Then and now

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The pathetic record company warning from the 1980s receives a parodic makeover for the digital age. The original tape-and-crossbones graphic was printed on the inner sleeves of vinyl albums from major labels for a brief period when the record companies were in a panic about kids swapping tapes in school playgrounds. If only they knew what was coming… The record industry didn’t collapse into ruin, of course, in fact CD sales helped them heap up even greater profits. I’m sure they say now that ruin was prevented by “effective campaigning” or some other bullshit. A friend of mine once attended a lecture by representatives from the BPI (British Phonographic Institute) at the IPM in Liverpool. After listening to them pontificate about the evils of “music theft” he asked whether any of them had copied music for personal use; they ignored his question.

Enormous structures I: The Illinois

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Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural genius rather overreached itself with his 1956 proposal for a mile-high skyscraper of 528 floors situated in Chicago and to be named The Illinois. A building of this size would have severely tested the engineering capabilities of the time (bear in mind that the world’s tallest skyscraper was still the Empire State Building) and would provide difficulties even today. Aside from the obvious fire hazards, the topmost floors would need some form of weighting in order to prevent their swaying violently in the wind. Then there’s the question of moving around the people who live or work there. So many elevator and service ducts are required for a structure of this size that the lower floors are almost entirely taken up by the core shafts that run through the building which makes very tall buildings uneconomical when so much valuable rental space is lost.

Wright was 89 years old in 1956 so The Illinois represented his last hurrah; having changed the face of 20th century architecture he’d obviously decided to go out on a high point, as it were. I often wonder whether he expected that it might eventually be built, just as the medieval cathedral builders drew up plans that they knew they’d never see completed in their lifetimes.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s future city

Michelangelo revisited

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In order to coincide with the British Museum’s exhibition of Michelangelo drawings, the current edition of Gay Times tries to imitate some of the more famous works in their main photo spread. What’s interesting about these pictures is seeing how much they lack the compelling dynamics of the artist at his best. Maybe this is down to the photography and lighting, perhaps somebody like Dylan Ricci would have done a better job. I prefer to think that this has more to do with the Oscar Wilde principle of nature struggling to imitate art.

The Malcontent has more of the photos here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Ballard on Modernism

A handful of dust

The modernists wanted to strip the world of mystery and emotion. No wonder they excelled at the architecture of death, says JG Ballard

Few people today visit Utah beach. The sand seems colder and flatter than anywhere else along the Normandy coast where the Allies landed on D-day. The town of Arromanches – a few miles to the east and closer to Omaha, Gold and Sword beaches – is a crowded theme park of war museums, cemeteries and souvenir shops, bunkers and bunting. Guidebooks in hand, tourists edge gingerly around the German gun emplacements and try to imagine what it was like to stare down the gun sights at the vast armada approaching the shore.

But Utah beach, on the western edge of the landing grounds, is silent. A few waves swill over the sand as if too bored to think of anything else. The coastal land seems lower than the sea, and fails to echo the sounds of war inside one’s head.

More here.