Anna Von Mertens paints aura readings taken from classical portraits and photographs of iconic people, commenting on the ‘soul’ in art in the digital age with the resulting ghostly images.
http://www.annavonmertens.com/portfolio.php

Many artists use pencils to create works of art. Dalton Ghetti, on the other hand creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils!
http://bit.ly/9Rw8l6

Eyebeam is the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States. Founded in 1997, Eyebeam was conceived as a non-profit art and technology center dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a significant genre of cultural production.
http://www.eyebeam.org/

Closer to home, Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa has an exhibition in IMMA at the moment. He has been working since the early 1990s using a multidisciplinary approach that includes architecture, urbanism, narrative, history, and politics.
http://www.imma.ie/en/page_212197.htm

Much like the Facebook 500 million and Your Stories by Google Twitter Tales aims to bring stories of its users together by asking the simple question ‘How do you use our service?’ A great source of case studies when you need them.

EuropebyEurostar is a new social media platform by Eurostar. The site crowd sources reviews of destinations like Paris which are served by the train and offers unique insights into the cities hidden gems. Great for planning last minute getaways!

Hmmm Foodspotting…. website and app that lets you share photos of good food and recommend it to others. It also recently featured on The Times Top 50 list.

The Fridge is another social network except this one is ‘private’. Same principle as Facebook except you won’t be sharing your content with 500 million members just a personal group that you create.

Inhabitat’s mission is to track the innovations in design and technology that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. The website is full of really interesting and inspiring designs like buildings built from books and swimming pools made from dumpsters. Green design could save the world!

Patagonia are taking social and corporate responsibility one step further with the Footprint Chronicles a the well-designed interactive site allows consumers to track social and environmental impact of specific garments. Offering unrivaled corporate transparency, users can learn of the good and bad involved with manufacturing outdoor clothing facilitating discussion about the environment and ultimately leading to more educated decisions about what we consume.

WithIntent is a UK website that ‘up cycles’ many of the thousands of tents that are left behind at festivals each year. The tents are remade into functional waterproof clothing and accessories that are then resold at the festivals!

The Cloughjordan Ecovillage or ‘The Village’ in County Tipperary is a 67 acre site that serves as an alternative model for sustainable living. The land has three broad uses with space allocated for residential, woodland and farmland. The first of its kind in Ireland the Village is leading the way with a host of sustainable features including a solar-and wood-powered community heating system, a green enterprise centre with hi-spec broadband and a centre of education for sustainable living.

Recently relaunched Kult House is home to the expansive portfolio from 25 year old designer/ director Josh Rhode. Totally digital!

‘Project H Design is a team of designers and builders engaging locally to improve the quality of life for the socially overlooked’ Their work ranges from Design for Mental Health in London to redesigning water transport devices in Johannesburg. Proof in the pudding that more and more designers are moving towards a humanitarian approach.

Sweet by Design is another good example of crowdsourcing. Steffan Postaer (EuroRSCG CCO) is publishing his latest novel chapter by chapter on his blog and he wants you to design the cover.

Julien Vallée uses physical materials to construct his graphic design away from a computer screen. Receiving a serious amount of recognition and having worked with a variety of clients, Julien is considered an expert in the field of designing static and moving images. Lots of amazing videos here that showcase his extraordinary work.

This week we have chosen four sites that are all sort of loosely related to photography…

Could The iOScars be the future of The Oscars? The capabilities of the 4th generation iPhone are incredible so if the best camera is the one you have with you all the time maybe you could be collecting a golden statue soon.

If you want a great laugh check out Photoshop Disasters. How some of these fatal errors were not picked up is a mystery. The site if full of examples of brutal displays of negligence by designers from all over the world and it a definite guide of what not to do!

The Guinness Storehouse Photo Competition is continuing with great prizes up for grabs every month. If you have visited the Home of Guinness upload your photo to be in with a chance of winning a digital photo frame (and if you haven’t perhaps this long weekend could be the ideal opportunity…)

Pop culture packs a punch with Touchpuppet an online cultural magazine for lovers of art, fashion and photography that’s updated multiple times daily.

Headliner.fm is a unique way that gives musicians the opportunity to convert their existing social media fans into ‘band bucks’ and promote their music to over 66,136,773 fans. Recently recommended by Mashable, will the concept take off?

Should your man smell like an Old Spice man? The award winning Old Spice campaign went truly viral yesterday when with entertaining personalised messages directly to well know bloggers like Ashton Kutcher and social media experts like Guy Kawasaki.

A while back we featured the Google Speed test, now check out Google’s ‘Fastball’ game to promote their ‘super fast’ browser Chrome.

Ever thought you had some literary talent? I mean, really? Well, now you can know for sure. On the I Write Like website, you can ‘check what famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them to those of the famous writers’

Dlvr.it provides bloggers, publishers and brands a simple way to instantly syndicate content and expand their reach on the social web and into new channels. This cool little tool publishes your media, your blogs, and all your content to your social channels, ensuring your audience sees it instantly. Nice!

Why buy when you can borrow? Save money and resources by sharing with your friends and neighbors with Neighborgoods.net a kind of social networking site for borrowing and lending. What a great idea.

Jerry Kennelly the man behind Stockbyte has a new startup; Tweak.com bills itself as an online self-service design library, which makes tweakable press advertising and marketing collateral available to users at the touch of a button.

Overacting poses, exacerbated similes, pretentious backgrounds, freaky characters, you will find all these kind of stuff and much more at the Awkward Family Photos site.

Tapedtogether is an experiment in crowdsourcing and online content curation resulting in a Summer Playlist for 2010 featuring an eclectic mix of artists from Frank Sinatra to DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, all put together on a website inspired by the iconic artwork of Saul Bass.

Similar to NBCs Olympic coverage, CNN brings you the World Cup Twitter tracker an easy way to stay up to date with the buzz about the games.

David Perez sold his soul for 1 week to Twitter. He wanted to go to the Advertising Festival in Cannes and Leo Burnett agreed to send him, the only condition was he had to partake in a social media experiment where he did everything his Twitter followers commanded him to. What would you get him to do? He’s already tattooed the ‘fail whale’ on his arm!

It’s summer and the weather is nice! Now is not the time to be eating in front of your work computer, get involved and take back your lunch while the sun is still shining!

http://transformers3auditions.com/
Always wanted to be in a blockbuster movie? Now’s your chance! Upload your awesome action sequence and bring it to the attention of Michael Bay ala Heidi Montag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZeCzm1ldTo&feature=player_embedded
The World Cup kicks off today(Friday) and if you can’t make it over to Africa, you’ll still be able to explore the 10 Football Stadiums modeled in 3D and live on Google Earth.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157623971287575/
Welcome to the Geotaggers World Atlas – beautiful visualisation created from photo locations on Flickr, Picasa and Search APIs of major cities. Dublin reaches number 23 on the list of the most centrally clustered.

http://sketch.odopod.com/
This is a super cute digital drawing tool with a gorgeous papery texture so you almost feel like you’re in front of a sketch pad not a computer! A nice playback feature recreates the whole drawing process including cross-outs.