Photo courtesy of Biophiliaeducational.org

Program director Curver Thoroddsen with kids during a Biophilia educational workshop in Oslo

See also:
*Björk Brings Her Crazy Nature Project to L.A.

On Big Family Sunday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, kids and family members got to take part in a number of art-related activities, most of which took place under canopies outside the museum. But inside something a very different program took place -- a short lesson as part of a curriculum housed within a collection of apps.

The Biophilia Education Program stems from the musician Bjork's instructive apps that accompany her "app album" Biophilia, which includes music, apps, installations and live shows. Program director Curver Thoroddsen says the program "takes the book out of teaching."

Bjork didn't show up herself, but over the course of the day, Thoroddsen and a few instructors led workshops based on her apps for the first time in Los Angeles. Kids and their families sat at tables listening to lessons that blended science with music in a very Bjork-like manner (think lots of bright colors, kooky songs and trippy visuals). This week, the team will head to Edison Middle School to teach the full program over the course of a few days.

The workshop at MOCA was only a small part of the overall program which uses apps on the iPad along with traditional (but more fun) lessons. For the workshop, slideshows were also used, along with demonstrations that called for volunteers. Edison Middle School teachers will work with the Biophilia team to create their lessons.

I sat in on a workshop amidst the excited moms and loud kids, and listened for what Bjork could teach me. Here are four lessons:

More »

Calling all you virtual movers and shakers! (And those of you hip to what the cool kids are doing online these days.) We want to hear from you, because right now we're gathering nominees for the 2013 L.A. Weekly Web Awards!

The Web Awards celebrate all that's awesome on the internet, as well as the local go-getters who are making things happen online. That's right, even though the internet knows no bounds, we want to honor the web-savvy self-starters who call L.A. home.

More »

Photo by David Wing

Jef Raskin with building blocks he designed, on view at the MAK Center

This week, footage about a high-energy collaboration between artists, architects and Pepsi plays at the MAK Center, one artist leads people on a hunt for truth and other intangibles at the Getty and another turns cough syrup into something of a tribute.

5. Art, lies and hashtags
A green vinyl sign above the security desk at the Getty Center asks, "Is a museum for everyone?" Another sign affixed to the floor in the rotunda at the top of the main stairs asks, "Is a museum fun?" These and other questions are part of L.A. artist Sam Durant's #isamuseum project. The idea is that visitors will answer, either on Twitter on their phones, later on the website or by going up to the info desk. You see the question "Is a museum truthful?" while winding down the stairs from the painting galleries, and one visitor answered no because "Truth has nothing to do with art." 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood; through July. (310) 440-7300, gettycenter.org.

More »

Courtesy of Stephen O'Gara and Geocaching.com

Stephen O'Gara of Team Ventura Kids geocaching in South Hills Park, in Glendora

In La La Land, the home of movie magic, we're used to our surroundings being not quite what they seem. But did you know, at this very moment, you are surrounded by thousands of tiny containers of various shapes and sizes, camouflaged in bushes, hidden in fake electrical boxes, attached by magnet to the bottoms of bar stools and perched atop stop-signs? You might need an ultra-violet light to discover the final clue to find them or wait for low tide to wade out to a cave at the beach, but they're there. That creepy guy at the bus stop who keeps looking around suspiciously might be totally nuts...or he might be a geocacher.

Geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunt that began in May 2000 when the U.S. government gave up "selective availability" and allowed civilians to use GPS devices with almost perfect accuracy for the first time. Computer consultant David Ulmer was one of many GPS enthusiasts brainstorming how this newly available technology could be used. The day after "selective availability" was lifted, Ulmer decided to hide a bucket in the woods near his home in Beavercreek, Oregon filled with prizes and post the coordinates online for anyone to find. He called it "The Great American GPS Stash Hunt" and its one rule was, "Take some stuff; leave some stuff."

Within three days, two readers had found Ulmer's bucket using personal GPS devices, and more readers had begun to hide boxes and post coordinates online. By September 2000, there were 75 caches across the country. Now there are 2 million around the world. One hundred seventeen thousand of those are in California and over 300 are within a 5 mile radius of our own 90012.

Today, Geocaching.com is the hub of all things geocache and the place to find the coordinates of caches around the world. Geocachers can use the gps on their smart phones and download an app that identifies the caches closest to them at any given time. The app provides maps, comments from fellow finders and clues. Even though the coordinates lead you to the cache's location, the real trick is is finding the camoed pillbox hanging in a nearby tree or knowing which sprinkler head is actually a hidden geocache filled with booty.

Los Angeles has become a world hotspot for geocaching, partly because of our year-round mild climate, partially because of our tech savvy population and partially because of our varied and intriguing terrain. "Whatever geocaching experience you're looking for, you can find it in L.A.," claimed real estate broker and geocacher Andy Perkins in a phone interview. "On the same day, you can be digging for boxes at the beach, grab easy urban caches through the city, then head up to the mountains or out to the desert."

More »

Tinder screenshots

Twenty-seven-year-old Justin Mateen knows a whole lot about your dating life. He knows how old you are, how many Facebook friends you have and what physical characteristics you're most attracted to in a potential mate -- that is, if you're a member of the nationwide, L.A.-made dating app, Tinder, which uses GPS to locate potential matches nearby.

The iPhone app's addictive, game-like premise is that users anonymously reject others almost solely based on their profile pictures. They can also initiate conversation with only those they're actually interested in, under the condition that the interest is mutual. There are no personal statements, compatibility quizzes or rating systems.

