Daft Punk’s members Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter have been involved in various films before, but Tron Legacy will be their first complete feature film score. The film, scheduled for a December 2011 release in Disney 3D, is helmed by Joseph Kosinski and will feature Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett. Tron Legacy will play as the “next chapter” after the first film, with Wilde starring as one of the heroes trying to help fighting the Master Control Program, the evil intelligence protocol that was the nemesis in the 1982 film.

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Bonus: These screenshots highlight Tron’s stunning visuals.

Among other destinations, Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners.

With only 20 aircraft built, the development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidized by their governments to buy the aircraft. As a result of the type’s only crash on 25 July 2000, economic effects arising from the 11 September 2001 attacks, and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003. The last retirement flight occurred on 26 November 2003. A former Air France Concorde is undergoing restoration works, and is hoped to be flying in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

British Airways and Air France Concorde

Concorde

Concorde wrapped in Pepsi-Cola graphics during rebranding of Pepsi

Concorde viewed from underneath

Concorde taking off

Concorde is a majestic aircraft

Concorde cockpit

Concorde black and white

The story follows the blessed path of Chancy the gardener, a man of mysterious roots who speaks in parables and through blind chance finds himself on the path to absolute power.

Peter Sellers walks through the city after years of isolation

Chancy the gardener

Peter Sellers, stunningly handsome, as Chancy the gardener

Chancy encounters youths on the city streets

Melvyn Douglas in Being There

Melvyn Douglas in Being there

Shirley MacLaine in Being There

Being There

Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine in Being There

Chancy Gardener is headed for the White House in Being There

Shirley Temple is (almost) overcome with lust in Being There

Peter Sellers in Being There

Melvyn Douglas is laid to rest in Being There

Peter Sellers walks on water in the closing scene of Being There

Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS (closer)

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

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The reins of power in the competition were ultimately in the hands of Francis Newberry, the Director of the School of art, and Mackintosh’s former teacher and friend. The importance of Newberry in terms of encouraging Mackintosh’s creative individuality was an important factor in both his education and the commission for the School. Financial constraints led to the building being constructed in two stages, the first from late 1897 to 1899, and the second (western) portion from 1907 to 1909.

The completed building is a towering rectangular block with almost no decoration, an austere statement and bold break away from the traditional methods of architectural adornment. Its lack of obvious historical references, the apparent over-scaling of the windows, the lack of classical references, the absence of sculptural embellishments, the asymmetrical facade and the severity of the structure caused much adverse comment at the time of its construction.

The facades of the four main elevations are each different and every interior and exterior aspect of the building is meticulously detailed. It is an original and important building, has been described as ‘a bold barrier against the tide of revivalism and historicism’, and there is a view that it represents the start of modern architecture.

Thomas Howarth, one of the early Mackintosh scholars considered that ‘no single detail of the Glasgow School of Art is borrowed from a historical source’ and Pevsner in reference to the building says that ‘not a single feature here is derived from period styles’. These views have been overtaken by more recent research and it is recognised that the School is a synthesis of multiple influences, all brought under the controlling hand of Mackintosh.

Mackintosh borrowed significantly from his knowledge of Scottish architecture and many of the identifiable sources are essentially reinterpretations of Scottish themes. The long main facade has an affinity to the cliff walls of castles like Linlithgow and Huntly. The eastern elevation is redolent with themes of the Scottish medieval and baronial that Mackintosh said was ‘dear to his heart’. It clearly recalls castle architecture, particularly in the irregular fenestration, the massive walls, the turreted tower house like appearance, and the replay of devices, such as slit and randomly placed windows, all deriving from Mackintosh’s sketchbook studies of vernacular architecture.

Mackintosh’s use of Scottish motifs can be understood against the background of a developing awareness in the cultural environment of late 19th century Scotland of Celtic traditions. In a lecture, in 1891, on Scottish baronial architecture, Mackintosh expressed the view that it was the only style that could be defined as wholly indigenous to Scotland. He was also a friend of Patrick Geddes, who was active in promoting the Celtic Revival. Mackintosh’s own interest in Scotland’s architectural past would have been fostered and supplemented by the appearance of The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland (1887-1892), by MacGibbon & Ross.

