Archive - August, 2011

The Owiny Sigoma Band: Pick of the Week

August 30, 2011 in Sounds with Comments Off

Here at Gwarlingo I’ve been neglecting the musicians in recent weeks. I’ve been consumed with Irene, the secret gardens of Rockefeller Center, Jane Hirshfield’s new book, poetry bombing, Barry Underwood’s incredible landscape photographs, and these Japanese manhole covers, which have suddenly gone viral after being posted on Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish (now on The Daily Beast site).

So Before Labor Day weekend arrives and sunset swims in the lake give way to apple picking, I want to pass along one of my favorite albums of the summer: the quirky, mesmerizing sounds of the Owiny Sigoma Band.

I discovered this band during my trip to London in June. This highly original, Nairobi-London sound clash, which blends traditional Kenyan Luo styles with contemporary western influences, is like nothing else I’ve heard before.

The project began when Jesse Hackett and other members of the electronic hip-hop and soul collective Elmore Judd went to Kenya at the invitation of Hetty Hughes and her friend Aaron Abraham, co-founders of an organization called Art of Protest, which promotes local musicians and rappers. In Kenya members of the band met Joseph Nyamungu, a master of the eight-stringed lyre known as the nyatiti, and a repository of knowledge regarding the traditional music of his tribe, the Luo of western Kenya.

The nyatiti is a five to eight-stringed plucked lyre. It is played by the Luo people of Western Kenya, typically in Benga music. It is about two to three feet long. The player holds it to the chest while seated on a low stool.

Nyamungu connected the band members with drummer Charles Owoko and other local percussionists. The group had no specific agenda other than to exchange ideas and enjoy their musical collaboration. They named themselves the Owiny Sigoma Band after Nyamungu’s music school and his late grandfather. These jam sessions “acted as a skills exchange and a way of sharing our music. We learned some of their songs and they learned some of our songs too,” explains the band’s drummer Tom Skinner.

The Brownswood record label site describes the musical collaboration in more detail:

Barry Underwood: Transforming the Familiar into the Extraordinary

August 28, 2011 in Images with 2 Comments

"Blue Trees" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

Imagine for a moment an Ansel Adams photograph. Any Adams’ image will do.

What does it look like? Do you see a landscape in black and white? Is it in a frame? Is it small? Large? Is the image on a poster pinned to a wall or displayed above a calendar page? Or do you see the landscape itself, as though it’s a real place?

It is hard to imagine what Adams’ colleagues and friends thought when they saw his photographs of Yosemite Valley, the Sierra, and other landscapes in the American West for the first time. Today, Adams’ photographs have become so commonplace, so clichéd, that it’s impossible for us to view these images with fresh eyes.

But when Adams’ images were first printed, they were novel and influential. It was his book Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail, and Adams’ testimony before Congress that played a vital role in designating Sequoia and Kings Canyon as national parks in 1940.

"Autumn Moon" by Ansel Adams

"Orange" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

"McLean, Virginia" (Photo © Joel Sternfeld)

One challenge all artists face is how to create original, compelling work that is in dialogue with a medium’s history without being overly derivative. Artists are in constant battle with the tyranny of the familiar. How can a photographer working today inspire a viewer to see a landscape with new eyes when so many photographs have been made before, when our cultural memories are infused with so many popular images?

When I first saw Barry Underwood’s photographs, I was struck not only by how strange and surreal they were, but also by how familiar–familiar in the sense that they called to mind not only the landscapes of Ansel Adams, but also The Lightning Field of Walter De Maria, the sublime panoramas of the Hudson River School painters, the black and white images of Japanese photographer Tokihiro Satō, the orange pumpkins of Joel Sternfeld, and the eerie cinematic scenes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Whatever Underwood’s influences, he has been shaped by them without being consumed by them. While he may reference the work of other photographers, he has invented a visual language that is entirely his own. When I look at his remarkable photographs, I sense that I am seeing these places for the first time, and I’m intrigued, but also unnerved. It’s easy to forget how difficult an artistic accomplishment this is to achieve.

The brilliance of Underwood’s work is that it suggests a larger narrative, and yet that narrative always remains elusive and mysterious. It is this tension between the familiar and the surreal that gives his photographs their power. Underwood shows us the potential of the ordinary, in the same way a brilliant cinematographer or set designer can turn an everyday moment into a memorable, visual experience.

"Blue Lines" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

"Aurora (Green)" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

"Outcrop" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

Underwood’s talent for creating theatrical vistas can be traced back to his undergraduate days at Indiana University Northwest, where he majored in theater and served as tech director for a year. In the end he turned down a full-time theater position, choosing to study photography at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan instead. While working at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Underwood began melding his theater experience with still images by utilizing lighting and other artistic effects in his landscape photographs.

When I spoke to Underwood about his process, he explained that all of his photographs are shot with color negative film. All of the images he made before 2007 (like “Lightning Bugs” and “Blue Trees”) were printed entirely in the darkroom with no digital processing. More recently, he has begun scanning his film negatives and making small adjustments digitally. But it is important to note that the lighting effects you see in Underwood’s images are not created in Photoshop. Underwood fashions these scenes by intuitively reading the landscape and altering the vista through lights and photographic effects. Each photograph is a sort of dialogue–the result of Underwood’s direct encounter with nature.

"Trace (Yellow)" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

"Line" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

"Lightning Bugs" (Photo © Barry Underwood)

In an interview with Donald Rosenberg, the photographer describes his process in more detail:

Mean Irene: A Photo Diary

August 27, 2011 in Images with 1 Comment

Mean Irene (Photo by Jijo Thomas via Flickr Commons)

The Fairway: Red Hook, Brooklyn (Photo by Shelley Bernstein via Flickr Commons)

Dark and Stormy: Dry Dock Wine & Spirits, Brooklyn (Photo by Marie-Hélène Carleton)

On Sunday Red Hook resident Betty Walsh and her dog Casper play fetch in flooded waters by the Fairway supermarket along the waterfront in Red Hook, Brooklyn (Photo © Micah Garen/Four Corners Media)

Toppled (Photo by Tom Geibel via Flickr Commons)

Hurricane Irene preparation: LIRR employees fill an AquaDam with water to help prevent water from flowing into the LIRR's tunnels to Penn Station. Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Sam Zambuto.

