The estrangement gallery

Ghostly fingers

2010-09-01T10:01:00.004+01:00

Every so often I come across a page on google books that looks like this. A little ghostly trace of how it came into being.

Ephemera

2010-05-21T16:38:00.002+01:00

The killer dog poster is from a collection of Ghanaian movie posters at this lovely site here. 'In the 1980s video cassette technology made it possible for “mobile cinema” operators in Ghana to travel from town to town and village to village creating temporary cinemas. The touring film group would create a theatre by hooking up a TV and VCR onto a portable generator and playing the films for the people to see.'

Also incredibly wonderful is the collection El Rostro - from Magia blanca moderna o sea Magnetismo, hipnotismo, sugestion y espirtismo by Q.G. Polinntzieu (Barcelona,1899). Go and look - you should see all of them together, they're beautiful.

iartist

2010-04-25T16:10:00.002+01:00

'IARTISTLONDON is the cool new brand that enables you to make real contemporary pieces of art from the comfort of your home. All those pieces that you always wanted to have but couldn´t afford.'

Raven variable matrix

2010-04-19T18:56:00.002+01:00

I love this image - here a fantasy flying machine sculpture by Belgian artist Panamarenko is pictured in a shed or stable, with curious dogs inspecting it, and a bit of sunlight streaming in. It makes it seem like a dream kept in a secret place, like you're peeking in on something incredibly magical, something that is confusing to dogs and has hidden powers.

unhappy hipsters

2010-03-26T12:31:00.003Z

Sometimes quite genius.

Soon

2010-03-10T07:47:00.000Z

Via fffound.

Beauty + mystery

2010-03-04T15:37:00.002Z

Top, Stretching figure, by Betty Rea. Bottom, 3 mysteries.

vrno

2010-03-04T15:07:00.003Z

I couldn't even choose favourites. They're all beautiful. Here and here. Via the letter.

The main reason god made summer

2010-02-27T13:01:00.007Z

(Photos by Lane Coder (top, via Design Squish) and Ryan McGinley). There are some wonderful websites - Wild swimming and the Outdoor swiming society, and there's a preview of Daniel Start's book here with some beautiful photos.

Kind of an apology

2010-02-26T10:48:00.002Z

Esser, Satisfied. x

Erizos de mar

2010-02-24T11:43:00.001Z

It's the season! On the list of things to do. Tips and stuff here and here.

romanticismo militar

2010-02-15T12:28:00.003Z

Estilo chino. More here. x

In utero exercises

2010-01-20T14:25:00.006Z

(From Thomas Raynald, The birth of mankinde, otherwise named The womans booke, London 1540)

More reminders of the incredible loveliness of summer

2009-11-29T23:30:00.002Z

Classical things

2009-11-28T08:47:00.002Z

More beauty

2009-11-27T23:26:00.002Z

Beauty

2009-11-27T09:15:00.002Z

There are some seriously gorgeous things at but does it float right now.

Good habits, bad habits

2009-11-26T11:12:00.001Z

Bathes daily! Timely reminders from the Indian book depot.

Woods

2009-11-25T13:06:00.000Z

from a beautiful revolution.

Dreaming of summery things

2009-11-24T15:12:00.003Z

Beautiful photos by Abby Robinson here.

Ping pong

2009-11-24T11:13:00.003Z

Ultra stylish. Photos here and here.

Taxonomy of artworks

2009-11-20T09:30:00.003Z

Art is everywhere is a website with some wonderful material run by SerraGlia (some really nice projects on his page), and with this helpful summary of the site's categories.

sloes

2009-11-19T15:28:00.002Z

- Arándano, arándano azul o mora azul (crowberry, blueberry, bilberry)
- Arándano rojo (cranberry)
- Arañón, endrina, ciruela silvestre o pacharán (amargo, con el que se hace el licor)

The indigenous artefact

2009-11-19T12:30:00.002Z

Thomas Whiffen, group of Amazonian Indians, 1908-9. From the Assembling Bodies exhibition at the MAA.

