Rare footage of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair
At archive.org, the online home of The Prelinger Archives, you can watch hundreds of so-called ephemeral films: advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur movies that were never intended to have a long shelf life. Rick Prelinger, the founder of the archive, has spent much of the last three decades rescuing these amazing artifacts, many of which [...]
Read More »Carnalpedia: an encyclopedia of smut
Sure, Wikipedia is there to give you a list of every Simpsons episode ever, or help you figure out when Brigitte Bardot was born–but what if you’re looking to do research of a more, ahem, prurient nature? Carnalpedia hopes to become the go-to source for all your sexy research. Using the same platform as Wikipedia, [...]
Read More »Guess this movie in four images or less
At this popular open source blog users can submit four chronologically displayed frames from a single movie. The challenge is to name that film with no additional clues. MIDNIGHT COWBOY is easy, but good luck with some of the others!
Read More »Gay challenge
At a flea market last week I stumbled upon this little item. I’m not sure what caught my eye more, the hard bodied day laborers or the price tag (Seriously flea market vendor, $20 a yard? You can get it for much less at eQuilter), but it seems that I also inadvertently stumbled upon a quilting subculture.
Read More »The amazing app wall at Apple’s WWDC
At this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple announced the new iPhone models, among other things, a big array of monitors displayed an “app wall”–a giant matrix of iPhone app icons that pulse when they’re downloaded from the App Store. The effect is monumental and hypnotic. Visit AppleInsider for video of what the app wall [...]
Read More »Following Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”
A very cool video note-by-note visualization that follows along with John Coltrane’s seminal jazz recording “Giant Steps” from the 1959 album of the same name. Relatedly, here’s the song played by a Japanese robot in a moment which will later be cited as the origin of the Great Robot Rebellion. [Via]
Read More »Guerrilla community activism: create your own green space on Park(ing) Day
Had a chance to watch HIGH LINE STORIES yet? If so, you’ve witnessed not only how abandoned infrastructure can be transformed into useful green space, but also how community activists, officials, and even celebrities can come together and organize a project of this magnitude. The contributions of all players provide a model for empowering other budding change agents.
But what if you simply don’t have the time, or other resources, to spearhead an effort like the High Line? Creating change in your community doesn’t have to involve months or years of full-time work… in fact, it may be as simple as claiming a parking space.
That’s the idea behind Park(ing) Day, an initiative created by San Francisco-based art collective Rebar in 2005. The premise is simple: on a single day, citizens transform metered parking spaces into Park(ing) spaces, or “temporary public parks.” While these parks only last for a day, the idea is to get people discussing green space in their communities… and how parking is often a bigger priority than parks.
Read More »Gay for dummies: Flagging
In an effort to educate the straight masses and promote the gay agenda across as many platforms as possible today we debut a new feature for the month of June, Gay Pride month: Gay for Dummies.
The “T” is for totalitarian
Webnewser’s Hunter Walker made an interesting find: North Korea’s repressive regime is apparently selling T-shirts and other kitschy propaganda through Cafepress, the online custom gift store. Promoted on the official website of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the store features stylish offerings like this one: More at Webnewser. [via Gawker.]
Read More »Wikipedia book project
Rob Matthews printed and bound in a single book all the featured articles from Wikipedia. The artist writes: “Reproducing Wikipedia in a dysfunctional physical form helps to question its use as an internet resource.” I think a Wiki page should be started about the artist and this project. Woah, so meta, dude. So meta. [Via]
Read More »Art addicts: Herb and Dorothy Vogel
When Herb and Dorothy first began to actively, one might say exhaustively or compulsively, collect art it had to meet the following two criteria:
1. It must be affordable.
2. It must fit into their small Manhattan apartment.
As curators mourn declining sales, the Vogels are inspiration to anyone who loves art and is not a privileged, cynical snoot. Learn more about them…
Read More »Homogeneity of social groups
Bears – London 2008 Exactitudes is a project of Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek who’ve observed and painstakingly deconstructed and photographed the dress codes of a wide range of social groups. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, [...]
