Being up to no good entails a sort of madness and inspiration that often goes hand in hand with making great art. Sure nefarious leanings often lead to a fall in the wrong direction, but sometimes that’s half the fun. In celebration of things that go so wrong, they just have to be right, powerHouse magazine is hosting a show in conjunction with the release of their fifth issue entitled, Busted. The exhibit runs from May 26th until June 21st and features not so innocent, but certainly excellent work by the likes of Keiji Ando, ONE9 and Derek Erdman, amongst others; all of which take a peek at all the things that go awry when you’re not exactly operating with the best of intentions. If you find yourself aching to do something undesirable on May 28th, we suggest you curb that negativity by making it to the opening reception from 7-9pm at the powerhouseArena on 37 Main Street in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, but you might want to RSVP first to avoid any unnecessary confrontation. (Big poster after the jump.)

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I just came across a wonderful short new film by Brazilian director Cisma, the result of the latest commission from Adobe’s very inspiring Adobe Artists project. With the strict rule that everything must be produced using only Adobe products—Creative Suite 4, in particular—Le Sens Propre continues successfully in Cisma’s trademark surreal style. We watch a little girl in her room throw dishes into a tidy and unbroken stack, tie her shoes but accidentally knot up her thumbs instead and see bunnies turn into colorful, soft pebbles. It’s a bit Alice in Wonderland meets Candyland; totally charming to the end. Amazingly enough, no 3-D software was employed in the making of the film. According to an interview with Motiongraphics, Cisma wanted “to create strange scenes and weird connections between elements of the story,” giving viewers the chance to be surprised. It’s this aspect that keeps you glued to the computer screen. Check the Adobe Artist site for other gems, including a short by another Brazilian filmmaker, Nando Costa.

No one at Pompeii expected to have their civilization snuffed out in a hail of lava and ash, but when their remnants were finally excavated some 1700 years later archaeologists found of wealth of material that told the story of how they had lived. Even though our superior scientific technology does a much better job of preparing us for disasters, there’s really no telling when the big one will come and “preserve” us all. When future generations discover us, what sort of life instruments will they find to tell our tale? Artist Christopher Locke has somewhat of an idea, his modern fossils preserve our video game loving, boom box blasting heritage in stone. While future generations may not actually be able to play kickin’ cassette tapes on a ghetto blaster or witness Mario putting the pedal to the metal in his “Kart” they can at least take comfort in finding we were courteous enough preserve the form of our favorite gadgets in a nice stone package all the while still continuing our wave of electronic innovation and waiting for mother nature’s other shoe to drop.