The United States is not the only country that has noticed a decline in church service attendance. In some cases the parishioners have dropped to naught and these beautifully crafted places of worship have been left abandoned. Many communities have refurbished the structures to suit community needs but the Netherlands-based architecture firm Zecc Architects have gone another route. Church as home. Check out St. Jakobus in Utrecht. With as little structural interference as possible, Zecc Architects have created an stylized, modern, albeit cold and Sleeper-worthy home-front.

All across the planet people just can’t resist discount marketplace mayhem. I was checking out this BBC video that details the annual fishing raid of the sacred Antogo waters. I couldn’t help help but notice the similarities between this cultural commodity custom and our own Black Friday craze. It is amazing to watch…. just as long you aren’t one of them Antogo fishies or a Tickle-me-Elmo.

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As we aesthetically stroll into the 20teens’ expect to see more of less. Many of you may have noticed, Comedy Central has launched a dramatically different new look for their identity system. During the late 90′s and throughout the 0′s Comedy Central established its brand by leveraging big, colorful, paint-splattery motion graphics that adopted an urban spray-paint kaleidoscope mix of in-your-face fun and cutting edge animation. Unfortunately “cutting-edge” has a very short shelf life and the programming and influence that Comedy Central now holds has far outgrown the playful letter-form …

Painting in New York City was a complete pain in the ass. The city was so oversaturated with writers that it was very hard to make a name. Day-spots were the rarest commodity. Every corner of the city has been explored and scouted which left very little to be truly discovered. Most places that were safe enough to paint during the day were well known by the cops which made it that much more difficult. One of the greatest day-spots to paint in Brooklyn was the old abandoned Maccarren Park …

Rumor has it that the last auction for Banksys identity broke the 1 million dollar mark. Who knows. Respect to Banksy for collecting such an incredible amount of fame and exposure while still holding firm behind the curtain. Very impressive.

Artists Ronnie Yarisal & Katja Kublitz put together the greatest vending machine since the the Live Lobster-o-Mat and the Chinese Dirty Undies-o-mat.

Warning: Lifeguard died from complications from global warming….. whatever they may be. Check out the ‘Global Warming Swimming Pool’ created by Ogilvy & Mather for HSBC in Mumbai, India. Clear concept, clever execution. Welcome to NYC post-global-warming, where the water is deep, hot and sewage infested….. like the better part of my mind.

I never had a chance to check out the original Tron movie and I’m not a fan of watching sequels out of order so I am posting without a strong base of understanding here. I figure it doesn’t really matter because if we’re talking Tron we’re probably talking cool-looking, raver-inspired, drug-induced glowy things that can simultaneously hypnotize stoners and give marketers a new visual angle to wrangle. I noticed a few “Tronified” popular culture characters and products that were sporting the neo-neon look this season so I figured I’d rope …

I love this campaign for the Straits Times created by McCann Erickson, Malaysia that shifts our perspective on the stories we read in the paper. Just a subtle shift that connects the visualization of what we read to the imagery dictating how things unfold. This campaign challenged my conceptualization of photos being frozen moments and written word having a more complex depth. I mean, this image represents an unfolding story without the assistance of the written word. It seems that time/space has shifted and a front page photo unfolds into …

It’s hard to swindle the swindlest.

Every now and then the electronic heavens open up and a blessed heavenly gem descends down upon our church of the internet. All praises due.

Joy is the peak of emotional bliss. Ultimately, every move we make in every single day revolves around the pursuit of it. The end game is to create a life that elicits the most joy possible. People may say, “Sean, reproduction and survival are the key drivers for all things in life”, to which I would politely reply, “Because they bring you joy dip-shit”. I digress.

When I think about the odds of winning the Lottery I also think about the balance in life that divvies out what I call the “Reverse Lottery”. When a friend tells me a story about suffering unbelievably bad luck I shake their hand with congratulations informing them that they just won the Reverse Lottery! At present the odds of winning the New York Lottery are 1 in 45,057,474.00. There has got to be some god-forsaken horrible situation that is equally awful under those same odds. For me? My goal is …

Check out these incredible shots from the Electron and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory that illuminates the incredibly clean, complex and natural pattern work of a frozen droplet. I love when science and art meet, mingle and mate. That’s right. I said it.

