[Okay, but at least the best one I've seen all day.]
by The Rut
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Moritz Wolpert
Moritz Wolpert is the Berlin-based artist responsible for the Steampunk modular synth a few posts down. See him perform with another of his musical inventions, the Heckeshorn:
A Tale of Two Spreads
Very nice animated infographic film about butter:
Butter & Marge: A Tale of Two Spreads from Outside Line on Vimeo.
[via Information Aesthetics]
Doing it Right: Big Dig House by Single Speed Design
From ArchDaily:
As a prototype building that demonstrates how infrastructural refuse can be salvaged and reused, the structural system for this 3,400sf house is comprised of steel and concrete discarded from Boston’s Big Dig utilizing over 600,000 lbs of salvaged materials from elevated portions of the now dismantled I-93 highway. Planning the reassembly of the materials in a similar way one would systematically compose with a pre-fab system, subtle spatial arrangements are created from the large-scale highway components.
These same components however are capable of carrying much higher loads than standard building materials, thus easily allowing the integration of large scale planted roof gardens. Most importantly, the project demonstrates an untapped potential for the public realm: with strategic front-end planning, much needed community programs including schools, libraries, and housing could be constructed whenever infrastructure is deconstructed, saving valuable resources, embodied energy, and taxpayer dollars.
Single Speed Design
The Tower of Light
The Tower of Light is a new darkwave project ["bootgazer" as we like to call it around here] from Danny Scales [The Reflecting Skin] and Scott Stimac.
A thousand foot tall steamroller of sound, intricately decorated in shimmering crystalline fragments of dreams half-remembered... I'm predicting a huge resurgence in impossibly slow and low dance moves.
Even more crazy maker action: Radial-Engined Goggomobil
From Jalopnik:
The Russian-built, 10220cc Vedeneyev M14P radial engine was originally commissioned in the 1930's for airplanes and over the years power rose from 360 HP to a stout 460 HP when electronic injection was added. The Goggomobil was a German-built micro-car, like many ulta-compacts which sprouted up during the post-war era. Its most powerful iteration produced all of 20 HP. The two were never intended to go together, but a German mad man named Uwe Wulf has married radial monster to microcar for what is easily one of the most technically impressive and plain old-fashioned spectacular small car/big engine transplants we've ever seen.
The process began with a fully stripped-down and heavily reinforced Goggomobil, to which the 9-cylinder radial producing 360 HP and 666 lb-ft of torque was lowered and installed just behind where the front seats go. The controls, fuel system, air pressure ignition system, rear differential and fully independent suspension was then installed or fabricated and the body lowered onto the creation. This is the point where this project deviates from most. You don't exactly hit the parts catalog and order transmission to fit an M14P, and neither did Uwe. He built his own. From scratch.
Watching him fabricate the parts for the custom built two speed transmission, assemble the whole thing meticulously and then afterward take it for a test drive makes us question how much one person is capable of. This is brilliance and insanity on a much higher level than we've seen in a very long time, perhaps ever. Rarely does something deserve the term, but we think "epic" applies here. Our hats are off to you sir, for putting us mortals in our places.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Stunning Steampunk Modular Synthesizer
I literally forgot how to breathe for a few minutes upon seeing this apparition.
This glorious machine more than makes up for all the lame, half-assed hot-glued gears on belt buckles that have been giving Steampunk a bad name for far too long.
