Wednesday 16 March 2022
Monday 14 March 2022
7x7
be kind, rewind: the miniature dioramas of Marina Totino—via Waxy
doobly doo: recreating a Hallstatt period hair-style
wck: more on Josรฉ Andrรฉs’ World Central Kitchen (previously) and its work in Ukraineit is better to conquer our grief than to deceive it: solace from the Stoics and other timeless words of wisdom—via Messy Nessy Chic
blogoversary: Kottke turns twenty-four
the wife of ฯ: a Pi Day (previously) round-up—plus this one
family pictures: artist Martha Naranjo Sandoval reanimates antique stereoscopic photos
Sunday 13 March 2022
6x6
choose your own adventure: the character-driven photography of Grzegorz Kurzejamski invites the viewer to create a narrative for them
warp and werf: the Scottish Register of Tartans welcomes a new Ukrainian pattern
(oh what a night): reaching number one on American charts on this day in 1976, the Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons hit was originally called “Fifth December 1933” and about the end of Prohibition
cat naps: Hosei University researches what humans can glean from feline sleep patterns
toad town: an exhaustive collection of level maps from many video game franchises—via Things Magazine
photovoltaics: the photographic portfolio of Catherine Canac-Marquis
Saturday 12 March 2022
7x7
w / n / p / a/: the beauty and brutality of the natural world—via Web Curios
fly around: a happy tune from Bill Wurtz—via Waxy
skramm-ellegepladser: what Scandi culture can teach the world about fun and playfulnesstheatrum orbis terrarum: the first modern world atlas, created and published in Antwerp in 1571 by Abraham Ortelius
llรชn gwerin: illustrated Welsh cats from 1910
grand tour: visit the great cities of Europe all within the confines of Ohio—see also
best in show: a selection of the superlative entries for the 2022 Sony World Photography Awards—some are quite accidentally like a Renaissance painting
Friday 11 March 2022
portrait studio
We quite enjoyed learning about early colour film process and the society photographer and activist of 1930s London styled as Madame Yevonde who not only costumed and captured aristocratic women, actresses and dignitaries in ways that brought out their glamour and style, her commission often appeared in magazines of the day. Having pioneered colour photos (see also) and helped to legitimatise the format that was held in lower esteem over black-and-white and associated with the novelty and sentiment of hand-tinting, Madame Yevonde’s career-trajectory was radically altered with the war which saw the only laboratory developing colour prints shut down and repurposed, working with only monochrome film for the rest of her professional years. See a whole gallery of her works at Messy Nessy Chic at the link up top.
Thursday 10 March 2022
7x7
stacy’s dad has got me down bad: a Fountains of Wayne cover from a different perspective
imperial trans-antarctic expedition: the shipwreck of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 exploratory mission discovered
beachcomber: eighteenth-century seaweed pressings speak to fecklessness and romanceithaca: an new AI model is helping scholars decipher and date ancient inscriptions
x-wing: Star Wars space craft size comparison
snowmen: David Lynch’s haunting images—evocative of Eraserhead from Boise, Idaho in the early ‘90s
there’s a doll, inside of doll, inside a doll, inside a dolly: Robbie Williams’ 2016 Party Like a Russian was inspired by an encounter with the inner-circle of oligarchs when asked to perform at a New Year’s Eve party
Friday 4 March 2022
for what it’s worth
Via Kottke we are directed to a highly compelling project from Dillon Marsh that visualises mines in South Africa with a scale model representing the specie, minerals or gemstones extracted from it—like in this composite photograph of the Jubilee Mine in the Namakwa District and the sixty-five-hundred tonnes of copper ore dug from the Earth. Gains seem particularly marginal, inefficient and pathetic in comparison to all the hardships in cost of human toil and exploitation and environmental damage. More at the links above.
