From the magazine: ISSUE 91 April/May 2014
Jon Rafman’s Brand New Paint Job, like many of his Tumblrs, is an ongoing, serialized exhibition of original artwork derived from existing images, usually sourced from the internet. (You might’ve seen 9-Eyes, his collection of odd Google Street View screen grabs, or Kool-Aid Man in Second Life, which features an avatar of the happy-go-lucky pitcher cavorting in virtual reality.) For Brand New Paint Job, he maps famous paintings onto digitally rendered, everyday spaces—for instance, a Georgia O’Keefe covering an entire waiting room, including the chairs and floor. The original paintings are respected works of art, of course, but what about the rooms Rafman applies them to: a lobby, a classroom, the U.S. Enterprise? These places have been rigorously designed, both IRL and as re-creations, and Brand New Paint job provides a new way of looking at them. harry gassel
If Tumblr is made for anyone, it's for Steve Roggenbuck, the post-Lil B poet, artist and internet star who has harnessed the many mediums of the internet to endlessly perform the character “Steve Roggenbuck.” His blog, Live My Lief, houses YouTube videos of him spastically reading his poems, but there are also posts with screenshots of cryptic tweets, animated GIFs of him spouting inspirational phrases, endless selfles and a series of longer-form writing entries like “Why I Dropped Out of My Poetry MFA Program." One of the best self-made fan sites that someone's ever made about their own self, it's truly a beautiful snapshot of the narcissism of the 21st century internet. alex frank
Rich Oglesby’s Tumblr is far less terrifying, to me, than most blogs about futuristic technology. Like many others, his is meticulously obsessed with the new—a floating orb that records sound, a Street View hack that renders jungle vines over city buildings, antigravity 3D printing—but by focusing on artsy, DIY and open-sourced works-in-progress, as opposed to the creepy machinations of tech megacorps, Prosthetic Knowledge reassures me, seeming to say, "For now at least, good ideas are still in the right hands.” duncan cooper