Skip to main content

Autistic genius draws cities from memory


A lot of artists out there suffer from mental disabilities, yet they produce some of the most stunning artwork that you can imagine. Take, for example, Stephen Wiltshire, who is famous for his incredibly detailed pen and ink drawings. Diagnosed with autism at the age of three, the gifted artist from London has a remarkable ability to render a city from memory after seeing it only once. He memorizes buildings, streets, and other cityscapes, and will do so with London, Tokyo or New York after a 20-minute helicopter ride.

Below is a timelapse video of Stephen drawing the Singapore cityscape. It took a brief helicopter ride over the Lion City and 5 days for the artist to complete his sketch.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1968 Computer Art Done by Plotters

These drawings received honorable mentions in the 1968 Computer Art Contest organized by Computers and Automation magazine . Most of the images in the issue were programmed in Fortran and were plotted off line on CalComp plotters .  [h/t: Kottke ]

This steampunk-themed cafe makes the meme cool again

Now, maybe I'm as tired of steampunk as you guys, but that doesn't mean I'm going to pretend something like this isn't cool. Located in the Romanian city of Cluj, Enigma  claims to be "the world's first kinetic steampunk bar." I don't know if that's true, but the place looks pretty dope with all the dynamic art installations. [h/t: Colossal ]

Where Bad Space and Good Music Collided

My first apartment was in Malate, and calling it “small” would be generous. I lived there with two girls and one guy, and to this day, I genuinely don’t know how we all fit. It felt like a magic trick. Or a health hazard. We were a musical mess. One roommate lived and breathed ’70s classics. Another was permanently blasting Korn and Slipknot. One survived solely on cheesy love songs. And me? I was floating somewhere between new wave and folk rock, pretending that made sense. Somehow, despite the noise and the chaos, we all lived together in this weird, mismatched harmony. No murders. No lawsuits. A win, honestly. My music taste now is nothing like it was in my twenties. Not even close. But I’ll always be grateful to Jacqueline for introducing me to this song in particular. It was playing when I woke up from a very memorable sleep in 2002. I was 21, half-awake, probably confused about life, and that song stuck. It still hasn’t let go.