Miraculous and oft forgotten pieces of history that need one last shot at glory
The Wings of Desire (1987) (Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987) Is a Wim Wenders cult film that follows invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress. Immensely moving it delves into the human condition and all of the pain, memory…
Continue reading ➞ The top 13 intense and powerful films that will linger with you forever
For a growing community of young LGBTQ Maori and Pacific Islanders in Auckland, the burgeoning Vogue scene is a place of creative expression. It's a sanctuary that naturally intersects with Maori and Pacific traditions of performance art and dance. Vice met with some of the breakout stars of the Vogue dance scene and found out…
Instead of restoring pottery shards and paintings(as the mudlarks of the Thames do), historians and archaeologists are increasingly turning towards technology and its immersive VR possibilities when explaining and educating people about the past. A new mode for immersive learning about the past is through sound. French musicologist Mylène Pardoen has set about bringing to…
Continue reading ➞ Mylène Pardoen: The Soundscape of 17th Century France
What happened to reels of photos from old Kodak cameras of the 80's and 90's? They very well may end up in an Internet K-Hole, I've written about that strange website before. It's a repository of old photos from people's personal and public collections that squashed together and left to coexist in a creepy digital…
Continue reading ➞ Thibaut Kinder’s exhumed photographs from abandoned SD cards
Salvador Dalí isn't generally remembered for his culinary prowess. Although he was a secret admirer of gastronomy for all of its transformative and monstrous properties. In his rare and 1973 cookbook Les Diners de Gala, just reissued by Taschen. the late iconic artist celebrates dream-like and surreal flavour combinations. Chapter titles include Prime Lilliputian malaises’ (meat)…
Instead of allowing your pesky pooch to malt all over your sofa, put your pet to work in a novel way. The most luxuriant of dog breeds can be put to practical use as producers of dog wool for your next knitting expedition. Some of the best breeds for yarn include the Collie, Old English…
Hedgehog in the Fog is the Russian equivalent of Winnie the Pooh, Paddington or Beatrix Potter stories. This delightful cartoon was made in 1975 by Yuriy Borisovich Norshteyn and introduced the world to a hedgehog that becomes bewitched by different shapes obscured by thick fog. Yuriy Borisovich Norshteyn is one of the most respected animators in…
Continue reading ➞ Classic Russian Animation: Hedgehog in the Fog
In Stuttgart in the 70's a group of young bohemian artists including the film-maker Wim Wenders (who went on to make the amazing film the Wings of Desire) hung out together. In this group of friends was also the enigmatic and completely mysterious singer Sibylle Baier, about whom we know very little except that she…
Continue reading ➞ Lost and Found: Sibylle Baier’s Colour Green
Here are some curated images from Reddit's Creepy Old Pics a subreddit that will give you the creeps for sure. Haloween is really about the Pagan ritual of Sammhuin, although some people claim that Haloween has Christian roots, there is no denying that the two Haloween and Sammhuin are culturally interrelated. The idea of a…
Here are two handsome maps of Melbourne's public transport from the previous century. In equal parts loved and loathed by locals, public transport in Melbourne is slow, expensive and unreliable and yet anyone who has ever lived in Melbourne (and who has moved away for long enough to not deal with it on a daily…
Continue reading ➞ Train and tram-spotting in Melbourne back in the olden days
OZ magazine was published in Australia and London between 1963 and 1973 and under the stewardship of Richard Neville and later also Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis. This magazine left the door wide open for everything wild, illegal, outrageous, radical and until then largely unimaginable. OZ magazine is reproduced by permission of Richard Neville in…
Continue reading ➞ The Iconic & Subversive Oz Magazine – In all its Psychadelic Glory
For the relatively short time of 33 months in the late 1970's, Studio 54 was the decadent soft centre of 70s hedonism in NYC. Naysayers called it a sleazy and dangerous place. But for famous people and completely unknown but beautiful young things, it was a place where people could get up to whatever they…
Like a dodgy acid trip or a Oompa Loompa village, this broken down theme park in New Jersey is enough to give you the shivers. Modelled on a Germanic Village, the candy coloured houses look like something out of a Grimm Fairytale. Fairytale Forest was built built by German Immigrant Paul Woehle in 1957 in…
Continue reading ➞ Creepy Theme Park Will Linger in Your Dreams
If you haven't already followed Imaginary Cities on Twitter @Oniropolis then you should right away! This is a curated treasure trove of architectural meanderings and inspiring cityscapes which have never existed other than in creative people's minds. Imaginary Cities are where the imagined possibilities of tech, science fiction, futurism and 80's pop culture are smashed…
A collection of 24 sacred wooden objects from Easter Island bear Rongorongo inscriptions, a system of glyphs that was discovered in the 19th Century and is still a mystery to historians. Numerous attempts at decyphering the proto-writing have been unsuccessful. These pieces of wood (a lot of it driftwood) are weathered, burned and damaged and…
Continue reading ➞ Mysterious Rongorongo Glyphs from Easter Island
Are you lonely and nostalgic for all of the crappy, interminably slow and dull-as-dishwater computers that you have possessed in the past. If you answered yes then enter into the timewarp that is the Vintage Restart Page. This features all of the crappy clip art graphics and quaintly exaggerated shadowing on buttons that you have…
Fritz Kahn's Der Menschen als Industriepalast by Henning Lederer. Physician. Popular science writer. Creative Director. Educator. Humanist. Visionary. Polymath. Fritz Kahn combined industrial and mechanical functionality with the working wonders of the human body. Fritz Kahn was a genius who's work laid undiscovered for many years. Until a curious curator Uta Von Debschnitz unearthed them.…
Continue reading ➞ Fritz Khan’s painting Der Menschen als Industriepalast in dreamy animation
For kids of the 70's and 80's, the internet was nothing but a sparkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eyes. This meant that every bad mullet, heavy kohl eyeliner and patched denim jacket, wood panelled wall and piece of bamboo furniture could be forgiven...until now. About five years ago the Internet K-hole was born. It unveiled an…
Continue reading ➞ If you look deeply enough…this internet k-hole will look back at you
Contrary to what you might think, watermelons looked very different (and probably tasted better) in the Renaissance compared to today. Why exactly? Farming practices have changed and genetically modified food has modified the humble watermelon out of its original state of being. Take a look at this renaissance painting by Giovanni Stanci, courtesy of Christies…
Continue reading ➞ A watermelon is never simply a watermelon
This questionnaire comes from The Girlfriend and The Boyfriend, a magazine for young women that came out in the early 1950's. If only finding out the answer to that question was as simple as filling out a questionnaire!
