hoppípolla

The legendary Icelandic band Sigur Rós will be remixing one of their most popular songs (which in its original version accompanied the 2006 launch of the first Planet Earth series hosted by Sir David Attenborough) for the next iteration.
Very particular about commercial ventures, the band was however all too pleased to rework one of its signature tunes for the sake of environmental awareness and showcasing some of the spectacular creatures that our presence is imperilling. See teasers for the latest instalment and listen to the song at the Grapevine above and if you’ve not yet seen it, check out this amazing, nail-biting iguana vs snakes chase-scene from the pilot episode of Planet Earth II here.

5x5

the pet collective: omnibus of video clips of humans supportive of animals behaving oddly

bird’s eye: a collection of stunning satellite photographs of diverse, manmade landscapes

colour guard: Richard Nixon though the Secret Service ought to have fancy uniforms, like the palace details of other countries

unterirdisch überleben: a tour of Lucerne’s still operational, massive fall-out shelter

althing: tiny Iceland has no fewer than seven viable political parties and will now have a governing coalition that includes the Pirate Party 

stök plóma, fljótandi í ilmvatni, borin fram í karimannshatti

In addition to the annual lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower over the last weekend on Viðey Island in Reykjavík bay on the occasion of John Lennon’s birthday, the beams illuminating the skies (and beaming wishes of goodwill all across the universe) for the next two months—to be extinguished on the anniversary of his assassination—with Iceland being originally chosen as host for its ecological thermal energy and general good governance, Yoko Ono has several other concomitant art projects going on in the country. Ono also solicited tributes from local artists, and humourously Ragnar Kjartansson presented her with an elaborate Simpsons’ meta-reference, to Ms Ono’s delight.

pro-bono or controlling-share

Rather than yielding to investor demands that the social media giant sell out to the highest bidder and thus loose its independent voice (Yahoo! was once offered the Facebook and where are they now?), I thought that a government, like the tech-haven Iceland, ought to swoop in and operate Twitter for the public good, sort of like an NPR of socials.
Despite the ability of Twitter to turn a profit, those charged with maximising returns are sensing the opportunity for a windfall—however that’s reckoned in business terms. There is another avenue to explore, as Boing Boing informs, that may be for the good of all stakeholders in allowing the users to take it over (in the sense of financial stewardship) and run it as a cooperative venture. As the proposal points out, and not being a follower of the sports ball really, I would have never appreciated the genius of this model, there’s a parallel to be found in the premier status that the small town of Green Bay in the state of Wisconsin has retained over all these years and the last of its kind. The Packers (named for Acme tinned meat company) are owned by their fans and have never been the playthings of billionaire investors. What do you think? Greed tempers censorship as much as any other ideology.

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sprockets: historic, confrontational Nazi disc-jockey booth at a gramophone expo prompts a discussion on propaganda, via Messy Nessy Chic

populuxe: lone surviving prototype of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion kit home, via Nag on the Lake

the story of the hitchhiking bride: fraudulent “ghost drivers” vexing ride-hailers in China, via Super Punch

babel fish: in an on-going series of Icelandic monsters of the month, the Sögusteinn, the tale stone, a sort of egg that when inserted into the ear can answer all questions

curated: the New York’s Museum of Modern Art has made tens of thousands of images of their past exhibitions available on-line, via Kottke 

food, fólks and fun

Though the last franchise of a global fast-food giant closed nearly seven years ago due to the worldwide financial crisis, there is apparently still at least one committed gourmand, as the Reykjavík Grapevine reports, who received a parcel from Hungary containing a hamburger.
The customs office intercepted the package before the recipient could claim it, and it is unclear whether the meal was consumed afterwards (or if indeed this was a regular delivery but I do not imagine that much contraband gets through the Icelandic postal system). Given that the last value menu sold in the country was on display under glass at the National Museum looking little changed since October 2009 (it’s subsequently been moved to a plinth at a local hostel), I am guessing the Icelander was able to satisfy his nostalgic cravings.

huldufólk

Boing Boing furnishes us with an update on the follies of human civic engineers and the grave repercussions of incursions onto elfin habitats.
Numerous times, road construction has been rerouted or scrapped altogether by human advocates for the preservation of elf heritage (possibly even influencing the US Navy’s decision to abandon its base in Keflavík), since—nearly as many times, such ill-fated trespasses have not gone unpunished. The accidental burial of a sacred stone by highway workers riled the elves and their supporters (who sometimes construct wooden façades for them in order to help the more oafish of our kind realise that they are there), and after a series of mishaps were hurled at the offending stretch of road—the boulder was exhumed with due ceremony.

