3D street art — alternatively known as pavement, chalk or sidewalk art — is a form of anamorphic art pioneered by American Kurt Wenner. Sprawling over sidewalks, walls, and public spaces, artists use chalk or pastels to render pictures that use mathematical continuation of perspective to give the illusion of three-dimensionality. Though the medium is widely regarded as a modern art, street art traces its origins back to the Renaissance.
Renaissance Roots
The penchant for putting chalk to sidewalk was practiced widely by Italian vagabond artists. Known as the Madonnari because of their copious reproductions of Madonna, the artists would travel between festivals, creating religious works from brick, charcoal, colored stones and chalk. Giving credence to the ‘starving artist’ stereotype, the Madonnari lived solely off the coins passers-by tossed at them for their skill. This practice continued for centuries until the hardships of WW2 significantly reduced the numbers of the Madonnari. However, the art form was revitalized thanks to the International Street Painting Festival in Northern Italy, and the tradition has morphed and continued to date.
Founding Father: Kurt Wenner
Fulfilling your lifelong dream to live like a hamster (and, honestly, who hasn’t dreamed of that?) has been made easy on the Atlantic Coast of France. Tucked away in the city of Nantes, the Villa Hamster offers rooms evoking the habitats of hamsters — all for the tiny fee of 150 Euros a night.
The Villa was opened in November 2009 after it was conceived by scenographer Yann Falquerho and interior designer Frédéric Tabary. Working with his urban gîte company, Un Coin Chez Soi, Falquerho and Tabary designed the hotel for a bit of a laugh and to give the chance for people to experience living like an animal in a Kafka-esque metamorphosis. They also envisioned the space as a means of escaping the paralysis and relative uniformity of modern society.
As such, they created the compact and cramped hamster cage accommodation. The Villa is built inside a building dating back to the 1700s and is equipped with hamster cage essentials and decor to provide an authentic rodent experience. The guests are given fur costumes to don, eat food from containers filled with organic grain, have a water tube from which they can drink, and a bed of hay accessed via a ladder. The most bizarre piece, however, is the large metal wheel where guests can get their hamster on, running on loop, side-by-side. However, the Villa isn’t all child-like play. It has all the amenities – WiFi, kitchen, flat screen TV, and shower – to make the stay as comfortable as it is eccentric.
You can even take a video tour of the hotel:
Think you’ve got a party trick worth boasting about? It probably couldn’t compete with these absolutely crazy human world records:
Longest Ear Hair
Indian citizen, Anthony Victor, holds the record of the most ear hair. We’re not quite sure how proud one should be about this fact, but Victor has hair measuring up to 7.12 inches sprouting from the center of his outer ears.
Furthest Eyeball Popper
Putting Mr Martinez from Daria to shame, American Kim Goodman can pop her eyeballs a creepy 0.47 inches beyond her eye socket. The feat was measured in Turkey in 2007.
Specializing in mobile living furniture, Casulo — a German design and furniture company — have created an incredible room in a box. The box includes a range of furniture that can more-than adequately fill any living space, with furniture including a desk, a filing cabinet, an office chair, a pair of stools, a bed frame, a mattress, a wardrobe, and a set of shelves.
