Not to cast aspersions on the artist, only the medium which potentially threatens to undo what progress we’ve made on being better stewards of the environment and recommodifies green-washing and all its attendant woes, we were delighted to come across this Beeple Generator—via Waxy—but definitely will not be trying to pass it off as some NFT worth millions and compounded with every trade. Though is anything stopping us? What do you think? Of course billionaires swapping priceless works of art amongst each other, deprived of seeing the light of day—see previously—earns a commission in the transaction and taking a photograph of a work of art hanging in a gallery doesn’t diminish its value for the museum but rather enhances it but something very different is going on with this interpretation of ownership and identity.
Thursday 25 March 2021
Tuesday 16 March 2021
typhoon class
Though the working-outcome of the navy going into receivership with Pepsi was more improbable than the suggestion to retrofit a fleet of Soviet nuclear submarines as tanker ships to transport oil and natural gas was probably the less technical tenable, advisable alternative to generate capital after the nation’s dissolution. Back in 1995, at the suggestion of the governor of Arkhangelsk oblast, the location of the Russian submarine yards, one experiment was with underwater cargo shipping was undertaken—albeit with a non-strategic vessel and a manifest of foodstuffs—but not explored further due to cost-overruns and lack of funding. The logistics pitch, however, to fill-up directly from off-shore rigs and to travel the globe swiftly and virtually unimpeded (also without burning said fuel) was worth considering. Learn more at Weird Universe at the link above.
catagories: ๐ท๐บ, ๐ก️, transportation
Monday 15 March 2021
6x6
antikythera mechanism: researchers rebuild a model of the ancient orrery, analogue computer using the latest cutting-edge technology
uncertain times: learning from pastoral professionals to cope with volatility
syncopated rhythm: turn your typing to piano jazz—via Swiss Misslong ambients: Brian Eno (previously) explains the origins of the genre with the teaching aid of William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops
cargo cults: blockchain’s open ledger threatens to undermine efforts to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels—see also
cleopatra’s needles: the strange obsession with Western powers taking trophy Egyptian obelisks and the transportation challenges involved
Saturday 13 March 2021
8x8
zaouli: a traditional dance of the of the Guro people of central Cรดte d’Ivoire
line-dry only: experimental living apparel sequesters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produces oxygen
everydays—the first five-thousand days: the digital artist better known as Beeple sold an artwork as a non-fungible token (previously) for nearly seventy million dollars at auction, more here⏯: Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette, passes away, aged ninety-four
upward mobility: theory that Flintstones and Jetsons take place simultaneously with an elite technocracy and a post-apocalyptic underclass—see also
ikebana: a vintage guide to the art of Japanese flower arranging, previously
life finds a way: using parallel processing and stochastic algorithms, one programmer generates Mona Lisa from John Horton Conway’s game
personรฆ: short documentary Beyond Noh filters through thousands of colourful and evocative ceremonial masks from cultures around the world
Thursday 11 March 2021
8x8
topsy-turvy: the architecture of the upside-down
forever blowing bubbles: the symbols of Wall Street, capitalism protest art
hashtag hastings: remix your own Bayeux Tapestry (previously)—via Kottkesit, ubu, sit: Pablo Picasso called the injured owl he discovered and nursed back to health by that name partly out of assonance with ‘hibou,’ French for hoot, and the obnoxious Alfred Jarry character
voyager station: orbiting cruise ship set to open as early as 2027—via the always excellent Nag on the Lake
0 bby or star wars retrofitted: remastering the franchise with references to what’s been revealed in the past four decades
tailpipe: visualising carbon dioxide emissions through a driving game—via Waxy
bright and airy: an inside-out concept residential project with lots of ventilation
catagories: ๐ก️, ๐จ, ๐ฑ, ๐ญ, architecture, Middle Ages, Star Wars
Wednesday 10 March 2021
lph-8
Occupying a liminal space between 2001: A Space Odyssey and the juncture that went with cosmic opera in one direction and dread aliens in the other, the environmental-themed, weakly-endorsing techno-utopia Silent Running by Douglas Trumbull—released on this date in 1972—does resound with our times and the bleak climate catastrophes we are facing, nearly fifty years on. The film follows a resident botanist (Bruce Dern) on board a greenhouse just beyond the orbit of Saturn, maintaining specimens of Earth’s plant life for its eventual reseeding the planet after all native trees and crops went extinct. Disobeying an order from the corporate headquarters that sponsored the space ark project to jettison their living cargo and return to commercial services, the botanist with his three service robots try to save the last biosphere.
