This is a blog about the things I enjoy: art, design, architecture, photography, writing, music, electronics, technology, and all things web.

Nathan Abels

These atmospheric paintings by Denver artist Nathan Abels strongly evoke the sense of loneliness and urban solitude found in declining suburban developments across the U.S.

The images are snapshots of the particular, non-specific architecture of the suburbs, removing their surroundings and presenting them in isolation; sometimes including the empty streets where neighbouring houses were never built.

I'm very interested in the topic of suburban decay, and these paintings truly capture the suburbs' faded glory; the feelings of nostalgia that come with knowing that their best days are in the past. You can see more images at Nathan's Flickr account.

Via This Isnt Happiness

Josef Schulz

Josef Schulz's photography features commercial and industrial architecture, stripped of its context; sometimes digitally manipulated to remove signage and lettering, distilling the subject to pure form.

My favourite of his series is “Übergang” (meaning transfer or transition), which documents abandoned border control kiosks in Europe, made redundant since the Schengen Agreement opened many internal EU borders.

Via Cool Hunting

Daniel Alcalá

I first discovered the work of Mexican artist Daniel Alcalá last year, at the Slash: Paper Under The Knife exhibition in New York (currently still showing at the Museum of Arts and Design).

Alcalá creates these striking silhouettes, which at distance look like photographs; however, on closer inspection they are painstakingly constructed from precisely cut paper, with subtly different tones created by the different layers. The way the work is made reflects the subject matter, which is centred on strongly graphic architectural and structural elements.

Sync/Lost

A clever idea from Brazilian interaction design studio 3bits. Built using Processing, Sync/Lost is a multi-user audio-visual installation, which lets its audience explore the history of electronic music through an interactive wall.

By using Wiimotes to select nodes on the complex map of connections, the participants can both see and hear the relationships between the different electronic sub-genres. Click here to see a high-quality video of the installation in use.

Via NotCot

Mike Giesser

Designer/Art Director Mike Giesser has a great body of work behind him; his treatment of this corporate brochure project for Dutch architecture studio Döll stood out in particular.