Monuments and Metadata
May 24th, 2011
This has nothing to do with comics, but these haunting photos of abandoned Yugoslavian monuments have to be seen to be believed. Link via Paul Kedrosky and Tim O’Reilly.
Meanwhile, word comes from Dennis Vogel of his initiative to create a standardized set of Comics Metadata Specifications. Take a look at what Dennis has so far and see what you think.
[Update (via Carol Tilly): Apparently this effort has a predecessor.]
March 3, 2021
These are very inspiring and remind me of places in “The Tripods”, a series of science fiction novels that has been adapated for TV, too.
Interestingly, it seems to be Day of Monuments or so: I found these pictures today which show British interception equipment (called sound mirrors) from WWII.
The sound mirrors are more interesting due to the technical development of that time, but the Yugoslavian monuments were supposed strength and superiority, I guess (and yes, the monuments are clearly communicating this message!).
Those are pretty cool. I’ve never even heard of “sound mirrors.”
We live in a strange world.
The Belgian photographer, Jan Kempenaers, has traveled the many countries of the Balkans during the past decade and has recorded these monoliths with his camera. He has compiled several dozen of them into a book available at Amazon.com here http://www.amazon.com/Jan-Kempenaers-Spomenik/dp/9077459502/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306318987&sr=1-1
http://www.jankempenaers.info/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=762451387&sk=wall
“Kempenaers, as an artist, is interested not principally in the historical background or in the ongoing socio-political implications of these eroding artifacts; he is a photographer of a particular bent. I have found no personal or art-critical analysis of his intentions—but it is clear that the layout of his book follows the design precepts of what is often called “photo taxonomy.” Quoted from http://www.ascmag.com/blog/2011/02/28/spomenik%E2%80%94jan-kempenaers-and-%E2%80%9Cthe-end-of-history%E2%80%9D/
The best site for stuff like this used to be Artificial Owl, but he hasn’t updated in a long time
Ooh! Another good one. Thanks.