001,002, 003,004, 005,006, 007,008, 009,010, 011,012, 013,014, 015,016, 017,018, 019,020, 021,022, 023,024, 025,026, 027,028, 029,030, 031,032, 033,034, 035,036, 037,038, 039,040, 041,042, 043,044, 045,046, 047,048, 049,050, 051,052, 053,054, 055,056, 057,058, 059,060, 061,062, 063,064, 065,066, 067,068,
It’s as though each one of our tears carries a microcosm of the collective human experience, like one drop of an ocean. Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher published the project Topography of Tears, in which she takes microscopic images of dried up tears and notices differences in the crystalisation and chemical makeup depending on what triggered the tears in the first place.
Still from Donald in Mathmagic Land, a 27-minute educational featurette released by Disney in 1959.
Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbour Totoro is all about a young girl's adventures in the forest, encountering the forest spirits. In this scene, together with the forest spirits they make a tree grow, staggeringly tall and monumental over the girl's home.
Monument to Humanity proposed by Mucha to replace the Eiffel Tower after the Paris Universal Expo of 1900
Poetry is hard to share across languages, a lot of meaning gets lost in translation and simply cannot be replicated.
A naked Sims halloween costume.
Yoga and meditation really allow you to tap into yourself and all the energy and power you have already in you.
This Cube test sounds like a way to get a peek at your subconscious, which I feel also manifests itself in dreams, and you can learn a lot if you analyse their symbolism.
The documentary Paris is Burning (1990) focuses on drag queens living in New York City and their house culture, which provides a sense of community (of family and belonging) and support for the flamboyant and often socially shunned performers. Pictured: Venus Xtravaganza.
WANTED — Give me as a keepsake the chair where I sat waiting for you
Your friend introduced us, the one that says that it guesses future to come... I do not know what else to tell you, seated from the corridor on a shore. Do you remember me? Give me the chair, tired of the corner where I waited for you, where I always waited for you. Love, I can give you some laughter, and make a song. ...And a polka dot handkerchief, I give you time for you to put it on. And a promise, girl: If I find you one day, I plan to give you one of those kisses that you deserved. On the bridge of hope, I was looking for a little room for laughter, thinking it was worth it to love you. We spent little intense moments and saw little corners where we could fall in love. The street of thought, it takes me to that shore, I do not know if you remember. Give me the chair that has this charm. I pass by your door almost every day, I pass and you decide when to appear. And they even came back from the rhymes, images playing, hanging onto I don’t know what. I’m sure it was April, they all came back to me, all but one that forgot about me. That the handkerchief is to dry my tears shed over you, and there is no remedy for the one who composes. If I ever find you because of my cowardice, I think you give all those kisses that you deserved.
A.
(Translated and adapted from the song Regálame la Silla Donde Te Esperé by Alejandro Sanz)
Dancing is known to release endorphins, so definitely a good pick-me-up. This is a photo of dancing children taken in 1930 by hungarian photographer Martin Munkácsi.
It's important to talk about disagreements rather than turn to violence.
The term third culture kid was first coined in the 1950's, as it is a very new phenomenon. TCK's are people raised in a culture other than their parents' or the culture of their country of nationality for a significant part of their early development years. TCKs move between cultures before they have had the opportunity to fully develop their personal and cultural identity. The first culture of such individuals refers to the culture of the country from which the parents originated, the second culture refers to the culture in which the family currently resides, and although not widely agreed upon by the TCK community, some sources refer to the third culture as the amalgamation of these two cultures. (Photo: a selfie taken in the fourth country I've lived in, surrounded by moving boxes.)
Cautionary Tales
We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable life lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown-ups — and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of Messy and The Undercover Economist) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists, and hilarious fiascos. Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely. His basic lesson has been ignored in nuclear power plants, financial markets and at the Oscars… all resulting in chaos. At the 2017 Academy Awards, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway famously handed the Best Picture Oscar to the wrong movie. In this episode of Cautionary Tales, Tim Harford takes us through all of the poor design choices leading into the infamous La La Land/Moonlight debacle, and how it could have been prevented.
Photo from a family holiday in my parents’ hometown (2017). There's nothing wrong with nostalgia as long as it doesn't stunt your growth. Travel light.
Inxeba (The Wound) (2017) Xolani, a lonely factory worker, joins the men of his community in the mountains of the Eastern Cape to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood. When a defiant initiate from the city discovers his best kept secret, Xolani’s entire existence begins to unravel. It caused a lot of controversy, the film deals with homosexuality in South Africa and coming-of-age rituals.
A beautiful personal explosion. Dawid by Lukasz Wierzbowski
The Pantone Colour of the Year in 2016 was Rose Quartz (& Serenity, a light blue). Pantone justified their choice: Societal movements toward gender equality and fluidity, the consumer’s increased comfort with using color as a form of expression, [and] a generation that has less concern about being typecast or judged and an open exchange of digital information that has opened our eyes to different approaches to color usage.
