Sneakers and Interactive Media Culture

Oh lord. Watch out all you sneaker dorks! The full range of Air Max Classics has just launched on NIKEiD.com Everything from the original Air Max 1 to the Air Max 2003. The color choices are off the hook and the prices are quite reasonable.

Go get yours.

Daydream Filmworks, Inc. is now casting for it’s up-coming film entitled “Jordan Heads”. This film a documentary about Air Jordans and the people who them.

If you or someone you know is a Jordan Head please direct them to the following website for more information:

www.jordanheadsmovie.com

Nike wants to build an archive containing a pair of shoes from every model it’s ever made. The company is asking the public to contact Nike if they have one of the models on Nike’s wish list.

Read the story on NPR.

The global release of the Air Max 360 is scheduled for next Saturday the 21st of January. There’s been a lot of excitement around that shoe launch. Go check out Nikeair.com to see the celebration pack and to hear all of the celebrities and sneakerheads talk about Nike Air. I was able to get my hands on a photo of the Air Max 360 laser print which is supposed to be released in late Jan./early Feb. Looks pretty hot.

ALIST CHINATOWN WORLD TOUR NEW YORK CITY
Opening Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 at the Reed Space

The first city stop on a 8 city chinatown world tour. A showcase of illustration and artwork based on New York City’s chinatown District. The second stop in the tour is Toronto. Other tour destinations have yet to be announced.

Check out the site.

Complete Technique is the brainchild of Osamu Koyama, who founded the company back in 1999. Osamu runs the company, but still serves as the company’s Creative Director. His signature pieces draw inspiration from audio equipment and hip-hop music. Most of his jewelry appear in the form of rings shaped like audio speakers and pendants that replicate turntable cartridges. Osamu has frequently collaborated with local artists and brands such as the artist Acid, WK Interact, DJ Masterkey, and Kid Robot.

Check him out.

Weeklydrop Episode 4 is now online featuring an interview with renown painter Dave White from Liverpool. Dave discussed his work on the Nike AM95 10 Year Anniversay Party, Star Wars, world sneaker culture, future hits, and much more. The podcast runs about 19min on this one.

Check them out.

ON THE OUTS is a dramatic narrative feature based upon the real stories of girls from the streets and juvenile jail, who lent their voices and unique stories to the filmmakers. These are girls who struggle with all the highs and lows of teenage life in an inner-city world that makes its own rules.

The film follows the lives of three central characters from the same Jersey City neighborhood: Oz, 17, is a tough drug dealer with her own corner and the street’s respect, who struggles to keep her family intact. Suzette, the sheltered 15 year old daughter of a single mother, whose first teenage crush has life changing repercussions, and Marisol, 17, a single mother who fights both her own demons and the uncompromising world of foster care to keep her child.

Check out the site.

[from Boldtype]
This colorful compendium collects the first three years of Sneaker Freaker, a magazine by and for passionate disciples of sneaker culture. Those in search of more than foot candy will find (in between goggle-eyed spreads on vintage French tennis shoes and Korean Nike hi-tops) interviews with industry insiders, including Laser Project curator Mark Smith and obsessives such as DJ Clark Kent, who has 14,000 pairs of Air Force Ones.

A truly global endeavor (the mag was founded in Australia), the book shares practical tips on the best spots to cop kicks in Melbourne, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, London, and New York. You can get the lowdown on how to spot fake A Bathing Ape high-tops and where to find boutique brands like Alife and Feit.

There are think-pieces too — everything from meditations on sneaker fetishes of a more sexual nature to wistful “whatever happened to” elegies for extinct ’80s brands such as Troop. Two such highlights among the personal essays are an article on the only shoes they let you buy in prison (New Balance Runners, people — so stay clean!), and a confessional piece by a female fiend who grapples with the latent chauvinism of sneaker-hunting culture.

The Orchestrion by David Ellis continues his cross-pollination of urban and rural imagery in an exhibition that includes sculpture, painting, music, performance, video and public art. Orchestrion seeks to mirror, as well as question, the world in which we live using a visual language informed by the artist’s childhood memories of the rural south, the experimental hip-hop culture he grew into in the 80’s, and the crew of international artists he collaborates with called the “Barnstormers.” The Jessica Murray Projects in NYC ran this exhibition back in October 2005.

Check out more.