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Metropolitan Museum adds 375,000 scans of artwork to public domain

18 Feb

“[Advertisement for Sarony’s Photographic Studies]” by Napoleon Sarony (American (born Canada), Quebec 1821–1896 New York) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has added 375,000 images to the public domain, each showing a scan of copyright-free artwork in the museum’s collection. Every image has a Creative Commons ‘CC0’ license, meaning they can be used for both personal and commercial purposes, and can be edited or used as parts of other projects.

This photo release follows the Museum’s Open Access of Scholarly Content initiative launched back in 2014, which made 400,000 photos available for non-commercial use. This latest photo release represents a slight change in the Museum’s policy: that all of its photos of public domain works are now accompanied by a CC0 public domain license.

Talking about this move, Creative Commons CEO Ryan Merkley said:

Today, The Met has given the world a profound gift in service of its mission: the largest encyclopedic art museum in North America has eliminated the barriers that would otherwise prohibit access to its content, and invited the world to use, remix, and share their public-domain collections widely and without restriction. This is an enormous gift to the world, and it is an act of significant leadership on the part of the institution.

The newly released public domain photos can be located using the search tool on the Creative Commons website.

Via: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Urine for a Beautiful Day: Street Gardens Double as Public Pissoirs

07 Feb

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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‘Piss in peace’ is the tagline for the Urintrottoir, a recent addition to the streets of Paris that’s part urinal, part composter, part mini garden. City officials are hoping that offering these urinals right out in the open will be a viable way to get men to stop peeing all over everything in sight, especially at night when they’ve had a few drinks. It would be cool if our cities could smell a little nicer, guys.

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The problem is, most of us don’t want to stare at urinals as we’re walking down the sidewalk. The Urintrottoir design attempts to find a way around that and make use of waste products at the same time, by making each unit into a planter full of herbs and flowers. The top bins contain straw and sawdust, which help break down the urine into relatively neutral-smelling soil for the plants.

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Larger versions of the device could potentially absorb the urine of 600 people before needing to be emptied. Two smaller versions are currently located near the Gare de Lyon station in Paris, and if the test is successful (and men really do choose to pee in them instead of in alleys or in the doorways of shops,) additional units will be rolled out to other stations in France.

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Some European cities already offer public ‘pissoirs’ that are considerably less decorative, but there’s not always a recycling component involved. This option makes lemonade out of lemons, so to speak (sorry, that metaphor is almost too perfect.) Now, if only there were similar options designed for people with different equipment.

A previous effort to prettify public urinals came in the form of a rose-tinted marble fountain by Portuguese architecture firm Bureau A, attempting to make public pissing into an artistic act.

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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Public Wattway: France Activates World’s First Solar-Paneled Roadway

18 Jan

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

solar-roadway

Developed by Wattway and deployed on the streets of Tourouvre-au-Perche, a 1,000-meter-long solar-paneled roadway in France is the first stretch of a 1,000-kilometer endeavor.

The technology along this initial pathway is designed to generate enough energy to light up the streets of a 3,400-person town, and it is just the first step in a five-year plan.

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France ultimately aims to pave 1,000 kilometers of solar roads over the next half-decade, supplying renewable energy to 5 million people (close to 10% of the population).

The flat and smooth surfaces of existing streets are perfect places to serve a double function and harvest clean energy as long as the issue of durability is taken into account.

The solar brick-like sheets are covered in multiple layers of silicon resign designed to allow light to pass through while protecting the panels from damage. The panels are engineered to withstand the weight of six-axle trucks and to stick directly onto existing road surfaces.

wattway-panels

The goal for this first phase is to produce 280 megwatt hours of power per year and to test the durability of the tech under real-world experimental conditions. Under controlled conditions, the panels survive a “cycle of one million vehicles, or 20 years of normal traffic a road, and the surface does not move.”

solar-path

“We are still on an experimental phase,” says the company. “Building a trial site of this scale is a real opportunity for our innovation. This trial site has enabled us to improve our photovoltaic panel installing process as well as their manufacturing, in order to keep on optimizing our innovation.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Reading Coaster: NYC Public Library Installs Tiny Book Delivery Trains

02 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

book-trains

A crafty conveyor system helps bring up books from a series of research stacks and storage spaces hidden beneath Bryant Park, making the volumes accessible via a system of miniature trains.