Info at Matrixsynth
From Google Translator - from German, of course:
Christian Günther, of the electronics we have is after about two years to build the "Schaltzentale built with the Hecke horn with the help of a sequencer, which still has more features (ring modulator, control voltage, and a complex rhythm Center) remote is. Klingt tierisch gut die Kiste. Sounds good tierisch the box. Die Grund Idee sowie das Gehäuse stammen von mir. The basic idea and the housing come from me. Alle Teile wie die Knöpfe + Griffe wurden an der Drehbank von Hand gefertigt. All parts such as buttons + handles were on the lathe by hand. Gleiches gilt für die Front Platte. The same goes for the front panel. Sie wurde von Hand beschriftet, verziert und geätzt. It was hand-lettered, decorated and etched. die Rückwand ziert eine Qualle die einer Opium Pfeife entschwebt. the back to grace a jellyfish to an opium pipe entschwebt. Die Verschalung habe ich aus einer sehr alten Birnbaum Bohle geschnitten + verleimt. The boarding, I have a very old pear tree Bohle geschnitten + glued. Der Voltmeter, und die Klingel (08.01.1901) sind Antiquitäten. The voltmeter, and the bell (08.01.1901) are antiques. Es gibt auch Bilder, die man sich auf meiner my space Seite ansehen kann. There are also pictures that are on my my space page can see. Und wer Lust hat kann sie auch live gemeinsam mit dem Equipment von CG erleben. And who wants it can also live together with the equipment of CG experience...
[Big thanks to Christopher Bissonnette!]
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bad idea of the day
If one considers kilobytes, megabytes, etc. to be metric units, wouldn't it be fun if there were an imperial measurement system for binary data too?
Possible example of imperial data unit: number of hairs in Steve Wozniak's beard = 1 Wozbeard.
Use: "I got a 500 Wb external drive."
Monday, June 22, 2009
Morphopedia
Morphopedia is a dynamic and increasingly comprehensive resource for projects, news and information about iconoclastic LA architecture firm Morphosis. Not revolutionary, but the approach is a refreshing departure form the Flash-heavy [read: over-designed, hard to update & slow loading] architecture sites so popular a decade ago.
Monday, June 15, 2009
From the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines
From the spectacularly Atompunk Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines: the analog torpedo game Morskoi Boi lovingly recreated online.
More about the game and museum from Russia! magazine
Secret factories, anonymous engineers and military training methods – these are the scattered origins of what became Morskoi Boi, the torpedo-launching simulator that introduced Soviet children to the world of coin-operated entertainment.
Produced in same facilities as the nuclear submarines it sought to imitate, Boi was the first in a long line of government-produced arcade titles beginning in the late 1970s. And while it may not have matched up to the early Atari consoles in terms of bells and whistles, the game’s funky design and addictive gameplay make it an iconic emissary from the parallel universe of Soviet arcade culture.
The gameplay actually leaves much to be desired, but it's visually stunning.
Techno archeology recovers high resolution moon photos
["Techno archeology"? Really? Sweet!]
Abandoned McDonald's Serves Restored NASA Moon Pictures
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Wirepunk
Stunning advert for the Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat:
"An epic story in black and white, the story about what the world would have looked like in the '30s if the world wide web and newspaper had co-existed.
"Not the Internet as we know it today, but a web constructed out of huge mechanical devices, wires, cogs and man powered machines."
No Fat Clips via William Gibson
Friday, June 12, 2009
Alice + Mary Refresh
"The music video for my song 'Alice', an electronic piece of which 90% is composed using sounds recorded from the Disney film 'Alice In Wonderland'." - Pogo
Pogo, an artist from Perth, Australia, has created a few really wondrous mixes that borrow from the world of Disney. We're frankly surprised these videos have lasted on YouTube, so watch quickly before ol' Walt and his media-goons raise a hand to them.
Here's another of the same ilk, this time borrowing from Mary Poppins.
Tracks here.
[Thanks to Jim for this find.]
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Bless the French for being so awesomely weird.
BIRDY NAM NAM - THE PARACHUTE ENDING Clip Officiel
Uploaded by Has_Been - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.
More Birdy Nam Nam + Vitalic news at Red Threat.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Telefon Tel Aviv live
Below are a few video clips of Telefon Tel Aviv's stunning performance at the Ghostly International 10 Year Anniversary in Detroit a couple weeks back.
I actually shot 13 continuous minutes and cut it into bite-sized highlights to meet Flickr's 90 second limit. "Long photos", as they are called, are almost like video Tweets - just enough to get an idea or feeling across. I'm getting hooked on the format - in no small part due to Flickr's continually outstanding user interface.
