Tomorrowland

A Muxtape Grows In Brooklyn

Introducing Chromosones, the latest output from Tomorrowland labs. (Yes, we realize it's spelled wrong: consider it a Joycean liberty with the Engrish language.)

Twelve tracks of international pop from several dead decades, hand-picked for your listening plexure.

Where Are My Words?

Printed matter, the illusion of permanence, via Lamosca.

They seem to have escaped me. Cats up a tree. Petals to the wind. Does it help that I've been distracted by other bloggage, also of my own creation? More on those soon. Although, in the meantime, if anyone has advice on how to save a lumbering giant with a blog 3.0 liferaft, please please let me know. (I have suggested to colleagues that the new site be like Kokomo, a place where readers can get away from it all. B-boy bizdev for the blogitorially minded.)

So this Tomorrowland, it is quiet, yes? Ghost town syndrome. Deadbeat dad neglecting the digital offspring. I've been short on time and long on ideas, with nary a moment for long-form weblounging and link-clicking. The words are still here, they've just migrated to other properties. Come back soon for updated Muxtape (which is sadly offline at the moment) and more dispatches from the Brooklyn frontier.

The Lazarus Treatment

Here It Is, collage on wood, 2006

Brooklyn artist Michael Lazarus trawls the psychic catacombs of the urban unconscious. (He's also a really nice guy and a great dad, too.)

Lots of collage, freaky serpentine action and hypnotic pop art radiation. Oh, and skulls—lots of skulls, those vessels of cerebrospinal fluid and vehicles of the transcendental gaze. Get illuminated, people!

I Could Not Make That Creature Disappear

Clip from Louis Malle's excellent 1981 film My Dinner With Andre, starring Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory.

An Encyclopedia of Radio Waves

Bluetooth waves, aka Nevrotis Dentus Aquarae.

Amusing visualizations of radio waves from students at AHO, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Inspired by old botanical and zoological field guides, the class created fictional renderings of radio "species" such as WiFi, Bluetooth, RFID. Check out the free PDF poster of all documented specimens.

Fractal Africa

Wow-inducing presentation from ethno-mathematician Ron Eglash on the fractal structures of African villages. Non-linear scaling, self organization, sand divination and search engines all factor into the show. Highly recommended.

Incaps Are The New Swoosh

Nearly as ubiquitous today as the swoosh was back in the late 90s, incaps—those quirky little capitalizations occurring inside a word—are destined to become the poster child for clichéd, trend-humping, web 2.0 design mania.

Just look at those logos. Playful, efficient, compressed and connective, they speak the visual language of our times in a dialect we can easily understand. Incaps are a way of orthographically "baking in" a design attribute without having to necessarily rely on decorative iconography. I like that minimalist approach toward branding; it's ascetically noble and trim. But by now, in early 2008, we're beyond the incap tipping point. It's time to learn from the swoosh and collectively resist the temptation to use an incap in our designs. It's beginning to stank like the worst kind of party cheese.

Incap backlash, anyone? 

John Maeda Designs For iGoogle

iGoogle theme by John Maeda.

MIT Media Lab professor John Maeda has contributed some lovely textures to the iGoogle cause. His elegant designs revolve around an amoebic motif and regularly change throughout the day. Add his theme at the iGoogle profile page.

SeeqPod Playable Search

Next-gen search engine SeeqPod offers more than just playable search results: they also feature a slick drag-and-drop playlist builder that outshines every other web 2.0 search tool I've seen. (Take that, SkreemR!) SeeqPod is also available as an iPhone widget.

Plus, as Techcrunch reports, they have the honor of being sued by Warner Music. I honestly doubt the lawsuit will amount to anything, as I don't see how SeeqPod results constitute "public performance," as WM claims.

Ian Anderson Wuvs The Cats

English flautist/codpiece aficionado Ian Anderson offers kitten advice and a guide to Indian cuisine at the official website for Jethro Tull.

(via Brie)

Here Comes The Hypertablet

Dubbed "The Looking Glass" by tech blogger Yanko Design, Mac Funamizu's slick little hypertablet would tell you anything you need to know about, well, anything you see. For now it's a prototype, but man, wouldn't this be amazing?

oSkope Visual Search

There's more than one way to find stuff online. oSkope is a visual search tool that lets you search content from sites like Amazon, eBay and Flickr, but in a refreshingly new way. Search results show thumbnails of the items which can be tossed around, stacked in a pile, "biggified," arranged on a cool x-y axis and dragged into a folder for later comparison. Definitely one of the slickest web applications I've used in a while.

Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, Architect, b. 1931

High Desert House, Joshua Tree, CA, Kendrick Bangs Kellogg

Rising from the desert like the exoskeleton of a giant prehistoric insect, Kendrick Bangs Kellogg's High Desert House exemplifies the free-form ideals of organic architecture. It's transcendental, sculptural, radically non-Euclidean and eerily timeless. It harmonizes with its environment like a perfect 5th. The interior design is just as eccentric and bewildering as its exterior, and it happens to be the home of Bev Doolittle, 1980s "mall art" painter extraordinaire.

Not much has been written about Kellogg, although he does have his own website if you're interested in seeing some more examples of his brand of architectural abstraction. I also found a discussion of the High Desert House at pushpullbar and an article about Kellogg's relation to biomorphic architecture (with bizarre photos):

"His structures actually tend to derive from Modernist pavilion structures, his organic forms tending toward macro-structural elements which enclose large clear-span spaces rather than building up from cellular room elements. Still, he makes extensive use of integrated furnishings despite an open-plan layout approach, sculpting elaborate interior landscapes within these larger clear-span spaces. His hybrid composition makes his work extremely complicated and expensive to build and limits its use to the wealthiest of clients."

Kellogg has built only a handful of projects, so it was pretty weird to find that one of his celebrated works is the Chart House seafood restaurant on the south bank of downtown Jacksonville (not a town known for its architecture). I used to live near the Chart House in San Marco and always wrote it off as beachy kitsch. (Has anyone actually eaten there? Is the "organic" aesthetic distributed throughout the interior? Does the carpet match the drapes?)

More on Kellogg here, here and here. 

Spiral Jetty: Endangered Land Art

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, viewed from space (via Tropolism)

Bad news, folks: the Spiral Jetty—Robert Smithson's brilliant, visionary earthwork from 1970—is officially at risk for destruction. According to the Dia Art Foundation, nefarious oil barons plan to drill in Utah's Great Salt Lake near the iconic 1,500 foot long coil. This is certain to disrupt the remote ambiance and placid environment so crucial to the Jetty's design.

From Dia's February 6, 2008 press release:

"Dia strenuously objects to the proposed drilling which will occur less than 5 miles away from the Jetty. The drilling itself, and potential subsequent oil extraction, will disrupt the viewshed and the area's isolated character, and will degrade the natural environment of the lake by introducing barges with large-scale drilling equipment.

Moreover, construction and operation will introduce toxins and chemicals to the delicate saline water and wetlands that surround the lake. In the case of a toxic spill, the proposed operation would cause irreparable damage to the lake environment and threaten the physical integrity of Smithson's extraordinary sculpture. Additionally, Dia is concerned about increased traffic and heavy transport on the rural road that leads to the Spiral Jetty through Golden Spike National Monument, and the potential for noise pollution from drilling and operations."

If you'd like to actually DO something to oppose the destruction of Spiral Jetty, please email or print out the convenient PDF letter and mail it to the address at the top of the form. I don't normally use Tomorrowland as a bully pulpit for any sort of cause, but Robert Smithson's work is inspiring enough to warrant this sort of outreach. Let's save the Jetty!

The Spectacle of Paradox

Badd Madame at the Eighties Club Bands database.

"All I've got is a photograph" - Def Leppard, Photograph

Without a doubt, the homoerotic pageantry of late-80s "butt rock" was high paradox, a spectacle of drifting genders and mirrored shades that nowadays leaves most of us laughing at our cultural past in an eye-rolling embrace of a once-guilty pleasure.

Perhaps kitsch is where this sort of thing works best, "high" and "low" locking lips in star-crossed union, good taste (and common sense) be damned. Things just get more authentic when viewed at the local level. The burgeoning database of Eighties Club Bands demonstrates, yes, vintage rock sleaze. But you won't hear about these bands on VH1. They're unknowns, forgotten heroes of the glam revolution, curious artifacts, each one now reduced to a quaint, dusty photograph.

Chief exhibits include BareBac, Maniac, Fantasy, Ice Water Mansion, Sweet Savage, and High Risk.