Nico Silva talks with Marco Sanchez about his printmaking practice and about El Paso’s first annual Print Pachanga.
El Paso’s Inaugural Print Pachanga: A Conversation with Organizer Marco Sánchez
Dyson Big + Quiet Air Purifier Quietly Does Its Duty Like a Breeze
The Dyson Purifier Big + Quiet Formaldehyde air purifier is unusual in that the droid-like design really leans into its larger size compared to most any other air purifier available for the mass market. But that’s intentional, noting an air purifier is only as effective as its ability to utilize airflow to bring in pollutants in contact with a filtration medium to scrub the air clean. The more flow and the larger surface area, the faster the filtration rate. Dyson’s trick is accomplishing all this with an acoustically engineered motor bucket optimized to hush maximum full-speed filtration down to a minimum.
So how quiet are we talking about? Dyson claims their sizable air purifier measures a very reasonable 56dBA when set at full blast. For reference, according to this decibels chart, a refrigerator produces about 55dBA of environmental noise; that’s also in the realm of normal output for a dishwasher, a perfectly acceptable volume when you really need to set the unit to its maximum speed. Thus the Big + Quiet is being promoted as a healthy home and communal space solution effective for up to 1,000ft², suitable for use not only in larger living rooms, but also in classrooms, hotel lobbies, and other communal spaces where a larger and more powerful unit ideally doesn’t intrude on the conversations and atmosphere around it.
The Dyson Big + Quiet air purifier uses a catalytic filter to trap formaldehyde, then breaks it down into water and CO₂, while a K-Carbon filter absorbs common household indoor pollutants.
Though Dyson’s largest air filtration design is outfitted to remove allergens and 99.97% of fine particles using a HEPA H13 grade filter, the Big + Quiet comes with the additional capability to destroy formaldehyde, remove gases and odors, and capture nitrogen dioxide. The top of the unit includes a small display that reports back what solid-state formaldehyde sensor detects during operation.
A laudable aspect of the Dyson Big + Quiet is the long lasting efficacy of its filters. The unit’s H13 grade HEPA filter can last up to five years, depending upon conditions. The K-Carbon filter lasts for up to two years. And best of all, the catalytic oxidisation filter never has to be changed out.
Like many other tech-forward appliances today, there’s a proprietary algorithm involved in the operation of Dyson’s device. The Big + Quiet is programmed to continuously monitor and report levels of formaldehyde, VOCs, or nitrogen dioxide registered in the air. In turn, we became much more aware and sensitive to the quality of air inside on a daily basis armed with this information. It became common to check in regularly with the unit’s sensors either by app or at glance across its small LCD display, and the environmental feedback was just as likely to compel us to open a few windows to allow for fresh air in just as much as it did to convince us to set the unit to full blast.
The Big + Quiet is outfitted with an adjustable angle airflow, ranging between 0°, 25°, or 50°, allowing to direct air wanted and most needed. There’s even a setting designed to emulate the feeling of a refreshing breeze.
All data gathered through the Dyson’s live monitoring sensor displays in realtime across a small circular LCD located at the center top. Any data can also be accessed from the MyDyson app.
One feature we really appreciated was the inclusion of the small set of roller wheels incorporated into the air purifier’s base. While the Big + Quiet is not heavy for its size, its larger dimensions can make it feel unwieldy to lift for some (if you’ve ever dreamt of hugging R2-D2, here is your chance). But the integrated wheels simplify moving the unit room to room or into storage as easy as pushing a small cart.
The incorporation of a catalytic filter and activated carbon filter also make the Dyson a helpful means of removing common household odors that aren’t dangerous, just undesirable, so pet owners and people who like to cook might especially benefit from its ability to filter odors.
If you’re worried about inhaling VOCs off-gassing from everyday sources like mattresses, paints, household cleaners, some upholstery fabrics, and new furniture, alongside limiting everyday allergens, the Dyson Big + Quiet’s portability and quiet operation offsets its size.
At $899 for the all-white commercial edition or $1,099 for its more stylishly finished Prussian Blue adorned colorway, the Dyson Big + Quiet comes at a premium. And there’s no getting around that it’s conspicuously large. But in an age when wildfires, urban pollution, and seasonal allergies are regularly vying to irritate our senses, an effective air purifier is arguably an investment worth the cost and trade-offs associated with something openly labeled as big and quiet.
