Madrid-based street artist Spy — whose work we spotted over on Design You Trust — creates clever pieces that are all about surprise. Mining the city for unlikely canvases, he transforms everyday (and often abandoned) urban locales into something brand new: a skate ramp becomes an indoor soccer field; an old swing set is reborn as a classic desk toy; a “Walk/Don’t Walk” sign is revamped with a third “Hail a Taxi” option. Click through for photos of some of his most amusing interventions.
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While the idea of light graffiti is nothing new, Australian photographer Denis Smith puts a fresh spin on it with his Ball of Light project — and without using any digital tricks. According to Peta Pixel, his technique is to spin a light around while slowly turning his body; when shot using a long exposure, this results in the otherworldly, yet strangely organic looking, spheres of light that haunt a variety of locations that range from the beach to an abandoned gas station. Click through for more stunning images from the series.
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For some reason London-based photographer Rob Matthews decided to print out all 2,559 of Wikipedia’s “featured articles” — which is about 5,000 pages worth of content — and this supersized tome is the end result. So what do you think of the project: Total waste of paper or a useful demonstration of how much information the internet helps us store? More importantly: How much do you think that sucker weighs?
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Last night Judd Apatow tweeted a photo of the cast of Sick In The Head, a late ’90s sitcom about “an inexperienced therapist” starring Amy Poehler, David Krumholtz, and Kevin Corrigan, that never made it off the ground. Considering that Poehler went on to join the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2001, and Apatow the Frat Pack filmmaker is much more successful than Apatow the failed TV show creator, maybe this is pop culture’s way of showing us that everything happens for a reason. Or maybe it’s just fun to see how young they look. [via Splitsider]
Photographer Eric Guth, who works with an expedition cruise company that sails to remote places like Alaska and the Arctic, has become an expert on glaciers over the past few years, shooting them from every possible angle. “What I appreciate about these structures (other than their beauty) and hope other people realize, is that they are always changing,” he has explained. “I love the fact that if a cave happens to exist a year from when I saw it last (which is rare) it is completely different and often unrecognizable. It is this fact — that my images of caves can and will never be duplicated — that excites me and makes for truly unique imagery.” Click through to check out more of his stunning photos of icy landscapes.
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While things not be going as well for her Olympic aquatics center in London, earlier this week Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House — which also happens to be her first completed project in China — opened its doors to the public. Inspired by “the organic forms of two fused boulders,” the geometric, waterfront structure houses a 1,800-seat auditorium, making it the third largest performance center in the country. Click through to get a better look at the space, including shots of the undulating interior and a behind-the-scenes look at the construction process.
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We wish that we weren’t so easily manipulated by tiny things but we are. We can’t help but love them, especially when they’re animal-related. This freshwater fishtank from Russian microminiature painter Anatoly Konenko — which only holds two tablespoons’ worth of water — may be the world’s smallest aquarium. If you squint really hard, you should be able to make out three zebrafish swimming around inside. Adorable. [The Daily Mail via Make]
Berlin-based photographer and illustrator Lisa Rienermann created this unique font out of buildings and blue skies while studying at the University of Duisburg-Essen; it was awarded a certificate of typographic excellence by the Type Directors Club New York back in 2007. “It began with the ‘Q,’” she has explained. “I was in a kind of courtyard in Barcelona. I looked upward and saw houses, the blue sky and clouds. The more I looked, I saw that the houses formed a letter Q.” Click through for a better look at some of the letters.
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Architect Didier Faustino’s Double Happiness, which was installed as part of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture, repurposes billboard space in a creative way that we can get behind. How much fun would it be if these swings started cropping up around the city? [via ANIMAL]
Yesterday Kenneth Cole — a brand known for its love of inappropriate, punny humor — posted a tone-deaf tweet that used the deadly riots in Egypt as a jumping off point for discussing its new spring collection. Following public outcry, the tweet was taken down, and there was a public apology from Kenneth himself on Facebook, who admitted that perhaps it was “poorly timed.” You think? While we’re not sure how long this prank in a store window in San Francisco lasted, it’s probably the most clever response we’ve seen to the gaffe yet. Now if only it would catch on in other cities! [via Boing Boing]