Thursday 3 March 2022
8x8
wild chapluns and pea beasts: the vibrant art of Maria Prymachenko, via Kottke
ill-gotten assets: those who are tracking the jets, yachts and other property of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, via Maps Mania (with more resources)
subway hands: a collection by Hannah La Follette Ryan—via Everlasting Blรถrt
blades & brass: a 1967 short to commemorate the first indoor hockey match, held on this day in 1875
nostromo: a sixty-second Alien remake using household items (see also)
try to keep up: five news take-aways for today
megamix: Hood Internet (previously) celebrates entering the Naughts with a 90s retrospective, via Boing Boing
world central kitchen: chef and humanitarian Josรฉ Andrรฉs helps out in Ukraine, via Super Punch
Friday 18 February 2022
long-exposure
Via the Awesomer, we are enjoying this new gallery of time-slice composite photographs from artist Fong Qi Wei (see previously) whose montage represents a sliver of night and day passing in a single, heightenedly static image. Click through for more of his work. This is a technique that I would like to try to replicate.
Saturday 12 February 2022
incoming photons
Though instruments are still in the process of cooling down to their optimal operating temperature just above absolute zero and the resultant first blurry image of a star is unresolved and bounced through an array of eighteen telescopes instead of lensed as one, the research team behind the James Webb Space Telescope (previously) were understandably over the Moon to learn that the craft had successfully navigating in position and will be up and running on schedule. Even though the mirrors are not yet aligned, the resulting multiple-exposure did utilise the full capabilities of the imaging hardware, capturing four-four gigabytes of raw data to form a two billion pixel picture.
Saturday 5 February 2022
8x8
eye-in-the-sky: a collection of superlative drone photography
gravitational lensing: tentatively, astronomers find evidence of the first rogue, marauding black hole over a backdrop of nebular clouds
wheel of fortune: Wordle but with common quotations and idioms—via Memo of the Air
para||el: a short film about divergent realities by Mรฉnilmonde
building & loan: more on the economics of gift-cards—see also
staying toasty: bread hats and loafers, see also
three little words: what3words (see previously) solves some problems for vehicle guidance and navigation, causes others—via Duck Soup
to open every kind of lock: burglars’ spells and incantations
scotus: a former law clerk writes the Wikipedia articles on Biden’s prospective nominees to the US Supreme Court in order to insert doubt and skepticism, via Super Punch
bird’s eye view: a parrot in New Zealand pilfers a family’s Go-Pro and films some nice scenery
Wednesday 2 February 2022
artificial scarcity
Via Hyperalleric, we have another update from Molly White on how great Web 3.0 is going (previously) with this dispatch from a New Zealand auction house that sold material contact prints and plate glass negatives from photographer and portrait artist Charles Fredrick Goldie—whose work is problematic, considered reductive and promoting the contemporary thinking that the Mฤori were on the verge of extinction as a culture and colonial paternalism though also a snapshot of heritage that might be otherwise lost to time—bundled with their NTF, which fetched much higher prices than they could otherwise garner, complete with a small mallet—inviting the winning bidder to smash the plate and render the lot digital only—see also. The sales were of a self-portrait of the artist at his easel and not of historic aboriginal elders so this provocation is not such an afford to museums and the art world, though one suspects that bidding was driven by investment and looking for a place to park one’s money rather than an appreciation for art or the subject matter.
Sunday 23 January 2022
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.
Thursday 20 January 2022
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.
Sunday 16 January 2022
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.
Saturday 15 January 2022
6x6
secret lairs: a tour of Modernist homes that upstage other performers as the starring-role
๐ ๐ ฐ️ ◀️ ๐: Buddhist scriptures and sลซtras for those who cannot readcarpenters 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
Monday 27 December 2021
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 Puncha 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
Sunday 26 December 2021
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.
Saturday 11 December 2021
obturador
The twelfth century Visigoth cathedral of Palencia, dedicated to San Antolรญn 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 Jerรณnimo 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 Rodrรญquez 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.
catagories: ๐ช๐ธ, ๐จ, ๐ฌ, ๐ท, architecture
Saturday 4 December 2021
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