Video: Stormtrooper Longboard Race

"Stormtrooper Longboard Race GONE BAD!" by ScottDW

An electric Boosted Board race between two Stormtroopers goes bad when the two friends run into unexpected trouble.  Seems like they’re far more skilled at riding longboards than they are with their blaster rifles.

Fan Film: The Amazing SpiderDad

"The Amazing SpiderDad - For Jayden 4K" by Mike Wilson 3RUN

Directed and Edited by Adam Brashaw

You have to watch this awesome Spider-Man fan-film from parkour pro Mike Wilson. The film is a heartfelt tribute to his son Jayden, who passed away after being diagnosed with a Grade 4 brain stem tumor. 

Video: Mirror's Edge Catalyst

"Mirror's Edge Catalyst - Real Life Time Trial" by Claudiu Voicu

Claudiu Voicu offers us a first-person video that is built to be a time trial run in the upcoming reboot to the freerunning video game, Mirror’s Edge. The catch is the entire video is being performed by actual freerunners and shot on Go Pro cameras.

Fan Film: Dying Light Parkour

"Dying Light Parkour POV" directed by UK-based Scott Bass from Ampisound

"Dying Light" is an exhilarating zombie action short based on the survival video game of the same name by Warner Bros. Interactive. Like the game, the short is presented in a first-person perspective, and it’s a really fun non-stop parkour-style zombie chase sequence.

"Inspired by the highly-anticipated action survival game, Dying Light, this Real-Life Parkour video puts you in the POV of a runner and takes you on a frantic escape from zombies through the rooftops of Cambridge, UK. We had a lot of fun making this and cant wait to play the game when it comes out at the end of the month! [...]

The game is set in a vast and dangerous open world. During the day, you roam an urban environment devastated by a mysterious epidemic, scavenging for supplies and crafting weapons to help you defeat the hordes of mindless, flesh-hungry enemies the plague has created. At night, the hunter becomes the prey as the infected grow in strength and aggression – but even more lethal are the nocturnal, inhuman predators that leave their nests to feed. You will need to make use of all your skills and any available means to survive till dawn."

Video: 8-Bit Video Game Parkour

"Jason Paul Arcade Run - Freerunning in 8bit" by Red Bull

Freerunner Jason Paul travels back to the 80′s in this latest video from Red Bull.  Jason and Team Farang perform an epic parkour style scene with special scenery that looks and feels like a classic 2-D video game. 8-bit style sound effects complete the experience. Using all of his freerunning powers, Jason must out perform the evil ninjas in a Mayan temple.  

"The Set-Up in which Jason Paul and Team Farang are performing their run is simply awesome. The scenery is built in the look and feel of a 2D video game and reminds of legendary arcade games. Jason Paul needs to find the way out of a Maya temple, has to fight Ninjas before he finds his way over sketchy roof tops to the spot of the big show down: The fight against the final opponent, the end boss. Game over! Winner: Jason Paul."

Performance: Minecraft Steve

"Art With Salt - Minecraft Steve" by Bashir Sultani

Performance: Ice Music Ensemble

"Ice Music" by Swedish musician Tim Linhart

Available for purchase from Etsy. US$

For the past 15 years, Swedish musician Tim Linhart has carved blocks of solid ice into musical instruments, including cellos, guitars, marimbas, violins, violas, and xylophones for an ensemble performance.  Apart from the frets and strings, these beautiful instruments are entirely composed of ice, but fully playable, nonetheless.  Each instrument takes up to a week to complete.

They’re also illuminated by LED lights for concerts, which lends the performances a dreamy quality.  Because their frozen venue is kept at a constant chilly temperature of 23 °F (-5 °C), audiences are advised to dress warmly!

Street Art: Sirens of the Lambs

"Sirens of the Lambs" by Banksy

Could Banksy be a vegetarian?  Banksy's latest piece of performance art involves driving a slaughterhouse delivery truck packed with shrieking stuffed animals around New York City's meatpacking district.  In the video, you can see that most people really aren't paying any particular attention to the spectacle until the truck passes a little kids who ends up in hysterics.

If nothing else, you have to love Banksy’s humor and how his art starts a dialogue.

Street Art: Banksy Pop-Up Sale

If you were in Central Park Sunday, you were in for a surprise.  As part of his residency, Banksy set up a sales booth with 100% genuine, signed canvases.  The Banksy twist?  The sale was unannounced and almost wholly unremarked upon.  Though there were dozens of pieces of art worth probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, only three people made purchases for grand total of US$420 in sales.  One of those people even managed to haggle the price of their purchase down by half.  The Guardian estimates, the artwork sold could be valued at about US$225,000, so I'm guessing that those three people probably woke up Monday feeling like they had won the lottery.

Of course, few people would have guessed that these were authentic Banksy works, both because the artist is so high profile and because New York City sidewalks are littered with people selling Banksy ripoffs.  The performance piece continues Banksy's theme of examining the value of street art.  After all, if we value art for its beauty, why should it matter whether or not it's authentic? 

For those of you following along the past few weeks via Instagram, Banksy’s website (or perhaps following his tracks around New York), the artist has been creating a new artwork every single day in October as part of his "Better Out than In Residency."

Installation: Urban Submarine

Massive Submarine Rising from the Street by ad agency M&C Saatchi Milano
Commisioned by Europ Assistance IT, for its "Protect your Life" campaign
Via: DesignBoom

As part of a marketing campaign, the Italian insurance firm Europ Assistance staged this surreal scene in the middle of Milan's Piazza Mercanti.  It depicts a submarine surfacing through the asphalt of the street, rear-ending a small smart car in the process.  During the initial morning unveiling of the scene, shown in the video below, scuba divers swoop in to rescue the disoriented sailors from their submarine as police and medical assistance secure the scene.  Of course, the scene was entirely staged by actors, but the results are like something out of a fantastic urban fantasy novel.

I don't typically circulate marketing campaigns, but I think that this deserves a bit of attention.  A little more of this sort of marketing and little less of constant buzz of pop-ups and commercials would suit me just fine!

Video: Box

"Box" by Bot & Dolly

Until I see a making of, I'm going to be skeptical that this was entirely created "in camera," mostly because of the shot when the panels move away from the camera but still have projected images on them. As far as performance pieces centered around the art of projection mapping go, it's pretty damn impressive, but due to the overly perfect, nearly impossible looking synchronization of these camera angle reliant projections, I can't help but think there was some heavy post-production work involved here.

"Box explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping onto moving surfaces. The short film documents a live performance, captured entirely in camera."

Performance: Parkour by Ryan Doyle

"Contact Juggling - Taiwan" by Kuma Films

Someone has been watching The Labyrinth!  I was always a fan of that movie, but I never knew there was a name for "contact juggling" before watching this video.  Needless to say, I found this video fascinating. 

Contact juggling differs from toss juggling in several ways.  Have a look at the Wikipedia page for a full explanation. However, essentially it involves rolling a ball around one’s body, spinning the ball and finally manipulating it so it appears to be hanging in mid-air. It looks like a CGI trick, but it's not. The video is from Kuma Films and was shot at the National Taiwan University.

Performance: Book Dominos

"Book Domino Chain World Record" by Seattle Public Library

"The Seattle Public Library launched the 2013 Summer Reading Program by setting a new world record for the longest book domino chain!

The books used to make this domino chain were either donated or are out of date and no longer in the library's collection. They are now being sold by the Friends of Seattle Public Library to help raise money for library programs and services.

No books were harmed during the filming of this video."

Performance: Parkour by Ryan Doyle

"Parkour in Baku City - Ryan Doyle 2013" by Redbull

"After Ryan Doyle, the 28-year-old freerunner and parkour athlete from Britain traveled across the globe in a quest to discover his own seven wonders of the world, he chose Baku, Azerbaijan as a place where he could make a totally different - spiritual journey and expand his freerunning horizons in a completely different way.

Video: Super Sprayer

"Super Sprayer" by Spacepainter

Painting available for purchase at the artist's website. US$60

Thirty seconds in, I'm growing impatient, thinking to myself this is just going to be some ultra-modern crap.  Somewhere around the two minute mark, I'm rewinding to see how he did that.

California artist Brandon McConnell has been working with spray paints since high school.  You can purchase his art or instructional videos for making your own spraypaint master pieces from his website.  If you enjoyed this video, you need to peruse his YouTube channel. He's posted over two hundred videos like this one, and while the first video you watch is the most surprising, they're all fun watches.

Performance: Cybertron Battle Routine

"Cybertron Battle Routine" by Fresh Kils

Take a moment to strap on your best headphones and watch/listen to the impressiveness of mixing Transfomers into itself live by Fresk Kils on an Akai Pro MPC1000.

Music: Doctor Who Theme

"Doctor Who Theme" by Camille and Kennerly

Identical twins Camille and Kennerly Kitt, the Harp Twins, perform a fabulous electric harp duet version of the Doctor Who theme song. The song is available to purchase on iTunes.

Performance: Professional Cardstacking

Cardstacking Stuctures by Bryan Berg

Bryan Berg is a trained architect who now builds houses of cards professionally. Introduced to card-stacking by his grandfather at the age of 8, Berg is now the only known person to make a living building freestanding structures with playing cards. There's no tape or glue involved in his work, but some of his structures have been proven to support as much as 660 pounds per square foot.  The photo above was taken in London, England in February at the "Seven Day Build."

Berg creates his houses of cards for corporate special events and public relations campaigns. His work has been featured at Walt Disney World and in children's museums around the world.  His work was also featured in a music video by The Bravery, in which he plays a lonely man who builds a world out of cards.

In 2004, Guinness created a record category for World’s Largest House of Freestanding Playing Cards to recognize a replica of Cinderella’s Castle Berg built for Walt Disney World.  In 2010, he beat his own record by re-creating the Venetian Macao from over 218,000 cards. The model is now on display at the heart of Macau’s Cotai Strip.

Performance: Adventure Time Pancakes

Hotcakes Artísticos

A pancake artist by the name of Rogelio cooks up a tasty-looking Jake the Dog of Adventure Time fame at his restaurant in Mexico City. All it needs is bacon!

Music: Misty Mountains Acappella

The Hobbit - Misty Mountains - Peter Hollens Acappella