On Saturday Long Island Railroad employees fill an AquaDam with water to to prevent water from flowing into the LIRR's tunnels to Penn Station. (Photo by Sam Zambuto for the MTA)

Grand Central Station on Saturday (Photo by the MTA of the State of NY)

Apocalypse/Armageddon: East Village Cafe (Photo by Daniel Latorre via Flickr Commons)

Hurricane Yoga: Prospect Park, Brooklyn (Photo by Paolo C.)

The Sunday Poem: Jane Hirshfield

August 27, 2011 in Sunday Poem, Words with Comments Off

Of Yield and Abandon

A muscular, thick-pelted woodchuck,
created in yield, in abandon, lifts onto his haunches.
Behind him, abundance of ferns, a rock wall’s
coldness, never in sun, a few noisy grackles.
Our eyes find shining beautiful
because it reminds us of water. To say this
does not make fewer the rooms of the house
or lessen its zinc-ceilinged hallways.
There is something that waits inside us,
a nearness that fissures, that fishes. Leaf shine
and stone shine edging the tail of the woodchuck silver,
splashing the legs of chickens and clouds.
In Russian, the translator told me,
there is no word for “thirsty”—a sentence,
as always, impossible to translate.
But what is the point of preserving the bell
if to do so it must be filled with concrete or wax?
A body prepared for travel but not for singing.

About Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield (Photo by Nick Rosza)

Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry, including the just released Come Thief (Knopf, 2011), After (HarperCollins, 2006), which was named a “Best Book of 2006” by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and England’s Financial Times and shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Award; and Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Author of a now-classic book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, Hirshfield has also edited and co-translated three books collecting the work of women poets from the distant past and recently published a best-selling Kindle Single, The Heart of Haiku, on the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho.

Hirshfield’s honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the 40th Annual Distinguished Achievement Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, an honor previously received by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams.

She has been a fellow at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Bellagio. Her work has been featured in six editions of The Best American Poetry and appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, Orion, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. She has presented her poems and lectured at festivals and universities throughout the U.S. and in China, Japan, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Poland, Lithuania, and Ireland.

For more information about Jane Hirshfield, including the full schedule of readings this fall for Come, Thief, please visit her website. You can watch an interview with Hirshfield here:

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“Of Yield and Abandon” © Jane Hirshfield. This poem originally appeared in The Atlantic and was reprinted with permission by the author. “Of Yield and Abandon” appears in Hirshfield’s new collection Come Thief, which was published by Knopf this week.

A Note to Gwarlingo Email Subscribers About Viewing Videos

August 25, 2011 in News with Comments Off

I had a message from a reader this morning who was frustrated because she couldn’t watch the Sunday Poem video by Kwame Dawes in her email. This is one of the few limitations of having Gwarlingo posts delivered by email.

Services like Feedburner (which deliver Gwarlingo articles to your email account) can’t transmit videos in an email message. I’m afraid that you will always get a black box whenever a video is included in a Gwarlingo article. The same thing also happens on occasion with iTunes music clips, Amazon featured-book boxes, etc. This isn’t a Gwarlingo-specific issue. The same thing happens to me when I receive posts from other blogs in my email inbox.

If you ever get the dreaded black square in a Gwarlingo post or a large area of white space where a music player should be, it simply means you need to visit the Gwarlingo website to access these high-tech features. Simply click on the header of the article to read the post and to see the additional multi-media features.

I apologize to any readers who were confused by this morning’s video post. Here’s a direct link to the Kwame Dawes poem, including the full video.

As an email subscriber, I hope you’ll visit the Gwarlingo website regularly, as well as the Gwarlingo Facebook page. There are additional stories available there meant to supplement your email subscription. As always, thank you for subscribing and for reading Gwarlingo. Enjoy your Sunday!

The Art of Poetry Bombing

August 24, 2011 in Images, Words with 2 Comments

Chilean art collective Casagrande dropped 100,000 poems over the city of Berlin as a protest against war.

What if cities that have endured horrendous, wartime bombings could experience a different sort of “bombing”–one that would bolster the morale of its citizens, instead of breaking it?

In my introductory article on street art, I discussed yarn bombing, a new type of graffiti art that is being championed by artists like Olek and Jessie Hemmons. This week I came across two different art projects inspired by the idea of poetry bombing. The idea was new to me, so I was intrigued.

Since 2001 the Chilean art collective Casagrande has been staging “Poetry Rain” projects in cities like Warsaw, Berlin, Santiago de Chile, Dubrovnik, and Guernica–all cities that have suffered aerial bombings in their history. The most recent event took place in Berlin in 2010 and was part of the Long Night of Museums. Crowds of thousands gathered in the city’s Lustgarten as 100,000 poems rained down from the sky.

(Photo © Cara)

The poems, which were dropped from the helicopter by Casagrande, included work by 80 German and Chilean poets, including Ann Cotten, Karin Fellner, Nora Gomringer, Andrea Heuser, Orsolya Kalász, Björn Kuhligk, Marion Poschmann, Arne Rautenberg, Monika Rinck, Hendrik Rost, Ulrike Almut Sandig, Tom Schulz, Thien Tran, Anja Utler, Jan Wagner, Ron Winkler and Uljana Wolf.

A bookmark from Casagrande's poetry bombing in Berlin (Photo © Cara)

The work of 80 German and Chilean poets fell from the Berlin sky. (Photo © Cara)

Casagrande says that these poetry bombings are intended as a protest against war. (The Berlin event was also a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the independence of Chile). As the members of Casagrande told the Guardian, “wartime bombings were intended to ‘break the morale’ of the inhabitants of a city, so the poetry bombing ‘builds’ a new city by giving new meaning to events of her tragic past and therefore presenting the city in a whole new original way.’”

I loved watching this video of Casagrande’s poetry drop in Berlin. There is so much excitement and joy on the faces of the people gathered in the city’s Lustgarten. To renew a sense of child-like wonder through the experience of art, is a true gift to the citizens of Berlin. (If you are reading this article in an email, click here to watch the video).

Agustina Woodgate
While Casagrande’s poetry bombing events happen on a grand scale and require a great deal of planning and organization, the poetry bombing of artist Agustina Woodgate is a true guerrilla art project.

As part of the “O, Miami” poetry festival, Woodgate spent a month secretly sewing the poems of Sylvia Plath and Li Po into pants, dresses, and jackets in thrift stores around the country. She created the project to make poetry more accessible and to give customers an extra gift with their purchases.

