So we are taught to value books. The human thoughts printed on paper communicate what came from one mind into anyone else's. All we have to do is read. It almost feels sacrilegious to damage something like a book. Although its ingredients are cheap, the unique combination of words make it valuable. Rare books can be worth a fortune and are great investments. When something is old and beautiful, made with antiquated design, its aesthetic value increases further. Even if the book itself is out-dated and possibly boring, full of political incorrectness or offensive material, or one of several thousand still in circulation, we treasure these old examples the most. So why sculpt them? Perhaps it's a subtle way of testing the logic behind valuing paper and leather, even if it's unusual and rare. If it's your book, you can do what you want with it, that's certain.


Thanks to The Mind Circle, here's a collection of photographs showing us the cream of the book sculpting world.  
​

Let's make it clear, temperature rising was already taking place. Ever since the last ice-age, the global ice has been melting. Since the industrialisation period, the rate of temperature increase has doubled. This is because the activity of people is changing the composition of the atmosphere. As each city builds factories and plays host to thousands of vehicles, it's as if a volcano is spewing out smoke at each geographical location. Yes, there are natural volcanos and other sources of greenhouse gasses only now there are thousands more artificial sources.


We often see images of fire and flood with the climate-change tag attached however the most apparent and urgent scenario is that of the melting ice. But next to no-one lives there, why does it matter? The ice is fresh water. When it melts and enters the salt water ocean, it displaces a lot of the normal current. The transition of fresh water into salty water takes time and as the rate of melting increases, the salinity or saltiness of the water in the surrounding ocean drops. This affects currents and feeding. All that extra water has to go somewhere too. The global ocean is predicted to rise around an inch every ten years. As the temperature of the planet rises, the water will expand too, causing it to rise even further.


So our coasts and our fish-stocks are both at risk of being destroyed or seriously damaged, our beloved Polar Bears and other arctic creatures are likely to end up like foxes or pigeons of the north, scavenging in a semi-domesticated state. The people who traditionally call the ice their home will stand to lose a key part of the heritage. Trillions of pounds worth of damage will be the financial cost, lives will be changed forever and the amount of land to go around will be reduced. The ice reflects a lot of sunlight, which keeps the temperature down. When this is gone, that mirror won't be on duty and our temperature will continue to rise. It was rising slowly, now it's rising faster than nature can compensate and that's before the ice has gone. It's all thanks to our continual use of dirty technology.


So what has this got to do with art? Surely it's protests and actual changes in behaviour that we really need. People are all different and they respond to different things. Getting in people's way and being a nuisance like the Extinction Rebellion may be the kick up the bum some of us need. Others though will find this too passive aggressive, too haughty for a considered response. Many people don't appreciate being belittled or shamed into doing something to another's standard. Art reaches out where the headstrong break the china. Art is the softly softly approach that a lot of people are also responsive too. It's perhaps the more civilised approach.


London's Horniman Museum is ready and set to display a brilliant exhibition that shows us the changing glaciers of our world. Called “Meltdown: Visualising Climate Change”, art, photography, and film make a point worth seeing. The display is intended to be inviting, showing beautiful images of ice and frost and then to hit home with the brutal truth. These places of exquisite beauty and ecology are on the decline and are likely to vanish before our eyes. Old maps are traced over new ones showing us all exactly how much of this gorgeous and alien landscape we have already lost.


Curated by Project Pressure, this charitable organisation wants to reach out further than before with this striking and moving exhibition. Active since 2008, the Project Pressure team have partnered with institutions such as NASA, WGMS, and the UN. With fingers in all the pies, and a clear and strong message, we can take off our hats to this group of determined individuals with a passion for sustainability and preservation of our climate.


Via The Guardian


Love computers? Learn Computer Programming from scratch with crazy-discounted professional tuition!

