La Plage de Monsieur Hulot

Au commencement, Saint-Marc n’est qu’un lieu-dit rural qui s’organise autour d’une ferme, d’une minoterie hydraulique et d’une chapelle (c’est de là que vient son nom). Petit à petit, à partir du 19ème siècle,Saint-Marc se transforme en petite cité balnéaire. Saint-Nazaire se développe et la bourgeoisie locale s’intéresse bien vite à ce petit coin préservé de bord de mer. Les premières villas imposantes, appelées « chalets », souvent entourées de jardins magnifiquement arborés, apparaissent alors, elles sont caractéristiques de cette première époque balnéaire dite… pittoresque. Les années passent, on redécouvre les bienfaits de la mer, le train et les routes se développent : l’accès au littoral est ainsi facilité et se démocratise. Des villas plus modestes sont construites en lotissement, des orphelinats et colonies de vacances poussent de-ci de-là. Au début du 20e siècle, l’engouement pour la mer touche une classe plus modeste qui est à la recherche de cités balnéaires moins mondaines : Saint-Marc s’impose alors. Victime de ses atouts pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les Allemands fortifient ce petit bout de territoire, construisent des camps et réquisitionnent les villas. Mais très vite après la guerre, Saint-Marc attire de nouveau les vacanciers. Son atmosphère balnéaire si particulière séduit. Jacques Tati d’ailleurs ne s’y trompe pas : c’est là qu’il veut tourner en 1951 son nouveau film : « Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot » !

Monsieur Hulot Beach

In the beginning, Saint-Marc was just a rural locality organized around a farm, a hydraulic mill and a chapel (this is where its name comes from). Gradually, from the 19th century, Saint-Marc was transformed into a small seaside town. Saint-Nazaire developed and the local bourgeoisie quickly took an interest in this little unspoilt corner of the seaside. so-called picturesque seaside era. The years pass, we rediscover the benefits of the sea, the train and the roads develop: access to the coast is thus facilitated and democratized. More modest villas are built in housing estates, orphanages and holiday camps are springing up here and there. At the beginning of the 20th century, the craze for the sea affected a more modest class which was looking for less mundane seaside towns: Saint-Marc then imposed itself. Victim of its assets during the Second World War, the Germans fortified this small piece of territory, built camps and requisitioned the villas. But very soon after the war, Saint-Marc once again attracted holidaymakers. Its very special seaside atmosphere seduces. Jacques Tati, moreover, is not mistaken: this is where he wants to shoot his new film in 1951: “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot”!

Veuillez ne pas utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias sans ma permission écrite. Si vous souhaitez utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias contacter moi par message ou sur mon site web !

Please do not use my images on websites, blogs or other media without my written permission. If you want to use my images on websites, blogs or other media contact me by message or on my website!

www.istvanszekany.com/

My company at ArtfullyGiving.com sells art and donates 25% of profits to nonprofits. Many of those non-profits help underserved people and communities. This image was generated via AI through my instruction set and influenced by my causes on ArtfullyGiving.com.

My 2 cents on AI art:

Art has always reflected the culture and society in which it is created. AI art is becoming increasingly popular as technology advances, and the art community should embrace it. Technology has allowed more people to express themselves creatively, and AI art is no exception. With the help of AI, artists can now create artwork that was once impossible, allowing for new forms of artistic expression.

Additionally, technology enables more people to be connected, which opens up new opportunities for collaboration and sharing. With AI, artists worldwide can work together on a single piece, and anyone can view and appreciate their work from anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, technology gives everyone access to information, and AI can use this information to create art. AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data and generate new ideas that were once impossible to imagine.

Finally, technology is the enabler of competition. With AI art, anyone can compete and create something unique and beautiful, regardless of their background or experience. This democratizes the art world, allowing more voices to be heard and more people to be recognized for their creative talents.

AI art is an exciting new form of artistic expression that the art community should embrace. Technology enables more people to express themselves, be connected, and access information, ultimately leading to more creativity.

La Plage de Monsieur Hulot

Au commencement, Saint-Marc n’est qu’un lieu-dit rural qui s’organise autour d’une ferme, d’une minoterie hydraulique et d’une chapelle (c’est de là que vient son nom). Petit à petit, à partir du 19ème siècle,Saint-Marc se transforme en petite cité balnéaire. Saint-Nazaire se développe et la bourgeoisie locale s’intéresse bien vite à ce petit coin préservé de bord de mer. Les premières villas imposantes, appelées « chalets », souvent entourées de jardins magnifiquement arborés, apparaissent alors, elles sont caractéristiques de cette première époque balnéaire dite… pittoresque. Les années passent, on redécouvre les bienfaits de la mer, le train et les routes se développent : l’accès au littoral est ainsi facilité et se démocratise. Des villas plus modestes sont construites en lotissement, des orphelinats et colonies de vacances poussent de-ci de-là. Au début du 20e siècle, l’engouement pour la mer touche une classe plus modeste qui est à la recherche de cités balnéaires moins mondaines : Saint-Marc s’impose alors. Victime de ses atouts pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les Allemands fortifient ce petit bout de territoire, construisent des camps et réquisitionnent les villas. Mais très vite après la guerre, Saint-Marc attire de nouveau les vacanciers. Son atmosphère balnéaire si particulière séduit. Jacques Tati d’ailleurs ne s’y trompe pas : c’est là qu’il veut tourner en 1951 son nouveau film : « Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot » !

Monsieur Hulot Beach

In the beginning, Saint-Marc was just a rural locality organized around a farm, a hydraulic mill and a chapel (this is where its name comes from). Gradually, from the 19th century, Saint-Marc was transformed into a small seaside town. Saint-Nazaire developed and the local bourgeoisie quickly took an interest in this little unspoilt corner of the seaside. so-called picturesque seaside era. The years pass, we rediscover the benefits of the sea, the train and the roads develop: access to the coast is thus facilitated and democratized. More modest villas are built in housing estates, orphanages and holiday camps are springing up here and there. At the beginning of the 20th century, the craze for the sea affected a more modest class which was looking for less mundane seaside towns: Saint-Marc then imposed itself. Victim of its assets during the Second World War, the Germans fortified this small piece of territory, built camps and requisitioned the villas. But very soon after the war, Saint-Marc once again attracted holidaymakers. Its very special seaside atmosphere seduces. Jacques Tati, moreover, is not mistaken: this is where he wants to shoot his new film in 1951: “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot”!

Veuillez ne pas utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias sans ma permission écrite. Si vous souhaitez utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias contacter moi par message ou sur mon site web !