Rockefeller Center’s Secret Roof Gardens

August 21, 2011 in Design, Images, Spaces with Comments Off

Rockefeller Center's hidden rooftop gardens (© James Maher via Inhabitat)

Inhabitat has just published a short piece on Rockefeller Center’s hidden rooftop gardens. The Center has been maintaining these gardens for the past 75 years, but public access to the gardens is a rare event.

According to Inhabitat, the building’s developer John R. Todd and architect Raymond Hood originally envisioned a network of rooftop gardens connected by pedestrian bridges (an homage to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon), but this design idea never came to fruition.

Inhabitat says that the gardens are primarily enjoyed by the building’s employees, though my friend’s husband has worked in the building for eleven years and has never been permitted to use the gardens. For a price, the space can be rented for weddings and private events, and according to my friend, the gardens are an occasional setting for Saturday Night Live skits. At this point, it seems that the gardens are primarily eye candy for those who live and work in the surrounding buildings. Only a lucky few get to experience the roof gardens up close.

Until the garden’s next open house, you’ll have to settle for these photographs. You can also peruse Inhabitat’s slideshow of the Rockefeller Center’s rooftop garden’s here.

The rooftop gardens overlook St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan (© James Maher via Inhabitat)

(Photo by Brian Dubé via New York Daily Photo)

(Photo by Taismelillo via Flickr Commons)

(Photo © James Maher via Inhabitat)

Joseph Keckler: More Than a Voice

August 19, 2011 in Images, Performance, Sounds, Words with 1 Comment

In March of this year I had the opportunity to see the musician, writer, and artist Joseph Keckler perform to a packed house at MacDowell Downtown, The MacDowell Colony’s free series of artist presentations and performances in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire. The buzz in the room was palatable, and yet no one knew what to expect from a performer who has been described by The Village Voice as “David Sedaris meets Diamanda Galas.” As one member of the audience said to me before the show began, “This is either going to be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, or the most incredible performance ever.”

Joseph Keckler’s work resists definitions; it doesn’t fit into a neat category or boil down to a catchy blurb. This fact alone can make new audiences uncomfortable. But once the lights come up and Keckler begins his performance, all doubts dissipate. Keckler’s stage presence is palatable. He is many artists in one–a unique combination of actor, pianist, opera and blues singer, performer, cabaret act, and storyteller. Within minutes, Keckler had us on the edge of our seats. We were captivated by his haunting, elastic voice, his disarming humor and ease, his down-to-earth banter with the audience, his ability to inhabit the lives of women, old men, fantastical creatures, and talking animals.

Joseph Keckler (Photo by Adam Gardiner)

Keckler admits that he is fascinated with banality. “I resent stories that have things happening,” he told New York Press. It is this mixture of the absurd and the everyday, of the operatic and the vernacular, of compassion and comedy that makes Keckler’s work unique. He is equally at home in an art museum, on stage at Joe’s Pub in New York City, at the SXSW festival in Austin, or in the rural, New England town of Peterborough. It is Keckler’s wit and empathy that allow him to move between these worlds with such ease. One minute he is singing an Italian aria, the next he is telling you a compelling story about his childhood in Michigan.

In this interview with Matthu Placek, Keckler defines a successful performance as one in which he is “half in control and half out of control” (“to echo Marina Abramovic echoing Maria Callas”). He also admits that he has grown tired of “phrases such as ‘genre-busting,’ ‘boundary-crossing,’ and ‘risk-taking.’ But I’d like to see if a non-profit theater will present me taking some risks such as texting while driving, mixing cleaning products, and leaving my front door unlocked,” he jokes.

With such enormous talent, it would be easy for Keckler’s work to be marred by self-indulgence, but so far, he has managed to avoid this trap. In his daily life he is a self-described “hurrier,” but he is also polite, charming, and unassuming and gives the impression of being wise beyond his years. Keckler tells Placek that he likes “defiance, absurdity, a keen wit, a beastly intellect, high standards, celebration of pleasure, openness, and intensity” but is turned off by “moral seriousness” and “open discrimination against anyone.”

Keckler grew up near Kalamazoo, Michigan and earned a painting degree from the University of Michigan. As a boy he loved the music of Cab Calloway and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Originally, he wanted to be a blues singer, but Keckler veered off this path when he began training as an operatic bass-baritone under the instruction of American tenor George Shirley. His classical training has served him well. He now has a three to four-octave range, but uses his versatile voice to create original, classically infused songs, instead of sticking with traditional fare. His love for the blues is still apparent, as when he launches into classics like “I Put a Spell on You” or dark, humorous songs he has written about fantastical creatures.

This quote from New York Press beautifully describes my own impressions of Keckler: He “commands the stage with erotic bravado, launches into dramatic monologues and embodies so many different personae that you can’t help but wonder whether he’s possessed by spirits or if his body cannot help but channel all of the voices in his head. Sensual, cathartic, overwrought and deeply philosophical, his psychotic twists and turns can bring his audience either to tears (from laughter) or to a numbed silence.”

Keckler is quickly making a name for himself. He has been featured on NPR and The Sundance Channel and written about in The New York Times, The Guardian, SPIN, The Observer, and Time Out New York. He has performed at The New Museum, SF MOMA, Joe’s Pub, La MaMa, and SXSW. In 2010, Keckler came out with an EP, Featured Creatures, released in Italy with Transeuropa, paired with a book by contemporary experimental poet Gian Maria Annovi. The songs have be described as dark, theatrical, and eccentric.

Joseph Keckler (Photo by Gian Maria Annovi)

On September first, Keckler will be performing a new show called “A Voice and Nothing More” in Amsterdam. He will open the festival with new work, as well as older pieces that have been re-vamped for the occasion. Keckler will take this new show on the road after its Amsterdam premiere.

While critical praise has been plentiful for Keckler, he is just beginning to find wider financial support for his work. This past year, he had residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell, and the organization Fractured Atlas is now sponsoring him. For his upcoming show in Amsterdam, Keckler needs to raise $4000 to pay for audio recording and mixing, equipment rental, video editing, rehearsal space, and the cost of hiring two musicians and flying them overseas.

If you would like to donate, Keckler has set up a campaign on Indiegogo. Fractured Atlas’ sponsorship means that all donations made to Keckler’s project are tax deductible. There are only a few days left for his fundraising campaign, so please give if you can. And if you can’t, you can also help by spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can track the progress of the campaign here.

If you have an opportunity to see Keckler perform, take it. Until then, you can get a taste of Keckler’s work from these videos. But be forewarned, it is impossible to fully appreciate Keckler’s talent through video and sound recordings, etc. Nothing I have seen on the web matches the power of seeing his live performance. It is the impact of his stage performance as a whole that is most memorable. (If you are reading this post in an email, click here to view the videos and to preview Keckler’s music).

