Architects Allision Dring and Daniel Schwaag have developed a visionary smog-eating façade which breaks down the nitrogen oxides of air pollution. In this TedxBerlin talk, Allison Dring explains a more recent exploration, which could usher in an age of carbon-negative material opulence.
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Invisible girlfriend for a month
A bonus selection from Slab Magazine’s Cormac Deane: the journalist relates the experience of being paid to pretend to be the girlfriend of online clients. A good insight into the alienation and exploitation of on-demand workers in the ‘sharing economy’. I hope she got paid for writing the article.
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Listen: in the dust of this planet
How a relatively obscure academic treatise exploring the relationships between horror and philosophy, suddenly entered mainstream culture: first in the script of TV series “True Detective”, then as a T-shirt in Vogue magazine, then on the back of Jay Z’s jacket in a music video.
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Spatial delirium: an interview with Michael Light
A bonus selection from Slab Magazine’s Alison Dring: on documenting our planetary landscape, from above, and it suggests the sky as an inhabitable territory.
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Low latency
In this third essay in a series called The Nor, commissioned by the Hayward Gallery, artist and writer James Bridle recalls and reflects upon two trips made from the center of London, investigating how power speaks to power by means of the electromagnetic spectrum.
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Rats with wings
Ever since New York Parks Commissioner Thomas P. Hoving refered to pigeons as “rats with wings“ in a 1966 New York Times article, the bird has suffered a catastrophic image failure. How did Fordism and the visual politics of dirt play a role in the downfall?
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The myth and the mob
In the popular imagination of the late 20th century, shopping malls were the (super)natural home of the zombie. Now, the mall is the zombie. Opening to fanfare and scandal last year, the Mall of Berlin is a mythical object, the point at which “history evaporates”, and can only be understood when treated as a ruin.
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