Dominique Strauss-Kahn's acquittal and return to Paris haven't kept him off the front pages of the French tabloids or out of the capital's gossip. Journalist Edward Jay Epstein is sure to get the fire burning again with one of his signature minute-by-minute breakdowns of the encounter that caused an international scandal. In the New York Review of Books , Epstein argues that many mysteries still remain: “Was there anyone in room 2820 besides Diallo during and after the encounter with DSK? … And where, if it still exists, is the BlackBerry that DSK lost and feared was hacked?”
Even if you don’t recognize her name, you’ve probably seen her work. For the past seven years, fashion-conscious women of all ages have been sporting shoes, sunglasses, handbags and clothing by New York designer Tory Burch bearing her signature double-T medallion. In May, Burch opened her first boutique in the D.C. area at Tysons Galleria . The 2,600-square-foot shop is one of 60 Burch boutiques worldwide. An invitation-only grand-opening party will take place Oct. 27, with Burch flying in from New York to attend. Read full article > >
DETROIT — The United Auto Workers union shifted the focus of its contract talks to Ford Wednesday night after failing to reach a deal with Chrysler. The move could mean trouble in the talks with Chrysler, which was close enough to a deal with the union that CEO Sergio Marchionne flew from Europe to the U.S. late Tuesday in case his signature was needed. Read full article > >
It’s a Sunday afternoon rehearsal, and Signature Theatre’s small Ark space is snowed under with paper; it looks like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after a nutty day. Actors and creative staff sit in the house, facing the six musicians on the stage. Everyone scrutinizes oversize, taped-together sheets of music as they put together the new musical “The Boy Detective Fails.” Next door, in Signature’s slightly larger Max theater, two actors stand motionless on the wide, eerily empty stage. Above them loom dimly lit branches. The rest is darkness. Read full article > >
As President Obama celebrates the signature national-security success of his tenure, he has a long list of people to thank. On the list: George W. Bush. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have forged a military so skilled that it carried out a complicated covert raid with only a minor complication. Public tolerance for military operations over the past decade has shifted to the degree that a mission carried out deep inside a sovereign country has raised little domestic protest. Read full article > >
The big news today will be President Obama’s budget speech, but it’s worth pausing before the storm to note that we are talking very little about what the president has always thought of as one of his signature issues: education. It’s a topic about which our preternaturally cool president has shown real passion.
In Signature Theatre’s crisp, chic revival of the reliable 1994 French comedy “Art,” ye shall know the three friends who come unglued over a white-on-white painting by the way they wear their shirts.
The fuzzy goals of the loosely affiliated group Anonymous have changed in the last year. It wasn’t so long ago that Anonymous staked its identity on relentlessly subverting culture for the lulz. The group became renowned for its mockery of egregious displays of political correctness, hypocrisy, social conservatism and lameness by way of constructing humorous memes, or by mythologizing these flaws in their satirical wiki, Encyclopedia Dramatica . Needless to say, their work had narrow appeal – appreciated mainly by members of the group’s forums. It took the inimitable trolling of Oprah – which led to her hysterical announcement to middle America that a known pedophile network by the name of Pedobear was equipped with “over 9,000 penises that were all raping children” – to garner the group significant time in the media spotlight. These days, the narrative could not be more different. Over the past few months, Anonymous has constantly been in the headlines, but for reasons that are political rather than “lulzy.” It seems the group has squarely concentrated its efforts on promoting freedom of information and speech by way of illegal, distributed denial-of-service attacks to crash the websites of authoritarian regimes in Africa and bolster the group’s campaign for unfettered freedom of expression worldwide. For the most part, the mainstream media remains befuddled by Anonymous, not knowing quite what to make of the group’s mélange of illegal activity, political motivations and sardonic sense of humor. Moreover, as the group does not visibly toil on any ideological coalface, media outlets have been tempted to portray Anonymous as a group of lonesome hackers with nebulous but shadowy intent. Mass rallies – like the ones in Wisconsin – make for an easy, linear media narrative. But electronic subterfuge and virtual activism are often depicted as a bloodless sport – the least compelling kind. But now, things are getting bloody – especially in the United States where Anonymous has gained considerable clout. This week, the group’s actions spectacularly forced the resignation of beleaguered HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr after it was revealed that HBGary – in tandem with Palantir Technologies, Berico Securities and Hunton and Williams – were planning