In terms of detail, Celtic themes can perhaps be most clearly seen in the Scottish claymore basket hand-guard forms of the elaborate metal brackets on the windows of the front facade. These metal brackets are poetic, each one taking a different form and seeming to grow organically, and yet entirely practical, acting as braces for the mullions of the studio windows and window cleaning platforms. They are examples of ‘decorated construction’, which would have satisfied the philosophical approach detailed in the writings of Ruskin, Morris and Pugin. Pugin’s rule was that ‘there shall be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety’. The brackets are also characteristic of Mackintosh’s belief that ‘construction should be decorated, and not decoration constructed,’ in other words that ‘the salient and most requisite features should be selected for ornamentation’.He believed that his method of design allowed the ‘facility of converting structural and useful features into elements of beauty’ and applied this theory at the School to great effect.

Mackintosh was also interested in Japanese idioms, which represented a historically unencumbered architectural source, and these were absorbed as inspiration into his work. The black metal fence around the north frontage is interspersed with spars surmounted by cryptic roundels depicting stylised insect and animal forms. These shapes and abstractions from nature have been shown to have a commonality with the traditional heraldic crests of the Japanese family clans. The Japanese influence is also evident in the windows of the western gable, the use of open screens and the wood pegging in the library and the main stairwell. In a more general sense the interpretation of spaces, the rectilinear geometry of the building and the conception of rhythm have a distinct Japanese quality. The School of Art also reflects the skills of the Japanese in assembling a perfectly balanced composition from simple forms.

Mackintosh was also aware of progressive theorists in England who were interested in creating a new architectural vocabulary progressing from, but not overwhelmed by, historical forms, and he joined their ideas with an undercurrent of Scottishness in his own thinking. The School reveals hints of his familiarity with the work of these contemporaries in England. The oriels on the front elevation and the heart-shaped perforations in the arched roof trusses of the first floor landing area are both in the tradition of Voysey. Devices used by Norman Shaw in his New Zealand Chambers Building, London, of 1871, and Smith and Brewer in their Mary Ward Settlement, Tavistock Place, London, of 1895 also make paraphrased appearances.

The building was criticised on its completion for representing Art Nouveau and although there are Art Nouveau motifs such as the sculpture over the main entrance door, the building is not clearly Art Nouveau in its overall design. However, it does follow the precept of Art Nouveau as being more of an ‘anti-movement’ than a cohesive style, reflecting a desire to break with the eclecticism and historicism which prevailed, and incorporating ornamentation as integral rather than applied. Mackintosh absorbs many influences in an entirely personal way to create his own Art Nouveau language.

Eclecticism was one of Mackintosh’s greatest strengths, since he had the ability to transform divergent references into a cohesive statement in which each was distilled and strengthened. His main sources for such transformations were the sketchbooks he kept on his European travels, especially to Italy, and throughout Britain. They reveal significant powers of observation, attention to detail, and skill in drawing and provided an enduring directory to which Mackintosh constantly added and consulted. He had an assimilative ability which has been compared to that of Frank Lloyd Wright, who had the opportunity to evolve over a lengthy period rather than being criticised for being too avant garde.

Added to this are Mackintosh’s interest in, and use of, modern materials and techniques such as the large, industrial, braced windows and his innovative use of electric light and sealed unit construction. His defined purpose was also to build the School from the interior spaces outwards, the logic of the interior plan dictating the nature of the elevations, which had a significant effect on the overall appearance of the building.