Sunday 21 February 2021
calving and bergy bits
Sunday 14 February 2021
aufzugshilfe
Powered by a waterwheel, a simple tow-line pulling patrons to the top of the slope, the first skilift, the invention of hotel handyman Robert Winterhalder had its debut to the public on this day in 1908 at a resort in Schollach bei Eisenbach. Another impetus for its creation was the clientele that the guesthouse caterer to: those suffering from asthma and allergies who sought refuge and healing in the clean air of the countryside. Winterhalder wanted those guests to be able to experience the thrill of downhill skiing without the distress and exertion of climbing first. Up a gradient of some thirty metres over a distance of a quarter of a kilometre from the valley to the mountain hut, users were pulled upwards on a continuous loop. Residents re-enacted the centenary of its premiere, albeit with decidedly less snow in 2008.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ก️, ๐ก, Baden-Wรผrttemberg, sport and games, ⓦ
Saturday 6 February 2021
7x7
high dive: Casa Zicatela in the Oaxaca coastal region references Le Corbusier and the retro look of municipal swimming pools
rip: legendary actor Christopher Plummer (*1929) has passed away
polar flare: visualising the true size of terrestrial landmasses through cartographic distortion plus mapping countries as offworld coloniesgulf stream: lack of circulation during ice ages past may have meant the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans had fresh water
dataviz: sleek, informative infographics by the Great Grundini
rรฉseau pneumatique: an exploration of the pneumatic postal system of Paris—see also
hq2: a preview of the new Amazon headquarters (previously) building in Arlington, Virginia
Friday 29 January 2021
8x8
testi stampati: the riotous typographical illustratrations of Lorenzo Petrantoni
painterly realism: Nathan Shipley trained a neural network to turn portraiture into convincingly true-to-life photographs
civilian climate corps: a vision of how putting people to work on conservation projects can help save both the environment and the economynarratology: a purportedly exhaustive list of dramatic situations—see also here and here
stonx: a long thread explaining the GameStop short-squeeze—via Miss Cellania
paradoxical undressing: National Geographic forwards a new theory to account for the Dyatlov Pass Incident (previously) of 1959
butler in a box: before digital assistants there was domestic aid in the late 1980s
will success spoil rock hunter: Art of the Title looks at the opening montage of the 1957 CinemaScope classic
Saturday 23 January 2021
earthrise
Via Kottke we are treated to a rousing recitation and call to action that poet Amanda Gorman composed in 2018 for the Climate Reality Project inspired by the awesome, humbling image of the Earth dawning over the lunar surface by the crew of Apollo 8. Riffing on the climate emergency, one stanza of Gorman’s words:
Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
The riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.
More to explore at the links above. So, Earth, Pale Blue Dot. We will fail you not.
Thursday 21 January 2021
domestic agenda
Signalling a radical shift in policy priorities, Joe Biden for his first day and a half in office signed a tranche of executive orders reversing the direction that his predecessor (lest we forget the catalogue of horrors) had taken the country and the first steps to positioning America as a leader and innovative force. Redressing the pandemic crisis, Biden’s spending proposal for economic aid and relief and accelerating vaccination comes in at just under two trillion dollars, imposing a mask mandate on federal property and interstate transportation, extend student loan deferments and a moratorium on evictions and re-join the World Health Organisation. Moreover, Biden moved to bring the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement plus reimpose pollution restrictions recently relaxed and cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project that would shuttle a particularly pernicious type of petroleum from Canadian fields to American refineries. On immigration, Biden has directed the travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries to be repealed, reversed the inhumanly cruel practise of separating immigrant families at the border and ended the declared National Emergency that funded the Wall. In the Oval Office, the bust of Winston Churchill (previously) is replaced—in the background—by one of Cรฉsar Chรกvez.
Sunday 17 January 2021
motown
Via the always excellent Things Magazine (with several other utopian visions to explore and debate in this instalment), we learn about Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe (*1900 – †1996), town planner, landscape developer and architecture and his 1959 project Motopia, which despite its automobile-centric name, really was dedicated to the prevention of sprawl and spill-over and the preservation of green spaces where no car or lorry could encroach—see also. Instead what Jellicoe envisioned was a grid of mixed-used residential towers connected by elevated jetways, whose intersections were all roundabouts following the roofline of the blocks with the option to spiral down to one’s home or office, leaving the land below pristine and even wild. Though never realised according to plan, districts like Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Radio and Television Tower were informed by Jellicoe’s design. Much more at the links above.
Sunday 10 January 2021
spindeltop
In a field outside of Beaumont, Texas, Patillo Higgins prospecting for an in situ energy source—natural gas—to power his brickworks, drilled a well and struck oil on this day in 1901, penetrating salt dome that had contained the reservoir since the Jurassic epoch, gushing some million barrels of it over the next nine days. Beforehand considered geologically relatively scarce and impractical as a staple fuel source, petroleum in this form was used primarily as an industrial lubricant and for street lamps (see also) but discoveries to follow suggesting large quantities fit for mass, universal application pushed a boom and the world into the Oil Age, abetted by the corporations leading the charge.