This first video contains one of my favorite Keckler monologues about one of his early day jobs at a classical music publishing company. Keckler finds the “culture of emergency” at “Bumble and Maw” publishers tiresome and amusing. While on the job, he is plagued by annoying coworkers, irritating messages on his voice mail, and a coworker’s pesky parrot, who sings “Queen of the Night.” (Any artist who has suffered frustration and humiliation in a terrible day job will love this piece.)

Animal Architecture: A Bat Tower, a Bee Folly, & a Five-Star Hotel for Bugs

August 15, 2011 in Design, Images, Spaces with 4 Comments

Created by architectural firm Arup Associates, the Insect Hotel was one of the winners of the ‘Beyond the Hive’ competition, a unique architectural competition to design five star hotels for insects. The contest is sponsored by the British Land and the City of London Corporation. (Photo courtesy British Land via Animal Architecture)

One of the benefits of living in a rural place like New Hampshire is that interactions with wild animals occur on a daily basis. I see birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects when I’m hiking, commuting to work, or simply strolling around the yard. Wild turkeys, bears, grouse, moose, foxes, dragonflies, deer, minks, bobcats, raccoons, toads, porcupines, beetles, bald eagles, woodchucks, fisher cats, skunks, and coyotes are all commonplace where I live, and not a day passes when I don’t have some kind of close-encounter with the natural world.

Two weeks ago, for instance, I was hiking alone on a trail when I startled a huge flock of turkeys. I’m not sure who was more alarmed–me or the birds. One minute the woods were silent and calm, and the next I found myself in the middle of a turkey squall. They squawked and fluttered in twenty different directions, wings flapping, feathers and leaves flying. (Yes. Those giant, awkward birds actually leave the ground!) The encounter changed everything about my hike that day; I was more aware, more attuned to the sound of the woods as I proceeded up the trail.

If you live in an urban area like New York City, interactions like this are atypical in daily life, and your relationship to the animal world is more removed. Pigeons and rodents are a regular feature of the urban landscape, but you may never have reason to think about the Peregrine Falcons nesting on skyscrapers and bridges, or about the muskrats, coyotes, possums, and deer lurking in the city’s parks.

Urban and suburban animal sightings recorded in the media typically focus on the most dramatic or entertaining stories–bears shot down in New Jersey, coyotes roaming the West Side of New York City, a turkey nicknamed Hedda Gobbler living on the grounds of the Riverton Houses in Harlem. But the fact of the matter is that we all share our environment with a wide variety of animals whether we notice them or not.

The façade of Arup's Insect Hotel consists of a series of compartments based on a Voronoi pattern, which can be found in the natural world (as in the rib structure of a dragonfly’s wing). The compartments created by the pattern provide the supporting armature for a variety of recycled waste materials and deadfall that are loosely inserted into the voids. The structure caters to the needs of stag beetles, solitary bees, spiders, lacewings and ladybirds. The sides of the hotel are accessible for butterflies and moths, and the top is suitable for absorbing rain water through planting. (Photo courtesy British Land via Animal Architecture)

Imagine for a moment what it might be like if we were less passive about this relationship. What if were more creative and proactive about the ways we coexist with animals?

What if architects designed shelters not only to accommodate humans, but also to accommodate the animals who inhabit the same piece of land?

What if urban planners thought about wildlife corridors as much as they thought about zoning, sidewalks, or traffic calming?

What if we were able to replace some of the natural animal habitats that have been destroyed with new habitats that would boost dwindling populations? Imagine if we could design a way for bees to live outside the hive?

What if zoo enclosures were designed from the animals’ perspective instead of from a hierarchical, human point of view? And what would happen if zoo designers reversed the concept of being “inside” an enclosure versus on the “outside”? How might this change the interaction between animals and humans in an artificial space such as a zoo or park?

These are some of the intriguing questions being explored at Animal Architecture, an online project curated by Ned Dodington and Jonathon LaRocca. Dodington and LaRoocca believe in the importance of ecological relationships and their ability to transform design, urban planning, and more. They describe Animal Architecture as “an ongoing investigation into the performative role of biology in design…illuminating alternative ways of living with nonhuman animals, discussing cross-species collaborations, and defining new frameworks through which to discuss biologic design.”

I first learned about Animal Architecture from architect Joyce Hwang, who has designed several animal habitats, such as the Bat Tower shown in the below photo. (You can learn more about this project and read an interview with Joyce on the Animal Architecture website). Joyce’s Bat Tower is a good example of “Animal Architecture” in practice, as is Fritz Haeg’s Animal Estates project, which I saw at the Whitney Biennial in 2008. Arup’s Insect Hotel, one of the winners of the 2010 Beyond the Hive competition, also shows some of the creative possibilities in this emerging field.

The Bat Tower designed by architect Joyce Hwang and her students at SUNY Buffalo. "When I first became interested in bats and their behavior," Hwang explains, "I was surprised to learn that many species are able to live in spaces that we tend to think of as uninhabitable, for example, under loose pieces of tree bark, between pieces of building material, etc." (Photo by Joyce Hwang via Animal Architecture)

Today, Animal Architecture announced the winning entries for the 2011 Animal Architecture Awards. The projects, which range from the “fantastical, plausible” to the “built,” are an excellent introduction to the concept of Animal Architecture. Of the more ambitious projects, my personal favorites are the Nottingham Apiary and BirdScraper. Of the simple, low-tech designs, I like Bird Habitats and Window Unit.

The winning entries featured below are taken directly from Animal Architecture–all photographs and text are courtesy of the Animal Architecture blog. If the subject interests you, do take some time to explore Dodington and LaRoocca’s site further. Each of these award-winning projects featured below will be published in more detail on Animal Architecture within the coming weeks, and an exhibition is also in the works. You can check the Animal Architecture website for regular updates.

The 2011 Animal Architecture Awards

First Place: Theriomorphous Cyborg

Simone Ferracina

Inspired by Uexküll’s animal Umwelt, the “Theriomorphous Cyborg” is an immersive Augmented Reality game aimed at endowing participants with a non- and extra-human gaze. It is software designed to uncover alternative fields of experience and to activate novel relations between human cyborgs and their “sentient” surroundings.