Please do not use my images on websites, blogs or other media without my written permission. If you want to use my images on websites, blogs or other media contact me by message or on my website!

www.istvanszekany.com/

A LORNA, LORNA, A QUIEN NUNCA SE LE ACABA SU SED DE CONOCIMIENTO.

Así es la viticultura heroica de la Ribeira Sacra, una vendimia de alto riesgo. Vendimiadores de Ribeira Sacra, en las escarpadas orillas del Sil. Como en un deporte de montaña, los vendimiadores de Ribeira Sacra se descuelgan por las escarpadas laderas del Sil a veces con arneses y la cosecha a la espalda. Lo llaman viticultura heroica y produce vinos únicos.

En el globalizado mundo del vino, donde los estándares de calidad se han democratizado, permitiendo a los nuevos países productores conquistar los mercados con marcas de precio imbatible e identidad indescifrable, la última baza que les queda a las regiones vinícolas tradicionales para sobrevivir no es otra que reivindicar su propio carácter.

To Lorna Lorna, whose thirst for knowledge is never quenched

Heroic grape harvesters of the Sacra Ribeira

This is the heroic viticulture of the Ribeira Sacra, a high-risk vintage. Grape harvesters from Ribeira Sacra, on the steep banks of the Sil. As in a mountain sport, the Ribeira Sacra grape harvesters hang down the steep slopes of the Sil, sometimes with harnesses and the harvest on their backs. They call it heroic viticulture and it produces unique wines.

In the globalized world of wine, where quality standards have been democratized, allowing new producing countries to conquer markets with brands with unbeatable prices and indecipherable identity, the last trick left for traditional wine regions to survive is none other than to vindicate his own character.

La Plage de Monsieur Hulot

Au commencement, Saint-Marc n’est qu’un lieu-dit rural qui s’organise autour d’une ferme, d’une minoterie hydraulique et d’une chapelle (c’est de là que vient son nom). Petit à petit, à partir du 19ème siècle,Saint-Marc se transforme en petite cité balnéaire. Saint-Nazaire se développe et la bourgeoisie locale s’intéresse bien vite à ce petit coin préservé de bord de mer. Les premières villas imposantes, appelées « chalets », souvent entourées de jardins magnifiquement arborés, apparaissent alors, elles sont caractéristiques de cette première époque balnéaire dite… pittoresque. Les années passent, on redécouvre les bienfaits de la mer, le train et les routes se développent : l’accès au littoral est ainsi facilité et se démocratise. Des villas plus modestes sont construites en lotissement, des orphelinats et colonies de vacances poussent de-ci de-là. Au début du 20e siècle, l’engouement pour la mer touche une classe plus modeste qui est à la recherche de cités balnéaires moins mondaines : Saint-Marc s’impose alors. Victime de ses atouts pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les Allemands fortifient ce petit bout de territoire, construisent des camps et réquisitionnent les villas. Mais très vite après la guerre, Saint-Marc attire de nouveau les vacanciers. Son atmosphère balnéaire si particulière séduit. Jacques Tati d’ailleurs ne s’y trompe pas : c’est là qu’il veut tourner en 1951 son nouveau film : « Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot » !

Monsieur Hulot Beach

In the beginning, Saint-Marc was just a rural locality organized around a farm, a hydraulic mill and a chapel (this is where its name comes from). Gradually, from the 19th century, Saint-Marc was transformed into a small seaside town. Saint-Nazaire developed and the local bourgeoisie quickly took an interest in this little unspoilt corner of the seaside. so-called picturesque seaside era. The years pass, we rediscover the benefits of the sea, the train and the roads develop: access to the coast is thus facilitated and democratized. More modest villas are built in housing estates, orphanages and holiday camps are springing up here and there. At the beginning of the 20th century, the craze for the sea affected a more modest class which was looking for less mundane seaside towns: Saint-Marc then imposed itself. Victim of its assets during the Second World War, the Germans fortified this small piece of territory, built camps and requisitioned the villas. But very soon after the war, Saint-Marc once again attracted holidaymakers. Its very special seaside atmosphere seduces. Jacques Tati, moreover, is not mistaken: this is where he wants to shoot his new film in 1951: “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot”!

Veuillez ne pas utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias sans ma permission écrite. Si vous souhaitez utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias contacter moi par message ou sur mon site web !

Please do not use my images on websites, blogs or other media without my written permission. If you want to use my images on websites, blogs or other media contact me by message or on my website!

www.istvanszekany.com/

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

La Plage de Monsieur Hulot

Au commencement, Saint-Marc n’est qu’un lieu-dit rural qui s’organise autour d’une ferme, d’une minoterie hydraulique et d’une chapelle (c’est de là que vient son nom). Petit à petit, à partir du 19ème siècle,Saint-Marc se transforme en petite cité balnéaire. Saint-Nazaire se développe et la bourgeoisie locale s’intéresse bien vite à ce petit coin préservé de bord de mer. Les premières villas imposantes, appelées « chalets », souvent entourées de jardins magnifiquement arborés, apparaissent alors, elles sont caractéristiques de cette première époque balnéaire dite… pittoresque. Les années passent, on redécouvre les bienfaits de la mer, le train et les routes se développent : l’accès au littoral est ainsi facilité et se démocratise. Des villas plus modestes sont construites en lotissement, des orphelinats et colonies de vacances poussent de-ci de-là. Au début du 20e siècle, l’engouement pour la mer touche une classe plus modeste qui est à la recherche de cités balnéaires moins mondaines : Saint-Marc s’impose alors. Victime de ses atouts pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les Allemands fortifient ce petit bout de territoire, construisent des camps et réquisitionnent les villas. Mais très vite après la guerre, Saint-Marc attire de nouveau les vacanciers. Son atmosphère balnéaire si particulière séduit. Jacques Tati d’ailleurs ne s’y trompe pas : c’est là qu’il veut tourner en 1951 son nouveau film : « Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot » !

Monsieur Hulot Beach

In the beginning, Saint-Marc was just a rural locality organized around a farm, a hydraulic mill and a chapel (this is where its name comes from). Gradually, from the 19th century, Saint-Marc was transformed into a small seaside town. Saint-Nazaire developed and the local bourgeoisie quickly took an interest in this little unspoilt corner of the seaside. so-called picturesque seaside era. The years pass, we rediscover the benefits of the sea, the train and the roads develop: access to the coast is thus facilitated and democratized. More modest villas are built in housing estates, orphanages and holiday camps are springing up here and there. At the beginning of the 20th century, the craze for the sea affected a more modest class which was looking for less mundane seaside towns: Saint-Marc then imposed itself. Victim of its assets during the Second World War, the Germans fortified this small piece of territory, built camps and requisitioned the villas. But very soon after the war, Saint-Marc once again attracted holidaymakers. Its very special seaside atmosphere seduces. Jacques Tati, moreover, is not mistaken: this is where he wants to shoot his new film in 1951: “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot”!

