Incredible piece by Japanese artist Haroshi - made of recycled skateboards.

Mortgage, 2009
dollar bills, rope

By Barbara Thumm

‘Mortgage’ is the suicide of our financial and economical system. The desperate situation of companies, states and markets caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few months have changed the world we live in. The pledges are not ending but people are dying.

Technological Taxidermy: Ghosty Images of Obsolete Gadgets

Barcelona-based artist Max de Esteban creates strange, faded images that look a lot like X-rays or old school cyanotypes. In reality, they’re a layer-by-layer photographic reassembly of the cameras, tape decks, typewriters, and other outdated gadgets that he has taken apart, painted white, and then shot at different stages of the rebuild. “By eliminating the objects’ individual peculiarities, each photograph becomes a generic symbol of decay and death,” de Esteban explains in his artist’s statement. “While sophisticated and state-of-the-art not long ago, these tools evoke today a sense of fragility, archaism and trauma.”

Japanese artist Iori Tomita transforms the scientific technique of preserving and dying organism specimens into an art form with his series, ‘shinsekai [toumei hyouhon]’ (‘new world transparent specimens’).