RSA Animate illustrating a lecture by the authors of SuperFreakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

If you find your mind wandering during lifeless lectures, then this animated lecture series might be just the thing. The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (better known as the RSA) has been hosting lectures with key thinkers for countless years and in the last three has been filming the action.

Now they’ve gone one step further enlisting ‘visual scribe’ Andrew Parks to illustrate the intelligence of the likes of SuperFreakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and social theorist David Harvey. Check out animated discourse over at RSA Animate.

www.clichespotting.com

For anyone suffering with student-show-fatigue (every year the same-old same-old, re-hashed and disassembled) a handy new iphone app might help you channel your frustration. The brain-child of Pascal Raabe and Barnaby Norwood, Cliché Spotting is a free application allows you to select which college show you are attending and then scroll though their pre-determined selection of ‘art school clichés’, ticking off the applicable as you go. Categories range from the technical (such as hand-rendered) to issues around presentation (mini business cards and bull-dog clips anyone?) Results are then submitted to the site that collates the clichés and presents a top ten on your phone: at the time of writing this I’m particularly on- (or off-) trend with this Helvetica typeface… Definitely worth a look if you’re happy – as I am – to take your degree shows with a pinch of salt.

Robotsandavatars.net

Robots and Avatars is a brilliant project that invites today’s techno savvy young people to consider how we may present ourselves online and how we might interact with robots in the future. On the project’s website you can follow the blog, which is full of amazing insights into robotic innovations, and you can watch insightful presentations given by specialists such as Professor Noel Sharkey from Sheffield University, Ghislaine Boddington from body>data>space, Derek Richards from Hi8us South and Pear Urushima from Apple.

The initiative was conceived by body>data>space, a collective of clever sorts who investigate the relationship between the body and digital technologies, with a host of partners that includes NESTA, ResCen (Middlesex University), b.TWEEN festival and Proboscis.

The Artist Is Present, Marina Abramović, 2010.

This week APEngine has enjoyed scrolling through the online portraits recording Marina Abramović‘s latest performance for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. For her exhibition Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, the MoMA’s first performance retrospective, Abramović performed every day the museum was open between 14 March and 31 May, in her longest performance to date. Visitors were encouraged to sit silently across from the artist for a duration of their choosing, becoming active participants in her work. Their image – taken while they were  watching the artist – was recorded and is viewable online along with information including the date, time and how long they participated in the work.

The exhibition, which closed last month, also included around 50 other works by Abramović spanning over four decades. A mix of early interventions, videos, installations and photographs were accompanied by re-enactments of her live work, reperformed by over 30 men and women.

minimovies.org

Minimovies is a site dedicated to showcasing a selection of bizarre episodic documentaries produced by the good folks at Submarine Channel, which handily can be viewed on a variety of platforms. The documentaries produced to date have been superb – here’s a few highlights to give you an idea…

Grillz or ‘Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is’, an extraordinary glimpse into the popularity of mouth jewellery amongst Hip Hop communities; Ig Nobel Prizes, charming interviews with scientists whose findings, such as homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, have won them the award for ‘research that makes people laugh and then think’; and I Love Alaska, a touching story made from the search queries of one AOL user that were accidentally leaked onto the internet, created by artists Sander Plug and Lernert Engelberts.

Mona Lisa, Lauren Moffatt on Outcasting

Outcasting is an online moving image gallery run by artist Michael Cousin. A voluntary organisation it offers a platform for practitioners of the moving image. Artists, filmmakers, animators and documentary makers are selected for screenings of their work in bi-monthly seasons that are then archived on the site. The organisation also distributes selections of the work to screenings and events as well as offering free technical and practical advise to emerging practitioners. With its diverse collection of works and international set of contributors the site provides nicely curated selections that rarely disappoint.

Artists' Lottery Syndicate

With their motto of: “You’ve got to be in it to win it!” the artists’ in the Artists’ Lottery Syndicate have everything to play for.  Launching on 1 July and running for one year this forty-strong creative Syndicate will strategically play The National Lottery using a system designed to maximise the odds for the players. The system requires the Syndicate to purchase forty-four lines on each of the two weekly UK Lotto draws and thirty-six lines on the weekly EuroMillions, at a weekly cost of £4 to members. Winnings will be held back till the project end when they will be equally distributed to the team.

Devised and managed by artist Ellie Harrison the initiative is represented online through it’s website and associated Facebook and Twitter feeds. All of the syndicate spaces have already been snapped up by a plethora of familiar names “looking for a lucky break”, though a reserves list is operational. In this era of funding cuts – that this scheme is a self-proclaimed reaction to – it’s great to see artists making their own opportunities. Good luck to the Syndicate!

Linear, Dryden Goodwin

Londoners traveling from Southwark and London Bridge tube stations may well be familiar with the images above. As part of TfL’s Art on the Underground initiative artist Dryden Goodwin has been commissioned to draw sixty portraits of individuals working in various roles on the Jubilee line.

Rendered in multiple layers of delicate pencil strokes and scribbles, the blown-up portraits are presented outside the stations on big billboards and on poster sites across the underground network. For a real sense of the project however, you are encouraged to go online where the intimate portraits come alive. Each image is presented as a short animated film that documents the accelerated progression of the drawings, accompanied by fragments of conversation between the artist and sitter that reveal a multitude of personal exchanges and stories. Together the animations and dialogues form an intimate and diverse social portrait of this community of workers.

Linear will be online until February 2011.

dummyjim.com

This interactive site showcases the Dummy Jim film project by artist Matt Hulse. The inspiration comes from a book discovered in a second-hand bookshop entitled I Cycled into the Arctic Circle – a diary of a 3,000 mile cycle ride made by a profoundly deaf, Scottish, factory worker called James Duthie in the 1950s. As well as keeping up to date with developments and supporting the project by purchasing goods, you can cycle the route from Scotland to France on your browser, whilst Dummy Jim, played by Samuel Dore, signs key words in the right hand corner.

Latest news is that adventurous musicians Olly Rundell and Alex South will be setting off for the Arctic Circle in June, following the journey James Duthie made almost 60 years ago, in order to raise money for the film Dummy Jim and the National Deaf Children’s Society.

savethevideogame.org

Can you remember the first console videogame you ever played? If you’re dreamily reminiscing about the likes of Pong, Dungeons & Dragons, Pac-Man, Street Fighter, Super Mario… you may interested to hear that the National Videogame Archive is collecting, preserving and sharing the nation’s much loved videogames.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about in person, you can visit the newly opened Games Lounge at the National Media Museum in Bradford where you can try your hand at some top games and learn about gaming history.

Otherwise, support the campaign, visit Save the Videogame and register. And if you need further persuading, there’s a nice selection of videos from games developers pledging their support and discussing which historic games they would like to save.