Last year I created Neon Comment: Volume 001, the initial entry of my longer-duration creative experiment, where I’ve utilizing “dead document” and public domain exploration for image discovery reclamation in multiple contexts. It’s one of my passion projects, which I curated, designed, and produced by under the “Anobium” moniker. The object itself, Neon Comment: Volume 001 is… Continue reading i’m now officially an award-winning designer
Author: Ben van Loon
Writer, Researcher, Chicagoan
from MONU #37: to eradicate urban conflict, eradicate urban interaction
I recently published my third article for the Magazine on New Urbanism (MONU) #37, written as a memo for a fictitious organization, the North American Alliance for Gated Communities, which makes a “serious” and blindly erroneous case arguing that if cities want to eradicate conflict, they should eradicate the means of urban interaction.
AFIRE: focus on climate change (two-part video essay)
As the editor-in-chief of Summit Journal (the official, multiple-award-winning journal published by AFIRE), I recently compiled a special section of the journal focused on the future of climate change and real estate investment.
my top 25 albums and top 50 favorite songs from 2023
On this page, first, an embedded Spotify playlist with my fifty favorite songs released this year, with no repeat artists. Then, in no particular order, a Bandcamp gallery of my favorite twenty-four albums released this year.
chicago tribune op-ed: when will you allow me to grieve the loss of jewish life?
[This op-ed was originally published by the Chicago Tribune. View the original here.] Amid the current wave of bloodshed in Israel and Gaza, it’s easy to forget that last week saw the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. The Hamas-led slaughter of more than 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7 will likely be added… Continue reading chicago tribune op-ed: when will you allow me to grieve the loss of jewish life?
my favorite album releases of 2022 (w/ playlist)
On this page, first, an embedded Spotify playlist with my favorite tracks from all of the albums I favorited this year. Then, in no particular order, a Bandcamp gallery of those albums.
wordpress tweaks for twenty twenty one template
This is a living collection of the custom CSS I’ve added to my Wordpress Twenty Twenty One Theme. Plus links to the websites that provided the useful shortcuts.
We Are What We Are: Chicago and the Paradox of Protests
Democratic societies are alive and malleable, but only because they’re caught in a paradoxical tension between the natural, dynamic, and human will to create—and the controlled, inert, and bureaucratic will towards governance.
Philosophy Untangled Podcast: The Recovering Existentialist
Recorded April 2021
chicago sun-times op-ed: in the world of internet algorithms, there are only two sides to the conflict in israel
[This op-ed was originally published by the Chicago Sun-Times. View the original here.] As the violence in Israel escalates, so too does the rhetoric around Judaism and global Jewry. Though I have an opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I’m also just a guy in Chicago, so who cares? Right? But what happens over there affects… Continue reading chicago sun-times op-ed: in the world of internet algorithms, there are only two sides to the conflict in israel
ben van loon 