i-eclectica.org

Robert Banks (born 1974), better known as Banksy, is a well-known yet pseudo-anonymous English graffiti artist from Yate near Bristol. His artworks are often satirical pieces of art which encompass topics from politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti with a distinctive stencilling technique, has appeared in London and in cities around the world. Banksy’s stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-establishment or pro-freedom. Subjects include animals such as monkeys and rats, policemen, soldiers, children and the elderly. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phonebox), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur’s 2003 album Think Tank.

Rather than giving more background information on Banksy (which for example is available on Wikipedia), I think the best way to portray him is through a number of high profile stunts, which he claimed responsibility for, plus of course his art work. Another place to visit is certainly his website.

• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted ‘We’re bored of fish’ in seven foot high letters.
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message ‘I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.’ in the elephant enclosure.
• In January 2001, he travelled to the areas controlled by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Chiapas, Mexico, and in sign of solidarity with their movement, painted murals with scenes depicting the struggle and also made stencils on the walls of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
• He put up a subverted painting in London’s Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy’s version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was found hanging in the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, the museum added it to their permanent collection. [Check out video below]
• Banksy has sprayed ‘This is not a photo opportunity’ on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.
• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: “This is a stunning visual comment on BT’s transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider.”



• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go. After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as “Why am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?” and “What Am I For?”. Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog’s head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption 90% of success is just showing up.
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California. [Check out video below].

“If you feel dirty, insignificant and unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society and they have sex fifty times a day.”

The following video show Banksy in action; click on each image to download video; Quicktime needed to watch them.

Ich weiss nicht viel ueber den hintergrund dieser wiege; nur dass sie von linas urgrossvater, der unter anderem geigen baut, gemacht wurde, und dass sie sicher ein kuscheliges bettchen sein wird fuer sie. als gunda geboren wurde, waren wiegen total aus der mode - ist das ein moderevival, oder ein mehr ernsthaftes ‘zurueck zur natur’ ?

The following post comes from Engadget, and I am not reposting it here not just because of the Nintendo playhouse but also for the links in the article. Sometimes my own consumerist obsessions become a bit of a worry to me, but reading all this I all of a sudden feel very healthy.

Fanboys (and girls) with enough cashflow and skill can certainly drop a few jaws with their heartfelt creations / collections, and while the Mac cathedral certainly holds a special place in the hearts of Apple freaks abroad, the Nintendo playhouse doesn’t fare too badly either. While the production certainly isn’t perfect from an architectural viewpoint, the creativity and sheer brilliance of such a domicile is worthy of applause, as the life-sized Game Boy, littering of characters, and barrage of retro inspirations are enough to make just about anyone show some respect. Unfortunately, we’ve absolutely no idea where in the world this palace is located, but until the quest to locate it finally concludes, be sure and hit the read link for homegrown Nintendo mania.

UPDATE: We’ve been informed that this was a part of the spring carnival at Carnegie Mellon University, and we owe this honor to Sigma Phi Epsilon, who had the hand in constructing it. Kudos!

Spying and phreaking are widely-spread in the world of computing and mobile phones, but this method here was new to me. In 1985 a Dutch researcher called Wim van Eck delivered a paper on what then became known as van Eck phreaking (even though it was not related to mobile phones). He found that it is possible to tune into radio emissions produced by the electromagnetic coil of a CRT, thus eavesdropping on the images displayed on it and reconstructing them on a remote screen. The same method still seems to work with modern LED screens. Markus Kuhn presented a paper at the 4th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies in May 2004 in Toronto, Canada on the topic. Below is the abstract of this paper:

“Electromagnetic eavesdropping of computer displays – first demonstrated to the general public by van Eck in 1985 – is not restricted to cathode-ray tubes. Modern flat-panel displays can be at least as vulnerable. They are equally driven by repetitive video signals in frequency ranges where even shielded cables leak detectable radio waves into the environment. Nearby eavesdroppers can pick up such compromising emanations with directional antennas and wideband receivers. Periodic averaging
can lift a clearly readable image out of the background noise. The serial Gbit/s transmission formats used by modern digital video interfaces in effect modulate the signal, thereby making it even better suited for remote reception than emanations from analog systems. Understanding the exact transmission format used leads to new attacks and defenses. We can tune screen colors for optimal remote readability by eavesdroppers. We can likewise modify text-display routines to render the radio emanations unreadable.”

Via Engadget

Another useful project (even though its potential is only partly realised) … via Engadget.

” We’re not entirely sure if Manchester’s CIS Solar Tower will be the world’s grandest solar tower, but in terms of buildings have moved beyond the drawing board, it definitely packs a punch. Reportedly, the flaky construction led to dilapidating walls, which were then replaced by a much greener solution — 7,244 Sharp 80W photovoltaic panels, to be precise. Curiously, only 4,898 of the modules are actually functional, but they still soak up enough sunlight to generate 390-kilowatts of energy, or in layman’s terms, enough juice to “power 1,000 PCs for a year.” Additionally, the roof is home to two dozen wind turbines that generate 10-percent of the total power used in the building. Of course, such an endeavor did ring up at a steep £5.675 million ($11.4 million), but we’re pretty certain this solar panel makeover was concerned with matters other than dollars and cents. Click on through for a top-down shot.”