Touching The Art

The inimitable Elaine Stritch, a crazy cooler, Wired's innovation fellows and more in our weekly look at the web

What is art? Could my kid do that? Is James Franco really real? All these questions and more are addressed in comedian Casey Jane Ellison’s new web series “Touching the Art.” With a legitimate guest panel of acclaimed art world inhabitants, the first sub-seven-minute episode is full of clever quips, perfectly cynical reflections and—believe it or not—some interesting insight on the subject of contemporary art …

Pencil Vases

The inimitable Elaine Stritch, a crazy cooler, Wired's innovation fellows and more in our weekly look at the web

Designer Tuomas Markunpoika has used pencils as a raw material in a series of surprising vases, suitably dubbed “Amalgamated.” By glueing together hundreds of Faber-Castell pencils into a solid block and then turning it on the lathe, the lead is exposed and a beautifully distinct surface pattern appears. The vases are selling in limited supply from London’s Gallery FUMI, and are available in three different …

JIF vs GIF

The inimitable Elaine Stritch, a crazy cooler, Wired's innovation fellows and more in our weekly look at the web

CompuServe engineer Steve Wilhite is adamant that GIF is pronounced “jif” and while many believe being the inventor of the format gives him that right, it’s a (sometimes hilarious) subject of contention. Interestingly though, Wilhite isn’t really the inventor of the GIF—his version of a GIF played just once, and it was actually Netscape who added the ability to loop animations, in 1995. In his …