I Made a Tree On the Wold
The Birds
Helen of Troy
TTA is currently on tour in Europe
Jun 10 - Usine/PTR, Geneva
Jun 11 - The Roxy, Prague
Jun 12 - EXIT07, Luxembourg
Jun 13 - Maximal Electronic Festival, Milan
Jun 14 - TBA, Pisa
Jun 15 - Hoxton Bar, London
Jun 16 - Suoni Universitari, Rovereto
Jun 17 - Circolo degli Artisti, Roma
Jun 19 - Direct Digital Festival @ Vibra, Modena
Jun 20 - Nitsa, Barcelona
Jun 21 - TBA, Madrid
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Finish this bad zoology joke, please
"A Magnapinna, a Portuguese Man o' War & a badger walk into a bar. The Magnapinna elbows up to the bar, the Man o' War can't come to a collective decision, & the badger picks a fight with Steve Wozniak..."
Sorry - I haven't formulated anything close to a punch-line for this. I just really love the visual scenario. If you dare flesh it out, please do so in the comments! The author of best resolution will receive 10 shares of General Motors stock* [*or equivalent value in dollar store kazoos.]
Badger eats cobra
How metal are badgers?
The eat cobras.
Pretty f*cking metal.
Jim Steinman once wrote a song about badgers eating cobras. You can hear it if you play Bat Out of Hell backwards at exactly 66 & 1/6th RPM. Kode9 once said it was the prototype for dubstep. [He'd probably deny it now.]
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
This sounds like a lot of people we run with...
As hilarious as it is inspired. Pranking with purpose!
Via Bruce Sterling [who knows what we'll bite at] Libertarian direct civil disobedience
KEENE, N.H. - From a jail cell in this rural corner of New Hampshire, Sam A. Miller waged a philosophical battle, one milk carton at a time. (((Nice narrative hook, Sarah.)))
The soft-spoken electrical engineer (((geek))) declined food for nearly a month, save for swigs of milk. To eat, he said, would be caving to the tyrannical government powers that placed him here for illegally filming in a courthouse and refusing to reveal his legal name to jail officials. (He says it’s private; jail officials obtained it from a fingerprint trace.) (((That’s right: his name is private. EAT THAT, FASCIST OPPRESSORS!)))
His resistance has made him a folk hero among antigovernment types who have been making their way to New Hampshire from points across the country since their leaders put out a clarion call six years ago. The Free Staters, as they are known, hope to lure thousands of like-minded souls to the state, with the goal of paring government to a bare minimum by eliminating things like taxes, speed limits, and zoning laws.
Thus far, just 427 Free Staters have relocated. Yet, here in Keene and in pockets across New Hampshire, Free Staters are making their case in increasingly provocative ways.
“Like Gandhi, like Martin Luther King, we need to educate and enlighten the public,” said Miller, who joined the Free State movement after breaking up with his fiancée. (((You may think this is an odd reason to go to jail for extremist political reasons, but, no, it isn’t.)))
The actions have ranged from the odd, such as when Free Staters filed another person’s fingernails without a manicurist’s license on a public sidewalk or held an unlicensed puppet show, to the irksome, as when they tried to dig a garden in a downtown Keene park, to the instigative, such as the day they stood on a street corner with a marijuana bud held aloft. Sometimes, they simply veer toward obstinate, wearing hats in a courtroom after being asked to take them off or refusing to remove a couch from a lawn. (((I’m having a little fun at the FreeStaters’ expense here, but Henry David Thoreau would be shoulder to shoulder with these boys.)))...
...During an interview in the airless visitors room of Cheshire County Jail, Miller said he has scratched “FreeKeene” into a wall with his thumb (((with his thumb. Nice one.))) and befriended other inmates, who gave him their milk. Still, he said, jail has only reinforced his abiding conviction that government, as constituted, is an enslaver.
”I see Free Staters as the modern-day abolitionists,” he said. (((Okay, ADBUSTERS goes for nihilist revolution while Libertarians are feeding nickels to parking meters — I think it’s time to ratchet the BEYOND THE BEYOND “Political Instability Meter” to “Condition Orange.”)))
related: Free Keen dot com
Obama on the Middle East
[Gosh. This just... makes so much sense! What a novel approach.]
