MARBLE DREAMS

Alessandro Bianchi

“QUERCETA DI SERAVEZZA, Italy (Reuters) - In 1517, Michelangelo climbed Mount Altissimo in Tuscany and found the marble of his dreams.It was, the Renaissance master wrote, “of compact grain, homogeneous, crystalline, reminiscent of sugar”. He deemed it perhaps even more precious than that from nearby Carrara, where he had obtained marble for some of his most famous statues. With the blessing of Pope Leo X, Michelangelo designed a path that could get blocks of the white marble down from the mountain to be transported to Florence to be used to decorate the facade of the church of San Lorenzo…  After several years of work to carve out a road… the project was abandoned. The church of San Lorenzo still has no facade… 

"Modern cutting and extraction techniques have produced a surreal landscape similar to some Cubism paintings, a dizzying array of upside down staircases and sugar-cube structures looking heavenward."

Before the extracting begins, experts known as “tecchiaroli” hang on ropes from the sides of the mountain and pick at its sides with pointy iron bars to remove loose rock that could fall and hurt workers in subsequent phases of the extraction."

Source: https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/carving-out-michelangelos-marble-dream

THE BEAUTIFUL BRAIN

"Illustrations by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Spanish neuroscientist, from the book “The Beautiful Brain.” From left: A diagram suggesting how the eyes might transmit a unified picture of the world to the brain; a purkinje neuron from the human cerebellum; and a diagram showing the flow of information through the hippocampus in the brain"

More HERE

MARS ROVER

A photo from the Mars Rover with a tiny bit of the apparatus in shot.

DINOSAUR SUPERVISOR

Phil Tippet - the dinosaur supervisor in Jurassic park - opens up his studio:

"Tippett’s studio workspace is littered with props and miniature models of the cinematic icons that he helped to create. Over in the corner is an Imperial Walker, the quadrupedal troop transporter from The Empire Strikes Back. Hanging on the wall by the coffee machine is a life-size bust of the Reaper vampire from Blade II, with its hideous, gaping maw. Up in the rafters is the gigantic ED-209 kill droid from RoboCop."

Read the full article HERE

Watch the trailer for Mad God HERE

DO HO SUH'S FULL-SCALE APARTMENT RUBBING

 the process begins by wrapping each and every surface with white paper, covering the walls, ceiling, cabinets and even house keys. suh continues by rubbing colored pencil across the paper sheets

In Praise of Chairs

Tony Zhou - In Praise of Chairs

CRAIGSLIST MIRRORS

A selection of the best images of mirrors for sale on Craigslist. Enjoy more HERE

ROLLING SHUTTER PHENOMENON

  

"Many modern digital cameras use as their ‘sensing’ device a CMOS detector, also known as an active-pixel sensor, which works by accumulating electronic charge as light falls upon it. After a given amount of time, the exposure time, the charge is shifted row-by-row back to the camera for further processing. There is then a finite time where the camera scans down the image, saving rows of pixels at a time. If there is any motion over this timescale the image will be distorted."

Read more HERE 

Candy

A virtual prostitute taken from the game Grand theft auto slowly strolls by viewable through a real car door.

You can send a text message to the virtual prostitute. She can respond with (for an example):

• Hi sweety I am a bit occupied right now, will call you back later
• Please buy me

link to video 

link_virtualrobert

Sye Mead: Visual Futurism