Hasta La Creative!

(TrendHunter.com) This is something pretty disturbing which I saw while hunting for trends. Although trendhunter.com tends to look at the future and upbeat finds, I just had to give this a mention. According to the New York Times, there is only one company left that mass produces the Pinball machine. Stern Pinball In…

Sarah Hutton, a writer for Our American Shelf Life and a contributor here on Adrants was featured in a video, shot by Amanda Mooney (also an ASL writer and Adrants contributor) about Facebook chat.

“Don’t you want to play with us,” asks one of the Squad 81 cheerleaders whose mission it is to, apparently, help sell clothes for Company 81.

(TrendHunter.com) Would you like to appear on a bottle of Grand Marnier? How about having your name up in lights in NYC, Vegas and La? Then you should enter Grand Marnier’s Grand Moments contest!

If you’ve had a fantastic memory that had a bottle of Grand Marnier to thank, you’re the ideal candidate. Just snap a pho…

LONDON – Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication has appointed design consultancy Lloyd Northover for the first phase of a strategic branding and identity programme.

LONDON – LA tourist board, LA Inc, has teamed up with Cineworld as part of a European-wide partnership drive to promote the city as a brand.

LONDON – Microsoft has issued Yahoo! with a final warning ahead of its deadline this weekend, claiming that it will take its bid to the shareholders or call it off altogether if Yahoo! maintains ‘unrealistic expectations’ of a better deal.

(TrendHunter.com) This simple little piece of plastic and rubber could be the saviour of your cell phone. The Driinn, designed in Holland and manufactured in Italy, hangs between your charger and the wall socket providing an ultra handy little shelf to hold your phone, PDA or MP3 player while charging.

No more acci…

There are very very few artists whose work i admire as much as Nathalie Djurberg’s. Actually there’s only one and she’s a woman too. Her name is Gabríela Fridriksdóttir. These artists create universes which are dark and mysterious. But there stops my desire to compare one with the other.

Nathalie Djurberg, We are not two, we are one, 2008

I don’t know what happened to Djurberg since the first time i saw her work, at the 2006 Berlin Biennale but her twisted tales have grown crueler and more menacing .

Nathalie Djurberg, Once removed on my mother’s side, 2008

The protagonists of Djurberg’s stop-motion animations are hand-modeled plasticine puppets. If this reminds you of some cute tv programme you followed as a kid then let me crush any nostalgia you might have. Djurberg clearly didn’t see the same children animations as you and i. Her animations show human beings at their most crass, psychopath, sadistic and often disarming behaviour. The macabre atmosphere of her animations almost never come with words, just a languid and fidgety music composed by Hans Berg.

Nathalie Djurberg, Caveman Mike, 2008

Nathalie Djurberg, Caveman Mike, 2008

It often starts well. In one video, a mother plays in the bedroom with her kids. In a second video, three beautiful girls get naked to take a bath in the pond. A third film shows a pretty eskimo girl walking on thick ice. After a few seconds, the children start disappearing inside their mummy’s vagina turning her voluptuous, elastic and Fellini-esque body into a monster creature with multiple arms and legs, the girls chase and burn the young lad who was peeping at their nudity and the eskimo does what any eskimo is supposed to do: she harpoons a walrus, remove its bowels. Only that she won’t eat it. She sews herself inside the animal’s skin and quietly leaves for a crawl on the icefield.

Nathalie Djurberg, It’s the mother, 2008

Nathalie Djurberg, It’s the mother, 2008

The videos address a fair amount of intense issues such as violence, sexuality, sadism, cruelty, death and brutality. Made all the more upsetting by the fact that the artist messes with our moral codes and would never point to us where is the right and where is the wrong. She takes us on a roller-coaster and all we can to is try and keep track of our landmarks.

Nathalie Djurberg, Turn into me, 2008

Nathalie Djurberg, Turn into me, 2008

Nathalie Djurberg, Johnnny, 2008

The artists filled the exhibiting space of Fondazione Prada with models that work as counterparts to her videos, there’s a huge sprouting potato, the plump bum of a woman, a little house . These models become pavilions inside which the videos are projected.

The Potato (detail). Photo Attilio Maranzano

Das Waldhaeuschen, 2008. Photo Attilio Maranzano

You have until June 1 to check out the show. Previously at the Fondazione Prada in Milan: Tom Sachs.

Portrait of Nathalie Djurberg. Photo by Hans Berg

All images courtesy of the artist and Fondazione Prada, Milan.

LONDON – Nintendo DS Lite and Times Online have linked up for a nine-month campaign, which will promote the benefits of adult games and puzzles.