Art on the Internet is permanent in many ways, yet ephemeral in others. Things sell out, pictures are removed, sites fade away, links get broken. There's also a lot of art out there that's not meant to last forever. Maybe it gets lost or worn out or removed or eaten up. Doodlesplatter was born out of a desire to present a complete, centralized “artkive” of the work of Jon Burgerman. With just a few clicks, you'll see Jon illustrate that any surface can be a canvas. Whether you're sick on a plane (airplane vomit bag) or stuck in the rain (umbrella collab with SIZE?), Jon's doodles are there to captivate and bring cheer. Doodlesplatter catalogs over 300 items from Jon’s expansive portfolio, with options to search by medium, use and year. The frequently updated blogography features doodles by Jon exclusive to the project, the infamous lost Doodle Beat interview, brilliant web design by The Neon Hive and a complete case of OCD by me.

Hundreds of unregistered billboards flood the NYC urban landscape, creating a glut of unregulated eyesores on nearly every formerly barren surface. While the city allows this unregulated illegal ugliness to stand unchecked, Jordan Seiler and PublicAdCampaign.com decided it was high time to do something about this piracy of the common landscape. In an effort to turn those blights on buildings into works of art, they launched the New York Street Advertising Takeover; whitewashing 126 billboards across the Big Apple and then asking eighty artists to do their best to remove our memories of some of that awful imagery. One of our favorite creations of the project sprung from the mind of our good friend Ji Lee, whose Delete billboard showed just how much the previous occupier of this particular swath of concrete was appreciated. Great stuff…

Considering there are only two points of contact between your road bike and the engines (read: legs) that power it, pedals should be high on your priority list. I had a chance to try the KeO Sprint Laneo pedals from Look on a ride this past weekend. I scored a pair of last year’s high-end Shimano carbon shoes, and despite the irony, I decided to pair the two. At first, I was worried about the hole configuration, but here’s a little tip I learned- Look’s spacing is exactly the same as Shimano’s SPD-SL. The pedals also have a patented “memory” function which allows you to reinstall the cleats in the exact same position each time. This is a great idea considering how long it takes to get pedals dialed in.

I was a bit nervous on the ride since I was taking two new pieces of equipment out on the road at the same time, but once I hit my stride, the pedals performed flawlessly. There is a good amount of float which I usually don’t like but there was no slippage or real hesitation in the release. During climbs when I am standing and really powering down, the large surface area and glass fiber polymer body provided the perfect platform for the power transfer. Though it allows you to customize the release tension (9 to 15 Nm), I found that the factory setting was just perfect. I was able to test out durable the Sprints were when I crashed, landing hard on my left side. After dusting myself off, I checked the pedals and there was nothing some soap and water couldn’t have taken off. Weighing in at just 130g per pedal, this is not the lightest offering from Look but unless you are a weight weenie, I am confident these pedals would impress even the most enthusiastic riders. Lastly, as if cycling wasn’t clean enough, Look has been partnering with Laneo since 2007, promoting an environmental project worldwide.

Nike Brazil’s newest campaign idea, entitled “V Project,” tasked nine people from the worlds of fashion, skate and art to create their vision of victory. One of them, artist and skate photographer Flavio Samelo (who’s part of the ever-productive Baglione collective), tapped into the period when he was in a coma for a year and had to learn to walk again after coming out of it. It was an experience that he made tangible through a mix of concrete and photographs (video here). Over the next few weeks, the works will circulate through the windows of various stores that carry Nike in Sao Paulo, including Surface to Air and Maze Skate Shop (which recently underwent a nice renovation that incorporates rails and concrete just like you find at the skate park), and will be put on the website of a new Nike-sponsored magazine called Project Gudi.

You know what’s annoying about restaurants: waiters. They bring you the wrong orders, you can’t find them when you need them, and conversely they constantly check up when you don’t (no offense to any of our reader/waiters, we’re sure you’re terrific). New London restaurant Inamo is taking a technological approach turning everyone’s table into a computer. At Inamo, order food, change the color or design of the table, play battleship (which is amazing), check out what’s happening in the kitchen via webcam, request the waiter, pay the bill — everything can be done from your table that doubles as a computer screen. This isn’t Microsoft Surface, it’s a projection from above that doubles as lighting and visual effect.

The fact that our table was a computer was inspired, but by the time the food comes who cares right? Well the food was amazing, too. Get the black cod. As fun as it was to have a computer table, that was the highlight of the night. Hit the jump for a few pictures (via Johannes Kleske) of my visit there.

