Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
ICE CUBE on the Eames
"going green 1949 style bitch" -IC
Pacific Standard Time "Ice Cube - Eames" 2:15 from MassMarket on Vimeo.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Bestmade Axes - Beauty in Wood and Steel
Not only is the logo beautiful...
Not only is the web design and product photography beautiful....
CHOP (preview) from BEST MADE on Vimeo.
CHOP No. 1 from BEST MADE on Vimeo.
CHOP No. 2 from BEST MADE on Vimeo.
CHOP No. 4 from BEST MADE on Vimeo.
"It's wood... and a piece of steel... put together. Sitting there as this capsule of stored energy."
I think it is getting to be that time where the operable window needs to get its hands on a phantom.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Highlining, I Believe I Can fly
Super Sexy CPR or, the best CPR education you'll ever get.
Super Sexy CPR from Super Sexy CPR on Vimeo.
Don't forget the abdominal thrust... for next time your date starts choking.
Super Sexy Abdominal Thrust from Super Sexy CPR on Vimeo.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
3. 2. 1. Mars Science Lab
I apologize for the slow down in posts. Focusing on grad school at the moment.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Mobile Blogging
With a new phone comes new blogging capabilities.
I have recently purchased the new htc design, and am so far loving it.
Hopefully this will mean more blogging worked into my very busy architecture school schedule.
Cheers for now!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Quantum Levitation
I am not going to try and explain this. Watch the video and visit the site.
Gotta love Superconductors.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Around the World in Sixty... Seconds?
Friday, September 16, 2011
Spotlight on Iceland
Starting with this new, and stunning, time lapse video of the Icelandic Aurora by August Ingvarsson:
Followed by this work, previously featured here in a post about geographic branding, that had our hearts beating like a jungle drum:
An bit of Unbuilt Architecture for an Icelandic Pylon Design Competition creates a new typology of high voltage power lines and pylons:
This design work was done by Jin Choi and Thomas Shine of Choi+Shine in 2008.
Plan - Grzeszykowska & Smaga
Recently I was exposed to, perhaps, one of the most interesting examples of contemporary photography that I have ever scene. Strikingly beautiful and disturbingly surreal, the work of Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga, of Poland, explores the world of neighbors. Shot over a two year period (2003-2004), Plan, are compositions of hundreds of detailed images stitched together to achieve an intimate view of living spaces.
There is so much of this that is interesting for so many reasons. Outside of the works themselves, one aspect that I find incredibly fascinating is the fact that these works use digital photography, and editing tools, to achieve something that was in no way possible even a few years before the project was started.
Though it can be argued that many of the edited images we see today (especially the crappy photo-manipulations so often in print ads) were not possible without Photoshop, but they are still basically similar techniques as were used with film. It is just easier and perhaps more realistic.
Plan is different though. It is documenting reality in a new way. By utilizing the medium, Grzeszykowska and Smaga, have pushed a boundary. See for yourself.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The RED Epic hits the scene.
What does this all mean?
Take a look and see for yourself.
Red Epic Skateboard Movie "1:02 to 1:06" 300fps, 120fps from Red Point Digital on Vimeo.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Danny MacAskill Goes Home
On top of helping Architecture students pull all-nighters, Redbull is notorious for there sponsership of awesome things. Wingwalking, snowboarding, Parkour, Flugtag and now this beautiful video...
"Way Back Home" is the incredible new riding clip from Danny MacAskill, it follows him on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye.
Kind of reminds me of these older posts. (Seriously read that very cool post by Tom on Kilien Marten and why this sort of content belongs on The Operable Window.)
Enjoy, and sorry for the lack of posts later. So much more to come. Soon.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Guess in Sicily
Monday, May 30, 2011
Jack Delano, Chicago Photographer
During the late 1930's and early 1940's Jack Delano worked for the Farm Security Administration Photography Program. He made some amazing imagery mainly focused around the train scene in Chicago. I'd love to write a bit more about what these photographs mean to this fine city but unfortunately I'm between air planes and road trips right now and the car isn't going to pack it's self!