Veuillez ne pas utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias sans ma permission écrite. Si vous souhaitez utiliser mes images sur des sites Web, des blogs ou d'autres médias contacter moi par message ou sur mon site web !

Please do not use my images on websites, blogs or other media without my written permission. If you want to use my images on websites, blogs or other media contact me by message or on my website!

www.istvanszekany.com/

IMG_1766r

Located in a small and secluded square across from the French Embassy, the wall had been decorated by love poems and short messages against the regime since 1960s. It received its first decoration connected to John Lennon, a symbol of freedom, western culture, and political struggle, following the 1980 assassination of John Lennon when an unknown artist painted a single image of the singer-songwriter and some lyrics.

In 1988, the wall was a source of irritation for Gustáv Husák's communist regime. Following a short-lived era of democratization and political liberalization known as the Prague Spring, the newly-installed communist government dismantled the reforms, inspiring anger and resistance. Young Czechs wrote their grievances on the wall and, according to a report of the time, this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The liberalization movement these students followed was described as "Lennonism" (not to be confused with "Leninism"), and Czech authorities described participants variously as alcoholic, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western free market capitalism.

The wall continuously undergoes change, and the original portrait of Lennon is long lost under layers of new paint. Even when the wall was repainted by authorities, by the next day it was again full of poems and flowers. Today, the wall represents a symbol of global ideals such as love and peace.

The wall is owned by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which allowed the graffiti, and is located at Velkopřevorské náměstí (Grand Priory Square), Malá Strana.

The MURAL Festival is an annual international street art festival held every June since 2013 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It aims to celebrate the democratization of urban art in the city of Montréal. Artists from around the world are invited to participate in the festival every year and contribute with their personal perspectives of the art.

Source: Wikipedia

Prime Minister’s Secretariat

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

I wasn't going to leave Philly until I saw the giant clothespin sculpture. I love it. It's such a contrast with the architecture of the city hall on the other side of the street.

From Wikipedia:

Clothespin is a weathering steel sculpture, by Claes Oldenburg. It is located at Centre Square, 1500 Market Street, Philadelphia.[3] It is designed to appear as a large black clothespin. Oldenburg is noted for his attempts to democratize art, and the location of Clothespin, above SEPTA's City Hall subway station, allows thousands of viewers to view it on a daily basis. [4] It was dedicated June 25, 1976.[5] Made of Corten steel, Clothespin is praised by art critics for its velvety texture and weathered, warm reddish-brown color. [6] The silvery steel "spring" part the two textured work resembles the numerals "76", apt for the United States Bicentennial year.[7] Tying in Philadelphia's colonial heritage with its difficult present, Clothespin addresses the city's civic issues and attempts to close the gap between income levels within the city through its universally recognized form.[8] The design has been likened to the "embracing couple" in Constantin Brâncuși's sculpture The Kiss in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.[9]

Perched atop Mount Hollywood, the Griffith Observatory gazes eastward as twilight bathes Los Angeles in hues of amber and lavender, its Art Deco silhouette a sentinel bridging earth and sky. Opened in 1935 and gifted by Griffith J. Griffith—a philanthropist who envisioned a public gateway to the cosmos—the observatory’s weathered copper domes and streamlined moderne architecture reflect LA’s golden-age ambition. Below, the city unfolds in layers: the Hollywood Sign, a relic of 1920s boosterism, overlooks a mosaic of Spanish Revival homes, mid-century apartments, and the glittering towers of Downtown. The US Bank Tower and Wilshire Grand Center, symbols of modern ambition, rise beside Art Deco gems like the Eastern Columbia Building, whispering of the 1930s, when Hollywood’s Golden Age cemented LA as a global beacon. Griffith’s dream of democratizing science endures here, where telescopes once trained WWII pilots and plotted Apollo missions now invite millions to ponder the universe.

The photograph captures LA’s “blue moment,” that fleeting breath between day and night. Streetlights and freeways streak like golden veins across the basin, while the marine layer softens the skyline’s edges, blending smog and sunset into an ethereal haze. To the south, the pulse of Staples Center and LA Live mirrors the city’s nocturnal energy, while the distant San Gabriel Mountains anchor the scene in timelessness. Even the Space Shuttle *Endeavour*, visible as a faint silhouette, feels like a nod to Griffith’s celestial aspirations. This is a city of contrasts—wild hills against concrete grids, historic ambition against sleek modernity—all unified under twilight’s glow.

A pilgrimage site immortalized in *Rebel Without a Cause* and *La La Land*, the observatory’s lawn embodies LA’s paradox: a place of transience and permanence, where 4 million stories collide beneath the stars. As the domes illuminate against the deepening sky, the vista invites reflection on a metropolis forever reaching forward, yet forever haunted by its past. Here, amid the hum of helicopters and the rustle of canyon winds, the City of Angels reveals its soul—a tapestry of dreams, grit, and light.

The GUM's store in Moscow has an interesting history; it was intended to promote Bolshevik goals of rebuilding private enterprise along socialist lines and "democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide".

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”- Kofi Anan

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

"I think it's very dangerous for a free society to have all the information distilled and packaged by our government and given to us. Do we know to this day who we killed in Iraq? I don't think so. If bringing war into the living room means that we as a people will say we don't want to do it that way anymore we want to figure out other ways to solve these conflicts, then I would say that photography and television have done us a great service."

- Michael Deaver, former Deputy White House Chief of Staff

Well one of the great things about Netflix is that it gives me an opportunity to go back and see so many great programs that I somehow missed the first time around. For me, one of those programs was PBS' excellent documentary, American Photography: A Century of Images. Although not quite as long as last year's equally fine BBC documentary "The Genius of Photography," I found it compelling in an entirely different way.

At a little over 3 hours in length, American Photography: A Century of Images chronicles the last century of photography in the United States. Broken down into three parts, the series covers 1900-1934, 1935-1959 and 1960-1999 (when the program was produced).

So many of the greatest American photographs and photographers are profiled in the documentary, Ansel Adams and his ahead of his time photographs of our environment, Gordon Parks and his photos depicting racism in the U.S., Dorothea Lange and her work for the FSA in the Great Depression, Edward Curtis' chronicling of the American Indian, Robert Frank's post war photographs of the real America.

