Daavid Mörtl

The seperated plant

2012-01-21T01:50:00.024+01:00

1. Constanze Ruhm, Die Wissenschaft als "Chimera/Identity" mit ikonischen, ornamentalen Metaphern

2. Sweet Parliament Home, a research and prototype-making project by Andrés Jaque Architects, for the Gwangju Design Biennale 2011

3. Europa Center shopping mall, Berlin

4. Apparently decorative installation in a Japanese subway station. "It's underground and surrounded by glass; lit by sun lamps; and every now and then a mist spray watered it", from: Ruth and Dave Flickr account

5. Delaney Allen, photographer

6. -

7. Intallation by the Oregon Painting Society. "Radiant Dream Face" at PSU's Autzen Gallery

I ♥ Dutch Pavillion Shanghai

2011-12-21T01:43:00.015+01:00

Click here to see an animated rendering of the pavillion

VVV - Virtual View Videoland (Models)

2011-12-18T00:23:00.029+01:00

1. from the TV series "Condor"
2.-5. from the film "Brazil"
6. from the TV series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century"
7. from the film "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"
8.-9. from the film "Logan's Run"
10. from the childrens series "Téléchat"
11.-16. from the fim "Neverending Story"
17. from "Human Highway" by and with Neil Young and DEVO

Some lovely packagings

2011-10-15T00:03:00.007+02:00

Fashion Monstrosities (Part 6)

2011-10-14T23:51:00.003+02:00

"Monstrosities of 1821" - skinny confusion!

I don't know where to put you but daddy loves you very much

2011-10-14T23:41:00.008+02:00

Rotterdam, 2011

I don't know where to put you but daddy loves you very much

2011-10-14T23:40:00.008+02:00

Valencia, 2009

I don't know where to put you but daddy loves you very much

2011-10-14T23:32:00.006+02:00

Berlin Mitte, 2009

Lets all walk over and say hi

2011-07-02T22:04:00.007+02:00

Excerpt of Die Wildschützen by Wilhelm Leibl, 1886, oil on canvas, 55 x 42 cm.

Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl (Click!), October 23, 1844 – December 4, 1900, was a German realist painter of portraits and scenes of peasant life.

Monte Modello (worm's-eye view)

2011-06-16T01:47:00.021+02:00

1. Architectural rendering for a design by Italian Architect and Designer Carlo Mollini - late 1950s 2. A film still from the Harry Potter film series 3. Film still from the one and only film adaptation from the comic series The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, 2003 4. Still from the music clip Iron by Woodkid, 2011

Click to enlarge.

Setzkästen

2011-05-23T02:44:00.011+02:00

Works by Armin Lorenz Gerold and Tymek Borowski

The Rosenthal Residence

2011-05-23T02:15:00.016+02:00

...by architect Robert Harvey Oshatz. Located in Portland, Oregon, USA, designed 1982, completed 1984.

Via www.oshatz.com

Click to enlarge.

Hort Zwei

2011-05-23T02:10:00.002+02:00

Socialistic kids stuff - mid-century-modern style

2011-05-07T01:15:00.077+02:00

Der Heilige Berg (1926) (Film stills)

2011-04-11T03:07:00.034+02:00

The Holy Mountain (German: Der heilige Berg) is a 1926 Weimar Republic mountain film directed by Arnold Fanck, starring future propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in her first screen appearance as an actress.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0016953/

Click to enlarge.

Fashion Monstrosities (Part 5)

2011-04-04T11:32:00.005+02:00

"Monstrosities of 1827" - distance please!

Embedded in Brutalism

2011-03-20T21:36:00.006+01:00

Eigenheim und Portal Nr.2

2011-03-19T02:44:00.005+01:00

Eigenheim und Portal Nr.1

2011-03-19T02:41:00.009+01:00

Some floating objects in vintage renderings

2011-03-15T23:00:00.061+01:00

Taj Mahal

2011-01-27T02:13:00.008+01:00

Gio Ponti forever!