to initiate a disinformation campaign against pro-union organizers and opponents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The group uncovered the astonishing lengths the three firms would go to in order to discredit their enemies: They planned to set up fake personas on social network sites to damage their opponents and contemplated using malware to steal private information. This has now prompted the Democrats to push for a Congressional investigation. (Being Anonymous, they also brandished their signature irreverence by hacking Barr’s twitter account and announcing that he was a “sweaty ballsack of caterpillars.”) But certain aspects of Anonymous’ methodology continue to divide those outside and inside the hacker community. DDoS attacks are useful for garnering media attention to certain political causes, but they can also be interpreted as an ironic attack on the opposing side’s right to free speech. The persuasiveness of this argument depends on the size and character of Anonymous’ targets. Multinational corporations and governments may seem fair game, but what about private citizens? Are critics right to suggest Anonymous is eroding an already blurry distinction between public and private spheres? Pinning down a cogent ideology of the group is difficult, too. We can surmise a few things with confidence: Anonymous is a zealous defender of freedom of information; the free exchange of information; the right to be irreverent; and the necessity of calling out gross abuses of power. But how committed are they to, say, social justice? This excerpt of a recent missive against the Koch brothers goes as far to imply some level of solidarity with America’s working classes and union movement, but it is hard to tell if the group’s motives are genuine: “Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one … we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries’ paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.” Generally speaking, as Anonymous is a decentralized, online community of individuals, it is probably misguided to slap a political label on the group. As a member explained to a newspaper in Baltimore : “We all have this agenda that we all agree on and we all coordinate and act, but all act independently toward it.” It’s a fairly vague description of the group’s politics, to say the least. This brand of civil disobedience is a stark contrast to the centralized, “real-life” social movements of the past, which generally had an identifiable leader and hierarchical order. Theoretically, anyone can become a member, as long as they profess a loose identification with the group’s objectives. Coldblood , a spokesperson for the group illustrates just how elastic this identification can be, suggesting that Anonymous is in fact an “online living consciousness, comprised of different individuals with, at times, coinciding ideals and goals.” So what happens when these ideals and goals fail to coincide, as was the case when Anonymous threw its support behind WikiLeaks? Well, the results could be kind of anarchic. In the WikiLeaks scenario, disagreement arose over how Anonymous should show its support. Agreeing on the duration of DDoS attacks on Visa, Mastercard and PayPal – as well as agreeing on the attacks themselves – proved a point of contention. The group splintered off into factions – Operation Leakspin, Operation Payback and Operation Avenge Assange – each outlining different tactics to demonstrate their support. Anonymous even published a press release addressing “perceived dissent” within its membership. For better or worse, Anonymous is a by-product of the political freedoms we often take for granted. The group’s ability to induce actual changes in social and political policy may be limited, but their ultimate value to democracy lies in their capacity to perform vital checks on institutional power. Their methods may be radical, but for now their outcomes have proved nothing more than regulatory. Image: Hugo |-| /Flickr.
To some Obama is a superhero, to others a supervillian. Now his signature legislation, health care, its getting its its own starring role in pop-culture–with a big new comic book. The Boston Herald reports that MIT health-economics guru Jonathan…
From a never-before-seen jet pack to geodesic shoes, a new exhibit of Marc Newson’s designs for mobility Designer Marc Newson ‘s prolific body of work spans everyday objects to total luxury, all executed with the utmost attention to detail, form and function. The latest exhibit dedicated to his output focuses on designs related to mobility and human locomotion, displaying shoes, boats, jets and a new release—a sleek jet pack. Newson explains much of his inspiration comes from an interest in post-war Italian design, an era when designers produced “every conceivable type of industrial product, from furniture to automobiles.” His career clearly reflects this ideology, and combined with his adept use of materials and technology has led to stunning examples of modern transportation for brands such as Quantas, Riva, Ford and more. “Transport” shows off Newson’s raw brilliance as a designer, his true understanding of engineering as well as how to integrate his signature style into every project. “Marc Newson: Transport” is currently on view at NYC’s Gagosian Gallery through 16 October 2010. See more images from our look at the exhibition in the gallery below.
