Chris Brown believes in "ancient aliens".
The rapper is promoting his upcoming record Fortune, which is out later this month. The record's artwork features Chris looking to the side, with a number of symbols and digits covering him. The 23-year-old explained it links to his beliefs on other-worldly creatures.
"You can see on the album cover, it's like a code. That's an encryption for my fans. I wanted to do something different because I'm into ancient aliens," he told Fuse TV. "I like being stuff that's other than what everybody expects? When they look in the booklet, they'll see the different code. Some of it says I love Team Breezy [Chris' term for his fans] or it'll say certain things directed to them and they'll know it if they break the code."
Although Chris is still young, he has noticed a shift in the music industry during his career. There isn't as much money around as there used to be, which he claims is having an adverse effect on artists' careers.
"The industry is so broke that it's starting to kill our creative side," he said.
"I started when they had the $600,000, $800,000 video budgets. My Run It! video [single out in 2005] was around that. Now you get it where people are like, 'We got $50,000.' It's really killing us in a sense because nobody believes in the brand anymore. If we don't do it, who gon' do it? So I'm like f**k it, I'ma do it myself."
Chris' love of Michael Jackson is well known, he met the superstar singer before his death in 2009 and also performed a tribute to him at an awards show after his passing.
Although the star still admires Michael's legacy, he's happy to carve his own path in music.
"My legacy is not to be Michael Jackson, but to just be me? I want to make him proud. I don't want to make it an effort to copy because I hate clones, so I don't want to be a clone," he said.
Chris was recently embroiled in a brawl with fellow rapper Drake while at a New York City nightclub.
© Cover Media
Source: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Lana Del Rey unveils new single 'National Anthem' artwork - picture - Digital Spy
Source: www.digitalspy.co.uk
Gaithersburg flight instructors to tour country by air - Maryland Community Newspapers Online
Like many couples, Meredith Tcherniavsky and her husband are planning to travel around July 4 this year.
Theyll visit family, see the country and maybe do some camping.
Unlike most, though, theyll likely not get stuck in holiday traffic — the pair is embarking on their journey in a 74-year-old single-engine airplane.
Tcherniavsky, 40, and her husband, Dana Holladay, 51, are flight instructors at the Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg. The Rockville residents say they plan to take their 1938 Piper J-3 Cub — an antique lightweight aircraft — across the continental U.S., starting July 4.
The 8,000-mile, 48-state journey will take them about two months, Tcherniavsky said, and begins at the Fallston Airport. They will stop in a new state almost every day, stopping first in Delaware then moving through the Northeast, before heading west across the country through Michigan, Wisconsin and the Dakotas.
Tcherniavsky, who earned her pilots license in 2003, said while they will stop mainly at small airparks, their trip will include landings on private airstrips where the two then will camp beneath their plane. She said theyve been planning the trip for the past year, laying out their counterclockwise route through the country.
The pair will document their travel in a book, Fly the Airplane, and some of the proceeds will be donated to a local aviation scholarship.
The pair bought the restored antique plane for about $40,000 in December, Holladay said.
The flight will take at least two months as the plane travels at around 75 mph because of its light weight. That weight also means theyll only carry a tent, a camera and light supplies, Tcherniavsky said.
The Cub travels at about 1,000 feet — compared to larger planes that fly above 12,000 feet or commercial flights at 35,000 feet — which allows its passengers to open the doors or windows, Holladay said.
Touring the country low and slow in a small airplane is something weve always wanted to do, Tcherniavsky said in a news release. Each day is an opportunity to do something incredible.
The pair is donating a portion of the pre-sales of their book to the Robert Hawkins Fund, a scholarship program administered through Congressional Flying Club, said Anne Culver, the wife of the late Hawkins, for whom the fund is named.
aruoff@gazette.net
Source: www.gazette.net
Artwork Of Herbie Pulgar, Chicago Teen At Center Of City Sticker Dustup, To Go On Display In D.C. - Huffington Post
Though Herbie Pulgar's winning design was yanked from the Chicago city sticker contest out of the concerns of some that it contained gang imagery, the 15-year-old's "Chicago's Heroes" work will be given a new honor Tuesday when it goes on display at the U.S. Capitol complex.
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez announced Monday that he had selected the Logan Square teen's design to represent his district in the annual Congressional Art Contest.
"Herbie is a great kid who deserves recognition and praise for this wonderful and positive piece of art," Gutierrez said in a statement. "I think it’s a credit to Herbie and his family that he chose to honor Chicago’s first responders and I’m very proud to have his artwork represent the Fourth Congressional District in Washington, D.C."
Pulgar and his mother will travel to D.C. Tuesday, where they will see the artwork unveiled in addition to meeting Gutierrez and touring the White House and U.S. Capitol.
Pulgar's design will be on display in D.C. through next year.
In February, Pulgar's design, chosen last fall, was scrapped by the city after allegations surfaced on a blog frequently read by Chicago police that the four hands depicted on the sticker referenced gang signs. Jody Weis, former Chicago Police Department superintendent and current president of the Chicago Crime Commission, agreed that the sticker's design was likely gang-related. The boy, his family and his art teacher denied those accusations.
The city proceeded to award the runner-up the $1,000 savings bond and bragging rights in the contest, but the runner-up's family dropped out because they did not want media attention associated with the debacle. Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza paid a $1,000 savings bond to Pulgar out of her own pocket to replace the prize that was taken from him.
