On December 13, art trio Me (目), in collaboration with the Utsunomiya Museum of Art, created a gigantic balloon painted in the likeness of a local ojisan (old man) and then inflated to create “The Day an Ojisan’s Face Floated in the Sky” (おじさんの顔が空に浮かぶ日). (image by @kiyokoichi, via Spoon and Tamago)
This week, Santa’s Chinese elves, 200 journalists in prison, troll hunters, inequality and Uber, top selfie searches, art bros, and more.
Novelist Paul Auster has some choice words about New York after the Eric Garner case:
The real “elves” of Santa’s workshop (in China):
Christened “China’s Christmas village,” Yiwu is home to 600 factories that collectively churn out over 60% of all the world’s Christmas decorations and accessories, from glowing fibre-optic trees to felt Santa hats. The “elves” that staff these factories are mainly migrant labourers, working 12 hours a day for a maximum of £200 to £300 a month – and it turns out they’re not entirely sure what Christmas is.
More than 200 journalists are imprisoned for their work, reflecting a global surge in authoritarianism. China was the world’s worst jailer of journalists in 2014:
Hong Kong’s “Lennon Wall” has returned. The ad-hoc memorial/monument of colorful Post-it notes appeared on the wall of the Hong Kong Central Government Offices during the Umbrella protests. People are writing their democratic wishes for Hong Kong on the notes:
The Troll Hunters hunt down internet trolls:
It is generally no longer acceptable in public life to hurl slurs at women or minorities, to rally around the idea that some humans are inherently worth less than others, or to terrorize vulnerable people. But old-school hate is having a sort of renaissance online, and in the countries thought to be furthest beyond it. The anonymity provided by the Internet fosters communities where people can feed on each other’s hate without consequence. They can easily form into mobs and terrify victims. Individual trolls can hide behind dozens of screen names to multiply their effect. And attempts to curb online hate must always contend with the long-standing ideals that imagine the Internet’s main purpose as offering unfettered space for free speech and marginalized ideas. The struggle against hate online is so urgent and difficult that the law professor Danielle Citron, in her new book Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, calls the Internet “the next battleground for civil rights.”
Is the secret to Uber’s success inequality? This is a thought-provoking piece:
These luxuries are not new. I took advantage of them long before Uber became a verb, before the world saw the first iPhone in 2007, even before the first submarine fibre-optic cable landed on our shores in 1997. In my hometown of Mumbai, we have had many of these conveniences for at least as long as we have had landlines—and some even earlier than that.
It did not take technology to spur the on-demand economy. It took masses of poor people.
19th-century writer Jane Austen’s advice on being a writer, including:
The work is rather too light and bright and sparkling: it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story … something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style.
The top Google “selfie” searches for 2014:
- Selfie Olympics
- Monkey Selfie
- Oscar Selfie
- Obama Selfie
- Squirrel Selfie
- David Ortiz Selfie
- Zach Mettenberger Selfie
- Colin Powell Selfie
- Elephant selfie
- Shark selfie
Artist Jennifer Chan helps us understand what an “Art Bro” is … well done:
A North Korean update to the infamous Oscar selfie:
The 233 “best” viral videos of 2014 in less than seven minutes:
A video of the real war on Christmas, cats vs. Christmas trees! (via Boingboing)
Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.