Much of the documentary focuses specifically on politics and war. Moving from World War 1 to World War 2 to the extraordinary and intimate role of photography in Vietnam and finally to the deeply troubling censorship that took place with the most recent Iraq war, you recognize the amazing power that photography has not so much on our minds, but on our hearts and emotions.

You hear stories told by people like musician Graham Nash about how after seeing the historic photo of students killed at Kent State that Neil Young went into the woods and came back out an hour later having written one of the angriest and most powerful songs of the Vietnam era, Ohio.

Or stories about President Kennedy's reaction upon seeing for the first time a photo taken by photographer Malcolm Browne of a Buddhist Monk's suicide by fire that ran in newspapers across America (even though the New York Times refused to run it).

The documentary also spends a fair amount of time on the history of photographic technology -- how the advent of a camera like the Kodak Brownie become a great democratizer of photography, or how image manipulation possible today was able to remove a cigarette from Jackson Pollock's mouth in the photo used for his postage stamp.

There are so many great segments in this documentary. Edward Steichen's 1955 historic exhibition "The Family of Man" at New York's MOMA. The impact of a photograph of black Emmett Till's brutal bludgeoned murdered body on the civil rights movement. Michael Deaver talking about how tightly he controlled photographic access to Ronald Reagan. Four of the most significant photographs of the Vietnam war (including Eddie Adams' gripping photo of an execution of a Viet Cong soldier). The great rise of Life Magazine. The photo appropriation of artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Prince to comment with art on social culture.

If you love photography like I do and you haven't seen this documentary yet, do yourself a favor and go out and rent or buy it. It will inspire you as a photographer and it will give you an amazing historical perspective on this great art and craft of ours. Along the way you will see some of the most amazing photographs ever taken. The documentary is chock full of photographs that almost everyone will recognize -- and getting the stories behind these photographs brings even greater clarity to the moment and an even deeper respect for the photographers who made them.

I'm kind of aware of the fact that I don't post as frequently on Flickr as I used to. One of the reasons is that I had several albums, with dozens and dozens of photos, and I made the posting of those albums into projects that consumed a fair amount of time. I have several other albums, but there's only one that is both full of photos and full of photos of a high-quality and/or contains lots of photos with highly-interesting content. When the time comes to post that one album, I hope I remember to do it.

Meanwhile, here's a little morsel, an album I've had for a while. I don't, in fact, remember where I bought it, but it was pre-Iowa, which means either South Carolina, Florida, or the Missouri triangle as the source of purchase. For some reason, I have the state of Maryland attached to my memory of where these photos might have been taken, and where the school might be. Don't know why I have that memory, as there is no intrinsic evidence to support that association.

Most of these kids are smiling. This photographer had The Knack, and, to be honest, I worry about the kids who aren't smiling. My most haunting memory of going into the Arkansas Public Schools, K through 12 (I participated in a program called "Poets in the Schools," (though, of course, I was never a poet), until I got fired for being a bad boy (and my indiscretion does not even make for a very good story), oh yeah, my most haunting memory, is how in kindergarten, just about all the kids, rich and poor, black and white, were boiling over with irrepressible enthusiasm, and by the time they were sophomores and juniors and seniors, they had been sorted out, and the kids who as kindergartners were no less able, no less inventive, no less alive, were now, after the democratizing socialization process, shunted aside, deemed lesser, slotted to change tires down at the Firestone store, or put on an apron and primp the lettuce at the local grocery. And that was before Wal-Mart had done the worst of its work. Even the teachers, at least some, if not most of them, participated in the process. They would point out the troublemakers for you, and speak sneeringly of them. The experience was uplifting, and terribly disheartening, which is how I feel about my wonderful, dastardly country.

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

Hopper’s Corp.

Everything began in 2071 when François Legrand opened his first frog legs restaurant in the little village of Villars-les-Dombes. His ambition was to democratize this traditional dish making it affordable everywhere, at any time, with no compromise on food’s quality. Today, Hopper’s can be found in 31 systems everywhere in the galaxy, with more than 3400 restaurants.

Here is how we make the universe's finest frog-based dishes:

Step 1 : Harvesting

Hopper’s partners with a global network of fishermen to provide quality ingredients. Most of our production comes from the ponds of the Anura system, where animals live freely outdoors, in a sane environment. We designed autonomous machines to help our collaborator harvest the product : a biped robot raises the nets which are then transported by drone to the collecting walker. This process is ethical (no animals are armed) and economically viable for the fishermen.

Step 2 : Transport

The product is then transported by our fleet of cargo ships in refrigerated containers. The ships are equipped with cutting edge propulsion technology to ensure the product stays fresh and crispy during transportation. Because ecology is at the core of our values, all ships run on bio-plasma, reducing pollution.

Step 3 : Processing

The cargos head to one of our frog processing plants. Those megafactories are the largest, highest volume facilities in the galaxy. They are designed to execute the complex processes required to transform the animals ethically with a strong focus on food’s safety. All the process is automated, from conditioning to preparation and finally packing. That’s also where your favorite condiments such as sauces and spices are prepared and added to the product.

Step 4 : Service

The many Hopper's restaurants in the Galaxy are designed for consumer enjoyment.

The restaurants are decorated in the style of François Legrand's ancestor's restaurant called Nighthawks 1942.

Robotic waiters deliver frog legs in all their forms, from curry legs to fabulous choco-legs.

Each restaurant offers deliveries directly to your conapt using drones.

With this quality of service, Hopper’s frogs have become the most popular food in the galaxy, even surpassing the famous PIZZATRON chain which faced a global food poisoning scandal.

Space Jam 2021

Category Sci-Fi Corporation (Collab)

Hopper’s Corp.

Everything began in 2071 when François Legrand opened his first frog legs restaurant in the little village of Villars-les-Dombes. His ambition was to democratize this traditional dish making it affordable everywhere, at any time, with no compromise on food’s quality. Today, Hopper’s can be found in 31 systems everywhere in the galaxy, with more than 3400 restaurants.

Here is how we make the universe's finest frog-based dishes:

Step 1 : Harvesting by Lokiloki

Hopper’s partners with a global network of fishermen to provide quality ingredients. Most of our production comes from the ponds of the Anura system, where animals live freely outdoors, in a sane environment. We designed autonomous machines to help our collaborator harvest the product : a biped robot raises the nets which are then transported by drone to the collecting walker. This process is ethical (no animals are armed) and economically viable for the fishermen.

Step 2 : Transport by BobDeQuatre

The product is transported in refrigerated containers by our fleet of cargo ships. They are equipped with cutting edge propulsion technology to ensure the product stays fresh during transportation. Because ecology is at the core of our values, all ships run on bio-plasma, reducing pollution.

