This is an image, taken in 1975, of a woman and a girl falling after their fire escape collapses. I'd say this is a pretty strong rival for the 'Falling Man' image of 9/11.
And this image of the burning monk fascinates me endlessly. Basically (for anyone unfamiliar) in 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam , stepped into a busy street, emptied a container of gasoline over himself and, to the horror and amazement of the world, burned himself to death in protest of the government's torture policy against priests. Thich Quang Dug never made a sound and never moved as he burned, his charred corpse finally tipping over as his body crumbled away. Now THAT is committment to a cause!
This is just a reminder of what may possibly be the most amazing human event ever caught on film. After it swept the world, shocking us all, it disappeared from memory. The falling man is speculated to be a fellow by the name of Jonathan Briley. I doubt it crossed his mind as he fell from one of the worlds tallest buildings that his final moment would shake the world as it did. Read all about it here.
Here's the sequal to the Zoom Quilt I posted about a coupls weeks ago. This time it has 88 images stitched tohether to make the quilt. Check it out at: http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/
Wired has reported that the Chinese are working on a prototype for the long theorized 'impossible drive' otherwise known as the 'Em Drive'. If this baby works it'll put them at least a year ahead of the rest of the world in a new space race. It means longer and faster space travel, possibly giving us a 41 day trip to Mars rather than the 6 months astonauts currently face. Neat.
When I saw the first image of this new Batman animated series I thought it looked like total shit. I still don't like the cartoony blue 80's thing but the trailer makes it look ok. It still pales in comparison to the Bruce Timm series of the 90's but not bad. Check it out:
Say what you will about Michael Moore, but one thing is for sure, he loves to shake shit up. His latest film 'Slacker Uprising' is legally available in full for FREE on his site and the films official site. I guess it's a grand experiment to bypass the illegal world of torrents etc. Similar to what Radiohead initially did with their last album 'In Rainbows' when they released it completely free on their site.
Arborsculpture is a neat process of manipulating the growth of trees to fit cool designs. I am ignorant of the technique but it clearly uses some kind of arborist wizardry to bend trees as they grow without harming the them. At the moment it's used for that freak show entertainment value and furniture design, but soon we'll be able to grow the framework for houses out of living trees so we can all live in hippie-style forest communities instead of the concrete and metal eco disasters we inhabit now. Check out some of the designs;
An Israeli group called Plantware is already working towards a system of mass producing structures such as houses. They already grow park benches and bus stops and figure the technology will be available within 10 years to grow houses. Who knows, someday we may be living in apartments like this one;
The LHC (recently renamed Halo after a global naming competition) has been forced to shut down its operations temporarily after one ton of liquid helium leaked from a section of pipe. The liquid helium is used to cool the magnets, which steer the partical beam, to 1.9°Kelvin (-271°Celsius). The Cern fire brigade was called out to assess the danger. The accident, called a quench, has delayed the project for at least the next couple of weeks, which is a shame coz I was really looking forward to finding out what the inside of a black hole is like. Oh well, patience is a virtue.
Check out this amazing place off the coast of Africa called Socotra. It consists of a main Island, 3 smaller ones and some rocky outcrops. It's situated in the Indian Ocean 250 km from Somalia and 340 km from Yemen. It has been isolated from the mainland of Africa for 6 to 7 million years allowing for some very unique plant evolution. Like the Galapagos Islands, Socotra is teeming with 700 extremely rare species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are endemic (i.e. found nowhere else on Earth), making this one of the most alien-like places on Earth. I'm going!!!
What's odd to me is that the indiginous folk look more South American that African. Beautiful, but weird.
If the ice caps melt and the oceans rise, one architect (Vincent Callebaut) has a solutions ready to go. Enter the Lilypad: A Floating Ecopolis For Climate Refugees. As much as I don't want the ice caps to melt, these things do look awesome and I'd love to see one of these puppies floating around.
Vincent's website has a load of other amazing designs like these. He has an incredible vision for the world.
