Meanwhile #164
Did we ever figure out what type of bird it was?
— Of Chickens, Eggs, and Cannonballs – Errol Morris’ investigation into Roger Fenton’s Valley of the Shadow of Death (1855), one of the earliest photographic records of warfare … and seemingly one of the first "faked” photographs.
— Does X mark the spot? How the creative industry feels about Twitter's rebrand. Personal hot take: oh god what now. The most baffling thing about all of this is Threads’ complete failure to grasp the opportunity offered by chaos; instead just twiddling their thumbs before the largest open goal in the history of the internet. All they have to do is fix their timeline to a chronological/follower-based one and they could convert everyone.
— Liberty Letters is a new capsule collection of bags, scarves, frocks, etc. that started with Pentagram creating dozens of experimental typographic patterns borne from the bespoke Lasenby Sans font they designed as part of the Liberty rebrand.
— “Failing in film doesn’t really feel like failing after all: it feels like experimenting, like an adventure. It feels like learning. These photos remind me of faded, long-forgotten memories that you’re trying to recollect so you can share the story with a friend. They’re grainy and textured as though they’ve lived a life and become gradually careworn.” Charlene Storey on the beauty of failure in film.
— Explores a history of illustration through the images, illustrators and events of the past 175 years with Philip Kennedy’s really rather splendid Illustration Chronicles. Would make a fantastic book – would be great to see this stuff in print.
— I’m clearing space on my shelves for Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art, the latest in Phaidon’s excellent, if rather confusingly titled (the previous Vitamin C was about works in clay and ceramic), Vitamin series.
— “On reflection, it’s very uncool” – Guardian readers share their childhood scrapbooks; cut-and-paste shrines to the likes of Roxy Music, Metallica and David Bowie. What I would give to still have my exceedingly cool Em and Ken scrapbook. I was obsessed.
Thank you to everyone who’s upgraded their subscription to get the weekly Five Rectangles visual digest post. So glad it’s going down well, and I really appreciate the support for this little mailing list of good found stuff. More to come!