I will do my best to come back and caption these photographs at a later time!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Phillis Wheatley School
A Plea For Modernism from Evan Mather on Vimeo.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
New Chicago Street Art: ROA's Animal Murals
Photo: Tom Harris |
Photo: Tom Harris |
Make your way to the intersection of N. Morgan Street and W. Kinzie Street here in Chicago's West Loop to see these two giant rams by ROA.
The wall of our studio. Photo: Tom Harris |
Photo: Tom Harris |
Pawn Works coordinated ROA's visit to the city with our studio here in Chicago.
Photo: Brock Brake |
Lego Maniacs
Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
The "War on Terror"
Picture this. It is April 30th, 1945. You just overheard on the radio that Adolf Hitler was dead. What do you do? You go out and throw a kegger in front of the White House of course! Who cares that you have friends, family, and fellow citizens overseas, still fighting and dieing for you, he's dead!
I'm proud to say that on that actual day, their was no celebration, no rejoicing in the streets, just private relief. For our ancestors, the real celebration came six days later when it was announced that the war in
I've been trying to figure out why a large majority of American's felt the need to celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden. Of course they had every right to be happy about this announcement, but why the difference in 'celebrations?' I've been told that our country is a different place than it once was, which is certainly true, but only to a point. Was there a celebration when Timothy McVeigh was executed? The DC snipers? (One was executed the other is in jail for life, and of course 9/11 was a much more severe attack than the aforementioned). But from what I recall, I don't think anyone was out partying in the streets for the deaths of these individuals. So why the difference?
We were told by the President himself that "The War on Terror must continue!"
I understand that fighting the Taliban isn't something you can really do. I guess it is similar to Al Capone declaring war on another country. You know your figure heads, but the rest are just average citizens by day and then whatever you want to deem them by night. Wouldn't it make sense to capture the leaders instead of slaying them? What better of an intelligence source than the leader himself?
But instead, he was killed. There was no interrogation. No trial, just death. Some people may see it as "an eye for an eye," but we all know you can't really compare such crimes and equate them. For those who were thirsty for blood, why couldn't you wait for a trial to be held? We all know what the end outcome would have been, right?
The way I see it, storming into his home and killing him isn't far away from what the SS did before WWII. That method of 'justice' is exactly what the Taliban/ al Qaeda/ Nazi's would do and I don't particularly like that system, I prefer ours. Capturing bin Laden would show the world that
Not only that, a trial would serve as a permanent, public, documented record of all of his crimes he committed. That is why there were trials in
Now maybe it wasn't possible to take him alive. But after reading the white house's release of what happened, it seems highly unlikely that was the case. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/goal-was-never-to-capture-bin-laden/238330/
I've heard stories of how the siege took place ranging from Osama using his wife and kids as meat shields as he shot back at navy seals to him being unarmed with his hands up when he was shot. Whatever actually happened, I find it hard to believe the most elite fighters the
But, here we are, in that exact predicament. Instead of more and more of my fellow citizens being outraged by this cluster-fuck, they decide to celebrate. The youth of any culture is what keeps countries progressive and moving forward, and I'm not seeing that with my generation. Not many people ask questions anymore, they blindly follow what they are told. They hear an address from Osama, hear him mention Islam and assume he's acting in what he see's as "God's will." What is never said though is how while he may be Islamic, nothing he is doing is actually preached in Islam. He could be compared to Hitler with respect to both using religion as a device to motivate a group of people to do radical things. But, no matter what, he was still called a Muslim by everyone in our government and in the media. If someone was parading around mass-killing while wearing a McDonalds smock, praising McDonalds, we wouldn't assume he was a leader of all McDonald's employees or that was the philosophy behind his killings. That's absurd.