Line Rider a totally addictive game shown to me by my mate Tony Acworth. Basically you draw a ski slope in any form your imagination can concieve of and hit the play button to watch a little rag-doll dude slide on down. It's awesome!! I've already spent far too much work time on this. Play it at http://linerider.com/ There's loads of amazing videos on YouTube. Here's a random one.
This is a trippy collaborative painting that endlessly loops on itself when you zoom in or out. A complex and cool idea that's also quite creepy and surreal. Me likey. See it at; http://www.feanor.net/z0r/shock/superZOOM.swf
This is a cool new animated horror feature film. It's a compilation of 6 short fims by 6 different comic and graphic artists. Looks pretty sweet. Check out the trailer at; http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809947440/trailer
Check out this well edited video showing how the Disney crew reused scenes from older films for later ones. I had no idea they employed reuse so literally and so extensively (scene setups, timing, action, motion, editing etc)
A mega mechanical spider terrorized Liverpool today. It had been perched on the facade of a building all week and finally came down today to devour the stupid onlookers who gathered in awe at the hellish arachnid.
Designed by French company La Machine. It cost £1.8million to bring to the city and has been lovingly named La Princesse by it's creators. After having it's fill of tiny humans it scurried into the Mersey tunnel where it will nest and spew forth a million or so babies to finish off the rest of the planets inhabitants.
Here's a glimpse of the way in which modern China would prefer to self promote instead of the ghetto style Chinatowns found world-wide. This new space-age Chinatown would represent the Olympic host nation by literally flying around the world and parking itself in different cities for all to enjoy. It would be a self contained city with malls, accomodation and businesses all to showcase the China of tomorrow.
Designed by MAD, The Superstar City is a part of The Uneternal City exhibit which collects and displays futuristic concept art from the brightest minds in the industry.The show debuts in Arsenale, Italy from the 14th of September to 23rd of November 2008.
Queen's University in Belfast Norther Ireland is offering a course in Jedi this semester. The one-day course, “Feel the Force: How to Train the Jedi Way,” is part of an open learning program and offers attendees insight into the psychological and spiritual influences George Lucas tapped in creating the Jedi:
Learn the real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind-tricks – mindfulness, instinct, serenity, empathy, influence, flow. Examine the larger philosophical issues behind the Star Wars universe – balance, destiny, dualism, fatherhood, fascism and bureaucracy.
This comes just in time for the release of the new Star Wars game; The Force Unleashed (which looks goddam awesome) and has me wondering if the Queen's University course is actually a training ground for new Sith lords and uses the Jedi philosophies as a cover. Either way sign me up. I wanna make shit fly around with my mind!
The new Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe game id not necesarily grabbing me BUT this clip of the Joker's fatality move is fantastic! It's totally in keeping with the Joker's personality! I love the dance!
Finally the pet of the future is here. Looking somewhat like an aborted alien foetus, GenPet come prepackaged with colour coding based on their personalities and pre-determined lifespans of eith 1 or 3 years. A slew of info can be found at the GenPets website.
In actual fact they are pieces of artwork created by Toronto based artist Adam Brandejs as a warning of things to come. His website has loads of cool sculptural artwork to sample. He's a talented lad.
I have never had an urge to see an opera until now. I loved the Cronenberg film (Jeff Goldblum was awesome) and would absolutley see this opera if it headed my way. The Brundle Fly looks wicked! It's currently playing at Los Angeles Opera and you can check out the info on the official website.
2 webcams have been set up for us to check out the progress of the LHC on the Swiss/French border. One set inside one of the chambers that read the sciency stuff and another above ground in the carpark (for some reason). Check them out here; http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
In honor of this very Organization are a series of bald monkeys from hither and yon. Our nearest relations or god-awful freaks of nature in need of sacrificing to our mercilessly horrific God? You decide.
And this image of the burning monk fascinates me endlessly. Basically (for anyone unfamiliar) in 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam , stepped into a busy street, emptied a container of gasoline over himself and, to the horror and amazement of the world, burned himself to death in protest of the government's torture policy against priests. Thich Quang Dug never made a sound and never moved as he burned, his charred corpse finally tipping over as his body crumbled away. Now THAT is committment to a cause!
