north tower

Hoping to gather some stock footage of a placid skyline to illustrate the juxtaposition between expectations and apprehensions surrounding the hysterical build-up and climax to the Millennial Computer Bug and the quieter, calmer realities of the real world, Stuttgarter artist Wolfgang Staehle, an early adopter of technology in creating art, set up a webcam in New York City on 11 September 2001 and inadvertently captured the first plane’s impact into the World Trade Center and the subsequent collapse.
Because of the state of web-cameras seventeen years ago, the images are granular and advance in spans of four seconds. Though not the first time that the unique recording has been shown in remembrance and commemoration, on this anniversary the Brooklyn Historical Society will be projecting the film onto a custom screen and have synchronised the video so it plays out in precise real time. It is hoped that visitors to the screening will be able to incorporate this digital witness to terror in a resilient and circumspect way that recalls how the virtual world can both inform and contradict the real one.

well fiddle!

Our faithful chronicler, Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet, reminds that among many other things that occurred on this day, a quarter of a century hence saw the pilot of The X-Files, whose reboot didn’t seem to fare so well in a post-truth world, aired. Thirty eight years before that, CBS broadcast the first episode of Gunsmoke (imagine that mash-up), which ran until 1975, making it the longest running scripted television series of continuing characters in American primetime television until that honour was taken by The Simpsons just in April of this year.

cross-winds

Winner of the UK James Dyson Award, which recognises excellence in innovative designs and engineering, the O-Wind (o for omnidirectional) Turbine captures any random breeze or gale from all vectors and could prove especially revolutionary in dense urban environments where traditional windmills could not go.  Small enough to be used by individual apartment dwellers dangling them outside on their balconies, the prototype taps into a power source that previously went unharvested. See a video demonstration and learn more about the awards competition at Dezeen at the link above.

calving

According to Slashdot, Dubai is exploring the possibility of towing an Antarctic iceberg to the rapidly expanding desert megacity to supply its populace with fresh water. What do you think about that?
I don’t know what the environmental consequences are to nibbling at the margins of the last apolitical refuges of the Earth but it doesn’t strike as a particularly good, far-sighted idea. An engineering firm is in the process of selecting an appropriate candidate—somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million tonnes—and is working out the logistics, though it’s unclear about the finer points of storage or sale to the government.

the truth is out there

Rather than the usual under construction signs begging off any inconvenience caused, the authorities at Denver International are instead embracing the lore that’s been built up since its opening in 1995 while major renovations are undertaken at the airport’s Jeppesen Terminal.
Conspiracy theories abound and the airport expressed a willingness to parody itself, including its apocalyptic murals, “Templar” marking, coded Masonic words printed on the carpet (which are questionable transliterations of Navajo topographical terms), and a purported network of subterranean passageways that connect world leaders with aliens lodged at the relatively nearby military installation colloquially known as Area 51. See more of the publicity boards at the link above.

isobar

Thanks to a tip from the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we’re treated to a fun and hopefully expanding project made by Tim Holman and Claudio Guglieri. Called the Pattern Library, one is invited to scroll through bolts of repeating geometries of tiles, meanders, waves, tiles, rotations and reflections with more information about the designers of each motif available as well as the option to download the wallpaper as a template. Give it a spin yourself to appreciate the variety of designs.

ausländische militärstandorte

Though less than a tenth of US troop presence remains from levels around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and stationing the American military has been fraught for both host and sending nations at times, the army’s announcement to add fifteen hundred troops to the roughly thirty thousand currently in Germany is a far more welcome alternative to what the Commander-in-Chief’s druthers—threatening to remove all troops from Germany if the country failed to pay its membership dues. America’s footprint got significant smaller in Europe in 2012 with the closure of several outposts and the announced re-basing of the headquarters in Heidelberg but this announcement, which will deploy soldiers to Ansbach, Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels and Baumholder in 2020 may signal a re-strengthening of a presence and partnership that is welcome by many.

paradise gardens

Messy Nessy Chic correspondent Francky Knapp delivers a nice retrospective look at eccentric Baptist minister Howard Finster (*1916 - †2001) called to spread the gospel through Paradise Gardens, open air church office, home and studio in Summerville, Georgia in the southern US, peopled with nearly fifty thousand pieces of outsider, naïve and visionary art—genres which overlapped in Finster’s repertoire but he was largely responsible for gaining their purchase in in popular culture.
In the mid-1970s, Finster’s sculpture garden began receiving national attention and was commissioned to execute four painting for the Library of Congress, acting on divine orders to create sacred art, the subjects being as diverse and iconic as aliens, UFOs, Ronald Reagan, Elvis Presley, etc. In 1983, the band REM filmed their music video for “Radio Free Europe” on the grounds of Paradise Gardens and two years later, Talking Heads commissioned cover art (pictured) from Finster for their album Little Creatures (“And She Was,” “Road to Nowhere”).
Notwithstanding Finster’s success in introducing millions to his style and inspiring the likes of fellow artists Keith Haring and Purvis Young, he remained committed to this mission of religious outreach, saying he’d managed to sneak in twenty-six verses of scripture into that cover and to think of the millions it’s reached. Learn more and see a whole gallery of Finster’s works at the links up top.