[spectre] Available Soon from Microcinema DVD: Colorcalm "by Design"

[Joel S. Bachar]

Now Available from Microcinema DVD: Colorcalm "by Design"

World-renowned artists, designers and musicians collaborate to create
groundbreaking ambient design DVD available through Microcinema DVD.

Catalog No. MC-470
2005, Continuous Loop
DVD, Region: 0 (All Regions)
TV System: NTSC
UPC: 180448000036
SRP: $19.99 (includes PPR)
Street Date: November 1, 2005

To order/details:
http://www.microcinema.com/programResult.php?program_id=470

(October 10, 2005, SAN FRANCISCO) - Design lovers throughout the world can
chart brand new territory in design with the release of Colorcalm's latest
DVD entitled by Design available through Microcinema DVD November 1, 2005.
The Colorcalm by Design DVD pairs leading graphic artists with musicians to
produce three individual and distinct ambient designs.

By Design defines a new type of design and lifestyle programming.
Translating across all cultures and representing real creative
collaboration, it provides artists, designers and musicians with a
multimedia digital platform for interdisciplinary experimentation with a
complete range of screen-calibrated PANTONE Colors.  Responding to the
ever-increasing demand for flat-panel TVs, the trend for the TV to be the
focal point in the home, and an increasing sensibility toward home design
and aesthetics, Colorcalm by Design provides a visual arts experience that
adds mood and atmosphere to any room.  As people explore additional uses of
the TV and DVD players for interactive, calming, inspiring and creative
purposes, Colorcalm's programming continues to set the standard.

"Art Barcodes" features artwork from Dutch graphic designer Irma Bloom with
music by composer Michael Nyman.  This piece features 80 striped color
panels inspired by paintings from historical and contemporary artists
ranging from Rembrandt and Van Gogh to Warhol and Fontana.  Beautiful and
graphic, the paintings are translated into a series of vertical colored
stripes that seamlessly blend from one image to the next.


"Food Coloring" from artist John Maeda of MIT Media Lab features a score by
composer and pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto.  Maeda mixes colors and abstract
forms to create "Food Coloring," a digital rendition of different color
palettes derived from food he found in his refrigerator one day.

The final piece, "Color Wheel," is by British designer Peter Saville with
music by New Order.  Comprised of two separate pieces, Saville uses a color
palette inspired by the Renaissance period to create a colorscape
accompanied by a Terranova remix of New Order's track "Elegia."   In the
second piece, Saville explores the transition between two specific colors,
blue to red, accompanied by the full-length original New Order track.

The combination of works results in a DVD that is credible and also a
collectable artwork successfully fusing art, graphic design, music and
technology.

Editors' Notes

Peter Saville
Peter Saville was born in Manchester, England, in 1955. He studied graphic
design at Manchester Polytechnic from 1975-1978. In 1979, he was a founding
partner of the independent record label Factory Records, where he created
some of the most recognizable album covers of all time for Joy Division and
New Order.

Over the years his clients have included Roxy Music, Ultravox, Peter
Gabriel, Suede, Whitechapel Art Gallery, the Pompidou Centre, Yohji
Yamamoto, Martin Sitbon, Jill Sander, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen,
Stella McCartney, Mandarina Duck, Givenchy, ABC, Selfridges, Pringle and
EMI.

His work is known for combining "an unerring elegance with a remarkable
ability to identify images that epitomize the moment."
For more information about Peter Saville, please visit
www.saville-associates.com

New Order
Rejecting the obvious has always been New Order's technique. In their
28-year career, they've changed the face of pop music on more than one
occasion. As Joy Division, they ripped up rock's rulebook by making music
that was heavy and subtle, glacial, yet full of lament. "Love Will Tear Us
Apart" has just been chosen as one of The Brits 25 best songs ever written.
Then, as New Order, they were light years ahead of the dance scene with the
world's best-ever-selling 12" single "Blue Monday" before bringing
Manchester to the masses with the platinum-selling album Technique.

There is no other band that unites both "spotty students and football
hooligans" (Bernard Sumner), as well as housewives and rock stars, the art
set and the mainstream, indie-lovers and dance nutters. No other band that
can wring such emotion from machines, or make guitars sound so fresh. No one
else is so spiky, so startling, innovative and inspirational; no one else
makes pop music for clever people that hit the heart as well as the head.

