Economy of Beauty

a place i come for fun and inspiration

[explore-blog]

Albert Einstein (b. 3/14/1879) on kindness, our shared existence, and the highest human ideals. 

[sustainernyc]

Ah, Pi Day thoughts. Love that Einstein revealed the heart beating strong at Maths’ root!

[artchipel]

[sustainernyc]

Nature's neural net!

Henrique Oliveira (b.1973, Brazil)

Creating a spectacular and invasive Gordian Knot, Henrique Oliveira plays with Palais de Tokyo’s architecture, allowing a work that combines the vegetal and the organic to emerge. The building itself becomes the womb that produces this volume of “tapumes” wood, a material used in Brazilian towns to construct the wooden palisades that surround construction sites.

In the form of paintings, sculptures or installations, the hybrid art of Henrique Oliveira evokes both the urban and the vegetable, the organic and the structural, as well as art and science, through compositions in which the unexpected generates a universe tinted with the fantastic.

Graduating from the University of São Paulo in 1997, the artist explores fluidity, the combination and color of materials, which endows his installations with a certain pictorial quality. Oliveira often borrows materials from the Brazilian urban landscape, notably tapumes, wood taken from fences surrounding and blocking access to construction sites. By using these materials, Oliveira highlights the endemic and parasitic nature of these constructions; evoking wooden tumors, his installations function as a metaphor for the favelas’ organic growth, thus revealing the dynamic decay of São Paulo’s urban fabric. In the artistic lineage of Lydia Clark or Hélio Oiticica, he uses the very context of this sprawling city as a raw material. The way in which it is treated, as well as its unexpected apparition, destabilizes the visitor’s perception of space.

Henrique Oliveira. Baitogogo @ Palais de Tokyo 13 Ave. du Président Wilson Paris 16 - 21.06-09.09.2013 In the context of “Nouvelles vagues” (New Waves) season Photo: André Morin ; video The Making-of Henrique Oliveira’s Baitogo

[more Henrique Oliveira | artist found at darksilenceinsuburbia]

[this-is-wild]

(via 500px / Terra… not so Firma by Bruce Omori)

[sustainernyc]

the earth makes herself    .

[sustainernyc]

All Bow to the Coffee God!

Shark killin' it at 9th Street!

[magicalnaturetour]

[sustainernyc]

Sometimes I miss my friends in the Tattitlick Narrows sooo much! <3  ~ Photo by Terrise-Roman G

[tedx]

A new streetlamp powered by … algae?

The glowing, neon green lamp you see above is the invention of French biochemist Pierre Calleja, who had the crazy idea of using algae to power otherworldly, tube-shaped streetlamps that double as homes for this growing gloop. In a talk at TEDxLausanneChange, he explains the process behind the invention.

You may remember photosynthesis from biology class — if not, Wikipedia will remind you: “Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy, normally from the sun, into chemical energy that can be used to fuel the organisms’ activities.” But can photosynthesis help us light our sidewalks and roadways? Calleja thinks so.

He and his team at FermentAlg developed this lamp to double as a habitat for microalgae, which absorb solar energy and consume carbon dioxide. These lamps are designed to store the energy made from this process, so that when placed in unlit places, they can continue to shine.

These beautiful lights are not only practical, but their symbiotic technology could help in the fight against rising carbon emissions and climate change.

For more on Calleja’s work, check out his talk below:

(Photos: Pierre Calleja and Reuters)

[explore-blog]

[sustainernyc]

Truth. Richard Feynman, Jonah Lehrer, and Neil deGrasse Tyson would all agree.

(↬ It’s Okay to be Smart)

[explore-blog]

[sustainernyc]

Carl Sagan's Cosmos premiered on this day in 1980 – celebrate with Sagan on the meaning of life

[sustainernyc]

GaffAWE

[kny111]

[sustainernyc]

Image Catalogue (IC) 1396 by Lonnie Hunker

[sustainernyc]

Best Brand Ever!

Some of the most compelling US tv content ever broadcast ... and that includes space launches! Just watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/06/19/2181151/russell-brand-schools-morning-joe-panel-so-why-are-we-surprised-when-he-does-smart-things/

[adjacenttolife]

June 1 – July 12, 2013

Jennifer Hannaford’s production includes a wide range of subjects (her friends in the Bureau are partial to the John Dillinger part of the spectrum). But it is the equalizing humanity of the mugshot that ultimately fascinates Hannaford. As she says, mugshots

[iheartmyart]

[sustainernyc]

Sonja Vordermaier, Return (of the man who flew into space from his apartment) bicycle inner tubes, tension and firing mechanism, car-seat and film-projection approx. 30 m x 15 m, (98 ft x 49 ft), K3 at Kampnagel Culture Factory, Hamburg, Germany, 2004

[sustainernyc]

http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/patti-smith-advice-young

beautiful truth teller. soulful words to the young.

[sustainernyc]

OMG, my pal Jeff Bussolini is the official expert in the new Vice documentary, Lil Bub and Friendz... His credit just rolled by at the Tribeca Film Festival... epic!! Way to go, Jeff!

[adjacenttolife]

February 11 – March 22, 2013

Ray Vuoso crafts churning, fecund worlds in rigid, regimented environs. Using crayon, oil pastel and earnest investment, he creates works that seem to transcend scale: they read, alternately, as microscopic investigations of cellular life and as satellite views...

[gogohhhoh-deactivated20190302]

[theladymisskier]

The Gulabi gang is a group of women vigilantes active across North India. It is named after the pink saris worn by its members. The group was founded as a response to widespread domestic abuse and other violence against women. Gulabis visit abusive husbands and beat them with bamboo sticks. In 2008, they stormed an electricity office and forced officials to restore the power they had cut to extract bribes. The Gulabis have also stopped child marriages and protested dowry and female illiteracy. from hadarlikestoblog - thanks-  great post -Lady miss Kier…www.ladykier.com