#smooth – @nickkahler on Tumblr

Linked to the ground, to the surrounding earth, the bunker, for camouflage, tends to coalesce with the geological forms whose geometry results from the forces and exterior conditions that for centuries have modeled them. The bunker's form anticipates this erosion by suppressing all superfluous forms; the bunker is prematurely worn and smoothed to avoid all impact. It nestles in the uninterrupted expanse of the landscape and disappears from our perception, used as we are to bearings and markers.

Paul Virilio, Bunker Archaeology, 1975

nickkahler

Lawrence Weiner, Use Enough to Make It Smooth Enough, c. 2010

#lawrence weiner #use #enough #smooth #function #assumption #art #wall #painting #conceptual art #surface #rectangle

nickkahler

We think of this kind of nature as a nice harmonious, periodic cycling. There’s a physical reason for that. We started our settled mode of existence (the Neolithic) at the start of the Holocene, which was characterized by nice periodic cycling Earth systems (you know, the carbon cycle and so on). The funny thing is, we might have even caused that cycling ourselves through farming and hunting and so on! But even if we didn’t, so-called civilization was (dangerously) coincident with a nice harmonious cycling biosphere that was able therefore to run in the background like a smoothly functioning OS and thus massively contributed to this idea of humans-and-their-cattle-over-here, nature-over-there. Lulled by that myth of smooth functioning, we kept on and on running the logistical program that started in the Fertile Crescent and elsewhere, until it required fossil fuels to keep going. ... So the really extreme way of putting it is, nature is the Anthropocene in its less obvious, seemingly smooth (for humans) mode.

Timothy Morton, “On Object-Oriented Ontology,” 2016

nickkahler

Constantin Brancusi, L‘oiseau, 1923/47

#constantin brancusi #bird #pedestal #sculpture #art #smooth #carve

nickkahler

But from whichever it is made, whether from oats, barley or wheat, it harms the head and the stomach, it causes bad breath and ruins the teeth, it fills the stomach with bad fumes, and as a result anyone who drinks it along with wine becomes drunk quickly; but it does have the property of facilitating urination and makes one's flesh white and smooth.

Aldobrandino of Siena, "On Brewing," 1256

#aldobrandino #siena #italy #beer #brewing #oat #barley #wheat #stomach #teeth #fume #bad #wine #drunk #white #smooth

nickkahler

Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany, 1912

How many representations of aliens have been modeled after this face?

#constantin brancusi #mademoiselle #pogany #mademoiselle pogany #sculpture #smooth #form #human figure #white #marble #stone #material #pedestal #figure #countenance #female #woman #eye

nickkahler

Constantin Brancusi, Portrait of Eileen Lane, c. 1922

#constantin brancusi #portrait #eileen lane #design #art #sculpture #form #figure #human figure #woman #female #stone #smooth #rough #object

nickkahler

Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory.

Benoit Mandelbrot, "On Smoothness," c. 1990

#benoit mandelbrot #mathematics #science #ivory tower #tower #factory #design #shape #smooth #importance #math #rare #rarity #wild