The earliest aerial photograph of an American city, titled “Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It” - Taken from a hot air balloon in October 1860 

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10:12 pm  •  19 March 2013  •  9 notes

“The Wheel of the Devil”: On Vine, GIFs and the Power of the Loop

When Vine launched last week, a new format for looped media was born. While visual loops have been in existence for centuries, they have arguably enjoyed special attention over the last hundred years. In this essay I want to consider the purpose and power of the loop. I also intend to propose that the reign of the loop is greatly empowered by digital media, and that today loops have enriched culture while offering new perspectives on the nature of reality.

It is William George Horner, a 19th Century British mathematician, whom we may credit with the invention of the modern zoetrope. Horner described the mechanism inan article for the journal Philosophical Magazine in 1834. When spun by hand at a steady pace, a cylindrical tub with slits around the rim would produce a looping animation, usually of a person or animal. Horner called this device “the daedelum”, but it was known popularly as “The Wheel of the Devil.”

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The thaumatrope, daedelum and later toy zoetropes of the Victorian period are in my opinion the original realisation of the idea of a visual loop. Shadow puppets, marionettes, automatons - all have long histories in both Western and Eastern culture, but the magic of the zoetrope was its perpetuity. Start the zoetrope spinning and suddenly a collection of static pictures begin an endless and mesmerizing dance. That metamorphosis of something stationary into a vivid display of repeated movement is surely what makes the otherwise crude drawings, of a clown falling over, or a horse galloping, so wonderful.

This pocket history of the visual loop is awesome. Read it.

2:55 pm  •  3 February 2013  •  6 notes

Movie Scenes of the Past in Real Life New York

Since June, Moloney, a writer for a television show, has staged and posted several hundred such photographs on his Tumblr, FILMography, drawing attention from blogs, magazines, and even — in the case of Step Up 3D — the director himself.

11:09 am  •  4 January 2013  •  10 notes

A 19-year-old Private James Hendrix plays guitar with unknown drummer at the U.S. Army infantry training center at Fort Ord, California, 1961. Hendrix ended up being better at the guitar than serving in the Army.

[source, via]

10:55 pm  •  28 November 2012  •  6 notes

Microsoft staff photo from December 7, 1978. From left to right: Top: Steve Wood, Bob Wallace, Jim Lane. Middle: Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin. Bottom: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen. [via.]

7:36 pm  •  28 November 2012  •  4 notes

The world’s greatest minds, in one place.

[via.] 

11:52 pm  •  27 November 2012  •  4 notes

ICHEG Acquires 250 Ataria Industrial Design Department Drawings, Plans Exhibition

The International Center for the History of Electronic Games, up in Rochester, New York, has somehow got their hands on what they’re calling the Atari Arcade Design Collection: 250 industrial design drawings of arcade game cabinets dating from 1974 to 1989, in all of their primitive marker-rendering glory.

(via thisistheverge)

10:45 pm  •  25 November 2012  •  61 notes

A memo from record producer Teo Macero to Columbia/CBS Records executives prior to the release of Miles Davis’ groundbreaking album, Bitches Brew.

[via]

11:47 am  •  9 November 2012  •  4 notes

laphamsquarterly:

Lincoln logs may have been named after the nation’s 16th president, but did you know that they were invented by the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, and molded from models used in the building of Wright’s Imperial Hotel? Apparently the earthquake-proof construction utilized interlocking pieces of concrete, a strategy that translated well to the children’s toy market.

Now, go forth and build your best log cabin!

11:43 am  •  9 November 2012  •  123 notes