- Oh god, no. It’s “New Age Week” over at Everything is Terrible, the collective that mines video kitsch to bring viewers the absolute worst (and best) of cultural detritus. This might actually be the most insane/offensive thing they’ve ever found. It comes from the cult/public access television producers Unarius Academy of Science. It features members acting out their “unscripted” past lives, which apparently includes more than enough blackface to get this iteration of Unarius’s practice banned from TV. [Everything is Terrible]
- Due on Friday: Submissions to the 3D Additivist Cookbook. If your interests fall in line with speculative machines, disruptive 3D-print technology, or “The Weird,” watch the Additivist Manifesto—or read it—then send in your recipe, whatever form that may take. [Additivist Manifesto]
- LaGuardia airport will be demolished and completely rebuilt. The new $4 billion design is a mashup of design concepts from SHoP Architects, Dattner Architects and Present Architecture, who all submitted proposals to replace the troubled airport last year. Construction is supposed to start sometime next year. [Dezeen]
- Thomas Friedman, the New York Times Journalist famous for not only supporting the Iraq war but telling the Iraq people to “Suck. On. This.” has actually written an informative column about the Middle East conflict. This column is mercifully short on prescriptive advice and offers a very good history lesson of life since 1979, and the roots of extremism in the region. [The New York Times]
- If you want to see the male gaze in action today, then by all means, check out this video of Kim Kardashian repping a new energy drink called Hype. It begins with Kim Kardashian dressed as Audrey Hepburn riding a bike. She’s all by herself, but somehow falls off (what a silly woman!) and finds herself possibly unconscious, dreaming about wearing a powdered-wig and floor-length gown. It’s once we get to this part, the gaze is in full force, showing a close-up of Kardashian’s bosom, then a head-to-toe shot, so that we can see all of her. From Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”: “The beauty of the woman as object and the screen space coalesce; she is no longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylised and fragmented by close-ups, is the content of the film and the direct recipient of the spectator’s look.” [Vulture]
- Real estate developers are suing the city of Oakland over new legislation that would construction projects to include one percent of their budgets for public art commissions. They claim it violates their 1st Amendment rights. Bay-Area artists are pissed. [KQED]
- In a related story, Gabriel Metcalf argues that the Bay Area’s “progressive” policies are so anti-development that it has become nearly impossible to create new housing to meet the region’s needs. This is especially true of San Francisco, which is no longer a haven for the next generation of leftist thinkers and artists due to its rampant unaffordability. [City Lab]
- In other art news from California, a tree fell down outside a children’s museum in Pasadena; eight children suffer injuries, including two who were critically injured. [Associated Press]
- London’s National Gallery has had 50 days of staff walkouts so far this year. An all-out staff protest headed up by the Public and Commercial Services Union will begin on August 17. [Reuters]
- Last week, painter Bryan Osburn was violently mugged in Greenpoint, resulting in a fractured jaw. Neighborhood gallery 106 Green is hosting a benefit for Osburn’s medical bills. [Observer]
- Gawker staff members have been accepting buyouts to leave Gawker as new editorial policies are leaning towards creating a “20-percent nicer” publication. [Capital New York]
- Goodbye Animal New York! The 12-year-old publication published its last post yesterday, by Bucky Turco. [Gawker]
Posts tagged as:
