a visual collective outlet of inspiration
bukowski at his most raw, vulnerable, and truthful. no barfly facades, just words dedicated to jane cooney baker, his first love. a must. i always thought that burning in water, drowning in flame was my favorite but perhaps… by sv
Author: tomorrow started
a moment of tranquility
view from my terrace in sweden right now. soaking in some peace and quiet before returning to the nyc hustle in three days. by hk
all the way faye
bonnie at her best. renegade inspiration. let’s start a revolution. by sv
Ermini the car: 1949
yes, combine a heavily modified fiat 1100 chassis with an alfa romeo 2500 engine… you’ve got the ermini. design and power, questa era la voglia di pasquino ermini (this was the will of the pasquino ermini), italian car designer and mechanic. direct from a vintage car fair in piazza signoria, florence. by nk
Chinese lights over Florence
nothing interesting about the food here (although we are in italy). despite that, i love the lettering of these chinese ideograms in contrast with the old walls of florence. direct from via dei servi, vicino al duomo. by nk
vanessa paradis – love songs
ok, now that is a great crew. album artwork by m/m paris, photo by karim sadli, music by mister benjamin biolay, video by dusan reljin and well vanessa is pretty nice too… oh and by the way the song rocks! (fuck vevo!) by pp.
even the new yorker plays ping pong
by sv
foxtrot blues
image: cover for sheet music of foxtrot blues; clip: part three of dmitri shostakovich’s jazz suite, the foxtrot blues themselves with ukelele accompaniment. setting the tone for my day, gettin’ down with the hawaiian guitar. by sv
quote of the day
“i will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. we do not remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. how can one remember thirst?”
-from the film sans soleil, by chris marker
tom dixon – mathematician tools
the perfect gift, a set of mathematician tools etched in brass by tom dixon. every man needs one. by pp.
if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?
“and it says a lot about you that when your friends jump off a bridge en masse, your first thought is apparently ‘my friends are all foolish and I won’t be like them’ and not ‘are my friends ok?” a wonderfully illustrated series depicting the woes of modern day life with a sense of wit but more importantly some common sense thrown in for good measure, all by randall munroe at http://xkcd.com/. by bw
SILK PAVILION – by mediated matter group
silk pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on product and architectural scales.
the primary structure was created of 26 polygonal panels made of silk threads laid down by a CNC (computer-numerically controlled) machine. inspired by the silkworm’s ability to generate a 3D cocoon out of a single multi-property silk thread (1km in length), the overall geometry of the pavilion was created using an algorithm that assigns a single continuous thread across patches providing various degrees of density.
overall density variation was informed by the silkworm itself deployed as a biological “printer” in the creation of a secondary structure. a swarm of 6,500 silkworms was positioned at the bottom rim of the scaffold spinning flat non-woven silk patches as they locally reinforced the gaps across CNC-deposited silk fibers. following their pupation stage the silkworms were removed. resulting moths can produce 1.5 million eggs with the potential of constructing up to 250 additional pavilions.
affected by spatial and environmental conditions including geometrical density as well as variation in natural light and heat, the silkworms were found to migrate to darker and denser areas. desired light effects informed variations in material organization across the surface area of the structure. a season-specific sun path diagram mapping solar trajectories in space dictated the location, size and density of apertures within the structure in order to lock-in rays of natural light entering the pavilion from south and east elevations. the central oculus is located against the east elevation and may be used as a sun-clock.
parallel basic research explored the use of silkworms as entities that can “compute” material organization based on external performance criteria. specifically, we explored the formation of non-woven fiber structures generated by the silkworms as a computational schema for determining shape and material optimization of fiber-based surface structures.
research and design by the mediated matter research group at the MIT media lab in collaboration with prof. fiorenzo omenetto (TUFTS university) and dr. james weaver (WYSS institute, harvard university). mediated matter researchers include markus kayser, jared laucks, carlos david Gonzalez uribe, jorge duro-royo and neri oxman (director). by bw
