journalism

Graceful Industry: The Prints of Karel Martens

(CNN) -- So much graphic design is made with a computer these days that I tend to feel more connected to art made with the artificial tools I understand. Video art, video editing, Web design, Flash: These are the media of my generation.

But the old arts are not dead. Another generation, still active, has grown up with the old tools, the old limits and works with the old materials. Many of these tools, limits and materials were mastered long ago, and their boundaries have been pushed for much longer than Flash, or even the computer, has existed.

To wit, "Counterprint" is the English title of a collection of the personal work of Dutch designer and Yale visiting lecturer Karel Martens. This edition was published in a small quantity by Hyphen Press, a small press in London that publishes books for designers and those who love them. (Another Martens book may be easier to obtain: "Printed Matter/Drukwerk" was considered the best-designed book "in the whole world" at the 1998 Leipzig book fair.)

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Funkstorung Wasn't Broken, but They Fixed It

(CNN) -- There is something very fresh about the sound of hip-hop vocals blending in and out of the surrounding music bed. The rapper is swallowed by the computer, which fuzzes out the voice. And that's one of the things I like best about Funkstorung's latest album, "Disconnected."

Granted, the effect goes back a long way: to beatboxing (the Roots' "Do You Want More" is a great example), Grandmaster Flash and plenty more electro-funk and disco. But even now, with the right producer, effects and touch, it's up-to-date.

Funkstorung is a cult-fave German electronica act from Rosenheim although the group's members tend to say Munich. They're still on the road, but I'm sorry to say the U.S. tour ended in June. Still, Funkstorung's latest hip-hop tracks are as reliable as ever: shattered, stuttering, laboriously programmed beats with charismatic MCs.

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SUNY Buffalo Art: It's Not Bio-Terror, but is it Illegal Anyway?

(CNN) -- SUNY Buffalo art professor Steven Kurtz, his publisher, and their scientific and artistic colleagues are embroiled in court proceedings that began as a full federal bio-terrorism investigation, and ended up as charges of wire and mail fraud.

Kurtz was arraigned Thursday in Buffalo, New York. He entered a plea of not guilty on all counts. University of Pittsburgh scientist Robert Ferrell, chairman of the Human Genetics Department, faces the same charges but was not present to enter a plea, citing illness.

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Street Art, Hot Off the Presses

(CNN) -- Even in a culture mecca like New York City, some capable artists and designers feel the need sometimes to flee the pressures of the market and take to the streets to paint the pulse of the city and the scene.

It's called street art, and in some places, it's also called illegal.

I'd like to whet your appetite for street art with a review of two books. The first, "Street Logos," is new and widely available, and the second, "I NY," is less recent and self-published in an edition of 1,500.

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Blending the Worlds of Music and Art

(CNN) -- One amazing day out of four was all I could spend at the ACME Creative Music festival in Athens, Georgia. This monumental free-jazz blowout brought world-class improvising talent to the deep South by way of Germany, Sweden and Chicago.

But it's my very good luck to bring back visual art from a music venue. This is that story.

Reed player Peter Brotzmann is unknown outside an appreciative circle, though legendary within it. He's a founding figure of European improvised music, a companion to American free and avant-garde jazz. That music grew up out of the European audiences that welcomed jazz musicians who had it rough trying to squeeze money out of the free market economy back home.

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Artists Ensure Their Mark Sticks

(CNN) -- I've already touched on the subject of graffiti in this space as well as rare graffiti-painting robots most people probably don't see in action in their towns. So I thought I'd spill some ink on street art to explore this very moment, wherever you happen to be.

Stickernation.net is the posting point for an international adhesive-art underground.

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Does Development Hinder Firefighting Efforts?

(CNN) -- Catastrophic wildfires occur regularly in California, but last year was exceptionally bad.

Historian Mike Davis makes the case that irresponsible development in California increases the risks of such fires, causes the state to throw public money upon the problem and possibly endangers the lives of firefighters.

What does a longtime firefighter think of this viewpoint? Jim Wright, deputy chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, lends some support to Davis' arguments.

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Development Under Fire in California Blazes

(CNN) -- As the California wildfires of two weeks ago smolder in popular consciousness, let's seize an opportunity to scrutinize the arguments about fire disaster put forth by historian Mike Davis.

Davis, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, believes development in Southern California is undercutting effective fire policy. Here are his key arguments, from "Let Malibu Burn: a Political History of the Fire Coast" (1996):

1. California burns regularly, often in October.

2. Wildfires require accumulated fuel (underbrush in particular, dry timber, houses, etc.).

3. Wildfires are essentially inevitable. Source, or "ignition," matters little.

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Frank Lloyd Wright's Plans for Greater Baghdad

(CNN) -- What would the late Frank Lloyd Wright say of today's Baghdad, after sanctions, and after war?

The beloved American architect, in his vigorous old age, drew plans for a new Baghdad.

Wright was invited to build an opera house in downtown Baghdad by King Faisal II. By 1952, Iraq had managed a 50-50 deal with British-controlled Iraq Petroleum Company and Faisal presided over this wealth.

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Hektor is an Aerosol Man

(CNN) -- Meet Hektor: He paints graffiti, and he's a machine.

Compact and elegant, Hektor fits in a suitcase, but can paint a wall-sized design. He is driven by two motors mounted at the upper corners of his "canvas." Between those motors hangs a can of spray paint, and a mechanism to press the cap.

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Working in the Taboo Landscape

(CNN) -- "These affluent students are working their butts off in order to impress and win the respect of the poorest people in America," said Samuel Mockbee, the late architect and MacArthur "genius" grant recipient. Mockbee also built Auburn University's Rural Studio in Hale County, Alabama.

Which is what, you may ask?

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