I feel badly stealing these pictures from 2thewalls, because I know how much time KEEHNAN, its author, probably spent scanning these photos. I don’t know what it is about scanning but it’s an intensely boring process during which time seems to actually drag backwards. Never mind this self-indulgent preamble, you should look at KEEHNAN’s post, which intelligently mixes Jenny Holzer textual art pieces, quotes from Milan Kundera, and these amazing rooms by Kelly Wearstler (and many more photos). Considering that his post is about the way we historicize things and create meaning (even through decor, which is deeply suffused with historical references), it is silly that I’m decontextualizing his post here by just posting the photos. So here’s his excerpt from Kundera:

“People are always shouting that they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.”

Photos via inside (photo above is at insideinside.tumblr.com), one of the best curated tumblelogs on tumblr. Well-named, also. And see its sister site, outside, which is equally good.

My apologies for not knowing the name of the photographers, owners or designers behind these photos. It’s tumblr, so all bets are off. It’s a zone of 100% copyright infringement and rampant decontextualization. I feel a little funny reposting anything I find there, for that reason.

I found this photo via two of my favourite tumblr blogs, breeapperley and self-romance. Mabel from self-romance tells me this is from the Swedish architecture firm Tham & Videgård Hansson Arkitekter, who are at the moment probably most well-known for their mirrored treehouse. There are more photos of this faintly surreal apartment at dezeen. This firm loves boxes in a lattice structure. They use them everywhere.

If tumblr is a bellwether – and it may not be but it’s fun to speculate – then the sixties & seventies are back. In style, if not in substance. So many of tumblr’s weird little blogs, each of them a kind of eclectic personal bulletin board, feature this kind of rock and roll Hair: The Musical meets back-to-the-land handmade-house thing. More than a bulletin board, actually, since each one also exists as a sort of complete photo essay and a sustained non-verbal argument. In this case it’s an argument for a simpler yet groovier style of living, and you get a feeling there may actually be a politics behind the aesthetics. Thanks to the way tumblr makes it simple to re-post an image from someone else’s tumblr blog in your own tumblr stream, while providing you with a link back to theirs, each tumblr collection instantly leads you on to many others with a similar world view. I’m not sure how I first came upon cosmic_dust, possibly it was here, but it led to alaskaneyes and self_romance which led to endless numbers of strange little worlds. These images are a tiny sample from the superb cosmic_dust.