Now free the prisoners!
This time of the year, most folks in the northern hemisphere could do with a little “luminotherapie”; and none more than the residents of chilly Canada. Impulse is a fabulously fun interactive art installation in the heart of Montreal made of luminous, musical seesaws. Created by CS Design, the marvelous installation, with LED lighting and built-in speakers, is open until the end of January on the Place Des Festivals.
all photos ©Ulysse Lemerise
Paganella is a fairly typical ski resort in the Italian Dolomites, with one exception; it’s also the home of the Biblio Igloo. For the last two seasons, the Trentino Alto Adige resort has sponsored a pop-up library in a specially built tent. Who knew that Italian skiers were such bibliophiles.
Award-winning American photographer Jesse Rieser has captured the quintessential tacky wonderland of Christmas in the U.S. heartland. Nothing says Happy Birthday Jesus like a nativity scene complete with Santa Claus or a holiday parade float decorated with armed troops.
all images © jesse rieser
If you are a New York Times reader, you have likely seen the brilliant work from artist and author Christoph Niemann. He recently documented a typically uncomfortable transatlantic flight from NYC to Berlin (with a layover at Heathrow) with a set of illustrations from his sketchbook. Anyone who flies economy class will resonate with Niemann’s take on the frustrations inherent in international air travel—from armrest combat to the baggage claim bingo.
The 1 Hotel group has created a wonderful opportunity for its guests to donate gently used clothing to local charities. Every hotel room now has a simple cardboard box that discreetly suggests that travelers often bring extra clothing and donating an item would result in 1 less thing to pack. Seems like a terrific idea for all hotels to adopt.
The beloved British author Douglas Adams suggested that a towel was a massively useful thing. Now a Brazilian collective has created a towel that can bring strangers together and help them build a real life social network. The Toalha Social is a brilliantly simple way for people to meet and make friends. Users simply grab a towel from a rack in a park or public square, place it on the ground print face up, and allow others to join in conversation. A great idea that I hope will spread.
A team of intrepid data visualizers at the Stuttgart-based urban design lab Moovel Lab decided to test the ancient maxim : All roads lead to Rome. Using open-source digital maps, they layered a grid of cells on a map of Europe. Then they added a homebrew algorithm to calculate routes from 400,000+ locations around the continent to Rome. Lo and behold, every road does lead to the Eternal City ( with the aid of a tunnel here and there).
Just for shits and giggles, the team—Benedikt Groß, Philipp Schmitt and Raphael Reimann—also applied a similar process to U.S. cities named Rome. This time they showed each location connecting to the nearest “U.S. Rome” by the quickest travel route. Having briefly resided near Rome, Georgia, I can unequivocally state that no roads lead to that Rome.
It’s not easy to make the New York Subway system seem inviting, but director Roddy Hyduk and the Snowday team managed to pull it off in the charming short called “Stations”. Somehow they managed to visit 120 of the 469 subway stops in the MTA system.
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