Reblogged from millionsmillions
Doctor Grant, Doctor Sattler! What do you see?
Oh, just 91 Artistic and Literary Tumblrs that’ll totally rock your Dashboard.
Some quick notes for all you artists out there on my methodology for painting pretty girls. I get asked this a lot…..
I followed the instructions!!! Why didn’t it turn out well?! *sobs* I’ll never work at Pixar now!
I think this is officially my favorit post on tumblr. Every time I see it, I crack up until I’m crying and can’t breathe.
Every. Single. Time.
(via old-ezio)
Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer:
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me, was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining it’s destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.
I love that guy, “you can’t go that way! It’s toward the road!”
(via old-ezio)
A sly French literacy campaign wins international plaudits. (Look again: that’s it right there!)
For more of this morning’s round up, click here.
(via yahighway)
There were so many characters in this graphic novel. A barrage of detailed interactions, crowded observations and overlapping interviews. Sacco is giving us (the readers) snapshot after snapshot of his experience with Palestine and the people there. With such a collection of characters, it becomes clear that this graphic novel is not about the individuals telling the stories but rather the stories themselves.
You’d think that having so many characters would lessen the likelihood of emotional attachment. Sacco himself clearly tries to keep himself emotionally distant from the atrocities he’s hearing about and witnessing. He presents this world as objectively as he can. I, however, found Sacco’s cut and dry portrayal of information caused me to become more emotionally attached. The hopelessness in the Palestinian’s words. It cut into me all on its own. Sacco didn’t need to add anything.
My reading experience also added to my emotional vulnerability. It was chaotic. It took me some time to get used to the organization. It took me some time to get used to the “crowd scenes.” It took me some time. Period. This novel was a slower read than the other three we’ve read so far. Text heavy. Very detailed illustration. Difficult subject matter. You really have to take your time with it.
I think Sacco knew that. I think the decisions he made were masterfully intentional. He could have drawn in a more simplistic style. He could have used more traditional comic spreads. He could have prioritized one story over another. But he didn’t. He challenged us. He forced us to slow down and take everything in. Take in the reality of this place and the people in it. What happened/happens there.
Ultimately, I feel drained.
(End of Post)
(via yahighway)
god pLEASE
I can just imagine the person wearing these trying to engage me in a discussion about Repo: The Genetic Opera or some shit
WANT
IT’S LIKE PORN
woah there friend
I want to own every single one of these
(Source: sarahvonkrolock, via old-ezio)
n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and…
Illuminating Quotes, Visualised – Part XXIII
I’ve been waiting to post this one for a while.
In 2005 David Foster Wallace gave A commencement speech at Kenyon College that has since been published into a small, brief and beautiful book entitled This is Water. It is suffice to say I treat nearly everything David Foster Wallace wrote as closer to Truth than anything a mechanism of science could produce. His sincere reflections on how we are unable to see what we are constantly submerged in, that which should be blatantly obvious, are beautifully insightful.
I venture to say that of all the troves of quotations I horde, this is my most loved;
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’ “
