From Wired:

The printing process in question is a simple but, as usual with Keats, pretty clever idea. The cover is printed in a double layer of standard black ink, with an incrementally screened overlay masking the nine words. Exposed over time to ultraviolet light, the words will be appear at different rates, supposedly one per century.

“The precise quantity of ink covering each word is different, so that the words will appear one at a time,” Keats said. “Provided that your copy of Opium is kept out in the open, and regularly exposed to sunlight over 1,000 years to be read progressively by the next dozen or so generations. Or very, very slowly if you happen to be Ray Kurzweil.”

The odds are very good that Keats’ brainy game will outlive print itself, at least as far as magazines are concerned. But will the pages of Opium last long enough for his story to be told?

“The high-quality acid-free paper on which Opium is printed will certainly last that long,” Keats answered. “Whether humankind will, of course, remains an open question.”

Share This ▼

Today a million copies of the  International Herald Tribune were distributed that were dated 6 months from now… after the Copenhagen climate talks.

In a front-page ad in today’s International Herald Tribune, the leaders of the European Union thank the European public for having engaged in months of civil disobedience leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference that will be held this December. “It was only thanks to your massive pressure over the past six months that we could so dramatically shift our climate-change policies…. To those who were arrested, we
thank you.”

There was only one catch: the paper was fake.

Looking exactly like the real thing, but dated December 19th, 2009, a million copies of the fake paper were distributed worldwide by thousands of volunteers in order to show what could be achieved at the Copenhagen climate conference that is scheduled for Dec. 7-18, 2009.

The effort was orchestrated through a joint effort bythe always amazing Yes Men and Greenpeace. While this is not the first time someone has produced an artifact from the future as a way to change the way people are acting now, this is certainly one of the most ambitious efforts.  Kudos.

One of my favorites parts of the paper are the ads like the one from BP below:

Share This ▼

 This week Brian Eno transformed Sydney Opera House with mega projections of his 77 Million Paintings… (Stunning images from this DailyMail piece)  Here is a note from Brian on how it was achieved:

They’re enormous projectors - 14 on that side alone - and very carefully masked so there’s no fringing. And the image is double projected - so every area is covered by two identical images carefully registered on top of each other to boost power. The projectors are 3000 watts each, and they project from across the other side of the harbour - a throw of about 500 metres.

It was done by first of all photographing the building from each projector position, using a lens identical to that in the projector - and then cutting precise masks based on the photos.

Share This ▼

The earliest known dust jacket,  Photograph: PR

[Thanks to Emily for pointing both of these out to me]

The Guardian is running a story on the oldest dust jacket known which was recently ‘discovered’ in the stack at the Bodleian Library.

Unlike today’s dust jackets, wrappers of the early 19th century were used to enfold the book completely, like a parcel. Traces of sealing wax where the paper was secured can still be seen on the Bodleian’s discovery, along with pointed creases at the edges where the paper had been folded, showing the shape of the book it had enclosed.

In other slow news, have you heard? - 145 year old missing library book returned 

Share This ▼

Wired magazine has a very good piece this month on what many are calling the American Stonehenge, (though it’s not the only site to receive this moniker). 90 miles east of Atlanta lies a mysterious and controversial monument known as the Georgia Guidestones.

photo via Flickr - Sir Mildred Pierce

In a field north of a small town called Elberton, four 16-foot tall granite slabs stand aligned to the cardinal directions.  They are centered around a central pillar with a fifth piece of granite resting on top.  The full monument is almost 20 feet tall and weighs over 100 tons.  Constructing the monument was no easy feat, even for the experienced granite workers of Elbert County, which calls itself “The Granite Capital of the World.”

In the central column, a hole is drilled that aligns with the North Star (for now, anway).  It also contains a slot that allows viewers to see the Sun’s position as it sets on the equinoxes and solstices.  An opening in the capstone create a beam of sunlight that shines onto the central pillar at noon and indicates the day of the year.

The Guidestones were erected in 1980 with the direction of a man operating (and funding the pricey project) under the pseudonym R. C. Christian.  While their purpose isn’t exactly clear, a tablet set into the ground nearby proclaims,

Let these be guidestones to an Age of Reason.

The Guidestones are covered in inscriptions written in 8 major languages that describe the tenets of their imagined Age of Reason.  They seem to be a prescription for a utopia, albeit, one with limited access - the first tenet reads,

MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000
IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE

These tenets (some are calling them commandments) line up pretty closely with what many conspiracy theorists, especially those with a religious bent, imagine to be the plot of either the Antichrist or the New World Order.  Searching online about the Guidestones turns up more conspiracy theory pages than fansites:

The message of the American Stonehenge also foreshadowed the current drive for Sustainable Development. Any time you hear the phrase “Sustainable Development” used, you should substitute the term “socialism” to be able to understand what is intended…Certainly the group that commissioned the Georgia Guidestones is one of many similar groups working together toward a New World Order, a new world economic system, and a new world spirituality. Behind those groups, however, are dark spiritual forces.

