For an old-school toy, the manufacturing process of LEGO bricks is extremely sophisticated. To achieve the correct fit between the studs and the holes of two bricks – so that they can be clicked together and pulled apart with just the right amount of effort – a maximum tolerance of 0.001 mm is allowed during production. Even with this high standard to reach, only 0.0018% of all bricks are defective. And the few that are defective, of course, are recycled back into ones that aren’t.
Monsters are a part of our psychological life. In childhood we are afraid of them and as adults we turn our enemies into them (axis of evil, anyone?). Recently, Spike Jonze took on the monsters of childhood in his film Where the Wild Thing Are, based on the North American classic by Maurice Sendack. Although the monsters in the book are initially fearsome, Sendack empowers his little readers when the protagonist Max stares bravely into their yellow eyes, conquers them and becomes the king of the Wild Things.
During the last decade or so, our perception of monsters has gradually shifted. Instead of being something to fear or kill, they are also, in some cases, something we covet, that we want to become. The Twilight Series is a good example of this (though it’s preceded by the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles, Angel from Buffy and others). Vampires, which are traditionally regarded as disgusting, rotting, flesh-eating villains, are now the dream date of young girls world wide. Instead of seeing them as monsters, cloaked in the bodies of beautiful boys and girls, we see them as not so bad; just a little bit misunderstood.
In a recent book published by Oxford University Press, Stephen Asma examines our history with monsters, chronicling the encounters that have happened across recorded history and delving into their psychology – why we create them and what purpose they serve:
Monsters embody our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities, Asma argues, but they also symbolize the mysterious and incoherent territory just beyond the safe enclosures of rational thought. Exploring philosophical treatises, theological tracts, newspapers, pamphlets, films, scientific notebooks, and novels, Asma unpacks traditional monster stories for the clues they offer about the inner logic of an era’s fears and fascinations. In doing so, he illuminates the many ways monsters have become repositories for those human qualities that must be repudiated, externalized, and defeated. (source)
I would love to know how the world’s love affair with Twilight fits into this psychology.
Like many things designed for consumer simplicity, the Polaroid Instant Film is a fairly complex piece of technology, with about 20 individual components in each pack.
Production of this complex technology ceased in 2008, but with the recent resurgence of analog photography, The Impossible Project purchased one of the Dutch factories and are now aiming to streamline the manufacturing process to produce a new, hi-tech Instant Film. You may have already heard of the project with the recent release of the final batch of old film through Urban Outfitters.
The team are using the power of the internet to aid their quest, asking for public answers to their difficult problems, such as the fifth of their seven big challenges:
We urgently need Latex that can easily be coated on gelatin base. Thickness of the dried layer is about 2 micron. The developer used in instant film is a viscous solution, containing 2N alkaline.
The team say they have exactly 12 months to complete their mission, and from the look of the countdown clock on the website, the time runs out at the end of 2009.
Polaroid Instant Film illustration copyright The Impossible Project.
When I was in my early twenties, an older friend leant me a book called Wisconsin Death Trip. That particular copy was falling apart – the pages shuffled awkwardly against the spine – and seemed as old as its subject matter: a series of photographs taken between 1890-1910 by Charles Van Schaik, an American who learned photography after moving to Jackson County and thereafter spent fifty-seven years capturing small-town life in Black River Falls.
It sounds fairly dry, but the majority of the book concentrates on images of the deceased, which for some reason the good citizens of Black River Falls saw fit to dress and pose as though they were still alive.
The very idea sends chills down my spine, though the photos strike a peculiar balance between the macabre and the truly tragic (especially the portraits of young infants) which keeps you flipping through.
To add another note of disconcertion to an already eerie discovery, the town that Van Schaik was in the midst of documenting was plagued by disease, madness, suicide, murder, addictions, business and farm failure, and an overall despair stemming from harsh living conditions – all of which seems to infiltrate even relatively innocent portraits.
The book itself, which was written in 1973 by Michael Lesy, has since been adapted into a film, which speaks volumes about the extensive resonance of this beautiful, ghostly text.
Now, I’m a big fan of Apple products, but filing a patent application (2008) for a computer with a coloured bulb inside it might be pushing your luck. Also, with design supremo Jonathan Ive on their team, it seems a little strange that the patent illustrations seem to have been drawn by a five year old.
