Honourable Roulette
The Honourable Parts
Spencer Wright | Scope Of Work | 6th January 2025
On industrial photographer Christopher Payne’s odes to modern manufacturing. “His subjects are often highly engineered (Boeing’s 787 assembly line), but just as often they’re highly soulful (Steinway pianos). There are also moments when Payne zooms out, and the reader sees an entire industrial symphony. Here, the subject of Payne’s photography seems to be modern industrial complexity itself” (5,100 words)
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The Story Of Russian Roulette
Beat Kuhn | Swiss National Museum | 14th January 2025
Perhaps invented by the Russians, but made famous by Swiss author Georges Surdez with his 1937 story by the same name. Its protagonist, Sergeant Burkowski, is a gambler who survives many rounds of Russian Roulette before deliberately shooting himself. In the story, he claims the game was invented in 1917 by Russian soldiers in Romania. Was it just a “clever fictional contrivance”? We don’t know (1,200 words)
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