British artist Ben Long makes art out of dirt with the whimsical drawings he creates on the back of commercial trucks. The ongoing project is something Long calls "The Great Travelling Art Exhibition." If artists ever needed proof that they can make a name for themselves anywhere, and for free, this is it! Via Laughing Squid.
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This compilation video has been making its way around the Internet. It's worth a laugh, in that any of us might ever expect a Federal Express package to arrive intact. How much is insurance? I'll take it. Via Viral Viral Videos.
Holy horseplay. Admittedly I'm a city girl who knows very little about horses, but I was surprised to learn how enthusiastically these horses (and one pony) play with rubber balls. I never knew horses played with toys at all. In this video, some have been given exercise balls, which I may never work out with again without briefly flashing on ol' Paint nosing it around the ranch! Via Tastefully Offensive.
Image credit: Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun
Anyone who has ever owned a dog knows that if you treat them kindly, there is no limit to their loyalty. The concept of canine devotion to humans is beautifully illustrated in these photos of street people and their dogs. These dogs could go off in search of someone better able to feed and shelter them, but they don't. They are there in the trenches with their human companions who are battling mental illness, poverty and other banes of humanity. See more of these touching photos here.
Image credit: Tony Cole
Image credit: imgur
Image credit: jp1958
Image credit: Andre
Insane former Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi was behind countless instances of rape, torture and murder. Yet throughout it all, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was a source of unfailing support, as evidenced by a number of photos of the pair in mid embrace. Blair even went so far as to send Qaddafi letters of advice as to financially beneficial ways to invest his ill-gotten fortune. Cor blimey! See other examples of embarrassing political memorabilia in this Listverse article.
Image Credit: Stefan Rousseau
Jonathan Novick captured this footage of a day in his life in an effort to give the public a feel for what it might be like to walk around as a little person. Novick, an achondroplastic dwarf, lives in New York City, a place in which he is "treated" daily to a vast array of public response to his stature. In a measured, pragmatic fashion, he asks people to consider the experiences of not only little people, but everyone who is different. Via Unique Daily.
Legendary film director Stanley Kubrick was famous for being a perfectionist. Kubrick took being exacting to extremes, sometimes shooting 50 to 100 takes of any given scene. His research was thorough to the point of being obsessive.
Kubrick's preferred level of control extended beyond the scripts, filming and movie sets. Shown here is one example of Kubrick's oversight: his selection of art for film posters and publicity spots. The image above is Kubrick's final selection for the art to represent The Shining, illustrated by Saul Bass, who also did work for Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock. Only a few of Bass' art proposals rejected by Kubrick are shown here. On each rejected submission, Kubrick wrote his points of contention.
My favorite drawing is the maze, which was refused by Kubrick because he didn't want so much emphasis put on the maze. I suppose that's just one reason why I'm not among the most highly regarded film directors of all time. Which do you like best? Via Open Culture.
Mercedes-Benz, 2014
The grand-scale artwork of Gerry Judah has been center stage at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Sussex, England since 1997. The annual event takes place at the Goodwood Estate, in Chichester, West Sussex, England, home of the Earl and Countess of March.
Gerry Judah and his family are originally from India. They relocated to London when Gerry was a young boy. He went on to receive a BFA from Goldsmiths College and did post-graduate work in sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Arts.
Pictured here are Judah's creations for the 2014 festival and several years prior. Each year a different luxury car manufacturer sponsored the event and was the feature of that year's sculpture. See more photos at Twisted Sifter.
Images: Gerry Judah
Porsche, 2013
Lotus, 2012
Comic artist (and introvert) Gemma Correll draws a map of the introvert's heart. This introvert thinks she pretty well nailed it. Are you an introvert? If so, what do you think? Would you add or subtract any regions on the map?
Dan Souza, Senior Editor of Cooks Illustrated, makes a fantastic case for cooking steaks from a frozen state as opposed to taking the extra time to thaw them. Were you unaware of any way to improve upon a juicy steak? Check out this video for the sensible rationale.
