- from booooooom.com
so(hot)right(now)
life or something like it
Cute video from Osborn Handcrafted founder (who is just as wacky as his shoes)
Osborn Handcrafted – Aaron Jumps! from chris keener & goldenbear on Vimeo.
I’ve got a black and white pair of these shoes (in the crazy Guatemalan print towards the end) and I get tons of compliments every time I wear them… nice to see the founder is as nutty as his prints are!
Peggy Orenstein: Cinderella Ate My Daughter
It was confusing: images of girls’ successes abounded — they were flooding the playing field, excelling in school, outnumbering boys in college. At the same time, the push to make their appearance the epicenter of their identities did not seem to have abated one whit. If anything, it had intensified, extending younger (and, as the unnaturally smooth brows of midlife women attest, stretching far later). I had read stacks of books devoted to girls’ adolescence, but where was I to turn to understand the new culture of little girls, from toddler to “tween,” to help decipher the potential impact — if any — of the images and ideas they were absorbing about who they should be, what they should buy, what made them girls? Did playing Cinderella shield them from early sexualization or prime them for it? Was walking around town dressed as Jasmine harmless fun, or did it instill an unhealthy fixation on appearance? Was there a direct line from Prince Charming to Twilight‘s Edward Cullen to distorted expectations of intimate relationships?
- from npr.org
George Monbiot: To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century
Our political system protects and enriches a fantastically wealthy elite, much of whose money is, as a result of their interesting tax and transfer arrangements, in effect stolen from poorer countries, and poorer citizens of their own countries. Ours is a semi-criminal money-laundering economy, legitimised by the pomp of the lord mayor’s show and multiple layers of defence in government. Politically irrelevant, economically invisible, the rest of us inhabit the margins of the system. Governments ensure that we are thrown enough scraps to keep us quiet, while the ultra-rich get on with the serious business of looting the global economy and crushing attempts to hold them to account.
- from The Guardian
Biggest hurdles for active cities: badly designed incentives. From a great interview with Marcus Westbury of Renew Newcastle
PPS: What were your initial biggest hurdles regarding government, property owners, etc? How did you overcome these challenges?
Westbury: Badly designed incentives. There are a myriad of incentives for property owners not to make available their empty properties – Newcastle had more than 150 empty buildings in the two main streets in large part because owners were better off to board them up and write off the losses than use them as going concerns. Essentially, Renew Newcastle exists as an intermediary designed to change how that process works – we use some clever but legal contracts and risk management processes to make that work a lot better. We manage risk and remove complexity which is essentially the key to it.
In many respects, on the surface, Renew Newcastle looks like an arts and cultural project – and it is – but from my end it is really a series of mechanisms for changing access to and governance of space. We have changed how space behaves for creative people and they in turn have brought their creativity and innovation to the problem of bringing the city back to life.
- from PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES
Francesco Vezzoli’s Sacrilegio Exhibit At Gagosian Features Supermodels As Religious Icons
- from refinery29.com
Wind Turbine Bridge Transforms Italian Viaduct Into Public Space
A bridge that repurposes abandoned viaducts, produces energy AND looks futuristically sleek? Yes, it can be true, and it is Italy’s proposed Wind Turbine Viaduct called “Solar Wind.” Southern Italy is dotted with unused viaducts, and rather than spending $50 million to tear them down, town officials near Calabria held a competition called “Solar Park South,” open to designers and engineers asking them to come up with an environmentally conscious way to re-use the existing structures.
Solar Wind, conceived by the design team of Francesco Colarossi, Giovanna Saracino and Luisa Saracino, has an abundance of green benefits. Using the space between the viaduct, the team proposed installing 26 wind turbines, which would produce 36 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year!
Additionally, the roadway across the bridge would be densely lined with solar cells coated in clear plastic, producing another 11.2 million kilowatt hours. Much like New York’s Highline, but on a much more grandiose scale, the entire viaduct itself would be turned into a promenade and park. Drivers may pull off to take in gorgeous coastal views, solar powered greenhouses would be installed along the bridge, creating an ultra-fresh farmer’s market.
The entire structure is like a green Utopia, repurposing abandoned structures, producing a combined 40 million kilowatt hours of electricity (that is enough to power 15,000 homes), while creating a chance to take in the surrounding panoramic views, and buy the freshest of produce! Sounds much better than merely tearing down the old viaducts.
- from inhabitat.com
Montreal’s Museum of Possibilities asks city dwellers to decide how to use a public space
The Museum of Possibilities became a playful yet actionable poll of public opinion, turning the possibilities into probabilities as the people of Montréal told their city, directly and tangibly, what they’d like to do with the space — a sort of physical, life-sized version of Give a Minute.
- from brainpickings
Wallace Shawn: Why I Call Myself a Socialist: Is the World Really a Stage?
We are not what we seem. We are more than what we seem. The actor knows that. And because the actor knows that hidden inside himself there’s a wizard and a king, he also knows that when he’s playing himself in his daily life, he’s playing a part, he’s performing, just as he’s performing when he plays a part on stage. He knows that when he’s on stage performing, he’s in a sense deceiving his friends in the audience less than he does in daily life, not more, because on stage he’s disclosing the parts of himself that in daily life he struggles to hide. He knows, in fact, that the role of himself is actually a rather small part, and that when he plays that part he must make an enormous effort to conceal the whole universe of possibilities that exists inside him.