But, at our airports, train stations, on the streets, we profile people who appear to be Muslim. Why not profile people who are multimillionaire's instead? Osama was indeed one, but labeling him in such a way didn't look right in the media I guess. "Millionaire Responsible for 9/11" sounds more like something you would see in the tabloids, but, ironically enough, they would be 100% correct in this respect. You can't keep any organized group of that caliber afloat without a lot of financial backing, Al Qaeda was no different.
And when I'm told by anyone that we are at war with Al Qaeda, (you can't go to war against a country-less group, the definition of war is "a formal declaration issued by a national government indicating that a state of war exists between that nation and another." but I guess that's aside the point) and that is the reason he wasn't captured, was because you don't do trials during war is an absurd position. Saddam Husain received a trial while we were still in
But it is backwards logic like that, that makes me think, maybe Osama did win the bigger war here. He was one of the only people to stand up to both Russia and the United States (Oh the irony of giving massive amounts of funds and supplies to a man who then turns on his 'supporters')
Osama lured us to do exactly what he wanted us to do, whether he intended it or not. He brought a war of attrition against us by using fighters who have no way of being identified. Because of this war, we now have less freedoms (thank you patriot act, and I guess now you don't need to always stand trial so we'll stick an asterisk next to Habeas Corpus). We engaged our military in Muslim countries, promoting more hatred of ourselves throughout the Muslim world, and have completely crippled ourselves financially in these wars. Our country now is having to give up constitutional rights and is becoming more like the authoritarian state Osama himself wanted to see. We somehow managed to accumulate more debt in eight years than we have in the past 200 combined. And yet, we are still fighting this pointless 'War on Terror.'
No one can deny that this War on Terror has generated a multi-billion dollar industry through these wars and has virtually created "homeland security." The war profiteers behind these companies will not want to give up their new-found fortunes so quickly. They have all the reasons in the world to keep our country in fear so they can continue to benefit from it all.
But what do we actually have to fear anymore? I saw on the news recently how some of the intelligence taken from bin Laden's home indicated that he was targeting "small towns and cities." Really, small towns and cities? What actual damage can something like that do? If you really want to hurt a country, you don't attack farmers with no political and financial ties, you go after the leaders, the intelligence agencies, the economic infrastructures. But interestingly enough, this 'threat' is strongly effective in promoting more fear throughout
Something I can truly get behind to celebrate, that would actually defeat bin Laden, would be to reverse all this chaos, and to reverse it now. End the wars, bring those troops home. Make the rich pay for this debacle, and restore our constitutional rights, our privacy, our due process rights that used to be what distinguished us from the rest of the world.
I thank you for reading this. Feel free to respond in anyway. I'm very interested in other peoples opinions on this matter.
Dali ala Disney
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Fresh Meat: The How-To Issue
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Architectural Photographic Animation
Welcome to Fontevraud from Francis Cutter & Vincent Nguyen on Vimeo.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Mike Giant- Neighbors
Pascal Campion's Process
Inspirational Artists: Pascal Campion from Onyx Cinema, Inc. on Vimeo.
Monday, March 28, 2011
A Picture Called Death - Peter Dean Rickards
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Process of Illustration
This short video has been going around in the last few days and it is simply mesmerizing. If you think you have a handle on Adobe Illustrator, watch this. (unfortunately the final product is not as impressive as the line work)
Wake Up Mr Singh – 'Rachel' from Karan Singh on Vimeo.
Tronic Studio
Interview with Tronic from TronicStudio on Vimeo.
56_Leonard_Herzog_and_Demeuron from TronicStudio on Vimeo.
Cool Hunter from TronicStudio on Vimeo.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Virtues of a Well Designed Buildings When the Earth Shakes
Monday, March 14, 2011
Explosive Vhils
This!
The Portugese street artist Vhils, is no stranger to Operable Window posts. Recently this inspiring artist has teamed up with band Orelha Negra to make an interesting video.
