A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Science
Okay, not really, but we can dream. From A Very Haeckel Christmas at Flickr. Haeckel’s original plates are now at Flickr also. Via DO.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Ying-Yueh Chuang
• The art of Jennifer Maestre
• Kirsten Hassenfeld’s paper sculptures
• Darwin Day
• The glass menagerie
A 40X close-up of Chrysochroa fulgens, the iridescent Jewel Beetle, showing part of the insect’s eye. A stereomicroscopy photo by Charles Krebs, and one of the winners in the 2008 Olympus Bioscapes Digital Imaging Competition. Scientific American has larger images.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• How many leaf beetles can dance on the head of a pin?
• The art of Jo Whaley
• Endangered insects postage stamps
Arriving today—and barely surviving the postman’s attempts to cram it through the letterbox—is the latest volume from Strange Attractor, Welcome to Mars by Ken Hollings. I’m really looking forward to reading this since it touches on areas of interest which span the development of Cold War technologies to pulp science fiction, examining the interconnections between these disparate zones; most histories of the period prefer to stay in one area or the other. A glance at the chapter titles immediately pushes my buttons: “1947 Rebuilding Lemuria”, “1951 Absolute Elsewhere”. If all that wasn’t enough there’s an intro by Erik Davis and the first 250 copies come with a CD of “classy analogue Outer Space exotica” by Simon James. Order from the SA Shoppe and get a free postcard!
‘Welcome to Mars is a map of the post-war Zone, a non-fiction Gravity’s Rainbow that follows the arc of Germany’s V2 rocket to the end of the rainbow – to America.’ Erik Davis
Welcome to Mars is an iconoclastic, penetrating and darkly humorous history of America from 1947-1959, the decade in which the nation defined its image and created the blueprint for the world we live in today.
Welcome To Mars draws upon newspaper accounts, advertising campaigns, declassified government archives, old movies and newsreels from this unique period when the future first took on a tangible presence. Ken Hollings depicts an unsettled time in which the layout of Suburbia reflected atomic bombing strategies, bankers and movie stars experimented with hallucinogens, brainwashing was just another form of interior decoration and strange lights in the sky were taken very seriously indeed.
Seamlessly interweaving developments in technology, popular culture, politics, changes in home life, the development of the self, collective fantasy and overwhelming paranoia, Hollings has produced an alarming and often hysterically funny vision of the past that would ultimately govern all of our futures.
“Ken Hollings shows brilliantly how the extraordinary web of technologies that drove the Cold War have shaped not just our culture but the very way we think of ourselves as human beings. Welcome to Mars offers a rare and fascinating glimpse of the roots of the strange humanoid culture we live in today.” Adam Curtis
‘Ken Hollings has placed his critical focus at the precise point where the high technologies of information control and social manipulation intersect the passionate search for scientific ways to probe the human mind. Welcome to Mars is a searingly accurate and deeply disturbing exposé of the fantasies of American modernism that have inspired the many nightmares and the few hopeful visions of our new Millennium.’ Dr Jacques Vallée
Previously on { feuilleton }
• SAJ again
• Strange Attractor Journal Three
• How to make crop circles
Our Galaxy’s Central Molecular Zone by A. Ginsburg (U. Colorado – Boulder) et al., BGPS Team, GLIMPSE II Team.
NASA explains:
The central region of our Milky Way Galaxy is a mysterious and complex place. Pictured here in radio and infrared light, the galaxy’s central square degree is highlighted in fine detail. The region is known as the Central Molecular Zone. While much of the extended emission is due to dense gas laced with molecules, also seen are emission nebulas lit up by massive young stars, glowing supernova remnants, and the curving Galactic Center Radio Arc in purple. The identity and root cause for many other features remains unknown. Besides a massive black hole named Sgr A*, the Galactic Center houses the galaxy’s most active star forming region. This image is not just interesting scientifically. It’s esthetic beauty won first prize this year in the AUI/NRAO Image Contest.
One beetle, it seems. Klaus Bolte’s 40 X photograph is one of National Geographic‘s Best Microscopic Images of 2008.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Jo Whaley
• Endangered insects postage stamps