as is, as was / as was, as is

Together with contemporaries Jan Dibbets amd Marinus Boezem, Amsterdammer Ger van Elk (*1941 - †2014) produced an extensive body of multidisciplinary works falling within the range of conceptual art and arte povera. Exhibiting in his native city as well as New York and Los Angeles with the Tate among other prominent modern museums upholding Van Elk’s works as the chief representatives of this movement, many pieces include the themes of reflection on and reference to art history.

pegbox and promenade

Via Swiss Miss, we invited to get tiny and explore the microcosmos of spaces within musical instruments, as in this load-bearing “soul post” between the f-holes of a violin. The series from Charles Brooks of architecture in music also features flutes, pianos, organs and a didgeridoo.

on-looker

Via Web Curios, we quite enjoyed this scenic if not a bit haunting selection of vintage postcards collected by Flickr artist Swellmap in an album of people staring off into the distance. The subject always has their backs to the camera and usual wear red, like some unfortunate Star Trek ensign about to meet their fate and forward the plot.

6x6

secret lairs: a tour of Modernist homes that upstage other performers as the starring-role  

👁 🅰️ ◀️ 🚍: Buddhist scriptures and sūtras for those who cannot read  

carpenters estate—lund point: Brendan Barry transform unoccupied dwellings in a twenty-three-storey tower block into a camera obscura to produce large format prints 

on a clear day, you can see forever: a look at some of the longest sightlines on Earth—via Miss Cellania  

kimochi no katachi: reuse those paper bags with a set of template rulers that guide you to folding a paring them down to pouches and envelopes  

offgrid: a handcrafted home in remote coastal Maine up for sale

7x7

the year that was: Miss Cellania’s Winterval tradition of annual lists—including arts and entertainment, animals and more  

market volatility: unusual vintage shot glasses track ups and downs of the Dow Jones Industrial Average—via Super Punch 

a sight for sore eyes: a coffee table edition from rock royalty The Residents  

where the wild things are: Maurice Sendak directed a darker version of The Nutcracker ballet, truer to the original narrative and far more captivating  

ultimate rendering: Picasso’s first and last self-portraits—see also—via Messy Nessy Chic 

boop: robot reacts to a poke in the nose

lend me your ears and i’ll sing you a song about a sad, dysfunctional d.c.: US president Joe Biden’s first year in review presented by Politico

the year in photos

2021 beginning a continuation of the previous year in many ways and not the grand departure we were counting on, changes and improvements are incremental rather than escapingly exponential and so appreciated, these collections of superlative images that chronicle the course of the past twelve months. There were of course too many arresting and consequential photographs to include them all, but this one picture framed by Don Seabrook of after school band practice addresses that stepwise nature of best-practices trialled and abandoned, sometimes without explanation, like those directional arrows in supermarket aisles that aren’t apparently needed any more or the rules of masking at restaurants and how safety bumps and personal mitigation-measures up on the limits of science. Much more to explore from Kottke at the link up top aggregating the lists from various news outlets.

obturador

The twelfth century Visigoth cathedral of Palencia, dedicated to San Antolín of Pamiers sustained damage from the catastrophic earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the Iberian peninsula with

reconstruction efforts to the roof and cornices delayed until 1908, under the leadership of local architect Jerónimo Arroyo, who replaced one of the lost gargoyles anachronistically with the figure of a cassocked man lugging around a camera of the times. This was in homage to a documentarian called Luis Rodríquez Alonso, who were among the first to chronicle the region using the new medium. The rather austere gothic exterior betrays the rich interior treasures, including over twenty chapels, ornate retablos and a painting by El Greco of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, contains another easter egg, this time dating to a 1995 renovation to the achivolt above Puerta de los Reyes: at the apex, the two bas-relief creatures facing one another are not demons or dragons but rather xenomorphs from the then contemporary instalment of the Alien franchise.

