Ai Wei Wei’s ground-bound installation ‘he xie’ collects the forms of hundreds porcelain crabs situated in a heap in the main exhibition space.

The work is saturated in social symbolism; ‘he xie’ translates to ‘river crab’ but sounds very similar to the mandarin word meaning ‘harmonization’, the state’s euphemism suggesting censorship.

The political double meaning evident in the sculptural work is emblematic of the artist’s dexterity in creating metaphorical solutions in art.

Via Complex

This year the bearded Buddha of beats has been more of a presence in hip-hop than any since he left Def JAm: Playing a crucial role in Kanye West’s ground-breaking album Yeezus and more recently co-executive producing Eminem’s triumphant The Marshall Mathers LP 2 with Dr. Dre. (No, Rubin didn’t work on Jay Z’s Magna Carta…Holy Grail, although that was him laying on the couch in the commercial.) We’ve already heard how stoked Em was to work with the man he calls “Yoda,” now pull up a chair and listen to Rubin’s perspective on working with Slim Shady.

How did you and Eminem come to collaborate on MMLP2?
I think it just worked out timing wise where the universe worked to make us get together at this time. We just went into the studio a couple of different of times for a few weeks at a time. Started up a bunch of songs and then some inspired vocals more than others and those ended up being the ones that he ended up pursuing.

What was the process like with Em? What exactly went on? Were you making beats? Were you talking about creative direction?
Probably all of those things. I collected up lots of possible ideas of starting points. A lot of samples and a lot of beat ideas and I’d play him a bunch of stuff and just say, “Tell me which of these feels like a good starting point.” And then he would pick a bunch of them and then we would develop each of those a little bit. And then he would listen to them and say, “OK, these are the ones I want to work on.” Then he would take them to write and then we would find more stuff.

Read more — here.

I have been an Eminem fan since I was little. This man is a true artist. While some may agree or disagree with his work, it is important to keep in mind what an artist’s job is — to force you to have an opinion. 

We Hope that everyone begins to see each other as One.

Image via Interscope Record

The Atlantic asked a group of historians, scientists, and engineers to rank the 50 greatest innovations since the invention of the wheel. Here they are.

1. The printing press, 1430s

The printing press was nominated by 10 of our 12 panelists, five of whom ranked it in their top three. Dyson described its invention as the turning point at which “knowledge began freely replicating and quickly assumed a life of its own.”

2. Electricity, late 19th century

And then there was light—and Nos. 4, 9, 16, 24, 28, 44, 45, and most of the rest of modern life.

3. Penicillin, 1928

Accidentally discovered in 1928, though antibiotics were not widely distributed until after World War II, when they became the silver bullet for any number of formerly deadly diseases

Read on — here. 

Via Kottke

Jon Negroni does fun, creative work explaining why, “Every pixar movie is connected.”

Several months ago, I watched a fun-filled video on Cracked.com that introduced the idea (at least to me) that all of the Pixar movies actually exist within the same universe. Since then, I’ve obsessed over this concept, working to complete what I call “The Pixar Theory,” a working narrative that ties all of the Pixar movies into one cohesive timeline with a main theme.

This theory covers every Pixar production since Toy Story. 

The point of this theory is to have fun and exercise your imagination while simultaneously finding interesting connections between these fantastic movies. If you hate fun and/or imagination, you probably won’t like this theory

Check it out —- here.

Via Big Think

The mega-entrepreneur of the year is probably Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and very recently bought the Washington Post. Certainly lots of people are focusing their hopes and fears on what Bezos might do next.

Here’s one hopeful sign: Bezos has put PowerPoint out of his business. One reason is that he has a humane man’s aversion to cruelty. Think about how much time sophisticated Americans have spent enduring the torture of literally billions and billions of PowerPoint presentations over the last couple of decades. Where PowerPoint goes, intellectual enjoyment disappears. From my perspective as a teacher, what I mostly see is that PowerPoint makes both teachers and students lazy, as “coherent narratives” are transformed into bullet points. The era of PowerPoint is also the era of the buzzword or buzz-phrase, such as “disruptive innovation.” It is also, of course, the era of management-speak, “branding,” and such.

Bezos demands that his employees not use PowerPoint. Instead, they’re required to write “6-page narrative memos.” Before the meeting begins, everyone takes the time to read the whole memo. That, of course, doesn’t take that long, and reading, more than listening, focuses attention on actual arguments. And, of course, the person who writes the memo has to make make sense or be subject to attack, ridicule, or even being fired. Bezos has returned us to the obvious thought that the point of sentences and paragraphs and such is to facilitate clear and critical thinking.  He noticed that too many of his employees were having so much fun designing PowerPoint slides that they were forgetting to think.

Read more — here.

22,000 poster sites, 57 works of art, 2 weeks – this charitable art project has transformed billboards and poster sites across the UK into great British masterpieces chosen by you.

Check it out — here.

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”

~Albert Einstein