stratocaster

Originally conceptualised by an engineering student at Berlin Technical University and inspired by the Gibson Flying V line of guitars, Delft Polytechnic is working with Dutch airliner KLM to prototype a new two-pronged aircraft aimed to be the most fuel-efficient long haul plane out there. Visit Design Boom at the link above to learn more about sustainable aviation and some of the design features of the cabinet and propulsion system.

bolstering bridges

The twenty-six hundred residents of Giethoorn are seeing their relationship with the tens of thousands of tourists descending on the “Dutch Venice” (previously) every year growing a bit strained—appreciating the revenue the visitors bring but not necessarily the added traffic to this car-free town that is only navigable by foot and boat. Minor though frequent collisions with the residents’ private bridges that span the canals and connect the islands are sustaining enough damage that passage along these waterways criss-crossed by some forty-five of the traditional bridges is needing to be restricted so repairs can proceed and make conditions safer for villagers and punters alike.

palimpsest

The discovery of the new/old painting by Old Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer (previously) has unfolded in a very captivating way that makes sleuths and amateur art historians out of us all.
Early, unauthorised x-ray examinations of his Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (Brieflezend meisje bij het venster) among the trove of the then recently repatriated treasures of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresden—taken to the Soviet Union as spoils of war we returned to boost residents’ morale and curried the interest of Western scholars. The analysis revealed a Cupid (like these other famous putti who also reside in the Dresden galleries) walled over and painted out of the image, in what was assumed over the ensuing decades after the initial discovery was an example of regrettable pentimenti.
Recent re-examination conclusively determines that the over-painting was not done by Vermeer himself and approximately two centuries later, so conservators have chosen to restore (shown in progress with the unrestored version above) the artist’s original vision, confident that the visual vernacular of figure on the wall is in keeping with the artist’s style and contributes something to his overall message, interpreted as the girl hoping to expand her horizons outside of her domestic sphere.

winkelcentrummuziek

Found among the latest selection of curated links from Pasa Bon! we’re treated to a rather taxing forty minutes of instrumental of mall muzak (previously) from 1974.
Long playing records were distributed as the shopping soundtrack suitable for almost any retail environment—see if you can identify the commercial classics covered such as “Restroom Retreat.” The title is the Netherlandish word for the phenomenon of such background music—muzak having become proprietary eponym or genericised trademark, like Q-Tips and Scotch Tape—and the language, championed by Philips in the 1960s, has a related concept, fumu, from functional music—targeted performances orchestrated to boost sales. I don’t know how scientific the later were but the former does not really put me in the mood for shopping.

7x7

electronium: a classic electronic music sequencer from pioneer Raymond Scott is reinvented with an artificial intelligence software patch

sacred spaces: Thibaud Poirier photographs modern church interiors

the right to be forgotten: internet giant allows users to control if and for how long it retains one’s data

spoorzone: a self-sustaining bus station in Tilburg

b(7)b: a handy guide to the re-categorised information withholds of the latest version of the Mueller Report released to the public

h. p. loveshack: ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

hic sunt dracones: an interactive map of legends from English Heritage—via Maps Mania  

bekende deense meubelontwerper

I’ve always thought that this fabric wall hanging that came with my furnished workweek apartment was pretty keen and hoped that I might be able to arrange to have it move out with me, when that day comes, but didn’t realise until just recently that it is a piece of Danish graphic designer and interior decorator Verner Panton’s Mira-X Collection.
A student of the psychology and working in the studio of architect Arne Jacobsen, Panton (*1928 – †1998) is probably best known for his line of furniture, including his signature moon lamps and chair still licensed and in production by the company Vitra and for incredibly psychedelic office spaces like the cantina for Spiegel magazine headquarters in Hamburg, executed in the same style as this indoor swimming pool shown at the link.

basicode

Previously we’ve explored how computer games and software applications were in the early 1980s broadcast over the airwaves for recording and executing with Bristol’s Radio West’s Datarama, and now thanks to Amusing Planet we learn that there was a parallel effort underway in the Netherlands with the state public service radio NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting) transmitting code as well. Hobbyscoop was one popular programme for early computer enthusiasts and while the first few episodes were for specific models of computers, the Apple-2 or the Exidy Sorcerer, the producers had the idea to make the content offered more universal by standardising the format, broadcasting BASIC language programmes and installing each computer with a translation programme to interpret the ASCII representation into its native machine language. Radio stations across Europe were quick to start doing the same. Much more to explore at the links above.

