Although it doesn’t explicitly say so anywhere, it seems pretty obvious to me that this life-size sculpture “Broken girl” by Adnagaporp is meant to be Warhol Superstar Edie Sedgwick.
Well, a zombie Edie, anyway.
I can still recall watching The Ascent of Man when it was first broadcast on TV. It was a startling experience, like taking a dive into the cold waters of a loch in November. Its presenter the scientist and mathematician, Dr. Jacob Bronowski may have been “4’ 11” in height” but he was “10’ 5” in presence.” He was astonishing on screen. Likable, super intelligent and filled with a life-loving humanity that inspired. He seemed, as a Monty Python sketch later claimed, to know “everything”.
The series had been intended as a counterpoint to Kenneth Clark‘s landmark series Civilisation, which had appeared on the BBC at the end of the 1960s. There was then still the idea that science and art were 2 different cultures, an idea which had been promoted by scientist turned novelist C. P. Snow in 1959, when he claimed in a lecture, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, that the intellectual life of “the whole of western society was split into two cultures” of Science and the Humanities.
Snow said the British educational system had put an emphasis on the Humanities (in particular the Classics) at the expense of Science. His lecture inspired a notorious rebuttal from F. R. Leavis, Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow, in which the famed academic dismissed Snow as a “public relations man for science” and destroyed his reputation as a novelist:
“Snow is, of course, a—no, I can’t say that; he isn’t: Snow thinks of himself as a novelist….his incapacity as a novelist is … total….as a novelist he doesn’t exist; he doesn’t begin to exist. He can’t be said to know what a novel is…..[Snow] is utterly without a glimmer of what creative literature is, or why it matters…..not only is he not a genius, he is intellectually as undistinguished as it is possible to be.”
Today this type of vitriol one might expect from Simon Cowell, but back then, in the dusty quadrangles of academe, it was unacceptable, and led to mailbox filled with letters from Outraged of Oxford, Cambridge and Mayfair. More damagingly, it led to an entrenchment of views between science and the arts.
In essence, the avuncular Snow believed science, or the culture of science, contained “a great deal of argument, usually much more rigorous, and almost always at a higher conceptual level, than the literary persons’ arguments.” He went on to say:
“If the scientists have the future in their bones, then the traditional culture responds by wishing the future did not exist.”
By “traditional culture” Snow meant writers, artists, those students of Humanities, and incredibly cited George Orwell’s novel 1984 as an example of someone who did not want the future to exist.
Snow claimed that science offered optimism, while let’s call them the Arts were just plain old pessimistic. he also thought writers were suspect (obviously excluding himself here), and science was the only means through which society and the quality of existence would become better. Admirable stuff. But as Leavis was to point out, while science had indeed made the quality of life better, but it only told us how to do something once the decision had been made to do it. Science could not offer the process through which humans came to the moral / philosophical decision to do something.
This debate continued during my school years, where a lack of interest in Maths or Science, or a preference for English and Art, was considered a failing. It was therefore inspiring to watch Bronowski’s Ascent of Man, who showed this separation to not only be false but irrelevant.
“For me science is an expression of the human mind, which seeks for unity under the chaos of nature as the writer seeks for it in the variety of human nature.
Or, as he explained in this interview with James Day for his series Day at Night, recorded in April 9, 1974, just 4 months before Bronowski’s death.
Where does fact end and where does imagination begin? Well, in a sense fact is what the world faces us with, and it is chaotic. We are surrounded in nature by a multitude of phenomena, in which, if order exists it certainly does not display itself.
It is when human beings enter into that, that they ask themselves where is the trail of this chaos?
The trail is called science, if we are talking about inanimate nature.
But, if we are talking about animate nature, about living things and their personal relationships, that trail is called literature or drama or cinema.
In each case, what I the scientist , you the reader, get out of the film or the book, is a series of landmarks which say ‘Follow these steps and you’ll see that there is a hidden unity’, what I call a trail, in the variety of nature. Now, finding that requires imagination, that’s not displayed for you in the open book of nature or in the hidden book of human mood.
In 1945, Bronowski visited Japan and saw at first hand the devastation caused by the detonation of an atomic bomb over the city. It affected Bronowski deeply, and he quit his involvement with mathematics to focus on writing a book on the life and poetry of William Blake. As he wrote the book and contemplated his experiences of the war, it was became clear to Bronowski, long before Snow or Leavis fired their broadsides, that the human imagination is not passive - it is what unites Science and Art - and the pursuits of which were “characteristic of the identity of the human species.”
Made to order by Etsy seller percylau, these pieces of shrunken body-part jewelry are excellent. There’s something very David Cronenberg about them…
Thanks to Kim Thompson.
Has Banksy struck again, in honor of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations?
Sure looks like he might have been the author of this piece depicting Her Majesty as Aladdin Sane—and the painting appeared on Upper Maudlin Street, in Banksy’s hometown of Bristol—but it might actually be by an artist named Incwell.
No one seems to know just yet. Doesn’t matter, it’s amusing whoever painted it.
In case you didn’t get the joke:
Via Lost at E Minor
Photographer/filmmaker Sean F. White has created in Terra Sacra (Latin for “sacred earth”) an astonishingly beautiful piece of cinematography that took six years to make and covers seven continents and 24 countries.
White describes the making of the film:
Terra Sacra is a short film featuring time lapse sequences of remote landscapes and ancient monuments from around the globe. These images were photographed during my assignments and personal travels between 2006-2012.
