Boing Boing » decay

Mouldering city built of bread is a metaphor for Earth without humans

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 01:15:52 +0000

Swedish artist Johanna Mårtensson created this installation depicting a cityscape made of bread in 2009, and photographed it as it decayed, creating a series of pictures representing the destiny of all human folly come the day that we make ourselves extinct and vanish from the face of the Earth:

I was inspired by an article about how well the earth would do without us. Within 500 years all buildings would be half fallen or fallen, perfect homes for animals and plants. The forrest would soon grow in cities. After hand buildings as well as pollutions would be taken care of by bacterias and micro-organisms. An ufo that came here in a couple of of hundred thousand years would not see many signs of that a gang of primates ones thought that they where the lords of the planet.

Decor Photoinstallation by Johanna Mårtensson (via Crazy Abalone)

What happens when you forget pizzas in the oven for weeks

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 11 May 2013 21:44:42 +0000

A friend of redditor BigBoppinBill forgot some pizzas in the oven for "a few weeks." The result? A kind of glorious fungal jellyfish.

This calls to mind the timeless wisdom of the Jazz Butcher's classic, loony, over-the-top song, Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present: "Do you know what happens when you leave a fish in an elevator?/You don't?/Well, here's a clue/Fish is biodegradable/THAT MEANS IT ROTS."

A friend of mine left two pizzas in his oven for a few weeks... (i.imgur.com) (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Rotting Soviet-era themepark in the heart of Berlin

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:18:56 +0000

Dark Roasted Blend has a beautiful gallery of Spreepark PlanterWald (originally called Kulturpark Planterwald) a Soviet-era abandoned themepark in central Berlin, which is gracefully rotting away. This is a Boing Boing/Cory Doctorow trifecta: abandoned themeparks, Soviet kitsch, and urban exploration. Yes, please!

When it opened in 1969 as Kulturpark Planterwald, it was the "only constant entertainment park in the GDR, and the only such park in either East or West Berlin". However, the Berlin Senate did not seem to have provided for enough parking space... which is quite silly, all things considered. Plus, the forest around the park was deemed to be doomed from the impact of visiting crowds. In any case, the socialist and then private owners were left with a bunch of debt and the place got suspended in limbo... But the story does not end there (read on).

Surreal Abandoned Amusement Park in Berlin [Avi Abrams/Dark Roasted Blend] (via Kadrey)

MuchLoved: photos of long-suffering toys

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:57:42 +0000

Mark Nixon's "MuchLoved" project collects photos of peoples' long-suffering toys, along with the stories behind them. It's a poignant collection of sentimental reminiscence and beautiful patinas and genteel decay.

MuchLoved (via Neatorama)

Death of Film: scenes from Kodak plant demolition

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 23:49:20 +0000

Jesse Brown sez, "My uncle, the amazing photographer Robert Burley, captured the death of analog photography: the demolition of Kodak plants, the rapid downfall of the film photography industry, the sudden obsolescence of neighbourhood photo shops and subway photo booths. Naturally, he did so on film. His book, Disappearance of Darkness, was just released, and some of the gorgeous, haunting images are featured today on CNN's website."

Panorama of a despoiled library

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:04:28 +0000

Jeffrey sez, "Because there aren't enough things to be sad about in the world. Behold, a once-glorious attic full of books falling victim to entropy and vandalism. I don't know the real story behind this, but I know a sad sight when I see it."

Weberei Eibau Walddorf Dachbodenbibliothek (Thanks, Jeffrey!)

Library in abandoned house

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 14:03:59 +0000

I'm very taken with James Charlick's photo, "The Grand Library," shot in an abandoned house during an urban exploration expedition.

The Grand Library

Time-lapse video of an ant colony eating a scanner, captured with the scanner in question

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 01:53:31 +0000

François Vautier infested his flatbed scanner with an ant-colony and scanned the burgeoning hive-organism every week for five years, producing a beautiful, stylized stop-motion record of the ants' slow consumption of his electronics.

Five years ago, I installed an ant colony inside my old scanner that allowed me to scan in high definition this ever evolving microcosm (animal, vegetable and mineral). The resulting clip is a close-up examination of how these tiny beings live in this unique ant farm. I observed how decay and corrosion slowly but surely invaded the internal organs of the scanner. Nature gradually takes hold of this completely synthetic environment.

ANTS in my scanner > a five years time-lapse! (via Kottke)

Delicious rotten cheese

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:46:57 +0000

"The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a 'pitter-patter' sound. When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten" [Wikipedia]

Airplane graveyard

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:07:35 +0000

Ransom Riggs's photo-essay on the airplane graveyard in the Mojave Desert features astounding imagery of ancient, rotting aviation hardware bleaching its bones in the desert sun.

I thought it was a mirage the first time I saw it. I was driving through the wastes of the Mojave Desert, two hours from anywhere, when off in the shimmering distance appeared the silhouettes of a hundred parked jetliners. I pulled off and tried to get closer to them, but a mean-looking perimeter fence keeps onlookers far away. All I could do was stand and stare, wondering what the hell this massive armada of airplanes was doing here, silently baking in the 110 degree heat. For years afterward I’d ask people what they knew about it, and I kept hearing the same thing: the place has been on lockdown since 9/11, and they won’t let civilians anywhere near the boneyard. But last week my luck changed — I met a very nice fellow who works there, and with a minimum of cajoling on my part he agreed to take me beyond the high-security fence and show me around. Of course, I brought my camera.

(via How to Be a Retronaut)

Strange Geographies: The Mojave Desert’s Airplane Graveyard [blogs.static.mentalfloss.com]

Rustbelt ghost-towns: Ruins of Gary, Indiana

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:49:10 +0000

Many American rustbelt cities are contracting radically as we enter the second decade of life in a WTO world, where industrial production has moved to China, India, and other developing nations. This has created a new kind of American ghost-town, on the outskirts of once-thriving midwestern cities -- or, in the worst cases, in pockets right in the middle of town. David Tribby has documented some of the ruined areas of Gary, IN in a book called Gary Indiana | A City's Ruins. Dark Roasted Blend has a gallery of some of the photos from Tribby's book, along with a potted history of the town's rise and fall.

Gary, Indiana, back then, was still a good place, a productive place. Founded in 1906, it was a gleaming city built of, and because of, steel. Quite literally, in fact; while other cities may have been at the intersections of trails or roads, rivers and rivers, or where sea met land, Gary was built by and for U.S. Steel and even christened for that corporation's founder.
For decades, Gary was as tough and resilient as the metals it produced. It survived the Great Depression, it fought off the war years, and it forged and pressed through the 1950s. But during the 1960s, its gleaming life's blood—steel—proved to be its undoing when the industry began to wane, then almost totally collapse, due to cheaper manufacturing overseas.

Exploring the Ruins of Gary, Indiana (Thanks, Marilyn!)