steampunk
gregladen | October 17, 2014You know Guy Himber's work. He worked on special effects for Aien 3, Underworld, Independence Day, Edward Scissorhands, I, Robot, lots of other productions. And now, he is playing around with LEGO.
Steampunk Lego by Guy Himber is subtitled "The illustrated researches of various fantastical devices by Dr. Herbert Jabson, with epistles to the Crown, Her Majesty Queen Victoria; A travelogue in 11 chapters." The book itself is all steampunky, in fact heavily steampunky, with brown colors, gears and wheels as background images, and victorian techno-objects decorating a faux photographic album…
gregladen | September 13, 2012
Fusion Wallpaper
There comes a time in each person’s life when it is time to change the wallpaper. And the drapes, but we’ll focus on wallpaper here. And by wallpaper I mean the picture on your computer screen that is normally covered by icons and open windows. I came across a few neat individual wallpapers, as well as some good sources, and thought you’d like to see them. Since these wallpapers are from sites run by the artists who designed the wallpapers, it is appropriate that you go to those sites to get them, so here I’ll just show a few thumbnails but mainly talk about topics and…
gregladen | November 18, 2011Tradition. Not just a song from Fiddler on the Roof.
You know the refrain: "The Papa, the Papa! Tradition." It's a great play but it is firmly rooted in the patriarchy, as "tradition" often is.
There are many ways to define "tradition" and we can look it up somewhere and have a flameware over dictionary meanings if you want. But instead I'll tell you what I think the word means, roughly, generally, and subject to revision.
First, "tradition" is a feature of culture that simply refers to practices that are habitual. A subset of "traditions" are formalized or regularized, like holidays in…
gregladen | February 24, 2011This year's CONvergence is allegedly more steampunk themed than usual, so we may be required to wear goggles to the various sessions on evolution, skepticism, etc. I need help picking out which ones to wear. So far, these are the choices:
Hobart Welding Goggles:
Harry Potter Quidditch Goggles:
Flip Fronts:
Classic Round Lens Moto Goggles:
bioephemera | June 18, 2009
Joanna of Morbid Anatomy is on a quest to locate private collections of medical oddities. She's already sussed out fourteen such hidden wunderkammern and photographed their treasures, but she wants to find more:
"Who are these private collectors, and what sort of treasures do they possess? How might their methods of displaying collections differ from institutional approaches? Are we reaching a historical moment similar to the pre-museum era of private cabinets, in which the most interesting artifacts are now in private rather than public hands?"
It's a really interesting question.…
bioephemera | April 3, 2009
Fixed Heart
offal with mixed metal components
Lisa Black, 2008
I blogged about New Zealand artist Lisa Black before, but I can't get over this great piece of hers. What does it signify? Does it represent the gradual replacement of the natural world around us with technology, to the point where our own bodies become artificial? Is it critiquing the reductionist tendencies of neurobiologists who believe our deepest emotions are complex but purely chemical reactions? Is it a steampunk Valentine? I don't know, and I don't really care - it's just cool.
Check out more from Black here.
bioephemera | March 25, 2009
Richard Avedon, The New Yorker, 1995
Via Haute Macabre, an unbelievable fashion editorial created by Richard Avedon for the New Yorker. I have no words.
Richard Avedon, The New Yorker, 1995
See the complete editorial at Haute Macabre.
bioephemera | March 8, 2009
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
--WB Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium"
My coveted bauble of the week is this fabulous, foot-high Gladiator Raven from Anthropologie. Maybe it's not hammered gold and gold enamelling, but the patina and quirky textures in this piece should satisfy any ephemeraphile with $648 to spare.