Listen To The Sounds Of An 18,000-Year-Old Conch
The noises of a massive conch shell from the Upper Paleolithic Marsoulas cave society were reproduced and published online.
View ArticleEscape Into Soundwaves From The Comfort Of Your Home
The World According to Sound's listening series has breathed new life into stagnant stay-at-home days and given me a meditative tool for coping with ever creeping anxiety.
View ArticleA Prison Abolitionist Ceramics Studio Is Helping Change People's Lives
The People's Pottery Project is becoming a structure of support for formerly incarcerated women, trans, and nonbinary individuals.
View ArticleAttempts To Reconstruct A Mummy's Voice Are Cursed
After a group of British researchers claimed to synthesize the voice of Egyptian priest Nesyamun's 3,000-year-old remains, it leads to questions about the ethics of Egyptology.
View ArticleFeeling Down? Here Are The Best Bob Ross Pep Talks
All 403 episodes of "The Joy of Painting" are on YouTube. Here are five of the most inspiring installments.
View ArticleThe Bird-Based Color System that Eventually Became Pantone
The first Pantone color chart came from a surprising source: a self-published ornithology book.
View ArticleArtists Covertly Scan Bust of Nefertiti and Release the Data for Free Online
Last October, two artists entered the Neues Museum in Berlin and secretly scanned the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the state museum's prized gem. Three months later, they released the dataset as a torrent,...
View ArticleAfter Three Decades of Obscurity, Helvetica's Successor Reemerges
When Haas Unica was introduced in 1980, it was intended as an illustrious successor to the highly popular sans-serif Helvetica. Before it could achieve any measure of Helvetica's ubiquity, Haas Unica...
View ArticleRecording the Insect Ecology of a Prison Reclaimed by Nature
Cell 25 in Block 9 of Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary is now a cabinet of curiosities representing the animal life of this stabilized ruin. Specifically, it's focused on some of the smaller...
View ArticleLooking for Origins of Arab Modernism in Kuwait
Kuwait City was the first city in the region to undertake a massive modernization project of the sort currently underway in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha — with extraordinary wealth, tempered...
View ArticleWoodcut Kitty Porn of the Edo Period
Cats are the darlings of the Internet, but a new exhibition coming to Manhattan's Japan Society this spring brings a different perspective to bear on our feline friends: "Life of Cats: Selections from...
View ArticleFree at Last! Munch, Mondrian, and Kandinsky Enter the Public Domain
Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (1893) celebrating the new year (National Gallery, Oslo, via Wikimedia, edited by the author for Hyperallergic) A new year means new entrants into the public domain for the...
View ArticleKicking Back With a Mexican Gang Member
Pepe in his convenience store (all images courtesy of Bronia Stewart) Cracking into challenging subcultures is one of Bronia Stewart's main objectives as a documentary photographer. Which is why, when...
View ArticleThe Graphics of the Great War in France
"Le kaiser et la mort," illustration from "La baïonnette," November 4, 1915 (all images courtesy University of Chicago Library/University of Chicago Press) More than any conflict before it, World War I...
View ArticleThe Nomadic Arctic Landmass that Became a New Nation
Approaching Nowhereisland (all images courtesy the artist) Back in 2012, a curious landmass journeyed around the coast of England, broken free from the Arctic, where it had long been invisible under a...
View ArticleThe Art World's Casual Racism
Does a work that's intended to be a "statement" on something have an obligation to do more than just replicate the awful tropes and stereotypes it claims to comment on?
View ArticleScientists to Image Black Hole by Turning Earth into Giant Camera
The problem with trying to take a picture of a black hole is that it consumes everything, even the light around it. Now, a team of scientists is working to make the first image of a black hole by using...
View ArticleRevealing the Hidden Truths of the Financial World Through Art
After the Gomorrah-like deal-a-minute-a-thon of Art Basel Miami Beach, an exhibition arrives examining the artworld's underbelly: money, lucre, filthy-stinking-rich moolah, big bucks, hated, denounced,...
View ArticleOn the Origin of Selfies
Taking today's internet selfie temperature through a Google Image search for "selfies" CHICAGO — A selfie is a certain type of self-portrait photography shot with a digital camera or smartphone....
View ArticleWhy Is Playboy Erecting a Neon Bunny in Marfa, Texas?
In a strange sequence of events, it seems that the Hugh Hefner Empire wants — and has recently obtained — a lease on 6,500 square feet of land west of Marfa, Texas, which is best known in the art world...
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