Information is Beautiful

I discovered this book by David McCandless in the Co-op bookstore in Cambridge.  I cannot get enough of his graphs, more are at his website and his flickr scrapbook.

The Official Acquaintance of Tony Bag

It’s finally here, what all of Pittsburgh (and beyond) has been waiting for!  The Official Acquaintance of Tony tote bag.  This one, the prototype, is headed over to Mairead, we’ll see how many more I can unleash upon the world before Tony stops me.

And it was unintentional, that there is a slight Groucho vibe to my version of Tony.  Perhaps this should be the next line of bags: Tony N., The Lost Fifth Marx Brother.  Soon to be followed with Tony N., Bubba Hotep Redux…

Recycled Plastic Monsters from Pittsburgh

From undergraduate students in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, lots of  plasticwares Frankensteined into insects, monsters, beasts!  The two just above, and the two just below, they are my favorites.  But there was a whole institutional hallway to choose from…

Neighborhod Art, Kutluğ Ataman

In my search for good neighborhood art, there’s Kutluğ Ataman, from the Pittsburgh show a few years back at the Carnegie International.  He’s a Turkish artist-documentarian, and his exhibit at the Carnegie won its main prize.

It was room-large, a gallery full of televisions + earphones, each television with a different person from the same neighborhood, Küba, in Istanbul.  Enough voices + faces + stories to last a month of visits to the Carnegie, I wonder if anyone has actually listened to all of them all the way through.

More from Ataman at his website, The Institute for the Readjustment of Clocks.

Snowdoll : Puppy

The snow, there’s plenty of it, but it does not want to obey me.  It’s too old, I should have gotten to it when I was younger.  So no huge snowdolls for now, just small ones.  To begin with, a puppy!  Big blue eyes, floppy big ears.  He almost cost me my fingertips + small toes.

Weird Snow of Pittsburgh

The snow may be leaving, slowly.  But at its height it gave all the street objects strange puffy hairdos, pompadours for the most part.

I’ve only found two proper snowpeople around the city (!), I know this must be addressed.

The weirdest thing?  Far down Penn Avenue in the Strip, there was a pair of black jeans stuffed full of ice + snow.  I have no idea why, secrets of Pittsburgh.

Facebook Suicide

Web Suicide Machine 2.0, I heard an NPR interview with its head Gordan Savicic (out of Vienna). The site, its part art, part life philosophy, covered over with disturbing metaphors.
Its for those on the fence of obliterating their social-network-selves, but without the time or strength to sit down and really purge all their friends and photos from Facebook. Facebook has fought back, they don’t allow the Suicide Machine to worm itself into people’s accounts any longer. Before, once a person clicked ‘Commit’, the machine would change your password and let you watch as it deleted your friends off one by one.

There is also Seppukoo, which has the same basic premise, but with more Japanese honor-sword-ritual motifs. It also has been squashed by Facebook.

I Made You A Beard

This site is great — all things at the convergence of diy art + facial hair.  Its the project of Erin Dollar, she sells some at her Etsy site.

Terminal Air + The Institute for Applied Autonomy

Trevor Paglen and the Institute for Applied Autonomy established Terminal Air, an art version of CIA rendition flight tracking.  At the website, you can watch black flights and find blackspots where people are detained and transported.  We Make Money Not Art gives some background to Paglen’s work and the project.

The Institute for Applied Autonomy is worth a trip, lots of political robots up to some small subversions.

Zen Vancouver : The Tea + Stroll Garden

I bumped into the Nitobe Memorial Garden on my way from the bus terminal to the Museum of Anthropology, at the tip of Vancouver, at the University of British Columbia.  The sun stayed out, and I had the garden to myself.  Later I found out it is a traditional Japanese design, for Tea & Stroll.

Outside the garden hung the Pacific Bell.  Masahiko Katori built it, it symbolizes ocean-stretched peace, between Canada & Japan.