Step 3 : Processing by F@bz

The cargos head to one of our frog processing plants. Those megafactories are the largest, highest volume facilities in the galaxy. They are designed to execute the complex processes required to transform the animals ethically with a strong focus on food’s safety. All the process is automated, from conditioning to preparation and finally packing. That’s also where your favorite condiments such as sauces and spices are prepared and added to the product.

Step 4 : Service by Pistash

The many Hopper's restaurants in the Galaxy are designed for consumer enjoyment.

The restaurants are decorated in the style of François Legrand's ancestor's restaurant called Nighthawks 1942.

Robotic waiters deliver frog legs in all their forms, from curry legs to fabulous choco-legs.

Each restaurant offers deliveries directly to your conapt using drones.

With this quality of service, Hopper’s frogs have become the most popular food in the galaxy, even surpassing the famous PIZZATRON chain which faced a global food poisoning scandal.

Humanity has needed to express itself in all its epochs. Art is undoubtedly a form of them. But when I refer to expressing myself, I also refer to social movements, from French May, to feminist movements, or marches for Gay pride. Also at all times, the center of these expressions were and are the protests for acts of injustice. The world, our place we inhabit, has not been able to solve the basic needs of any human being that inhabits our planet. On the contrary, we see, almost naturally, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing, from countries subject to wars, which have been promoted, in the name of freedom or worse still in the name of democratizing them. Always using grandiloquent words, but hiding true interests. Those who claim the right to be chosen for these crusades could not resist the smallest and simplest questions. They who hold the hegemonic power, do not believe they should give explanations for their actions. From the hunger that their acts cause to the most sinister massacres in the name of defending, human rights have led us to a degree of paranoia, which we take for granted, that more than half of the world's population lives without being able to meet the needs Basic food. Surely the image of my photo will awaken other forms of emotions, feelings, sensations, etc. But none of them will be oblivious to feeling pain. That is why the old and so argued statement: that a picture can be more than a thousand words. Each of you, for sure, will see in this image SUFFERING, ... but the answers will be as distinctive as the words I choose to express the reason for my photo.

La humanidad ha necesitado en todas sus épocas, expresarse. El arte sin duda es una forma de ellas. Pero cuando me refiero a expresarse, también me refiero a movimientos sociales, desde el Mayo francés, hasta movimientos feministas, o marchas por el orgullo Gay. También en todas las épocas, el centro de esas expresiones eran y son las protestas por actos de injusticias. El mundo, nuestro lugar que habitamos, no ha podido, solucionar las necesidades básicas de cualquier ser humano que habite nuestro planeta. Por lo contrario, vemos, casi como natural, cientos de miles de personas huyendo, de países sometidos a guerras, las cuales, han sido fomentadas, en nombre de la libertad o peor aún en nombre de democratizarlas. Siempre usando palabras grandilocuentes, pero ocultando los verdaderos intereses. Quienes se atribuyen el derecho de ser los elegidos para esas cruzadas, no podrían resistir los menores y mas simples cuestionamientos. Ellos lo que ostentan el poder hegemónico, no creen que deban dar explicaciones por sus acciones. Desde el hambre que ocasionan sus actos hasta las mas siniestras matanzas en nombre de defender, los derechos humanos, nos han llevado a un grado de paranoia, que damos por lógico, que mas de la mitad de la población mundial viva sin poder cubrir la necesidades básicas alimenticias. Seguramente la imagen de mi foto, despertará otras formas de emociones, sentimientos, sensaciones, etc. Pero ninguna de ellas estará ajena a sentir dolor. Por eso la vieja y tan discutida afirmación: que una imagen puede mas que mil palabras. Cada uno de ustedes, con seguridad, verán en esta imagen el SUFRIMIENTO,…pero las respuestas serán tan distintitas, como las palabras que yo elija para expresar la razón de mi foto.

Don't ask me what OneWorld was doing here in Miami because I also asked myself the question... I say this because I live very close to the Miami International Airport.

Well, due to the confusion that this company may have, because it was a plane that passed by my sight, by chance, here I leave a note, I think it is important: Oneworld (stylized as oneworld; CRS: * O) is an airline alliance founded on February 1, 1999. The alliance's stated objective is to be the first choice airline alliance for the world's frequent international travelers. Its central alliance office is in New York, New York, United States. Its member airlines are American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines, as well as Fiji Airways as a connect partner and some 30 affiliated airlines. As of October 2017, Oneworld is the third-largest global alliance in terms of passengers with more than 527.9 million passengers carried, behind SkyTeam (630M) and Star Alliance (762M).

As of October 2017, its member airlines collectively operate a fleet of 3,447 aircraft, serve about 1,000 airports in more than 158 countries, carrying 527.9 million passengers per year on 12,738 daily departures, generating annual revenues of more than US $ 130 billion.

Boeing 747

Description

DescriptionThe Boeing 747 is a large, long–range wide-body airliner and cargo aircraft manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet 2½ times its size, to reduce its seat cost by 30% to democratize air travel.

First flight: February 9, 1969

Number built: 1,558 (incl. 2 undelivered Boeing testbeds) as of June 2020

Program cost: US$1B in 1968 (7.4B today)

Variants: Boeing 747SP; Boeing 747-400; Boeing 747-8; Boeing VC-25; Boeing E-4

Developed into: Boeing YAL-1; Boeing Dreamlifter

Manufacturer: Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Produced: 1968 to the present, it keeps flying and this model is still being made with different variants.

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

Excerpt from agb.life/visit/exhibitions/living-library:

Living Library

Lakeshore Gallery

As an educational organization, the Art Gallery of Burlington understands the important role libraries play as a site where everyday knowledge, experiences, and literacies are valued. Living Library program is a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists and authors’ projects, which provides free and equitable access to events, a maker space, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encourages the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promotes the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.

Living Library is an all-ages, flexible space designed to foster connectivity and meet the changing needs of Burlingtonians. The space is activated by regular contributors, such as artists, cultural workers, community organizers, and audiences. Living Library is built with the explicit intention of creating space in the institution wherein people want to spend more time resting and creating. It strives to build connections and make new friends.

The space consists of tables, nooks, plants, rugs, seating, vessels, a chalkboard, and shelves full of books to read and materials to create with. It is sophisticated, yet playful, in design to be inviting for multiple generations and comfortable for a diverse range of learners. Opening its doors on January 25, the Living Library welcomes visitors with artworks by artists Erika DeFreitas, Jeffrey Gibson, and Natalie King.

Living Library is a democratizing, inclusive, and polyphonic space for critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures.

Space Jam 2021

Category Sci-Fi Corporation (Collab)

Hopper’s Corp.