In some cases, lack of empathy can have serious consequences. Illustration by Sara Andreasson in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
A work of astonishing economy and monumentality ... it boldly contrasts with the severe and highly stylized productions of this form!
Andrea Fraser, Museum Highlights (1989)
Political cartoon playing on Obama’s mic drop and critizising the anti-terror drone strikes in the Middle East by Khalid Albaih (2016)
Front page of Livre des Merveilles du Monde (The Travel of Marco Polo) (14th Century) by Rustichello da Pisa and Marco Polo. Represented in this image, Marco Polo leaving Constantinople (now Istanbul).
Liu Xiao Ling Tong as Sun Wukong (the Monkey King)
Stills from the animated film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time by Mamoru Hosoda (2006). Riverbanks are a recurring location in anime and Japanese animated films, usually a place where the character goes to reflect, associated with childhood, nostalgia and the feeling of time flowing.
A man can never step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.
(Heraclitus)
The cover design of the first Japanese edition of Kafka on the Shore.
Another film about war in which you momentarily forget the reality of the situation is Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Set in Spain in 1944, it tells the hard story of a Falangist army officer from his daughter's perspective. To cope with the horror of the situation, she escapes into a fantasy world of her own, where she meets the faun, among other magical creatures.
Religious art is charged with symbolism, as it is meant to educate and indoctrinate. There is even meaning in its physical composition as a triptych; the holy trinity, the number 3. But the symbolisim of this number goes beyond Christianity: The Three Hares is a circular motif appearing in sacred sites from the Middle and Far East to the churches of Devon, England (as the Tinners' Rabbits), and historical synagogues in Europe. It is thought to have a range of symbolic or mystical associations with fertility and the lunar cycle. Its origins and original significance are uncertain, as are the reasons why it appears in such diverse locations. (Wikipedia)"
A Stolperstein (literally stumbling stone) is a sett-size, 10 by 10 centimetres concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution, laid at exactly the last place of residency/work. As of 23 October 2018, 70,000 Stolpersteine have been laid making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial. (Wikipedia)
Of the most famous jazz singers, I feel Billie Holiday truly embodies the genre. She plays with her voice, she improvises, she's extremelly good- but she also wears her heart on her sleeve and is brutally honest about her toxic romantic life. It's bittersweet.
The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, in Paris. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. Samizdat, (from Russian sam, self, and izdatelstvo, publishing), literature secretly written, copied, and circulated in the former Soviet Union and usually critical of practices of the Soviet government. (definition from Britannica). Pictured: Russian samizdat and photo negatives of unofficial literature in the USSR.
Greek fashion designer Dimitra Petsa works almost exclusively with this wet couture theme, but taking an entirely different approach to Mugler's latest creation: the wet couture dress for Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala. Dimitra Petsa relates the way we censor and repress our own bodily fluids (when we are made mostly of water) to the way we mistreat the oceans.
The title of the studio album by Florence + the Machine, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful sums up what I think is a universal feeling people have about both the sea and the sky. There's a fascination with the vastness that makes us feel insignificant, perhaps. Pictured is the constellation Canis Major, to which Sirius belongs to, the brightest star in the night sky.
Cave of Orpheus' oracle in Antissa, Lesbos.
Headline reads: Italy is Fed Up With Tourists Frolicking in the Trevi Fountain. Rome's mayor has announced new restrictions aimed squarely at tourists behaving badly at the Trevi Fountain, among other ancient waterworks. The new regulations include tourist hotspots such as the Piazza di Spagna, Piazza Navona, Piazza Barberini and Piazza del Popolo. Pictured: German singer pays €450 for bathing in the Trevi fountain.
Edited still from the music video for the song re:member by Ólafur Arnalds (2018), an ambient song that builds up gradually till it overpowers you.
Ramses Shaffy with the cover of his album Sunset Sunkiss (1970).
To The Moon, collage by Joe Webb.
When explaining the choice for the new name, taken from French fashion magazine Dépêche Mode, Gore said, It means hurried fashion or fashion dispatch. I like the sound of that. However, the magazine's name (and hence the band's) is Fashion News or Fashion Update (dépêche, dispatch, from Old French despesche/despeche or news report, and mode or fashion).
Frankie Knuckles was one of the first DJs to define the sound of Chicago house music.
The beat of this song is originally sampling Ike's Rap II by Isaac Hayes, in the album Black Moses (1971). I recognised it sampled again in Nothing Burns Like the Cold by Snoh Aalegra ft. Vince Staples (2017).
The cover of their album Shaking the Habitual, with its blinding colour contrast.
Entre les Murs (The Class) (2008) is an autobiographical film about a French language teacher and how he tackles the issues he encounters in his class, ranging from racism to domestic violence, so they don't get in the way of their learning.
René Magritte's Empire of Light (L'empire des lumières), oil on canvas, 1954.
Kispál És A Borz's cover for their album Ágy, asztal, TV.
