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Someone compromised open source AI coding assistant Cline CLI's npm package earlier this week in an odd supply chain attack that secretly installed OpenClaw on developers' machines without their knowledge. …
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that burned up over Europe last year left a massive lithium plume in its wake, say a group of scientists. They warn the disaster is likely a sign of things to come as Earth's atmosphere continues to become a heavily trafficked superhighway to space. …
Jill Scott schreef de tekst in 1991, ze was 19 jaar. Sindsdien zong ze het bij menig gelegenheid. Maar pas op 51-jarige leeftijd, in 2023, leidde haar uitvoering op het Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans tot ophef. Ze werd bejubeld, ze werd verguisd.
En dat alles omdat ze de geschiedenis van de Verenigde Staten eventjes in een notendop samenvatte:
Oh, say, can you see,
by the blood in the streets,
that this place doesn’t smile on you, colored child.Whose blood built this place
with sweat and their hands.
But you’ll die in this place
and your memory erased.Oh say, does this truth hold any weight?
This is not the land of the free
but the home of the slave
You’ve probably heard the idiom, “the elephant in the room,” to describe when there’s some uncomfortable and obvious problem that no one is addressing—the kind of issue that feels as though it’s taking up all available space. But what if yet another megafauna came stampeding onto the scene? That’s where Berlin-based artist Itamar Gov’s large-scale installation comes in.
The Rhinoceros in the Room is a towering, inflatable sculpture that fills a medieval church nave at Kunstmuseum Magdeburg in Germany. Gov draws inspiration from Renaissance engraver Albrecht Dürer’s iconic rhinoceros woodcut, which the artist created in 1515 without having ever seen one of the animals himself. His rendering is wildly inaccurate in terms of anatomy, depicting an extra horn at the creature’s shoulders and armor instead of a thick leather hide, but thanks to the ability to replicate it in print, it captured the public’s imagination.

Dürer’s image persists as a symbol of imperial might and prestige. The animal itself represents power and vigor, and one was even gifted from Sultan Muzafar II of Gujaratm, India, to King Manuel I of Portugal in 1515, providing the inspiration for the artist’s rendering.
The rhinoceros has also been hunted and poached nearly to extinction, and several species remain critically endangered today. For The Rhinoceros in the Room, Gov “combines historical events, philosophical ideas, and local legends and questions the fragile boundaries between fact and fiction; memory and imagination,” the museum says.
Portrayed in monochrome gray, the gentle giant lumbers amid the 11th-century Romanesque colonnades, assuming a spectral guise. On one hand, it’s somewhat absurd in its sheer size and sense of being out-of-place, yet on the other, the creature invokes curiosity and wonder and stands sentry as an icon of brawn and resilience.
The Rhinoceros in the Room remains on view through July 5. Find more on Gov’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 Itamar Gov Draws on History and Legend for ‘The Rhinoceros in the Room’ appeared first on Colossal.
Ian & Marg has added a photo to the pool:
Queensland Fruitgrowers Cooperative Society (QFS) received and loaded the fruit and vegetables destined for the Brisbane market from this large goods shed by the Amiens Branch Line. Arthur Baker was one of their managers. He was responsible for the operation of their agricultural supplies shop here. This platform and shed was one of his daughter's favourite places to play for she was near her dad and home was just across the line.
Seventy years on, she returned for a nostalgic visit, recalling moments and the joy of a simple family life among this orcharding area. Apples, apricots, peaches, nectarines, pears, and plums (especially Wilson Plums) were grown on diversified farms all along this branch line. This area of the Queensland Granite Belt was opened up to closer settlement by the government and allocated to soldiers returning from the First World War. The stations or sidings, like this one, were named after World War battlefields: Fleurbaix, Possiers, Passchendaele, Bapaume, Messines, and Amiens was the terminus.
Hailstorms were a fact of life in the early summer in this high altitude area with consequential destruction of fruit, so the diversified crops were essential to ensure each farmer survived, as each different variety matured at different rates.
Arthur Baker had migrated from North Yorkshire as an 18 year old, dreaming to become a "sheep farmer in Victoria". But instead he was drafted to serve as a farm labourer on a new orchard owned by Walter H Bell at Bapaume. When Arthur married an Australian girl, they bought a small farm and laboured through the wiles of the elements (hailstorms, late frosts when trees were flowering, droughts, and occasional tornadoes). Eventually, Arthur sold his farm, when he had the opportunity to become QFS manager first at Bapaume and later in the main regional town of Stanthorpe on the Southern Line.
Do you know your Gaia from your Cronus from your Zeus? In fewer than 15 minutes, this video provides a comprehensive overview of all the important Greek & Roman gods, goddesses, nymphs, heroes, monsters, demigods, and other assorted spiritual beings, who begat who, and what all of their domains were. (via open culture)