Nineteenth century photography at the British Library

2009-11-07T17:51:00.005Z

(Babboon walking, Eadweard Muybridge 1872-85; Frog x-rays, Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valentia c.1896; Regent's Park Hippo, Don Juan Carlos, Count of Montizón 1852). The exhibition was really wonderful. One of my favourite discoveries is that long exposure times meant it was really difficult to capture animals--and so many photos were staged with stuffed animals. There was a beautiful picture in the exhibition of some natives hunting a boar (I think), and they are poised with their spears over an animal that is very obviously stuffed. I will go back the next time I'm down and I'll report more - it's a really beautiful exhibition. Some pictures are online here.

Guns

2009-11-06T15:36:00.010Z

Alexander Lobanov (above) is the clear favourite for gun fascination. And I think especially nice alongside Carla Verea's photos of Guatemalan bodyguards (here). Also nice on the gun theme are these by Andre Robillard who, apparently, makes his 'favourite' guns out of old bits of stuff. And a beautiful roundup on the AK-47 at the always extraordinary Englishrussia.

"No more explaining where the photos were taken!"

2009-10-13T14:13:00.006+01:00

I had meant to do a followup on the studiophoto posts (here and here), by doing something on this website here. But I never got around to it. Partly because the site is too strange. Is it real? Is it an art project? Are the people meant to look so badly pasted into their chosen background? Is it a comment on the dislocation of prisoners? Are the background images supposed to look so incredibly argos-catalogue depressing? Is it a comment on the crushing disappointment built into capitalist dreams? That not even knowing the correct things to fantasise about is the inevitable level to which we're all reduced? That we need to be educated as to what things we should regret we don't have? Are cars and gazebos really the things you wish you were around more when you're in prison? I also never got around to posting on it because the pictures were just too ugly. So here, instead is a random image. I wish I could remember where I found it, but I can't.

Pieces of things

2009-10-05T10:33:00.001+01:00

The fifth man

2009-10-05T10:03:00.006+01:00

Back when spies were stylish... The man with two pairs of glasses is John Cairncross, known as the 'fifith man' of the Cambridge spy ring in the 1950s, because no one knew who he was until 1990. And he wears his sunglasses over his normal glasses.

Taxidermy

2009-09-13T11:05:00.002+01:00

Sometimes things done really badly give a much better insight into what they're about than things done really well. The aims and ideas are clumsily and charmingly on show where subtlety and skill efface them to produce something that looks 'natural'. Bad taxidermy is a particularly charming example. Partly because all taxidermy is so doomed to failure, it's just a matter of degree. There are some wonderful essays on taxidermy at ravishing beasts.

Things to do with dead physicists

2009-09-09T14:38:00.003+01:00

Yes, yes, you can make a statue of them and then put their remains inside the statue. Alternatively, you can make a giant asymetrical space shuttle and let them drift around in space (Lebbeus woods' design for Einstein's tomb) - or you can make a gigantic cenotaph with holes in the domed roof in the pattern of the constellations (Etienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Newton). When Newton died, he was the first scientist in England ever to get a tomb as good as a poet. You wait a few years, and now no one's interested in dead poets drifting in space. (More here and here, and a beautiful collection of giant spheres at cabinet here).

Pilates Motivation

2009-09-08T17:36:00.003+01:00

This is Joseph Pilates showing how it's done. This is exactly what it will be like. And if it's not, they're not doing it right.

Dust cover for dog

2009-08-17T18:27:00.001+01:00

Continuing the dog obsession. Via futility closet.

Cabin

2009-07-15T00:00:00.003+01:00

The unabomber's cabin - beautiful photos by Richard Barnes.

Part of the fascination with this cabin is the fact that the entire 10 by 12 foot structure and contents was transported across the country to be used as evidence in the trial. Later it sat in storage for a while before finally being installed as an exhibit in the classily named 'newseum' in Washington D.C. There is something a bit magic about the place of the cabin in the wilderness in the imagination. On the one hand it signifies bucolic peacefulness, simple living, communion with nature, and a haven from the corruption of society. On the other hand, the very same qualities that make it so much about purity, nature, tranquility - it's isolated, has no running water or electricity - are also summoned as unarguable evidence of the dangerous, seditious, 'life of a mad hermit'...

Interesting observations on this here and here.

Textile tree

2009-06-30T12:53:00.003+01:00

A slide displaying a fragment of ancient textile which belongs in the things like trees collection. From the archaeological museum with this mysterious instruction on the door:

Strange and beautiful things

2009-06-30T12:48:00.003+01:00

It's been too long, hasn't it? Here are this afternoon's beautiful things - from the archaeological museum, which is made almost entirely out of relflective surfaces and is accidentally beautiful.

