EINE KLEIN

 

A selection of Bernat Klein's impasto abstracts.

NOT TO BE CONTINUED

 

Bernat Klein was a Serbian textile designer and painter who lived and worked in Scotland from the early 1950s, where he established his own studio and a number of businesses that specialised in  weaving and knitting for carpets, tapestries and haute couture clothing, including for Dior, Chanel, Pierre Cardin - and Marks and Spencer.

Klein died in 2014 aged 91, and this photograph (by Gordon Burniston) shows his last, unfinished painting on the easel, forever a work in progress.

EVERYDAY ELECTRONICS

 

001: Damp Locator

Earlier in the year, I purchased a job lot of Everyday Electronics magazines, a run that goes from the first issue in November 1971 up to August 1980.  I'm not particularly interested in electronics, to be honest, but I was drawn in by the fantastic mix of the visionary and the banal offered by the featured projects. In this new series, I will simply be sharing some of the most interesting. Circuit diagrams and full instructions may be requested, but will not necessarily be provided.

Kicking off with this ^^^ all time classic... 

PREHISTORIC EUROPEAN ART

 

Simple but effective design. What more do you need to know from a book cover?

EYE WORK

I don't know if you realise this, but, if you wear glasses, it's because you're lazy. With a little effort and a soupcon of science, you can (probably) train your eyes back into perfect shape and throw away those nerdy specs forever.

Here, Australian therapist Bethany Allridge shows us some of the basic movements, her face set in an unnervingly rigid and somewhat sinister expression. We'll come back to this over and over and again and again, until that face stops haunting my dreams. 

RUFF NIGHT

 

Thomas Ruff is a German photographer who specialises in dislocated images. His Emperor series from 1982 (#6 pictured here) calls to mind Scottish artist Bruce McLean's similarly chiropractic Posework For Plinths, but, in not showing the face, Ruff's perfectly colour co-ordinated photos take on a far more sinister edge, resembling a gruesome crime scene.

MORE LOVE FOR ALL OF US FROM ALL OF THEM

 

More meaningful / meaningless graphics from the Universe People.

WE LOVE YOU, PEOPLE OF EARTH

The Universe People are a Czech Republic based UFO religion formed in the 1990s led by the not particularly charismatic Ivo A. Benda. 

They are apparently in close contact both physically and telepathically with a variety of benign extraterrestrial civilisations, and are awaiting evacuation in the event of an apparently imminent global catastrophe. They fear evil lizard aliens, vaccination, satellites, money and identity chips. They don't like copyright, either, so are in always in legal trouble for appropriating other people's stuff.

The group, who are also known as Cosmic People of the Forces of Light, aren't terribly well-organised and they lack a coherent message. Benda occasionally gives rambling lectures that further muddy the waters.

Their promotional material - which everyone is free to share - is very Word Art 2002 and extremely repetitive. The images above are taken from a short 'meditation' film, which is far too busy and confusing to give the viewer anything other than mounting anxiety, the total opposite of relaxation.

The good news is that they aren't apparently hurting anyone, even themselves, so their amateurish attempts at challenging the world order are unlikely to end in either societal upheaval or a Heavens Gate-style mass suicide.

If you want to know more, I guarantee their website will be of virtually no use whatsoever

RUNNING MAN

 

Olympiad, d. by Lililan Schwartz and Ken Knowlton (1971)

Based on Eadweard Muybridge's seminal photographic studies of a running man, this short film made in Bell Studios was one of the first ever computer animated films, and was delivered in time for the 1972 Olympics in Munich. For the record, Knowlton wrote the algorithms, and Schwartz edited.

It's worth mentioning that cool looking person Lillian Schwartz is happily still with us, having turned 97 in July. Her continued presence in this world enriches us all. 

COOL LOOKING PEOPLE

 

001: Lillian Schwarz, Artist