You may remember Josef Schulz’s series Sign Out from a while back. I was a big fan of that series, but these photographs, that focus on the subtle details of architecture, are much more intriguing to me. It’s all about the lines and the color. I am reminded of the work of Philipp Schaerer — that or video game architecture, where environmental details are obscured just enough to allow you to focus on the bad guys (or reduce processor load).
Using digital image processing, the analogue picture produced is then “cleansed” of the few remaining hints pointing to age, location or environment of the buildings. All details that might possibly allow conclusions concerning the actual size, users, time or place of the buildings are completely removed. The physical reality of the buildings is changed in such a way that they seem to become virtual blueprints designed to perfection.
— Excerpt from an essay by Thomas Ruff.
Hard Format has some great shots of and original 12″ sleeve for Kraftwerk’s Autobahn (the brown tape just makes it that much better). This has to be one of my all-time favorite covers; I cut a picture of it out of Rolling Stone and had it on my fridge for years, but if I had this is would be framed in the middle of the room. What are some other great minimalist sleeves? Link them in the comments.
Everyday Magazine is a magazine that focuses on the behind the scenes of creative folks. I find the design to be quite relaxing and the inner pages to be nicely laid out. The project was created by Mikael Floysand as an assignment at Westerdals School of Communication.
In my opinion Kurt Vile is all over the place, I picked up one album and love almost everything and then others the one gem hits after multiple listens. Freak Train popped up and set such a good tone to my afternoon, I needed that boost, I love when music does that.
A great surprise for me at least is this Sufjan Steven glitch addition, I want to shake his hand, he could of gotten lost in my book and went into the bland well known folk world but instead he threw a high speed curve at me, much respect.
This Mark E and Matthew Dear marriage couldn’t make me smile any bigger, that synth line, the untouchable groove of 2010. Way to make that vocal work Mark, I feel like i’m stuck in a New Order break down and I love it.
I grabbed this Toro Y Moi track from the latest Daytrotter Newsletter, this talent is here to stay, you could put this song into any decade after the 50’s and it would of felt right.
This “brand new”, supposedly made for NASA, Hasselblad MKWE can be yours for around $34K if you win this auction. It apparently comes as new in the original packaging. I love the concept of new-old stock; something about the idea of a product sitting undisturbed for decades in the original packaging is pretty cool. I have seen some classic synthesizers still sealed in the original box come up here and there on ebay, I even once saw a Rhodes piano, in the box, still unassembled. But none of those really compares to this beauty. The hardest part about getting this would be deciding whether to even use it or to preserve it in some sort of airtight viewing cube.
This is the incredible video for Four Tet’s remix of Vessel by Jon Hopkins. Not only is it mega weird in the most perfect way, but it really suits the song perfectly. Hypnotic to say the least. I love it when the dancers are on a really short repeat loop: the shots between 00:16-00:45 and the very last are my favorite.
Moog just announced the new XL version of their Voyager synth. This is pretty exciting news considering the dearth of manufacturers these days willing to go out on a limb with a fully analog design. When I first saw the press shots I was really hoping it was going to be polyphonic, a modern Memorymoog maybe. But after checking the specs I was disappointed to learn that it’s just a mono synth like it’s Voyager brethren. What was even more disappointing was the price: $5,000 USD. While this is a beautiful piece of equipment and I appreciate the fact that they are produced on a small scale, that just seems like a lot for a larger — albeit still mono — Voyager with VX and CV tacked on. From what I can tell the same functionality could be had by getting a Voyager Rack and the expander boxes.
Also like the previous Voyagers, it’s pretty much in line visually with the original Model D design cues, which I adore. But I have a Voyager Rack and have always been disappointed by the body. The original Minimoogs had an incredible paint job and color scheme. Even the typography was amazing. The new stuff has a big sticker for the interface, as opposed to being screened directly on to the metal. It’s details like this that can really undercut an otherwise quality design. That being said, I’d have to say it’s still one of the prettiest synths out there, save for the Virus TI2 of course.
At any rate it’s still one of the most beautiful sounding musical instruments that you’ll ever hear.
And here are a couple of vintage Moog ads for good measure.
So after years of being goaded by my friends I finally took the plunge and went to Burning Man. I figured it would be a good idea to bring a camera but I had heard that the dust could wreak havoc on the delicate inner-workings of a DSLR so I decided to leave the D80 at home and bring my little SD780 Elph. It ended up working out great, that little thing surprised me every time I used it. But this being my first time, I wanted to focus more on the experience and not be worrying about getting shots the whole time. Consequently, I didn’t come home with a whole lot of material, but I was really happy with what I did manage to get. Next year I am definitely going to bring the D80 (or whatever I’m shooting with at that time) and focus more on shooting, the place is a photographer’s dream.
Above are some examples of the shots I did get; all have been post-processed and most are multiple-exposures. As you can see, the place was downright otherworldly in terms of aesthetics; the beauty of the desert (a place I’ve spent very little time in my life) was absolutely breathtaking. The texture of the sand (which was extremely fine, almost like talcum powder) seemed like what I’d imagine the moon to be like. As the images above will attest, I was somewhat preoccupied with the sun, but you’ll have to forgive me as the sunrises and sunsets were some of the most beautiful I’ve ever witnessed. Some of the photos are available for purchase as prints at the ISO50 Photographic site.
As for the experience itself, I could go on and on but I’ll spare you the details and just say that is was without question a high point for me. The music, people, and artwork were all incredible. I brought with me a lot of preconceived notions about what Burning Man is and the kind of people who go there, but within the first hour or so of being out there in the desert with 50,000 people, every one of those notions were proven to be completely wrong. Try to make it out there if you have the opportunity, it’s really something special to be a part of.
Edit: I’ve discussed the process of creating these images a little in the comments.
Edit: ZX asked in the comments if I could post an unprocessed image, the example below is the raw output from the camera. After processing it became the top-most image above (this one). I really had a great time working with these images and I think I am closer than ever to becoming a Canon convert with my next DSLR purchase.