2011-01-24T00:51:00.037+01:00

A selection of Gio Ponti pieces and pictures to worship.

Gio Ponti, 1891-1979, was one of the most important Italian architects and designers of the twentieth century.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gi%C3%B2_Ponti)

Lets all walk over and say hi

2011-01-24T00:15:00.004+01:00

"Das Spiegelei" by Karl Hubbuch, 1929, pencil and crayons on paper.

Click to enlarge

Obelisk

2010-12-28T23:41:00.009+01:00

Okay, so I think it still somehow makes sense to get useless stuff on Ebay, nobody wants.
You don't even instantly get the purpose of this thing, which makes it a lot cooler.

Film stills from The Fountainhead - losen up, it's all been written

2010-12-23T00:25:00.033+01:00

A 1949-Zeitgeist boss is having a monologue in the beginning:

"Howard, look at those buildings. Skyscrapers, the greatest structural invention of man, yet they made them look like Greek temples, Gothic cathedrals and mongrels of every ancient style they could borrow, just because others have done it."

Click to enlarge.

These are stills from the 1949 film "The Fountainhead" after the famous novel by Ayn Rand.

"Although Rand wrote the screenplay, which was used with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end," complaining about its editing, acting and other elements", Wikipedia says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead

Interieurstudie Nr. 1

2010-12-16T23:36:00.007+01:00

A recent drawing of mine.

Realstadt. Berlin. 2057.

2010-12-16T23:34:00.015+01:00

I went to this exhibition, "Realstadt" in Berlin and it was stuffed with an interesting mix of architectural models by German students and previous contributions for competitions. A lot of very applied kinds, but also some "no...really!?" kinds.

I love this model here. It basically just is a mix of a 2057 distopian/utopian Berlin.
An Illustration of an ongoing historical awareness versus a rude "Whos cock is bigger" competition to become the giant of middle Europe. But in the end it just is a beautiful impression of what Berlin is: A big confusion of "What have we been?!" and "What are we supposed to be!?"

In the image, the historical building to the right is supposed to be the reconstruction of the old city castle (click to enlarge, btw) which doesn't seem to be of any aesthetic interest any more here.
Right now, at this very spot, where the castle used to be, there only is a bit of...well, wasteland and grass. The ruin of the castle got knocked down in the early 1950s.

The Model was build by J. Michael Birn and is meant to be a film set, I suppose.

Lets all walk over and say hi

2010-11-05T23:54:00.010+01:00

Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829 – 1904), was an English "Pre-Raphaelite" painter, illustrator and draughtsman, of the Victorian era. Up there is a portrait of Cyril Flower ,who appears to be the 1st Baron Battersea, from around 1850. Down here a quite nice image which reminds a little bit of coloured photographs.

Fashion Monstrosities (Part 4)

2010-11-05T23:46:00.008+01:00

Monstrosities of 1818 - bell dress deformation!

House on Haunted Hill / 1959 and a 100 year old modern residence

2010-11-04T01:37:00.018+01:00

I just love how Frank Lloyd Wrights 'Ennis House', finished in 1924, gets introduced as "built a century ago" in House On Haunted Hill from 1959.

The building used to be in bad conditions the past years and is going to get restored. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennis_House

This is kind of a fast-forward-film, btw...in horror terms. Not now-creepy at all, of course. Though you understand a lot more about where modernish thrillers/horror films start.

Intriganter Raum

2010-11-01T00:56:00.054+01:00

New works at Atelier Maison Mallon, Berlin, October 2010.

HoMewORk fOr cHiNA (aAnd DuBAi) DoNe!!!...ROFL ^^

2010-10-31T23:43:00.026+01:00

1. Office building, Liaoning, China 2. Hotel, Macao, China 3. Godolphin River City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

4. M2 building, Tokyo, Japan 5. “Blossoming Dubai” for the Zaabeel Park Tall Emblem Structure Competition, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 6. Westin Hotel, New York, USA 7. Oil lamp pavilion, Guzhen, China 8. Apartment buildings, Panama City, USA

From now on I might just do it like people on Tumblr (with love)

2010-08-30T03:56:00.008+02:00

Vanished World

2010-08-30T02:54:00.002+02:00

Entrance

2010-08-14T03:41:00.005+02:00

Lets all walk over and say hi

2010-08-14T03:26:00.005+02:00

Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Woman, c 1460.