With the graceful rolling hills and a luxuriously grandiose estate I’m sure you figured Asheville, North Carolina couldn’t get any badass! Right? Wrong! I’m trying to piece together how this tourism marketing team is going to counter the charges of false advertising by creating a promo video showcasing a truly fresh breakdancing b-boy Santa that ‘flash-mobs’ himself into headspins smack in the middle of the Visitor Center. So feel free to “Explore Ashville” but I’m pretty sure you aint gunna find too much more of this action.

The thin line between advertising and graffiti becomes even more fuzzy when talking about public spaces. Banksy seems to have coined the term “Brandalism” and builds on the concept here (taken from his book Wall and Piece):

Even though Darth Vader was a Dark Lord of the Sith and Supreme Commander of the Galactic Empire he was still kinda lovable. Removing Darth from our present time-line and setting the story in outer-space allowed us to embrace his evilness in the same kind of way we love Mr. Burns. The reality of the situation is that Darth Vader was a serious f’d in the head, super evil mass murderer type. I mean, the dude green lit the destruction of a fully populated, earth-like Alderaan!! I collected a handful …

I don’t typically write about bizarre weather phenomenon although given the nasty mix of snow, ice, rain and misery outside I figured it was befitting. The photos you see below appear to be what looks like a fresh snowfall that has graced the beach town of Yamba in New South Wales, Australia. Due to a strange level of impurities in the water the ocean creates a wild and nasty froth from the gods that is manifested at an alarming rate. It’s like some sick joke from the Dionysus. Yuck. The …

The power of the populace always outweighs the strength of the powerful few…. but who’s counting anyway? Has there been a more defining development in the past few generations that has empowered people more than the internet and social networking? How do you scare the shit out of an oppressor? Organize. The internet is like kryptonite to dictators. Well, it’s like kryptonite if Supermans secret identity was Jean Bedél Bokassa or Pol Pot. Hm, let’s hope this aint true.

You think I can get her to manage my schedule? If I invented a little Small Wonder this is the kind of shit I would have her doing all day. You can’t help but wonder what she looks like balancing a checkbook or cooking thanksgiving dinner. You go girl.

It is common for people to dehumanize others in order to rationalize our ill behavior toward one another. We take this one step further when dealing with animals and negate their ability to feel things. We render all kinds of ill crazy shit upon our animals brothers and sisters at astonishing numbers under the rationale that they are unable to feel in the same manner we are. Time magazine has written a solid feature recently (and in ’93 and 99′ ) about animals and their cognitive ability to not only …

Correct me if I’m wrong but this is two whole cars, on the fly, in three minutes time…. with conductor in train……..in broad daylight. Quite possibly the wildest graffiti video I have ever seen….. and I have seen a few.

When Pac-Man creator Tōru Iwatani (pictured right) released the legendary video game in Japan 30 years ago I’m sure he had no clue how impactful his little pizza shaped, neutrally colored drug addict would become. Three decades deep, this little dude still inspires creatives from a range of disciplines to push the boundaries and created fresh artwork based on the legendary video game and its characters. I remember almost ten years ago, my SVA independent study professor Stanley Martucci told me the story of how he was commissioned to create …

I get bummed out and a bit jealous thinking about the Golden Age of Illustration when illustrated art was the chosen method of visual communication and successful illustrators were rich and famous. Illustrators would marry celebrities and artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parrish were household names who were dipped and dapper when working in their studio.

Some of you may remember the Haiti benefit that I organized last year. I had themed it around authentic Haitian culture with a heavy focus on the Tap Tap buses. I wanted to revisit these incredible works of mobile art with a collection of photos taken by a handful of amazing photographers.

Not sure what the practical application is for such a monumental effort but it is awesome regardless.

