jun tsuzuki: synchronicity.

As the world gets flatter, it’s not shocking how many new ways we find to reach out to strangers around the world. This time the surprise is that we’re not doing it with messages of the once-in-a-lifetime, but of the everyday.

In 2005 Jun Tsuzuki began Synchronicity – an online snapshot of what folks around the world are doing at the exact same instant. The project gives a pre-determined time and at that exact moment you take a pic of whatever you’re honestly doing: sitting, driving, eating Cheerios…It’s the addictive banality of Twitter mixed with the permanency of a photograph. Except that the goal isn’t to capture an epic moment, but a collaborative moment – the recognition and proof that all of us, everywhere, must be doing something all the time. Normally something boring.While you’re watching Heroes some dude in Copenhagen is eating a sandwich – oh wow! Still, it’s that very commonality that’s so interesting. Despite how mundane these shared moments may seem the result of comparing this one-second of our global daily life is totally fascinating.

Synchronicity is an on-going project open to everyone with a clock and a camera. Even if you’ve got nothing better to do than floss and walk the dog, the world wants to see. Unless you want to masturbate – in which case Xtube wants to see.

Via Cool Hunting

ari versluis + ellie uyttenbroek: exactitudes.

This article also appeared on Josh Spear

We’ve all experienced that high school moment where you realize that if you don’t wear the right jeans to your next hallway appearance, you… will… die.

Exactitudes, a 13-year collaboration between Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek, is a study of how groups of people around the world express their individuality… by dressing alike. Whether the pull is created by class, gender, rebellion or other faces of identity, each individual subject in a series is posed and shot exactly the same. When placed together it’s the groups ubiquitous style code that’s immediately apparent, but the real interest is that by looking through the convenient veneer of sameness it’s actually each person’s differences that begin to unexpectedly shine through.

Plus, there are French surfer boys with no shirts on. And that never hurts.

rankin: eyescapes.

I came up with so many nifty lines to kick off this post that I couldn’t pick just one. It came down to “I’ve got my eye on you” and “Look me in the eye” and then I couldn’t choose. Sophie had it hard.

From amazing celeb and editorial photographer Rankin comes Eyescapes. He created round prints from zoomed in images of people’s irises. The result is spectacular. See for yourself! (Alright, I couldn’t resist…)

Via NOTCOT

hong hao: my things.

I’m not sure why documenting the most mundane details of your life can turn into such a fascinating visual case study. It’s almost like taking “one man’s trash is another’s man’s treasure” one step too far – not even sifting through it but simply just stock-piling everything and photographing it. That’s exactly what Beijing-based artist Hong Hao has been doing for more than 15 years.

My Things No. 2 (2001-2002)

He collects all the ephemera and trinkets from his life and documents it. Then it’s just pleasurably voyeuristic and odd to look at it all think “this is someone’s life”. If you were to disappear today this would be the material left in your wake. The stuff you would dispose of says as much as the keepsakes you horde away. It all says everything and it all says nothing.

My Things No. 1 (2000-2002)

Via Cool Hunting