The Guidestones were vandalized last winter and, though nobody has yet marshaled the resources to actually do it, calls for their destruction are not uncommon.  Thus far, Elbert County appreciates the controversy’s effect as a tourist draw and probably appreciates the way it highlights their granite industry.

As for the Guidestones’ likelihood to survive, it is interesting to note that the surrounding mystery has been both a help and a hindrance.  By instilling wonder and encouraging curiosity, the secretive creators have generated a good deal of interest in the monument.  They’ve also, however, allowed some blanks to be filled by people offended by the little that is discernible about their agenda.

Share This ▼

By the way of Chris Anderson’s TED twitterfeed I rediscovered the Artificial Owl site of “The most fascinating man-made abandoned creations + Their story and location.”  They now have a visual archive, google map, and much more content.  Really wonderful stuff, and great lessons for anyone like us trying to build long lasting artifacts.

Share This ▼

This niftiness was sent in by Jimmy Wales.  On this one graphic is all the stuff you need to know to jump start a civilization (or get super rich if you travel back in time).  To be sure it comes with you on your travels they sell it as a t-shirt, so unless you happen to be using that time machine from Terminator that only works on naked people, you are all set.  James Welcher also noted that it is particularly interesting to cross reference this document with “Phone call to the 14th century” by Kasper Houser [mp3 audio].

Share This ▼

[Image courtesy Matthew Buckingham]

“The Six Grandfathers, Paha Sapa, in the Year 502,002 C.E.” is the handiwork of Matthew Buckingham, an Iowa-born, New York-based artist, whose output, says his website, “questions the role that social memory plays in contemporary life. His projects create physical and social contexts that encourage viewers to question what is most familiar to them.” This particular image looks forward 500,000 years to a time when, according to geologists’ estimates, the likenesses of four U.S. Presidents carved into the granite of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, will finally have eroded beyond recognition:

[It] asks the viewer to consider Mount Rushmore as a cultural, political, and social symbol by imagining Rushmore’s inevitable disappearance and slow return to “nature.” As its power to represent fades, the paradox of Rushmore’s meaning as a “shrine to democracy”—on land stolen from the Sioux and carved by an artist who was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan—intensifies.

In Summer 02002 the image appeared in Cabinet magazine, accompanied by a historical account of the area’s journey from obscurity to celebrity, via (genocidal) infamy. It includes this interesting side note about the apparent farsightedness of the monument’s chief supervisor:

[Sculptor Gutzon] Borglum worked on Mount Rushmore for fifteen years. [He] intended to carve the presidential portraits to the waist, but when he died in 1941 only the faces were near completion. The US government restricted further spending on the memorial, allocating just enough money for Borglum’s son, Lincoln, to finish the hair and faces on the four heads. Even then the likenesses were not actually “complete.” Gutzon Borglum’s design intentionally left three extra inches of granite on the surface of the sculpture so that nature, in the form of wind and water erosion, would finish carving Mount Rushmore for him over the next 20,000 years.

I have no idea whether that part of the story is true, but in any case, the 20,000-year forward view and the 500,000-year one, considered side by side, seem to have something to say:

However long your now, there’s always a longer one that eats it whole.

[Image courtesy National Park Service Gallery via Wikimedia Commons]

(via HTC Experiments. Thanks to Bryan Boyer for the tip!)

Share This ▼

Paul Saffo sent in a note about this sculpture he saw on his last trip to Germany.  It reminds me of the pack rat middens archaeologists use to determine ancient climate, but made out of human relics:

While in Germany on Monday, I came across this rather remarkable sculpture by Maarten Venden Eynde. (pictured above, more about it here.)

As the artist describes it, Mo(NU)mentum is a “monument for the future, visualizing the impossibility to continue the current evolution”.  And as a rather nice touch, the plastic champagne fluter which were used to serve champagne at the dedication were collected and melted into the top layer of the piece.

It is quite evocative in person, with the feel of a giant core through a vast stratigraphic column of civilization and the natural world.      -p

Share This ▼

On the left: “All the water in the world
(1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it)
including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers,
ground water, clouds, etc.”

On the right: “All the air in the atmosphere
(5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a
ball at sea-level density.”

Re-blogged from Forgetomori.

Share This ▼