• AICT

  Art Images for College Teaching - a free use educational resource.

  tags: Art, History

• History in a Suitcase

  New Photographs by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour Are Found in a Suitcase - NYTimes.com

  tags: Art, History, Photography

How have I not heard about this before? I've just spent part of the morning investigating all the interesting resources on the National Gallery of Canada's Cybermuse, which describes itself as "Your Art Education Resource Site". While from comprehensive, it has a host of inspirational ideas and images built around themes and artists, and has activities that could either be incorporated into the classroom or inspire more hands-on activities.  The site itself is well laid out, although a little buggy for me (not sure if that's a mac issue, a living in China issue, or a mac in china issue).  

There's something magical about these Dreams of Flying photograph series by Jan Von Holleben; I like the idea of a project that creates a sense of wonder without using photoshop.

(The Big Week Part V)


Rotoball 2009 from The Carrot Revolution on Vimeo.

The Rotoball 2009 Project is an international collaboration between more than 150 students in 20 schools around the world. For more information on the project, click here. Please leave feedback and comments for the students on the Vimeo page.

Thanks to all 20 teachers and more than 150 students who were involved in this project, and special thanks to Heather Swan of Huntington High School for helping turn the project into a global collaboration.

Here's a great video made by the Students of the Canadian International School of Hong Kong, where the Apple Leadership Summit was held, featuring some the guest speakers.

Edit: Because the video starts playing automatically, I've taken out the embed. You can follow this link to watch the video.

You say you want some more Marco Torres? Here are some notes from the first half of his presentation. Unfortuantely I wasn't able to stay for the whole thing since I had to get back to Shanghai to teach and stuff...



Torres' uncles were makers of (bad) films in Mexico. Wresters vs. Vampires (sounds like a good movie to me!) The trust and collaboration that Torres saw happening between the filmmaking team he grew up with he didn't see reflected in schools when he began teaching.

Important events are more often remembered as visual images.

Teachers, you have three options: Quit, Complain, or Innovate.

When I Become a Teacher:



Digital Storytelling becomes about Product and Process.
We are blurring the lines between amateur and professional.

Marco Torres has officially killed powerpoint.

"Hong Kong is far, its so far I saw the guy on the plane in front of me get drunk twice. But on the internet, its close."

Schooling is getting in the way of Learning.

Wow.  For the first time, I think, in my life, I have a strong urge to be in Pittsburgh. Link.

HT to MM for the link.

Jonathan Chambers put together this great little video about this year's festival, which features the opening remarks from Scott McCloud. Even better- it doesn't feature my opening remarks (I'm much more happy behind the camera than in front of it.

• Learn to See Abstractly

  "Look for suggestive forms, shapes, and lines for creatively framing you image. The actual “subject” is secondary. Your task is creating a compelling photograph. Use ambiguity to achieve a meaningful level of abstraction. By abstraction, I don’t mean, “Something no one can possibly identify.” Rather I mean forms suggestive of other things eliciting emotional reactions."

  tags: Photography

I'd intended to wrap up the "Big Week" series on the blog with the premiere of the Rotoball project, but - I have to apologize, that post will come in the next few days.  Since the Film Festival I've added sound and credits, and it just needs a tiny bit of tweaking.   

This year, the Shanghai Student Film Festival grew in three important ways.  The first was, of course, the inclusion of our inspirational guest speaker.  Scott's classroom visits and presentations instilled a creative energy all over our campus and the other schools involved.  The second was that it was apparent to everyone who had been here for both years that the festival had 'grown up' - the students this year have a deeper understanding as to what it takes to make a good film.  Hopefully each year will set the bar a little higher.

Finally it was time for a break.  After months of putting together the Shanghai Student Film Festival, working on the Rotoball Project, and doing that other job I have in my spare time - the end of all that work had to be celebrated with a much needed break.  We took a trip down to Hangzhou, a beautiful city about three hours out of Shanghai that is a little more relaxed and a little more scenic- temples and pagodas in rolling hills surround the gorgeous West Lake. 