Rogier van der Weyden or Rogier de le Pasture (1399 or 1400 – June 18, 1464) was an Early Netherlandish painter.

wikipedia.org

Yeah, Rashid Johnson

2010-08-14T02:59:00.017+02:00

visit: davidkordanskygallery.com

Fritz Lang screenshots, part I

2010-08-14T02:43:00.008+02:00

Die Nibelungen

Diskurshexe

2010-07-14T02:17:00.041+02:00

Curated by the guys from gallery September, Berlin here are some images of the exhibition Diskurshexe I in the project space Are You Coming Too?

Carsten Fock, Discoteca Flaming Star, Elmar Vestner, Johannes Paul Raether, John Campbell, Marcus Knupp, Nanogod, Ogar Grafe, Pablo Zuleta Zahr, Daavid Mörtl

Tempest Prognosticator, Ink on paper

Pictures by Panagiotis Hadjistefanous and Henry Kleine

Domestic Scene No.1

2010-06-24T14:44:00.004+02:00

Thank you, Diana Sperling.

Cake

2010-06-22T01:54:00.010+02:00

A girl in an AF Vandevorst dress eating a cake.

Via FASHION 16X9.

Play Time

2010-06-10T14:43:00.016+02:00

"Playtime (1967), shot in 70mm, was the most daring and expensive work of Jacque Tati's career; it took him nine years to complete and he was forced to borrow heavily from his own resources to complete the picture. For Playtime, Tati fabricated a set (dubbed 'Tativille') on the outskirts of Paris that emulated an entire modern city. In the film, Tati and a group of American tourists lose themselves in the futuristic glass-and-steel of the Parisian suburbs, where only human nature and a few views of the city of Paris itself still emerge to breathe life into the city. Playtime had even less of a plot than his earlier films, and Tati endeavored to make his characters, including Hulot, almost incidental to his portrayal of a modernist and robotic Paris.

Tati wanted the film to be in color but look like it was filmed in black and white; an effect he had previously employed to some extent in Mon Oncle." (Wikipedia)

Barbara in the travel agency:

Fashion Monstrosities (Part 3)

2010-06-10T14:21:00.005+02:00

"Monstrosities of 1825 & 6" - Mushroom hat alert.

Some current German soap and telenovela openings

2010-05-31T02:48:00.019+02:00

My intro and opening loving heart did demand this.

In this clip absolutely everything seems right

2010-05-18T18:07:00.004+02:00

Schnitt

2010-05-18T17:58:00.006+02:00

Two Illustrations of mine for the April 2010 issue of German film
magazine Schnitt on the subject of documentary film.

Transforma

2010-05-05T03:17:00.011+02:00

Superb still lifes can be found in the studio next to mine. A visit. A Snap.

Transforma.de (Click!)

Dough

2010-05-05T02:48:00.003+02:00

A video by artist Mika Rottenburg.

Some Ettore Sottsass

2010-05-05T01:45:00.029+02:00

First of all a beautiful still life found via www.vividvormgeving.nl

"Ettore Sottsass (1917 – 2007) was an Italian architect and designer of the late 20th century. His body of designs included furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting and office machine design.
He was educated at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin and graduated in 1939 with a degree in architecture. Sottsass was best known as the founder of the early 1980s Memphis collective. He also designed electronic products for Olivetti, as well as glass and ceramic work.", says Wikipedia...and here you go, cool pieces you get:

In my new work "Einige Objekte und Ettore Sottsass in 3D" (Ink, watercolour and coloured crayons on paper) I involved some Sottsass.
Where is Walter!?

