"landschaft mit haus" on Flickr

A series of illustrations that, to me at least, look like an Edward Hopper landscape realized on an Atari 2600. This is not a bad thing - these are amazingly beautiful minimalist works. Take a few minutes to click through the series and see if you don't find yourself feeling the "melancholic contemplation" the artist talks about.

The Disintegration of Gary, Indiana

Artist / photographer David Tribby has documented decaying and abandoned theatres, schools, and churches in and around Gary, IN.

A slideshow of Mr. Tribby's work can be found at his Flickr page.

He also has a book available: Gary Indiana | A City's Ruins.

Phantom Images of the Everyday

I love love love the "City of Shadows" series of photographs by Alexy Titarenko. Long-exposure shots of St. Petersburg, Russia that turn dreary urban scenes into fantasickal landscapes populated by billowing shadow-creatures.

At my first glance, the photos called to mind the "smoke monster" from the TV series "Lost." (Is that still a show?) But considering the nature of the photos - single still frames documenting the inevitable passage of time - I wonder if this is how a Tralfamadorian might see the world.

Read more at BLDBLOG (a site you should have bookmarked anyway). According to Titarenko's site, a book of the series was published, but I have yet to locate a copy for sale online. So it goes.

Unique Quay Brothers Exhibit in NYC

"Dormitorium: Film Decors by the Quay Bros." is an exhibit running through October 4, at The Parsons School for Design in New York.

From the exhibit web site:

"The exhibition combines rarely seen, collaboratively designed miniature décors from some of their most prominent works, as well as continuous screenings of excerpts from several of the films."

The combination of the miniatures and films is, I think, a great idea, allowing visitors to experience the décors, which are beautiful by themselves, and then to see them in context within the strange, oddly moving films for which they were designed and built.

Exhibit information:
Gallery hours: Daily 12:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. and late Thurs evenings until 8:00 p.m. Closed all major holidays and holiday eves.

More information can be found at The Parsons School web site.

Photo by: Flickr User Astropop

The Cat Piano

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

A short, surreal film with narration provided by Nick Cave. I won't bother with a synopsis - it's only eight minutes long fercryingoutloud! - just watch it. I'm particularly fond of the film noir lighting and the excellently fluid movement of the characters.

Hieronymus Bosch Papercraft

The website Glue² chronicle has some lovely creepy/beautiful papercrafts for all you crafters out there. (Also good for scene designers needing a break from yet another white model.)

http://guru2.karakasa.com/Hieronymus%20Bosch_menu_e.html

If you're interested in creepy/beautiful and don't know Hieronymus Bosch I strongly urge you to head to your local library and check out a book of his works. If your library doesn't have any Bosch available, shame on them. But you, beloved reader, can start at this Wikipedia article and work out from there. "The Garden of Earthly Delights" is required viewing and also the inspiration for some of the papercraft works.

The fish-bug-tower thing from "The Temptation of St. Anthony" (above) is probably my favorite of the bunch, though.