Studio 360 : "Hominid" reenacts violence of chimpanzee colony

SOURCE: www.topnews.in

Homo-Thespian: A new play, "Hominid," reenacts a violent incident that took place in a chimpanzee colony. Primate expert Frans de Waal and the play's actors describe what it took to stage a chimpanzee drama with a very human story.

Substituting for murderous, hairy apes is a chorus of bright and shiny affluent cultural elites in sparkling tennis whites.

The story, however, ends the same, with suicide, murder and the overthrown of a beloved leader!

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Psychology Today: Everyday Chimp Creativity

Look what made the cover of America's #1 publication on general pychology!

The tattoo artists throughout Russia's prison system have never had lessons in painting technique (nor, apparently, hygiene training). They don't have ink and tools at their disposal. And yet they create entire murals on one another's chests and backs: onion-domed cathedrals, intricate cobwebs, chilly grim reapers. And they're not just beautiful decorations—they are coded biographies, telling those in the know their bearer's history and affiliations.

One would be hard-pressed to find a tougher environment than the jails where these artists work. Their ink is made from soot shaved off their shoes and mixed with urine. It's injected via guitar strings attached to electric shavers. The tattoos are a brutal mafia ritual. But they're also a mark of determined resourcefulness and self-expression.

When we think of creativity, we think of Mozart, Picasso, Einstein—people with a seemingly fated convergence of talent and opportunity. It's too narrow a set of references, because the truth is that all sorts of people, possessing various levels of intelligence and natural ability, are capable of engaging in fulfilling creative processes. Just because you'll never be Brando or Balanchine doesn't mean that you can't harness your idea-generating powers and make your life your own masterpiece.

Pop!Tech Fellows: 2009 presentation videos

PopTech 2009 Social Innovation Fellows from PopTech on Vimeo.

Meet all the Fellows in this video—and then learn more about each organization’s work in their individual PopTech presentations below.

You can watch their videos from the 2009 Fellows page (click the link under each project description), from their Vimeo channel, or follow the links below:

Aviva Presser Aiden & Hugo Van Vuuren of Lebônê

Jason Aramburu of re:char

Eben Bayer of Ecovative Design

Paula Kahumbu of WildlifeDirect

Deb Levine of ISIS, Inc.

Derek Lomas of Playpower Foundation

Josh Nesbit of FrontlineSMS:Medic

James O’Brien of Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School

Emily Pilloton of Project H Design

Hayat Sindi of Diagnostics For All

Taylor Stuckert & Mark Rembert of Energize Clinton County

Nigel Waller of Movirtu

Congratulations to our 2009 Social Innovation Fellows!

All video is released with Creative Commons Noncommercial-Attribution-ShareAlike license—and we hope you will embed and share these videos widely to help the Fellows continue their work.

GOOD, Wooster Collective & Blu's Sketchbook

GOOD Magazine and Wooster Collective have teamed up to bring glimpses of art for the masses, aka. graffiti. Really, it represents the mash-up of public spaces and any form of open source media: wall art, installations, ad "fixing", and eclectic personal projects taken to the streets.

Above is a video page-through of a sketchbook produced by the artist Blu. It is amazing on two levels: (1) the surreal images executed in clean, crisp lines and (2) the fact that this is just one of the hundreds of weekly sketchbooks Blu produces each year!