1970s Mysteries

2010-04-26T03:38:00.018+02:00

The Seventies are a big mystery to me...I just dont get this decade, but sometimes it intends to tell me something.

Opening of the TV series Follyfoot and the may pole song from The Wicker Man (Click! to see it on YouTube).

Toys of the wishbook

2010-04-25T02:43:00.076+02:00

http://www.wishbookweb.com (Click!) + DEVO action figure + beer gnome + Masters of the Universe - Eternia castle
+ She-Ra-Princess of Power castle + Max Headroom mask

Lets all walk over and say hi

2010-04-23T03:00:00.017+02:00

Girolamo di Romano, Portrait of a Man (1516-19), Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts.
Romano was an Italian painter (Brescia 1484/87 – 1566).

Downtown furniture

2010-04-16T02:04:00.028+02:00

Two designers I discovered on Dezeen.com (Click!). I kind of want all of their objects and I will try to include them into works of mine.

Joost van Bleiswijk (Click!):

Chess game, wall cabinet, candle holder and pendulum.

Roderick Vos (Click!):

The dutch designer designer Roderick Vos created this shelving unit "designed to reference Art Deco skyscrapers". It's called Downtown. "The furniture is made of square metal tubes with wooden horizontal platforms and matt black vertical planes." (Dezeen)

Thanks Henry Hinterland!

Additional here are two images of furniture designer Paul Frankl (1886–1962), Wikipedia(Click!):

...and a drawing by Los Carpinteros (a group of young Cuban artists, specialized in creating installations and objects):

Modernism Rustique

2010-04-11T02:00:00.049+02:00

Bruce Goff, architect, was born in born in 1904 in Alton, Kansas. "Goff's accumulated design portfolio of 500 projects (about one quarter of
them built) demonstrates a restless, sped-up evolution through conventional styles and forms at a young age, through the Prairie style of his heroes and correspondents Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan, then into original design. Finding inspir- ation in sources as varied as
Antoni Gaudi, Balinese music, Claude Debussy, Japanese ukiyo-e prints, and seashells, Goff's mature work had no precedent and he has few
heirs other than his former assistant, New Mexico architect Bart Prince and Herb M. Greene. His contemporaries primarily followed tight functionalistic floorplans with flat roofs and no ornament. Goff's idiosyncratic floorplans, attention to spatial effect, and use of recycled
and/or unconventional materials such as gilded zebrawood, cellophane strips, cake pans, glass cullet, Quonset Hut ribs, ashtrays, and white turkey feathers, challenge conventional dis- tinctions between order and disorder." Wikipedia says

Images via: brucegoffbartlesville.blogspot.com

Images via: namingthewinds.comImage, katz_42' account on Flickr and Omnicircus.com

Additional, here are some images of contemporary painter David Thorpe, who I adore:

Zimmerbild

2010-04-11T01:04:00.018+02:00

Zimmerbild = Image of a room

Both paintings are Berlin related. The first, from 1825 is by Leopold Zielcke (1791–1861).

The second painting, from 1849 is by Johann Philipp Eduard Gärtner (1801-1877), well-known for his detailed renderings of urban architecture.

Both are images from the catalogue "Biedermeier. Die Erfindung der Einfachheit" - "Early Victorian period. The Invention of Simplicity". In German the Early Victorian period would be Biedermeier. The word "Biedermeier" is mostly stylistically used and means the period from 1815 on to the middle of the 19th century. It implies a significant simplicity in the design of furniture, fashion and architecture; though the term you would use talking about architecture is Klassizismus (See building in the last image, also by Johann P.E. Gärtner).

The genre Zimmerbild belongs to this time, only displaying private interiors. The simple design and high quality was expensive and paintings like these mostly got generated by an order of the bourgeoisie who was the owner of apartments like this.