The cover of De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig's album Leuk (Luek) (2018)
The cover of Arctic Monkeys' album Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino (2018)
In both Inception and Paprika, hallways behave in unexpected ways, perhaps as metaphors for the irregular passage of time.
Jan Horcik (Heavyweight Foundry) designed the cover for Fotoplastikon, an album released by Endless Illusion. It reminds me of another designer who uses computer generated visuals in his work - Michiel Schuurman. Pictured is a (rejected!) proposal for the Amsterdam Prize.
Container shipping
An intermodal shipping container is 6.1 or 12.2 m high by 2.6 m long, accoriding to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Malcom McLean innovated the containers to what we know today through logistification, the focus on the entire life of a product and integration of different modes of transport. Until 1970, almost all container vessels were converted cargo or tanker ships deployed by the navy in the Second World War.
A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with Got To Get You Off My Mind, but then realised that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straight away, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and ... oh there are loads of rules.
Nick Hornby, High Fidelity.
Orange stickers started appearing in the early 19th century, when there were at least 5.000 competing brands till around the 1960’s. These stickers were placed on the wooden crates used to load the oranges onto trucks.
The current packaging has a retro feel.
For some reason, when I hear this anecdote, the aesthetics of Rental Magazine come to mind. The picture of the Volvo was taken by @_ericw on Instagram.
Since I wasn't allowed to have video games as a kid, my polygons were much more analogue and tactile.
When I visited family over summer holidays, waterproof UNO cards by the poolside were the game of choice.
Back when the main format of music was CD's, whether for the discman or for the car, we always had one of these.
Pillarisation (from the Dutch: verzuiling) is the separation of a society into groups by religion and associated political beliefs. These societies were (and in some areas, still are) vertically divided into two or more groups known as pillars (Dutch: zuilen). Each pillar may have their own social institutions and social organizations. Such segregation means that many people have little or no personal contact with people from another pillar. The best-known examples of this have historically occurred in the Netherlands and Belgium." (Wikipedia)
Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects the whimsical individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture. The stylings of critical regionalism seek to provide an architecture rooted in the modern tradition, but tied to geographical and cultural context. (Wikipedia)
(Pictured: Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, Missouri, United States)
The sculpture Support by Lorenzo Quinn was first unveiled at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and it shows two gigantic hands of a child emerging from the Grand Canal in Venice to protect and support the historical building of the Ca’ Sagredo Hotel. A 3-meter version was brought to the COP25 in Madrid in 2019 as part of a partnership with the UN Climate Change Conference to raise awareness of rising sea levels.
The Construction of the New York City Subway: The Spanish Connection
The City Hall subway station has very characteristic ceramic tiled vaulted ceilings. These are called the Guastavino Tile Arch System, it’s a version of Catalan vault introduced to the United States in 1885 by Valencian architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). Guastavino tile has both structural and aesthetic significance. Structurally, the timbrel vault was based on traditional vernacular vaulting techniques already very familiar to Mediterranean architects, but not well known in America. Even though it is relatively unknown, he is behind the most iconic buildings in New York, including the Manhattan Municipal Building and Ellis Island Great Hall. His technique survives him, as Guastavino tile is found in some of New York's most prominent Beaux-Arts landmarks and in major buildings across the United States, including the Grand Central Terminal, Carnegie Hall, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the National Museum of Natural History, among many others.
Flavita Banana (Flavia Álvarez-Pedrosa) is a feminist cartoonist who has her work published in one of the biggest Spanish newspapers, El País. Above, a cartoon from the 5th of October, 2018.
Translation: Defendant & Plaintiff.
The Spanish film Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Average Girls) by Pedro Almodóvar in 1980 is part of a movement called La Movida, but I think during the late 70's and 80's, a large part of Europe was experiencing some sort of liberation, be it political, ideological, or sexual.
The rise of far-right politics and the resulting Brexit triggered many creatives to make campaigns for the European Elections in 2019, highlighting the benefits of staying together.
Vote Together by Wolfgang Tillmans, Nick Knight, and Fantastic Man founders Jop van Bennekom & Gert Jonkers.
EUnited, a poster campaign by Clara Nebeling featuring rising young photographers such as herself, David Uzochukwu, Maria Sturm, and Wendy Huynh.
This date in 2000 was a pivotal moment in U.S. history, as the presidential election results in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George Bush. The results in Florida were unclear by the end of election night and resulted in a recount and a Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, which ended the dispute in favor of Bush a month later. The election exposed several flaws and controversial elements of the American electoral process and was the fourth of five U.S. presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote.
(History.com)
In the United States, people place lawn signs to support the candidates they're voting for. The result is that all the neighbour's political opinions are displayed against each other on their front lawns, and it's quite confronting.
When I first got access to a computer, I encountered a later version, Windows XP. The famous desktop background image is called Bliss and was taken by Charles O'Rear in 1996.
Different satellite imagery of a strip of land off the coast of Ukraine.
Someone with an experience like this could be labeled a digital native, which according to Cambridge Dictionary, is a person who is very familiar with digital technology, computers, etc. because they have grown up with them.