8x8

fauxliage: a superlative roundup of architectural photography projects

the ntf of dorian gray: a new, short take on Oscar Wilde’s cautionary tale 

emoji for scale: objects represented by their glyphs from smallest to largest—via Waxy

life plus 50: a Public Domain Advent Calendar in anticipation of the expiring copyrights that the New Year ushers in with a new class of works free to enjoy however one sees fit  

verrillon: revisiting the fragile glass armonica of Benjamin Franklin  

thank you for your patronage: hackers are instructing receipt printers to spout off anti-work manifestos to draw attention to poverty wages  

history is calling: a mobile phone museum—via Pasa Bon!

unbuilt architecture: mock-ups of ten modern monumental structures that were never completed—via Things Magazine

7x7

limerent limerick: help in recognising unhealthy obsessions and how to work one’s way out of intrusive thinking—hopefully through bawdy rhymes 

there and back again: Gene Deitch’s animated short The Hobbit—the first such adaptation  

roll for perception: a collection of resources, a florilegium from a Society for Creative Anachronism member for the LARP community—via Mx van Hoorn’s cabinet of hypertext curiosities  

avenue of the sphinxes: a restored promenade between Luxor and Karnak opened with fanfare  

opiate for the masses: drug use in Antiquity 

mlhavý: Martin Rak’s fog-draped forests in Saxon-Bohemia—see previously 

here’s mud in your eye: a select glossary of beer and imbibing terminology—via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump

 

7x7

brickover: iconic album covers recreated in LEGO from Pasa Bon’s curious links 

sand castles: an innovative intervention to counter desertification 

all about photos: arresting, colourful best-in-show exhibits from the AAP annual competition—via Kottke

no one listens to cassandra: rediscovering a 1997 article on what could go wrong in the twenty-first century that’s eerily prescient  

parks & rec: a huge collection of vintage outdoor living catalogues and magazines—via the morning news   

what—it’s not magaggie’s birthday: an unauthorised Simpson’s cookbook  

spin-cycle: a gorgeous, inviting laundrette outfitted by Yinka Ilori and LEGO

colour reference card

Effectively calibrated to recognise and register lighter complexions as standard, 99% Invisible—through

the artefacts called “Shirley Cards” that were distributed to film developers (see previously) to adjust their laboratories and perpetuate the built-in bias—explores how technology, deliberately, natively, naively or not, privileges whiteness by making it de facto more photogenic. The defaults of cameras, film and flash—and still the case to an extent with digital photography but we’re slowly growing wiser to our own shortcomings and their consequences (though the problem is a big one that goes far beyond pictures and is reflected in body of medical literature that is derived from too few female or minority subjects) makes it more challenging to capture compelling images of darker complected individuals and effects how people are seen and limits expression. Much more at the links above.

9x9

silent haitch: the voicing of this letter is “still a significant shibboleth”—a look at h based on modern usage and notes on wh by Alfred Leach  

kinship and pedigree: genealogical mapping shows historic spread and retreat of surnames for British Isles and much of Europe 

rural free delivery: a superb, thematic collection of vintage picture postcards—via Things Magazine  

zeta reticulans: a tarot deck from Miguel Romero features the history of UFOlogy  

те самые картинки: collection of avant-garde children’s book illustrations from the USSR 

retromod: Hyundai brings back its 1986 luxury Grandeur with a fully electric powertrain 

trebuchet: another start-up envisions flinging satellites into space via spinning centrifuge—see previously  

get lost losers: a rock band flotilla entertaining the cargo crews stuck in the seemingly insurmountable backlog waiting to unload containers at the ports of Los Angeles

agent of chaos: agnotology, the study of deliberate spreading of confusion

9x9

the audience effect: fellow blogger and internet caretaker Duck Soup passes a million page-views

