While most of us will pass by stray stones and piles of rubble without much of a second thought, Elizabeth Saloka sees tons of potential. From a couple of rock piles outside of her regular supermarket to crumbling curbs or demolished structures, she sifts through a variety of shapes and sizes to find rocks that may eventually transform into vibrant mimics of common household items, boxed sandwiches from Pret a Manger, or Babybel brand snacking cheese.

“Last fall, I bought a ton of marble scraps off a sculptor in Woodstock for like, $10 off Facebook,” Saloka tells Colossal. “For sandwiches and cakes, crumbling asphalt parking lots are good. When I lived in Sunset Park, they demolished a building a couple blocks from my apartment, and there was a hole in the fence, so I’d go in there and find tons of cool shapes and textures of rubble.”

Using bricks, she creates humorously fat stacks of $1 and $5 bills, and cut pavers become Premium saltine cracker boxes. “That particular rock shape—a long rectangular cube—is to me the holy grail of rock shapes, because it doesn’t really naturally occur too much in nature,” Saloka says. When she finds a particular shape or cut that works well for certain objects, such as Pink Pearl erasers or popular candies, she collects as many as she can.

Pop culture items rule Saloka’s oeuvre, from recognizable grocery store brands to fast food mainstays to memes like the so-called “IKEA monkey” in its tiny shearling coat. There’s also an air of nostalgia for toys, analog film, and pantry staples that many of us associate with our childhoods or an earlier generation.

If you’re in New York, you can see the artist’s work in Snacks and the City at Gotham’s Chelsea gallery space, which runs from March 19 to May 3. Her work will also be including a group show at Galactic Panther, which will be on view from March 27 to May 21. And in June, she’ll participate in a two-person show alongside Kate Bingaman-Burt at Women’s Studio Workshop and a solo exhibition at Here to Sunday. See more on Saloka’s Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Elizabeth Saloka’s Vibrant Painted Rocks Adopt the Personalities of Snacks and Pop Culture Icons appeared first on Colossal.

The Library of Congress recently discovered a copy of a “long-lost” film made in ~1897 by George Méliès called Gugusse and the Automaton (Gugusse et l’Automate), which “had not been seen by anyone in likely more than a century” and “was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot”. It’s also one of the first science fiction films ever made.

You can watch a digitized copy of the whole film here (it’s only 45 seconds long):

And here’s the story of how the film was discovered.

Equally delighted was Bill McFarland, the donor who had driven the box of films from his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, to have the cache evaluated.

His great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee, had been a potato farmer and schoolteacher in western Pennsylvania by day, but by night he was a traveling showman. He drove his horse and buggy from town to town to dazzle the locals with a projector and some of the world’s first moving pictures.

He set up shop in a local schoolroom, church, lodge or civic auditorium and showed magic lantern slides and short films with music from a newfangled phonograph. It was shocking.

“They must have been thrilled,” McFarland said. “They must have been out of their minds to see this motion picture and to hear the Edison phonograph.”

Tags: George Méliès · Gugusse and the Automaton · movies · robots · video

In het jaar van zijn 400ste sterfdag lijkt de muziek van de Britse luitist John Dowland levender dan ooit. Musici en publiek omarmen dezer dagen zijn weemoedige melodieën. „Het lied ‘Flow my Tears’ lijkt verankerd in het menselijk dna.”

European Commission head says rules-based system can no longer be relied upon to protect the continent’s interests

Europe can “no longer be a custodian for the old-world order” and needs “a more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”, the head of the European Commission has said.

Speaking to an audience of EU ambassadors on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen said the union “will always defend and uphold the rules-based system” but could no longer rely on it to defend European interests and shelter the continent from threats.

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Kowtowing to US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan had disastrous consequences. Why are leaders making the same mistake all over again?

Here is the sort of analysis you’re being served up by our esteemed commentariat. Keir Starmer’s positioning on the Iran war, we are told, reveals a prime minister with no political compass. True, but talk about burying the lede. The story here is not Starmer’s lack of political acumen. British involvement in the Iran war is not a policy question on which reasonable people might disagree, like raising a tax here or spending a bit more money there. This is a grave crime.

Yet all the pressure on Starmer seems to arrive from one direction. He “should have backed America from the very beginning”, declares Tony Blair, apparently eager for his successor to emulate his own record of dragging Britain into US-led catastrophes widely condemned as illegal. Donald Trump’s sidekick Nigel Farage, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and the rightwing press make much the same complaint.

Owen Jones is a guardian columnist

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Het Rotterdamse klimaatcentrum GCA dreigt failliet te gaan. Het centrum werd bijna tien jaar geleden nog met veel bombarie naar Rotterdam gehaald, maar zit in de financiële problemen doordat onder meer Nederland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk de financiering van het centrum hebben stopgezet.

Het Rotterdamse klimaatcentrum GCA dreigt failliet te gaan. Het centrum werd bijna tien jaar geleden nog met veel bombarie naar Rotterdam gehaald, maar zit in de financiële problemen doordat onder meer Nederland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk de financiering van het centrum hebben stopgezet.

In een woning aan de Prins Hendrikstraat in Hoek van Holland is maandagmiddag een steekpartij geweest. Daarbij zijn twee slachtoffers gewond geraakt.

Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to use physical cash. "The vote means Switzerland will join the likes of Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, which have already written the right to cold, hard cash in their constitutions," reports Politico. From the report: Official results revealed that 73.4 percent of voters backed the legal amendment, which the government proposed as a counter to a similar initiative by a group called the Swiss Freedom Movement. The Swiss Freedom Movement triggered the national referendum after its initiative to protect cash collected more than 100,000 signatures, triggering a national referendum. Its initiative secured only 46 percent of the final vote after the government said some of the group's proposed amendments went too far.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De AEX-index is maandag toch nog met winst gesloten. Eerder op de dag ging de belangrijkste graadmeter aan het Damrak flink onderuit door de snel stijgende olieprijzen. Die normaliseerden iets gedurende de dag, wat een geruststellend effect had op beleggers.

Door de min van bijna 2 procent vlak na de opening noteerde de AEX-index op 963 punten de laagste stand sinds 2 januari. Aan het einde van de dag stond er een plus van 0,3 procent op de borden, met een stand van 983,00 punten. De MidKap verloor 1,2 procent tot 975,66 punten. Frankfurt, Londen en Parijs leverden tot 1 procent in.

Beleggers vrezen dat de hogere energieprijzen de inflatie weer aanwakkeren en dat de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB) de rente moet gaan verhogen om de inflatie onder controle te krijgen. Voor de Iranoorlog werd nog verwacht dat de rente in het eurogebied waarschijnlijk onveranderd zou blijven op 2 procent. Inmiddels wordt rekening gehouden met twee renteverhogingen van een kwart procentpunt dit jaar.