If you're a regular reader of the site you know that I'm among those eagerly anticipating the release of the Xbox Live game Fez. The gameplay looks great.. nevermind that I don't actually own an Xbox and will likely never play it. The concept is too great not to appreciate!

With all that in mind, it's exciting to see that the game has an official release date of April 13th.. days away. You can also pre-order the soundtrack created by Disasterpiece. Much like the Sword & Sworcery LP, it's not your typical videogame soundtrack. There's an ambience and pleasantness to it that you wouldn't normally associate with gaming. Go preview the six available songs and drop $5 for the full twenty-six.

No, not that Pulp, the kind of genre-fiction often coupled mind-bending illustrations. That's what Pulp International documents, blogs and showcases in great form. As with any pulp, there's a bit of nudity sprinkled about so be aware that you'll scroll encounter some but your workplace will surely forgive you when you're inspired by the layouts, typography and classic photography.

via Jamie.

I'm not much of a Tote Bag man myself but seeing these limited edition Rise Japan designs from Ferris Plock and Kelly Tunstall may make me reconsider having one around in times of need. Aside from having some slick art on a bag to stick groceries in the proceeds of the purchase go towards benefiting the ongoing effort in Japan for relief to those affected by the earthquake. Long story short, good art for a good cause.

Nashville's Smallest Art Gallery just put up a new show from illustrious illustrator Matt Lehman. The show, Summer 1978, features a heavy dose of hand drawn type that boggles my mind in terms of execution. Lehman is a talented guy and it's nice to see his style extended into this format. Come by the space or, at the very least, enjoy the goodness online.

I've mentioned the Google Art Project a few times in passing but haven't really taken a moment to specifically point out the undertaking as a whole. Apparently, and somewhat unsurprisingly, Google has taken it upon themselves to document a large portion of museum collections of fine art in high resolution galleries. Their site containing all the images allows you to browse by Museum Collection or by specific artist (filtered by First Name, oddly). If that weren't enough, they've also been taking their Street View technology inside the museums so you can take a virtual tour of the works. The above video shows the process of documenting The White House interiors - a process that works exactly like you'd think it would.

For all of Google's foibles and missteps in particular aspects of the world of technology they continue to do stellar things in the world of documenting and collecting information - scanning books, artworks, interiors of buildings & experiences. The Google Art Project will certainly give you an opportunity to see things you may not have otherwise ever encountered; even if it is a digital facsimile.

The photography work of John Divola spans from the 1970s to now - it's a whole lot of material to try and consume at once. However, if you take the time to click around you'll discover a huge variety of image styles and adventures the man has embarked on. From Dogs Chasing My Car In The Desert to Seven Song Birds and a Rabbit to Isolated Houses to The Vandalism Series, there is something worth inspiring your eyes in there. It's a body of work that would create a massive tome if it were all bound as one. Dive in, bookmark it, keep exploring.

via Magnificent Ruin.

I've, mostly, had my head down this week trying to knock out a handful of projects so it is entirely possible that I missed out on the Must See Goodness of the week. Despite that, I think this playlist will properly entertain. Enjoy.

• Project Glass: With Ads - this seems like the most realistic parody I've seen of the ole Google Glasses project yet.
• Blowing a CD Bubble - yea, this is a weird video.. slow pacing, weird narration and assumed results but wait - the outcome is not what you expect. Crazy.
• The Devil's Apricot - a 3 minute mockumentary clip on record producer Damon Lewis, Satan's right hand man. I laughed aloud multiple times on multiple viewings. via Paul.
• Zeus - Are You Gonna Waste My Time? - not only is this album great but this video is a fun throwback to when videos were an insane art project undertaking. Food marionette puppets? Confused dogs? Sure, why not?!
• Don't Be That Awkward Runner - when I saw "The Flightless Bird" I knew I had to share. It's probably best to shut it off after the introduction of the styles.
• When Drunk People Dance - I think I could watch this all day. via Chris.
• Juggalo Ryda Song Number 29 - I'm all for not mocking Juggalos but this video caught me so off guard with the level of surprises it contained I couldn't look away.
• I Will Feast On Your Soul - what's going to happen here? Will there be some unexpected change? Are you able to look away from this dog's intense soul stabbing stare?

Have a great weekend! If you need a quick pick-me-up, just put this on repeat for a few hours.

Take a moment to read through the details of Belgium's photo festival Wonderland. Six photographers were chosen to show their work "all over town, indoors and outdoors on a gigantic scale." The idea of having enormous photographic prints mounted all over any city as part of an art exhibit is phenomenal - it seems like an incredibly exciting thing to accidentally encounter. There are more details on the event here and here but you probably just need to kick it off by checking out all the great installations right here.

via Kate.

