Exclusive Power Club

The Cremation of Care, pagan ritual at the Bohemian Club features a 12 meter high concrete owl.

This week Nelly Ben Hayoun, Nicolas Myers and I will be running a workshop at École Estienne in Paris. The students will be looking at narratives of secrecy, power and conspiracy and create their own secret society. Here is an extract from the brief:

“PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”
Groucho Marx in a telegram to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills

‘Secret societies and exclusive clubs are well known to the public even though their real influence and power are concealed from us. Ranging from fraternities, religious groups, cults, political organisations, private clubs or terrorist cells, these “exclusive” clubs influence and shape our society and its future… or at least that’s what their members want you to think.

You are asked to design your own exclusive power club with its rituals and rules, goals, activities, agendas, tactics and maybe a secret handshake. Whether it seeks world domination or global happiness your club is like no other, with long term goals that are both world-changing and obscure to the non-members.

Ultimaker!

Gerard Rallo and I have been building our Ultimaker 3D printer, and got our first print last night. We still have a lot of settings to understand and fine tune, but there are exciting times ahead. We are documenting our learning curve here

the Electric Bookshop

I talked to the lovely people at Electric Bookshop about the Infinite Adventure Machine and the Future of Writing project last wednesday in Edinburgh. some photos of the night are up on Flickr

Stories

Minor website update: I’ve added a ‘Stories’ section for small projects that combine images and text. The first two, In-Vitro Kebabs and Ultra-Diamond Super-Value were made in september and november 2011. Hopefully more to come soon.

Ghost Estates

Ireland - photos by Valerie Anex


Dublin Observer - Photo by Topgold


Daily Mail


The Bust From a Bird’s Eye View - Ireland After NAMA


China has ghost estates too - the Journal

Odd Vessels

A quick survey of industrial ships, for a possible new addition to Fabulous Fabbers. Most of these are taken from ShipSpotting.com, an amazing resource for ships of all sorts.

City of St. Petersburg - Vehicles Carrier


Ken Boothe Sr. - from Flickr user Platitude_Way

 
Almawashi - Livestock Carrier 


Pyxis - Vehicles Carrier 


Seajacks Kraken - Platform 


Celestial Wing - Vehicles Carrier 


Southern Juice - Fruit Juice Tanker 


Arctic Discoverer - Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker 


Light Vessel 22 


Victorious Ace - Vehicles Carrier

Extreme Dog Grooming

“Animal photographer Ren Netherland from Florida, travels thousands of miles every year capturing these stunning transformations at ‘creative grooming’ shows around America.” Article on the Daily Mail

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia?

Great article about parasite Toxoplasma gondii by Kathleen Mcauliffe on the Atlantic
link 

The Return of the Diving Horse

Diving horse at Atlantic City Steel Pier (source)

Dinah the diving horse and rider, circa 1955 (source)

Atlantic City’s Steel Pier is apparently preparing the return of its controversial horse diving act for the summer. 
“The owners of the steel pier say the new show will feature a horse and rider, diving off a 30 to 40 foot platform into a 12-foot pool” A brand new amphitheater is being built to host the shows as part of a $102 million dollar renovation of the pier. 

Diving Horse at Hanlan’s Point (source)

more on this curious practice:
Meet Lightning the diving horse Telegraph
William Frank Carver the inventor of the original show
Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken Disney film about Sonora Webster

Jelly Egg Rain

“The sky turned dark, then yellow, then blue balls began dropping out of the sky. Not the start of a science fiction film but Steve Hornsby’s account of a strange happening in his back yard in Dorset.”
“Josie Pegg, a science research assistant at Bournemouth University, speculated that the objects might be ‘marine invertebrate eggs’.” 
Full Story on the Guardian website