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Have your previous lounge experiences been too … well … relaxed? If you’re looking for stimulus from something other than the comfortable furniture and throbbing beats, perhaps you’d be interested in the Polygon Playground. Ths large scale installation that bowed at this year’s SMUKfest music festival in Denmark provides partygoers with more than just a place to lean back and take in the scene. Up to 40 people at a time can explore the dimensions of the interactive island of gradient ramps that leads up to a plateau that sort of resembles Q*Bert. There’s more to this exhibition than just ramps and surfaces. The work is also supported by 360-degree projection mapping and censors that react to the actions of the people inhabiting the space. This unique experience isn’t exclusive to the one piece of furniture concocted for the display, as the hardware and software created can apply to almost any three-dimensional object. Who knows, maybe they’ll use it to replace the disco ball.

At the end of February we tipped you off to the first of three web films, an astonishing claymation piece on adidas founder Adi Dassler, that helped kick off the sportswear brand’s Celebrate Originality Campaign. Nearly a month and a half later, we’ve got the scoop on round two. The second film entitled The Superstar Film a.k.a. “The Left-Right Project” documents what happened when a gigantic pair of the iconic ADIDAS Superstar (shell-toe) sneakers were dispersed to opposite ends of the North American continent and bestowed upon two groups of talented artists, who were then faced with the task of adorning said blank canvas with the aesthetic of their particular coast. As you’ll see, the west coast contingent featuring artists from San Francisco’s Upper Playground and the East Coast crew made up of artists from NYC’s Surface 2 Air, came up with stunningly original works of art that while completely different, seem quite complementary. Check out photos and behind the scenes footage of the making of these dope designs for yourself at the campaign’s HQ and you’ll see just what we’re talking about.

Alyson Fox likes doing things. In her case, ‘things’ mean drawing, taking pictures, designing clothes, making shop windows pretty – and probably one or two more ‘things’ since we last talked.

But Alyson hasn't always been so dexterous; rather, it was a series of events that gradually gifted the Austin-based twenty-something with her now ample selection of talents. She started as a photographer, where the time she spent in the darkroom quickly turned her on to the happy powers of creativity. Then, it was on to drawing, where her faceless forms still managed to bleed emotion all over the page. Not to be deterred, or to abandon her past pursuits (which she hasn’t), it was on to fashion design, where her hand-drawn characters were suddenly permitted to step off of the page to share their clothes with real people.

It's good thing for her that she has done all of these things – but it's an even better thing for us, because Alyson Fox happens to be incredibly talented at all of them. Recently, we were blessed with another good thing, when Alyson decided to take some time out of her crafty days to chat with us.

Joshspear.com: Your first interest was photography, which then branched out into visuals, fashion design, and drawing. How did this progression unfold itself?

Alyson Fox: The first medium that I really connected to was photography. Maybe because it was my first studio class? I was able to shoot rolls and rolls of film and then edit them in the darkroom. READ MORE…

Thirty years ago, when graffiti was withheld the respect of the subtitle “Art Form,” a twelve year-old Vulcan hit the subway cars of New York with his collection of wildly colored paintcans. Over thirty years — and countless walls, trains, and buses — later, the now San Francisco-based graffiti legend has made a smooth transition from street to START SOMA, where the artist-in-residence uses his decades of experience to continue doing what he's done all along — create some of the most significant works of art, both street and otherwise, this side of 1973.

We chatted with Vulcan about his graffiti past and his gallery present, and came out the other side in agreement with the artist: Corporate or communal, gallery or ‘getting up'; art is art, and making it is what truly matters.

Joshspear.com: As one of the earlier writers, what graffiti represents to you is probably somewhat different than what it represents to today’s newest artists. Has any important meaning been lost over the years?

Vulcan: When I was 12 years old in Harlem, I wanted to CREATE. But options were pretty limited – scavenged paint cans and public surfaces were pretty much my only options. Throughout my teens, I painted wherever and whatever I could – buses, subway trains, city walls. I painted my name. I painted giant robots. I planned ‘masterpieces’ in my notebooks at school, and horded paint cans until I had literally hundreds of colors. But I didn’t call what I was doing ‘graffiti’. I was just painting. As I honed my technical skills and found my voice, at some point I was making ART – but it was never a conscious progression. READ MORE…