Each level establishes a new and unfamiliar environment-world; LEVEL 1 endows players with the ability to perceive the Earth’s magnetic field. LEVEL 2 allows them to manipulate their own awareness of time by mixing synchronous and asynchronous signals. LEVEL 3 substitutes the participant’s eyesight with broadcasts from CCTV cameras activated by proximity.

First Runner Up:The Nottingham Apiary

Amelia Eiriksson, Fraser Godfrey, Ana Moldavsky, Esko Willman from the University of Nottingham

The Nottingham Apiary project addresses the problem of collapsing bee populations, upon which humans depend to pollinate food crops. This phenomenon, Colony Collapse Disorder, is attributed to many causes, however there is no conclusive evidence for any specific one. The project aims to restore bee populations locally, with the potential to be replicated in other locations around the world.

An existing derelict structure is used as framework for bee habitation, with hives gradually expanding and taking over. New elements, attached to the old, allow the process to happen. The folly creates a dialogue between the process, the surrounding area and the public, introducing the bees in a nonthreatening context. It acts as the entrance to the building. The visitor route follows The Plight of the Honey Bee installation, creating a gradual crescendo through the spaces.

Second Runner Up: Farmland World

Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer of Design With Company, with Katharine Bayer and Hugh Swiatek

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About Michelle

My name is Michelle Aldredge. I’m a writer, photographer, and the creator of Gwarlingo. At Gwarlingo, I share in-depth conversations with artists, as well as some of my own exciting finds in contemporary art. I've done radio appearances on NHPR and consulted on arts projects big and small. From 1999-2012 I worked at The MacDowell Colony, the nation's oldest artist retreat, but I've also done time at an arts magazine, a library, an art museum, and a raptor rehabilitation center. You can read more about me and my work here. Thanks for visiting. Come back. Come often.

Greatest Hits

Lost in Her Life: Whether it's aluminum foil, twist ties, receipts, email, or price tags (shown above), artist Rachel Perry Welty transforms life's daily clutter into art like no one else. Gwarlingo readers loved this exclusive look at Welty's art and her studio in Annisquam, Massachusetts.

A Chain Link Fence Transformed: On my recent visit to the deCordova Museum, one of the artworks I found most compelling was “Capturing Resonance” by sculptor Soo Sunny Park and composer Spencer Topel, which is made out of chain link fencing. Read more about the piece here.

Sol LeWitt's Advice to Eva Hesse: DO! In 1965, when Eva Hesse found herself in a difficult creative place, artist Sol LeWitt wrote his friend a long letter of encouragement: “Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping,…Stop it and just DO!...If you fear, make it work for you – draw & paint your fear and anxiety.” I’ve never had so many overwhelming, positive responses to a piece. Read LeWitt's entire letter here.

The Sunday Poem: Gwarlingo subscribers receive The Sunday Poem in their inbox each week for free. The Sunday poets include Matthew Zapruder, Ravi Shankar (shown above), Meghan O'Rourke, Donald Hall, Kevin Young, Matthew Dickman, Seamus Heaney, Cristián Flores García, D. Nurkse, Jane Hirshfield, Stephen Dunn, Anzhelina Polonskaya, Eduardo Corral, Jean Valentine, Maureen McLane, and more. Explore the entire series here.

The Complete Creative Series: In 13 years working for an artist residency program, I've seen it all. I understand both the psychological and practical barriers to creating your best work. Fear, doubt, financial worries, procrastination, the distraction of technology, presenting yourself online and on applications, creating an engaged community: these are just a few of the challenges you face in any creative field. The Complete Creative is an in-depth series that examines some of the topics that most concern you and your creative life. Read the series here.

Envisioning the Future with Yo La Tengo, R. Buckminster Fuller, & Sam Green: Recently, I had a chance to hang out with Sam Green and Yo La Tengo at the ICA in Boston. Their "live documentary," The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, was like no other film screening I’ve been to and is a must see. Read more here.

The Life & Legacy of Horace Pippin: One of my favorite discoveries at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia was African-American artist Horace Pippin. Here's a look at Pippin's life, art, and legacy, including 34 works by the Depression-era painter. These paintings blow me away.

Everything is Art. Everything is Politics: I didn’t expect a publication that has been touted as one of the “Best Art Books of 2012″ to stand just six inches tall and contain only two photographs. But as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s new book of quotes, Weiwei-isms, proves, small can be powerful. Read my review here.

The Day in the Life of a Homeless Piano in NYC: Anthony Sherin's quiet, poignant short film has haunted me since I first saw it. Surely you have five minutes? I promise it's worth it. Click here to watch the film.

61 Amazing Manhole Covers from Japan: The most popular post in Gwarlingo's short lifespan has been this feature on the art of Japanese manhole covers. Who knew that manhole covers could be so beautiful or so popular? The article was picked up by Andrew Sullivan's "The Dish" over at The Daily Beast, by The Agitator, and several other sites. If you haven't seen these incredible manhole covers yet, click here to see what all the fuss is about.

The Debut of Mary Ruefle's Erasure Melody: Mary Ruefle is one of today’s most admired practitioners of erasure poetry. A new erasure by Ruefle is a rare event, and the publication of one online or in print even rarer. Gwarlingo is the only place where you can see this one-of-a-kind piece. Read Melody in its entirety and learn more about erasure poetry here.

Little People in the City: While the public goes mad for Banksy, a more polished street artist named Slinkachu has been producing brilliant, evocative artwork that has largely escaped the attention of an American audience. Slinkachu is everything Banksy is not–-subtle, poignant, empathic, contemplative. Gwarlingo readers loved Slinkachu's photographs. Check out 33 of his images here.

The Art of Focus - 5 Ways to Free Yourself from Digital Dependency: Our day begins with good intentions. We resolve that today will be different from yesterday, because today, we we’ll stay on task. But then we turn on our computers and smart-phones, and before we know it, we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. How do we make the most of technology without frittering our lives away? How do we create time and space for deep thinking, creation, and real connection within the chaos of digital life?

13 Years, 3500 Artists, 7 Memorable Lessons: After thirteen remarkable years of working at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, I decided to leave the Colony in May of 2012. Letting go of a 9-5 job (with a regular paycheck and benefits) in order to expand an arts website is a risky thing to do, but I've loved every minute of the Gwarlingo adventure. Did I learn something from working with over 3500 artists in those 13 years? Hell yeah. Read more here.