Happy Ziggurat

2010-04-06T02:39:00.018+02:00

The Ziggurat project, named after the temple towers of the ancient Mesopotamian valley is a city, providing space for a population of one million people. It's a 2.3 square-kilometer pyramid, designed to employ wind turbines to generate electricity. It is also integrating other natural renewable energy resources such as solar and steam. The building will have food production areas, parks, water channels, and lakes with climate zones which become cooler at higher elevations. Cars will not be necessary in the building as people will travel via an "elevator"network that will transport vertical- and horizontal-wise. It's called a "360 degree system". The federation of planners, designers and scientist patented the system of the Ziggurat technologies.

On Timelinks.org (Click!) you are going to find further material.

Domestic Nature

2010-03-26T00:50:00.033+01:00

Some pleasant images of designed terrariums.

Evan Gruzis

2010-03-24T22:38:00.014+01:00

Anonymous Energy No.1, No.3 and Angel of Fresh that is. Ink on paper.

X New Times Roman, ink on paper and a beautiful still life I didn't get the name of. All works are from 2008, I guess.

Spuk!

2010-03-20T01:21:00.017+01:00

Oh sweet childhood memories.

Intros from the childrens Spuk TV series, East Germany, 1980s.

Okay, we'll just pretend to believe they are serious about this...

2010-03-20T00:13:00.026+01:00

...we are going to applaud in the end, they'll get a handshake, a bunch of flowers and everyone's going to be happy!

The entries are:

Philip Armstrong Tildens design for a tower for the Selfridges Department store, London, in 1918 (via Essential-architecture.com).

Competition designs for the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1906 by: Willem Kronhout, Felix Debat and
Emil Töry (from Taschen's book "Architectural Competitions", 1994).

Two competition designs for the Chicago Tribune Tower in 1922 by Adolf Loos and Gerhard Schroeder (from Taschen's book "Architectural Competitions", 1994).

Fashion Monstrosities (Part 2)

2010-03-13T19:59:00.008+01:00

"Monstrosities of 1822"

Michael Guidetti

2010-03-13T19:16:00.016+01:00

Okay, so lets get this straight: what we see in the clip above are apparently projections on paintings.
I kind of get the principle but cant stop being amazed.

More clips and projects:

www.michaelguidetti.info

Enter!

2010-02-28T02:02:00.004+01:00

Energy Box

Ehowyn

2010-02-26T03:05:00.027+01:00

My friend Jasmin Liebetrau, who is a restorer and designer made this beauty, called Ehowyn and I think it's so much better than other "modern" doll houses...just because its so baroque and so simple at once. There are so many creative aspects and still so much room left.

Antiquated techniques of surface finishing, cedar, walnut, satinwood, beech, olive, birch, plywood, acrylic, shellac, boiled linseed oil, wood stain, japanese paper, aluminium.

Muskat18 (Click!) will tell you more.

Lets all walk over and say hi

2010-02-26T02:41:00.005+01:00

Portrait "of a Young Man" by Lorenzo Lotto, finished 1510, oil on wood, 42,3 x 35,8 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

This is what you always wanted

2010-02-23T00:59:00.002+01:00

Iridescent Bird Feeder

Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver

2010-02-23T00:37:00.007+01:00

This is a special and quite beautiful shot of the Museum of anthropology, Vancouver.

It had been designed by Canadian architect Arthur Charles Erickson and was finished in 1976.

USSR liqueur bottle lava lamp

2010-02-22T23:58:00.008+01:00

More than design objects with a brand I love their interpretations (aka plagiarisms) and even more than that I love DIY design stuff.

I got this lava lamp on Ebay for nothing and even though it looks well produced there was a certain something that seemed unusual.
I unscrewed it and the wax/liquid bottle says, at the bottom: "Liquer bottle made in USSR".

Proud owner!

Drink me...not

2010-02-22T01:36:00.007+01:00

I don't know what photoshop processing hell came over me when I made this, but I felt challenged as it reminds of some perfume ad. In the end I thought: "It's green, it's glowing - how can it be wrong in any way!?" Also: its just a sketch for a drawing.

