Project: Enterprise-D Construction Project

The Enterprise-D Construction Project is an ambitious one-man project to recreate the Enterprise-D in its entirety using  Unreal Engine 4, drawing from a variety of sources including both the official blueprints by Rick Sternbach and the earlier Ed Whitefire blueprints. By all reports the final model aims to reproduce all 42 decks of the Enterprise in extreme detail, right down to the ship's roving, 80's era house plants.  The project isn't publicly available yet, but you can take a virtual tour showing off decks 1–4, including the bridge and main shuttle bay.

The project is currently just a hobby for creator Jason B, but he's already considering populating the ship, offering a chance to explore the exteriors of stations such as Deep Space Nine, and maybe one day incorporating game mechanics. The creator is considering the possibility of crowdfunding campaigns to fund the project. 

Personally, I'm looking forward to finally seeing the aquatics lab and cetacean tanks, from which  a group of Bottlenose dolphins is alleged to have assisted in the navigation of Galaxy-class starships.  It's one of those tidbits of trivia that gets hotly debated by drunk trekkies in the parking lot of Star Trek conventions.

Project: Ikea Print Presented as Fine Art

"Showing IKEA print to Art experts" by Lifehunterstv

The Amsterdam-based group Lifehunters recently played a prank that involved exhibiting a €10 print purchased from Ikea in the Museum Arnhem in an attempt to pass it off as a museum-quality art.  They then asks an assortment of  "art experts" are asked to assess the piece, after carefully implying that they were going to be shown something special.

As you might guess, the so-called experts fell hook, line, and sinker.  Of course, the print itself is actually pretty cool.  It was created by a pair of Swiss street artists, Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni, who collaborate as NEVERCREW.  (We've previously featured some of their work.)  It's just not hobnobbing with champagne cool.

Personally, I think I'd take the print over most of the things I see hanging in the background of the video, but the point that Lifehunters is making is about how the value of art is entirely dependent on perception.

Project: Apollo 1201 Project

The Apollo 1201 Project is a mission lead by Cory Doctorow from within the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to abolish the practice of using digital rights management (DRM) inside the next decade.  The "Apollo 1201" title of the project is a reference to the Apollo Moon missions and section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which governs citizens' rights to unlock DRM.

The details of the project are still under wraps, but in broad strokes, we will use the incredible skills of EFF’s lawyers, technologists, and policy specialists to challenge the law that protects DRM, section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and, in so doing, set in motion a chain of events that will discredit the whole idea of designing computers to control their owners, for any purpose.

Project: I Am Elemental

IAmElemental Action Figures for Girls were designed to be a positive and fierce re-interpretation of the traditional female action figure.  Their store is currently taking pre-orders.

As a kid, I had dozens, maybe hundreds of action figure, including practically every G.I. Joe and Star Wars figure ever released in the eighties.  Looking back, I'm surprised at just how few of those toys were female characters, and I imagine that, had I been girl, trips to the toy store might have been a good deal more frustrating.

Looking through my own collection (which of course, I am faaar too old to still display in my bedroom), I can't help but reflect that toy manufacturers are even worse at representing the female gender than comic publishers.  Not only are female characters under-represented, those that do make it to shelves are often highly over-sexualized.

New Yorkers Dawn Nadeau and Julie Kerwin set out to address this disparity with a line of super powered action figures specifically designed for young girls and funded through a recently successful Kickstarter campaign.

Projects: LoTR Subway Notices

PUCK Middle Earth Subway (South bound 1 train, Car#2210)

Artist William Puck of Puckworks creates Lord of the Rings-inspired notices and covertly hangs them in the New York Subway.  The MTA is not amused, apparently, but if you're lucky you'll find your very own MiddleEarthCard.  You can see more of his work on Instagram.

Project: Clockwork Empire

"Clockwork Empire" by Dresden Codak cartoonist Aaron Diaz

[Previously: The Silmarillion Project]

Aaron Diaz easily makes the list of my top ten "internet famous" artists, not just because of his art style (which I love), but because of his fantastic taste in subject matter.  First, he pitched an animated version of The Silmarillion, now he's pitching a version of The Legend of Zelda in which Princess Zelda is the protagonist in practice, as well as name.  I would play the game, and I suspect plenty of others would as well.

