmmaker Orian Barki under the creative production of John Michael Boling and Jason Coombs. During the preview that designboom attended, John Michael Boling and Orian Barki say that it has taken the team over two years to complete the animated feature.
The plot takes the viewers into the life of Bouchra, a 35-year-old Moroccan jackal and filmmaker living in New York, as she writes, produces, and directs an autobiographical film exploring her queerness and the way her coming out has impacted her mother, Aicha, a cardiologist living in her hometown, Casablanca. It’s intentional to make the movie feel and look like a documentary, from the shot angles down to the way the scripts are spoken and voiced. It’s an attempt to unpack, then wrap up again, what family means and the depth of familial relationships.
192 flip-flops and slippers tap and thud on wooden boards and steel plates
The points of tension in the movie caused by Aicha sweeping Bouchra’s queerness under the rug for around nine years can bring the viewers back to the raucous and thunderous beating of the mechanized flip-flops and sandals just a floor below them. As the two main characters reach their resolution, so does the composition of the footwear when they finish their symphony. Both of them might need someone and something to work well because they are a part of someone and something: Bouchra with her mother, and the flip-flops and slippers with their programmed pneumatic system. Before the movie preview where designboom shows up at, Meriem Bennani stands before the audience to let us know how the installations and the movie came to life.
She prefers to talk about her emotional response to something, and for her exhibition at the Fondazione Prada, it’s about being a part of a big group, a crowd. ‘What happens when you’re in a big crowd? Why is it so irresistible to do the same thing as the other people? What happens when you realize you’re a part of humanity?’ she wonders. ‘When you start to play music, people sing and clap, but how do they know when to clap? It’s almost like an instinct – this visceral response to being in society, with people. It’s almost like there’s a system that’s making them breathe together. It’s like they’re all connected in a network.’ It’s that connection that she manages to find, leading to an exhibition that seeks to understand the dynamics of being connected, like a family.
the series of footwear is connected to a programmed ‘pneumatic’ system
the flip-flop and slippers perform a symphony composed by Meriem Bennani and Reda Senhaji aka Cheb Runner