Watch: “Karakuri” – A Mini Doc About Traditional Japanese Self-Operating Machines

According to the filmmaker Matthew Allard:

Japan has always been on the forefront of cutting edge robotics. Its roots can be traced back 200-300 years ago during the Edo period when skilled craftsmen created automata (self-operating machines). Using nothing more than pulleys and weights they were able to make the Karakuri (Japanese automata) perform amazing tasks.

Japan’s modern day robots can be traced back to the Karakuri. Today Hideki Higashino is one of the few remaining craftsmen who is determined to keep the history and tradition of Japanese Karakuri alive.

Learn more about Karakuri here

Read: Morgellons – A Hidden Epidemic or Mass Hysteria?

Optical image of what sufferers are adamant are morgellons fibres in skin samples – are they made up of alien ­matter, or are ­everyday materials the more likely explanation? Photograph: Vitaly Citovsky/Suny at Stony Brook

I’m not sure which would be weirder –  Morgellons being an actual disease or 12,000 people sharing the same psychosomatic symptoms. Though it wouldn’t be the first time the power of suggestion suspended reason in humans. Read a list of 10 bizarre cases of mass hysteria here

According to The Gaurdian (published May 7, 2011):

It all started in August 2007, on a family holiday in New England. Paul had been watching Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix with his wife and two sons, and he had started to itch. His legs, his arms, his torso – it was everywhere. It must be fleas in the seat, he decided.

But the 55-year-old IT executive from Birmingham has been itching ever since, and the mystery of what is wrong with him has only deepened. When Paul rubbed his fingertips over the pimples that dotted his skin, he felt spines. Weird, alien things, like splinters. Then, in 2008, his wife was soothing his back with surgical spirit when the cotton swab she was using gathered a curious blue-black haze from his skin. Paul went out, bought a £40 microscope and examined the cotton. What were those curling, coloured fibres? He Googled the words: “Fibres. Itch. Sting. Skin.” And there was his answer. It must be: all the symptoms fitted. He had a new disease called morgellons. The fibres were the product of mysterious creatures that burrow and breed in the body. As he read on, he had no idea that morgellons would turn out to be the worst kind of answer imaginable.

Morgellons was named in 2001 by an American called Mary Leitao, whose son complained of sores around his mouth and the sensation of “bugs”. Examining him with a toy microscope, Leitao found him to be covered in unexplained red, blue, black and white fibres. Since then, workers at her Morgellons Research Foundation say they have been contacted by more than 12,000 affected families.Campaign group the Charles E Holman Foundation states there are sufferers in “every continent except Antarctica”. Thousands have written to Congress demanding action. In response, more than 40 senators, including Hillary Clinton, John McCain and a pre-presidential Barack Obama, pressured the Centres For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) to investigate; in 2006, it formed a special taskforce, setting aside $1m to study the condition. Sufferers include folk singer Joni Mitchell, who has complained of “this weird incurable disease that seems like it’s from outer space… Fibres in a variety of colours protrude out of my skin: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer – a terrorist disease. It will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year…”

Read the full article here

Artist Shout Out: Kit Leffler

“Chameleon Car Graveyard” –  Four-colour serigraph, 77 x 102 cm

“Bernard Matthews” – Four-colour photo litho, 42 x 59 cm

Kit Leffler is a collagist, photographer, incredible printmaker and an all around great person who The Rathaus is lucky enough to call a friend.  She graduated from the University of Kansas with an Expanded Media degree in 2007 and is currently working on her MFA at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.

According to Patriothall Gallery, home to Kit’s latest show Second Nature, which opens today, April 22:

Leffler’s works question the natural and artificial through appropriation, alteration, and manipulation of digital images –recalling the worlds of advertising and science fiction. Through this process she encourages viewers to examine our perception of and role within the natural world. This exhibition features multiple new series of printed works by Leffler, including Mirage, Meat Entrepreneurs, and Genetic Bottleneck. Three of the works included in the exhibition were executed at Belgium’s prestigious Frans Masereel Centrum during a two-week residency in which Leffler took part during March 2011.

