$125,000. US dollars has just been paid at auction for a rare 175-year-old book containing the world's first computer algorithm. Prior to this one being found in a cottage owned by a couple in the British Cotswolds, only five of these volumes were known to exist. The algorithm was devised by Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and the daughter of Lord Byron. Lovelace commented that Babbage's machine might have uses beyond calculations and went on to create an algorithm for the Analytical Engine that could compute Bernoulli numbers. Experts describe her accomplishment as the first published algorithm composed for a computer and have thus designated Lovelace as the first computer programmer.

Apparently the world's technology billiionaires are planning to save themselves after the apocalypse which they are certain is coming. Known as "The Event", it encompasses numerous possible disasters, including nuclear explosion, viral pandemic, climate catastrophe, social upheaval, ovewhelming migrations, or a robot hack that destroys everything. Their schemes did not deal with improving the world, but rather with how to escape the inevitable calamities looming ahead. Those involved in the schemes saw themselves as the survivors of a new post-digital economy.

An exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design in London focuses on Frida Kahlo as a fashion icon. Called "Making Herself Up", the show considers how Kahlo used clothes and makeup to foster her own image as separate from the French fashions that were then in vogue. The curators see Kahlo's efforts as "constructed and controlled", in orer to promote herself as an artistic brand.

A concept flying car called Volante Vision Concept aircraft has been devised by Aston Martin. The vehicle is conceived as VTOL, hybrid-electric and autonomous. It is designed to be a luxury air/car that blends technolgy and design.

If you think you have seen the best in contemporary lighting design, cast your eyes on the Magma series, produced by EWE studios. The sculptural lighting objects are carved in volcanic stone held within cold bluing steel and hand-hammered brass, all encased in blown glass. EWE studio can be found in Mexico City. They pride themselves on incorporating contemporary techniques with traditional Mexican culture, using only handmade processes. Browse through the site and get detailed information on how their unusual pieces are fabricated.

You may remember Nan Goldin as the photographer of "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency". Goldin is now part of an activist group that is protesting the activities of the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma that produces OxyContin. The protests were held at the Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts and were aimed at objecting to Harvard's connections to the Sacklers. Other protests were held at the Arthur M. Sackler Galleryy in Washington, D.C., and the Sackler Wing at the Metroopolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

For the architecture lovers among you, a stunning museum has been designed and built by Daniel Libeskind's New York Studio for the city of Wuhan in China. The building occupies an old steel-works factory and is meant to be a public center connecting a landscaped plaza with the industrial neighborhood around it. Named the Museum of Zhang ZhiDong, its soaring roof echoes the ships that ply the Yangtze river close by as well as traditional Chinese pagodas. Zhang ZhiDong was a Chinese official considered one of the four most important figures in the late Qing dynasty.

The city of Tokyo has just opened the world's first Psychedelic Digital Art Museum, holding no sculpture or paintings. The exhibits are based on projection-mapping technology , in which visitors enter a dark room and activate kaleidoscopic installations triggered by motion sensors. The sensors turn on lights that are projected everywhere in the 100,000 square foot building. The head of the museum comments, "Each visitor can enjoy this experience in their own way". The use of touch and movement makes museum-goers feel empowered to control the environment. In one room, for example, a mirrored floor reflects hundreds of lamps hung at varying heights. Lights spread from lamp to lamp, like a fire, accompanied by other-worldly music. In another, lizards and frogs appear sporadically, challenging you not to step on and kill them.

Elaborate headpieces were designed to be worn by Icelandic performer Bjork and her flautists during their Utopia tour. Created by James Merry, the costumes were meant to be seen as extensions of the performers' bodies, as if orchids were growing out of their heads. They are also designed to transform a human body into something out of a sci-fi novel, "a matriarchal tribe on an unknown island starting anew."

A riveting You Tube video about Francis Bacon looks closely at the artist and the violence that fills his canvases. Called "A Brush with Violence", friends and collectors recall the post-war world that swarmed around Bacon and the initial reactions to his work.

An unusual exhibition held at the Morgan Library and Museum showcases the handwritten notes left by important persons in history. Called "The Magic of Handwriting", the exhibit comes from Pedro Correa do Lago, a Brazilian collector who began writing to famous people when he was 11 years old. He asked for, and received, thousands of answers from notables in a variety of fields. Now 60 years old, Correa do Lago calls his collection an act of madness but also a reflection of 500 years of cultural history.

Using 1600 wooden beams, Italian architect Peter Pichler has built a temporary pavilion at the University of Milan as part of Milan design week. Called Future Space, the structure is meant to emphasize the importance of wood in architecture and its ability to convey a "spatial experience".

c. Corinne Whitaker 2018