Hasta La Ideas

Most of us know the disappointment of biting into a piece of fruit or a veggie imagining one taste and getting something totally unexpected. Not only is it unfortunate in the moment, but it can ruin a specific food forever if the mishap is memorable enough. Artist Hika Rucho has created a series that won’t taste bad and is mighty easy to admire.

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On July 22nd, 2011, Norway suffered two horrific back-to-back attacks on civilians. A lone extremist killed eight people with a car bomb and injured 209 in Oslo; within hours he’d then opened fire at a summer camp at Utøya island, killing 69 and wounding 110. The attacks were particularly personal in relatively tiny Norway, where a reported one out of every four Norwegians knew at least one of the victims.

KORO/Public Art Norway, the government’s arm for public art and the largest art producer in the country, subsequently held a design competition to erect a memorial to honor the victims. The recently-announced winner, by unanimous jury vote, was artist Jonas Dahlberg and his beautiful two-part concept seen here. The first part of the memorial, called “Memory Wound,” is to be sited on a tiny peninsula of land at the village of Sørbråten, near Utøya island. Explains Dahlberg:

My concept for the Memorial Sørbråten proposes a wound or a cut within nature itself. It reproduces the physical experience of taking away, reflecting the abrupt and permanent loss of those who died. The cut will be a three-and-a-half-meters-wide excavation. It slices from the top of the headland at the Sørbråten site, to below the water line and extends to each side. This void in the landscape makes it impossible to reach the end of the headland.

Visitors begin their experience guided along a wooden pathway through the forest. This creates a five to ten minute contemplative journey leading to the cut. Then the pathway will flow briefly into a tunnel. This tunnel leads visitors inside of the landscape and to the dramatic edge of the cut itself.

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Over the last five years brain research has rapidly developed technologies for influencing and changing our thoughts, perceptions and feelings. The new field of optogenetics, for example, has proven that light delivered via fiber optics into the brain can change the behavior of individual neurons and may one day help those suffering from Parkinson’s, depression or other brain disorders. And most recently, researchers have used brain stimulation to increase one’s appreciation and enjoyment of art.

Neuroscientists at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy had subjects study and rate 70 abstract paintings and drawings, and 80 realistic paintings and photographs. Then they received transcranial direct-current stimulation to specific parts of their brain. This technique sends small electrical impulses to the brain via electrodes placed on top of the head (no drilling needed!) I know it sounds medieval but it’s quite modern, non-invasive and delivers zero feeling, no pain, no tickle, nothing. In fact the subjects had no awareness of the electrical impulses. Scientists aimed the current at what is called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area responsible for emotional processing.

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It’s shocking how far communication has come since, let’s say, the 1800’s. What is now a quick text (or even more succinct emoji) was once a painstakingly designed piece of paper that relied on analog means to delight the receiver. Calling cards were the media of choice for Victorians looking to make an impression. When arriving in a new town, leaving for a trip, searching for a daughter’s suitor or simply introducing themselves to someone from a distance, these elaborately decorated cards not only conveyed information but also signified class—especially if you shelled out the extra dough for some border fringe). From hidden sayings and intricately placed names to “Victorian scraps,” check out some of these crazy-detailed artifacts of communication from yesteryear:

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In the You Really Can Draw With Anything Department, we’ve seen Red Hong draw with coffee cup stains, and Takayo Kiyota draw with sushi; now we’ve caught wind of Tokyo-based artist Yukino Ohmura, whose renditions of cityscapes at nighttime—something like a Japanese version of Michael Mann’s Collateral–are created using adhesive stationery dots.

“These stickers that I have used in my artwork are very popular in Japan, and almost everyone has used them during elementary school,” Ohmura told The Verge. “Also, stickers are inexpensive, which I feel creates an interesting contrast by expressing the glamour of the nighttime city through cheap material.”

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