52 Pieces by British Street Artist Banksy: Banksy is a walking, breathing oxymoron. Depending on who you ask, he is either a genius or an overhyped vandal, a talented documentary filmmaker or a brilliant faker. He is both a lefty and a critic of liberal piety. He flips off the art world establishment, and yet courts the very art world he claims to detest. He is a street artist who sells his work for high sums in galleries and auction houses, and “an anarchist environmentalist who travels by chauffeured S.U.V. Is Banksy an arch prankster or an art genius? Read more here. (Above: Cardinal Sin by Banksy)

How Creativity Works: Why do creative epiphanies happen? Are there specific things we can do to encourage innovation in our personal lives and in the workplace? What can Bob Dylan, Julia Child, and Picasso teach us about the creative process? Read more about Jonah Lehrer's book Imagine: How Creativity Works here.

The Illusionist: At first glance, the work of Swiss artist Felice Varini looks like interesting, abstract art superimposed on an architectural space. But these are actually brilliantly composed installations--real paintings in real spaces that hover eerily in front of it. See more of Varini's work here.

The Spectacular Snow Drawings of Simon Beck: Beck creates these incredible designs by simply walking in the snow. These massive installations take two days to complete. See more photos here.

Creativity is the Power to Act: Ai Weiwei's interviews and blog posts are a thought-provoking read. “Creativity is the power to act," Ai says. "It’s the power “to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential.” Ai is an architect, sculptor, curator, poet, critic, publisher, and photographer--an artist who created installations out of 1,200 bicycles and 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds. Read more about Ai's writing, political activism, and art work here.

Not Your Average Flashmob: Last month the Copenhagen Philharmonic pulled off an audacious stunt—performing Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt on a crowded, moving metro train for unsuspecting passengers. Readers loved this video. I dare you to watch it without smiling.

How to Feel Miserable as an Artist: This marvelous list, which is relevant to artists of all disciplines, was created by illustrator Keri Smith and is part of The Artist’s Survival Kit, which Keri wrote and designed. I like Keri’s list because it emphasizes the ways in which we tend to stay in our safe zones as artists. Read the full list here.

Hugo Author Brian Selznick Shares 20 Favorite Books: Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret has won over critics and fans alike. In this popular Gwarlingo exclusive, Selznick shares his own favorite books for children. There are some wonderful discoveries on the list for readers of all ages. View all 20 titles and see illustrations from Selznick's newest book, Wonderstruck here.

95 Rare Color Photographs: The second most popular post in Gwarlingo's short history has been this feature on the rare color photographs taken by FSA photographers like Jack Delano, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott. The overwhelming response to this piece leads me to believe that I'm not the only one who finds these early Kodachrome photos from the 30s and 40s a fascinating discovery.

Grace Paley on Writing: "If you want to write, keep a low overhead...The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don’t live with a lover or roommate who doesn’t respect your work. Don’t lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don’t write." Read more here.

On Money, Fear, & the Artist: Being an artist is so hard because we’re operating in a parallel universe from the larger culture–one that values imagination, creativity, and ideas more than money or status. Read more about art and fear and explore Mark Wagner's amazing currency collages here.

Transforming the Familiar: Explore the luminous landscapes of photographer Barry Underwood.

Tour the Tate Modern: The Tate Modern in London, a former power plant, is the most visited modern art gallery in the world. I share some of the highlights from my own visit in this special tour.

The Journey to Freedom: Peter Wyer's Numinous City is inspired by the extraordinary true story of Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun, imprisoned in Lhasa, Tibet at age 14. Sangdrol and other nuns managed to record songs on a smuggled cassette player while in prison, the fame of which ultimately led to her release. I spoke to Sangdrol and Wyer (pictured above) at a sneak preview of the opera at the Rubin Museum in New York City. Read more about this incredible story here.

Creative Spaces

Visit Kim Uchiyama's Tribeca Studio: "I think it's important for us to understand that we live in a society that doesn't value mystery. We want everything to be absolutely clear and unambiguous because this makes us feel more comfortable. We're often afraid of what is foreign or unfamiliar."

Red Heart the Ticker: A legendary songcatcher inspires two musicians on a Vermont farm. Listen to new music from Red Heart the Ticker and take a tour of their farm and studios in this special expanded edition of Gwarlingo's Creative Spaces series.

The Debut of Gwarlingo's Creative Spaces Series: Read an in-depth interview with MacArthur fellow Anna Schuleit and take a tour of her studio.

Explore the Archives

Beauty and the Beast (No. Not That One. The Other One): Why did it take me so long to finally see Jean Cocteau's masterpiece? Discover why this film classic is worth revisiting.

What Is Love? Joan Wickersham's critically acclaimed collection The News from Spain has some surprising answers. Click here to read my full review.

A Line Made By Flooding: In 2007 Eve Mosher created High Water Line, a public art project in Manhattan and Brooklyn that brought the topic of climate change directly to the city’s residents. “I never wanted this to be a reality,” Mosher said the week Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York and New Jersey. Read more here.

Before and After Dinner: Most people know André Gregory through his critically acclaimed film My Dinner with André, but Cindy Kleine's new documentary reveals so much more about the respected theatre director and raconteur. Read my full review of the film here.

A Good Man is Hard to Find: Click here to explore the artwork and propaganda posters from past presidential elections.

Ambient Cowboy by Ivy Baldwin Dance: It is fitting that a dance piece inspired by Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House should have a set design made of light. And not just any light—but a ribbon of light that glides over wall, floor, and dancers, then suddenly vanishes. Read my full review of Ivy Baldwin's Ambient Cowboy at New York Live Arts here.

Film & Fatherhood: How do you learn to be a father, particularly when there are no fathers around to be an example? This is the question at the heart of Samein Priester’s documentary 1st&4ever. The dilemma of fatherhood has taken on new significance for Samein since the tragic loss of his partner, artist Denyse Thomasos. Read more and watch the film in its entirety here.

The Utopia Minus Project: Gwarlingo readers loved Susan Briante's gritty, visceral poems about America's highways, suburbs, and abandoned urban landscapes paired with Margaret Lanzetta's rich, patterned canvases (many also inspired by American highways). See Briante's and Lanzetta's exclusive collaboration only on Gwarlingo.

Transforming New York City's Water Towers: Artists like Tom Fruin and Rachel Whiteread are creating memorable public sculptures out of the humble New York City water tower. In the Spring of 2013, 300 rooftop tanks will be transformed into works of art by established and emerging figures in art, music, science as well as public school students. Read more about water-tower art here.

