GERD ARNTZ: TYPE & ISOTYPE

By: Matthew Battles

BORN IN 1900, German artist Gerd Arntz designed a pattern language for life in the twentieth century. His prints and designs were intended to further the purposes of a socialist world even as they dreamt […]

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Wild Things

By: Matthew Battles

WHY DO WE go to the woods, where the wild things are? Because it’s where the wild things are. Lars von Trier’s forthcoming film ANTICHRIST will debut at Cannes this May. Von Trier may be […]

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High-Altitude Hilobrow

By: Matthew Battles

MELDING ‘PATA­PHYSICS and popular mechanics, Proust and power tools, Dada and do-it-yourself, Eric Kraft is a hilobrow novelist par excellence. With the publication of his latest novel, Flying Home, Kraft’s cracked mythology is arguably complete […]

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Of Coral, Crochet, & the Hyperbolic Sublime

By: Matthew Battles

MARGARET and CHRISTINE WERTHEIM are crocheting a coral reef, and they’re eager for help. The sisters direct the Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles, which supports lectures, publications, and projects that explore the “figurative ecology” […]

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THOMAS DOYLE: Crucibles of Hazard

By: Matthew Battles

The art of Thomas Doyle is at once inviting and unsettling. Miniature tableaux under glass, his pieces have the quirky, lilliputian charm of the model railroad, the dollhouse, and the museum diorama. But upon further […]

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My Robot Overlords Are Cuter Than Yours

By: Matthew Battles

CB2 has one job: to win your heart. With its silicone skin, its bark-like cooing calls, and its lurching, needy gestures, the robot stimulates people to reach out in caring supplication, just as evolution has […]

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Highbrow Skyscraper, Lowbrow Plaza

By: Matthew Battles

Susan Sontag pays a visit to the Seagram Building (“gleaming like a switchblade”) to interview architect Philip Johnson. Embedded here with thanks to Joanne McNeil, who posted this at her terrific blog Tomorrow Museum. Sontag’s […]

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The Highbrow Kite

By: Matthew Battles

Thomas Horvath’s kites are like every kite you’ve ever seen, and like no kite you’ve ever seen. They’re what kites dream of when they lie sleeping in a tangle of string at the bottom of […]

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The Upset: Hilo for Your Coffee Table

By: Matthew Battles

Much contemporary art prides itself on posing questions. But too often the questions are rehearsed, and the answers prompt only tepid flickers of sensation. Works that engage the imagination in a total fashion — that […]

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The Ether Dome

By: Matthew Battles

Today, at long last, I saw the Ether Dome. It’s not a fan remix of a Mad Max movie, nor is it a fancifully named head shop. One of Boston’s most neglected historic sites, the […]

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Action Figure Smackdown!

By: Matthew Battles

We’re happy that French-Canadian animator Patrick Boivin likes to play with toys. Ever wonder who’d win a Bruce Lee/Iron Man action figure smackdown? Ah, but things aren’t so simple as that–not by half.

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Ada Lovelace & the Fire of Making

By: Matthew Battles

Steampunk artist and impresario Hieronymus Isambard von Slatt has joined the ranks of good people observing Ada Lovelace Day. See how he makes his Altoids tin etching of an Ada Lovelace portrait here. Ada Lovelace […]

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Ecstatic Science

By: Matthew Battles

Here’s a quick post pointing to Hulu’s Cosmos channel, where Carl Sagan’s entire groundbreaking PBS series may be streamed for free. Sagan’s series introduced a generation to a universe that was both comprehensible and mystical–an […]

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Infinite Jest, the Photo Tour

By: Matthew Battles

Flickr user Tim Bean created a photographic tour of Boston locations mentioned in the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1962-2008). Bean’s photos are annotated and geo-tagged for reference. We’re looking for other great […]

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