A month ago we wandered into the Magic City of Miami, Florida as Fallon London and Sony were creating a little magic of their own. The UK based ad agency teamed up with director Simon Ratigan to turn the “Magic City” into a foam city to illustrate that Sony’s digital imaging products create ‘images like no other.” Well, a month has passed and we’ve been waiting with bated breath to have our breath taken away by the commercial resulting from the shoot. Well, that day has finally come and after taking a gander at the 60-second spot complete with music created specially for the campaign by Warren Ellis of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds fame, we can say that it’s all we hoped it could be and more. You don’t have to take our word for it though. We suggest you witness this visual feast for yourself…and if you find yourself clamoring for more unique images of the shoot, courtesy of Sony’s line of digital imaging products, you can check out some more behind the scenes action at their site.

Sony's digital imaging branch sure has a history of wondrously eccentric and eye-catching ad campaigns. Over the last several years they've dropped 250,000 super balls down a San Francisco street, exploded 17,000 liters of paint in Glasgow, and most recently used two and half tons of Play Doh to have bunnies invade a New York City square. It should come as no surprise then, that their next campaign is just as if not more monolithic than their previous efforts.

When the folks at Fallon London and Sony approached the film friendly city of Miami to see if they could fill a few downtown blocks with foam for their latest ad campaign, city officials thought they were joking. Rest assured, this was no joke. We saw it with our own eyes. Over the last several days a team consisting of 150 crew people (eighteen on foam detail) led by director HLA's Simon Ratigan, took several city blocks by storm, or foam rather. With the help of the world's biggest foam machine, capable of churning out two million liters of foam per minute and filling an Olympic sized pool in twenty-four seconds, Miami was turned into Foam City.

The idea behind the Foam City ad campaign is that bubbles are beautiful, but it's extremely hard to capture that beauty in an image. However, since the latest in Sony's digital imaging arsenal, including the new Alpha 350 with tilt screen, CybershotW175 with smile shutter, and HD Handycam, specialize in ‘capturing images like no other’ we can finally see bubbles the way they're meant to be seen or in a larger sense any truly unique moment. How's 200 locals wading around a city block covered in foam taking pictures with the latest Sony gear for a unique moment?

In addition to the 80,000 plus feet of film shot for the campaign, the commercials will also feature images shot by those wandering through the sea of suds, as well as the documentary filmmaker on hand. We know you can't wait to see the finished product, neither can we. However, we're all going to have to wait until the staggered release of the various incarnations of the ad, set to debut in the Spring and Early Summer. Until then, you'll just have to be satisfied with the images we snapped while on the shoot.

A few artists jumped out at me this weekend at Art Basel down in Miami — one of them I had to mention was Atsushi Kaga. Born in Japan, and schooled at the National College of Art in Dublin (weird, right?), Kaga’s work is devilishly intriguing. He had about 15 or 20 pieces, represented by Mother’s Tankstation (a small Irish gallery) available for sale — and into the third day as I was deliberating buying one, a collector-like looking woman walked in and bought the entire show of oil and acrylics with the snap of her fingers, as well as a few drawings. I’d keep your eyes peeled for more of Kaga’s work in the near future; my guess is he’s going to come onto the scene in a big way, and very soon. One more picture after the jump…

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With all of our recent — and not so recent — talk about porcelain, it seems only logical to let all of our Miami-based design fiends and friends know about die gestalten verlag’s exhibition Fragiles. Fragiles is a collection of more than a hundred porcelain, glass, and ceramic pieces designed by an eclectic group of artists and meant to challenge the public’s perception of what these materials are meant for.

Some of the objects are available for viewing online on the Fragiles website. Fragiles is also taking place in conjunction with Design Miami 2007. Which makes for two great reasons to get yourself to Miami.

