Apparently Iran is not interested in threatening the world with its missile prowess after all.
Instead, it’s decided to impress everyone with its mastery of Photoshop’s clone stamp tool.
If you happened to have missed it, an image of four Iranian missiles shooting skyward circled through the media recently, with small, local outlets jumping on board and publishing the image on their front page. Guilty as charged included The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune, and several other newspapers, as well as BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com, and many other major news Web sites. What they all failed to notice was that if you look closely, a few of those missiles look a bit too much alike.
Either someone in Sepah News decided that three missiles just wasn’t enough for the shock and awe that they were going for, or an overzealous intern got a bit too happy with their new found skills, but either way, it just goes to show you that even the most basic photo editing skills are enough to fool news editors in need of a few extra sales.
Anybody want to buy my picture of Bush holding a baby in his arms and a grenade in his teeth?
Sneakerfiends, graphic designers, photographers and money grubbers should all check out Format Magazine’s Sneaker Wallpaper Contest 2 for a chance to with the upcoming Puma x Yo! MTV Raps shoes, as well as exposing your art to the world.
Wallpapers can be submitted in any media, but they must relate to sneaker culture.
Hurry though, because you only have until April 31.
Josh Spear, the man behind JoshSpear.com, recently spoke at Google’s Zeitgeist Europe 2007, and his insight into the world of youth and media is quite interesting. It’s long, but well worth your time.
Monument (If it bleeds, it Leads), is an installation by Caleb M. Larsen that comments on the media’s fixation with tragedy. A computer program scans the headlines of 4,500 English-language news sources, and when one reports that someone has been killed, an algorithm in the machine determines the number of deaths, and a ceiling-mounted mechanism built from Legos drops one bright yellow candy BB per person. During the time the installation is in place, BBs will accumulate on the floor, and an ever-increasing random constellation will form an aesthetic “Monument” to those who have died. Since we are in a time of war, there are periods when hundreds of BBs will fire off in rapid succession, while at other times a lone BB will fall. The paradoxical part of the installation is that something only happens when someone has died, but since viewers want to experience a BB falling, they may secretly be waiting for someone to die so that they can see the event, but at the same time, a lack of falling BBs means the world is temporarily a little less frightening.
