Around The Web | What We’re Reading
Sofia Coppola, a Belgian hermit and Bill O’Reilly – not a group of people often uttered in the same sentence, but this week we have chosen a handful of some of the best discoveries around the web from all cultural corners. Sit back and enjoy the Coppola style world created for Calvin Klein, explore the life of the surfers and beach bums leading the #vanlife social media craze or take a glimpse at the future according to Facebook, where we will no longer need to type to say what we are thinking.
Here are the week’s best bites:
“Her status as the grande dame of the avant-garde is consistently unchallenged. Ask any designer which other designer he admires and the answer, inevitably, is Kawakubo.” Ahead of the upcoming Met Gala dedicated to her work titled ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’, take a look at how the revolutionary designer has altered the face of fashion for almost half a century.
“The series of black-and-white vignettes are typical Coppola – gorgeous and slow, laced with intimate details.” Watch a new series of short films directed by cult film maker Sofia Coppola for Calvin Klein, featuring the likes of Kirsten Dunst and Lauren Hutton discussing their first kiss and corny pick up lines.
“Like the best marketing terms, ‘vanlife’ is both highly specific and expansive. It’s a one-word lifestyle signifier that has come to evoke a number of contemporary trends: a renewed interest in the American road trip, a culture of hippie-inflected outdoorsiness, and a life free from the tyranny of a nine-to-five office job.” Explore the bohemian social media movement #vanlife that is making our quest for the simple life into a lifestyle brand.
“A Belgian man has won a competition to live as a hermit in a cliffside cell above an Austrian town…he said he had long dreamed of becoming a hermit but the opportunity had not arisen.” Find out how a former artillery officer wants to escape from the outside world to this gruelling life in a 350-year-old Austrian hermitage.
“This should have been a really, really good year for Fox News…but with the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency not yet completed, Fox News seems to be on the verge of falling apart in 2017.” With the announcement of Bill O’Reilly leaving and numerous other blows, this is why the biggest conservative channel is suffering.
“This is about decoding the words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain.” At Facebook’s F8 conference, they announced that they are working on a way to let you type with your brain. Is this just another invasion of privacy?
“People tend to associate phrases like ‘a higher state of consciousness’ with hippy speak and mystical nonsense. This is potentially the beginning of the demystification, showing its physiological and biological underpinnings”. Research into the effects of psychedelic drugs on brain function continues to prove the benefits, as new evidence from brain scans shows. We explored this exciting area of research in our insightful feature with Professor David Nutt.
“In an age of fake news and questions about how politicians and others manipulate data to fit their biases, Mr Ballmer’s project may serve as a powerful antidote…at the best it could settle a lot of bets made during public policy debates at the dinner table.” Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is launching a website aimed at giving US citizens a transparent look at government budgets