Since launching Tinder in September 2012 with CEO and fellow USC alum Sean Rad, Mateen says the app has made more than 40 million matches -- or, two people who mutually click the "heart" button on each other's profiles -- plus eight marriage proposals and counting. Not bad for a free app that was locally developed less than a year ago.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

Davy Rothbart

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2013 issue. Check out our entire People 2013 issue here.

Davy Rothbart sits at a picnic table in Elysian Park with a Discman in his pocket. Someone actually stopped him on the street recently while he was traveling on a book tour and said, "That must be the last Discman in New York!" Rothbart shrugs telling this story. Gadgets and tech aren't really his thing. "I guess I'm just a lo-fi person," he says.

Rothbart, 38, is many other things — a writer, documentary filmmaker, This American Life contributor and creator of Found magazine, a print publication that pieces together stray letters, lists, drawings and photos.

Most people would have migrated Found over to a Tumblr by now. Not Rothbart. He's a literary slow cooker in a world of microwave media.

More »

Illustration by Noah Patrick Pfarr

Parked at the Grove's Farmers Market is a Volkswagen Jetta that costs more than a Lamborghini -- $250,000, to be exact. The Volkswagen is one of only two such cars in Los Angeles at the moment, and one of only 50 in the world. It looks fairly normal except for the pile of high-tech equipment mounted on its roof like a futuristic Eiffel Tower.

Owned by the mapping company Navteq, which is owned by Nokia, the car is called a True Car. Navteq is a pioneer in digital mapping, and its True Car represents the next generation of map building. It drives around the city collecting a terabyte of information every day.

Its driver is Ron Jimenez, Navteq team lead, whose business card describes his work address in latitude and longitude -- 34 degrees 11'9" N, 118 degrees 30'4" W, aka Encino.

On a drizzly weekday, Jimenez and the company's polished director of product development, Sara Rossio, stand in the parking lot with the car, which is on a brief break from cruising every street in town.

More »

Ryan Brackin

Adam Nix (director-editor-cinematographer), left, Ben Roy (co-creator) and Evan Nix (director-editor) with Denver students from the public school where they shot the pilot for their series Those Who Can't

See also:
*More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage
*Our Special Issue: How to Succeed on YouTube
*12 Comedy Acts to Watch in 2013

Amazon's new production arm, Amazon Studios, is right now breaking new ground by premiering 14 scripted pilots and having the public help decide who will get series orders. But its avant-garde development process goes deeper than that.

Amazon's original programming execs, Sarah Babineau and Joe Lewis, bought some finished scripts that had made the rounds at other networks in previous years but gone unpurchased. Others they bought from unknowns who submitted their full scripts through Amazon's call for submissions on its website. From first-time TV writers to Academy Award-nominated veterans, Amazon gave many of its creators unprecedented freedom in casting, crew, content and production.

This freedom, and perhaps the pure publicity stunt of it all, allowed Amazon to woo established creators who might not otherwise have been interested in having their work displayed at a meat market for any guy in sweatpants in his grandma's basement to vilify or exult. "At first I thought, who wants to work on troll bait?" says famed Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, creator of Amazon pilot Alpha House. "But Amazon is assessing reaction through a variety of different metrics, so whatever decisions they make will almost certainly be more informed and rational than the traditional Hollywood gut calls."

More »

You could let your conscience be your guide, but that doesn't sound like very much fun at all. Plus LA Weekly's new and improved Smartphone app is going to do a much better job, especially since it's just been technologically bedazzled and is now ready for your downloading and upgrading pleasure.

Wherever you are and whatever you're into, you'll find something within the app that you can use right now. With just a few thumb swipes, you can:

• See up-to-the-minute content from all our blogs (which include news, arts, music and food)
• Instantly find restaurants and bars near you, searchable by cuisine type and neighborhood
• Check out event listings and concert calendars searchable by date, artist, neighborhood, venue or genre
• See editors' picks of the best things to do, and reviews from our writers
• Peep slideshows of local nightlife, concerts and events
• Get access to our money-saving Daily Deals.

More »

Bill Raden

Alex Lyras -- he packs what he preaches

See also:
*Our Latest Theater Reviews

It did not take Alex Lyras long to realize that there was something uniquely different about performing Mike Daisey's solo play The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Sitting in the Farmers Market on a recent afternoon after getting the bum's rush by a Grove security guard over an impromptu but unauthorized photo shoot by this L.A. Weekly reporter in front of the mall's Apple Store, Lyras recounts the first time he did the controversial monologue as a warm-up for a show scheduled for his alma mater. Unlike performances of his own work, where "when you walk out afterwards [and] people are lit up," the veteran actor-writer and monologist remembers, there was little ecstasy in evidence following the Daisey piece.

"We had a hundred people at the Lillian Theatre," Lyras recalls, "and I walked out ready to see my friends. And they're like, 'We feel like shit. Thank you for dropping that bomb on us. We have to go.' Like the joy after was not there. There was a lot of discussion, but I just remember seeing a bunch of people not make eye contact with me, and I was like, 'Oh my god, did I have a hole in my pants?' Like what happened?"

Whatever else might have happened, it became clear that performing a piece that takes on computer manufacturers -- and specifically Apple's Chinese iPad and iPhone operations -- over the harsh and sometimes dangerous working conditions of their overseas factories wasn't going to win Lyras unconditional love and adulation. At least not from an iPhone-packing L.A. audience of actors and Hollywood industry types at Theatre Asylum, where his run performing the show begins today.

More »