Back in May, we told you about the stellar work being done by Collective Four for Dwell’s Building Green In Harlem project. Well those purveyors of design perfection from the Pratt Institute are at it again. Their latest piece utilizes lumber from an old factory ceiling beam (courtesy of Build It Green) to create a bench consisting of a series of “four ascending surfaces supported by slender bent steel legs.” The unique design of the bench allows for storage of footwear underneath the seat and the reclaimed steel reeds on the end allow one to hang one's umbrella or raincoat or whatever gear you use to protect your head from rain conveniently on the end. While the latest creation from Collective Four is certainly practical, it doesn't hurt that it's also quite the sight for sore eyes

In 1994, years before the Internet became the world's diary (or ashtray, depending on your point of view) that it is today, Heather Powazek Champ launched her first home page. Some form of addiction formed in her constant forays into self-publishing, and after some years the avid photographer found herself co-founding JPG Magazine, the Photoshop-restrictive publication loved well (if not equally) by purists and digital mavens alike. Today, Heather plays the role of Community Manager at Flickr, the hugely popular photo-sharing site.

We chatted with Heather about plastic cameras, digital vs. film photography, and the shortcomings of the iPhone, and learned a few things about ourselves — i.e., ‘The Perpetually Posting' — in the process.

Joshspear.com: What inspired you, initially, to start taking pictures?

Heather Powazek Champ: My parents. They were both inveterate shutterbugs. My sister and I found thousands upon thousands of slides when my father passed. My mother purchased an SX-70 when they were first introduced by Polaroid in the 70's. The sleet aluminum and metal camera became an object that I lusted and desired after. READ MORE…

Our friends at +41 will be making an appearance at the upcoming Nokia Trends Lab in Berlin along fellow designers Cassette Playa, Surface2Air, and Wasted German Youth. (Nokia Trends Lab, for those who are unfamiliar, is an interesting initiative that connects established artists with up-and-coming local talents in order to co-create multi-media projects across Europe. It’s actually awesome, and kind of a big deal, and we don’t get any of it here in the US. Boo.) I’m sort of thrown as to what else will be going on because the Trends Lab site doesn’t have the event listed yet, but if you happen live in or around Berlin, I’m sure you know more than me — these things are too huge not to hear about, right?

Anyway, the party starts on July 13th and runs through the 15th at Postfuhramt – Orantenburger Str. 35-36, Berlin Mitte. Meanwhile, If any of you can fill in the blanks for us and the rest of our readers, we’d love you forever.

Associated Fabrication in Brooklyn was founded by four Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture students– William Mowat, Amy Stringer, Jeffrey Taras, and Kenneth Tracy. Working out of their 4,000 square foot workshop in Williamsburg, they specialize in specialty prototyping, fabrication and consulting services, and work with a wide range of people including architects, furniture designers, and various other design professionals. I actually found out about AF through Ben Krone, the mastermind behind the collaborative art undertaking Project to Surface, which will be showing in NYC throughout the summer. Throughout the art production process of Project to Surface, AF has been instrumental in the physical manufacturing of the artists’ work. In Ben’s words, “they were pivotal in the process of making the show come together.” Ben was also quick to point out that AF has been doing some great work unrelated to Project to Surface. Some past clients have included the Gehry Partners, SHoP Architects, and Matzu MTP. I think it’s important to recognize the ‘nuts and bolts’ behind a project– Associated Fabrication, keep doing what you do.

Project to Surface is a 5-artist project that is very much a work in progress, with each artist collaborating with architectural designer (and guru) Ben Krone, who operates the high tech CNC (computer numerical control) router that brings the artists’ work to life in 3D form. The show, which will be happening from June 27th to August 27 in New York City, draws inspiration from the age-old process by which two dimensional patterns are plotted onto building surfaces to create bulging, dimpled, or textured appearances. The real beauty will come from the results achieved by these artistic collaborators who customarily use different tools and methods to create their art. And so you can more accurately and fully understand their creation process, they’ve been keeping their website current with progress photos of each artists’ collaboration with Ben Krone. You can also sign up for their list, so that you can be kept in the loop as the show draws near.

We love data visualization projects, so we were thrilled to see Digg finally joined the party in a partnership with Stamen Design– together they launched their newest site: Digg Labs. “Digg moves very quickly, and has a great many stories submitted every day, so good material can sometimes fly by before you even know it. These interactive visualizations look beneath the surface of the Digg community’s activities.” They offer Digg Swarm which draws circles for stories as they’re dugg and Digg Stack where diggers fall from above and stack up on popular stories. Screen shots don’t do this project justice, so go take a look for yourself.