Leffler’s practice implements visual anthropology as a way of investigating the human experience of the natural environment: it is her interest that the works generate discussion between viewers rather than preach a political stance. Her process juxtaposes imagery liberated from many diverse web image locations: ranging from machinery manufacturers to scientific databases to Blogger travel blogs. However, not all of Leffler’s imagery is appropriated from the web: some images are Leffler’s photographs taken during travel or in studio and some are donated for use, as is the case with Simon Buckhaven’s image in one of the Meat Entrepreneurs series.

After hearing a Radio 4 broadcast about the barrister/entrepreneur’s invention the Crustastun, Leffler was inspired to include Buckhaven in a portrait series that recognized major contributors to the food/meat industry and highlighted the ethical ambiguity of the corresponding machines. The Crustastun is a device that humanely expires shellfish with a quick electric jolt rather than slowly boiling alive. Due to Leffler’s interest in this topic, a dialogue has been created between the two and Buckhaven has kindly supplied Leffler with his photographic image for the portrait’s creation. This work will be exhibited for first time during Second Nature.

The public is invited to meet the artist at the opening reception on Friday, 22^nd April from 7-9 pm. The show runs until the April 30.

“Mirage (2)” – Four-colour serigraph, 77 x 102 cm

“Cornelius Van Der Lely” – Four-colour photo litho, 44 x 66 cm

See more of Kit’s work here

Watch: “The Mountain” – Time Lapse Video of the Milky Way

via the filmmaker Terje Sorgjerd:

This was filmed April 4th – 11th 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide. Spain´s highest mountain (3,715m/12,188ft) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. There was a lot of hiking at high altitudes and probably less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week. Having been here 10-11 times before I had a long list of must-see locations I wanted to capture for this movie, but I am still not 100% used to carrying around so much gear required for time-lapse movies.

A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the April 9th and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes.

Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.

Read: The 18 Most Suppressed Inventions Ever

Nikolai Tesla, presumably trying to figure out how it all went so wrong

Throughout history there have been countless attempts to discourage new technologies only to protect other people’s self-interests. From Gawker’s list of the 18 most suppressed technologies here are two we felt stood out both because of their far-reaching implications and the absurdity that surrounded their suppression.

#4: Nikolai Tesla’s Dream of Free Energy

Nikola Tesla was more than just the inspiration for a hair metal band, he was also an undisputed genius. In 1899, he figured out a way to bypass fossil-fuel-burning power plants and power lines, proving that “free energy” could be harnessed using ionization in the upper atmosphere to produce electrical vibrations. J.P. Morgan, who had been funding Tesla’s research, had a bit of buyer’s remorse when he realized that free energy for all wasn’t as profitable as, say, actually charging people for every watt of energy use. Morgan then drove another nail in free energy’s coffin by chasing away other investors, ensuring Tesla’s dream would die.

To learn more about Tesla, his life, his work and those who opposed his dream of free energy watch “The Missing Secrets of Nikola Tesla”, which is actually an episode from a 1998 show that took an in-depth look at topics from de-classified government documents called Phenomenon: The Lost Archives.

#11 Cold Fusion

Billions of dollars have been spent researching how to create energy using controlled “hot fusion,” a risky and unpredictable line of experimentation. Meanwhile, garage scientists and a fringe group of university researchers have been getting closer to harnessing the power of “cold fusion,” which is much more stable and controllable, but far less supported by government and foundation money. In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that they had made a breakthrough and had observed cold fusion in a glass jar on their lab bench. To say the reaction they received was chilly would be an understatement. CBS’s 60 Minutes described how the resulting backlash from the well-funded hot-fusion crowd sent the researchers underground and overseas, where within a few years their funding dried up, forcing them to drop their pursuit of clean energy.

For more info watch this episode of Phenomenon: The Lost Archives entitled “Heavy Watergate: The War Against Cold Fusion“.

Read the rest Gawker’s list here