Update
Updating database... Please wait.
Wednesday 12 July 2017 at 18:09
Eva Moreda Rodríguez on the formative years of the recording industry, focusing on the culture surrounding the gabinetes fonográficos of fin-de-siècle Spain.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2017/07/12/inventing-the-recording/
Tuesday 11 July 2017 at 19:18
Early sci-fi short story by Voltaire recounting a visit to Earth by Micromégas, an inhabitant of a distant planet which circles the star Sirius, and his companion hailing from Saturn.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/micromegas-by-voltaire-1752/
Thursday 6 July 2017 at 17:53
A wonderfully unique object, at first glance merely a painting of roses, but with hidden erotic scenes beneath.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-concealed-erotic-paintings-of-sommonte-19th-century/
Wednesday 5 July 2017 at 18:04
CONJECTURES #5 — Winnie Wong brings us a short biography of the Chinese curioso Pan Youxun (1745-1780). At issue? Hubris, hegemony, and global art history.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/lover-of-the-strange-sympathizer-of-the-rude-barbarianologist-of-the-farthest-peripheries/
Wednesday 28 June 2017 at 18:54
If three shipwrecked English sailors really did travel by foot from Florida to Nova Scotia in 1569 then it would certainly count as one of the most remarkable walks undertaken in recorded history. Although the account's more fantastical elements, such as the sighting of elephants, have spurred many to consign it to the fiction department, John Toohey argues for a second look.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2017/06/28/the-long-forgotten-walk-of-david-ingram/
Tuesday 27 June 2017 at 22:29
Selection of tracks recorded by the Hawaiian Quintette for Victor in 1913, series of recordings which went a long way toward establishing Hawaiian music as a significant genre on mainland US.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-hawaiian-quintette-1913/
Thursday 22 June 2017 at 11:00
Wonderful selection of wave and ripple designs produced by the Japanese artist Mori Yuzan, which would have found their way onto swords and associated paraphernalia, as well as lacquerware, Netsuke, religious objects, and a host of other items.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/ha-bun-shu-a-japanese-book-of-wave-and-ripple-designs-1919/
Monday 19 June 2017 at 13:46
The wonderful imagery documenting Alexander Graham Bell's experiments with tetrahedral kites.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/alexander-graham-bells-tetrahedral-kites-1903-9/
Wednesday 14 June 2017 at 17:54
Amongst the assorted curiosities described in Olaus Magnus' 1555 tome on Nordic life was the morse — a hirsuite, fearsome, walrus-like beast, that was said to snooze upon cliffs while hanging by its teeth. Natalie Lawrence explores the career of this chimerical wonder, shaped both by scholarly images of a fabulous north and the grisly corporeality of the trade in walrus skins, teeth, and bone.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2017/06/14/decoding-the-morse-the-history-of-16th-century-narcoleptic-walruses/
Tuesday 13 June 2017 at 18:46
Anna Laetitia Barbauld's controversial poem which presciently imagines a future Britain in ruin, eclipsed by the rising might of America.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/eighteen-hundred-and-eleven-1812/