Due to increasing concern with regard to the environmental pollution caused by the manufacture and discarded waste of petroleum-based plastics, in recent years, much research has been conducted on bioplastics. Bioplastics are made from renewable biomass materials, which decompose without polluting the Earth.
The idea of bioplastics captured the imagination of Turkish teen Elif Bilgin, 16, of Istanbul. This smart, resourceful young woman spent two years experimenting with banana peels as a primary ingredient of bioplastic. Her hard work and perseverance paid off, as seen in this video. Bilgin won the 2013 $50,000 Science in Action award in the Google Science Fair. Via Viral Viral Videos.
Image: Kristov Vrancken
Architectural partnership Gijs Van Vaerenbergh was founded by Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh. One of their projects is this structure in the countryside of Limburg, Belgium. The installation resembles the architecture of churches in the region, yet this "church" becomes semi-transparent depending on the viewer's location and perspective.
The beautiful design, called "Reading Between the Lines," is constructed of 100 layers and 2000 columns of steel. It stands nearly 33 feet high. From their website, the architects state the meaning they ascribe to their architecture:
"Their work consists of site-specific interventions, installations and constructions that generate a mutual reaction with their environment. This results in a artistic practice devoted to a research into the fundaments of constructing itself and their impact on the spectator. Next to these experimental projects, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh also creates architectural projects in which they make use of the results of their experimental works. As such, they follow a trajectory in two directions: from experiment to architecture, and the other way around."
Via Viral Nova.
Image: Kristof Vrancken
Image: Mine Dalemans
Image: Mine Dalemans
In this series by Japanese photographer Mako Miyamoto, "wookiees" abound, in all sorts of everyday situations and casual recreations. The photos, featured on his websites Neon Werewolf and Mako Miyamoto.com, even have a companion video called The Wookie Boogie.
Why Miyamoto chooses to give his subjects wookiee masks but no other costuming is unclear, although he has been quoted in a prior interview about his affinity for masks. A variety of pop culture references can be found in Miyamoto's photographs; his work is an amalgamation of many artistic influences. He explains,
"Growing up I was always fascinated by comic books; spending countless hours pouring over the art, savoring each line and stroke. Sam Keith, Todd McFarlane, Dale Keown, Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Jim Lee… the list goes on and on. Drawing was an obsession for me, and the weird, monster infested world that these artists created was my inspiration. In college I pursued a major in fine arts, but changed course halfway through to design, which took me into the world of advertising. Later on, I picked up a camera and found that I enjoyed capturing the world around me, and with it, I could bring some of the magic and mystery back into the world I love so much as a child...
I get my inspiration from all over; thrift stores, books, movies, open spaces, the coast, clouds, Stanley Kubrick, Portland, John Carpenter, the golden hour, the way that reflections create an unreachable reality, things that are orange, and the ocean. But not necessarily in that order."
Via Beautiful Decay.
Chloe Giordano is a self-described "illustrator, avid reader, history lover and dreadful knitter" from Buckinghamshire, England. She may not be a great knitter, but her embroidery is more than up to par. Shown here are her tiny embroidered animals, done freehand. Giordano's mixture of multiple colored threads adds detail and dimension. See more of her creations or request a commissioned work at her tumblr site. Via Colossal.
On September 26th, 1957, herpetologist Karl Schmidt became the first human on record to die after being bitten by a boomslang snake. His colleagues in the scientific community were shocked, as prior to Schmidt's death, boomslang snakes were thought to be harmless. Wihin 24 hours of being bitten, Schmidt died in his home of respiratory arrest and severe brain hemorrhaging.
The venom of a boomslang snake is a hemotoxin, meaning it destroys red blood cells, loosens blood clotting and causes organ and tissue degeneration. Anyone unlucky enough to be bitten by this non-agressive tree snake native to Africa will eventually suffer muscle and brain hemorrhage. Blood seeps from gums and nostrils and mixes with fecal matter, urine, saliva and vomit until the victim dies.
Learn more in this blog post at Scientific American. Via Science Chamber of Horrors.
Image Credit: William Warby/Wikimedia
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