Art
The Wind-Powered Kinetic Sculpture Pulsing Behind the Olympic Cauldron
The kinetic sculpture behind the Rio 2016 Olympic cauldron is so hypnotic you might not have noticed the flame itself is rather tiny compared to past games.
Latest
Books
The Deceptively Cheerful Stripes of Deadly Fumigation Tents
You'd think that fun lies with their walls of colorful stripes, but inside the bright tents is the deadly gas of sulfuryl fluoride, quietly building up to eliminate nesting drywood termites.
Art
The 2016 Rio Olympics Medals Embrace Sustainable Design
Athletes at the Rio 2016 Olympics will be taking home bits of recycled mirrors, car parts, and X-ray plates in their medals as part of design aimed at sustainability.
Art
A Mini-Ecosystem Creates a Buzz at Socrates Sculpture Park
As numerous dump trucks circled a corner of Socrates Sculpture Park, transporting several tons of new soil, what appeared to have been routine landscape maintenance was actually the curation of a new mini-ecosystem, "A Concave Room for Bees."
Art
We Gave Medals to the Best Art at the Rio Olympics
They're all about sports, but that doesn't mean the 2016 Rio Olympics have no room for art.
Art
Cao Fei’s Fantastical Take on China’s Sociopolitical Climate
In Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities, Marco Polo regales Kublai Khan with tales of his travels, musing about the strange poetry of each city and their intersections with memory and selfhood.
Comics
The Freelance Olympics
One hurdle after another.
Opinion
Vanessa Beecroft Publicly Airs a Racist Perspective
One can only imagine the patience and tolerance required of New York Magazine writer Amy Larocca to spend time with Vanessa Beecroft and listen to the utter absurdity spewing from the artist’s mouth.
Art
Digitizing the World's Largest Braille Music Collection
Digitizing braille music isn't as easy as just scanning the page. The tactile notations require multiple steps for accurate transcription, and their history of touch means the dots are sometimes smashed or otherwise unreadable.
Art
Interactive Maps of the Metropolitan Museum Offer Fresh Views of Its Permanent Collections
It's fun to wander around the Metropolitan Museum of Art without a paper guide, but students in the School of Visual Arts' MFA Visual Narrative program have created a number of creative, interactive maps for the museum well worth consulting.
Interview
Retracing a Lifetime of Urban Activism Through Jane Jacob's Last Interview
"The kind of planning for a city that would really work would be a sort of informed, intelligent improvisation, which is what most of our planning in life is in any case," said Jane Jacobs in a 1962 interview with Mademoiselle, conducted just after the 1961 publication of her influential The Death a
Art
In Phnom Penh, an Artist Confronts the City’s Deadly Traffic
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In Phnom Penh, cars drive like motorcycles, motorcycles drive between lanes and on sidewalks, and even the police don't seem to care much about traffic lights.