"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
Once upon a time two merchants lived in a certain town just on the verge of a stream. One of them was a Russian, the other a Tartar; both were rich. But the Russian got so utterly ruined by some business or other that he...
In the age of every Bill and Richard launching a digital crusade, we’ve come to believe that the tools of the past must bow to the technologies of the future. Like the sword giving way to the raygun, or the book to the neural implant,...
Some books demand to be read not only because they pioneered something new, but because, decades later, they remain unmatched in their brilliance. Stanisław Lem’s Solaris is one of those rare works that manages to be both the first of its kind and still the...
In a certain kingdom there lived an old couple in great poverty. Sooner or later the old woman died. It was in winter, in severe and frosty weather. The old man went round to his friends and neighbors, begging them to help him to dig...
Ignazio Gardella: who was this guy? Ignazio Gardella (born Mario in 1905 – 1999) was one of the most incisive and restless figures of Italian modernism, a man who managed to embody both rigour and a certain dose of rebellion (though never enough to convince him...
There was once an old woman who was a terrible witch, and she had a daughter and a granddaughter. The time came for the old crone to die, so she summoned her daughter and gave her these instructions: “Mind, daughter! when I’m dead, don’t you wash...
There is a scene, or rather a sensation, that repeats itself across time and professions: the quiet frustration of waiting for an answer that never comes, submitting an output whose purpose is unclear, knocking — figuratively or literally — on a door that leads only...
I first discovered the exhibition almost by chance, when a friend suggested we visit the aquarium in Monaco on our way back from a vacation and, as we approached the Musée Océanographique, your eyes might miss the towering poster on its facade: a luminous vision...
In a certain village there lived a husband and wife—lived happily, lovingly, peaceably. All their neighbors envied them; the sight of them gave pleasure to honest folks. Well, the mistress bore a son, but directly after it was born she died. The poor moujik moaned...
There’s something uncanny about building a model of a building that predates the idea of modelling itself. A Romanesque church, a Baroque theatre, a medieval stronghold—they were never drawn in plan, never imagined in 3D software. And yet, here we are, holding laser scanners, waving...