Inspired by Ron Fricke’s Baraka, I combined my favourite shots from these various trips into a brief non-narrative film that touches on a them close to my heart: Sacred Earth.
The visuals are driven by an original score by composer Roy Milner. The six-minute film is a journey through three distinct Acts: (I) Primordial Earth (II) Past meets Present and (III) Eternal Universe.
This film is a personal project to share the beauty and awe I witnessed at these locations. I hope viewers will be moved by the intangible power of our Terra Sacra.
The trip is just a click away.
I’ve been listening to the new Patti Smith album for the past two days and my initial enthusiasm for Banga has only grown stronger. At first I thought my lust for a Smith album that knocked me sideways like Horses was coloring my take on this new one, but I think I can fairly objectively say it is the second or third best album of Patti Smith’s career.
Smith’s voice has never been finer and, unlike many of her albums after Easter, Banga is full of lovely melodies and hooks. Lyrically, the album follows in the spirit of Smith’s memoir Just Kids: ruminative, prayerful, melancholic and hopeful - a delicate, tough and occasionally fierce expression from a spiritual warrior moving forward with grace and determined soulfulness.
Banga was produced by Smith at Electric Lady Studios (where Horses was recorded in 1975) and features her group (Lenny Kaye, Jay Daugherty and Tony Shanahan) in stellar form. Tom Verlaine provides some shards of psychedelia to two tracks and there’s some drumming and guitar work from Johnny Depp on the title track.
For fans of rock legends who still deliver the goods, Neil Young has added Smith to his tour schedule. The Patti Smith Group will open for Young in these cities:
Nov. 23 – Montreal, Quebec, Bell Centre
Nov. 24 – Ottawa, Ontario, Scotiabank Place
Nov. 26 – Boston, Mass., TD Garden
Nov. 27 – New York City, N.Y., Madison Square Garden
Nov. 29 – Philadelphia, Pa., Wells Fargo Center
Nov. 30 – Fairfax, Va., Patriot Center
Dec. 4 – Bridgeport, Conn., Webster Bank Arena
The following video was shot at Detroit Institute of Arts where an exhibition of Smith’s photographs is taking place concurrent with the addition of her late husband’s, Fred “Sonic” Smith, guitar to the museum’s collection.
The song “April Fool” is the opening track of Banga. Accompanying Patti are her son and daughter, Jackson and Jesse.
“Corpsepaint Creatures” by Tokyo-based artist Bunny Bissoux, is an examination of rock bands throughout history who have worn “corspepaint” on their ugly mugs. Screen prints are available for purchase on his her website.
As a side note: Upon further inspection, it looks like Bunny Bissoux forgot to add Soft Machine to her mighty illustration. Surely Kevin Ayers would count?
Via Cherrybombed
The HBO Shop is selling replica Game of Thrones “iron” thrones for $30,000 + a $1,800.00 surcharge for shipping. They’re constructed of fiberglass and fire-proof resin.
This custom chair is designed to mimic the seat of kings in the Seven Kingdoms. On the show, the Iron Throne was constructed by Aegon I Targaryen, the first king of the Seven Kingdoms. He made it from the swords surrendered by his enemies. Legend has it, it’s made of a thousand swords that took 59 days to hammer out into a throne. Spikes and jagged edges in every direction make this one very intimidating lounge
You would think by the insanely high price, that the HBO Shop would have put in some effort and uploaded better photos, but they didn’t. They’re all pretty crappy. You can check ‘em out here.
Via Geekologie
Travis Betz (with help of many “paper pullers”) spent an entire month reconstructing the Prometheus trailer entirely out of paper.
Here’s the original trailer vs. the paper trailer on YouTube Doubler. Watch ‘em in action side by side.
Steve Ditko is the Thomas Pynchon of the comic book world. He’s a recluse, has rarely been photographed, interviewed or filmed. But his art is something even the most casual of pop culture observers are familiar with: he created, along with Stan Lee, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange and made significant contributions to the continuing sagas of The Hulk and Iron Man, among other comic book heroes.
I’m not a reader of comic books but I did get into Dr. Strange’s trippy alternate realities in the 1960s. With it’s surreal tales and psychedelic artwork, Dr. Strange was a superhero for hipsters. Ditko’s illustrations filled the panels with brightly-colored surreal images that popped off the page and the stories told ventured into the mystical and phantasmagorical. No question he influenced a slew of young artists to expand the realm of comic book content into what would later be known as “head” comics.
In 1965, a San Francisco gathering took place called “A Tribute to Dr Strange.” With music provided by The Jefferson Airplane and party favors by Owsley, this was one of the first hippie happenings. Ironic that Ditko should exert such a strong tug upon the consciousness of the counter-culture when he himself was a social Darwinist with a right-wing slant who probably loathed the touchy/feely, all-is-one, hippie outlook on life. Ditko’s dog eat dog philosophy (articulated in his Mr A comics) was the anti-thesis of the new age group grope.
Jonathan Ross was one of many young freaks who fell under the spell of Ditko’s pen and in this delightful documentary he sets out to find the illusive artist. First shown on BBC television in September 2007, In Search Of Steve Ditko, takes us on a journey into the life of a man who has done all he can to shift the attention away from the artist to the art. Ross seems so enamored of Ditko that he abandons his usual snarkiness and the film becomes a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. You don’t have to be fan of comic books to enjoy the trip.
Previously on DM: Searching For Steve Ditko