When Jamie and I were in Miami for what felt like an eternity covering all of the Art Basel events, we had a tough decision to make about where to stay– While we’re young and supposedly hip, we’re not big fans of the scene (nor the prices) on South Beach. We reached out to a handful of different hoteliers with our needs and surprisingly the Conrad Group was one of the few that didn’t turn up their nose. At first blush I was hesitant to stay at the Conrad– despite it being recognized as ‘Florida’s Leading Luxury Hotel’ in 2006 it was a little off the beaten path, downtown, and owned by the Hilton Group– and I’m much more of a boutique kind of guy. It turns out staying there for the week was a life-saver, although we spent a small fortune in cab rides to and from South Beach related events, every afternoon or evening we were able to get out of the mess to our own little safe haven. When we weren’t partying with Jose Parla or eating at Atrio, we spent a fair amount of time at the rooftop pool, enjoying the hot tub– an awesome surprise for those windy nights. As far as the room, we were showed to a residence– an awesome 2 bedroom apartment with a fully furnished kitchen, living room and decks with stellar views of the ocean. While I prefer to support independent hotels, staying here definitely exceeded my expectations. If they’re all this nice, welcoming and fairly priced, I’ll be keeping my eyes out for Conrad Hotel’s around the world.

My guess is that this piece of news is the biggest thing to come out of this year’s Miami Boat Show. The Porsche Design Studio has teamed up with Miami-based high-end yacht manufacturer Fearless to develop a range of gorgeous sea-faring vessels ranging from 28 ft. to 150 ft. in length. They debuted the 28 ft. model in Miami at the convention– it has a seamless hull, clean European curves, and is powered by a 525 hp Dodge Viper Engine (sorta weird, I know). The price tag on the 28 footer is $300,000, which makes me wonder what the 150 footer will cost– but rumor has it that college funds all over the country are beginning to disappear.

Via Gizmodo

I’ve really enjoyed watching the evolution of Japanese artist Aya Takano. She uses acrylic and diluted gouache paints to create fictional, erotic, and sullen images featuring thin, big-eyed Geisha girls– there’s a taste of sex, sadness, and the future all at once. She has been showing her work all over the place in the past few years, most recently at the MOCA in Lyon, France, and currently at a group show at the Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Miami. I’ve heard that she may be expanding her feminized world in the near future, so maybe some men will be popping up in her new works. For now, Aya, along with her cohorts at the Kaikai Kiki Collective, are really setting the bar high in the world of modern Japanese art.

As green building technologies push forward, we’re seeing some great architectural minds push the envelope to create truly inspiring buildings that combine sound design and sustainable technologies. Chad Oppenheim’s COR project is setting a great example in the way it “represents a dynamic synergy between architecture, structural engineering, and ecology.” Set to be completed in 2009, this 25 floor condo building overlooking the design district in Miami will utilize, among other things, the latest advances in solar hot water generation and a heat-efficient ecoskeleton shell that will at once combine thermal mass to insulate, natural shade, armatures for turbines, and enclosure for balconies. Chad has a ton of other great projects in the works, so be sure to follow his progress. There’s a great alumni profile write-up on Chad on Cornell’s Department of Architecture site if you want to read more about him.

“pHy•ton•ics \'fi-tä-niks\ n [NE, fr. pH] 1 : the presentation of the smallest portion of a body of work that when excised may grow into an entity of its own 2 : an online forum for images, ideas, and a touch of iconoclasm by powerHouse Books.” The most recent of the weekly contemporary art additions to pHyotnics is the work of Christoph Schmidberger, who’s an Austrian-born artist now based in L.A.– we saw some of his work at NADA in Miami a couple of months ago, and were really impressed then. PowerHouse’s staff must have agreed with us, and why wouldn’t they? Christoph’s photo work was included in the Saatchi Gallery's Triumph of Painting and has held solo shows at Goff + Rosenthal, New York, Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, The Essl Collection, Vienna, and Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum, Graz. His work has been reviewed or published in The Sunday Times, Booklet, The New Yorker, Art + Auction, Details, Art in America, and The Observer, and is in the collections of such institutions as The Museum of Fine Art, Boston, The LACMA, Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Saatchi Collection, London. Schmidberger is represented in New York by Goff + Rosenthal. The list of accolades aside, you should really see this art for yourself.

Executive Chef Michael Gilligan is no stranger to the kitchen– we were glad (and very pleased) to try his newest creation called Atrio, a gem of a restaurant tucked inside the Conrad Hotel in Miami during our trip to the area last month. Gilligan’s resume is impressive– food has been in his blood ever since he was born in a room above the family-owned pub in his home town of Birmingham, England. A graduate from The College of Food and Arts, he has done everything from sous-chef at the Ritz Carlton in NYC to owning and operating several restaurants such as Candela, as well as cooking everywhere from Antonio’s Ristorante to Metro 53 in NYC, and Rumi on South Beach–we feel like it’s safe to say he has made it around. Atrio really shows off his power of creation, and of course, his imagination. He calls many of his creations ‘la-sian’, a cross between Latin American cooking and Asian cuisine. Rarely on one menu do you find such gems as a Sushi of the Day, delicious crab cakes, chilled avocado soup with lime and jalepeno, and a broiled miso marinated black cod (our favorites). Interesting combinations, exquisite tastes, and a wonderful atmosphere off the beaten path.