The artists ego is a very sensitive instrument. So how in the hell am I supposed to get out of bed and push paint when an elephant can take the lions share of art gigs?

Imagine you are plucked out of your New York City apartment rooftop by a giant hand from the heavens and placed in a dark box. Suddenly the box opens 1,200 miles away on a random side street in Omaha Nebraska. Now walk home. And do it fast. Don’t think that’s possible? I got some city pigeon friends that can serve it up….. In yo’ face!

The natural progression of authentically interesting things always winds their way into the mainstream and ultimately into our living rooms. Graffiti has been on this long journey for some time now. The art-form will always live on the razors edge of a dichotomy living in two very different worlds. The authentic gutter-born vandalism world and the consumer-culture driven Walmart world. Surprisingly the authentic has continued to forge ahead and stay relevant regardless of being pillaged via countless capitalist ventures attempting to leverage the authentic in order to give the synthetic …

The website now has a rolling countdown until the show airs. As if I hadn’t been obsessing on the fact for the past year from the time they announced the book was going live on AMC. I don’t even the Pointer Sisters were ever this excited.

The Allied  naval fleet was suffering devastating losses from a crude but precise method of submarine torpedo attacks in WWI. Plotting an enemys position was a hands-on process before modern-era radar hit the military battlefield. A device called a rangefinder would be used to locate your target’s position, plot its course, determine the ship’s speed and confirm the direction it is heading. This information would enable you to fire a torpedo at a plotted point that you would estimate your target to arrive at. Boom. With frustration rising and …

My good friend Vinny sent me a set of American war propaganda posters and they really got me thinking about how phenomenally disconnected our present society, and in particular, my generation has become in relationship to the wars we have fought. Unless you have a family member or friend serving active duty it can be commonplace to completely forget that we have been at war for almost a decade!

Years ago I wrote about the European company, “Dinner in the Sky“. The concept was adventurously simple. Attach a set of dinner-party-ready tables and chairs to a platform and hoist it almost 200 feet in the air, serve drinks and dinner, urinate on the medieval peasants below who are forced to eat from tables and chairs attached to the embarrassingly prudent Earth. To my earnest surprise, the company is not only still in existence but has expanded considerably and begun to offer a more robust experience. Now live entertainment has …

I really can’t express how excited I am about the Halloween premiere of The Walking Dead. I have been an avid fan for years and I am very happy that AMC has put the talent and energy behind such a fantastic story about what happens to human nature when our society crumbles. Robert Kirkman is the man.

I like these things.

Just when you thought that the sexy-meter had topped out with Maria, Dr. Gina, Linda the Librarian and more recently (and slightly inappropriately) Gabi Rodriguez, you will be sure to see the streets flooded this Halloween with little hottie versions of Big Bird, Elmo and Cookie Monster. And if that isn’t bizzarre enough, I stumbled across these costumes being sold at Walgreens!?

Vanilla Ice almost drowns himself attempting a very poorly executed and particularly odd “practice jump” for a “bigger jump” to benefit Toys for Tots and Make a Wish Foundation. This peculiar stunt is executed without safety gear, a decent ramp or anything that resembles a plan. Any bets on what was holding onto his ankle and slowly drowning him out of existence? My money is on karma.

Hilarious historical events retold as Facebook status updates.

Detroit gets a crazy amount of press these days. It has become the visual representation of American urban decay. With the exception of just a few journalists it has been portrayed in a negative light. To my welcome surprise, Johnny Knoxville and Palladium Boots hosts a 4 part video project that turns the spotlight from the dismal blight and illuminates the progress and the people who are driving some of the innovation in art, culture and business. Well done. A must see.

During the graffiti boom of the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s in the New York City subway system a creative hierarchy was forged. If you were going to start writing on trains you needed to understand what elements ruled over others. As the hierarchy rose, the elements became harder and harder to execute. A lesser element couldn’t be painted over one that was higher in the hierarchy unless you were intentionally declaring war and starting beef. The pyramid looked like this.