The track used on this DVD is called "Elegia" (Full Version) and was first
released on Power, Corruption and Lies.

"Elegia" performed by New Order
Courtesy of London-Sire Records Inc.
By arrangement with Warner Strategic Marketing
For more information about New Order, please visit www.neworder.cc

Terranova
The Berlin based electro project was formed in 1995 by DJ Fetisch and has
since produced five best-selling albums and various soundtracks. The
 "Elegia" mix used on this DVD also features Shapemod, who joined Terranova
in 2001.
For more information about Terranova, please visit www.editionterranova.com

Irma Boom
Irma Boom has won international acclaim for the sheer beauty of her books.
Every book is meticulously planned and researched over several years, and
the results are works of unrefined elegance that set new standards for the
printing press. Her books are to hold as much as they are to read, and her
love of color shines through the pages.

Born in the Dutch town of Lochem in 1960, Irma Boom studied in Enschede and,
after graduation, worked for five years as a designer in the Dutch
government publishing office. Since opening Irma Boom Office in Amsterdam in
1991, she has designed scores of books, as well as taught at Yale in the
U.S. and the Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht.
For more information about Irma Boom, please visit www.irmaboom.nl

Michael Nyman
Born in London in 1944, Nyman studied at the Royal Academy of Music and
King's College. London. On graduation, Nyman became a musicologist and
critic. His book Experimental Music - Cage and Beyond (1974, republished
1999) is regarded as a classic of writing on new music. Apart from his
student works, he began composing in 1976 for a production of Goldoni's Il
Campiello and composed continuously since then. His works include film
scores, operas, concertos, string quartets, orchestral and vocal music.

Nyman's music has reached its largest audience through his film scores, most
notably for Peter Greenaway, with whom he collaborated on 11 movies between
1976 and 1991 (including The Draughtsman's Contract, Drowning by Numbers).
Other directors he has worked with include Jane Campion (The Piano), Volker
Schlondorff (The Ogre), Neil Jordan (The End of  the Affair) and Michael
Winterbottom (Wonderland, The Claim, 9 Songs, A Cock and Bull Story ).

The music on this DVD comes from The Piano Sings, the first release on MN
Records, Nyman's own record label that, by October 2005, will also have
released an opera, Man and Boy: Dada and his newest soundtrack for director
Laurence Dunmore's The Libertine.
For more information about Michael Nyman, please visit www.michaelnyman.com.

John Maeda
John Maeda is a world-renowned graphic designer, artist and computer
scientist at the MIT Media Laboratory. He has pioneered the use of the
computer for people of all ages and skills to create art, and is currently
spearheading a new research initiative to "redesign technology" so that it
consistently makes sense, is fun, and keeps us coming back for more.

Maeda, who has been teaching at MIT since 1996, holds the E. Rudge and Nancy
Allen Professorship of Media Arts and Sciences, and is director of the Lab's
design-oriented Physical Language Workshop.

His many awards include the U.S. National Design Award and Japan's Mainichi
Design Prize. Maeda and his students in the Aesthetics and Computation Group
at the MIT Media Lab create some of the world's most digitally sophisticated
and exciting pieces of design.

Maeda, who was born in Seattle in 1966, received both his BS and MS degrees
from MIT, and earned his PhD in design from Tsukuba University Institute of
Art and Design in Japan. For more about John Maeda, please visit
www.maedastudio.com.

Ryuichi Sakamoto
A founding member of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto's impact on the
electronic music scene was solidified with his 1980 release B2-Unit, which
included the seminal single "Riot in Lagos."  His career in film launched
with the score for Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and his score for The Last
Emperor earned him an Oscar and a Grammy.

The track used on this DVD is called "Energy Flow."  In 1999, it was the
number one hit in Japan and marked the first time a solo piano track topped
the charts selling more than a million copies.
For more information about Ryuichi Sakamoto, please visit
www.sitesakamoto.com.

To order/details:
http://www.microcinema.com/programResult.php?program_id=470

Ordering information:
Microcinema DVD
1706 Church Street, #1222
San Francisco, CA 94131 USA
fax: 509-351-1530
phone: 415-864-0660
orders at microcinema.com