E.D.W. Lynch

“Someday, little friend, I will tell you about the very first Kickstarter.”

Dear Laughing Squid readers and cephalopods:

This is my 7,240th post as Senior Contributing Writer for this esteemed web publication. It is also, I am sad to say, my last. I am leaving the mollusk media to embark on new projects and adventures.

I’d like to thank Scott Beale for bringing me on board four years ago. I’d also like to release a murky cloud of ink in honor of my co-mollusks on the Laughing Squid team. And I’d like to thank you, Laughing Squid reader, for the kind messages and comments over the years.

Through the miracle of the Internet you can keep tabs on my doings and whereabouts:

E.D.W. Lynch unofficial website

E.D.W. Lynch unauthorized Facebook page

E.D.W. Lynch unverified Twitter account

Bon voyage,

–E.D.W. Lynch

photo by Ivan Brown

In his 2012 project E-Book backup, artist Jesse England (previously) used a photocopier to create a physical copy of an Amazon Kindle e-book. England created each page of the “backup” by simply placing the Kindle on the photocopier’s scanner. The reader thus has the experience of reading a photocopied image of each digital page from the e-book. For the project England chose an e-book of George Orwell‘s classic book Nineteen Eighty-Four–as England notes the book was the subject of a controversial e-book recall by Amazon back in 2009. For good measure, England also uploaded a digital version of his paper backup to his Kindle. He does note that the E-Book backup “is best viewed in paper format.”

“The backup is best viewed in paper format.”

photos by Jesse England

More than 50,000 keys are suspended from a ceiling in the immersive art installation The Key in the Hand by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. The keys, each suspended by red thread, were provided by donors from all over the world. The Key in the Hand is on display through November 22, 2015 at the Japan Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale.

Keys are familiar and very valuable things that protect important people and spaces in our lives. They also inspire us to open the door to unknown worlds. With these thoughts in mind, in this new installation I would like to use keys provided by the general public that are imbued with various recollections and memories that have accumulated over a long period of daily use. As I create the work in the space, the memories of everyone who provides me with their keys will overlap with my own memories for the first time. These overlapping memories will in turn combine with those of the people from all over the world who come to see the biennale, giving them a chance to communicate in a new way and better understand each other’s feelings.

photos by Sunhi Mang via a href=”http://www.designboom.com/art/chiharu-shiota-venice-art-biennale-the-key-in-the-hand-05-06-2015/”>designboom

via designboom

The Ikawa Home Roaster is a countertop coffee roaster that lets home users roast their own coffee. The roaster’s digital interface allows users choose predefined roast recipes or program their own. Green coffee beans can be roasted in three to ten minutes. The Ikawa Home Roaster is available for pre-order on Kickstarter and is expected to ship in February 2016.

images via Ikawa

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

In his nightmarish photo series Clownville, photographer Eolo Perfido has created a most disturbing portrait collection of menacing clowns. Note that some of the clowns are nude–menacingly nude, if that’s possible. The series was created in collaboration with makeup artist Valeria Orlando.

photos by Eolo Perfido

via Feature Shoot, Bored Panda

In The Grocery Store Project, Danish photographer Simon Hoegsberg meticulously documented the pedestrians near a Copenhagen supermarket over the course of 20 months and 97,000 photographs. After concluding shooting in December 2011, Hoegsberg began crafting a photographic visualization of the pedestrians with the aid of the facial recognition feature in Picasa. The software identified 11,000 distinct individuals. Hoegsberg gave each person an alphanumeric name (A1, A2, A3…) and then created a photographic grid in which the rows and columns each represent an individual. The interactive visualization, paired down to just over 2,000 photographs, reveals the routines of individual pedestrians, as well as moments when people intersect in the same image.

images via Simon Hoegsberg

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Two separate homes are united by a shared archway in the clever Arch Wall House created by architect Akio Nakasa of Naf Architect & Design. Located in the outskirts of Tokyo, the twin structures house three generations of a family. A couple and their child live in the larger home, while the smaller home is occupied by the child’s grandmother. The archway covers a driveway that serves both structures.

photos via Naf Architect & Design

via Dezeen