The matter attracted the attention of CNN's Anderson Cooper, who addressed the city sticker controversy in his "RidicuList" segment.
"As far as we're concerned, you are a winner, and we're not going to take that back ever," Cooper said in a message for Pulgar.
WATCH Pulgar discuss his artwork last year:
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Infrared approach in art studies reveals new details - BBC News
A novel technique has revealed never-before-seen details of Renaissance artworks in Italy.
The method images the faint reflections of low-power infrared light - the invisible light waves typically associated with heat.
However, in contrast to existing infrared imaging, the technique deposits little heat in precious works.
The approach, called Thermal Quasi-Reflectography or TQR, is described in Optics Express.
It joins a host of light-based techniques that restoration experts have at their disposal to analyse and care for artworks.
At the high-energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum, X-rays can be used to not only see through layers of pigments but also to identify the very atoms used in them - a crucial step in determining the age or authenticity of some works.
But at the other end of the useful spectrum lies the much lower-energy infrared light, with wavelengths longer than those we can see.
Established techniques called called near-infrared spectroscopy and thermography use chunks of this part of the spectrum, but TQR reveals details that these other techniques miss.
It makes use of a comparatively low-power halogen light, and a camera which can see some of the "mid-infrared" wavelengths of light - from three to five millionths of a metre.
A TQR analysis of a 15th-Century fresco called The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca showed retouches (bright spots marked A above), unevenness in the painting of a shield (marked B) and even changes in the painting technique (marked C) that do not show up in a near-infrared image (left-hand panel).
A similar study of frescoes in the Theodelinda's Chapel in the Duomo of Monza first showed that TQR adds unique new details to complement existing methods.
"Our system easily identified old restorations in which missed gold decorations were simply repainted," said Claudia Daffara of the University of Verona, lead author of the study.
"The TQR system was also much better at visualising armour on some of the subjects in the fresco."
The team, made up also of members from the University of L'Aquila and the National Institute of Optics in Florence, analysed an 1930s copy of a fresco by Ghirlandaio, finding that a TQR image (right panel) showed the use of cinnabar that did not appear in visible light (left panel) and two near-infrared (middle panels) bands.
However, Dario Ambrosini of the University of L'Aquila said that further studies are needed to turn TQR into a method that can actually identify pigments, rather than just showing that different pigments or techniques were employed.
"Determining the chemical makeup of the pigments is important in determining how best to protect and restore the artwork," he said.
He added that the approach could also find use in other analytical applications beyond those in art restoration.
"In principle, it should work whenever we desire to differentiate surface materials."
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Music and bouncy castle to launch Olympic art festival - Reuters
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - The London 2012 Festival, a cultural celebration across Britain to coincide with the Olympics, opens on Thursday with the spectacular - a fireworks display by Lake Windermere - and the bizarre - a life-sized inflatable replica of Stonehenge.
The festival, which runs from June 21-September 9, is the culmination of the four-year Cultural Olympiad, and organisers said on Tuesday there would be 10 million free tickets for people to experience dance, theatre, art, music and more.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he hoped to raise public awareness about thousands of events happening up and down the country as excitement ahead of the July 27-August 12 Games built.
"This is a really huge moment," he said on Tuesday. "I don't think the penny has yet dropped with the public.
"I think they're beginning to appreciate the scale and excitement of the Games, but the scale and excitement of the biggest cultural festival in our history is something ... I think people have yet to appreciate."
He said the festival, which cost around 55 million pounds to organise, was a chance to showcase Britain's cultural heritage.
"Not just in 2012 but every year we have the best culture in the world in this country and this is our big opportunity to bang the drum."
Some events officially counted as part of the Cultural Olympiad would have happened anyway, but many have also been put on especially for the programme.
To mark the opening of the festival, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel will lead the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in an open-air concert set against the backdrop of Scotland's Stirling Castle.
Also on Thursday, French pyrotechnic company Les Commandos Percu will stage a spectacular outdoor firework show on the shores of Lake Windermere in northwest England to coincide with the Olympic Torch Relay.
Among the more bizarre events launching the festival will be artist Jeremy Deller's life-sized replica of Stonehenge called "Sacrilege".
Part artwork, part bouncy castle, it will "pop up" at the National Botanical Gardens at Carmarthen in Wales and then go on a tour of the United Kingdom.
Peace One Day, an organisation dedicated to the idea of one day a year free of conflict, is staging a concert in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and Yoko Ono's "Imagine Peace" art installation will be unveiled on London 2012 screens.
One of the biggest events of the opening week will be Hackney Weekend, sponsored by the publicly funded BBC Radio 1, a free live music event across six stages with over 100 artists appearing including Jay-Z, Rihanna and Jessie J.
Around 100,000 people are expected at the free London gig.
Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival, said she hoped the budget would be justified by the level of public interest.
The Olympiad has been criticised for being unfocused - a poll earlier this year showed most Britons did not know exactly what it was - and some of the projects have been derided as pretentious and costly.
"The festival funding is an investment ... rather than a fund and it's an investment of 55 million pounds.
"Some of you might think it's a lot, but I assure you, for a 12-week festival over the entire United Kingdom ... (it) is a pretty small investment and I hope that when we do the final figures after the festival we are able to demonstrate pretty good value for money." (Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Source: www.reuters.com
No comments:
Post a Comment