executive function

Whereas most research studies have operated under the assumption that by examining the WEIRDs (that is—Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) we are looking at representatives of humanity as a whole, the cognitive flexibilities demonstrated by populations subject to less stable environments where repetition and conservative behaviour are less tenable are causing ethnographers and psychologists to confront their institutional biases.
Secure in our routines, we adopt one cognitive set, informed by past success and a predictable present context, instead of being receptive to set-shifting, since there’s little sense or economy in reinventing the wheel and expending the mental energies needed for that task, but people like the semi-nomadic Himba of Namibia are rewarded for their mental limberness and willingness to pursue new and novel strategies.

the ballad of john and yoko

A week after Linda Louise Eastman (*1941 – †1998) married Paul McCartney, John Lennon (*1940 - †1980) and Yoko Ono had their wedding service in Gibraltar on this day in 1969, traveling to Amsterdam five days later for their honeymoon.
Knowing that their marriage would be a big press event, the couple decided—at the height of the Vietnam War—to put the media attention to good use and staged the first of their weeklong Bed-Ins for Peace. An international contingent of journalists were invited into their bedroom in the presidential suite of the Hilton Hotel daily from nine o’clock in the morning until nine o’clock at night. Afterwards they dashed off to Vienna, sending acorns to heads of state around the world in hopes that they would plant them and rear oaks as symbols of peace.

zwarte beertjes

Browsing the archives of Present /&/ Correct—always an advisable pastime—Coudal Partners’ Fresh Links has us cottoning onto the fantastic book cover art work of illustrator and author Dick Bruna (*1927 – †2017). Best known for his beloved character Miffy (Nijntje in the original Dutch), Bruna amassed an impressive catalogue of children’s stories and other commissions—despite being told early on that he had no talent as a painter. Peruse a gallery of dozens of posters, greeting cards and book covers at the link up top.

houtblazer

Via the always outstanding Everlasting Blört, we are regaled with a musical performance from medievalist and musician Jim Spalink on lute, harp and hurdy-gurdy playing the composition branded onto the buttocks of one the unfortunate, tortured souls condemned to the infernal flames of Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych (previously) The Garden of Earthly Delights. Spalink had to clean up the notation a bit and got a bit imaginative with the introduction and the end, employing appropriately what’s known as the devil’s interval, a dissonant triton that traditional rules of composition referred to as diabolus in musica, a modality to be eschewed and avoided. Another example of this sort of forbidden chord is in Jimi Hendrix’ opening to Purple Haze.

7x7

la pittrice: the outstanding life and career of female Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola

sentoculture: artist and drafter Honami Enya creates cross-sections of Japanese communal bathhouses

blockhead: good old Howie Schultz explores running as a third party candidate

all the rembrants: Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum displays all the works in its accession (previously) by the Old Master

sent from my iphone: Apple curates some superlative photographs taken by telephone

newlyweds: exploring the kitsch and social conventions of the mid-century honeymoon resorts of the Niagara Falls

muse and museum: the enigmatic subject of some two-hundred fifty Andrew Wyeth paintings he’d kept secret from everyone 

life electric

First isolated in a riverbed in 1987 and quickly recognised for the potential as an agent of bioremediation for their affinity for heavy metals that are otherwise toxic to microbes (see also), geobacter excrete electrons as by-products of their metabolism. In collaboration with the University of Ghent, Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen has created—as a demonstration project—lamps (though the frame of the piece is more reminiscent of the body of a virus rather multiplying proteobacteria) powered by this singular bacterial discharge, quartering a colony in a battery where it can thrive—recharged on a weekly basis with a drink of tap water cut with vinegar.

vilshult

Having a couple IKEA masterpieces at home and at work ourselves—though not this particular one—but being somehow informed or inspired to frame and shoot a similar scene, we were also intrigued about the story behind this ubiquitous (but joyfully so) poster of a canal in Amsterdam, courtesy friend of the blog Nag on the Lake. Do watch the short investigative documentary by Tom Roes, one of the nearly half a million owners of this picture, and learn what he discovered. You’ll be happy you took the time and won’t be able to glance over or dismiss it as something derivative or commercial again.

