2008 January Archive at the nunu

1.23.08

The New Black

[fig. 1: carbon nanotubes]

From the frontiers of human knowledge:

A group of nanotechnology researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic have succeeded in creating “the blackest material known to science”. By shaping a whole bunch of carbon nanotubes into a light-sucking ‘forest’ of darkness, the Rensselaer group came up with a hockey puck of extremely black, extremely chic metal which absorbs 99.6 percent of all the light hitting it. “When we were trying to do some experiments with, you know, light and laser beams,” said one of the inventors, “We couldn’t find the beam for a while because [the hell-of black disc] is absorbing so much.”

Guest nunu contributor Ryan Saylor talked to Dr. Jessica Thomas, an editor at the monthly research journal Nature Nanotechnology, about just how black the future looks for fashion.

the nunu: What are the implications for using this substance as a garment?

Dr: Thomas: This is just a guess here, but I think that one limitation would be how flexible one could make these materials. The authors of the study grew carbon nanotubes, which are cylinders of a single layer of carbon (one atom thick), on a flat substrate. I have seen such things before and they look like a furry, black carpet (it might remind you of the soft side of a Velcro snap). They didn’t say in the paper what this substrate was – likely some sort of metal or semiconductor. I don’t know that it would be so practical to grow these nanotubes on a large scale surface; rather, you could maybe have to ‘plate’ together a bunch of these miniature substrates. By the way, the touted applications at the end of this article are solar cells and detectors.

Yeah, those will be awesome probably. So, can we make nano-thin, nano-black tops/stockings?

The nanotubes are only about 10 nanometers in diameter [Ed. note: very small], but they are almost 1 millimeter long. I gathered from the paper that the thickness is important here because light gets trapped in the thick carbon nanotube carpet. I have never measured the thickness of my stockings, but I am pretty sure they are much less than a mm thick!

Continue reading ‘The New Black’

Keywords: fashion. 1 Comment

1.7.08

Grid

Renata

“This structure [the grid], impervious both to time and to incident, will not permit the projection of language into the domain of the visual, and the result is silence. This silence is not due simply to the extreme effectiveness of the grid as a barricade against speech, but to the protectiveness of its mesh against all intrusions from outside. No echoes of footsteps from empty rooms, no scream of birds across open skies, no rush of distant water — for the grid has collapsed the spatiality of nature onto the bounded surface of a purely cultural object. With its proscription of nature as well as of speech, the result is still more silence. And in this new-found quiet, what many artists thought they could hear was the beginning, the origins of Art.”

–Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde, 1981

Keywords: art. 0 Comments

1.3.08

You Can Have Your Fur And Eat It Too

Renata

A 1950s self-help book, or the definition of the enjoyment of smoked sable?

The fur coat of smoked fish.

Get thee to Russ & Daughters pronto for this, the “poor man’s sturgeon.”

Keywords: food. 0 Comments

1.3.08

Animal Helmets to equal quality of life?

Sarah

Beau Buck Animal Helmets.

Crow Animal helmet by Beau Buck as seen in Susan Cianciolo’s Spring 2008 Collection.
A black leather panther helmet in lieu of an Ipod to shield your ears from contamination via early morning subway’s verbal inanities.
A proclamation of your implied character for the day in visceral visual style [today i am a bear, hear me growl].
Altering appearances via scalpel is so bourgeois and hackneyed.

Keywords: fashion. 0 Comments

1.3.08

“Blog.mode” addressing the right for inclusion and taste.

Sarah

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute.
“Blog.Mode: Addressing Fashion” thru April 13.

Head Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, Harold Koda was quoted as saying “….fashion is so familiar, so ubiquitous to our experience that it is inherently and immediately accessible”.
With this in mind The Costume Institute has launched an exhibition to “spark dialogue”, inviting viewers to verbalize thoughts via the blogosphere.

Of course when entering into such a world, one still recoils in horror upon hearing “OMG that is soooo weird ewww” regarding an exquisite amber-wood corset by Hussein Chalayan that i personally would wear with glee then place as a sculpture upon the mantle.
But then, this concept may not be about the exhibited individual pieces [including a breathtaking Olivier Theyskens grey, twisted wing gown or a 1940's Dior dress resembling a chic tulip succubus] per se.
The basement of The Costume Institute in fact became for me the microcosm of the macrocosm.
The point is that this kind of exhibit can now exist in The Met. It is in itself a form of dialogue about society and culture.
It is a commentary on the culture of blogging, where anyone can create a world through the dialogue of thoughts and critique, but it is ultimately based on personal taste.
Through democratic technology and the current [non-democratic] economic structure of the fashion industry, the floodgates are open and you no longer have to be an “insider” to voice an opinion.
Should “just anyone” be able to critique Rei Kawakubo?
Sure, it’s open to discussion, it’s freedom of speech- to prevent this dialogue leads to a fascist fashion society.
Ultimately it is up to the viewer or reader to be a skillful editor and to maintain confidence in their personal tastes. Unmarred, despite the outside forces of fashionable economic, social or cultural trends.
At the end of the day do i respect the opinion of the loud gum-chewing ugg boot clad gaggles giving me and Miguel Androver’s mattress ticking the hairy eyeball?
Not really.
Am i surprised to see the bland, misspelled commentary they left on the museum’s blog?
No, not really. But i wasn’t relying on them to enrich my aesthetic well-being anyway.
However, the fluidity of a mushroom-pleated silk and natural horsehair Helmut Lang gown is vital in my quest for a spectacular visual reality.

Keywords: fashion. 0 Comments

1.3.08

Puce moments.

Sarah

In complete agreement with RE’s previous post regarding Kenneth Anger’s “Puce Moment”.
Make sure to watch “The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume One” where you can hear droll yet informative commentary by Anger himself.
Includes my personal favorite about star “Puce” chaise lounger Yvonne Marquis becoming the mistress of the Mexican President.
As Anger puts it “that’s just as good as a Hollywood film career”.