Papercraft book: July 09

I've been busy working on my book of Papercraft. Today I'm working on a Sasquatch. If you have ideas for people or things to be made -Let me know!


Squids


pandas


lil paper engineers (and their cats)


zombies


robots


these two


chefs


3 headed dogs


this guy


old folks


look out


(edit: here is the Sasquatch)

Spiro workshop

This is the flier Spiro just put together to promote my workshop in June

edit:
2 minor corrections- I haven't spoken at Harvard, (yet) and the picture of me assembling the dome is from when I worked at the Dharma Initiative. I may or may not have worked there in the late 70's.

5 New books featuring my work!

PAPER tear fold rip crease cut:
Available end of the month from Black dog Publications


Papercraft, design and art with paper
Available in September from Gestalten


Sight and Architecture / Point of view and Idea
Available from Graphic-shaPublishing

England, Germany and Japan! woohoo!

I'm also hard at work on two new books of my own for this summer. One is a book of paper craft with designs to cut and fold. The other is a coloring book. Both should be out mid summer!. YES!

My new job!

I've been at the University of Michigan for 3 years and I've been just been promoted! I'm now working for the DHARMA Initiative! So far I've been folding paper and helping the engineers with designing magnets. They don't tell me me too much, but they like me and soon they say I'll get to go on a submarine!

It's sort of top secret but I don't think they would mind me posting a few pictures.


This is my new desk. They moved me from the school of engineering to this basement in another building. I had to sign all these release forms before moving down there.


The Dharma people keep having me build these models for some stations or something. This one has to do with magnets.


I can't believe they let me drive the van to central campus. Spring time in Ann Arbor! This van smells like beer and has an 8 track player.


When I came back with the van this guy had spray painted the number 15 on my cat. Lily was so confused. He said he needed to borrow her for a moment, I'm sure she will be ok.


After lunch we sat and watched the monitors for a few hours. totally boooring.

KITES!

My students are awesome.


The lack of wind did not stop us from having a killer kite festival this past Sunday.


The Llyod Hall Scholars show off their kites.


The 3D design students from Washtenaw Community College hard at work.


Jaleesa tries to capture a tiny Jeremy in her net-like kite.


Grace's ghost kite hovers above an unsuspecting Christina.


Without the wind, we had to run to get the lift we needed.


Families from the community also came to fly kites.


Earlier at WCC we test our kites. Here the wind is on our side.

Spring is here.

Festikites! Info here.

Also- the last few copies of Ghost town are still available. I am planning on republishing a second edition in a year or two and doubling the content and possibly including a cd.

Kitefest 09!

Yes!


My students and I are hosting a kite flying festival April 5th at Palmer field in Ann Arbor. Bring your friends and your kites. There will be fabulous prizes for best kites and highest flying kites. More details to follow!
matt

Video of NYU talk

These are the final moments of our talk at NYU on FEb 21st 2009. Some kids jumped on stage to play and you can see Ren Weschler and I hanging out at what looks like a Dharma station (the swan perhaps). That mysterious voice is Max Shtein explaining the need for artists and engineers to work together.

Thanks to Jeff Rutzky for shooting the video.

Work shop in Utah!

I'll be teaching a 5 day workshop from June 10th - the 14th at SPIRO ARTS in Park City Utah. Space is limited- head here for more details and to sign up!

Matt Shlian in the UK

My work will be featured on a new show in the UK airing on Sky One called oops tv. Here's the show description:

"OOPS TV is a brand new comedy entertainment show for Sky One. Voiced by Justin Lee Collins, it takes a look at the best TV out-takes, home videos, CCTV shockers, sporting bloopers and YouTube shenanigans from all over the world. From newsreader nightmares to bungling burglars, wedding woes to the world’s funniest pets, if someone somewhere has done something stupid, and someone else has been there to film it, and someone here from the legal department has said we can put it in the show, then we’ll put it in the show."

This sounds like youtube for people without the internet. Tune in Friday February 20th at 6:30 pm. or just watch this:

Workshop this weekend!!

Attention 8 - 11 year olds!
I'm having a free one day only workshop this Saturday from 1-3 at 826 Michigan aka "the robot store" in Ann Arbor!

edit: its totally full :( you can get on the wait list here.

NYU talk - open to the public

Head here for all the details.
Hope to see you all in New York!

New interview

I've recently been interviewed by the good folks at the rat haus.
We talk about making things visible, pop up books, mistranslations, siggraph and influences.
enjoy,

m

2009 is my year

1) I'm speaking at NYU with my partner in Crime, Max Shtein February 21st. If you live in NYC and want to meet up shoot me an email or call me. Let's do this thing.