"Inspired by Anita Sarkeesian’s Video Game Tropes vs Women, I wanted to pitch a Zelda game where Zelda herself was the hero, rescuing a Prince Link.

Clockwork Empire is set 2,000 years after Twilight Princess, and is not a reboot, but simply another iteration in the Zelda franchise. It just so happens that in this case, Zelda is the protagonist. I’m a very big Zelda fan, and worked hard to draw from key elements in the continuity and mythos.

This concept work is meant to show that Zelda as a game protagonist can be both compelling and true to the franchise, while bringing new and dynamic game elements that go farther than being a simple gender swap."  Read more >>

Project: Sketchcups

San Francisco-based design professor Miguel Cardona is selling his custom-drawn "Sketchcups" at Café Sophie for US$20 a piece to benefit Project Night Night, a charity that donates baby blankets, books, and toys to children in homeless shelters.  Cardona discusses the project in an interview with Coolhunting.  If you'd like to purchase or commission one of Cadona's pieces for yourself, you can do so for US$30 at his Sketchcups Store.

Project: Virtual Middle Earth

Middle Earth modelled in Outerra

Source: Imgur via Reddit

Someone has decided to demonstrate the astonishing potential of the Outerra game engine by recreating Middle-Earth on a 1:1 scale.  The results are impressive to say the least.  They blow the graphic environment of Lord of the Rings Online out of the water.  To really get a feel for the scope of this project, check out the video tour at the bottom of this post.

Outerra is a 3D planetary engine for seamless planet rendering from space down to the surface.  Every detail is refined to full resolution right down to the centimeter using fractal algorithms, thereby offering unlimited visibility, progressive downloads, and procedural content generation.  What's more Outerra offers integrated physics engines for vehicles, making an ideal platform for game designers.  Download the tech demo and play around with some simulations for yourself.


Here's the best part.  Outerra has Oculus Rift support. So, you could conceivably pair the Rift with something like the omnidirectional treadmill and actually retrace Frodo's journey for yourself.  You know, if you needed something to do in your spare time for a year.

Humor: Cards Against Gallifrey

Cards Against Gallifrey by Conventional Improv

That's right, it's a dirty Doctor Who party game, and about damn time.  Personally, I would gone with "Cards against Who-manity," but in any case, I think that we can all agree that this is clearly the parody that's "bigger on the inside."  Download the whole deck from DropCanvas.

"The comedy group I perform with does a comedy game show based version of CAH at conventions in the Pacific Northwest. We recently did a playing of this at a Doctor Who con and made a special set that we have available for download for free.It's 72 white cards and 27 Black cards. Thanks!"

Project: The Silmarillion Project

Silmarillion Project Part 1

“Ainulindalë - The Music of the Ainur”

 Dresden Codak cartoonist Aaron Diaz puts a fresh spin on Tolkien by illustrating each character of The Silmarillion as though it were an HBO animated series.  Personally, I think that if you were to animate one of Tolkien's works today, only Miyazaki would do it justice, but that in no way negates my enormous admiration for Diaz's work on this project.  These illustrations are what it might look like if Peter Jackson had used the crew of Samurai Jack to bring Lord of the Rings to life.  Visit the project's Tumblr, and bookmark it today!

"This is the beginning of a side project I’ve been working on, where each week I’ll be posting an illustration that corresponds with a different chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion.

The Music of the Ainur is essentially the beginning of Tolkien’s creation myth, where the Earth is slowly formed into being by ethereal song. Nothing too fancy just yet, but tune in next week as things heat up!"

Posters: Bigger on the Inside

Peace for Lonely Monsters: Doctor Who Collection by Marianne Mosquera

Prints available at the Artist’s Shop and Society6.  US$17.68

"“Peace for Lonely Monsters” is a collection of stories, musings, and simple daydreams from people who have come to love the Doctor in all his different forms and traits. I have found a few in my archives that I've saved from past times, and I unfortunately cannot find the people who originally wrote them. But for the remainder of the storybook, I’d like you to submit your personal story, thoughts, or daydreams with the Doctor. Leave your name, or an alias— and your age if you’re comfortable with it."

