We quite enjoyed reflecting on this survey of the allure of modern medievalism for commercial clients and image-makers through the lens of the portfolio of commissions of Riga-based graphic designer Robert Rurans, who in turn takes his inspiration from source materials like fourteenth century catechisms, almanacs, herbals and alchemical guides. Clientele include fashion house Hermรฉs, Coca-Cola and numerous jobs for the New York Times, who’ve twice nominated Rurans for illustrator of the year. Much more at It’s Nice That at the link up top.
Saturday 30 April 2022
soft construction with boiled beans
Try feeding the title (one of surrealist Salvador Dalรญ’s paintings, with the parenthetical premonition of civil war) into Latent Diffusion at the link above and see what you get. Results will vary.
Friday 29 April 2022
pangaea
Via Hyperallergic, we are referred to a nifty tool that lets one explore the geography and lifeforms that would have informed one’s hometown over the รฆons. Developed by engineer and palaeontologist Ian Webster, Ancient Earth ploughs through millions of years of tectonic shifts and rising and receding oceans with insights about fossils found nearby at the time and events defined the particular age and epoch. Despite the until recently relative inhospitability above the waves, one is always hoping that one’s home stays above water—especially in our current Anthropocene. Much more at the link above.
otherworldly
Perfectly embodying the above phrase, the Martian helicopter Ingenuity on a recent survey flight found and documented the wreckage of the landing gear, parachute and buffering shell of the rover Perseverance. Click to enlarge plus more at the link above. The photographs and telemetry will inform future missions on how to best protect payloads and optimise equipment.
Thursday 28 April 2022
7x7
elizabeth tower: a tour inside of Big Ben—see previously
the nine octave harp of the universe: outside scientist Walter Russell—for whom Nikola Telsa said the world was unprepared
weblog: a nodal map of some of the blogosphere—via Things Magazinequilting bee: everyday signage as fabric mosaics by Jeffrey Sincich
the panic office: fantasy arcade game casings
๐ฃ: a gallery of of beautiful 1920s Japanese postcards
dangerous intersection: decades of traffic collisions and other corner happenings captured by a young photographer (see also)
hollywood on the tiber
Dedicated on this day in 1937 by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the sprawling studio complex in Rome, Cinecittร , was built in accordance with the motto ”il cinema รจ l‘arma piรน forte“—that is, movies are the most powerful weapons. Their aims however were not exclusively for propaganda with the primary goal of reviving the country‘s flagging film industry, which had virtually collapsed in the early 1930s. Subject to bombardment during World War II and post-war was host to an encampment for displaced persons. Rebuilt in the early 1950s, the studio site garnered the titular nickname with over three-thousand productions, including Roman Holiday, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, The Agony and the Ecstasy plus numerous films by Franco Zeffirelli and Federico Fellini. More recently the the studios were the set of the BBC/HBO co-production Rome and The Young Pope, a full-scale mock-up of St Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel on site, just a few kilometres away from the actual location.
Wednesday 27 April 2022
flagging interest
Most posts here can be filed under miscellany but we have spent some curating labels and last year starting transitioning to using emoji but am feeling more than a little bit equivocal about having chosen to use national and constituent flags as tags, and via Shady Characters (previously) we learn that the governing body of Unicode will no longer be entertaining proposals for new flags—as those states with region codes are added automatically according to the canonical authority ISO 3166. Already fraught with politics and foreign relations, sub-divisions (exceptions not withstanding) will not be granted an officially sanctioned emoji—with the same restrictions applied to historic flags and movements, since it is impossible to please all sides and it’s not always obvious if the least worst choice was made. Some platforms (see also) and operating systems have always eschewed this controversy by using a pair of letters or a featureless flag (๐ด).
pronkssรตdur
After talks of relocation triggered controversy and violent rioting referred to as Bronze Night (Pronksiรถรถ), municipal authorities in Tallinn dismantled and moved a Soviet-era war memorial called the Bronze Soldier built at the site of war graves on this day in 2007. Originally dedicated to the “Liberators of Estonia” it was renamed as the “Monument to the Fallen,” and while seen as a symbol of Soviet occupation and suppression after World War II by many, Russian populations, intensely protesting the decision and crippling the country with cyber-attacks, viewed the statue, prominently in the city centre, as not only representative of victory over the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War but also legimitising their claim to Estonia—set to re-establish their independence after Germany’s retreat. The statue and remains of the dead were placed, re-interred in the national military cemetery outside of Tallinn. One direct outcome of the riots and targeting of Estonian essential infrastructure was the creation of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, located in the capital.