Rammellzee (previously) -- artist, graffiti writer, hip hop musician, masked performer, Gothic Futurist -- died in 2010, leaving a mysterious body of work. Hua Hsa explores his spectacular mythology. [via Metafilter]
...language enforced discipline, and that whoever controlled it could steer people’s thoughts and imaginations. His hope wasn’t to replace English; he wanted to annihilate it from the inside out. His generation grew up after urban flight had devastated New York’s finances and infrastructure. Ramm channelled the chaos into a spectacular personal mythology, drawn from philology, astrophysics, and medieval history. He was obsessed with a story of Gothic monks whose lettering grew so ornate that the bishops found it unreadable and banned the technique. The monks’ work wasn’t so different from the increasingly abstract styles of graffiti writing, which turned a name into something mysterious and unrecognizable
It's the year of the Ramm: a show is on at Red Bull Arts New York and here's another article by Alexxa Gotthardt.
Rammellzee wasn’t average by any definition. “He just ventured out on this planet in his own dimensions,” his late wife, Carmela Zagari, once said. The art, rap, and cosmologies he conjured not only mesmerized the 1980s art world, within which he came of age, but left a permanent mark on his peers and the artists who came after him, from Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jim Jarmusch to the Beastie Boys, graffiti artist Futura, and cult rapper Wiki. “He’s the kind of guy you could talk to for 20 minutes and your whole life could change, if you could understand him,” Jarmusch once said.
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UK-based artist Lisa Lloyd has been getting lots of well-deserved notice for her intricate papercraft animals, birds, food, and other earthly delights. Read the rest
In this three-part series, artisans show how bamboo is harvested, cured, and processed with specialized tools to make intricate baskets and other household items. Read the rest
These amazing plywood art pieces are created in a small work area by Gabriel Schama and his laser cutter Elsie. His work really took off after a successful Kickstarter a few years ago. Read the rest
Romanian artisan Andreea Strete creates these delightful TinyRobots, charming anthropomorphic creatures made of recycled electronic components. Read the rest
Seattle-based artist Brittany Cox creates "dreamboxes," gorgeous hand-cut layers of paper framed and backlit. Most have fantasy or literary themes. Read the rest
This modular piece of art would be cool with the intricate woodcarving alone, but the meticulously placed beads in the style of indigenous Camentsá artists from Colombia take it to the next level. Read the rest
If you end up at some fancy event this month where gold leaf decorates the food, that gold leaf will be far thicker than traditional Japanese hand-pounded gold leaf, which can be as thin as 0.0001 millimeters. See how it's made in the fascinating video. Read the rest
This week on HOME: Stories From L.A.:
A roving. shifting company of dance and performance artists is nudging its audiences to think about home differently -- by bringing one-off, site-specific performances to houses, live-work spaces and tiny apartments all over the Los Angeles area. Meet homeLA.
HOME is a member of the Boing Boing Podcast Network. If you like what you hear, please rate/review the show on iTunes. NEW: Subscribe to the newsletter.
Subscribe: iTunes | Android | Email | Google Play | Stitcher | Read the rest
YouTuber IncredibleScience has a great at-home science project that's kid-friendly: making waterproof sand. Read the rest
To celebrate the release of my new book,
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age, I've invited some of my favorite creators and thinkers to write about their philosophy on the arts and the Internet. Today,
Jeffrey Cranor, co-writer of the amazing
Welcome to Night Vale, shares the secret of his success.
-Cory
To celebrate the release of my new book,
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age, I've invited some of my favorite creators and thinkers to write about their philosophy on the arts and the Internet. Today,
Amanda Palmer, author of the just-published
Art of Asking, has granted kind permission to reproduce her introduction to
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free. -
Cory
To celebrate the release of my new book,
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age, I've invited some of my favorite creators and thinkers to write about their philosophy on the arts and the Internet. Today,
Molly Crabapple presents her 15 iron laws of creativity.
-Cory Doctorow
The mainstream media finally discovered the Internet's latest subculture of hostile, cynical, easily-led youngsters. Matt Binder on the narcissists, grifters and creeps arriving in its wake.
Glenn Fleishman reports from Portland's beloved arts and technology festival, where a darker sense of mission and meaning took hold in the event's third year.
American expat Leigh Alexander has had her first Eurovision party as an embedded foreigner in London. It went well.
At The Atlantic, Joe Fassler votes for an infamous passage from Cormac McCarthy's The Road:
He started down the rough wooden steps. He ducked his head and then flicked the lighter and swung the flame out over the darkness like an offering. Coldness and damp. An ungodly stench. He could see part of a stone wall. Clay floor. An old mattress darkly stained. He crouched and stepped down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous.
Jesus, he whispered.
Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they whispered. Please help us.
The key, he adds: "What is revealed is even more terrifying that what I could have imagined." Read the rest