Fashion Monstrosities (Part 1)

2010-02-22T01:08:00.007+01:00

"London Dandies or Monstrosities of 1816"

American mid-century columns

2010-02-16T15:00:00.014+01:00

A drawing of the main room of the Johnson Wax Building (1936, additions 1951) in Wisconsin, USA. Building
by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959), drawing by Hugh Ferriss (1889 – 1962, author of the book, Metropolis
of Tomorrow (1929), artist and architect).
Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma USA by Frank Wallace, 1963
Conservatory of Music of the Oberlin College, Ohio, USA. Photo by Minoru Yamasaki, 1963

Beton Brut stairway to heaven

2010-02-03T01:36:00.015+01:00

I love you little tree, I love you atrium-like rooflight. Can I come up now?

Via the polish brutalizm thread (Click!)

A lung of bismuth

2010-02-03T00:23:00.028+01:00

The lungs of a pigeon got dissected by hardening it with alcohol and painting it with a mixture of metals, including Bismuth. The tissue got etched off afterwards. (From the catalogue of the scientific collection of Humboldt-Universität of Berlin)

Here is more bismuth in form of grown crystals:

Or, how Christopher (Lets all walk over and say "Hi" - AGE: 19; TOP MOVIES: Steve Zissou; Dr. Strangelove, anything with zombies in it; LIKES: stupid facts, apple juice and delicious food; CURRENT OBSESSIONS: World of Warcraft; ANYTHING ELSE?!: It's 1a.m and I have a class tomorrow at 9a.m) would say:

(Click to enlarge)

Thumbs off stuff

2010-02-02T13:53:00.030+01:00

Meteorologische Wetterhäuser (Plural)

2010-01-29T03:30:00.013+01:00

A Wetterhaus would be an instrument for the measurement of temperature and pressure in the case of a house.

Pablo Bronstein / Ricardo Bofill

2010-01-28T02:28:00.021+01:00

Contemporary artist Pablo Bronstein specialises in architectural sketches in ink and gouache, set in ornate frames and depicting imagined buildings incorporating styles from 18th century France and the 1980s Postmodernism. (some Wikipedia quotes)

Isn't the book cover down here (door frame designs by Bronstein) just super cool!? I am sure you suffer from the "ugly door" disease as well, so lets all go and get a copy of this apparently amazing book!

I also felt like its time for the postmodern man of Ricardo Bofill. Here:

Robot Park Dubai

2010-01-25T03:11:00.008+01:00

Car park for 14 cars in the sweet city of Dubai.

Get into the car here and be patient until 1:00!

Goth TV

2010-01-25T00:53:00.010+01:00

An excerpt of a work of mine and an image I've found of the "Archbishop" Pc that actually has been produced.

Out 4 Pizza

2010-01-21T02:48:00.019+01:00

Cool stuff can be found on Out 4 Pizza (Click!)

Pandas and Orchids

2010-01-21T02:19:00.008+01:00

Blumenbank

2010-01-21T02:10:00.002+01:00

Some Car Designs of the Future (Less streamlined)

2010-01-20T02:40:00.030+01:00

Torsten Slama

2010-01-17T17:20:00.009+01:00

Torsten Slama, "Food Chemistry laboratory with administrative buildings and supply facilities (productive settlement)", 2006

Torsten Slama, "Vision 6 - The Herbert Bayer Cigarette Kiosk", 2007

I present:

2010-01-15T02:45:00.010+01:00

The Drunkards Martini Set!

Martini set in black, white and gold with celluloid cane stirrers. The main decanter dispenses drink by pressing his hat. 6 tumblers, gold metal tray with fencing, bench seats and lamp posts.

£ 345, via Sheryls Art Deco Emporium

Bijou

2010-01-15T02:33:00.007+01:00

I had an interview with the guys from the sexy Bijou website.

This is it: www.bijou1969.com (click!)