This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!
Art Basel Miami Beach lines up 24 first-time exhibitors and revamps its layout for 2023 edition
Art Basel in Miami Beach’s forthcoming edition (6-10 December) will feature stands from 277 galleries—an astounding number that, nevertheless, represents a 2% dip from last year’s 283 galleries. Exhibitors and attendees will benefit from an overhauled fair layout structured around five plazas that organisers say will provide “improved visitor flow and seating, eating and drinking rest points”.
Among those 277 exhibitors will be 24 making their debuts at the biggest art fair in the Americas, with most of the newcomers based in the US. Among the first-timers are a dozen influential New York galleries, including Ortuzar Projects, Lyles and King, 56 Henry, Deli Gallery, Lomex, Mrs., Ryan Lee and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. Also joining the South Florida fray for the first time are three closely watched Los Angeles galleries—Stars, Château Shatto and Luis De Jesus—plus several international entrants including São Paulo-based Galatea, Montreal-based Bradley Ertaskiran, Warsaw-based Galeria Dawid Radziszewski and Cairo-based Gypsum Gallery.
“With new participants from Mexico to Poland and Egypt, and a programme both within and beyond the fair like we have never done before, there is an injection of freshness to the fair,” Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s director for fairs and exhibition platforms and interim director of the Miami Beach fair, said in a statement.
Two of the first-time exhibitors—Paris’s Galerie Minsky and San Francisco’s Weinstein Gallery—will have a joint stand in the fair’s main sector devoted to the work of Leonor Fini, the Argentine-Italian Surrealist artist.
In addition to the 24 newcomers, the fair boasts the expected lineup of powerful galleries, including the four global mega-dealers (Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace and David Zwirner) and many of the slightly smaller, merely international outfits like White Cube, Lehmann Maupin, Thaddaeus Ropac, Almine Rech, Mendes Wood DM, Lisson and Perrotin. The lattermost will no doubt be looking to continue its run of viral hits at Art Basel in Miami Beach, following Maurizio Cattelan’s banana sculpture Comedian in 2019 and prankster collective MSCHF’s gamified cashpoint, ATM Leaderboard (2022), last year.
Of the dealers present at the fair’s 2022 edition but absent this year, the most notable is repeat Art Basel in Miami Beach exhibitor Mariane Ibrahim. The gallery’s solo stand of paintings by Amoako Boafo in 2019, concurrent with his star-making residency exhibition at Miami’s Rubell Museum, played an important role in the artist’s rapid rise to market prominence.
Magalí Arriola, the director of Mexico City’s Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, will once again curate the fair’s Meridians sector for very large works, which this year will include 19 projects (to be revealed closer to the fair’s opening).
The fair will be the first organised fully under the leadership of Noah Horowitz, who from 2015 to 2021 oversaw it as Art Basel’s director in the Americas. Now, as Art Basel’s global chief executive since last November, Horowitz returns to familiar territory. “I know first-hand the galvanising role our show plays within the creative ecosystem of Miami, the broader region, and the global arts community,” he said in a statement.
Detroit gallerist Bridget Finn, who was recently appointed as director of Art Basel in Miami Beach, will be in attendance, but next year’s edition will be the first under her leadership.
The fair will unfold a little over a month before the first major contest in the race to be the Republican nominee for US president in 2024, in which two local men—former president Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis—are the leading candidates. Based on past history, however, anyone hoping Art Basel in Miami Beach might be an escape from the two men’s campaigns, the looming 2024 general election and Florida’s intensely polarised political discourse would do well to keep their expectations conservative.
Ballet dancers and a rescued caver: Tuesday’s best photos
Anamur, Turkey
American researcher Mark Dickey is carried in a stretcher after being pulled out of Morca cave, more than a week after he became seriously ill 1,000 metres (more than 3,000 feet) below its entrance. Teams from across Europe had rushed to the cave in the southern Taurus mountains to aid Dickey, a 40-year-old experienced caver who became seriously ill with stomach bleeding on 2 September
Photograph: Mert Gokhan Koc/AP
How to Improve Your Photography
We all want to be better photographers, but the journey to that destination is often anything but straightforward. If you find yourself feeling a bit stuck and unsure of how to move forward, check out this helpful video tutorial that features an experienced photographer sharing some insightful and actionable advice that is sure to put you on the right track.
