I recently watched Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs over on Netflix and would certainly recommend you do so as well. The film is a profile on Christo Roppolo, a high energy character that claims to have hours and hours of UFO footage. He shares a great deal of the footage and, sure enough, you've got no idea what you're looking at.
The film doesn't try to untangle exactly what you're seeing but largely focuses on Christo, his past and how he feels haunted by this phenomena that seems to be undeniably legitimate. Based on what you're shown, it's hard to argue with that hypothesis.
You can read more about Roppolo over on Motherboard or just get to know him via his YouTube channel but I suggest watching the film first to really understand his manic, bizarrely lovably, personality.
I must admit, when Justin steered me towards Shitty Watchmen I was a bit confused. Why would I read through a massive Tumblr of redrawn pages with no dialogue and much less artistry? The official synopsis even seemed overly snobby:
Shitty Watchmen is a formalist exercise analyzing the language of comics as utilized by Alan Moore and, more importantly, Dave Gibbons. Shitty Watchmen seeks to scrutinize the masterful use of composition and panel breakdown within the most undeniably complex comic book ever created. The means by which these staggering artistic achievements are deconstructed? Super shitty drawings.
I read through an interview with creator Dave Baker and became a little more intrigued. Then, I simply started clicking through the entire tumblr and it's full archive. It is shitty but not that shitty. I'm on board and enjoyed the exercise way more than I originally suspected.
I highly recommend carving out a good chunk of time to read through Dale Beran's piece, 4Chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump. It is a fairly exhaustive history of SA, /b, 4Chan, the rise of Anonymous, Gamergate and how all of that plays into the last election.
Much of it does seem to blame most of their undertakings as being the result of being lonely, unemployed hikikomori just looking for lulz - but that feels entirely too easy and basic of an excuse. I disagree with many of the points about the support of Trump stemming from an acknowledgement of his emptiness, as it waves away the undercurrent of hate and fear that clearly fuels a great deal of his backers.
Regardless, the historical aspect of it is fascinating and certainly worth familiarizing yourself with to properly understand that where the country is right now is not because of politics, it's because of Internet.
Viewed individually, the cloud paintings from Ian Fischer are impressive for their detail, realism and often surreal color palettes. Viewed as a whole, they stir some other experience - small portals peeking into other places. Long story short, highly recommend immersing yourself.
Helena Price has a dependable track record for creating thought provoking and timely projects about the world around us; while also being a great photographer. If you don't know the Techies Project (profiles on underrepresented subjects in tech) or The Pussy Project (women's perspectives on the 2016 election), find some time to familiarize yourself.
Her latest undertaking, Banned, is a "special edition of collection of Techies focused on immigration."
The goal of this project is to provide an uninformed public a more comprehensive picture of who these policies will affect, to bring awareness to Silicon Valley about the issues facing members of their own community, and directly address ongoing stereotypes around immigration.
I don't even need to comment on the impact of the travel ban (short term and long term) because you can clearly see it for yourself through the stories of the six individuals on Banned.
Want to see 165 years worth of history in under a minute? Just watch Every New York Times front page since 1852. It's rather mesmerizing to see the blips of photos in the early editions and the massively quick shift that occurs once the technology to have photos every day takes over.
I'm sure this is old news but I heard a podcast once where Frank Chimero discussed how he takes on commercial work for a small portion of the year as an ends to fund his creative endeavors the rest of the year. I think this is a mindset we all feel drawn to but he's actually doing it. So, to see him
relaunch his official site with a note that he's "available for new projects" must mean that he's in the work phase of the year.
There's plenty to admire about Mr. Chimero (except his lack of tweets, for shame) and his new site is such a perfectly simple, clean showcase for the work.