More domestics

2008-06-27T10:16:00.003+01:00

I like the bike gears bulb decoration. It is also no bad idea to think of things to do with trashed bikes, because there are two in the garden which it would be nice to get rid of. Again, no idea where I found these, but I will soon put up a list of websites with this kind of stuff for you to browse through...

because it's NEW

2008-06-27T10:11:00.001+01:00

I love this thing.

Big ideas

2008-06-14T13:06:00.005+01:00

project here by James Houston is wonderful - Radiohead's Nude played with old computer parts.
'I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there'.

Random niceness

2008-06-14T13:00:00.002+01:00

via swissmiss.

A short digression on interiors

2008-06-13T23:46:00.003+01:00

and probably not the last. Some random nice things:

I can't remember where any of these pictures came from.

Tidal bathing pools

2008-06-13T23:39:00.004+01:00

There is a nice list of tidal salt-water swimming pools around the UK here. (photos a random selection from flickr).

Playing the building

2008-06-12T19:03:00.002+01:00

David Byrne installation at the Battery Maritime Museum in New York that turns the building into a giant musical instrument. The control organ is hooked up to various structural parts of the building - pipes, beams, pillars - and produces a variety of sounds out of them.

Hiding places

2008-06-12T12:37:00.005+01:00

From here, and this most beautiful thing ever
which is apparently for sleeping in the garden. From here.

Estrangement scrapbook

2008-05-26T07:46:00.002+01:00

A new feature! You can now browse through the scrapbook of things I keep in store for you here. (and link on sidebar).

Chalk shadow outlines

2008-05-14T09:16:00.002+01:00

Here. Via the letter.

Capitalising on distance

2008-05-09T10:43:00.004+01:00

Tim Knowles has postal projects here. They are wonderful. They make pictures of journeys.

Metabolising report 1

2008-05-08T23:49:00.004+01:00

Today I made 400 words out of
3 cups of coffee
8 cigarettes
half pita bread with coconut oil
pasta
1 courgette
peas
parsley
parmesan

Random picture of the day

2008-05-08T23:43:00.003+01:00

via here.

cycledog

2008-04-20T23:15:00.005+01:00

In my weekend sorting spree, I found this.

Years ago I read an interview with Jim Crace, and the interviewer asked him what his best ever purchases had been. He said his dog and his bike, but that since riding one interfered with walking the other, his best ever purchase would be when someone fitted a dog with pedals. I couldn't get the image out of my head and this, I imagined, was what Jim Crace on a cycledog would look like.

Food art

2008-04-20T17:53:00.004+01:00

This site is simultaneously maddening and beguiling. There are two arms to it - food pairing and interchangeable foods. Grapefruit above is an example of the first; Rosemary an example of the second. Aren't they beautiful? But the maddening element comes from the incomprehensible rubric that accompanies them. The interchangeable foods seems to make some sense - the idea is that each of the branches represents a type of flavour, and by taking one element from each branch you can recreate the flavour of the central ingredient. So far so good. But there is no explanation as to why they are clustered as they are, any indication of proportions (if something appears on two different clusters can you double the quantity of it?) and it just doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't believe that a combination of 2 parts respectively of ginger, nutmeg and alspice will approximate to rosemary. The foodpairing aspect is either not explaining itself very well or is extremely underwhelming. They propose 'By comparing the flavour of each food product eg strawberry with the rest of the food and their flavours, new combinations like strawberry with peas can be made'. I desperately want this to be more interesting than it sounds. They add that the more flavours foods have in common the closer they appear to one another on the chart, but I am still struggling to make any sense of this. These diagrams are wonderful, I love love love the idea of the project, but I'm pretty disappointed with the outcome. I think we can do this better.

Plastic bags and gusts of air

2008-03-27T12:54:00.003Z

Plastic bag animals via wooster collective - 'there's an artist who's been making these animals out of discarded plastic bags. He (or she) ties the bags to the ventilation grates above the subway lines so that when the subway rushes through underneath, the animal jumps up and springs to life'.

Ellen Harvey

2008-03-26T09:50:00.004Z

Between 1999 and 2001 Ellen Harvey was painting these miniature landscapes around New York. There is a map with links to the pictures on her website here. She has some other nice projects on her website - I love her series of impossible self-portraits -

Gormley men

2008-03-25T12:16:00.004Z

I love these figures. Pictures of London and Crosby Beach installations courtesey of various flickr members here and of the Time Horizon project from Gormley's website here.