It is, therefore, demonstrable that many themes and details of the School are derived from other sources, which Mackintosh adopts and then adapts. While this mixture of influences may sound as if it would lead to a confusing jumble, the overall impression of the Glasgow School of Art is of simplicity and clarity, the holistic mass of the building being superior to the sum of the details. This is due to Mackintosh’s ability to amalgamate many diverse ideas, along with themes of his own imaginative invention, into a fresh new approach. The logic of his planning and sureness of his design skills yield a strongly structured composition in which the elements are harmoniously united and have an eclectic unity. It is derivative yet innovative, fusing disparate threads to yield a completely original creation that has become an architectural icon.

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Vestibule

Auditorium

Theater Lobby

Marquee by day

Street View

Back at the dawn of microblogging time, when Twitter had only just started, there were only three users who mattered: Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey – the three key people behind the service. Now there are more than a hundred million users – but the key influencers in this huge network can be quite easily identified.

Now the team at Information Architects have decided to come up with a neat Twitter visualisation, akin to The Independent’s classic 1992 “How the universe began” graphic, of the top 140 Twitter influencers, “sorted by #name #handle #category #influence #activity” and by when they joined the service (which determines how close to the centre they are).

The size of the blob indicates how many followers; “influence” is measured by… actually, they don’t explain, though possibly it’s using something like the Twiinfluence algorithm.

Interesting to see who’s in there: Stone and Williams, of course, but also latecomer Marissa Mayer (VP of search product and user experience at Google), who only joined in July 2009, and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google (December 2009) – and of course there’s always Bill Gates, who didn’t get on board until January 2010. And of course Stephen Fry and indeed Jonathan Ross.

You can get the PDF (1.1MB) or buy it from them for $99 because, as they remark, “we’re convinced that our print is way superior to what you can do with your plotter”. And you will need a plotter – the graphic is 84cm by 119cm.

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Volunteers from the Grassroots Mapping project made a trip in a small boat (upper left) to the the Chandeleur Islands near Louisiana’s Misissippi Delta on May 9th, 2010.

Natural gas from the damaged Deepwater Horizon wellhead is burned off by the drillship Discoverer Enterprise May 16, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast Louisiana.

The sun rises over an oil-soaked beach on May 23, 2010 on Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Specks of oil stick onto the foot of Maggie Grace Hurdle, 8, of Rosedale, Louisiana, as she walks along a beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Erica Miller, a member of the Louisiana State Wildlife Response Team, cleans a pelican of oil at the Clean Gulf Associates Mobile Wildlife Rehabilitation Station on Ft. Jackson in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Protective booms surround islands near mouth of the Mississippi River south of Venice, Louisiana from an oil spill Monday, May 17, 2010.

Oil reaches the marshlands on the northeast pass of the Mississippi Delta.

Oil is seen on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico about six miles southeast of Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Oil is scooped out of a marsh impacted by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in Redfish Bay along the coast of Louisiana, Saturday, May 22, 2010.

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is seen clumped on roseau cane in the Northeast Pass of the Mississippi River on the coast of Louisiana near Venice, Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

Oil floats around booms and through marshlands of the Mississippi Delta.

Oil cleanup workers bring in a load of contaminated oil-absorbent booms from the Gulf of Mexico on May 20, 2010 near Venice, Louisiana.

Natural gas siphoned from the BP oil leak burns off on the Discover Enterprise on May 21, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.

Maura Wood, Senior Program Manager of Coastal Louisiana Restoration for the National Wildlife Federation takes a sample of water in a heavily oiled marsh near Pass a Loutre, Louisiana on May 20, 2010.

Greenpeace Senior Campaigner Lindsey Allen attempts to save a small crab covered in oil walking along the shore of the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi River where it meets the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana.

Crews try to clean an island covered in oil on the south part of East Bay May 23, 2010.

Collected oil burns on the water in this aerial view seven miles northeast of the Deepwater Horizon site over the Gulf of Mexico.

Bridget Hargrove of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, her four-year-old son Ayden and one-year-old daughter, Emma, wade in baby pools away from the oil contaminated Gulf of Mexico on Grand Isle beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Boat captain Preston Morris shows the oil on his hands while collecting surface samples from the marsh of Pass a Loutre, Louisiana on Wednesday, May 19, 2010.