​Alternative Fruit and all other Homunculus Media productions are as green as can be. We have green energy from 100% renewable sources, no gas, and no company or personal vehicles. We do our recycling and we even feed the birds. But hang on, we are digital media, surely it's a lot easier to be green if you produce a digital product. You of course are completely right. We did have it easy, in fact we were green before it was cool. It may be a cutesy way of neglecting all the pioneers who came before her but the Greta Thunberg effect is making a positive difference. Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth here, she's pretty cool in our book. And brave, too. How can those businesses who have vehicles and factories, paper-trails and leaflets, get on the green boat? We can't stop climate change but we can stop making it worse, if we could only do what we all can to change what is there to change. I'm sure we will be making CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in decades to come but how many? Can we reduce them? Can we clean up the filthy air that people are being forced to breathe? We need pioneers and path-beaters to get us there.


In Vienna can be found the Friedensreich Hundertwasser Institute. One of the area's top museums, the Institute houses the largest collection of the artist's work in the world. The artist and photographer also had a hand in designing the building itself. His quirky surrealism making itself known in the very core of the architecture, it's probably only natural for this venue to explore how going greener can be achieved. For years now, the museum has annually displayed the works of four invited photographers which uncover various ecological issues. A disparity was found though, in which the gallery explored and preached yet was not doing all it could to go greener itself. This has now changed.


After finding their way through the minefield of protocol and method, it got to a point where the Institute felt they had achieved a suitable standard of environmental responsibility. When they went to apply for a stamp of approval, which is given to businesses when they show themselves worthy, it was found that museums had no guidelines for how to attain one. This entire industry had been forgotten, perhaps because it was assumed they already did their bit. We know now that we can't assume this and so a seal of approval could be something of value.


To solve this problem, the Friedensreich Hundertwasser Institute teamed up with the Austrian Museum Association and the Austrian Environmental Institute to form a draft set of criteria. This has led to other Austrian museums also seeking the official seal of green thinking. For an organisation like a museum the carbon footprint is held up for the majority in what the visitors do as well as visit. Do they eat a meal, do they buy products, do these things cost carbon? When they hand out leaflets are they recycled? Every function of the museum experience had to be “deep greened” in order to fit the strict criteria set by the authorities. And rightly so, it's clearly something of high importance.  

​Via Artnet

​

The high-street is suffering in the world of digital commerce. Alternative Fruit holds its hands up, we are drawing people in who want to shop with our links. The high-street is struggling to evolve however it seems that Honduras has cottoned on to the right idea. Among all the gadget shops and supermarkets in Tegucigalpa can be found a proud and defiant museum. Where everyone else is about making money, the Museum of National Identity is about bringing in the people for a good reason. We need hero spots like this in every town and city in order to make our visit to the high-street worth-while.


In an artistically designed red building, painted orange and white, is a place for culture and arts. Built in 1880 and recommissioned as a public venue in 2006, the Tegus hotspot contains a culture space, the museum, and an art gallery. The capital city of this once Spanish colony has a proud history and diverse backstory that is being allowed to resonate deeply through this modern day age.


By highlighting and retelling the stories that changed and sculpted the destiny of today's Honduras, the visitors to the centre can get a true sense of who they are and where they have come from. It's seen as an important part of creating a community of like-minded individuals. As we each find affiliations for various characters and events within our national story,we find out what kind of people we are. By having affiliations to our culture that can be rooted back to other people's own choices, we can all find out how we fit into the great machine that is functioning society.


Around half of the museum is completely dedicated to the Mayan culture. With modern day arts from local residents, some of whom have won competitions and been highlighted at international events, the first thing visitors witness is the creative power of the current wave of artists. Continue through and into the museum and be amazed at the hoard of ancient Mayan artefacts. In their rightful home, these pieces of genuine antiquity are framed by yet more modern day interpretations in various media.


The stories and symbols from ancient Mayan culture are given a home in which their messages and themes can be impressed onto the minds of today's story-tellers. Keeping the ancient ideas alive in a modern day setting means that modern people from this part of the world can feel connected to their distant roots despite the many changes brought about by politics. When our masters and our immediate futures can change like the wind, what remains are the symbols and stories of those who walked the ground before we did. 

You can read more about the museum in Hyperallergic  
​
​