Things David Horvitz will send you for money

2008-03-04T17:53:00.004Z

More at his website here. Via Heading East. There are some more great postal related projects at The Modern Letter.

Very small objects

2008-02-28T12:56:00.004Z

The Collier classification system for very small objects is beautiful and can be found here.

Sea Forts

2008-02-13T10:30:00.002Z

A set of photographs of these things on the north kent coast is on flickr here and the photographer has written a brief history of them here.

Humboldt's Parrot

2008-02-09T13:27:00.000Z

In 1804, the Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt returned from his five-year expedition to Central and South America, bringing with him a transcription of 40 words spoken by a parrot which was believed to be the last speaker of an extinct language.

In 1997 Rachel Berwick taught these 40 words to two amazonian parrots, exhibiting them behind translucent screens as last traces of a lost world. She has subsequently used recordings of these parrots to teach other parrots. There are now a total of six speakers of Humboldt's 40 words. More on this and some very cool other projects on Rachel Berwick's website here, and brought together with similar themes at language week at the Kircher Society here.

Sound mirrors

2008-02-05T17:04:00.001Z

Acoustic mirrors built on the south and northeast coasts of England between about 1916 and the 1930s. Some beautiful pictures on flickr here and here.

Research facilites

2008-01-31T12:39:00.001Z

Deputydog has a series of unbelievably cool posts on unbelievably cool research facilites here, here and here.

But surely there's something missing from this glamorous lineup of research facilities?... A wonderful collection of these extraordinary things can be found at Curious Expeditions:

I have, I think, gone off books. Which is unfortunate. But looking at libraries in the same light as these strange devices is starting to claw back my interest...

Living patterns

2008-01-31T08:49:00.001Z

Via Design Notes by Michael Surtees.

Planes and ships

2008-01-30T15:48:00.001Z

In the archives of the wonderful deputydog is a post on abandoned vehicles. Here are google images of ships in Nouadhibou

And here, planes in Arizona

Fritture

2008-01-17T12:24:00.000Z

This wins points for best silly idea/looks good ratio I've seen for a while. Via the letter.

More Burtynsky quarries

2008-01-16T18:55:00.000Z

At Flowers Central until 2/2. More images from the exhibition here.

Impossible objects

2008-01-10T13:49:00.001Z

These come from a beautiful website dedicated to the creations of Jaques Carelman, the author of the Catalogue d'objets introuvables (1969). For some reason it's in spanish.

Photo paint by numbers

2008-01-07T15:08:00.000Z

Via English Russia. A wonderful staged photo project: instructions for a scene are provided, and participants in various cities produce photographs accordingly.

Here, for instance, are the instructions for the scene entitled 'A Cheating Wife'. 'You need to make a photo of a man, “a lover”, hanging outside the real window. The window should be not lower than a 3rd store of a multi-stored building. “A husband” should lean out from another window with a gun, aiming at “the lover”. From yet another window “the cheating wife” should look out in despair.'

Made out of the ordinary

2008-01-05T16:10:00.000Z

A beautifully ambiguous tagline for Karen magazine. This is the out of the ordinary cover for issue 2.

Citation needed

2008-01-04T08:26:00.001Z

Via nascent ideas.

Happy new year!

2008-01-01T15:50:00.000Z

And for the first post of the year, Michael Wolf's series of photographs of Chinese copy artists. (There is also an interesting article here on the mass-produced painting industry in China).

More pointless pictures

2007-12-22T00:50:00.001Z

The random picture machine

2007-12-21T17:48:00.000Z

Sascha Pohflepp has a nice project called blinks and buttons, for which he has made a 'blind camera' which takes other people's photos for you. The camera has no lens - instead, it records the time you press the button, and uploads (eventually) a photo somone else posted at that time. So, by way of decoration, here is a couple of random pictures I am contributing to the cause...

Uh oh

2007-12-12T23:05:00.001Z

More insights from indexed.

More book ingenuity...

2007-12-11T11:01:00.001Z

Jill Silvia removes, cell by cell, all the information from old ledgers and account books.