Lessons from the Writing Life: Poet Matthew Zapruder and fiction writer Amy Hempel read and discuss new work at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute in Amherst, Massachusetts.Read more here.

My Review of Christian Marclay's The Clock: The Clock is artist Christian Marclay’s magnum opus, a mesmerizing 24-hour montage of thousands of time-related movie clips that have been masterfully edited and synchronized to show the actual time. Does it live up to the hype? Find out here.

Tales of Captivity and Freedom: In I Am an Executioner, Rajesh Parameswaran introduces us to a cast of heroes—and antiheroes: from the lovesick tiger who narrates the unforgettable opener, to the ex-CompUSA employee who masquerades as a doctor; from a railroad manager in a turn-of-the-century Indian village, to an elephant writing her autobiography; from a woman whose Thanksgiving preparations put her husband to eternal rest, to the newlywed executioner of the title, these characters inhabit a marvelous region between desire and death, playfulness and violence. Read an interview with Rajesh Parameswaran here.

Lewis Hyde on Art and Ownership: Lawsuits over image appropriation, music remixes, file sharing, and copyright infringement are on the rise and emerging as the central debate of the digital era. The Grey Album, a 2004 mash-up by Danger Mouse, is a prime example of the type of copyright dispute Lewis Hyde discusses in his most recent book, Common as Air. You can read a full interview with Hyde here.

Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing: James McNeill Whistler’s loose, impressionistic depiction of fireworks at night was not to everyone’s liking when the painting made its public debut in 1877. Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket sparked an infamous feud between the artist and the Victorian critic John Ruskin. During the libel trial that followed, Ruskin's lawyer asked Whistler, "The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?" The artist replied, “No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.” Read more here.

Peter Hutton’s films of rivers, oceans, cargo ships, and landscapes are everything commercial movies are not—subtle, completely silent, thoughtful, and devoid of narrative. "Cinema tends to be this additive thing, it gets more complicated technologically," says Hutton. "I wanted to do it alone, keep it personal and private...It’s not about the pyrotechnics, it’s about something else---being inventive with limitations." Read an interview with Hutton and watch a video of his recent exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum here.

The Lines Between the Arts are Insignificant: Hiroshi Teshigahara's Antonio Gaudi is like no other film I can think of. This 72-minute visual poem on the Spanish Art-Nouveau architect avoids conventional narrative and instead, lets Gaudi’s buildings do the talking. "Gaudi worked beyond the borders of various arts,” Teshigahara once said, “and made me feel that the world in which I was living still left a great many possibilities.” Read more about Gaudi and Teshigahara here.

Re-Branding the Barnes: Has a 25-Billion-Dollar Art Collection Been Disneyfied? The controversial new Barnes Museum in Philadelphia has finally opened its doors to much acclaim and protest. Read the full story of how a spiteful, visionary genius created the greatest collection of Post-Impressionist art in the world, as well as a bureaucratic nightmare for his predecessors. My own review of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's new building is also included here.

Doris Salcedo on the Perspective of the Defeated: This photograph of 1,550 wooden chairs piled between two buildings in Istanbul stopped me in my virtual tracks when I first saw it. Born in Colombia, Salcedo’s installations are meditations on the silenced lives of the marginalized--the gap between the powerful and the powerless. Read more about Salcedo's installations here.

The DIY Punk Philosophy of Jem Cohen: Artist Jem Cohen uses film as a solo medium to create cinematic collages and haunting meditations on memory and place. Cohen’s films are works of art–soulful, provocative, anti-commercial, mysterious, unconventional, and beautifully imperfect. The filmmaker has worked with an array of musicians through the years–Patti Smith, R.E.M., The Ex, Gil Shaham, Elliott Smith, Cat Power, and the late Vic Chesnutt. Read more about Jem's work here.

Roger King Explores Love & Fatigue in America: “What does it mean to live in between?” writes novelist Andrea Barrett of Roger King’s latest book. “Not only between geographical locations, but between health and illness, commitment and freedom, love and loss?” In this in-depth interview with British novelist Roger King, we discuss writing, King's fight with chronic fatigue syndrome, his aid work in Africa and Asia, American healthcare, and more.

Artist Matthew Northridge: Matthew Northridge uses paper like no other artist I know. Matt gave me a tour of his solo show at Kansas Gallery during a recent visit to New York City. Explore more of his work here.

The Most Memorable Experiences in the Arts: I asked an array of artists to tell me about their most memorable experiences in the arts during 2011. Singer Rosanne Cash (pictured above), Moosewood cookbook author Mollie Katzen, journalists William Powers and Jeff Sharlet, British composer Tarik O'Regan and others share their surprising picks here.

Exhuming the Forgotten: Filmmaker Errol Morris said that Bill Morrison's Decasia might be ”the greatest movie ever made.” Assembled entirely from decaying, highly flammable, early nitrate footage, this masterpiece belongs in the tradition of Stan Brakhage’s films and Michael Lessy’s memorable book Wisconsin Death Trip; it is simultaneously poetic, haunting, and compelling. The entire piece is a meditation on ruin and the temporal nature not only of film, but of life itself. Learn more about Decasia and Bill Morrison's other films here.

New England Artists Finally Get Their Due: Read my review of the de Cordoova Biennial, featuring work by Mary Lum, Anna Von Mertens, Chris Taylor, Ann Pibal, Steve Lambert (shown above), Cullen Bryant Washington, Jr., and More.

The World of E.B. White: In 1951 the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals accused writer E.B. White of not paying his dog tax and “harboring” an unlicensed dog. White wrote this hilarious letter in response to the ASPCA. Read the letter and an overview of White's work here.

A Retreat in the Sky: Explore the art, architecture, gardens, and history of New York's High Line Park, built on an old, elevated railway. (Above photo © Joel Sternfeld courtesy Friends of the High Line)

Composer Steve Reich with reel to reel tape recorders

The Sound of Four Hands Clapping: In 1971 composer Steve Reich embarked on a five-week trip to study music and drumming in Ghana. Shortly after his return, he wrote “Clapping Music.” In this 1972 video Reich performs this classic piece with percussionist Russell Hartenberger.

The Evolution of Photographer Bill Jacobson: “There has always been a poetic stance in my work,” says photographer Bill Jacobson. “Whether in focus or out, it’s never been about a single narrative, but rather something beneath the surface of what’s being photographed." Explore Jacobson's work here.

An Accidental Classic: Sibylle Baier’s critically-acclaimed Colour Green was published 30 years after it was first recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Baier starred in Wim Wender's films and wrote her own songs, but abandoned her career to move to America and raise her family. Read more about how this classic finally found an audience here.

