Gorillaz - Demon Days live

For those of you unfortunate enough not to be familiar with Gorillaz, it's an experimental art and music project that was created in 1998 by Blur frontman Damon Albarn (one of my personal heroes) and comic book artist artist Jamie Hewlett. The project as a whole consists of actual music written and recorded by Albarn and an ever-evolving cast of guest artists and studio musicians, and a virtual band consisting of four animated humanoid cartoon characters who live in a fictional world brought to life by Hewlett through album art, internet sketches, comic shorts, and a brilliant interactive website. Despite the avant-garde nature of the project, the band has released three full studio albums to enormous amounts of commercial success and critical acclaim.

Their second studio album "Demon Days", released in 2005, went five times platinum in the UK, double platinum in the United States, earned five Grammy Award nominations in 2006, and won one of them in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category. In the beginning of November that same year, there was a sold-out Gorillaz festival at the Manchester Opera House featuring one of the band's first ever live performances. They did the ENTIRE "Demon Days" album. The event was filmed by an EMI film crew for a DVD release simply called "Demon Days Live". I exaggerate not when I say that the concert is an absolute masterpiece. The band performed flawlessly, dimly lit and artistically silhouetted against screens in the interest of the project's nature and further shrouding the night in a sort of magic. The displays of art, projections, and cinematic direction are top class, and the entire DVD as a whole is just completely beautiful. It's all on YouTube in divided segments, though I highly recommend getting the real thing so you can enjoy watching it through uninterrupted.

Here is a particularly breath-taking piece of the night. Gorillaz performing "Don't Get Lost in Heaven" and "Demon Days", the two back-to-back closing tracks of the album and, in my opinion, one of the best CD-closing pieces I've ever heard. Damon Albarn is the English-sounding silhouette playing the piano and singing.

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Shadow Art

Shadow art is a new and unique form of sculptural art where 3D objects (usually common items such as blocks, cans, sticks, garbage, wire hangers, or twisted metal) are arranged and specifically lit from one direction to cast a 2D shadow image on a surface. Here is a collection of breathtaking pieces from brilliant contemporary artists Kumi Yamashita, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Shigeo Fukuda, and Larry Kagan. 

I've included a few of my favorites below:

 If you or someone you know would like to share creative work, send an email to gscale88@comcast.net with "PWYP" in the subject line.

Team iLuminate and Rocky Mountain Silhouettes

I'm not much for the talent-seeking television show phase the world is going through at the moment, but every once in a while they turn out some really stunning stuff that needs to reach millions and millions of other eyes. A friend suggested I check out two acts in particular from the most recent season of America's Got Talent. I did, I was amazed, and here they are. Two very different displays of extraordinary vision and artistic inventiveness, and a real testament to the endless visual possibilities that still remain to be found in combining movement with technology. 

First, The Rocky Mountain Silhouettes, who have molded a breath-taking concept that uses shadow dancing and body placement to create images that outline a story. The idea for the performance was the result of the collaborative efforts of the team from Five Currents led by Scott Givens and the Artistic Director of the Rocky Mountain School of Dance, Lynne Waggoner-Patton. All of this was created as a means to showcase the talented youth of Denver. When you're watching this skillful performance, it's easy to forget how young the performers behind the projection screen are! Makes it even more amazing. Here's their first appearance on AGT:

Next we have Team iLuminate, pioneers of a dazzling new hybrid performance that fuses top notch contemporary dance (electronica/hip hop) with the "world's first wearable, wireless lighting system." They toy with perception and points of focus to create mind-bending illusions and completely unpredictable routines. Trust me... you have to see this to believe it:

Am I surprised that neither of these acts won the competition? No (which is a testament to my lack of faith in these kinds of shows). Am I completely mortified that they didn't win? You bet. But they've now been exposed to the world, and for that I am thankful.

If you or someone you know would like to share creative work, send an email to gscale88@comcast.net with "PWYP" in the subject line.