Lets all walk over and say 'hi'

2010-01-14T03:57:00.010+01:00

Madame Marcotte de Sainte-Marie, 1826, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French painter

Beautiful Brutalism

2010-01-13T16:31:00.009+01:00

Some Brutalism by Gottfried Böhm, Bensberg town hall, 1962-1967

"The English architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined the term "Brutalism" in 1954, from the French béton brut, or "raw concrete", a phrase used by Le Corbusier to describe the poured board-marked concrete with which he constructed many of his post WWII buildings. The term gained wide currency when the British architectural critic Reyner Banham used it in the title of his 1966 book, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?, to characterize a by then established cluster of architectural approaches, particularly in Europe." (Wikipedia)

Lets talk about display domes

2010-01-13T15:03:00.019+01:00

I got this on Ebay the other day. It's two wooden 3D puzzles including an old display dome.

Note: Whatever you put underneath a display dome instantly becomes something precious and magical.

Truth_02

2010-01-12T18:12:00.003+01:00

Thoughtforms

2010-01-10T21:46:00.010+01:00

Illustrations related to the book Thought Forms (published 1901) on metaphysics by C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant. The book is “a study of the nature and power of thoughts”.

The Perception of the classical music of Wagner, Gounod and Mendelssohn, of emotions and colours is studied. The effect of this music are either radiating vibration forms or floating forms, translated into drawings like the ones above.

“A thought-form is a manifestation of mental energy.” It is an expressed, visualized appearance caused by concentration and willpower. “It is also known as a “Tulpa”, a Tantric Buddhism concept in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practise of magic”. (Quotes: Wikipedia)

Still Life

2010-01-10T03:52:00.009+01:00

A birthday card I made for my friend Armin. Photoshop collage, 2008.

I forgot where this is from

2010-01-10T03:39:00.010+01:00

Oh come on, 1883

2010-01-10T03:22:00.018+01:00

Mid-season women's fashion in 1952 from a 1883 point of view.

...and no: it's an actually quite enlightening drawing: three of the ladies are wearing lady trousers, known as "bloomers" or "rationals" which were mostly just acceptable on a lady-bicycle for ladies at that point of time.

From the book "The History Of The Future"

This is what you always wanted

2010-01-10T03:15:00.006+01:00

A coffee table book by Seinfeld Kramer and a terrarium coffee table.

Acid House

2010-01-10T02:49:00.016+01:00

A painting by Panagiotis Loukas called "Waldeslust" (2004)

+ A Link to the super rousing website of Light Energy Studio (Click!)

Via Delicious Ghost (Link on side bar)

Music Visualisation

2010-01-10T00:05:00.010+01:00

"Music Is Turned Into Glowing Color. Soundless Symphonies from Keys of “Organ” Projected on Screen Are Hailed as Birth of a New Art." 1924, article published in Popular Mechanics.

"The light is concentrated into a beam which is projected through a form-producing device for depth and texture, then filtered through colored screens. And then in a darkened hall, through the three – dimensional projection of the “color organ,” the light pours from lenses at the back of the instrument and the flat white screen “is made a window into space where fluid light-forms are built up in fantastic compositions. The result on seeing it for the first time is the same as if music had never existed and one were suddenly to hear the strains of a violin. What would the reaction be? The listener would say: “Yes, this is nice, but of what use is it?’” the inventor declared."

Via the amazing ModernMechanix.com (link on side bar)

Magic Pipe

2010-01-08T17:22:00.012+01:00

I didn't get it but fell in love instantly. Vienna, city centre. Click to enlarge.

Malmoe

2010-01-08T16:00:00.014+01:00

I've been given a double-page spread by Malmoe newspaper, Austria. This is the result.