CH exclusive: The making of Kanye West’s newest music video “Power” with its artist/director Kanye West has been kicking up controversy right and left recently—showing up at both the Facebook and Twitter HQs, turning his teeth to diamonds and engaging the public with his crude and prolific Tweets . After noticing Marco Brambilla ‘s “Civilization” video installation in the elevators at The Standard New York Hotel in 2009, Kanye not only wrote about it on his blog , he commissioned the experimental filmmaker to collaborate on the video for “Power,” his new single. We’re premiering the behind-the-scenes video with the artist created by The 88 (above) and directed by Jenna Elizabeth, which starts by introducing “Civilization” and then shows how “Power” was made. We’ve also got an exclusive interview with Brambilla below. Cool Hunting: What is the concept and how did it come about? Marco Brambilla: To me “Power” was about a symbol, an icon of power about to fall, like an emperor about to fall. That’s when I thought I’d like to do a sort of moving portrait, a video portrait of Kanye as an authority figure in a moment when everything is about to collapse. I wanted to make it really sensual and use a lot of baroque imagery that I had used in “Civilization” and create this kind of decadent imagery around him and have all the decadence and sexuality and excess conspire against him. By the end of the video there’s a change in his position. So his position is compromised at the end of the video. CH: Are you interested in doing more collaborations in the future? MB: Kanye is more connected to the art world than other artists, so I thought this would be an interesting opportunity to work with someone who really understands how far you can push things and how experimental you can be. A lot of people will tell you they want to do something experimental but it becomes commercial. I thought Kanye would let me be true to my vision. I’ve never done a music video and one of the first things I said to Kanye was that I’m not interested in making a music video, but if we want to work on something that’s experimental, I can definitely do that because I really connected to that song. CH: Is it strange that a celebrity would depict their fall from power? MB: I think he’s a true artist—he doesn’t react to what people think of him. He’s aware, but he’s not the type of person who’s going to react to things in a way that is better for marketing. He wants to push the limits. I think using part of his public image as part of the way of illustrating his new album will resonate. CH: What was the production process like? Once we locked in on that concept it was pretty fast; essentially a three-four week process. The post production was pretty intense because there’s about 22 layers of video in the piece and each piece has to be choreographed—it’s almost like a very complicated matrix. The shoot itself was shot in extreme slow motion on a Phantom camera. The characters come to life, but they’re moving in a very stylized way. I knew exactly what I was going to shoot the day we went on stage. I actually shot images of the models at the casting and then I put the models together in Photoshop, so we had it pretty well figured out. CH: Are video collages your signature now? MB: One of the reasons I took this project is because conceptually it made sense to explore celebrity, sexuality, self-consciousness, self-destruction. This idea of being in the center of the universe becomes a little intimidating to people. I’ve explored it in my work before. Regardless of whether I do a video work based on sampling or based on collage, those themes come through in my work. Marco Brambilla and the Christopher Grimes Gallery are currently working on a show called “Evolution” that will open in 2011 at the Santa Monica Museum of Art .
The sculpture-inspired Dutch lighting brand celebrates their 20th with a new collection Commemorating 20 years of success in the design world, Brand Van Egmond is celebrating their anniversary with a new collection of their “haute couture” lighting. With an approach based on the idea of making real sculptures, BVE’s fixtures (many of them custom-made) bring art from the “ground to the ceiling,” while also enacting a fascinating mix of craftsmanship and technology. New models include the classic chandelier shape draped in strings of beads, Coco (pictured at bottom), and Digital Dreams , an experimental fixture that incorporates digital frames to illuminate photos of your choosing. In addition to their own collection, Brand Van Egmond has partnered with many premiere brands to offer their lighting expertise. From stores (like Neuhaus Chocolate and Saks Fifth Avenue ) and restaurants (the beautiful Glenneagles in Scotland) to hotels (Gansevoort NY and Hilton Paris) to a theater (in Berlin) and a Delft, NL church , Brand Van Egmond has left their signature light for the world to see. The brand’s first book Lighting Sculptures will be for sale at key bookstores worldwide later this year. The book showcases Brand Van Egmond items like their very first lamp and chandelier , along with creative collaborations for the 76th Academy Awards and the 2008 World Expo in Zaragoza. Brand Van Egmond luxury lighting fixtures are available for sale here .