Orelha Negra - M.I.R.I.A.M. X Vhils from elToro Visual Dealers on Vimeo.
The process of art is always an interesting subject. The beauty of this video is that the art in it is not simply the resultant images as much as it is the "how did they do that?" effect. Considering the work was not actually produced using explosives, the use of video to animate the revealing of the works is an interesting tactic. Without the slow motion video the work would simply be short (possibly dangerous to witness) performative pieces. In an interveiw to Wired UK, Vhils speaks of his interest in materiality and unwrapping the layers of the built word. He explains that the use of explosives exaggerates this exploration.
Check out this interview about process with Vhils, Wired UK
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Branding a Country : Geographic Advertising
The pure Michigan video has under 25,000 views (other Pure Michigan ones had even less), while Inspired by Iceland has over 100,00 onYoutube, and 30,000 on Vimeo. Maybe that's a statement to uploading video in high quality instead of poor low definition. Though I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Emiliana Torrini's song Jungle Drum, which will be happily on repeat in my mind for the rest of the weekend.
Branding a location an interesting concept. Think of the Maple Leaf, or how New Zealand pushed it's landscape after it showed up in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as Middle Earth.
I've been to Manitowoc, it's great, I can vouch for it. This billboard however, makes me never want to go there again. If that's what's "happening" in Manitowoc... I'll pass thanks. It is a historic port city, there is a huge Budwiser brewery there... Come on guys.
Tom Harris
Friday, March 11, 2011
Mapping the 2011 Japan Tsunami with NOAA Data
Notice in the last one above there are 3 distinct shades of blue, each presumably separating a single hour of time, along with dashed half hour lines and solid three hour increments. A bit confusing.
The top map uses mostly warm colors to display intensity, but the delineation between hues is not great enough for the eye to discern the exact strength of the wave at any given location.
The middle map, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration displays it in a traditional way, but it may be the most easily understood, while not being the most eye catching or visually stimulating.
Here is the data set I would guess most of these came from.
The data also has already been used in video form to show just how the ocean is churning.
Tom Harris
Video of the 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan
Recently I had a talk with a couple of the contributors to this blog, we discussed the Internet and what easily accessible video has brought to the game. This is being made evident right now, though the 8.9 magnitude earthquake happened only hours ago in the ocean off Sendai Japan which is viewable by you or me here in the United States now. Not all of the video was shot by journalists and news reporters, some was shot by any citizen with a camera or cell phone capable of shooting video; meaning we can see what it looks like when you are in a grocery store during an earthquake of that magnitude:
Or when the Tsunami rolls ashore near the airport.
Or footage of the oil refinery blazing away from the quake, shot by syndicated news cameras yes, but still imediate:
Or this really amazing footage of the Tsunami sweeping cars and homes away.
I am astonished by how accessible the world has become.
Tom Harris
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Power of the Internet and Frank Lloyd Wright
As some may know, I am a blogger for the Archinect School Blog Project (check it out). Recently I posted an update of the classes that I am taking at the University of Illinois Chicago. The post included an quick rundown of a project I am working on for an Architectural Theory class. (I will probably post the whole project on here when it is done.)
The research project is about structures that were never built in Chicago. My portion of the project focuses on the National Life Insurance Building by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Women's Day
an image by Modernist Photographer, Imogen Cunningham
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Georges Rousse and the Durham Project
The installation artist/photographer's name is Georges Rousse and the subject of the film is the Durham Project. Please have a look at the website of the project to get a better feel for it.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Adrien Broom and Time With Guests
The work on her websites spans several different traditional photographic avenues, but all has the feel of a single photographer, a clear vision.
She lists Gregory Crewdson as an influence in her work, along with a painter or two. Elements of Crewdson can clearly be seen in this series, but in a fresh light.
The tradition of shooting stills that are cinematic has always fascinated me, the act of carrying out such an elaborately staged moment all for just that, a single moment. Implying a plot and drama and depth of characters and situation all in a single frame.