12:52 PM
thisiscolossal.com »
Photographer Martin Rietze recently traveled to Japan where he had the incredible opportunity (or near grave misfortune?) of photographing the Sakurajima Valcano in southern Kyushu as it spewed forth smoke, fire, and lava bombs. If that wasn’t enough the hellish volcano also caused a lightning show that lasted over 20 seconds giving the photographer ample time to
flee for his lifetake these stunning photographs. You can see many more images from the series right here. Of note, the photographer’s grit and fearlessness landed the top photo a feature on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day earlier this week.
M a G m A </dr.evil>
Priceless Pinajian Paintings Discovered in Disused Garage
Thomas Schultz and his friend Larry Joseph purchased a run-down cottage in Bellport, New York for $300,000. As they began renovations on the property, inside the garage they discovered thousands of forgotten artworks created by the former tenant, Arthur Pinajian. Those artworks will more than pay for any renovations. The noted art appraiser Peter Hastings Falk has estimated their value at 30 million dollars.
Read more at the New York Times.
Gaia - Capetown, South Africa
everyday man. #projectny #gppr
7:25 PM
Warped Appreciation (dawning of an aspect)
The Ghosts of World War II by Sergey Larenkov
Taking old World War II photos, Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov carefully photoshops them over more recent shots to make the past come alive. Not only do we get to experience places like Berlin, Prague, and Vienna in ways we could have never imagined, more importantly, we are able to appreciate our shared history in a whole new and unbelievably meaningful way.
Kevin Smith, “Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good,” Chapter Nine. (via ryking)
But of course art does fail, does get classified and graded. Because that is art too, even the application of a “mathematical absolute”. And so too, this can fail. Art can fail, perhaps if in only one way, when people are so captivated and conditioned by art that they can imagine themselves presiding over it non-artistically, a fit of caprice grounded in fiat. This would be similar to the neo-atheist imagining that an attack on religion per se is possible without exuding religio-metaphysical and faith based conceits.
That art is staged, enacted, received, heard, recognized, panned or applauded means self-expression is just a warrior in the agon. Self-expression is only part of the show. It can say to itself in a pre-stage gutcheck “I cannot fail”, knowing precisely that it can - and, in a deeper echo, knowing itself as a spirited response to failure.
Art fails when it forgets itself, falling into sentimentality and self-assuredness. When we laugh at the aboriginal - these brutes who did the cave art so so long ago when god knows what the Neanderthals were doing, snicker at their notion of art as a necessary singing, dancing and painting reality into existence, sustaining order over contingency and dancing on volcanos - thinking we have a failure free lens into a natural world indifferent, permanent and un-requiring of our labour, we fancy failure. Art becomes unconscious.
But this is the threat, a possible fate, a harrowing horizon or the downdraft of opportunity, when translation is the absolute.
- XHerakleitos
7:00 PM
Derek Trucks ~ Sahib Teri Badi
“For night is the mechanism by which mere mind is converted into mere sexuality, mere sexuality into mere mind, and where these two abstractions hostile to life find rest in recognizing each other”
- Walter Benjamin
Jeff Danziger (12/08/2011)
Extremely long exposure: Photographer endures 15-hour shoots in the wintry Australian outback to snare stunning images of star trails in the night sky
Australian photographer Lincoln Harrison’s photographs of star trails in the Australian night sky. These long-exposure shots were taken over the course of 15 hours! Not only did these shots require a lot of patience but they also required a great deal of stamina.
In order to take these shots, Harrison had to withstand Australia’s cold winter night near Bendigo over Lake Eppalock. Harrison describes his experience saying, “It was a grueling night with a total shooting time was 15 hours in freezing conditions, sunset to sunrise.”
Stunning. Something about it seems like going all Van Gogh without oil.
1:01 PM