If you go to one restaurant in Miami, make sure it’s Wish. Wish is in The Hotel in South Beach, and it impressed Josh and I in a way restaurants rarely do. The atmosphere had that classy, yet South Beach feeling to it, the service was top notch, and the food was absolutely exquisite. Some of the flavors that graced our taste buds: Wish Salad with green mango and baby bean sprouts, cashews, and lychee-mint vinaigrette (there were actual lycees in the salad); pan-seared diver scallops with lamb sausage, two-bean cassoulet with fennel sofrito, dijon and lemon confiet, skin-on blackened Pacific turbot (this Pacific whitefish was the chef-reccommended special); chai creme brulee; and finally, a dessert they called PB&J– it was an out-of-this-world take on a peanut butter and jelly sandwitch, complete with marshmellow, rasberry coulis, and the richest and creamiest chocolate mousse with peanut butter gelato on the side. Conde Nast Traveller named Wish one of the 50 top new restaurants in the world– and it definitely earned our nod of approval.

I almost forgot to mention, while the other JS and I were down devouring art fairs in Miami, we had a chance to spend a few minutes hands-on with (fondling inside and out) the new devilishly-fast looking Audi R8. The car was a bit of a surprise, it was placed inside the entrance to Design Miami, the event was apparently entirely sponsored by Audi (the A8’s in the entryway with Zaha Hadid’s name in the window must have tipped us off). The fender flares were mean, as expected, and the interior as we had dreamed. We didn’t get to actually drive the car, but I could feel the 650hp turbo diesel engine just dying to be started– unfortunately, no keys in the glove box, under the seat, or anywhere to be found. We’ll check in with the R8 again this weekend at the Detroit Auto Show again, I’m sure. More eye candy after the jump.
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The new year is customarily ushered in with a big lit up ball dropping in New York City and a kiss with that special someone. For many of you, that customary kiss may have not gone as planned this year. Maybe your special someone was in a different location, maybe you don’t have a special someone, or maybe you drank too much and passed out before midnight. In any case, if you had been celebrating with Marlene Haring, your new year’s kiss (well, suck really) would have been contractually guaranteed. We found Marlene at the entrance of the Scope Miami art fair about a month ago, and we were impressed with her Sucking Marks exhibit for several reasons: it was, in every sense of the word, unconventional art; it was a cheap ($10) and sanitary thrill; and Marlene creatively redefined the relationship between the artist and the art collector. Aias Vargas put it best: “Like many of Harling's works, Sucking Marks $10 engages directly not only her ‘audience' but the rules society determines for the relationship between the artist and the collector, the producer and the consumer, the body and the commodity.” See some more photos we took of the ’sucking booth’ after the jump…
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The origin of the word ‘Metabolics’ comes from the word Metabiosis, meaning intermediary symbiosis: a more indirect dependency in which the second organism uses something the first created, however after the death of the first. Alexandre Orion’s work ingeniously captures the Metabiosis between Sao Paulo, Brazil street paintings and the photographs Orion captures in his Metabolics Project. We had a chance to see some of Alexandre’s work at the Photo Maimi fair last weekend, and it stood out as something truly special– a photojournalistic register that encapsulates ‘the endless duel between photograph and painting, that in the information era, makes us think of how fragile images are.’ Alexandre’s work can be found at the Foley Gallery, and you can also purchase the Metabolics book from his website, which has 80 pages, 12 x 12 inches, of Alexandre’s work.

While visiting the Scope Miami show last weekend, we had the pleasure of seeing some of Austrian Lois Renner’s artistic photography. Lois tries to hurdle the limitations of media with his large format photographs, and breathes a mysterious living quality into his paintings. Lois sees the studio as a “spatial situation and as [a] starting and crystallization point of artistic action and begins his analysis with it's miniature reproduction.” The work is interesting to look at to say the least– his pieces are full of nuanced details, object size illusions (at least I thought so), and a simultaneous blending and clashing of lines that can only be explained by seeing them for yourself. My favorite is ‘Sound 101‘ pictured here on the left.