Mocean

Mocean is a musical immersive environment that invites people to touch, stir and play with water in a tank. The movement of the water is translated into movement of air in the organ pipes suspended above the water. The sound of the pipes envelops the person, its movement echoing the waves and ripples in the tank.
Artists: Maia Marinelli, Jared Lamenzo and Liubo Borissov.
(via we-make-money-not-art)

Perform

Performance art is a tricky thing: the more you talk about it, the less it seems obvious. I've already mentioned that the internet is not the place to look for resources in this domain. You can always try. Just don't do it for too long, or you will end up thinking that it's either something horribly idiotic, so abstract it's completely devoid of meaning, simply and completely mad (the latter site has some excellent cases though!), or plain dead. (I made the selection based on Google's top choices).
Fortunately, the ancient wisdom of printed paper comes to the rescue. Besides the brilliant book I've been recommending for a while called Live:Art and Performance, there is a new, exciting book out called simply Art Works Perform.
Why is it exciting? Because its aim is to show how very different things performance art can be. It is full of short... well, I would call them adventure stories (although some last a lifetime). Like the one about Andreas Slonimski and his stealing a bicycle pump in the most unusual of ways (artistic, of course), or about Olafur Eliasson's rivers of color, or about Rirkrit Tiravanija's challenge of engaging the audience in the most positive of ways.
What is also wonderful about these stories, is that they really show different people, in different worlds and working in different ways. Some dance, others take pictures, or write, or make pizzas, garage sales, lines of yellow paint or of pigeons, or make water fall. They all share one thing: an outstanding sensitivity, which makes this book a collection of powerful, inspiring moments. The book also has several "extras", works curated for the publication and interviews, but I must admit I'm much more overwhelmed by the combination of original artists (though the interviews are good, too).
There were 2 other things I really liked about the book: first, it is signed by Joan Jonas, an artist I really admire. And second, it's really cheap. (At least at Amazon it is).

Silence

"I somehow loved that silence, though; and felt it met my wishes
As no one's talk does nowadays!"
- Dionysus about the silence in Aeschylus's plays. The quote comes from "The Frogs" by Aristophanes, 405 B.C.

When business uses art

I'm not really sure what to think about the subservient chicken.
It is an ad for a junk food enterprize. It subtly makes us remember the brand, and associate it with positive, fun things.
This is classic PR work.
On the other hand, it's very funny, well-made, innovative and can certainly be considered net art.
There have been many artistic interventions related to commerce. I have myself participated in some (though I must say I was very reluctant and would only do it again if I was as financially desperate as I was at the time). Commercials won't go away. We might just as well accept this as a fact and at least see the less idiotic ones without the constant scorn we are so accustomed to. And make that chicken jump and run. And then - move on to more enriching things.
(for more discussion about viral marketing, go to Palladio)

Guerilla Projector

Presenting,

the SMS Guerilla Projector. A high-intensity light source, it's equipped with a cellphone that can receive and then project SMS messages in public spaces: theaters, walls, government buildings. By the London-based art/design collective Troika.

(via eyeteeth)

Which artist said this?

When I was still an adolescent, I went and signed my name on the other side of the sky during a fantastic ‘realistico-imaginary’ voyage.

It was pure chance that led me to judo. Judo has helped me to understand that pictorial space is above all the product of spiritual exercises. Judo is in fact the discovery by the human body of a spiritual space.

I had left the visible, physical blue at the door, outside, in the street. The real blue was inside, the blue of the profundity of space, the blue of my kingdom, of our kingdom! ... the immaterialisation of blue, the coloured space that cannot be seen but which we impregnate ourselves with ... A space of blue sensibility within the frame of the white walls of the gallery.

I remain detached and distant, but it is under my eyes and my orders that the workof art must create itself. Then, when the creation starts, I stand there, present at the ceremony, immaculate, calm, relaxed, perfectly aware of what is going on and ready to welcome the work of art that is coming into existence in the tangible world.

Hours of preparation for something that is executed, with extreme precision, in a
few minutes. Just as with a judo throw.

Today anyone who paints space must actually go into space to paint, but he must go there without any faking, and neither in an aeroplane, a parachute nor a rocket: he must go there by his own means, by an autonomous, individual force; in a word, he must be capable of levitating.

(You can search for the answer at the absolutely brilliant UBUWEB site)
(And for the answer, see the comments)

The new art of modem dance

Night stage : A big snow monkey appears in the center of the pond during a night stage produced by American modem dance artist Robert Wilson at a press preview for the 2005 World Exposition in Nagakute, Aichi prefecture.

This note was found on Yahoo news. I am usually against laughing at spelling mistakes, but this one is too much. You see, as many of you must know, Robert Wilson is not a "modern dance artist". He is a theater director and designer. From what I managed to learn, he created a choreography (or maybe rather: stage movement) for the above-mentioned Japanese event. One ignorant journalist copied this information off another, off another, until we got a modem dance artist. Which is nice, and should inspire all of us to new inter-disciplinary work.
In case you're curious about Wilson's art, here and here and here are some good starting points.
Oh, and here is an example of Robert Wilson's designing imagination (click on the image for more):
A Chair with a Shadow