Coming to you from Shoot on Film, this great video tutorial offers a range of useful advice on how to become a better photographer. One of the most important points, in my opinion, is the idea that gear and technical skills are not the most important parts for improving. We have heard a million times about how gear does not matter anywhere near as much as the hype machine might lead us to believe, but the idea of technique is a lesser-discussed issue. Of course, that is not to say you can get by without solid technique. Rather, it acknowledges the fact that sometimes, technical image quality is overly emphasized at the expense of a creative and original approach. Technique should be a support for creativity, not the main point of the process. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
Author to speak Sept. 25 at Hackensack church
HACKENSACK — The Northwoods Arts Council will host award-winning author Marcie R. Rendon to present “Writing Local: the land, the people, the history” at 1 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at United Congregational Church in Hackensack.
The event is free, but reservations are required at northwoodsartscouncil.org.
Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, freelance writer and a community arts activist. Rendon supports other Native artists, writers and creators to pursue their art and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership and writing.
Contributed / Northwoods Art Council
Rendon is the author of the award-winning “Cash Blackbear” crime novel series set in the Red River Valley and nearby reservations. Her latest book, “Sinister Graves,” was inspired by an isolated Idaho graveyard about 15 years ago.
She is working with Out of Hand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, to produce her script “Say Their Names.” Rendon was listed in Oprah’s 2020 list of 31 Native American authors to read.
ADVERTISEMENT
She received Minnesota’s 2020 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award.
Rendon will be selling and signing her books after the presentation.
For more information about the author and her books, visit
A donation from the Hackensack Lions funded this presentation.
hiroshi sugimoto’s photography retrospective explores time and memory at hayward gallery
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine at Hayward Gallery
From October 11, 2023 to January 7, 2024, the Hayward Gallery in London presents Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, the largest survey exhibition to date of the Japanese artist, architect, and photographer. The exhibition showcases Sugimoto’s best-known works, as well as lesser-known projects, and highlights the artist’s interest in the history of photography, mathematics, and optical sciences.
Featuring key works from all of the artist’s major photographic series, the exhibition illuminates his philosophical yet playful exploration of our understanding of time and memory, as well as the ambiguous nature of photography as a medium that lends itself to both documentation and invention. ‘The camera is a time machine capable of representing the sense of time… The camera can capture more than a single moment, it can capture history, geological time, the concept of eternity, the essence of time itself… The more I think about that sense of time, the more I think this is probably one of the key factors of how humans became humans,’ Hiroshi Sugimoto shares.
UA Playhouse, New York, 1978 | all images courtesy of Hiroshi Sugimoto
natural history & architecture through Hiroshi Sugimoto’s lens
Time Machine at Hayward Gallery (find more here) begins with a selection of the artist’s black-and-white photographs of natural history dioramas, a series he began in the mid-1970s. The diorama photographs draw attention less to the natural world than to its theatrical display in museums, while evoking what Hiroshi Sugimoto (find more here) has called the ‘fragility of existence.’ The theme of time is also explored in two other works on view in the exhibition: Sugimoto’s Theaters (1976 – ), shot in both movie palaces and drive-in theaters, capture entire films with a single long exposure, compressing all the dramatic action seen on screen into a single image of brilliant white. His famous Seascapes (1980 – ), which show evenly divided expanses of sea and sky without any trace of human existence evoke the immediacy of abstract painting while expressing Sugimoto’s interest in focusing on vistas that, as he notes, ‘are before human beings and after human beings.’
In Architecture (1997 – ), a series of deliberately out-of-focus studies of iconic modernist buildings-from the Eiffel Tower to the Twin Towers-Sugimoto demonstrates the wide-ranging ambiguity that characterizes his art, while conveying a sense of the visual germ of an idea in an architect’s mind, as well as ghostly images of what he has called ‘architecture after the end of the world.’ For his later series, Portraits (1999), the artist pointed his camera at wax models of famous historical figures at Madame Tussauds. Rendered in black and white, the more lifelike figures, from Queen Elizabeth to Oscar Wilde to Salvador Dali, seem disarmingly alive, underscoring the camera’s potential to alter our perceptions. As the artist noted, ‘However fake the subject, once photographed, it’s as good as real.’