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mama don’t take my photochrome away: hand-selected photographic wonders from the archives of the US Library of Congress

photobomb: family vacationing in Quebec struggle how to politely tell shirtless prime minister to leave them alone

pokébooth: the Icelandic branch of the Pirate Party is planning to use augmented reality to lure young people to voting stations

soma: the intersection of drugs and story-telling, from experiment to creative burden to the confession genre

le singerie: depicting monkeys aping human mannerisms was a way of deflating artists’ egos

saga eða von og von brigði

Combining the finest traditions of epic, slow television and the road-trip, Reykjavík based post-progressive rock band Sigur Rós is making a circuit of the entire island nation in order to compose and document a soundtrack that’s generated, through specialised software with a commanding and adaptive perspective on the band’s style, by their ramblings around Iceland.  No one quite knows how this soundscape will turn out, much like any prolonged tour returning the unexpected, and will be used to open a music festival later this summer. I wonder if this experiential aspect for incidental music, machines inspired by nature or the draw of the road, is going to take off. Von (hope) was the band’s first album and while vonbrigði means disillusion “von brigði” means, as double-entendre, variations on Hope. Visit the link above to see the whole saga with musical accompaniment.

oh—they’ve encased him carbonite

Although many believe that the sequestering of carbon-dioxide and other greenhouses gases (out of sight, out of mind) is a tenable solution, the practical application of the technique is slow in coming. Many risks still remain and leakage is a serious issue, potentially unleashing tremors and spoiling of aquifers like fracking operations.
Heretofore, only one commercial plant is on-line in Canada, pumping the noxious by-product deep into a part of the Earth adjudged to be a reasonably safe oubliette. In volcanic Iceland, however, scientists have been able to turn to chemistry to fix atmospheric CO₂ and transform it into the basalt substrate that the island is composed of, incorporated as veins of chalk (limestone). Like trolls (Trölli) turned to stone when caught in the light of day, perhaps special conditions exist in Iceland which would make the technique somewhat of a challenge to export, but maybe this form of carbon-capture could help clean up industries globally one day.

hinn best land sem solinn skinner uppa

In 1868, swelling with pride over expansionist’s ambitions and the recent procurement of Alaska from an imperial Russia fraught with the sorry prospects of a fire-sale and the acquisition of a few Caribbean properties from the equally distressed Danes, the spree did not end there and not only tried to annex Greenland (an offer repeated during the Cold War) but also Iceland, as Neatorama reminds. The case for annexation was based mostly on the decades’ old accounts of travelogues, which was probably the source for the idea that the two were ironically named to dissuade prospectors, and though the soon to be independent island would have surely been a jewel in imperial America’s crown, the Icelanders weren’t having it. Fortunately, after such outlays on dubious returns, the US Congress was not buying this proposal either and the purchase was not pursued further.

allthing or all that’s fit to print

Boing Boing’s Iceland correspondent reports on a wonderful and antithetical response to the scourge of off-shoring and out-sourcing (and indeed even proxy-wars) in the plan, having already secured parliamentary endorsement, to make the country a designated safe haven for the freedoms of expression and information.

Advocates, who hope to create a Switzerland of bits, hope that this stance will compel other governments to be more transparent and forth-coming about legislation and its enforcement. Cobbling together some of the best whistle-blower protection and anti-censorship laws from different jurisdictions—for instance, the attorney-client privilege that any conversation with a journalist enjoys in Belgium or the public registry of all government documents (even classified ones) in Estonia, is creating a forum where witness to corruption can come forward without fear of reprisal. As if meaningful reform and mindful democracy weren’t occasion enough, perhaps this new media landscape might be able to attract internet start-ups to recover some of the jobs-prospects lost to Iceland’s former dignities where laws are not biased towards copy-holders and a select few with political heft—besides, surely the land of fire and ice is probably an ideal place to operate with a smart labour pool and totally green geothermal energy to power it all.

personification and post-constructivism

We are treated to designer and illustrator Michael W Lester’s latest project called Character Building, in which a series of twenty recognisable modern structures from around the world are anthropo- morphised in a way that highlights their particular personalities and the way good architecture engages its environment and occupants, via Mental Floss. I particularly like this one of the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur and Lester’s take on the Hallgrímskirkja of Reykjavík, with its accordion wings made welcoming arms.

the usual suspects or noble-lie

The German press has been nursing a real scoop, patiently, in the emergent scandal of the so called Panama Papers—an unbelievably huge and historic cache of incriminating documents that perjures several prominent figures of public-trust. The implication and betrayal of, for example, the government of Iceland, whom were elevated on a mandate of reform and anti-corruption, is tragic and disappointing but hardly surprising, along with the broader clientele of this holding-company that manages hundreds of thousands of shell-businesses and front organisations globally in attested tax-oases and money-laundering schemes. Nearly every country is participating in one way or another, but the conspicuous absence (at least so far) of the US and Atlantis strikes me as singularly odd. One might reasonably suspect that Plato’s Republic might have indeed kept itself pristine by not confusing self-interest for the Good.