Thomas Friedman: Obama on Obama
...“We have a joke around the White House,” the president said. “We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.”
A key part of his message, he said, will be: “Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly.” He then explained: “There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the ‘threat’ from Israel, but won’t admit it.” There are a lot of Israelis, “who recognize that their current path is unsustainable, and they need to make some tough choices on settlements to achieve a two-state solution — that is in their long-term interest — but not enough folks are willing to recognize that publicly.”
There are a lot of Palestinians who “recognize that the constant incitement and negative rhetoric with respect to Israel” has not delivered a single “benefit to their people and had they taken a more constructive approach and sought the moral high ground” they would be much better off today — but they won’t say it aloud.
“There are a lot of Arab states that have not been particularly helpful to the Palestinian cause beyond a bunch of demagoguery,” and when it comes to “ponying up” money to actually help the Palestinian people, they are “not forthcoming.”
When it comes to dealing with the Middle East, the president noted, “there is a Kabuki dance going on constantly. That is what I would like to see broken down. I am going to be holding up a mirror and saying: ‘Here is the situation, and the U.S. is prepared to work with all of you to deal with these problems. But we can’t impose a solution. You are all going to have to make some tough decisions.’ Leaders have to lead, and, hopefully, they will get supported by their people.”...
...Part of America’s “battle against terrorist extremists involves changing the hearts and minds of the people they recruit from,” he added. “And if there are a bunch of 22- and 25-year-old men and women in Cairo or in Lahore who listen to a speech by me or other Americans and say: ‘I don’t agree with everything they are saying, but they seem to know who I am or they seem to want to promote economic development or tolerance or inclusiveness,’ then they are maybe a little less likely to be tempted by a terrorist recruiter.”...
D.A.B. tonight!
Wednesday, June 3 [that's tonight] we start a new summer residency at the Magic Stick roof deck. It's free. Come on out and enjoy a beverage under the stars and listen to some musicks.
Dark Ass Bats
DJs Dethlab & Sean Whaley
First Wednesday of every month during the summer
The Alley Deck
4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI
10PM | 18+ | free
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Quote of the day
"Most of them may think of themselves as cultural consumers, but that’s just a role they’ve surrendered to. There’s no such thing as a cultural consumer. Culture isn’t consumed, it’s lived. Like the culture growing in a petri dish — it’s a living, growing, mutating thing. You are either in it or you’re not."
-Douglas Rushkoff, interviewed in Flavorwire on his new book Life Inc.
Amen.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Brogan's Toybox
Subtrak Records founder Ryan Brogan released his first full-length album Toybox this past week. Toybox covers acid, electro and everything in between with Brogan's distinct sense for detail.
"An accomplished DJ and Producer hailing from Detroit, Ryan brings a wide range of sounds together in this exciting release. Whether it is the intricate pulses of Black Acid Social, or the hard charging distorted bassline of Faster Auto, each track's distinct direction illustrates Mr. Brogan's range and ability to push the envelope in creating new and interesting music. There is at least one track in this Toybox for everyone."
Faster Auto and Le Parkour have gone directly into Dethlab heavy rotation. Get it from Beatport here.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The New New Postmodern: green buildings & indentured labor
Guest author Christopher Sell writes on Lebbeus Woods' blog Darkening Dubai: Architects named in human rights row
Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel are among architects singled out by US-based organisation Human Rights Watch for the ‘abuse and severe exploitation’ of construction labourers occurring on their projects at Abu Dhabi’s luxury Saadiyat Island development.
In an 80-page report published last week, entitled The Island of Happiness: Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, Human Rights Watch found that, despite slow improvements in timely payment of wages and labour conditions, abuses such as passport withholding and fines are still occurring.
Under government developer the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC), Saadiyat Island (‘Happiness Island’ in Arabic) is being developed into a £17 billion tourism and cultural centre, comprising a Nouvel-designed Louvre, a Guggenheim by Gehry, Foster + Partners’ Sheikh Zayed National Museum and Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre, all yet to be completed.
Human Rights Watch called on the architects, and institutions such as the Guggenheim and the Louvre, to obtain enforceable contractual guarantees that construction companies will protect workers’ fundamental human rights.