Read More »Naked news — the super gay extravaganza edition! (06-09-09)
In honor of 1) June being LGBT Month (officially proclaimed by President Obama) and 2) Bradford Shellhammer joining our li’l SUNfiltered gang, we’ve compiled a fabulous round-up of recent gay-related news:
- In case you live under a rock: New England is officially the coolest part of the country now that New Hampshire is down with gay marriage
. - Hopefully, New York will feel the heat from the nearby states to jump on the gay marriage party wagon.
Read more fabulous Naked News picks from Em and Lo!
Read More »Frank Lloyd Wright and the Guggenheim Museum
To celebrate its fifty anniversary, the Guggenheim Museum organized an exhibition paying tribute to its designer with “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward” which will run through August 23, 2009. This exhibition “brings together sixty-four projects designed by one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, including privately commissioned residences, civic and government buildings, religious and performance spaces, as well as unrealized urban mega-structures.”
Read More »Bottled water: can it ever be green?
Still have bottled water as a regular item on the grocery list? Or just pick up the occasional bottle when you’re out? It’s so convenient…
As you probably know, that convenience comes at an environmental and social price: documentaries such as FLOW and Thirst, organizations such as the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund, and even a few of us lowly bloggers, have reported on the costs created by water’s transformation from a freely-available resource to a multi-billion dollar commodity. That bottle of water you buy now contributes to the world’s third-largest industry.
Read More »Disco ball art
In addition to spicing up any dance party, the disco ball has inspired some artists, most notably Martin Kippenberger, who spin it into the realm of contemporary art.
Martin Kippenberger, “Disco Bomb”
Check more fantastically shiny disco art…
Read More »Studio visit: Osborn Design
Down the street from my apartment is a small studio where a husband and wife are quietly doing very big things. Like any trained fine artists they draw and paint. Carla makes delicate and complex collage prints (she was recently commissioned by Anthropologie to do a toile wallpaper and it’s amazing) and Aaron frequently visits his old stomping ground in Guatemala City to oversee the production of their shoe line.
Read more about Carla and Aaron Osborn and their shoe line…
Read More »Study: Some playas are just spreading the love
Where would this blog be without all the scientists who study why we do the things we do in bed? They’ve debunked the beer goggles theory, taught us that even cheaters’ guilt is selfish, and confirmed Paula Abdul’s hypothesis that opposites attract. And the latest breaking news from the lab? Not all players are cold-hearted snakes.
Read More »Judge Disallows Environmental Review of Chevron Refinery Expansion
RICHMOND, California, June 7, 2009 (ENS) – The Environmental Impact Report for a major expansion at the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California is inadequate, a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge has ruled in a case brought by environmental, community, and public health groups. In her decision Friday, Judge Barbara Zuniga decided that the environmental [...]
Read More »Evolution of a dance party
Beshart, a visual communication studio, created this stop-motion animation of headphones doing some synchronized dancing in this fun video, which was created with 1500 photographs taken over 3 days.
Read More »Benny Chan, Traffic
Benny Chan’s photo series “Traffic” opens this week at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Inspired by a particularly bad day stuck in traffic, the artist spent the past few years documenting just that from the air with a custom camera developed for this project. With his almost omniscient perspective, Mr. Chan explores and sheds [...]
Read More »Native Americans Ask Court to Stop Gold Mine on Sacred Mountain
SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 6, 2009 (ENS) – The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Wednesday on whether the Canadian corporation Barrick Gold will be allowed to construct and operate an open pit gold mine on Mt. Tenabo in Nevada. The mine is planned on lands that are culturally and spiritually significant [...]
Read More »Glue Society, It wasn’t meant to end like this
The Glue Society (their website is a must see), a creative collective created this captivating installation titled “It wasn’t meant to end like this” for the Sculpture by the Sea festival hosted in Aarhus in Denmark. [Via]
Read More »Paris has burned
Paris is Burning still remains a gay cult classic. Jennie Livingston’s documentary from 1990 about the voguing balls of New York City is full of one-liners, but also of sadness: AIDS, discrimination, drugs, poverty, etc. It was both uplifting and tragic. It’s a rollercoaster of a film.
10 practical uses for credit cards
Before you throw out your credit cards as you and the rest of the country discover that being in debt isn’t a good thing necessarily, Scavenging compiles ten creative ways you can repurpose your credit card. [Via]
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