The Western Fashion Cycle

2010-01-08T03:07:00.055+01:00

The first crucial date is the 14th century. Before the 14th century, the fashion cycle barely existed (in anything like the form it would take on in later centuries) -- the long, somewhat loose gowns that women wore had largely been derived by successive slight gradual changes from those of the Byzantine empire and late antiquity, and there was no particular expectation that a daughter would wear anything very different from what her mother had worn at the same age (unless she ended up in a very different social or geographical situation). This is not to deny that some women had their own personal sense of style, or that there were variations in women's costume. But though upper-class women might proclaim their status by wearing floor-length robes, while lower-class women's clothes were a more practical ankle or lower-calf length, the ever-changing extremes and extravagancies of later centuries didn't yet occur.

After the 14th century, these conspicuous excesses -- such as extremely high headgear, huge farthingale hoopskirts, and so on down the centuries -- were a regular feature of changing women's fashions, and it was taken for granted that women's fashions would regularly change. Near the beginning of this period, fifty years was enough to change women's costume more radically than it had changed over a number of centuries leading up to the 14th century -- and the fashion cycle got faster over time, so that by the Victorian period of the 19th century it took little more than a decade to shift from one ridiculous extreme to another (and completely different) extreme (such as from enormous crinolines to tightly-skirted dresses with bustles).

The second important date is ca. 1800. During a period from the last years of the 18th century up through the first two decades of the 19th century, the fashion cycle took a big lurch outside of its normal parameters, giving rise to "Directoire"/"Empire"/"Regency" styles. While the practicality, lightness, class-neutrality, and unburdensome and unconstricting nature of these fashions can be exaggerated, it is still true that the upper-class women's clothes of this period possessed these qualities to a much greater degree than upper-class women's styles had done for centuries (going back to at least the 1520's), and also to a much greater degree than upper-class women's styles were to do from 1825 to the end of the 19th century.

The third important date is World War I. A few years before the war, the fashion cycle appeared to be still functioning as usual (i.e. according to the same general pattern that it had been following for centuries) -- but by a few years after the end of the war, a radical and unprecedented change had occurred. Though the importance of fluctuating hemlines has sometimes been exaggerated, in this case the degree to which women's skirt lengths changed in the years surrounding WWI does give an idea of the fashion discontinuity which occurred over the course of those years (see the second chart below). During the thousand years preceding WWI, it was often true that skirts as high as lower-calf length were considered a vulgar déclassé stigma of lower-class women's dress, and it is basically true that during this millennium skirts shorter than lower-calf length were considered to be positively shameful and indecent (or were only considered appropriate in certain restricted and highly specialized contexts, such as ballerinas performing on stage, or women's sea-bathing clothes). And in 1912, society had only recently become accustomed to a change in upper-class women's gowns from floor-length to ankle-length. Yet by 1927, hemlines were creeping close to the knee, so that centuries of tradition had been thrown out the window. Similarly, a constricted waist had been a feature of most upper-class women's clothing styles since the 16th century, and had been a constant feature of fashions between 1825 and 1910 (even increasing in severity during the later part of this period, when technical advances in corset construction made tight-lacing somewhat more feasible). But by 1927, the wasp-waisted look had gone entirely out of fashion.

Therefore fashion changes and cycles since WWI have taken place according to completely separate parameters (i.e. within an entirely different range of posssible variations) than those of fashion cycles between the 14th century and WWI. This new fashion regime is shown on the diagram above by putting post-WWI fashion cycles in a different region of the chart than pre-WWI fashion cycles. Finally, a new feature of fashion which has been especially prominent since the mid-1970's is that the range of acceptable choices has become much wider - there is no longer really one single skirt-length that a woman has to wear in order to be considered stylish, and in many situations a woman is free to wear either pants or a dress, etc. etc. (See the grey area in the second chart) Another feature of this latest period is that Parisian haute couture has dwindled to become merely a kind of abstract conceptual performance art that has almost nothing whatever to do with what the vast majority of women wear on most occasions (this trend had its first early beginnings with Paul Poiret around 1909, and became rather obvious to anyone who cared enough to bother to notice after the "midi" flap of the early 1970's).

Via H.C.'s Slightly Silly Victorian and pre-Regency Page

Tamagotchivase

2010-01-06T00:33:00.013+01:00