New York skyline from memory

Artist Stephen Wiltshire draws a spellbinding 18ft picture of New York from memory

This astonishing 18ft drawing of the world’s most famous skyline was created by autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire after he spent just 20 minutes in a helicopter gazing at the panorama.

I’ll let the images speak for themselves. (images © Barcroft Media)

Read the full article on the Daily Mail website.

dontjustsurvive

Don't just survive in Leeds, love it and experience all it has to offer.

Many thousands of people, Christian and non, move to Leeds every single year to paticipate in what I like to call, the “university challenge”. There has always been an epic battle between studying, socialising, exploring your indepence, maturing and developing in readiness for the rest of life which, if you’re flying solo is going to be tough.

A few have noticed the need to support new and old students in the city and as a result dontjustsurvive.co.uk has been birthed.

The site development has been an exciting, challenging and an emotional one. That is to say there have been a few tense hours in the office while some disobedient code has been causing trouble, but I’m happy to report the final product has certainly been worth the sweat and (almost) tears. Though the site has only been live 1 week, we’re already starting to discuss the next steps which leaves me excited.

I encourage you if you’re a student or not to take a look, leave some feedback in the comments and aswer this one question…
Question — In what way(s) would you like to see the site develop to further accomodate and reach it’s goals (see below).

Here’s some information about dontjustsurvive.co.uk:
What exactly is dontjustsurvive.co.uk?

dontjustsurvive.co.uk is a website designed to help students in our city to:
— Not just survive university with a remnant of their faith - but thrive!
— Find a local church and get stuck in - learn and love Jesus! 
— Connect with Christian Unions or missional organisations operating on their higher education campus - make Him known!
— Have a relevant and up to date city resource - The Survival Guide

Why have this resource?
With so many new experiences and opportunities it is vitally important that students are connected to Missional organisations on campus and plugged into the local church as soon as possible so they can make the most of the incredible opportunity university can be.

dontjustsurvive.co.uk aims to help make that connection quicker and more effective.

How does it work?
dontjustsurvive.co.uk allows churches and missional organisations operating on higher education campuses to communicate who they are and what is going happening all on one site. It provides a facility to update information whenever required.

For 2009/10 the site will work with a flier available for students and churches to give out and use to help people make the links they need.

The site has been developed as a collaboration between the Christian Unions, the Christian Union Advisory Board and Chris Mason from Mosaic Church working with David Sorley & Matt Jones from WE_ARE_BOXHEAD ⁄ ™a design studio based in Leeds.

How can you get inolved?
Our aim is that every Christian Union, on-campus missional organisation, and church in Leeds will be represented on the site.

We want to build a huge resource of articles relevant to leeds (bus service information, interesting places see, what to do when the parents visit, the best gig venues and so on) that will be represented in the survival guide.

——————————————————————

If you would like to help make a difference to the student population in Leeds by writing a survival guide article, suggest an article topic or recommend a church or missional on-campus organisation, then please contact us at hello@dontjustsurvive.co.uk

Online communication/art

Can a website be a form of art... I think so.

I design and develop websites for a living with Box-head*.
I was considering whether it would be appropriate to showcase some of my work (sites) on here. When you hear the word “website” you don’t immediately think about it as a piece of art (if ever for that matter). I thought about it for quite some time and drew some comparisons between a “traditional” art piece and a website with the intent to discover if they could come under the same “banner” ART.

Now I may be thinking too generally but hear’s what I determined. An art piece communicates, it is brought to fruition through a thought process (collaborative or individual), and it serves a purpose (perhaps just to reveal the emotion of its creator).
I realise that there is a wealth of other characterstics we could define but lets stick to these BIG 3.
Think now about a website and some of its characterstics, and chances are (as I found) that those 3 would be pretty high in the list. So as video, photography, music, sonnets, architecture etc can and are considered art, I too would list websites.

My mini waffle aside, here’s some of my most recent art:
The Bivouac
This is handmade
Samuel Fisher
Wave Media Productions

Feel free to challenge my thought process in the comments!

5 months later

We're 5 months old! Not your normal anniversary of celebration but nevermind that.

As a little review exercise I thought it would be beneficial to hear your thoughts on how you think this part of the site has been received over the last 5 months and how you think we can improve it in the future.
If you would be so kind as to answer the following questions in the comments or by email that would really help me to put in motion the changes required to make this space more usable and valuable to you.

1. How did you find signing up for a new account using the online form?
2. Did you receive your “welcome” e-mail and introductory tutorial quickly (from the time you signed up).
3. Was the tutorial easy to follow and understand?
4. Is there anything you thought was missing from the tutorial?
5. Have you submitted an entry to the Showcase? If not is there any reason why?
6. How often do you check the Creative Arts pages for new content?
7. What changes would you make to the showcase and how do you think they would benefit the community?

Thanks for your time answering these. We want to keep the Network/Showcase fresh faced and as functional as possible for everyone.

Life is complicated. Sport is…

Whilst perusing the Howies website I came across this fun little video.

I don’t really have much to say about it except that I like it, in particular 00:38. Check it out!

I checked out their Vimeo account and found some other cool videos. I’ll post another one up a little later maybe.
For now though enjoy this one.

Is this allowed?

I'm sure this is breaking a few laws but it looks like fun!

I have recently been following the blog of David Capener who, if you have seen the Lovenations webpage, or have read one of the flyers will know is speaking at the conference. You should check out his articles, some are challenging, most are humerous and all are honest.

He posted this video and I thought I’d repost it as it is so very cool!
I’m not sure how they we’re able to get permission for it, maybe they didn’t… All I know is it made me smile.
The music track from UNKLE is pretty sweet too.
Now that was 7 minutes well spent wasn’t it!

Be sure to register yourself for Love:Nations on the webpage if you haven’t yet done so (it’ll cost you less and guarantee you a space!).

Aim For the Impossible

Dont think small. It doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve those around you. It doesn't serve the world!

I came across this presentation by Timothy Ferriss whilst browsing the DO Lectures website.

“The Do lectures are all about getting a handful of speakers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do something. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about.” - The Do Lecture Website

Of the 21 incredible presentations available to watch, this one particularly struck me.
So often I find myself getting bogged down with circumstances that I tend to forget my potential.

Timothy challenges us…
“Dont think small. It doesn’t serve you. It doesn’t serve those around you. It doesn’t serve the world!”
“Only those that attempt the obsurb achieve the impossible”

We Live Now

I stumbled upon this website earlier today.

Live Now is a project consisting of a growing collection of quotes, thoughts, stories, lyrics, creations and other various mediums pursuing the idea of living now and inspiring us all to grow, live meaningful lives & be who we were created to be.

It made me smile…

GOD Video

A time lapse typographic piece being drawn (with many black marker pens) on a wall of 'Mosaic Church Leeds'.

The piece lists some of the names and words used to describe the character of GOD.