I saw a man who wasn’t there

Liu Bolin is an artist from Shandong, China, who specialises in camouflage. The photos can take 10 hours each to shoot (and presumably way more in preparation), and are supposedly a protest against the persecution of artists by the Chinese government, who shut down his art studio in 2005. In particular, he’s highlighting the way individuals are required to blend into society, or face the consequences.

Normally, I hate artist’s statements, which try and infuse their work with way more significance than it actually has, but this actually adds meaning. The police shots, as well as being amazingly executed, are probably the most obvious representation of what he’s trying to say:

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Talk to the cam

Not so long ago that Chatroulette was all the rage. Then it faded away again, smothered by a blanket of surprise cocks (yeah, that’s a nice mental image for you).

Healcam is the patient website that has risen from those knobby ashes. Created to allow disease sufferers to “talk to patients like you”, users are invited to select a disease or medical condition (such as Crohn’s or HIV) that they’d like to discuss, and are then connected with another user with the same condition. The aim is to create a place where people can exchange information, moral support and advice face-to-face.

It’s a lovely repurposing of a tried and trusted (well, maybe not so much ‘trusted’, it’s Chatroulette after all) digital platform. The only potential problem is a lack of traffic – currently at 2,000 visitors a day, and presumably spread thinly across categories such as Diabetes, Weight Loss & Dieting, Depression, Cancer, Pregnancy and Childbirth, Heart Disease, etc.

I’d guess that this is more to do with lack of awareness of the website, rather than general reluctance on the part of patients to talk about their conditions, as there are lively patient message boards for almost anything you can suffer from. Though people might find the whole face-to-face with strangers aspect a bit more intimidating…

Anyway, it’s a fantastic idea, and I hope it takes off.

(via)

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Write what you know

A human genome, as written in nucleotides (ACGT), from the Welcome Collection. At approximately 3.3 billion base pairs, it’s a staggering illustration of the amount of information in our genes.

Such unimaginable complexity, an exquisitely choreographed miracle of chemistry, coming together to make you. And how do you celebrate the wonder that is your existence? You sit on your arse and check the internet. You disgust me… *picks nose*

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Half-baked

Delicious typography by Anna Garforth:

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Poison pen pictures (Update)

As I mentioned in the original post, Mr Bingo was sending me hate mail. And it’s finally arrived!

To be honest, I’d pretty much entirely forgotten about the whole thing, so the pleasure of receiving a postcard morphed into confusion as to who would send me something so rude, and finally dawning realisation and laughter.

Anyway, the hate mail:

Click to enlarge, but in case it’s not clear, the postcard is a 1962 photograph of Malaga and the drawing on the back is of the Gerkin giving me the finger.

Seeing as the three people who actually read this blog already know who I am, blanking out my name and address is a little self-indulgent, but it makes me feel like a total  – REDACTED – .

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For we are many

Clara Asanza‘s photographic series ‘Lugares de transito‘ overlays multiple time-lapse images:

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But sweet

The world’s shortest YouTube ad – a very nice use of the medium:

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Drawing to a close

Whoop whoop! It’s another illustrator round-up:

Shan Jiang:

Andrew Hem:

Nick Sheehy:

Michael Marsicano:

Guy Shield:

Sam Weber:

(mostly via)

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Young and dumb

A rather literal Durex business card:

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Anti-social

An interesting slide show on Pharma companies and social media. Shows how far there is to go:

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