Beginning and ending with the stunning design attributes of the new Audi TT, the TT Movement is a collective of artists that has formed in Australia to join their talents in an exhibition at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art for a one night show in April. The artists will be focusing on themes of technology and performance as they vie for the inaugural Audi Art Prize– a $20,000 grant and the use of a new TT for a year (photo after the jump). So far, the group they’ve assembled appears to be both talented and eclectic, and I’m excited to see what they create given their ‘inspiration.’ Even if you won’t be in Sydney in April to see the exhibition (free ticket request form on the website), you should navigate over to see the intro video they’ve put together… impressive to say the least.
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Looks like Grant Barnhart (A.K.A. Tra Selhtrow) has been steadily and quickly progressing his work– even since his somewhat recent Sincere Intentions show at the OKOK Gallery in Seattle in November (which one of our own, Carmel the Intern, was lucky enough to attend). As a compliment to all of the new artwork, Grant has redone his website and, lucky for us, is now using t-shirts and track jackets as a canvas. His maiden foray into the apparel game certainly doesn’t look rookie to me– there are some great designs in there, and you can order them here, along with some great prints. As a member of the Spear Collective, we wouldn’t expect anything less out of Mr. Barnhart.

Last week, I was able to catch a TV on the Radio show for the second time this year, and am happy to report that they are still the best live act out there right now. If you’ll remember back to September of last year, I wrote a blog post about the band– incidentally, it was the first cluster of words I ever wrote for JoshSpear.com. I gave their album Return to Cookie Mountain a rave review (as did every other music magazine and blog), but for good reason. It really is that good. But as good as the album is by itself, it’s nothing compared to watching the band perform the songs in a live setting. This time I caught them at the Ogden Theater in Denver, and although it it’s a larger venue than the Fox in Boulder, it’s still intimate enough to get a really up close and personal music experience. It would be difficult for me to say that TV on the Radio plays the best live show I’ve ever seen, because I’ve seen so many good ones, but I’ll comfortably put them in my top 3. If you haven’t yet made it to one of their shows, you really must. On a side note, tomorrow they’re releasing the Live at Amoeba Music EP– four tracks from an in-store show last September– which will be available here.

Peace: 100 Ideas is a collaborative book project put together by Chen Design that juxtaposes 100 illustrations next to 100 ideas for achieving a more peaceful world. The book is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled, elemental chlorine-free paper using soy-based inks. Ten percent of all net proceeds are donated to wagingpeace.org for their efforts in promoting peace around the world. The book has also expanded into a bit of a traveling exhibition and a line of t-shirts worth checking out.

Due to an overwhelming response to our Jawbone Giveaway last week, I’ve decided to extend the contest by another week, giving readers another 5 days to register their email addresses into our mailing list for a chance to win the best Bluetooth headset on the market, period. If you aren’t feeling lucky, don’t want to wait for the results on Friday, and want one right away, Jawbone’s website has several units back in stock for $120.

Check out this clever promotion for shoe brand Onitsuka Tiger called Made Of Japan. The mosaic shoe shown above is dynamically created using hundreds of tiny images from Japan-related web pages posted or updated in the past 24 hours. They’re then configured by color to recreate the classic Onitsuka shoe. As a user you can mouse over and view each little pixel for a preview of the site it came from or click to go to a random Japanese page.