Everything began in 2071 when François Legrand opened his first frog legs restaurant in the little village of Villars-les-Dombes. His ambition was to democratize this traditional dish making it affordable everywhere, at any time, with no compromise on food’s quality. Today, Hopper’s can be found in 31 systems everywhere in the galaxy, with more than 3400 restaurants.

Here is how we make the universe's finest frog-based dishes:

Step 1 : Harvesting by Lokiloki

Hopper’s partners with a global network of fishermen to provide quality ingredients. Most of our production comes from the ponds of the Anura system, where animals live freely outdoors, in a sane environment. We designed autonomous machines to help our collaborator harvest the product : a biped robot raises the nets which are then transported by drone to the collecting walker. This process is ethical (no animals are armed) and economically viable for the fishermen.

Step 2 : Transport by BobDeQuatre

The product is transported in refrigerated containers by our fleet of cargo ships. They are equipped with cutting edge propulsion technology to ensure the product stays fresh during transportation. Because ecology is at the core of our values, all ships run on bio-plasma, reducing pollution.

Step 3 : Processing by F@bz

The cargos head to one of our frog processing plants. Those megafactories are the largest, highest volume facilities in the galaxy. They are designed to execute the complex processes required to transform the animals ethically with a strong focus on food’s safety. All the process is automated, from conditioning to preparation and finally packing. That’s also where your favorite condiments such as sauces and spices are prepared and added to the product.

Step 4 : Service by Pistash

The many Hopper's restaurants in the Galaxy are designed for consumer enjoyment.

The restaurants are decorated in the style of François Legrand's ancestor's restaurant called Nighthawks 1942.

Robotic waiters deliver frog legs in all their forms, from curry legs to fabulous choco-legs.

Each restaurant offers deliveries directly to your conapt using drones.

With this quality of service, Hopper’s frogs have become the most popular food in the galaxy, even surpassing the famous PIZZATRON chain which faced a global food poisoning scandal.

IMG_0165r The University of Tours (French: Université de Tours), till 18 December 2017 François Rabelais University of Tours (Université François-Rabelais de Tours), is a public university in Tours, France. The university was formerly named after the French writer François Rabelais, and was founded in 1969. As of July 2015 it is a member of the regional university association Leonardo da Vinci consolidated University. The University of Tours was established as part of efforts to modernize and democratize higher education in France after the events of 1968. The university was created by grouping together a number of older educational institutions

www.flickr.com/photos/kurtsview/albums/72157695163409335

National Museum, Oslo – Cast Hall

Visitors to the new National Museum in Oslo may be surprised—and perhaps moved—to find a dedicated hall of plaster casts among the sleek, modern galleries. The presence of these replicas pays homage to a formative chapter in art education and museum history: a time before commercial travel, digital media, and visual saturation, when even well-educated Europeans could rarely, if ever, encounter the originals of world art.

In 1904, when painter Ivar Lund depicted the Interior of the National Gallery, cast halls served both pedagogical and cultural missions. They democratized access to Greco-Roman antiquity and Renaissance masterworks, offering a surrogate form of aesthetic communion. These casts were not dismissed as mere imitations; rather, they were prized as tools of knowledge—objects to be studied, copied, and internalized.

Importantly, many casts were made using molds taken directly from the originals. Classical sculptures in major European collections—such as the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, and the British Museum—were at times permitted to serve as sources for plaster molds, particularly in the 19th century. If viewers knew or believed that a cast had been taken from such a mold, that knowledge was often sufficient to establish the object’s authenticity in their eyes. Few would have fixated on the missing aura of the original.

Even today, in an era obsessed with provenance, attribution, and originality, the authenticity of so-called “originals” is far from guaranteed. In the murky world of dealers, restorers, and curators, forgeries and misattributions remain a known hazard. A museum label, even in the British Museum or the Met, is not a metaphysical guarantee of truth. What casts offer—paradoxically—is clarity: a frank acknowledgment of derivation and replication that frees the viewer to engage directly with the sculpture’s visual and formal language.

As Jeannine’s pencil drawing of the Nike of Samothrace (a cast of the Louvre original) reminds us, to draw is still to see. The museum provides paper and pencils and invites the public to try their hand at sketching under the motto "to draw is to see." The replication of the ancient masterpiece, no less than the act of sketching it, forms a bridge between observer and observed. It demands attention, patience, and fidelity—not to provenance, but to form.

The very presence of casts in a 21st-century museum affirms a deeper philosophy: that art’s value lies not only in originality but in transmission. That touchstones of cultural memory must remain physically accessible, even in duplicate. That learning still begins with looking—long and hard—and that beauty survives translation.

This text is a collaboration with Chat GPT.

Hopper’s Corp.

Everything began in 2071 when François Legrand opened his first frog legs restaurant in the little village of Villars-les-Dombes. His ambition was to democratize this traditional dish making it affordable everywhere, at any time, with no compromise on food’s quality. Today, Hopper’s can be found in 31 systems everywhere in the galaxy, with more than 3400 restaurants.

Here is how we make the universe's finest frog-based dishes:

Step 1 : Harvesting

Hopper’s partners with a global network of fishermen to provide quality ingredients. Most of our production comes from the ponds of the Anura system, where animals live freely outdoors, in a sane environment. We designed autonomous machines to help our collaborator harvest the product : a biped robot raises the nets which are then transported by drone to the collecting walker. This process is ethical (no animals are armed) and economically viable for the fishermen.

Step 2 : Transport

The product is then transported by our fleet of cargo ships in refrigerated containers. The ships are equipped with cutting edge propulsion technology to ensure the product stays fresh and crispy during transportation. Because ecology is at the core of our values, all ships run on bio-plasma, reducing pollution.

Step 3 : Processing

The cargos head to one of our frog processing plants. Those megafactories are the largest, highest volume facilities in the galaxy. They are designed to execute the complex processes required to transform the animals ethically with a strong focus on food’s safety. All the process is automated, from conditioning to preparation and finally packing. That’s also where your favorite condiments such as sauces and spices are prepared and added to the product.

Step 4 : Service

The many Hopper's restaurants in the Galaxy are designed for consumer enjoyment.

The restaurants are decorated in the style of François Legrand's ancestor's restaurant called Nighthawks 1942.

Robotic waiters deliver frog legs in all their forms, from curry legs to fabulous choco-legs.

Each restaurant offers deliveries directly to your conapt using drones.

With this quality of service, Hopper’s frogs have become the most popular food in the galaxy, even surpassing the famous PIZZATRON chain which faced a global food poisoning scandal.