Town, Snow, Road

2007-12-06T09:55:00.000Z

Barsamian's persistence of vision

2007-11-22T15:40:00.001Z

Gregory Barsamian makes these sinister kinetic sculptures which, with a dark room and strobe lighting, do monstrous things. There are videos on his website here.

Found

2007-11-21T18:23:00.000Z

Found magazine is something I've just found. It features a collection of random found things. The story of how this started is here and is wonderful.

Animal polaroids

2007-11-21T10:56:00.000Z

More here.

Random nice picture 7

2007-11-18T13:49:00.000Z

By Corey Arnold. From the beautiful human animals/animal humans series.

Random nice picture 6

2007-11-17T13:38:00.001Z

Planes landing LAX runway by Kevin Cooley.

Random nice picture 5

2007-11-16T15:07:00.000Z

Michael Andrews, Melanie and Me Swimming (1979).

Random nice picture 4

2007-11-16T00:04:00.000Z

By Angus Boulton (of the gymnasia post below).

Random nice picture 3: Girl in spectacles

2007-11-15T08:55:00.000Z

By Luke Stephenson.

Random nice picture 2: Dog chasing my car in the desert

2007-11-13T14:01:00.000Z

Amazing amazing. By John Divola (via Your Daily Awesome). See the full series here (2000s, dogs chasing car).

Random nice picture week...

2007-11-13T13:47:00.000Z

Today's by Luigi Ghirri

Amazing photo sculptures

2007-10-17T19:14:00.001+01:00

By Korean artist Gwon Osang.

Trophy

2007-10-17T19:05:00.001+01:00

Deer's head By Rachel Denny. I love the zipper. I wish there was one with knitted antlers.

Neon Graveyard Las Vegas

2007-10-12T16:18:00.001+01:00

Where old signs get put out to pasture. More pictures from Flickr.

Floor Plans!

2007-10-11T18:46:00.000+01:00

Mark Bennett makes floorplans of houses in films. I love them.

(Clockwise from top left: Home of Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse (Rosemary's Baby); Home of George and Martha (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf); Home of Norman Bates (Psycho); Home of Jack Horner (Boogie Nights). More at Conner Contemporary Art.

Braille Graffiti

2007-10-02T22:33:00.001+01:00

Isn't it beautiful? By 'The Blind'. Via Wooster Collective. And below a helpful key. I never knew it started out as night writing. I love that.

More ingenious things you can do with books

2007-09-23T12:22:00.000+01:00

Noriko Ambe does these extraordinary topographical book dissections.

Singing, Dancing, Stealing

2007-09-19T10:40:00.000+01:00

A beautiful poster forThe Stranger by Sleep Op+.

Things made out of other things

2007-09-18T19:57:00.000+01:00

Much as I am not a fan of the whole aestheticising reuse business, these are undeniably lovely things...

The top two are by Stuart Haygarthland, the first made of objects washed up on bits of the Kent coastline, and the second made from used party poppers. The third one is made from old shuttlecocks found at Deptford Market, by Gitta Gschwendtner.

Someone will no doubt throw out a slightly less lovely lampshade to buy one of these. And someone else will have to work out what to make out of old lampshades.

More photostudio

2007-09-18T12:17:00.000+01:00

An amazing collection of paper moon portrait shots here. (Via drawn)

More cut up books

2007-09-17T18:12:00.001+01:00

These ones are by Georgina Russell.

Things that look like trees

2007-09-17T12:20:00.000+01:00

Except for trees, which look like pictures of trees.

(clockwise from top left, lung; area of forest cleared by loggers, photo by Walter Murch via Lawrence Weschler's Convergences pages at McSweeney's (on which more later); Myoung Ho Lee's tree photographs via Lensculture; Jamie Wieck's urban growth lamp post project.)

Strandbeest

2007-09-15T18:31:00.000+01:00

Theo Jensen makes giant wind powered sculptures which resemble large animals. He releases them in flocks on beaches to roam around. There are some amazing videos of these roaming creatures on his website here.

Flickr Photo Pools

2007-09-11T10:39:00.001+01:00

People pool their photos on various subjects. Some of my favourites:

Vapour trails:Passport photos:Found Type:Abandoned Places:
Found photos:

We're back!

2007-09-10T17:54:00.000+01:00

Carved books by Brian Dettmer. More here and here.

More empty pools

2007-07-15T20:52:00.001+01:00