Errol Morris on Photography: What makes an “honest” photograph? Is the medium of photography more factual and authentic than other art forms? Can a photo be objective or does it always have a point of view? When does a photograph document reality? When is it propaganda? When is it art? Filmmaker Errol Morris addresses all of these questions and more in his new book Believing is Seeing.

Ira Glass on the Creative Process: Ira Glass, the host of NPR’s This American Life, gives some useful advice about the art of story telling. Remember the method you learned in college–opening paragraph, thesis sentence, supporting material? Glass says to throw that tired technique out the window!

Essay: On Crows Openness is a state of mind that the nature lover and the artist share. Art, like bird watching, is about seeing, hearing, and understanding. It requires stillness. It demands that we remain open to the unexpected. Read the entire essay here.

Nairobi-London Sound Clash: I discovered the Owiny Sigoma Band during a 2011 trip to London. This highly original, Nairobi-London sound clash, which blends traditional Kenyan Luo styles with contemporary western influences, is like nothing else I’ve heard before. Their debut album, which pulses with mellow grooves, lyre riffs, and hypnotic drums, is organic, quirky and rough around the edges, but in a good way. Listen to the record here.

This Revolution is for Display Purposes Only: Click here to explore the world of street art, the first article in an ongoing series.

The Urban Frenzy of Olive Ayhens: Olive Ayhens' neo-expressionist pen and ink and watercolor drawings are a knock-out: textured, original, and deliberately unruly. Working on location, Ayhens draws the lively center of New York City, personifying its skyscrapers in a style that is vigorous and playful, as well as idiosyncratic.

Occupy Writers: Who could have guessed that one of the sanest pieces of writing about the Occupy movement would come from children's book author Lemony Snicket? Read “13 Observations Made by Lemony Snicket while Watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance" here.

P.J. Harvey's "Let England Shake": "I only sing the songs that I can still believe," says singer P.J. Harvey. The emotionally charged "Let England Shake" is one of the strongest records of her career. Listen to samples and watch videos of Harvey's collaboration with filmmaker Seamus Murphy here.

A Secret Garden in the City: These gardens on the roof of Rockefeller Center are one of the best-kept secrets in New York City.

The Discomfort Zone: V.S. Naipaul believes that female writers are inferior and sentimental. Jonathan Franzen observes that "you can't deconstruct and undress at the same time." Has writing about love without hipster irony become a radical act for male novelists today? Read the full story here.

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction: Writers like Zadie Smith, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, and Richard Ford offer guidance on the art of fiction writing. A sampling of their advice: "Have children." "Don't have children." "Get an accountant." "No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write." Damn. What am I going to do with all of those black turtlenecks?

Music by Goldfish: How aware are we of sound as we move through the course of our day? Which sounds do we register and which do we ignore? Do we even give the subject much thought? “Quintetto” by the Italian artist collective Quiet Ensemble is an intriguing blend of music, sound and installation art.

Doubt is Your Revelation: Jeff Sharlet's most recent book, Sweet Heaven When I Die, is a collection of 13 essays about belief, skepticism, and spirituality. Sharlet writes about Brad Will, an anarchist journalist who filmed his own murder by police; BattleCry, an evangelical youth movement devoted to spreading its particular brand of the Christian message; a new-age healer named Sondra Shaye; and renowned intellectual Cornel West.

Watch an Animation Classic: Yuriy Norshteyn’s Hedgehog in the Fog is one of the most stunning animated films ever made. Nick Park is a fan of Norshteyn's work and so is Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Click here to watch the 10-minute short film and to learn more about the Russian animator.

Composer & Cellist Paul Brantley: Brantley makes a case that Bach's cantatas are theologically subversive and gives Gwarlingo listeners a preview of his own Gnostic Cantata.

Animal Architecture: What if architects designed shelters not only to accommodate humans, but also to accommodate the animals? A five-star hotel for bugs? A towering home for bats? Why not?

More Than a Voice: A writer. A performer. A pianist. A cabaret act. A storyteller. An opera singer with a 3-4 octave range. Is there anything Joseph Keckler doesn't do?

Poetry Bombing: Explore two very different poetry bombing projects--one from the Chilean art collective Casagrande and the other by artist Agustina Woodgate.

George Bernard Shaw Exposed: Not many people realize that George Bernard Shaw was a passionate amateur photographer, as well as a prolific writer. When Shaw died at the age of 94, he left behind over 10,000 photographic prints and over 10,000 negatives in his home in Ayot St Lawrence.

Olafur Eliasson, the Danish artist who brought the sun to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and created man-made waterfalls in New York City, has a new project--Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger), a 295-foot-long tunnel filled with dense fog.

Movie Barcodes: A movie barcode for The Wizard of Oz. Click here to read more about movie barcodes and the use of color in cinema.

Breathbox by Antti Paalanen: Watch a mesmerizing piece of music by Finnish accordion master Antti Paalanen. "Mesmerizing accordion music?" you ask. Yes. Really.

The Fear of Failure: Even if you don't know his name, you know his work. Legendary designer Milton Glaser discusses the myth of creative genius and gives advice on how artists can move past the fear of failure. “Find out what you’re capable of doing or not capable of doing,” says Glaser. “Admit what is.” “Embrace the failure.” Watch Glaser's talk here.

Documenting a Revolution: Two filmmakers, who risked their lives to document the looting of archeological sites during the Iraq war, now find themselves in the heart of the Egyptian Revolution.

The Owiny Sigoma Band: Pick of the Week

Barry Underwood: Transforming the Familiar into the Extraordinary

Mean Irene: A Photo Diary

The Sunday Poem: Jane Hirshfield

Of Yield and Abandon

About Jane Hirshfield

A Note to Gwarlingo Email Subscribers About Viewing Videos

The Art of Poetry Bombing

Rockefeller Center’s Secret Roof Gardens

Joseph Keckler: More Than a Voice

Animal Architecture: A Bat Tower, a Bee Folly, & a Five-Star Hotel for Bugs

The 2011 Animal Architecture Awards

First Place: Theriomorphous Cyborg

Simone Ferracina

First Runner Up:The Nottingham Apiary

Amelia Eiriksson, Fraser Godfrey, Ana Moldavsky, Esko Willman from the University of Nottingham

Second Runner Up: Farmland World

Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer of Design With Company, with Katharine Bayer and Hugh Swiatek

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