2) I was just invited to talk about my drawings at Harvard this Spring. Boston friends- I'll let you know dates once we get them worked out.

3) I've spent the past week putting together a 26 page pdf paper craft version of Howl's moving castle. As if that wasn't hard enough, the whole thing was in Japanese.


straight paper engineering gangsta

Fold your own paper engineer

Paper Matt comes complete with drafting desk, x-acto knife and blades, ruler, cutting mat and Lily the cat.

Download the pdf here.

Happy holidays
love
mattshlian.com

The Contents of Lawrence Weschler's Pockets

I am officially in rotation at the best gallery in New York City. It's pretty exclusive in here and viewings are for one person at a time. ....The Ren Weschler pocket gallery.
For real.

Also it looks like I will be in New York giving a talk / showing my work at NYU in February. I'll post dates soon-
m

First 50

The first 50 books arrived yesterday and and being shipped out today. Hooray!

There are a few books still available. Jump on it. Once the 100 are gone they will not be reprinted.


now available with international shipping via paypal.

IT'S HERE!!

This book took a full year longer to create but it was worth the wait!!!

64 pages, A5 size, perfect bound, full color, signed, limited edition (of 100) with extra die cut pages for you to fold up!!!
Fits perfectly well into any stocking and will be shipped to you on December 15th.

Your dreams have come true, john chwekun!


EDIT: 30 Have sold in the first day!!
-M

Chicago Humanities Festival

This past weekend Max and I traveled to Chicago to present our work at the Chicago Humanities Festival. I arrived Friday night and was quickly abducted by writer, director, weirdo-magnet Lawrence Weschler. It is one of my most thrilling accomplishments to have someone whose work I greatly admire return the admiration for my own work. Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees and Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder are a cornerstone to any contemporary arts education. I traded some art for advanced copies of his two newest books, one on Hockney and the other a revised version on Irwin. Reading them together is going to be very very interesting. Ren also informed me about an exhibition at the Spertus Museum of the Oakes twins he had organized. When I saw the show I could see why he was so excited. If you are in Chicago, don't sleep on this exhibit!



Trevor Oakes explaining his techniques

Our talk went exceedingly well. Max and I sold out the auditorium with over 250 people in attendance to see us present our work. We arrived to the venue just in time to see the line wrap around inside the building.

They set us up in a fireside chat sort of arrangement on stage (which I loved). I presented first, I'm pretty sure my opening line was "I'm Shlian, he's Shtein and today you are getting a two for one deal."

The crowd was very responsive to the work, applauding at certain videos and laughing as Max told jokes. I was told that it was videotaped and will supply a link here if it becomes available in the future.

Furniture could not contain Max's enthusiasm. Here he explains the scale issues of photovoltaic harvesting.

People stayed to ask us questions and talk with us for over an hour after the talk. I brought some examples of my art and people swarmed to play with the work.

Later that night I got to meet and talk with other presenters, the oakes twins, photosynth guru (and super nice guy) Blaise Aguera y Arcas, and Norman Brosterman.

Thanks again to Ren Weschler and the whole team at CHF. You were all fantastic to work with and we loved being a part of the Festival.

Matt

DJ Papercut inks deal with Octagon

Octagon, video production specialists for events like the Olympics, have signed Dj Papercut in an exclusive contract to use tracks from upcoming album "Year of the Fist" in commercials and other video promotional materials. Fat shout outs to Kurt "the Austrian Nightmare" Graser and Michael Phelps.
My name is Matt Shlian, I produce and I fold too.

Fifth Grade Folding Maniacs!

Last week I conducted a workshop at the Detroit Institute of Art. Among those in attendance was Linda Shultz-Anderson, Art Teacher from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield Hills. She took my paper folding techniques back to her fifth grade class in the all-boys section in Kensington Hall. I just received these pictures from Mrs. Anderson.


the artists with their 4-floor installation


Apparently we've created folding maniacs who can't stop folding paper...according to Linda "Their classroom teachers are not so pleased - because the boys want to fold, fold, fold - and NOT do their classwork. I have created paper monsters!"

I could not be more pleased.
M

Interview 10-08

I recently was interviewed by world renowned hacker and DIY champion Bre Pettis. Check out his site for the interview.

What really goes on in the studio...

Matthew Shlian Invades Detroit Institute of Art

October 18th
I'm having a teachers workshop at the DIA. More info here.