It seems that America is, however, an unlikely candidate for propagating this noble-lie (politically expedient fable) on such a scale without itself being taken in—especially one with the locus in one of the former client-states, itself. I wonder if such a revelation weren’t allowed to incubate for so long in order to selectively discredit dissenting voices. America, despite its outward stance and unique policy of universal-collection (only copied by Eritrea, a practise condemned by the US State Department as a way for dictatorships to ensure funding and punishing immigrants by dint of where they were born), is a tax-haven itself and far from above-board. What do you think? It’s a bit like New Zealand on the globe often being obscured by a geopolitical legend or countries being greyed out due to lack of data. Multi-national corporations have no allegiance, obviously, but are also not completely untethered from their homelands. Those with political power rarely exceed their expectations and are deigned worthy for doing their jobs without too much destructive moon-lighting, but if we are so easily satisfied, I wonder if we deserve better—having dubiously made disloyalty into a virtue. In this environment, everyone is pressured to be an entrepreneur and to supplement one’s income in one way or another: going to unethical and opaque lengths is bad enough, if only skirting the law as it’s been handed down, but hiding one’s questionable and subversive investments, as this legal firm facilitated as well, seems even worse.

Þörungar

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake comes happy and hopeful news that a design student named Ari Jónsson of the Reykjavik Academy of the Arts has made a prototype, fully biodegradable plastic container out of powdered algae, an agar-like binding material that allows the vessel to keep its shape while holding something—like a full water bottle—but quickly decomposes once empty. While we’ve gotten somewhat better about recycling, more than half of all plastic packaging is used once then tossed and becomes an unwelcome and eternal addition to the environment. Read the full article at Dezeen magazine for more brainstorming and innovative solutions to problems both wee and seemingly overwhelming.

6x6 link-roundup: after-school edition

puppet on a string: the laudable, laughable efforts of the FBI to steer youth away from being radicalized

mimir and vanir: some of the bizarre scenarios of Norse mythology

penmanship: three-dimensional calligraphy that rolls off the page

war on drugs: when defence-contractors try their hand at directing (anti-drugs) films

planned-parenthood: from Dangerous Minds’ extensive archives, Donald Duck lectures on contraception

gymnastique suédoise: lovely illustrations from the 1920s for a domestic exercise routine

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purl two: upon request the BBC would send out the knitting instructions for the Fourth Doctor’s iconic scarf

uppruni: a young Björk reads the Nativity story for an Icelandic television audience

food pyramid: Vox examines at different ways nutritional guidelines are influenced and imparted globally

zodiaco: Salvador Dalí’s astrologic menagerie plus a hint into the obsession the artist had with his departed elder brother, Salvador Dalí

tween: proposed EU rules would raise the social media age of majority to sixteen

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sinister: Rorschach-like battery of tests reveals how hand-bias shapes how reality is perceived

foley artist: absurdist gallery of the everyday items used by resourceful minds to create sound-effects

him that you call tiamat: protesting government support for churches, Iceland’s newest “religion” attracts more converts by refunding the tithe

perustulo: Finland plans to provide every citizen with a basic income

ancien régime: marketers newest cachet invokes the mood and trappings of pre-revolutionary France—the last time wage disparity was so high

marchons or rearranging the deck chairs

Icelandic artist and activity Ólafur Eliasson working with geologist Minik Rosing have salvaged tonnes of icy obelisks, already doomed to their consummation, from the breaking front of Greenland’s glacial ice sheet and transported to them to central Paris, where delegates attending the crucial COP21 climate conference can witness them melt.
This is a pretty powerful statement and it’s highly recommended you visit the link and see more of Eliasson’s projects, but none to my mind was as stirring as the subdued Paris en Marche, when after the public rally was cancelled due to heightened security concerns and gatherings were banned, thousands brought pair by pair shoes to stand in for the absented protesters.

not too big to jail

In what’s just an opening salvo to demonstrate (and actually far from the first prosecution of this kind)that no behaviour, no matter how consequential and unconscionable, is above the law, Iceland is sentencing two dozen bankers and financial managers whose greed and collusion resulted in the devastating 2008 economic meltdown of the country. This meting out of punishment is a necessary but bold step, especially compared to the inaction and forgiveness on the part of the US government who allowed its bankers, Masters of the Universe, to precipitate the global Recession in the first place—and of many other countries where immunity has been extended rather magnanimously. Managing other people’s money is just the same as overseeing any other utility, and probably less skilled, and such plumbers and locksmiths (not to insult those professions by comparison, who are much better champions in our hour of need) should not be compensated nor protected differently.