Wednesday 6 January 2021
8x8
ruminant digestive process: whilst bovine flatulence makes the headlines, burps are the chief source of methane and could be neutralised with a special mouth guard—via the New Shelton Wet/Dry
caporegime: via ibฤซdem, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project names Jair Bolsonaro Corrupt Person of the Year, trouncing with a narrow margin Trump, Erdoฤan and Netanyahu
commander-in-cheat: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon won’t allow Trump to visit his golf course in Scotland during the pandemic lockdown to bow out of attending the inauguration in Washington, DCgeorgia on my mind: Reverend Warnock declared winner in Senate race and Democrats poised to take control of the Upper House
grogu pains: The Mandalorian reimaged as 1990s sitcom
die abenteur des prizen achmed: the incredible silhouette animation technique of Lotte Reiniger—more here
population density: housing ten billion humans in one mega city could help vastly reduce our footprint, freeing up the remaining land mass for rewilding and argiculture
all the trimmings: for this traditional day of ceremonially discarding the tree, ways to transform it into garnish and a tasty treat
Tuesday 22 December 2020
i’m mister green christmas, i’m mister sun, i’m mister heat blister, i’m mister one hundred and one
Never able to resist the delightfully weird theology of Rankin/Bass productions, we’ve been rather enjoying the duelling melodies of the Brothers Miser from the 1974 special The Year Without Santa Claus. Having come down with a cold before the Christmas rush, Santa’s physician advises a change in routine, suggesting that his role is diminished in the modern era and that no one believes in him anymore, and despite objections by Mrs Claus (voiced by Mickey Rooney and Shirley Booth) decides to take a sabbatical rather than deliver gifts.
Undeterred, Mrs Claus dispatches two elves, Jingle and Jangle, with Vixen the reindeer to gather proof that people do care about Christmas and believe in Santa. Flying from the North Pole, their mission gets blown off track by a weather front caused by the bickering of the Snow Miser (Dick Shawn) and the Heat Miser (George S. Irving) who control the world’s weather. Crash-landing in a place called Southtown, Vixen is caught and put in the dog-pound, city authorities find their alibi laughable but agree to free Vixen if they can prove that they are elves by making it snow for Christmas. The Clauses travel to Southtown separately to try to rectify the situation and free their friends—the Misers conceding after Mother Nature compels her sons to compromise. Upon learning what’s afoot in Southtown and that Santa Claus has grown despondent, the children of the world begin to send Santa presents, this gesture convincing him to undertake his annual route after all—appearing in public in Southtown as snow falls. The show ends with Mrs Claus’ commentary somehow, “yearly, newly, faithfully and truly,” Santa always comes and we could never imagine a Christmas without him.Sunday 20 December 2020
8x8
before times: one narrative of 2020 as told through fifteen objects and artefacts—see previously
marsha, marsha, marsha: Trump acknowledges months’ long cyber-attack on US government networks for first time—oddly defensive about Russian involvement
systemic bias: when bad decisions are blamed on algorithms, bad actors are exculpated and trust in science erodesbreakthrough listen: musing on the nature of signal detected from Proxima Centauri by the Murriyang Radio Telescope
tape/slide newsreel group and friends: brilliant early 80s photo archive showing Hackney to Hackney—via the splendiferous Things Magazine
engineer, agitator, constructor: the visual vernacular of utopian graphic design
creek and culvert: the movement to resurface and revive long buried urban waterways—see previously
off-limits: virtually visit nine sites not accessible to the public in Washington, DC
a modern hanukah miracle: there are extra doses of vaccine in each vial—stretching out supplies to inoculate twice as many individuals than expected
Saturday 19 December 2020
7x7
guardians of the galaxy: Space Force (previously) service members receive a new title
deluxe apartment in the sky: artist granted viewing of exclusive properties on Billionaires’ Row in Manhattan
lp: a playlist of James Baldwin’s record collection
๐: the Great Wave off Kanagawa in Lego form
lassen sie mich also sagen, dass dies ernst ist—bitte nehmen sie das auch ernst: Angela Merkel’s March address and appeal on coronavirus lauded as Speech of the Year
heat gap: climatic gentrification across city districts leads to worse outcomes for the poorest residents
Friday 11 December 2020
7x7
repetition: an exploration of built-environments as an audio-visual landscape of infinite regression
a pigment of our imagination: the illusory nature of colour
nationally determined contributions: European Union agrees to more than halve its carbon emissions by 2030—via Slashdot
awesome sauce: a safari-pak of canned-meats from 1967
road gritters: track Scotland’s fleet of snow-plows in real time by name
training a generation of future karens: this scholastic kids books series are clearly coding adults as happy and confident with their life choices as monsters and misfits—via Super Punch
a universe of imagination: revisiting a classic and inspiring documentary (previously) on cosmology on its sixtieth anniversary
catagories: ๐จ๐ฆ, ๐ช๐บ, ๐ก️, ๐ฝ, ๐ฌ, ๐ณ️๐, ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ, ๐ญ, ๐บ️, ๐ง , antiques, transportation
Thursday 10 December 2020
year in search
Via The Curious Brain, we are directed towards a superlative, year-end compliation that waxes exsistential and exegetical with search-engine queries of why besting what and how illustrated in this emotional video short. Despite the potential for misinformation, baiting outrage and holding up an unflattering mirror for us scrutinise or more often avert our eyes from, the internet and technology are owed a debt of gratitude for helping us muddle through 2020 and remember whom and what we’ve lost, what's irreplacable and what can be brought back better. Keep on seeking, keep on searching.