Lightning Fields 225, 2009
evoking different notions of timelessness
A final section of Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine focuses on photographs that evoke different notions of timelessness, including his Sea of Buddha series (1995), which features an installation in a 12th-century Kyoto temple with 1000 gilded wooden statues of the Buddha, and Lightning Fields (2006 – ), off-camera photographs created by exposing sensitized paper to electrical pulses from a Van der Graaf generator. The exhibition concludes with a gallery dedicated to Sugimoto’s Opticks (2018 – ), intensely colored photographs of prism-refracted light. Inspired by Newton’s research on the properties of light, but also borrowing from color field painting and artists such as Mark Rothko, Opticks presents deeply penetrating fields of subtly varying hues. Presented alongside his photographs are two of Sugimoto’s polished aluminum sculptures that allude to both mathematical equations and abstract forms favored by modernists such as Constantin Brâncuși.
‘Hiroshi Sugimoto is a brilliant visual poet of paradox, a polymath postmodern who embraces meticulous old-school craftsmanship to produce exquisite, uncanny pictures that reference science and maths as well as abstract art and Renaissance portraits. Juggling different conceptions of time, and evoking visions ranging from primordial prehistory to the end of civilization, his photographs ingeniously recalibrate our basic assumptions about the medium and alter our sense of history, time, and existence itself. Amidst all his peers, his work stands apart for its depth and striking originality of thought.’ shares Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery.
Mathematical Model 002 Dini’s Surface, 2005
Manatee, 1994
Down Arts Centre’s Exclusive Exhibition Showcases Work from Prism Pr
A new international art exhibition is currently on display at Down Arts Centre until Friday 29 September, showcasing original prints from artists from around the world.
Grain, grit, texture: in a digital world, film photography is thriving
Get TPR’s best stories of the day and a jump start to the weekend with the 321 Newsletter — straight to your inbox every day. Sign up for it here.
In the middle of downtown San Antonio, a block or two from Texas Public Radio’s downtown headquarters, photographer Kat Swansey is lining up a shot. Standing dead in front of the 18th century De La Garza house, she carefully pulls focus.
“It looks like something you would see in West Texas,” Swansey remarks.
After every shot, Swansey cranks a handle on the camera to advance her film to the next frame.
“It’s all manual,” she explains. “There’s no autofocus on here, I have to manually line up every shot and focus, get the aperture right.”
Based in Austin, Swansey shoots on film, exclusively. She’s part of a growing number of artists who are choosing film as a way of expressing their unique vision — and keeping the analog film industry alive. You might be surprised to learn that Kodak and Fujifilm are still very much in business. And 30 years ago, a company built out of a kind of an artist collective opened up shop.
Brian Lincoln
/
Lomography
Digital photography was still in its infancy when Lomography started selling film. And since the company’s founding they’ve offered brilliant color or tinted film stock for an artistic touch, says Birgit Buchart, the New York-based General Manager of Lomography in the United States.
“These people decided to treat film photography as like a fun and experimental kind of hobby that is not trying to be the best quality depiction of reality, but just like a creative tool in your daily life,” she explains.
That emphasis on everyday art, and celebrating the time it takes to develop, has helped the company sustain its business through the digital takeover of the industry.
“Nowadays, especially for people who grew up with digital or even smartphone cameras in their pockets, a lot of the time, the appeal for film photography is you have to wait, you have to be patient,” Buchart said. “And [there’s] that surprising moment when you get the film back from the lab and when you have something fun! Like completely different colors, that that’s really exciting.”
Lomography
Back in Texas, Swansey muses, “I’ve just always been really interested in a life that happened before me.”
Swansey grew up in Brenham, taking road trips on the backroads with her grandfather, who she says was a wealth of information about Washington County.
Now, her new book “Texas Textures” looks at old gas stations, farmhouses, and classic signage, and features not only her photographs, but a narrative about the places she’s visited that’s full of historical information.
“I wanted to make sure I was doing right by these places.”
Swansey spends a lot of time on the road in West Texas. Of the film photos she takes, she says, “I love the grain. I even love the dust that occasionally makes its way into your shots. I feel like it adds a little bit more texture to the images. And I just love that with each photo I take, I’m creating something physical and something that’s tangible that I can hold.”
Kat Swansey
Swansey isn’t the only one that feels that way today, says Lomography’s Birgit Buchart.
“The more digitized our world gets, the more people are longing for something analog,” Buchart says. “We are less of a niche company than we used to be 10 or 15 years ago.”
