"A visual train of 365 home-grown numbers. The numbers in this film (and gallery) are from commercial and residential properties in metropolitan Melbourne. From the ordinary to the compelling, the modest to the spectacular, the curious to the impetuous, this film captures the style, substance and spirit of Melbourne." Lots of Numbers by Ian Low. Thanks Scott.
Old signs. Large type. Weathered, worn, busted, broken and rusted letterforms. Salivating yet? Go to this stunning photoset at Flickr of the Las Vegas Neon Graveyard. Via Boing Boing.
Polar Inertia issue 28 is now live. Polar Inertia is a journal of 'nomadic and popular culture'. It's one of my favourite photography sites and an interesting 'window to the world'.
This issue features: China's walls, Turkmenistan's Turmenbashi, Phoenix suburbanscapes, hotel emptyness, Iceland's street murals, Tokyo observatories and war graffiti. Always worth a visit.
As regular visitors to this blog will know – I am a tad obsessed with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (that's North Korea to you). My family in-law is (South) Korean. I have travelled alongside the fence bordering South and North Korea many a time. (In fact as you drive out to the airport when you're flying out of Incheon airport, the fence just to the right of you is the DMZ). The raft of disparities between the North and the South of what was once the same country on the Korean peninsula seriously fascinates me. I just don't know how the DPRK survives.
I'm obviously not alone in this. I'm paraphrasing a recent entry by Things when I say: North Korea is just bursting with North Koreans and Western photographers. They're everywhere!
North Koreans live there – so they're obviously entitled to frequent their country (although many would probably choose not to, given the chance) – but Western photographers, as North Korea opens ever so slightly up to the West, are rushing through the small tourist-only crack in the DMZ (for 1800 Westerners a year) to photograph state-sanctioned icons: heroic architecture, statues, workers and the Mass Games.
Charlie Crane has been there. His book Welcome to Pyongyang has won a major photography award. Mark Edward Harris is a DPRK photographer too. But if I had to nominate the most perfectly-suited photographer for North Korea's amazingly choreographed human spectacle, the Mass Games, it would be Andreas Gursky.
Gursky's enormous prints full of dizzying detail (or rather, thousands of well-trained North Korean Mass Game participants) capture the 'enormity of the DPRK conformity' very well.
PS: The link in the following comment to the video of photographer Christopher Morris describing his shoot in the DPRK is well worth a visit (Thanks Edward).
Simon Strong, a friend of 1+1=3, has a new exhibition Even if you leave, I will always be with you ... at John Buckley Gallery in Richmond. From the site: "Glowing cabbages, floating light balls on a lake, bulbs hanging from a
cod’s mouth, are all part of Strong’s surreal iconography, which
alludes to his interest, if not anxiety, in the fluidity of man-made
cultural boundaries – always, it seems to him, under the threat of
siege by the encroaching nightmare of nature and the fragility of our
constructed world". More of Strong's work here.
Also on show David Stephenson's Selected Photographs 1992-2003. "Stephenson is well known for his series of domes, stars and landscapes. One of his greatest achievements with photography lies in his
attentiveness to the registry of time within the spatial organization
of the pictorial." More of Stephenson's domes here.
Both shows knocked my socks off – some stunning work is exhibited here.
From May 2 till May 19.
Three months back I blogged this gentleman's novel photographic technique: "The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can." 1+1=3 will be checking in on this site from time to time to see how the gentleman's sprinting ability improves.
Only thing is - I think his sprinting prowess has declined... he got further away from the camera last time I looked in January. Perhaps he's weighed down with more clothing, heavy shoes or extra responsibilities or something. Stay tuned for further updates.
A stunning series of photographs by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, shot in a cinematic style and format. Via BLDG BLOG. Read more on the photographer there.
A goofy but fun idea. "The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can." Via Coudal.
3 quick posts on some body-related topics:
Skull
Was driving along La Trobe Street on Saturday night when looming up
out of the darkness was a gigantic human skull. It's the latest public
artwork on Nonda Katsalidis' Republic Tower and it certainly gets one's attention. The 4-storey(?) high skull by German artist Mariele Neudecker is entitled Ambassador. Read more at The Age.
Blood
The Bonded by Blood limited edition poster made by Adidas for the All Blacks (the
New Zealand rugby union team) features the team doing a traditional
Maori Haka and the poster has been printed using traces of the players' blood!
The Haka, the All Blacks and the whole mystical Maori atmosphere that surrounds this sporting team seems to endow them with an almost supernatural quality. Plus they only ever wear black. Undoubtedly one of the most feared sporting teams around. Read more. Via the new CR-Blog, from the UK's Creative Review.
Menstrual cycle
The new Four Weeks Magazine is synchronized to the monthly menstrual cycle of women. There's even a Hormone Horoscope
that 'forecasts' what lies ahead for you according to the ebb and flow
of oestrogen, testosterone and progesterone in your body (if you're a
woman that is). Via UnBeige.
Following on (in a way) from the post below: found photography.
+ Found (with an Australian focus), with several galleries including some of postcards
+ Found (via Things Magazine)
+ Found and later sold
+ Found by Sándor Kardos. This is an exhibition of 37 photos from Kardos's collection of 200,000 amateur snapshots in Budapest