‘These international institutions need to show that they will not tolerate or benefit from the gross exploitation of these migrant workers,’ said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch...
In all fairness to the designers, architects often have little to no say about contractor labor practices. This defense grows thin however, as inhumane labor practices in [until recently] booming regions such as the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia are well documented - if under-reported. It's postmodern to the point of nausea to think that some of the most innovative architecture in the world [many groundbreakingly "green"] is being built by people living in near medieval conditions.
I can't help but to think about last spring's controversy regarding Daniel Lebiskind's proclamation to never work in China, and Architecture For Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair's passionate and eloquent response cum mini-manifesto for responsible design: "What is your ethical footprint?"
That's a question I pose quite often to young designers who are interested in socially responsible and humanitarian design. While 'being green' and sustainability are hot topics right now many in our industry seem to forget the ethical impact our structures have. It's a question designers at Architecture for Humanity struggle with all the time. Is my work creating balanced financial stability in the community? Are the materials I am using sourced in an ethical manner? Are we including the local skills and talent in the design and construction process?
I happened to stumble upon a debate on whether architects should work in China. It was sparked by Daniel Libeskind in Ireland last week and is now being called a "stunt". I am amazed that the leading voices of the profession are eager to pass judgment on the ethics of working in an entire country. What if you are building a health center or rural school in a country with questionable leadership? Is Libeskind therefore suggesting all Chinese architects are unethical? Where is the dividing line here and what right do we have to make one?
Everyone involved in this squabble are completely missing the boat. The real ethical dilemma our profession faces is closer to home – the way in which we build our buildings. It is not our just our environmental footprint but our entire ethical footprint that truly matters.
In Dubai and Doha, where many high profile designers are taking huge commissions, many developments are supporting and encouraging unfair and unsafe construction labor practices that are about as close to indentured servitude as you can get. Last year I visited the labor camps and was stunned to find 8-10 to a room and no access to clean drinking water. Many of the men I met had come from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and China – most had been away from there families for years and knew the dangers of working on site. In the UAE alone there are 2.7 Million migrant workers, making up 95% of the country’s workforce. Even a recent report by Human Rights Watch released in 2006 barely caused a response from the industry.
Why is this a big deal? A few years ago I attended a talk on violence in the Middle East. One of the speakers, Queen Noor, spoke about the fact that the insurgency and hatred toward the west was being compounded by the 70 million+ disenfranchised youth that are either unemployed or working in low paying jobs, such as the construction industry. It made me think about those sky-piercing structures under construction and whether the poor labor conditions that we are a profession are willing to overlook may come back to haunt us.
However I am still hear the current design leaders take a stand for those workers who are building these grand structures. Are those commissions are too seductive for any of them to take a stand?
Next time they take one of these gigs perhaps they can require ethical labor practices to be included in the contract.
I wonder - as the cash dries up in Dubai's sewage infested, cartoon-like celebration of the worst aspects of perverse Western decadence - will things get better or worse for the Sri Lankan migrant worker unable to go home and risking his life to build a skyscraper nobody will ever inhabit? If we want to think about architecture fiction, picture the Sheikhs cutting their losses, leaving the tallest buildings in the world empty and unfinished, taken over by a stranded population with nothing to lose and rightfully consumed with anger.
This affects everyone, and karma can be a bitch.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Diller Scofidio + Renfro + Charlie Rose
Just another reason to love Charlie Rose. There’s a lot of talk about NYC's High Line, plus discussion of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s other work: The Blur Building, the ICA in Boston, and of course the new Alice Tully Hall.
Watch it here (53:37)Thursday, May 28, 2009
Cyberoptix Tie Lab in the New York Times Magazine
Bethany's Terminal Illness design subverts both fear of the unknown and the status quo in one whimsical and stylish swoop, and is the focus of Rob Walker's latest column for the NY Times:
Consumed: Viral Infection
At one time or another, most American males must reckon with the necktie. Some embrace it, some grudgingly acquiesce to it and plenty reject it. That the necktie seems to have no practical purpose is of course the very source of its potency. Over the past decade or two, a rising wave of tech billionaires have made even its absence a powerful signal. This is why a tie pattern that incorporates an image of the swine-flu virus is such a snug fit: while the necktie sounds like an unlikely canvas for dark humor or subversive sentiment, it is actually an ideal one.