Like many hobbies, film photography can get expensive, if you let it. But point and shoot cameras can be found for less than $50 online, and a roll of film is somewhere between 10 and 15 bucks. Some chain drugstores still process film (although it takes several days), and independent labs will process and scan negatives for sharing online.
Web Extra: Interview with Birgit Buchart of Lomography.
Listen • 19:26
Buchart says “Browsing and getting inspired by other photographers is also a great way to get into it.”
The benefits of the art form are as endless as the Texas backroads Swansey travels.
“I’ve met people around the world that I would have never had an opportunity to connect with or learn from,” Swansey says. “And it’s fun. It gets you out into the world. You can see things that you maybe have driven past a hundred times, and never even looked at a second time.”
Like the De la Garza house, just steps from TPR’s downtown studio. Take another look at the top of this page, to see it again, for the first time.
Nathan Cone
Preserving aerial photography with recirculating fume cupboards
The National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP) is one of the world’s largest repositories of aerial imagery, boasting millions of historic images capturing significant events and locations across the globe.
Key objectives
NCAP’s primary responsibility is to collect and safeguard these valuable records, encompassing digital and physical formats, ensuring their preservation for future generations.
To address the considerable challenges related to handling and conservation, Alan Potts, the Digital Imaging Manager, sought out Monmouth Scientific for a solution to establish a meticulously clean environment for the NCAP team’s secure collection management.
Monmouth Scientific’s solution
-
Circulaire® Recirculating Fume Cupboard
Image Credit: Monmouth Scientific Limited
Upon relocating to a state-of-the-art collections care and digitization facility in Edinburgh, the National Collection of Aerial Photography gained the necessary space to address these crucial challenges.
Monmouth Scientific’s proficient team identified the Recirculating Fume Cupboard as the optimal answer to meet the team’s requirements, providing the technicians with a safe and efficient workspace.
Due to the archive’s age and previous storage conditions, certain items have suffered degradation over time.
This resulted in mold growth on around 6.5 million photographic prints. Before creating digital replicas, these prints require careful mold removal within a Recirculating Fume Cupboard, along with suitable personal protective equipment (PPE).
For the film archive, a distinct issue arises, as the acetate base of the film can autocatalytically degrade, generating acetic acid.
Although not harmful, the smell can be unpleasant and cause irritation over extended exposure. This concern is mitigated by carrying out film preparation and digitization within a Recirculating Fume Cupboard, ensuring a healthier workspace for all staff members.
The Circulaire® Fume Cupboards offer the advantage of not needing external ducting, enabling flexible installation within the workspace.
These cupboards efficiently channel airflow towards the interior, capturing vapors at their source and confining them within a controlled working area. With the utilization of Activated Carbon filters, clean air is then expelled back into the laboratory.
By implementing this recirculating technology, which consumes minimal energy while delivering optimal performance, substantial cost savings are achieved, contributing to a greener and more sustainable laboratory environment.
With the new facility and workflow improvements, the NCAP experiences a significant transformation in addressing critical conservation issues as a top priority.
Working with Monmouth Scientific has been excellent. We had no knowledge of Recirculating Fume Cupboards within the team prior to this, so relied on Monmouth Scientific to guide us through the process of identifying and defining our risks and selecting the most appropriate equipment for the job.
Our unique application has required some bespoke solutions and Monmouth Scientific have been a great partner in engineering and building cabinets that fit our needs. Having the correct equipment and practices means that The National Collection of Aerial Photography can now move ahead with the monumental task of preserving this unique record of world events as seen from above, for future generations.”
Alan Potts, Digital Imaging Manager , Historic Environmental Scotland | National Collection of Aerial Photography
About Monmouth Scientific Limited
At Monmouth Scientific environmentally responsible recirculating technology is the core of our expertise.
Our specialised Fume Cupboard, Laminar Flow, Biological Safety, Powder Containment, and ISO Class Cleanroom solutions provide the best protection and performance for your personnel.
A UK Market Leader in Clean Air Solutions and at the forefront of the industry, we employ cutting-edge technologies and innovative engineering, to ensure that our solutions consume minimal energy while delivering optimal performance.
As experts in clean environments and laboratory personnel safety, our team continue to proudly pioneer innovative new technologies to guarantee the highest levels of safety for a diverse client base including;
- Laboratory
- Research
- Pharmaceutical
- Electronics
- Aerospace
Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
