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Francis Ford Coppola: Pater Familias

Francis Ford Coppola: Pater Familias

The Legendary Director Shares Family Lore at His Palazzo Margherita Hideaway

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United Visual Artists: Reinventing the Wheel

The London-based Collective Teams Up with VANDEYK for this Hypnotic Short

A bicycle wheel is transformed into an homage to early op art in this mesmerizing collaboration between United Visual Artists and Stuttgart-based VANDEYK Contemporary Cycles. Inspired by the likes of Bridget Riley, the London-based collective UVA used LED strips and motion control systems to create a hypnotic vortex that momentarily threatens to suck the viewer in. Known for sitting at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, live performance, moving image and digital installation, UVA devised the film's surging soundtrack using audio effects of the bike company’s latest limited-collection release, Purple Blast (a nod to the color of solar flares). The result is a crafty reference to Marcel Duchamp’s early 20th-century notion of the readymade.

STATS FROM ON SET

Location
The dark bunker underneath the UVA studio.

Camera
A Canon 5D MKII, to shoot stills.

Hours on set
30.

Inspiration
Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley were obvious influences, but also the phase experiments by Steve Reich and John Cage, linking visual feedback and movement with sound.

Helmet worn
No.

Happy accidents
During testing the LED strip was installed on one of the director’s bikes. They forgot to take it off and were soon riding around the city looking very bling indeed.

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Tags:
Design,
Sports,
Video,
London,
Bridget Riley,
LED,
United Visual Artists,
VANDEYK,
Marcel Duchamp,
Victor Vasarely
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    Keirin: Speed Racers

    Inside the High-Octane and Lucrative World of Japan’s Cycling Spectacle

    Before fixed-gear bikes became de rigueur for urban aesthetes, they were the weapon of choice for Japan’s fearless Keirin cyclists. A gladiatorial incarnation of track cycling that dates back to 1948, the Japanese sporting phenomenon operates by an intricate set of rules that sees competitors jostling for position on steeply banked tracks at lightning fast speeds, all but encouraging spectacular crashes. In today's film for NOWNESS, Jonathan de Villiers (whose fashion photography and portraiture has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Wallpaper* and Fantastic Man) traveled to the national Keirin school in Tokyo and the Tachikawa and Yokkaichi velodromes to decode the strategy that governs the racing phenomenon. “I knew next to nothing about it when I went,” says de Villiers, “but I'm a big admirer of the anthropological documentary where you get taken into a whole different world. And what a strange, special and complex universe it turned out to be.” The state-run industry amasses tens of billions of dollars in gambling revenue each year. To read about the Tokyo-based bicycle design company that has won the affections of cyclists around the world click here.


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    Supermodel Chanel Iman Hops Off the Runway and Onto the Stripper's Pole

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