Ctrl:N - Audrey Gaussiran

What happens to the choreographic piece if it is imagined and influenced by the audience?

The reversal of the traditional spectator role grants an ephemeral artist/creator status to the public and opens dialogue between the choreographer/dancer and citizens.

What needs to be articulated through art and movement?

The aim of this exchange is for the audience to feel more and more free and bold in their suggestions.

Ctrl:N integrates digital technologies to grow from ephemerality and audience members’ decisions.

The spectator, armed with their smartphone, transmits data to the dancer, influencing their movements, dynamics, emotions, etc.

Music is also an integral part of the piece and is constantly mutating in response to audience suggestions.

In mixed contemporary flamenca, Audrey Gaussiran is accompanied by Joannie Labelle on percussions and electro.

In this quest to democratize art, every sound, every movement is influenced by the audience’s artistic suggestions.

Dancer / Performer : Audrey Gaussiran

Coach/external eye/mentor : Frédérique-Annie Robitaille

Consultant technique: Mario Boucher

Music : Joanie Labelle

Musicians : Joanie Labelle

#bringingtheartstolife #lartaucoeurdenosvies

Hopper’s Corp.

Everything began in 2071 when François Legrand opened his first frog legs restaurant in the little village of Villars-les-Dombes. His ambition was to democratize this traditional dish making it affordable everywhere, at any time, with no compromise on food’s quality. Today, Hopper’s can be found in 31 systems everywhere in the galaxy, with more than 3400 restaurants.

Here is how we make the universe's finest frog-based dishes:

Step 1 : Harvesting

Hopper’s partners with a global network of fishermen to provide quality ingredients. Most of our production comes from the ponds of the Anura system, where animals live freely outdoors, in a sane environment. We designed autonomous machines to help our collaborator harvest the product : a biped robot raises the nets which are then transported by drone to the collecting walker. This process is ethical (no animals are armed) and economically viable for the fishermen.

Step 2 : Transport

The product is then transported by our fleet of cargo ships in refrigerated containers. The ships are equipped with cutting edge propulsion technology to ensure the product stays fresh and crispy during transportation. Because ecology is at the core of our values, all ships run on bio-plasma, reducing pollution.

Step 3 : Processing

The cargos head to one of our frog processing plants. Those megafactories are the largest, highest volume facilities in the galaxy. They are designed to execute the complex processes required to transform the animals ethically with a strong focus on food’s safety. All the process is automated, from conditioning to preparation and finally packing. That’s also where your favorite condiments such as sauces and spices are prepared and added to the product.

Step 4 : Service

The many Hopper's restaurants in the Galaxy are designed for consumer enjoyment.

The restaurants are decorated in the style of François Legrand's ancestor's restaurant called Nighthawks 1942.

Robotic waiters deliver frog legs in all their forms, from curry legs to fabulous choco-legs.

Each restaurant offers deliveries directly to your conapt using drones.

With this quality of service, Hopper’s frogs have become the most popular food in the galaxy, even surpassing the famous PIZZATRON chain which faced a global food poisoning scandal.

“BACK and forth, back and forth, to and from the church,

With my Bible under my arm

'Till I was gray and old;

Unwedded, alone in the world,

Finding brothers and sisters in the congregation,

And children in the church.

I know they laughed and thought me queer.

I knew of the eagle souls that flew high in the sunlight,

Above the spire of the church, and laughed at the church,

Disdaining me, not seeing me.

But if the high air was sweet to them, sweet was the church to me.

It was the vision, vision, vision of the poets

Democratized!”

Passi di: Edgar Lee Masters. “Spoon River Anthology”. iBooks.

see the other photos from the set

the last coal mine in Gangwon province (the northeast part of South Korea) went silent in 2004.

when the mine closed, the Korean government promised to give the city 100 billion won ($100 million), but the city eventually received only 20% ($20 million) of that money. still, when you visit Jeongseon, you will a city whose population has been decimated by job loss, but whose roads, sidewalks, and hospitals remain top notch.

also of note: from april 21-24, 1980; Dongwon mine went on strike after refusing a 20% raise increase (the union wanted a 42.75% raise). 160 police and workers were injured, 81 workers were arrested, and one policeman died. the miners and their families (5,000 strong) basically took over the town by overrunning the police.

a very important moment in the democratization movement in korea; however, it is often overshadowed by the events in busan-masan and the gwangju massacre, which occurred on the other side of the peninsula one month later. this protest, and all the other unrest in 1979-1980, helped set the stage for a turbulent 80's and an eventual end to the military dictatorship.

Interiør fra Nasjonalgalleriet

Ivar Lund (Norway. Born 1871 in Skjåk, death 1904 in KristianiaP)

Oil on canvas.

Width: 122.7 cm (48.3 in)

Height: 115.6 cm (45.5 in)

Depth: 2.5 cm (1.0 in)

Inventory no: NG.M.03203

=======================

The museum's label says:

"Lund depicts one of the halls in the National Gallery, previously the Sculpture Museum [as it appeared at the turn of the 20th century.] The view shows the collection of plaster casts of famous antique sculptures. These [were and] are used, among other things, as models for art students to draw as part of their training. Can you spot which ones are present in the room where you are now?"

=======================

Visitors to the new National Museum in Oslo may be surprised—and perhaps moved—to find a dedicated hall of plaster casts among the sleek, modern galleries. The presence of these replicas pays homage to a formative chapter in art education and museum history: a time before commercial travel, digital media, and visual saturation, when even well-educated Europeans could rarely, if ever, encounter the originals of world art.

In 1904, when painter Ivar Lund depicted the Interior of the National Gallery, cast halls served both pedagogical and cultural missions. They democratized access to Greco-Roman antiquity and Renaissance masterworks, offering a surrogate form of aesthetic communion. These casts were not dismissed as mere imitations; rather, they were prized as tools of knowledge—objects to be studied, copied, and internalized.

Importantly, many casts were made using molds taken directly from the originals. Classical sculptures in major European collections—such as the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, and the British Museum—were at times permitted to serve as sources for plaster molds, particularly in the 19th century. If viewers knew or believed that a cast had been taken from such a mold, that knowledge was often sufficient to establish the object’s authenticity in their eyes. Few would have fixated on the missing aura of the original.

This text is a collaboration with Chat GPT.

I was talking with a friend the other day about some upcoming local and national photography shows of various ilk. It came up from the conversation he had entered some of his works into some events that are juried for entry and of his 3 entries, only 1 made it into the event. He was pretty discouraged by the experience.

Now, I'm going to get on a soapbox. :)

I hate almost everything about the idea of 'peer critique.' Here's why.

Your peers [usually] aren't your audience.