It's entirely possible that OMG Space is the longest website you'll ever encounter. The distances between the planets / stars shown are to scale with a ratio of 1:647 - so "if Mercury is 57,909,050km from the Sun, with the ratio of 1:647, the distance is boiled down to 89503.94, so 89,503 pixels..." It's an easy way to show the massive distance between bodies in our solar system and pretty fun to click around in as well.

So, you've no doubt seen the promo video for Google's new Project Glass; their augmented reality glasses that they've been talking about for a little while. The concept video definitely shows some interesting things going on but there are still a load of unanswered questions - how does one interact with the system? How do the glasses tell the difference between a random mumble and an actual command? Will everyone be okay with looking like Geordi for the sake of checking into Foursquare? Won't the viewscreen be littered with ads?

It didn't take long for the parody videos to start appearing and they tackle some of the most obvious issues.

Long story short, I'm skeptical but I'm glad Google is trying these things out. Automated Cars, Augmented Reality Glasses, Google Art and the myriad of other undertakings they're involved with likely stretch them too thin to do anything extremely well but for all their downfalls, they are moving things forward and that's sort of incredible.

The fine folks at VHX just launched a little mini-site for VHX for Artists; their platform to distribute video directly to fans. I'm thinking of it sort of like Bandcamp For Video - you can go with the regular distribution channels like iTunes, Amazon, etc. but there's a slice of the pie being removed when you do so. Going with VHX (or Bandcamp for music) you get a much tinier slice removed and the ability to share / promote that work all over the web. This may not be pertinent to the majority of readers of this site but I think VHX is on to something with this plan and I'm hoping to see them flourish.

Frederic Lezmi put together this compilation of photos entitled Poor Politicians. The series captures political posters that have been ravaged by time, environment and various passerbys. You can even buy them as a series of lithographs.The images are great but I do find it odd that they were captured with an iPhone app and the faux polaroid border was left intact - I guess I'm going to have to get used to that! Despite that, the images are great - browse them all.

Kate gave me the heads up on the work of Eran Gilat, a highly trained scientist (seriously, check that CV) and fine artist all at once. Obviously the influences of the former seep into the latter - as best exemplified by the series Life Science. There's a rather foreboding creepy vibe to the series of images but there's also a wildly fascinating aspect to it - the creatures, the tools, the low light, etc. I won't wax poetic about the quality of the images but, suffices to say, they are definitely worth a heavy bit of browsing.

This Rear Window Timelapse is a flabbergasting triumph of stitching movie footage into one giant panorama. The details on how it was done sound so flippant (yea, just stitched it together in After Effects) but you know this was an intense undertaking. There's not much more to say when you're this taken aback! Check out more from Jeff Desom, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Frank Chimero has opened up his shop for pre-orders of his book The Shape of Design. You may recall the Kickstarter that wrapped a little over a year ago but if you didn't get place an order at that time, now is your chance! The physical book looks pretty snazzy... think I'll pick one up myself.

Lions & Vultures and I tend to have a strong overlap in the Enjoyed Music Department. This fact is exhibited in his latest mix, Weird Wind - which features the likes of a load of bands that I've never encountered before but encounter my ears in the most pleasant of ways. It's rare to run into a mix where you want to find out more about every single band included but, personally, that's how I feel about this one. Jeremy and I are kindred spirits in the music world. We diverge on a handful of interests but, 9 times out of 10, we both heavily appreciate the same goods. Strong Feelings is one of those mixes that fires on all cylinders. I give it my heartiest stamps of approval. Go get it.

This may have already made the Internet rounds but I keep finding myself revisiting it and being equally entertained every single time. Non-Startr generates a one-line combo of absurd startup ideas that, sadly, have probably been said aloud in reality more often than someone would like to admit. Ridiculous and kinda perfect. It's like Is Lost New This Week but for Douchebag Ideas.

Forms & Shapes is the recently relaunched portfolio of artist / graphic designer Peter Skwiot Smith. The abstract works always have an alluring texture to them and a good bit of impressive color. Be sure to dive into the prior years archives to see how the work has progressed - moving away from photographic elements but always maintaining an enjoyable level of engagement.

The folks over at MacRabbit recently released Slicy, a piece of software that extracts your Photoshop PSD layers out into individual files based on the name of the layer. I'm not enough of a pioneer to drop $20 on it without trying it out first to see if it would be beneficial to me but if any of you are more daring than I, please let me know how the experience was!

Addendum: This software was originally known as "Layer Cake" but due to a conflict, they renamed it. So, I've updated my post to help them out and spread the word.