I’ve finally done the impossible–read every one of the backlogged posts that have been building up in my Google Reader for the past, oh, month or so. These links are my favorites from the past month. For anyone who’s been keeping up, it might not be that helpful; for someone who has been enjoying a little vacation, though, I humbly offer these links as the cream of the late summer crop. Because the vast majority are from other blogs, I’m organizing them by source, rather than randomly like I normally do. Enjoy.
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Via Art To Go
- A quick run-down of recent persecution of photographers, art- and otherwise.
Via Gallery Hopper
- Errol Morris on the intricacies of the Iran missile Photoshop debate. Hany Farid’s discussion–especially the anecdote that people remember an image, and not its status as fake or real–is a revelation. Morris is apparently unfamiliar with the other meaning of “fauxtograph”: video footage taken of subjects who think they’re being photographed, generally with hilarious results. I like that coinage better, since “fauxtograph” clearly describes something that’s supposed to be a photograph but is not. Faked photographs are still photographs. Videos aren’t.
Via Conscientious
- Will flickr wipe out great photojournalism? Frankly, I don’t really share in the mystic reverence that surrounds the discussion of Great Photo Essays in this piece, and part of me feels that a genre that can’t fight for itself maybe deserves to survive only in boutique, art-gallery form. But it’s food for thought.
- Artists nowadays must engage with capitalism. But for J. S. G. Boggs, capitalism isn’t a hassle–it’s a medium.
- The marriage photo of burned marine Tyler Ziegel and his still faithful fiancée Renee won the World Press Photo portraiture award a year ago and touched millions. Now the UK-based Sunday Times does a follow-up to get the story on their downplayed subsequent divorce.
Via Art Fag City
- Psychologists are turning to magicians to understand human visual perception.
- AFC recently ran a series of essays by guest columnists about their curatorial interests and practices called IMG MGMT. They are, without exception, great reading. Personal favorites: Image Watermarks As God, Collecting Found Photographs, The Use of Books in Home Furnishing Magazine Photos, and Image Processing Archetypes.
- Bored of your avatar? Have it terminated and get a virtual memorial in its honor.
- Science, art, history, and fiction join seamlessly at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.
- Before the Internet, writers could pull a decent living writing pornographic literature.
- A fantastic repository of cognitive/visual illusions.
Miscellaneous
- Here’s an art and visual culture blog worth your attention: Peripheral Vision. It’s not updated too frequently, but PV’s posts are longer and more insightful than most blog stuff out there.
- I’m loving ArtInfo’s new art news widget for iGoogle.
- This could get confusing: soon holograms should be able to react to changes in lighting just like real objects.
- Nikon’s new digital SLR is the first to have video capabilities.
