Media Art

The Arrels Foundation, a homeless center, and the Cyranos McCann advertising agency, both based in Barcelona, have launched an ambitious project to turn the handwriting of local homeless people into fonts available for purchase. The revenue raised by the project will go to the Arrels Foundation to offer food, social programs, health care and accommodation to Barcelona’s homeless community. The target clientele for the project is marketers looking to personalize their brand with unique lettering. Ten individuals are currently featured on the project’s website, and five fonts are available for sale.

Opera

New York’s Metropolitan Opera is facing the very real possibility of a strike. The Opera has asked for concessions and pay cuts from the stage employees. Workers at the Met are members of the United Scenic Artists, a branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which represents theater, film and television workers in several trades. The IATSE maintains that stage workers, whose jobs have changed dramatically during the last ten years with the advent of high-definition opera broadcasts, should not face a pay cut shortly after assuming the additional burden of preparing stages for HD broadcasts. While the IATSE does acknowledge the financial challenges facing the Met Opera, they maintain that the challenges shouldn’t be solved by cutting workers’ pay.

Street Art

Artist Jay Shells’ project “Rap Quotes” has used his graphic design skills to produce a series of bright red signs featuring lyrics from famous hip hop artists including Mos Def, Jay Z and Big Daddy Kane. The chosen lyrics specifically mention certain locations in New York City, such as the intersections of Broadway and Myrtle or 15th and Lenox and locations like the Patterson Projects. The pop-up installation was not sanctioned by the city so there’s no specific date for when they will be taken down. “I have no idea how long they’re going to stay up,” Shells told the Huffington Post. “It all depends on what one happy-go-lucky hip hop fan walks by one and scratches their head.”