coming attractions

In 1999, two friends uncovered a treasure trove in a Nebraska antiques shop of over sixty thousand letterpress blocks used to advertise films in newspapers. Their two thousand dollar investment which covers nearly the entire history of motion pictures (from the silent-era up until 1984) has been appraised at ten million. At the link above, there is a short documentary that showcases a part of the vast collection.

ostalgie

Calvert Journal introduces us to the photographic talents of Karol Palka who has carefully curated several living museums that embody the vanishing sheen of Communist-era interiors of his native Poland and former Soviet satellite neighbours. Take a tour of these ambitious and aspirational settings that are certainly worth preserving at the links above.

free association

Software engineer Alex Mordvintsev, contributor to the neural framework behind DeepDream, has collaborated with his invention to create a rather beautiful (machine learning’s aesthetic can sometimes be slightly off-putting and nightmarish) and mesmerizing series of swirling vortices that pulls one into a zooming tour through Western art history. With the canon of this particular tradition at their disposal, the computer and Mordvintsev (I wonder how fair or honest it is to call the programme a tool and the user, the medium the virtuoso) were able to match colour, resolution and brushstrokes seamlessly to make a nearly perfect transition from one iconic painting to another embedded within.