michelangelo foot sketch sells for $27.2 million

in

via Hypebeast:

The work itself is a rare red chalk study for the Libyan Sibyl, one of the monumental figures adorning the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican. Experts identified the sketch as a preparatory drawing created around 1511–1512. It depicts the figure’s right foot with the heel raised and toes pressed down—a specific anatomical detail necessary for the Sibyl’s twisting, weight-bearing pose.

The $27.2 million USD sale price surpasses the previous auction record for a Michelangelo work—a nude study sold in Paris in 2022 for $24.3 million. “In the 23-plus years I have been in the industry, I have been privileged to see many wonderful Old Masters moments, but today topped them all,” said Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s Global Head of Old Masters. With most of Michelangelo’s 600 surviving sketches held in museums, this sale represented perhaps the last opportunity for a private collector to own a direct link to the Sistine Chapel.

current

in

Thanks to this excellent post, stumbled across via minifeed, I’ve spent a chunk of the morning playing with a new RSS reader, Current. Beautiful to be certain, a highly-polished 1.0; dig the concept behind it, looking forward to further development. Hopeful that it helps me find what I was looking for in an RSS reader – no clue what that is, but I have to believe that I'll know it when I see it. Maybe.

Mamoru Oshii v. The Brotherhood

in

via Kotaku:

The filmmaker and genius behind the 1995 sci-fi anime classic has been documenting his eight year journey through Fallout 4’s post-nuclear (h/t Automaton), and it doesn’t involve following the main story which sees the player-made protagonist on a search for their child after they were abducted. Instead, Oshii plays by a self-inforced code of conduct, restricting who he interacts with while also seeing him collect a ton of power armor.

For Oshii, Dogmeat is his only companion. He allies with no one. He ignores the main story. And the Brotherhood of Steel are in for a really bad time when he comes across them. In his many articles on Automaton documenting his experiences with the game, he said:

Whenever I spot [the Brotherhood’s] reconnaissance units in the ruins, I stalk them from behind and take them out with my trusty .50 caliber rifle. I kill them all and leave no evidence. I’ve decided to strip them naked and leave them lying there in their underwear. They’re invaders, so mercy is unnecessary.

slop evader

in

via 404

Slop Evader was created by artist and researcher Tega Brain, who says she was motivated by the growing dismay over the tech industry’s unrelenting, aggressive rollout of so-called “generative AI”—despite widespread criticism and the wider public’s distaste for it.

Gallery Image
Gallery Image

“This sowing of mistrust in our relationship with media is a huge thing, a huge effect of this synthetic media moment we’re in,” Brain told 404 Media, describing how tools like Sora 2 have short-circuited our ability to determine reality within a sea of artificial online junk. “I’ve been thinking about ways to refuse it, and the simplest, dumbest way to do that is to only search before 2022."