графички дизајн: celebrating the works of three pioneering Serbian graphic designers and topographers

mountain view: a prop gravesite used for film and television, interred and disinterred thousands of times, in a very real cemetery 

subject matter expert: the street photography of Eric Kogan—via the morning news  

utter rubbish: traumatising photographs of the garbage, sometimes neatly knolled, that humans produce  

the briefing: a definitive guide to COP 26  

greased falcon: a fan-channel dedicated to Star Wars! The Musical (2008)  

time in a bottle: hackers are amassing encrypted data in the hopes that within a few years, quantum computers will be able to unlock it—via Slashdot 

return to comfort town: more on brilliant housing development in Kyiv inspired by building blocks—see previously

post and lintel

Via the always engaging Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this profile and portfolio of architectural photographer Hélène Binet—now based in London. One of the most famous in her niche field which can nonetheless evoke the most stirring of abstracted landscapes to inhabit in angles, shadows and negative space, Binet is celebrated for her collaborative work especially with contemporary celebrity architects Daniel Libeskind, John Hejduk (Kreuzberg Tower and Wings, Turm mit Flügelbau pictured) Peter Zumthor and Zaha Hadid as well as appreciating past movements through her lens, like this study of the monastery of La Tourette designed by Le Corbusier. More to explore at the links above.

7x7

pov: more superlative drone photography 

true facts: Ze Frank (previously) assays the mosquito 

awesome mix, vol 1 & 2: the video game adaption of Guardians of the Galaxy has a stellar soundtrack  

baby, you are so money and you don’t even known it: a quarter of a century on, in defence of Swingers, the Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau vehicle that has more heart than one might have remembered  

social justice kittens: a 2022 calendar from Liartown, USA (previously)—via Web Curios  

the montauk project: spelunking in the mothballed secretive military base, Camp Hero, that inspired Stranger Things 

hop on, hop off: in honour of the Year of the European Rail, photographer Albert Dros documents his ten-day train journey across the continent

30 rock

Captured on this day in 1932 by the appointed Photographic Director for the documentation of the Rockefeller Center’s construction, Charles Clyde Ebbets (*1905 - †1978) framed Lunch atop a Skyscraper (who took this picture?), depicting eleven workers taking their break on a girder, feet dangling high above New York City streets, from the perspective of the sixty-ninth storey of the neighbouring RCA Building—itself still under construction. The following year Ebbets returned to his native Florida and worked with the Seminole tribe to champion the conservation of the Everglades and promote responsible tourism.

6x6

moo-loo: calves are being toilet-trained to mitigate some of the greenhouse gasses the livestock produce

über die bestimmung des weibes zur höheren geistesbildung: a look at philosopher Amalia Holst, whose 1802 work is comparable to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman  

ferryman: an interesting look at legally-mandated river-crossings in Manchester  

the colour of money: a mesmerising video to accompany the Blake Mills song  

microcosmos: outstanding photographs of the world not visible to the naked eye  

charismatic megafauna: a biotech firm is raising funds to de-extinct the woolly mammoth—see previously

bpoty

Whilst everything has taken on a sense of urgency and imbalance, admittedly our avian neighbours usually seem to escape these awful Earthly bonds and bother even though our actions and omissions are pulling them in peril too. The overall winner for this year’s Bird Photography of the Year, “Blocked,” by Alejandro Prieto and featuring a Roadrunner (Correcaminos, Geococcyx californianus) and the US-México border indeed highlighted how the subject can limn the greater environmental and humanitarian crises we are failing to address. More outstanding feathered friends at the links above.

wiki commons

The media repository for public-domain and free-use images (see also), text, audio and video that illustrate and inform all projects across the enterprise was launched on this day in 2004, championed by journalist and software developer Erik Möller. Though originally primarily developed as a way to reduce file redundancy across the platform, it has become a reference source and common good for contributors and users alike, garnering many enthuasiasts and even a photo of the year competition. The version of the logo to the side is composed of a mosaic of images to mark the milestone in November of 2006 when the site acquired its one-millionth media file. Currently there are over seventy million.

6x6

this slaps: the Kiffness and friends (see previously) remixes the little melody of a harmonica playing rat—debuting here

à la recherché du temps perdu: wondering how Marcel Proust’s Instagram might look is a pathway into memory in the age of social media 

melts in your mouth: the long and cursed history of the sexy green M&M—via Things Magazine  

development hell: scores of unfinished films that we would watch  

sit a spell: a visual essay on the American porch 

latch-mediated spring actuation: scientists engineer a robot that packs the wallop of the powerful punch of the mantis shrimp