NUO Magazine

NUO is an online culture and lifestyle magazine for the youthful, world-aware individual. nuomagazine.com

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Star Wars, Avatar And The Social Network All Fail This Sexism Test

When it comes to rating movies, it’s hard to move beyond subjectivity. Your opinion about the merits of a film – whether it regards the quality of cinematography, performance or male-to-female role ratio – usually remains just an opinion. But there is a way to measure one of these elements, universally and quantifiably: the Bechdel Test. The Bechdel Test determines if a film is sexist or not by asking three simple questions: ... READ MORE >>

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What’s So Special About Chess In Brooklyn?

NEW YORK – Every night I take a stroll around Brooklyn. Tonight, however, getting some fresh air is not my sole intention. I arrive at Fulton Park, where chess players gather every day, and I begin to muster the courage to approach them. The throng of men is intense, but my feet have a mind of their own and—before I know it—I’m standing at a table of three rather intimidating men.

“You want yo’ money back?” one of them cries out as he spots me. When they learn I’m actually interested in talking to them about chess, their eyes light up. They smile, invite me to sit with them and proceed to talk my ear off about all things chess and more.

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Google Is Using A Camel To Map Deserts. But Why?

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Ai Weiwei @Large On Alcatraz

"The purpose of art ... is the fight for freedom" - despite being detained in China, contemporary artist Ai Weiwei speaks out for freedom of expression in a startling new exhibition on Alcatraz Island.

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You Just Got Schooled In Animation – And Philosophy – By A Squirrel.

‘The Missing Scarf’ is much more than the animated tale of Albert the squirrel and his quest to find his misplaced knitwear. It is in fact a mind-bending feat of motion design, which names and confronts the biggest fears of our existence.

It also features a pipe-smoking beaver and an owl in a bowler hat.

Irish animator Eoin Duffy, 31, directed and wrote the story in children’s book style – a feel enhanced by its visual simplicity: basic shapes in a limited color palette, yet delightfully detailed. The narrative (especially the opening) shares striking similarities with Jon Klassen’s celebrated children’s book I Want My Hat Back, which makes the heavy philosophical themes even more unexpected – and enjoyable.

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Odessa – ‘I Will Be There’

Simple, sweet and hypnotic are some of the words that might bob into your subconscious when you listen to this track from Odessa’s debut EP. The rest of you will be lost in her soft, hazy voice. 

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Saying Ello to Privacy?

This week our newsfeeds blew up with rumors that a rogue social network known as Ello (allegedly run by a handful of hipsters) is set to destabilize and perhaps even dethrone the current king known as Facebook. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Ello has no advertisers and refuses to share your data with third parties. All of the hubbub surrounds one major stated premise: privacy.

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The Art Of Protest: Stunning Photographs From Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution

Over the past week, tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents have blockaded the main thoroughfares of the city, shuttering businesses and bringing traffic to a standstill. They are protesting to protect Hong Kong’s “one country two systems” relationship with China, thrown into jeopardy by China announcing that Hong Kong’s next president must be elected from three candidates hand picked by its pro-Beijing regime. Put simply, the protestors fear that democratic Hong Kong will be assimilated into communist-China, putting its economy, education and freedom of speech on the firing line.

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The Trailer for ‘Inherent Vice’ Just Hit. And It’s Glorious.

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The Eeriest Place On Earth? This Smog-Swamped Abandoned Disney Land Is Only Twenty Miles From Beijing

Twenty miles outside of Beijing is an abandoned Wonderland. Its cartoonish walls and spires lift out of the dusky farmland in a perfect expression of new and old China. ‘Wonderland’ was meant to be the biggest amusement park in Asia — a 120-acre Chinese Disney World, down to the curly font used to spell out of its name. Financial problems stalled construction in 1998, and an attempted redux in 2008 failed to get off the ground. The developers just stopped, leaving empty buildings and a finished parking lot for the weeds and dust to worry over.

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

For most of us, escaping modern life is only ever a fantasy. French photographer Antoine Bruy shows us the people who have made it their reality.

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The Age Of The GIF: The Animations Of Guillaume Kurkdjian

Sprung from the crudest elements of graphicdesignordial soup, this young French artist is helping the mighty GIF evolve into its next iteration: art.

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Exploring One Of America’s Best Kept Secrets: The Guadalupe Mountains

At the forgotten border of far west Texas and southern New Mexico, the Guadalupe Mountains warrant closer investigation by the more adventurous seekers into the American West.

From the summit of Guadalupe Peak, I look over a lifeless river basin that stretches for miles like a moonscape. In the distance, wind turbines stand from the earth like toothpicks. Perfect circles of green croplands dot the landscape like mortar craters from a battle between irrigators and the desert aridity. A small town glistens in the sun.

But these artificialities are lost in a monotonous brown, blurred by a shroud of dust and heat. On my thousand-meter pedestal, I shiver in a mountain breeze that evades the desert below. At a casual glance, I see little more than sand and shrub.

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All Hail Christine And The Queens!

Every supermoon or so, a record comes out that fits seamlessly into the chassis of pop music – reverential of past classics, timeless, yet at the same time new and intoxicating. Christine and the Q...

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‘Seve The Movie’ Is Action-Packed Cinema Without The Blockbuster Handicap

With the latest Transformers movie already launched in the States and due for release in the UK this weekend, many might seek refuge from the robot apocalypse in the charming drama-documentary about the life of star golfer Seve Ballesteros. If that sounds like going from the action-sublime to the ridiculous, you’ll be surprised to learn that, for a film set around a sport that takes place on manicured lawns and among hushed silences, ‘Seve The Movie’ is something of a roller-coaster.

READ MORE & WATCH TRAILER » ‘Seve The Movie’ Is Action-Packed Cinema Without The Blockbuster Handicap | NUO Magazine)

[nuomagazine]

Alyssa Monks: Where Realism And Abstraction Meet

One of New York’s best-known contemporary painters, Alyssa Monks—famous for her striking photo-realistic images—continues to wow with her 2014 series.  The thirty-seven-year-old’s unique figurative style, combined with the way she manages to capture intense human expression, creates an immediate emotional connection with the viewer. Her portraits are especially engaging: eyes filled with emotion, her subjects stare directly and deeply into the audience, plunging the viewer into a very honest moment, almost of conversation, with the portrait.

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