- from Guernica
Go @yiyinglu, go! Huge story on Yiying’s new start-up, Walls360, on CNET
I was lucky enough to get a preview of Yiying’s amazing one-of-a-kind fabric stickers at the Creative Sydney launch in May 2010 (check out the pics!), back when the crafty-Twitter-holic was just beginning the collaboration that has now become Walls360.
Yiying just launched Walls360 at a series of events across the US. It’s amazing product that lets anyone place their own graphics on their walls – or you can choose from work by designers in their catalog – and it’s generated a ton of incredible press, including this piece on news.cnet.com.
I’m so thrilled for Yiying and super proud to have had a chance to Wall360 myself last year – check it out below! I’m heading over there to order myself some major room improvements right now…
Santa Clara offers free public transport for homeless people
Santa Clara County has the highest median household income of any county in California, and now its residents are spreading some of that wealth.
Beginning in April, any one enrolled in the county’s program to help homeless find permanent housing can also apply to get up to 1,850 free-ride transit stickers on the Valley Transit Authority’s light-rail and bus lines. The stickers will be good for three months, at which point the rider can re-apply for more, if necessary.
With an estimated 3,500 of the county’s 7,200 homeless people expected to take advantage of the offer, the local government expects to pay about $111,000 per year for the program. But Bob Dolci, who heads up Homeless Concerns in San Jose and will over see the free-rides project, says he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“This will enable them to get to medical appointments, job appointments or any thing related to help ing deal with their homelessness,” he says. “Absolutely, it’s a lifeline.”
- from GOOD
Looking forward to William Yang’s new show, opening this Wednesday at Stills Gallery
A centrepiece to the exhibition will be a new series of self portraits covering the span of Yang’s life. Shown in a smaller selection at GOMA Brisbane as part of The China Project these delightful images tell us more than we already know about the nature of Yang’s bold journey embracing his identity as an Australian citizen and a contemplation of life’s milestones. All these works have a written commentary, which has become a hallmark of Yang’s later works. The tone is always gently wry with a delightful mix of humour and seriousness.
- from stillsgallery.com.au
INSA: turning room paintings into hypnotic gifs
via fecalface.com
INSA creates these animated gifs by painting then taking a photo. Painting over it again and another picture and so on. This one was created in four wall paintings.
Buy Local Campaigns actually work: 140 US cities now running buy local programs
“Almost half [of business owners in cities with active 'buy local' campaigns] reported that the campaign had brought new customers to their business and 55% said it had made existing customers more loyal,” Stacy Mitchell of the New Rules Project reports. “More than two-thirds said local media coverage of independent businesses had increased and 51% said that local government officials were now more aware and supportive of the needs of independent businesses.”
- from ECOPOLITOLOGY
A review of Dia: Beacon brings back memories of one of my all-time favourite art museum experiences…
via theartblog.org
Visiting Dia:Beacon ranks as one of my all-time favourite art museum experiences. I went up to Beacon with a friend in July last year, but visited the gallery by myself, wandering through the enormous halls alone for hours. The no-photo policy focused my mind on experiencing the work, and the tight selection of artists on show focused my attention on examining what these artists were getting at with their endless exploration of a limited set of materials.
My favourite rooms were filled with John Chamberlain’s crushed cars; colourful, precariously balanced and – standing beside them, you quickly realise – inert, but deadly. I became aware of the force needed to crush them, a force I controlled every time I got behind a wheel. I became aware of the fragility of the car, and the tenuous nature of the automated, controlled, empowered culture it represents. Through the repetition of these forms around the huge hall, I started thinking about the endless permutations of expression, of how demanding an idea can be on an artist, hurling itself against the mind again and again, seeking perfect synthesis. I’d seen a Chamberlain before, at the Pompediou, but it didn’t have this kind of impact. Andy Warhol’s Shadows had a similar effect, the repetition raising questions about the hand of the artist, and how gesture (or the illusion of it) and colour strike your emotions.
I adored Dan Flavin and Robert Smithson’s rooms, Joseph Beuys too, of course… there was also a temporary installation by Zoe Leonard, a work gathering and displaying 4000 postcards from Niagara Falls, which was compelling viewing, the kind of work that excites the imagination of any historian, obsessive or anyone interested in the way we mythologise the places and times we inhabit.
Dia:Beacon is an exceptional place filled with incredible work and just the right mood to contemplate it.
Trion Aims to Revolutionize Online Gaming with TV connections and more
Trion’s third scheduled game release, currently going by the titleSyfy Action MMO will have a television component produced by the SyFy Channel. The show will tell a character story within the game’s world. If something happens in the show, it will be reflected within the game world. Likewise, if a player does something heroic during the game, they might find their feat being discussed on the show.
- from MASHABLE
Bikestation: D.C.’s Beautiful New Bike Center
Designed by KGP Design Studio, the Bikestation is a secure, members-only facility that features parking for 200 bikes and some repair services, all staffed by local company Bike and Roll. Commuters can also rent lockers and change in a private changing room. An annual pass costs $96 plus a $20 administrative free. Bikestation also operates similar facilities in cities like Seattle and Long Beach, California.
- from GOOD
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