Between the last minute details of putting together the 2009 Shanghai Student Film Festival, finishing up the Rotoball Project, and welcoming Scott McCloud to our campus, last week was a very busy week indeed!  I'm fully backlogged on this blog (or is it backblogged?) and I've still got some work ahead of me wrapping up other aspects of the festival and getting the Rotoball video online (its finished, the students blew my mind with it this year, I just have to fix some issues with the sound).   There is far too much for one blog post- the festival was a huge success, the Rotoball project debuted to rave reviews,  and Scott McCloud electrified five schools with his amazing presentations and classroom visits. We'll be covering all that here this week. 

Although I've spent the last two weeks authoring the DVD of the show, I can share now that the student work truly amazed me.  This list of our winners is now posted, and that list will be updated with links to online videos once they are posted.   I'm especially proud of my students who took home a number of trophies, including awards for Best Narrative, Best Editing, Best Script, and Best Film of 2009 - as well as a number of Runner Up awards (Editing, and two Music Videos).  

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. This week we're working on getting the Shanghai Student Film Festival through its final stages of preparation and finishing up the Rotoball Project. The project will be debuting at the festival, and then it will be online next week. Since there is little in the way of updates at the revolution this week, check out what is going on here from Scott McCloud's point of view.

I really dig how these images of floating rocks are so simple and sublime.

Well, borderline sublime.

Here's a great opportunity if you're teaching in or around New York, the Hearst Magazine 8x10 Photography Biennial competition. Lindsay Galin, of Hearst PR sent me the following information: 

This exhibit featuring the winning photographs from Hearst Magazines' 8x10 Photography Biennial competition. The eight winners and ten runners-ups’ work is on exhibition for free in the Hearst Tower in New York City today through September 30. The 89 photographs featured in this exhibit, which includes portraits, landscapes, fashion, photojournalism and still-life images, is open to the public by appointment at 212-649-2148.

Hearst Magazines' 8 x 10 Photography Biennial is an international competition that recognizes the professional work of emerging young photographers. This year's winners are eight rising stars who a distinguished panel of judges -- including Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Peter Lindbergh, Mary Ellen Mark, Steve McCurry, Esquire Editor-in-Chief David Granger and more -- believe will play an important role in the future of magazines, media, the Web and the worlds of design and photography. The competition received over 1,000 entries from photographers in 47 different countries. John Bennette, a curator, writer and lecturer on photography curated the exhibit.

For more information and to view the complete collection of winning photos and photographer bios, visit Hearst 8x10.

Even if you can't make it to NYC, there are some truly stunning and inspiring photographs on the site.  The one above is Hiroshi Watanabe's Santa Monica Pier.  Times like these I wish I were still living in New York.

I'm not sure how this turns into a project yet, but check out this fun re-presentation of Little Red Riding Hood as an animated infographic:


Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

This ceratinly works towards the idea of an Infinte Canvas. Thanks to Michael Lambert @ Concordia International School, Shanghai for pointing it out to me! All of us on the S2F2 commitee are seeing through Scott-McCloud-y-Glasses these days.

Update: Frank found this first. Curses, foiled again! :)

Tricia Fuglestad and her students at Dryden Elementary took a trip to the Chicago Art Institute and got a chance to see Boucher's Boy With A Carrot up close. Just look at the smiling faces - they look just as happy as the boy in the painting. Carrots for all!

Thanks for the picture Mrs. Fuglestad and young revolutionaries!

Just before I started this blog (back in the early days of 2005), I had found a really great website in which an artist had re-appropriated thrift-store, sofa art, starving artist paintings by adding all kinds of strange monsters and creatures into the landscape.   Finding and losing pages like that was the prime motivation for me starting this blog.   

Take a moment to read this great op-ed in the New York Times, written by my friend Conan's sister. In addition to the thoughtful argument, it graphically explains the problems with the elimination of various services by the Metropolitain Tranist Authority.

It shows who will be affected, and conveys the sense of urgency and loss by forcing the viewer to imagine the lives of the people it mentions. Click here to see a larger version of the picture.