This particular branch of the New York Public Library in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building houses millions of volumes, many of which are stored below the ground.

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This book train system looks a bit like a tiny roller coaster and is used to transfer materials seamlessly, quickly and automatically along the vertical-and-horizontal track system, carrying requested books directly to places like the Rose Main Reading Room.

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Each cart (of which there are 24) can hold 30 pounds of reading materials and can climb 11 stories within the building to service various floors.

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A pivot joint between the book-carrying basket and the main body of the cart allows the former to remain upright without spilling its contents while the latter tilts up to 90 degrees, carrying books straight up between levels.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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New York Public Library launches interactive Photographers’ Identities Catalog

05 Apr

The New York Public Library has launched a new online tool called Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC), an interactive map with biographical data on more than 115,000 photographers, as well as photography dealers, studios and manufacturers. Users are able to filter the data based on several categories, such as region and format, to search for results throughout the entire history of photography.

Each PIC result appears as a colored-coded dot on an interactive globe, and each dot marks a specific individual or entity. Biographical data on photographers includes name, nationality, any relevant locations or dates, and the source of the NYPL’s data. Information on businesses includes addresses and years of operation. In addition to filters, users can zoom in on a specific region to explore its results.

Because of the wide variety of filters, users can perform very specific searches. As one example presented by the NYPL, someone can locate female photographers who worked with specific studios in certain countries. The library advises that some data could be incorrect, however, and those who spot an error can report it for correction. Historians and scholars with relevant data are encouraged to contact the NYPL to help expand the catalog, as well.

Via: New York Public Library

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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New York Public Library releases thousands of images into public domain

12 Jan

The New York Public Library has released more than 180,000 digitized items into the public domain, making them freely available for anyone to use for any purpose. These items include scans of manuscripts from well-known authors, copies of sheet music, more than 40,000 stereoscopic photographs and more than 20,000 atlases and maps.

The NYPL announced the release last week, saying it “represents both a simplification and an enhancement of digital access to a trove of unique and rare materials.” The materials are available as high-resolution downloads through the library’s public domain remix. As of this latest release, there are 672,186 digitizations available in the NYPL Digital Collections.

Via: NYPL

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Sigma US goes public with Black Friday lens deals

21 Nov

Sigma is getting Black Friday started early this year, offering discounts on five of its lenses online now through Monday, November 30th including the 50mm F1.4 DG HSM Art. Savings range from $ 100 up to $ 300 off individual lenses – and considering the current results of our readers’ poll, a few of you may be interested. Read more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Guerrilla Grafting: Public Trees Spliced to Bear Edible Fruit

23 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

guerilla fruit tree

A subversive urban agricultural group in San Francisco is turning ornamental trees into fruit-producing surprises for the local population but while technically breaking the law. A simple incision allows industrious grafters to add living branches to the mix; these scions heal in place then effectively become part of the existing tree.

guerilla branch grafts

A fresher form of guerilla gardening, traditionally carried out through seed bombs and other surreptitious planting techniques, this approach makes existing plants yield free produce.

A flowering apple tree in Oakland, Calif. with two successful grafts from an apple tree which bears fruit.

Founded by Tara Hui, Guerrilla Grafters leaves subtle hints in the form color-coded tape behind to mark their work, eschewing maps to avoid detection.

guerilla grafters group photo

While the city has over 10,000 apple, plum, pear and other fruit trees (and 100,000 public trees in total), these are intentionally rendered sterile to avoid making a public mess or attracting animals. The existence of these species makes guerrilla grafting interventions all the more difficult to spot, since they are simply added to extant greenery and take time to bear fruit.

guerilla gardening sf

The group’s novel form of civil disobedience begins to address issues of food scarcity and accessibility, and raise edible fruits as well as questions about whether it makes sense to strip decorative and shade-providing plants of another essential function they can just as easily provide.

guerilla grafting instruction manual

Their website also provides tips on ideal species combinations and grafting strategies, including the instruction manual shown above. The Guerrilla Grafters “graft fruit bearing branches onto non-fruit bearing, ornamental fruit trees. Over time, delicious, nutritious fruit is made available to urban residents through these grafts. We aim to prove that a culture of care can be cultivated from the ground up. We aim to turn city streets into food forests, and unravel civilization one branch at a time.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Tasty Toilet: Cake-Shaped Bathroom for Public Restroom Festival