“Terminal Illness” is the name of one of the most recent designs from Bethany Shorb, a Detroit artist, and the fact that it has a title is a good indicator that it is not a traditional tie. What at first glance resembles an abstract pattern well within the vernacular of the necktie aesthetic is, rather, a repeated image of the swine-flu virus connected by shapes based on international-airport-terminal diagrams. A tie called “Snoutbreak!” features a simpler graphic that clearly suggests a pig’s nose; if you order this tie, you get a matching surgical mask free. These offerings from Shorb’s Cyberoptix Tie Lab were made available in early May, when the swine-flu freakout was at its height and the director general of the World Health Organization had recently warned that a pandemic had the potential to threaten “all of humanity.”
An appropriate topic for a design riff? “I think paranoia is really fascinating,” Shorb says, noting that she was struck by the intense disease-related warning graphics while going through customs on a trip home from Italy. She had already been thinking about making a design involving airport-terminal diagrams — “They’re really beautiful” — before the swine-flu scare gave her an epiphany: “What if I put a disease in there!” Soon she had uploaded the design to her Flickr account, where, she says, it was almost immediately linked in a Twitter comment (“O.K., now that’s a contemporary tie”), by Bruce Sterling, the science-fiction novelist, leading to a first wave of orders...
... According to Anne Hollander’s insightful book “Sex and Suits,” ties were firmly established as an element of the “modern masculine image” we know today by the early 19th century: along with coats and trousers, “the brilliantly colored necktie asserted itself, to add a needed phallic note to the basic ensemble.” Shorb is of course catering to forms of tie resentment — boredom with traditional patterns, the appeal of disturbing imagery disguised in a workplace-ready design, distaste for sartorial uniformity. But, as Hollander pointed out, subverting fashion often requires deeper participation than merely conforming would. Shorb’s customers tend to be artists, designers, creative professionals and others who are tuned in to the expressive possibilities of even the most conformist of garments. A design inspired by pandemic paranoia is one way for style rebels to reject the traditional necktie, with panache.
related: Bruce Sterling on "Twitter’s Killer App"
also related: Cyberoptix featured in Modish's Handmade Spaces
Friday, May 22, 2009
Movement festival & after-party highlights
Clips from a few of the acts we're really excited to see - to get in the mood:
Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself [2009, fan video]
Little Computer People a.k.a. Anthony Rother - Little Computer People [2001]
Ellen Allien - Trash Scapes [2003]
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Movement festival after hours
Movement a.k.a. DEMF has landed. There are tons of exciting first-time artists on the bill [Anthony Rother, Ellen Allien, Afrika Bambaataa, etc.] and many familiar faces, but as always, the one-off events that spread throughout the city into the wee hours make DEMF weekend such a diverse feast of sounds and scenes.
Filter D's picks for the weekend here
Metro Times picks for the weekend here
D-Tales mega-list here
Below are just a few special highlights from Burnlab contributors & conspirators:
FRIDAY, MAY 22 [tonight!]
Official Movement Opening Party
The Prodigy
Dethlab
Chuck Flask & Evan Evolution [in the State Bar]
Fillmore Theater Detroit
2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit
7PM | all ages | $20
*EARLY SHOW - Dethlab plays shortly after 7pm to shortly after 9pm
More info here and here
Bunker Detroit Edition
Jan Krueger
Derek Plaslaiko
Spinoza
Oslo
1456 Woodward Ave., Detroit
9PM | 18+ | $15
More info here
SATURDAY, MAY 23
Ghostly International 10 Year Anniversary
Deastro
Michna With Raw Paw
Telefon Tel Aviv
Tycho
+DJ sets by Mike Servito and Tour Detroit
The Magic Stick
4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit
9PM | 18+ | $15 advance / $20 door
More info here
The Blank Artists Afterglow
Tim Sweeney
Todd Osborn
Trent Abbe
Drew Pompa + Josh Dahlberg
Bohemian National Home
3009 Tillman St., Detroit
11PM | $10 all night
More info here
Even more Saturday:
Click Point at McCarthy's
Detroit Techno Militia at 5 Element Gallery
Clink at River's Edge
SUNDAY, MAY 24
No Way Back Extended Remix
Derek Plaslaiko
BMG of Ectomorph
IBM [live]
Mike Servito
Chuck Hampton
Spinoza
Patrick Russell
Carlos Souffront
Bohemian National Home
3009 Tillman St., Detroit
11PM | $10 all night
More info here
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Live in Time
Virgil Moorefield, Merge and nospectacle in Live in Time, May 21, Detroit Film Theatre, @ DIA, 5200 Woodward Avenue. Doors 7 p.m. $10.