inflorescence

Via Fast Company, we learn that in response to the shocking, precipitous drop in flying insect populations and the consequence that has moving up the food-chain, designer Matilde Boelhouwer—with the consultation of entomologists—has created and installed oases for urban dwelling pollinators who might otherwise find themselves in a food desert.
Rather than copying Nature with her artificial flowers, Boelhouwer has instead studied the ways that butterflies, moths, honey bees and bumblebees feed and created a composite morphology that maximises attractiveness and access. The stations are even self-sustaining, replenishing the food supply with a catchment for rain water and operating through capillary action. It’s hard to say what the long term outcomes of such interventions might be but surely this act of kindness for the small and similar efforts are a step in the right direction to rehabilitate our stewardship of the planet.

omkoopschandaal

Contributing writer for Muckrock Emma Best reports on a recently declassified State Department cable from the US ambassador to the Netherlands to Henry Kissinger warning off the Church Committee’s widespread 1975 investigation into intelligence abuses and strongly admonishing to keep findings out of public purview.
Documents obtained talk around the potential scandal but research indicates that the conclusions might present corroborating evidence for the kick-back scheme that royal consort Prince Bernhard was implicated in. Although his highness stated to reporters’ questions when the story broke two years later, “I am above such things,” he nonetheless stepped down as head of the country’s armed forces over the allegations. According to the communique issued at the time, whatever the controversy, the interlocutors believed it would have repercussions serious enough to destabilise NATO and possibly transform the government of the Netherlands, intimating the royal couple might abdicate in disgrace. Though I really hope that the annual, mysterious gathering is about something more esoteric than grift and pay-offs, that Prince Bernhard is the same figure who in 1954 held the first conference at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, establishing an annual trans-Atlantic meeting meant to foster cooperation on political, economic and academic issues between Europe and the US. Learn more at the link up top.

old dutch master

Plain Magazine directs our attention to the impressive portfolio of Dutch artist Suzanne Jongmans whose project Mind over Matter materialised over a fortunate shortage in costuming and a bit of improvisation.

Crafting elaborate cauls, collars and headwear out of packing supplies and protective sheaves, Jongmanns poses her subjects in the style of seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish portraiture, perfectly framing the tradition of taking tronies (Dutch for face)—as articulated by painters like Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer and Pieter Brueghel the Elder who strove to capture human visage at its most expressive. The pictured model with a recycled wimple is a faithful homage to Rogier van der Weyden’s 1460 Portret van enn dame.

compositie 10.

The Wiesbaden Museum (previously) is hosting a special retrospective exhibit of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (*1872 - †1944) and I had the chance to inspect the galleries and got to monitor the pioneering modern artist’s progression to an increasingly abstract style, reaching a point where his visual vocabulary was resolved to a grid and geometric colours.
Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.  Like the roughly contemporary Suprematism movement, De Stijl that Mondrian co-founded with Theo van Doesburg became something that transcended representation and was incredibly influential—synonymous with modernism itself—affecting the ideal in architecture and fashion as well as in the art world. It was pretty captivating to see his earliest, formative studies of trees and windmills.

nightwatching

Thanks to this comprehensive primer via Nag on the Lake, we can better appreciate news of this planned restoration of the monumental masterpiece by Rembrandt van Rijn that will take place on display to the world.
One of the most prominent piece in the collection (previously) of the Rijksmuseum, the 1642 commission by company commander Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, dashingly dressed in black with the red sash and depicted at nearly life-sized scales, is a group portrait of his shooting militia guards. According to the museum’s general director, Taco Dibbits, the project—the embodiment of slow television, will take place over several years and involve hundreds of experts from the art world—already captivating the public before it even begins next July. Learn much about the painting’s symbolism, cultural legacy and conservation at the resources above.

the kessler syndrome

The night skies of the Dutch town of Almere, as Dezeen reports, are host to a project from designer Daan Roosegaarde, known for his massive installations that combine technology and art in urban environments, that track and visualise in real time the nearly thirty-thousand registered pieces of orbiting space debris that envelops the Earth with neon green laser lights, evoking the juxtaposing nostalgia for monochrome monitors and radar traces with the other-worldly and alien.
Perhaps it strikes some that fretting over space junk is an indulgent luxury but as the artist reflects, these sizable objects are a threat to keeping the channels of communication open as well as advances in exploration itself—the title referring to the nightmare situation of collisional cascading where the low Earth orbit becomes so over-crowded with waste that safe space travel becomes untenable for generations and we lose our motivation to explore. The abstract threat, a feeling shared among stargazers surely, becomes immediate and encourages the audience to think about solutions and ways to upcycle the detritus of past missions. Learn more at the links up top.