14 Oct

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

toilennale melting dream 1

Maybe it’s a little weird to stare at oversized images of whipped cream and cherries plastered onto the wall while you’re relieving yourself, but hey, at least it’s not the other way around. The Toilennale festival in Oita, Japan attempted to elevate public restroom facilities into cultural experiences by transforming them into art installations or holding events like poetry readings inside.

toilennale melting dream 2

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This particular installation, entitled ‘Melting Dream,’ looks like a gigantic cake – or perhaps an ice cream sundae – from outside (perhaps inspired by actual urinal cakes). Step inside and you’ll be confronted with murals of various sweet treats alongside cherry-red floors. Set adjacent to urinals mounted a wall, suddenly a sugary glaze dripping down fruit takes on a more ambiguous meaning.

toilennale melting dream 3

If you’re feeling a little disconcerted by this combination of human biological urges, that’s the point. Artist Minako Nishiyama notes that the people of Japan are going about their daily lives as if nothing changed after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. “The concept of the piece is that Japan, the sweet country of ambiguity, is beginning to crumble.”

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15 other public restroom transformations included ‘gonzo performance,’ private poetry readings inside stalls, a celebration of toilet graffiti and “an odd recital given by the ‘Zombie,’ an automatic performance machine that plays the recorder.” The facilities remained open for their usual purpose throughout the festival, which opened in July and ran through September 23rd. The next Toilennale is scheduled for 2017.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Dry Doc: 10 Abandoned Walk-in Public Health Clinics

30 Aug

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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It’s prognosis negative (and not in a good way) for these abandoned walk-in clinics – obviously everyone within walking distance was perfectly healthy.

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You know there’s a chronic public health crisis when the local public clinic’s doctor high-tails it outta town and the clinic itself has been abandoned for years. The photos above, taken by Mike DuBose of UMNS during the height of the 2015 Ebola outbreak, features fisherman and village elder Boh Lion at an abandoned health clinic in Monogaga, Côte d’Ivoire. It’s not stated whether Lion owns the sleeping dog and small goat in the first photo.

Kissimmee Goodbye

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Does The Walking Dead need a new shooting location? Flickr users AsherXIII and Adxm Petersxn captured this rather generic Kissimmee, Florida “Walk-In Clinic” in July of 2012 and February of 2014, respectively. Rumor has it the clinic was the scene of a drive-by shooting in late 2006… at least the victims, if any, were in the right place at the wrong time.

Clinically Creepy

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Haikyo explorer and blogger Jordy Meow of Totoro Times visited the former mining town (and current ghost town) of Nichitsu in December of 2011, and he brought his figurine “friends” Yoko and Haruhi along for the adventure. Though the town’s clinic is in very bad shape due to the elements and local vandals, much remains from what must have been a hasty evacuation… and by “remains”, we mean human remains preserved in formaldehyde-filled glass containers.

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That’s Haruhi above, posing with a glass jar containing a human ear… how sweet. Located in Saitama prefecture north of Tokyo, Nichitsu was abandoned around 30 years ago when the mine played out.

marty-feldman-AB-normal-brain

According to Jordy Meow, visitors to the ex-clinic occasionally abscond with a medical sample or two. The most famous, er, infamous missing sample is the legendary “Nichitsu Brain”. Now who in their right mind would want to steal a brain?

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Posts Tagged ‘Public’

Metropolitan Museum adds 375,000 scans of artwork to public domain

Urine for a Beautiful Day: Street Gardens Double as Public Pissoirs

Public Wattway: France Activates World’s First Solar-Paneled Roadway

Reading Coaster: NYC Public Library Installs Tiny Book Delivery Trains

New York Public Library launches interactive Photographers’ Identities Catalog

New York Public Library releases thousands of images into public domain

Sigma US goes public with Black Friday lens deals

Guerrilla Grafting: Public Trees Spliced to Bear Edible Fruit

Tasty Toilet: Cake-Shaped Bathroom for Public Restroom Festival

Dry Doc: 10 Abandoned Walk-in Public Health Clinics

Kissimmee Goodbye

Clinically Creepy

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Dry Doc 10 Abandoned Walk In Public Health Clinics

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Posts Tagged ‘Public’

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