Monthly Archives: April 2012

Up in the air

Posted on April 26, 2012 by things magazine

The 1900 Summer Olympics attained a height of elegance and quirkiness that few games have managed since. Known as the Games of the II Olympiad and held in Paris. From Wikipedia: ‘Some unusual events were contested for the only time … Continue reading →

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So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip

Posted on April 25, 2012 by things magazine

Doug Aitken’s MoMA installation ‘Sleepwalkers‘, from 2007, gets the lavish box set treatment. Someone needs to start a gallery of great box sets, from music to art and more / how to polish a car / Monolithic, a look ‘at … Continue reading →

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The Imposter Object

Posted on April 24, 2012 by things magazine

Anchor Bay Entertainment are from the quick and dirty school of film-making, with countless schlocky slasher movies and knock-off action titles in their copious backlist. The parade of DVD covers gives an interesting masterclass in the art of cinematic design, … Continue reading →

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From ZX82 to the Hobbit

Posted on April 23, 2012 by things magazine

Buran Suprematism, a Kosmograd post that either reveals the ease with which the hard-won aesthetic discoveries of the early twentieth century come to our tech-filled lives, or the prescience with which these visual pioneers were able to foresee an unimaginable … Continue reading →

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Spots and dashes

Posted on April 20, 2012 by things magazine

Eleven facts about the notorious spot paintings, via this isn’t happiness. We can add a number 12: one of Hirst’s former spot painters was children’s author and illustrator Lauren Child. The above is obviously a Hirst Medicine Cabinet because, well, … Continue reading →

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From stinks to secrets and giant trees

Posted on April 19, 2012 by things magazine

The BBC on the theme park economics behind Nantes’ epic Machines de L’Ile workshops, currently hard at work on a massive Carousel, as well as the Heron Tree, ‘A monumental structure in the heart of the city, this steel tree … Continue reading →

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Pools and red and green

Posted on April 18, 2012 by things magazine

Mapping. Reworking Booth: Geodemographics of Housing, Oliver O’Brien on creating a modern equivalent of the poverty map: Geodemographics of Housing in Great Britain. Switch to the Index of Multiple Deprivation for a more nuanced view. However, all the data in … Continue reading →

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Animal Magic

Posted on April 16, 2012 by things magazine

Pop-Up City carries the story of the Tokyo Zoo Project (official site), a fun Sony-sponsored GPS drawing exercise to promote the titular animal establishment. As the site itself proclaims, ‘let’s draw giant geoglyph over Tokyo, with bicycle/walking navigation system.’

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Walk this way?

Posted on April 16, 2012 by things magazine

The Crisis in American Walking. Tom Vanderbilt on the reasons why ‘the United States walks the least of any industrialized nation’ (the title of one article Vanderbilt cites encapsulates the problem, ‘Columbus residents see potential benefits of sidewalks‘). The US … Continue reading →

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Travelling and Trespass

Posted on April 15, 2012 by things magazine

Kevin Cyr produces images and objects, including Camper Bike, a sort of deconstructed housing crisis on wheels, a device for a new frontier that has nothing to do with traditional ‘urban mobility’ / open the pod bay doors HAL. Build … Continue reading →

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From rhetorics of sin and punishment to the value of the invisible

Posted on April 13, 2012 by things magazine

Jan Manski’s Onania is a hellish world, a body of artwork and objects that forms an installation subtitled ‘Your Ultimate Masturbation Experience. Manski skilfully blends contemporary and historical visions of body horror and the consequence of spiritual abnegation. Imagine if … Continue reading →

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Up, up and away

Posted on April 11, 2012 by things magazine

A random selection of things. Are these the ugliest buildings in the world? Of course not, but aesthetically challenged architecture is increasingly the subject of linkbait round-ups like that one / a tumblr devoted to Crazy Walls / (via Ask … Continue reading →

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End of week selection

Posted on April 6, 2012 by things magazine

End of week link selection. Cities, a series by Atelier Olschinsky presented at Magical Urbanism / Cheese, a tumblr (sketchbooks and scrapbooks, not actual cheese) / quirkily perverse contemporary taxidermy by This Must Be Designed By Idiots. See also the … Continue reading →

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All play and no work

Posted on April 5, 2012 by things magazine

Something to look out for: The Fleece Press’s forthcoming Long Live Great Bardfield, & Love to You All The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood (wife of Eric Ravilious), now on sale at the Pallant House bookshop. Simon Lawrence’s Fleece Press has … Continue reading →

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Meccano spanner of the gods

Posted on April 4, 2012 by things magazine

One for the online museums: The Meccano Magazine Index, a massive collection of magazine scans from 1916 to 1981. Meccano Magazine was a mix of Wired and Make for the inter-war years, a source of news and information about all … Continue reading →

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There are no accidents: Lorem Ipsum architecture and more

Posted on April 3, 2012 by things magazine

Rear Window time-lapse, a beautifully stitched-together mosaic of the events from the film, a digital homage to the art of soundstage construction and filming (via MetaFilter). A search for more specifics on the original Hitchcock soundstage pointed us to the … Continue reading →

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