Form over function

Santiago Calavatra's 2004 unveiling of his architectural design for gound zero, according to the New York Time's Nicolai Ouroussof, displays the American preference for the aesthetically pleasing over functionality.

Ouroussof explains that the much delayed project has many flaws. Besides the constant changes in funding and the fact that public was left out of the decision making process, the most noteworthy flaws lies in its uselessness. The functionality of this structure was sacrificed for bragging rights for Mr. Calavatra.

"The striking incongruity between the extravagance of the architecture and the limited purpose it serves," says Ourossof.

Van Gogh Tug-a-war

Yale University is suing for the rights to ownership of Van Gogh's "Night Cafe."

The painting was donated to the school in 1961 by alumnus Stephen Carlton Clark and has been housed in the Yale University Art Gallery ever since. However, now the University's ownership of the 1888 painting has been challenged by a man who says he's a descendant of a previous owner.

Leonardo unbound

Finally, after 400 years of being bound into book form, Leonardo da Vinci's tome is being unbound by a group of Benedictine nuns.

Beginning their task in March, the pages will be available for public viewing in September. However, as with all great strides, there is criticism. According to many critics the Ambrosiana Library, which has owned da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus since 1637, is more concerned with profits than the conservation of the piece.

Library official assure however that unbinding the pages is the best way to preserve the Codex as well as give the public to a chance to experience this polymath's work.

Abracadabra!

"Joy throughout the land!" Seth Godin blogged after telling of a story of an almost delayed flight that was quickly returned to schedule.

The story was brought up to show the dazzling effect of a rescued situation, of one that looks difficult but is then remedied or as Godin calls it "The Houdini technique."

"Houdini never said, 'check out these trick handcuffs and watch how easy it is for me to take them off.' "

Godin's advice for selling an idea/product is a "rapid change in expectations."

Make easy things look difficult.

Make difficult things look easy.

Just their luck...

Thanks to New York philanthropists, Julian and Josie Robertson, the Auckland Art Gallery has attained "international-quality exhibition."

The Robertsons apparently donated between $120 million to $150 million in art according to the National Business Review of New Zealand. The collection consisted of artists such as Mondrian, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin.

With "12 paintings and 3 works on paper, including portraits by Picasso from 1938 and 1951, a landscape by Gauguin from 1884 and an abstract geometric painting by Mondrian from around 1920," the gift is the largest collection given to any museum in the Australasian region.

Minority Report...not just a movie

Thanks to Oblong Industries' G speak the interaction between people and data is possible.

“The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.”

NewScientist reported on a new amazing discovery: mind reading.

“[...] has used an image of brain activity taken in a functional MRI scanner to recreate a black-and-white image from scratch. “By analysing the brain signals when someone is seeing an image, we can reconstruct that image,” says Kamitani. This means that the mind reading isn’t limited to a selection of existing images, but could potentially be used to “read off” anything that someone was thinking of, without prior knowledge of what that might be.”

Imagine the possibilities. The dangers...

Alaskan Ice = Art

It seems like anything can be called art these days...

Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan has retrieved a block of ice from Alaska and in an exhibition named, “The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want" he has used a solar powered refigerator to keep it frozen.

The exhibit has been around the world, showcased in Mr. Strachan native Bahamas to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Every artist is more popular when they're dead...

...even Hitler! On April 23, $143,000 of Hitler's art was sold at an auction in Shropshire, Britain. Mullock's, a British auction house, told Reuters that, "people do not want to acquire these for their artistic merit; they just want to have something that belonged to someone famous from history," even though historical document specialist, Richard Westwood-Brookes told said the you could never be sure of the true artist.

Arts, included an oil painting of an Alpine landscape (which sold for about $19,700) and a possible self-portrait (which sold for about $14,600) all signed "A. Hitler" or "A.H."