An outboard boat motor breaks up a thick layer of oil as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser toured the oil-impacted marsh of Pass a Loutre.

An oil-stained pelican leaves its nest as oil washes ashore on an island that is home to hundreds of brown pelican nests as well at terns, gulls and roseated spoonbills in Barataria Bay just inside the the coast of Louisiana.

An oil-soaked pelican takes flight after Louisiana Fish and Wildlife employees tried to corral him on an island in Barataria Bay on Sunday, May 23, 2010.

An oil-covered crab crawls past a blob of oil on the beach on May 22, 2010 on Grand Isle, Louisiana.

A young heron sits dying amidst oil splattering underneath mangrove on an island impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Barataria Bay, along the the coast of Louisiana on Sunday, May 23, 2010.

A shrimp boat is used to collect oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, Louisiana.

A ship’s wake cuts through a pattern of oil near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

A ship maneuvers and sprays water near a rig in heavy surface oil in this aerial view over the Gulf of Mexico May 18, 2010, as oil continues to leak from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.

A sheen of oil sits on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico close to the site of the BP oil spill as a boat uses a containment boom to gather the oil to be burned off approximately 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana May 18, 2010.

A reddish egret, its legs and tail feathers coated with oil, flies above the water in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

A Plaquemines Parish employee lays oil absorbent boom as pelicans leave their nests on an island in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, Saturday, May 22, 2010.

A Louisiana Fish and Wildlife officer unsuccessfully pursues an oil soaked pelican in Barataria Bay, Louisiana on Sunday, May 23, 2010.

A helicopter flies over surface oil in this aerial view over the Gulf of Mexico, May 18, 2010.

A Greenpeace activist steps through oil on a beach along the Gulf of Mexico on May 20, 2010 near Venice, Louisiana.

A dead Northern Gannet covered in oil lies along Grand Isle Beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana May 21, 2010. A member of Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research tagged the spot of the location of the incident.

A BP cleanup worker rakes oil from the beach on May 22, 2010 on Elmer’s Island, Louisiana. Authorities closed the popular tourist beach to the public and media wishing to visit the beach must be escorted by a BP official.

A boat travels between marsh and oil-stained boom near the mouth of the Mississippi River south of Venice, Louisiana Wednesday, May 19, 2010.

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Join them at N06.

ART HK is the leading showcase for international Modern & Contemporary Art in Asia with over 140 galleries participating from 27 different countries. ART HK reflects Hong Kong’s ‘Gateway’ status in presenting a unique opportunity for collectors to see and buy work of a quality and geographical diversity not available anywhere else in the world.

The Fair is a much needed platform for networking for the international art community bringing together collectors, curators, artists and galleries from Asia and the rest of the world. ART HK is also a valuable educational resource, vitally important in nurturing the art market in the region for the long term. Accessibility remains a key priority with introductory guided tours and workshops for aspiring collectors and works available for as little as US$1,000 right through to US$10million.

ART HK has been a catalyst for the cultural scene in Hong Kong and actively involves many of the city’s leading art institutions including Asia Art Archive and Para/Site. With an extensive programme of talks and satellite events ART HK has become the unmissable forum for cultural debate in Asia.

Pedro Barbeito

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How do you board a constantly moving train? Well, you could leap off a bridge and land on top of it like in the movies, hop off a horse and grab a rail like in a Western, or you could use this passenger delivery system called the “non-stop MRT system” by its Taiwanese inventor Peng Yu-lun, thought up last year. It involves a main track with trains that never stops moving, and a smaller shuttle which ferries passengers to and from the trains. The shuttle attaches itself to the train once it reaches it, swaps bodies, and then returns to the station.

So, what would be the benefit? Yu-lun speculates that it would be a far more energy efficient solution, since a lot of power is wasted when trains and subways start and stop at many stations. It’d be interesting to see, however, if such a system would in fact speed up a commute for passengers, or if timing issues would disrupt the train’s uninterrupted schedule.

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