Posts from — April 2007

John Maeda, named by Esquire magazine as one of the 21 most important people for the 21st century, today opens his exhibition “MAEDA:MySPACE” at Riflemaker at 79 Beak Street, W1.

“John Maeda believes in the art of simple living. One of the world’s foremost digital artists, he has evolved a philosophy of humanising technology that invites us to take a step back from our cybernetic environment. A professor at the MIT Media Lab, he has recently published a book on “simplicity” and garnered international acclaim with exhibitions at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, MoMA in New York and Ginza Graphics in Tokyo.

“Now, in his first UK solo exhibition in London, he explores new ways to engage with our hi-tech, sometimes passive digital landscape: he creates a round-the-clock, MySpace environment; he looks at downsizing instead of downloading; he moves forward with analogue; he explores how to be “green digital”; he makes tiny computers for tiny hands and even suggests we turn off the information highway full stop. A highlight includes a real-time stream to the US the night of the private view, where Maeda will interact with visitors through pods and screens, followed by daily beams from the MIT.”

“MAEDA:MySPACE” , from 30th April until 23rd June
John Maeda’s Biography
From Kultureflash.net

The current John Maeda installation at MoMA, New York:

Technorati Tags: art, Asian American, computer science, design, John Maeda

Tadaya is a traditional japanese styled hotel/resort and the visuals on their website reflect this. The site gently flows the traditionally styled graphics around the page as if all the pages are on one gigantic landscape… take a look!

Tadaya.net from notcot.org

Technorati Tags: cuisine, Japanese, Japanese hotel, Japanese resort, traditional

Graphic designer and experimental filmmaker Ahree Lee created the film “Me” by compiling several years worth of daily images into a montage. Each second of screen time represents about one week’s worth of pictures. She began on November 1st, 2001 and in 2004, put together the photos so far which have resulted in her nomination in the 2007 Webby Awards.

See “Me” at Atomfilms.com
Find out more on Ahree’s website
Vote for “Me” in the 2007 Webby Awards.

Technorati Tags: Ahree Lee, experimental, film, Webby Awards

A forthcoming Chinese period action film, “The Warlords“, directed by Peter Chan is to star Andy Lau, Jet Li and Takeshi Kaneshiro. The film has recently wrapped and is in post-production, expecting to be released on 13th December, 2007 in most of Asia.

“The Warlords” is a heroic tale of three blood brothers and their struggle in the midst of war and political upheaval. It is based on “The Assassination of Ma,” a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) story about the killing of general Ma Xinyi and is set in the 1860s, during the Taiping Rebellion.

It seems as if Jet Li has not retired completely from action films since his last wushu extravaganza in Fearless. Some footage of the film has been released online, but its a very rough cut, so it may be a leak and might therefore disappear soon. Catch it if you can!

Catch some “trailer” footage from “The Warlords”
More information on Wikipedia
From Asianpopcorn.com

Takeshi Kaneshiro, Jet Li, director Peter Chan and Andy Lau at a press conference for movie “The Warlords”:

Technorati Tags: Andy Lau, film, Hong Kong, Jet Li, Peter Chan, Takeshi Kaneshiro, The Warlords

“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” actress Ziyi Zhang is voted one of 2007’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World according to FHM Magazine. A record-breaking 8 million votes were recorded this year.

The Chinese star however, only takes the 99th place and is also the only Chinese actress who makes the final list. What a crime.

Who else do you think should be included? Your nominations in the comments please.

From Asianbite.com

Technorati Tags: film, Ziyi Zhang

The “Chinese in Britain” BBC Radio 4 series now has an accompanying website, which launched on Thursday. We posted information about the “Chinese in Britain” series earlier in the week and the series is due to air this Monday 30th.

The Chinese in Britain website

One Inch Punch attended the launch party last Thursday and having heard a preview of the series, highly recommend the production for its quality and insight. It looks at the Chinese in Britain as early as the 1920’s and also features stars such as Burt Kwouk and The Chinese Detective legend David Yip.

If you can’t wait, a radio series entitled “Beyond The Takeaway“, previously aired in 2003, is available online. In the series, actor and director David K.S. Tse, of Yellow Earth Theatre, talks to the British Born Chinese, about their experiences of growing up and living in Britain.

Beyond The Takeaway

Both series were produced lovingly by Culture Wise.

Technorati Tags: Anna Chen, BBC Radio 4, Chinese in Britain, culture, United Kingdom

Chow Yun-Fat will be featuring in the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is directed by Gore Verbinski, the director of the previous two films, and reunites Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Rush and Jack Davenport.

Chow Yun-Fat makes his first appearance in the franchise as one of the film’s antagonists, Sao Feng, a fictional character based on the legendary Chinese pirate, Cheung Po Tsai. He is captain of The Empress, a Chinese warship, and leads a crew of supernatural Chinese pirates.

Disney has announced a global release date of May 25, 2007.

Here’s ol’ Chow in The Corruptor (1999). Boy, do times change, heheh!

Technorati Tags: Chow Yun Fat, film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Sao Feng

A man in a Spider-Man costume abseils from a building to promote the upcoming movie Spider-Man III outside a theater in Jilin, China, on April 22, 2007.

Technorati Tags: abseiling, China, culture, spiderman