Alt Wire with Activist Designer Noah Scalin

By Jeff Severns Guntzel
Published on March 18, 2009
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Alt Wire is a morning digest of links and information collected and explained by a different guest blogger every weekday. Today’s guest is activist and designer Noah Scalin of Another Limited Rebellion. We asked him for five links, and here’s what he gave us (check back for tomorrow’s guest, Jessica Hoffmann of make/shift):

Add-Art:The Anti-Advertising Agency doesn’t just critique and poke fun at the excesses of modern day advertising, it does something about it! Their recently completed Firefox plug-in Add-Art, replaces annoying web ads with curated art that’s changed bi-weekly. I’ve been using it for a couple of months and it’s completely changed my experience of the web.

Bent Objects: When I was working on my Skull-A-Day project I stumbled into an entire universe of art blogging folks I had no idea existed. By far one of the best is Terry Border’s Bent Objects. His brilliant wire and household object constructions, posted every couple of weeks or so, strike just the right tone of clever, funny, and disturbing and are consistently inspiring to me. It helps that they are also immaculately shot, thanks to his commercial photography background.

Kristen Hersh: I’m addicted to music and Kristin Hersh has been feeding that addiction since I fell in love with her sadly underappreciated Throwing Muses in the 80’s. Not only is her music diverse and beautiful, but she’s recently been pioneering the future of music distribution by giving away her latest solo and side- project recordings for a donation of your choice (or free if you’re feeling stingy) via the CASH Music project. Plus they’re Creative Commons licensed, so you’re encouraged to experiment with them.

Power to the Poster: Whether you want to prepare for your next rally or just decorate your living space, designer Justin Kemerling’s Power To The Poster project has you covered. The site features free downloadable PDFs of issue driven posters by designers from around the world ready for home printing. Originally in B/W only, the post-election site now features inspirational posters in color and is accepting new submissions until May 1st.

Trailers from Hell: I’ve been a cult movie fanatic since I was a kid, so discovering Trailers from Hell is like finding a free candy store! Some of the greatest cult movie directors wax poetic over the trailers of some of the most amazing films (cult and beyond) ever made. It’s basically 2-3 minute chunks of sheer joy regularly updated and freely available courtesy of Gremlins’ director Joe Dante himself.

BIO: Noah Scalin is an activist and founder of the award-winning, socially conscious design & consulting firm Another Limited Rebellion. Noah’s work at ALR has gained international exposure in over two-dozen books and is frequently featured in design publications. Noah’s fine art has been exhibited internationally and his first book, SKULLS, based on his Webby award- winning online art project Skull-A-Day, has been featured in a segment on the Martha Stewart Show and was honored by the Young Adult Library Services Association as a Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Noah is a regular lecturer at universities and to business groups. Noah is also an adjunct faculty member in the graphic design department at Virginia Commonwealth University where he teaches Design Rebels, a course on socially conscious graphic design.  He is currently plotting to take over the universe with his multi-platform science-fiction project League of Space Pirates.

Previous Alt Wire Guests: Rinku Sen, Paddy Johnson, Melissa Mcewan,Fatemeh Fakhraie,Joe BielAnne Elizabeth Moore
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