Bits: 08.21.09

• As The Pop-Up City looks at a floating campsite near Amsterdam (above), Kevin Cyr creates both a prototype and a painting of his functional pedal-powered, one-man RV, the Camper Bike.

• Banksy, interviewed by Shepard Fairey, on his favorite piece of nontraditional art:

The most perfect piece of art I saw in recent times was during an anarchist demonstration in London a couple of years ago. Someone cut a strip of turf from the grass in front of Big Ben and put it on the head of the statue of Winston Churchill. Later, the demo turned into a riot, and photos of Winston with a grass Mohican were on the cover of every single British newspaper the next day. It was the most amazing bit of vandalism, because it was the perfect logo for this eco-punk movement that was trying to reclaim the streets, bring an end to global capitalism, and defend the right to sit in a park all day getting wasted on discount lager.

• "Feral houses" in Detroit, and the problem of "ruin porn" of the Motor City.

• Art:21 launches a monthly food column, Gastro-Vision, with a look at the aesthetics of urban farming.

• NOMAD and some other guy paint the roof of a Las Vegas casino.

• In 2001, a 19-year-old woman is approached by a Getty photographer and given fifty bucks to be in a stock photo. Years later, her image is popping up everywhere.

• Hou Hanru "On the Spectacle of the Everyday."

• Via @cmonstah, a nice tilt-shift photo of Song Dong's new MoMA installation.

• The Simpson's get a blackface makeover in honor of the show's debut in Africa. Harry Allen calls it a "MASSIVE fail."