The Torment of Saint Anthony
From The Guardian:
A work of art believed to be Michelangelo's first painting, completed when he was just 12 or 13 years old, has been acquired by a museum in Texas in deal that leaves other major galleries taking notice.
The Kimbell Art Museum, based in Fort Worth, paid an undisclosed figure for The Torment of St Anthony. Though the provenance of the painting has long been disputed, expert opinion has shifted in recent months to the view that it is indeed the earliest known painting of the master...
+ image gallery, including x-rays revealing the adolescent Michelangelo's painting techniques.
The painting is dated 1487 or 88, a few years prior to Bosch's masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights - another favorite for, among other things, its rather wonderfully surreal depictions of demons.
Alt Weddings part 2: 100 Layer Cake
Good non-traditional wedding resources are few & far between, but when they're good they're really good. A few months back we posted about the excellent site Offbeat Bride, discovered via Coilhouse. Graphic design tastemaker extraordinaire Fabien Barral of Graphic-ExchanGE recently turned us on to 100 Layer Cake.
100 Layer Cake won't necessarily give examples of how to pull off a Steampunk or Stanley Kubrick themed wedding, but it is filled with gorgeous design ideas & top notch photography, & their style/color boards are real standouts. Even if you're not planning a wedding, if you fetishize details like letterpress, old keys and mysterious ephemera - or just appreciate quality DIY design - spend some time browsing their site.
+ For more wonderful ephemera & design, see Secret Leaves Paperworks.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Deastro live in London
Synthy hotness.
Deastro @ Be - Proud Gallery 09.05.09 from Be Events on Vimeo.
Lebbeus Woods on Architecture and Resistance
When it comes to food for thought, the words of the original "anarchitect" Lebbeus Woods are like fine Futurist cuisine.
ARCHITECTURE and RESISTANCE
Apropos of nothing in particular—unless it is the general spirit of acquiescence pervading the field of architecture today—I have been thinking about the idea of architecture and resistance. Although many people might judge that my work in architecture has been nothing if not a form of resistance, I have never considered it as such. To say that you are resisting something means that you have to spend a lot of time and energy saying what that something is, in order for your resistance to make sense. Too much energy flows in the wrong direction, and you usually end up strengthening the thing you want to resist.
It seems to me that if architects really want to resist, then neither the idea nor the rhetoric of resistance has a place in it. These architects must take the initiative, beginning from a point of origin that precedes anything to be resisted, one deep within an idea of architecture itself. They can never think of themselves as resisters, or join resistance movements, or preach resistance. Rather (and this is the hard part of resistance) they must create an independent idea of both architecture and the world. It is not something that can be improvised at the barricades. It takes time and a lot of trial and error. This is only just, because the things to be resisted have not come from nowhere. They have a history built over periods of time, a kind of seriousness and weight that makes them a threat to begin with. They can only be resisted by ideas and actions of equivalent substance and momentum.
The word resist is interestingly equivocal. It is not synonymous with words of ultimate negation like ‘dismiss’ or ‘ reject.’ Instead, it implies a measured struggle that is more tactical than strategic. Living changes us, in ways we cannot predict, for the better and the worse. One looks for principles, but we are better off if we control them, not the other way around. Principles can become tyrants, foreclosing on our ability to learn. When they do, they, too, must be resisted...