Project: Phototrails

New York

Phototrails is a research project that uses experimental media visualization techniques for exploring visual patterns, dynamics and structures of planetry-scale user-generated shared photos. Using a sample of 2.3 million Instagram photos from 13 cities around the world, we show how temporal changes in number of shared photos, their locations, and visual characteristics can uncover social, cultural and political insights about people’s activity around the world.

The project is part of the emerging research field of Cultural Analytics which uses computational methods for the analysis of massive cultural datasets and flows.

Phototrails explores the world’s photos on multiple spatial and temporal levels, moving between the planetary-scale cultural and social patterns to the micro level of particular places and times.

Crafts: Bridge Yarn Bombing

This tentacular piece of yarnbombing is the work of Jill Watt (Dapper Toad) and her sister Lorna (Knits For Life). This isn’t their first knitted creation, but it is their largest to date.  The sisters used over four miles of yarn to transform this Magnolia tree in San Mateo, California into a giant blue squid. They even knitted some crocheted goldfish into the squid’s tentacles.

"Lorna, an artist-in-residence for the Downtown San Mateo Association, wrote up a great post on how she and her sister conceived of, designed, and then created the “Yarnbomb Squid Tree.” Jill reports that it took 20 hours on a sweater machine to make enough to cover the tree and that it took them 14 hours to install it, in 91°F weather!”

Crafts: Bridge Yarn Bombing

"Knit the Bridge" by Andy Warhol

Knit the Bridge is a large-scale public art project with the goal of co-ordinating yarn-bombing the Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh with over 600 pre-knitted panels, each created by a separate artist. Eighteen hundred volunteers worked with the support of (and approval) of the Allegheny County Executive’s Office to complete the project.

Project: Useless Plastic Box

"Useless Plastic Box" by Los Angeles-based street artist Plastic Jesus

Plastic Jesus installed this fake product in five Best Buy stores in the Los Angeles area.  It's a plain plastic box with a corresponding product tag that reads "Useless Plastic Box 1.2."  The tag describes it as "Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life too short to be of use."  I would love to see video of peoples' reactions to finding the product, but alas, there is none.

Project: One Million Bones DC

One Million Bones DC

Photograph by Teru Kuwayama
Source: NBC News

Led by artist Naomi Natale as part of the One Million Bones Project, this mass grave assembled at the National Mall in Washington, DC is composed of bones made of paper and plaster, but symbolizes the very real number of people killed in places like Sudan, Germany, and the former Yugoslavi. Each bone created by students and volunteers was matched with $1 sent to CARE, which helps send aid to Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Short Film: Illustrated Aliens

"Planet Four" by Andy Martin

Prints available for purchase from Society 6.

These short animations are a part of Andy Martin’s on-going "Illustrated Aliens" project.  Martin's objective is to illustrate a new alien each day and a new alien planet each month.

"What do the robots do after they have taken over the planet. It turns out the ones on Planet Four find harmony and discuss philosophical matters of enlightenment, beauty and magnificence."

Project: Stardust

"STARDUST: an experiment in generative portraiture" by Sergio Albiac

With the help of the internet, Albiac has set out on a project to capture as many faces in star clusters as he possibly can before his big flickr Stardust Portrait exhibition. If you'd like to participate, just crop down a photo and share it through Google Drive.

“Life is finite. Creativity isn’t. An artist has the potential to create infinite artworks but only some of them will see the light due to the constraint of time. What if we use technology to outsource the creation of art so more of these potential artworks are finally created? Modelling artistic decisions into software would provide a generative assistant that could even survive an artist in the creation of meaningful works of visual art. This project is a first experiment around this concept.”

Project: World of Averages

“World of Averages” is a gallery of composite images created by combining thousands of individual portraits into symmetrical average faces. The results are fascinating.

Project: Boston Marathon Memorial

Boston Marathon Memorial by Yale Stewart

"Many of you have likely heard about the bombing at the Boston Marathon today. I’ve created this downloadable wallpaper to raise money to benefit the victims. All money raised will be evenly distributed between Boston Children’s Hospital and Red Cross of Boston. You can donate here.

Please spread the word, not only for this one, but for all charitable endeavors, including blood donation. The people of Boston need our help. Let’s give it to them."