Saturday, 13 March 2021
dewdrop
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
Friday, 12 March 2021
yes, this is dog
catagories: ๐ฅ
isogloss
Via Language Hat, we are referred to a cartographic website called mapologies that specialise in linguistic, dialectical demarcation (see also here and here), like the Apfel-Appel line. It was not only engrossing to see the shifting sentiment, etymologies and root languages (like this toasting map of Europe) but also the distribution of use for a certain item or animal, like the multiple Spanish words for popcorn across the language’s Sprachraum, as attested by the saying “No two popcorns are called the same,” unsurprising as maize is native to the Americas but nonetheless the variety is striking.
ordinance survey
Similar to the application that allows one to listen to Wikipedia being edited, amended and improved in real time, the always excellent Maps Mania introduces us to the chimes and tintinnabulation of OpenStreetMap. As with the former whose collaborative success inspired the latter, because of all the contributors globally, the update process plays a continual and emergent tune. Learn more at the links above.
the anathema of zos
Among the youngest artists to exhibit at the Royal Academy and securing an art scholarship and associated with occult figures like Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare (*1886 – †1956) is virtually unknown despite his contemporary presence—possibly for his departure from other esoterics by turning inward to uncover hidden knowledge by engaging his atavistic subconscious psyche. Accessing his portfolio full of Art Nouveau grotesques and echoing the style of artwork of Aubrey Beardsley through his self-published grimoire Earth Inferno, inspired by Dante’s epic trilogy. Eventually accusing other magicians as only concerned with self-aggrandisement and harshly critical of Nazism’s flirtation with the occult, Spare’s subsequent works articulated the process of automatic writing and mediumistic sketching, a method to produce the sigils that summon spirits, and analysing the output. Modified by later adherents and evangelisers, Spare’s techiques and theories were transferred to a movement broadly called chaos magick. More to explore at the link up top with the content warning that some of the imagery verges on the sexually domineering and violent.
selective-service or solider of christ
portrait of the artist as a young woman