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Life & Work with Commonwealth
New York Magazine visits the home and studio of husband-and-wife design team Commonwealth.
Cork, bamboo, and Corian are put to plenty of commonplace uses in today’s homes, but in the hands of—or rather, run through the CNC machine of—furniture designers Zoë Coombes and David Boira of Commonwealth, they become the stuff of far stranger household objects. At the back of an industrial building in Williamsburg, the couple has made anemone-like porcelain-vase models, translucent webbed Corian desktops, cork-and-plaster lamp prototypes, and a furniture series constructed of Richlite, a sustainably harvested paper countertop material. CNC machines allow for blobby, biomorphic digital designs to be translated directly into three dimensions. Coombes and Boira insert a block of material into the mill and send it a digital file detailing a form. The solid passes through the mill and is carved away; what remains is the object designed on the computer, to be refined by hand. The result: furniture like Commonwealth’s Lard series, a table, bureau, and stool that are minimalist in color and shape but that break out in cellulite-like blips and blurps. The black stools are made of Richlite, “which has this eco-angle but we made something from it that has this Star Wars look,” says Coombes. “It’s an eco-product without trying to look like patchouli,” adds Boira...
Quimby The Mouse animated
From the twisted, genius mind of Chris Ware:
Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.
Friday, May 08, 2009
The space program has given us so much.
I used the term "screw the pooch" today and realized that I had no idea what it meant or where it cam from.
Wiktionary says:
screw the pooch
English
Etymology
The term was first documented in the early "Mercury" days of the US space program. It came there from a Yale graduate named John Rawlings who helped design the astronauts' space suits. The phrase is actually a bastardization of an earlier, more vulgar and direct term which was slang for doing something very much the wrong way, as in "you are fucking the dog!" At Yale a friend of Rawlings', the radio DJ Jack May (a.k.a. "Candied Yam Jackson") amended this term to "screwing the pooch" which was simultaneously less vulgar and more pleasing to the ear.
The term, however, did not enter the popular lexicon until Tom Wolfe used it in his book about the space program, The Right Stuff, where it was used to describe a supposed mistake by astronaut Gus Grissom.
Thanks, internet.
Tonight in Detroit
The Horrors - Who Can Say from IM // UR on Vimeo.
The Horrors & The Kills live tonight at the Magic Stick
+
Sorted! w/ DJs extraordinaire Richard Panic & Mike Trombley at Northern Lights Lounge [and it's free!]
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Recent conversation with my maker
"I've done... questionable things."
"Also extraordinary things. Revel in it!"
"Nothing the god of biomechancis wouldn't let you into heaven for?"
*crunch cruccchhhh*
"Aghhhhhhh! Aghhhhhhhh!"
*cruncccccchhhhhhhhhhh*
"Agggghhhhhhhhh! Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
[Sorry - Blade Runner quotes just never ever get less awesome.]
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Vector Portraits - Random pictures of people driving:
Found this story on NPR. Thought it was interesting enough to post here.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2009/05/drive.html?sc=fb&cc=fp
From NPR Story:
Vector Portraits
If you've ever taken a road trip -- or if you've ever been in a car, for that matter -- you've probably found yourself glancing curiously at passersby. Sometimes there's the awkward, accidental eye contact. Sometimes there's the unexpected: a woman curling her eyelashes, a man eating a bowl of cereal, or someone changing outfits behind the wheel. It's interesting that, only when alone in a car, do people sing really loud, as if completely alone and unseen.
Here is a link to Andrew Bush's site:
Friday, May 01, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Today's random thoughts and big news
• It just occurred to me that Simon [the electronic game] is based on Schnitzelbank [the German drinking song.] Now I want to make a circuit-bent Simon that says, "fette sau" and "gefährliches Ding."
• Every time I read "WHO" I think, "what the heck does Pete Townsend have to do with influenza monitoring?"
• Just found out that Dethlab has been selected by The Prodigy to open for them Friday, May 22 at the Fillmore [formerly the State Theatre] Detroit, at the official DEMF opening party. [WTF?! We're extremely flattered, but the pressure is on...]
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