We, human animals do not have a natural ability to process constructive criticism. The idea behind photography critique is to learn from an outside party ways that your photograph might have been improved.

But, really what you are doing when seeking critique is seeking confirmation of your own opinions on the quality of something. If your peers show your work admiration then you enjoy a small ego boost and healthy levels of encouragement. However, if your peers admonish your work the negative encourage almost always carries more weight than the positive.

Simply put, if you are seeking encouragement through critique you have much more to lose than to gain.

This isn't to say that a person's photography can't benefit technically from the input of a more experienced peer. But let's explore that word: experience.

We develop through experience. Physically our brains develop neural paths based on sensory input. Put another way, our experiences work to define who we are and how we see. The application of another person's experience to your art might technically improve the work in terms of conformity (to what is largely an arbitrary set of rules) but in doing so, your work becomes democratized..

To wrap up, I'm not suggesting that a person should never submit work for critique or jury. I am suggesting however that our increasingly connected world-wide-network of award winning photography 'experts' should serve you more as a source of inspiration than as a reference for quality.

This is why, whenever someone shows me something for critique, I will only comment on those aspects of a work that I find appealing.

Don't let other people's opinions of your work discourage you. Just keep doing your thing and the pieces will fall into place.

..drops mic.. steps down from soapbox. :)

Everything began in 2071 when François Legrand opened his first frog legs restaurant in the little village of Villars-les-Dombes. His ambition was to democratize this traditional dish making it affordable everywhere, at any time, with no compromise on food’s quality. Today, Hopper’s can be found in 31 systems everywhere in the galaxy, with more than 3400 restaurants.

Here is how we make the universe's finest frog-based dishes:

Step 1 : Harvesting by Lokiloki

Hopper’s partners with a global network of fishermen to provide quality ingredients. Most of our production comes from the ponds of the Anura system, where animals live freely outdoors, in a sane environment. We designed autonomous machines to help our collaborator harvest the product : a biped robot raises the nets which are then transported by drone to the collecting walker. This process is ethical (no animals are armed) and economically viable for the fishermen.

Step 2 : Transport by BobDeQuatre

The product is transported in refrigerated containers by our fleet of cargo ships. They are equipped with cutting edge propulsion technology to ensure the product stays fresh during transportation. Because ecology is at the core of our values, all ships run on bio-plasma, reducing pollution.

Step 3 : Processing by F@bz

The cargos head to one of our frog processing plants. Those megafactories are the largest, highest volume facilities in the galaxy. They are designed to execute the complex processes required to transform the animals ethically with a strong focus on food’s safety. All the process is automated, from conditioning to preparation and finally packing. That’s also where your favorite condiments such as sauces and spices are prepared and added to the product.

Step 4 : Service by Pistash

The many Hopper's restaurants in the Galaxy are designed for consumer enjoyment.

The restaurants are decorated in the style of François Legrand's ancestor's restaurant called Nighthawks 1942.

Robotic waiters deliver frog legs in all their forms, from curry legs to fabulous choco-legs.

Each restaurant offers deliveries directly to your conapt using drones.

With this quality of service, Hopper’s frogs have become the most popular food in the galaxy, even surpassing the famous PIZZATRON chain which faced a global food poisoning scandal.

銀座一丁目のスワロフスキーです。

近くで中国人観光客を目当てに香港民主化のビラ配を配る人が...

Swarovski shop in Ginza.

There was a person handing out a Hong Kong democratization brochure for Chinese tourists near this shop.

On a recent trip to the Whitney Museum in New York, there was a portrait exhibition on and it was fascinating to read that portraiture used to be the domain of the wealthy, as only they could afford to hire photographers. Fast forward to more modern times and with the advent of mobile phones, portraiture has truly been democratized. Thinking about it, it all made sense but it was also revelatory at the same time. Luckily, nature is free and this was the portrait I saw in the mud tiles!

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Taipei

The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei City opened to the public in 1980, five years after Taiwan’s first president Chiang Kai-shek’s death, in honour of Chiang’s legacies after he established rule over Taiwan from 1949 onwards.

Since Taiwan’s democratization in the late 1980s, the Memorial Hall and many of Chiang Kai-shek’s statues have become sites of heated contestation. In 2007, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was renamed Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall by the Democratic Progressive Party government. This renaming was reversed in 2009 by the nationalist Kuomintang government. In 2017, the Transitional Justice Act was passed in Taiwan which stipulates removal, renaming, or repurposing of authoritarian symbols. Ever since then, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, along with other Chiang statues in the public space, have been undergoing a new process of transformation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek_Memorial_Hall

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9morial_de_Tchang_Ka%C3%AF-chek

The beginning of the 1930’s marks the democratization of aerodynamics in the car lines. Each manufacturer tries to harmonize its range with more contemporary offerings, including Peugeot with its 301 Profilée version. The model we present is in an advanced state of preservation, but is very healthy. Its paint is not the original one, and shows an old quality restoration. The interior is complete, but the upholstery is in a rather used state. From a mechanical point of view, a restoration will be necessary, but the package seems to be in good condition. Here is the opportunity to acquire one of the rare survivors of the 301 Profilée versions!

l'Aventure Peugeot Citroën DS, la Vente Officielle

Aguttes

Estimated : € 5.000 - 10.000

Sold for € 8.580

Citroen Heritage

93600 Aulnay-sous-Bois

France

September 2021

.Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself. She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo. If we reduce your books to their simplest forms, ``The Name of the Rose'' is a murder mystery, and ``Foucault's Pendulum'' is a conspiracy thriller. What is ``The Island of the Day Before?''All three are philosophical novels. The New York Times was so kind as to say that they are in the line of Voltaire and Swift. But there is a difference - the first two novels are novels about culture. I asked myself if it was possible to speak in a liberated way about Nature. That's where I got the idea of an island, an island in the Pacific, untouched by human hands. It was interesting that in the case of my character arriving there for the first time - not only for himself, but for all humankind - and watching the things that no human eye had seen before, he didn't have names for them. I was excited about telling the story through metaphor, instead of using the names. From my semiotic point of view, it was an interesting experience.

Are there ideas as dangerous to our modern worldview as an Aristotelian treatise on laughter would have been perceived in 1327? A. Even our times have been full of dictatorships that have burned books. What does it mean, the Salman Rushdie persecution, if not to try to destroy a book? We are always trying to destroy something. Even today we have this continual struggle between people that believe certain texts are dangerous and must be eliminated. So my story is not so outdated, even though it takes place in the Middle Ages. We are not better. Even here, people are discussing whether it is advisable or not to allow certain kinds of information on the Internet. Is it really permissible to allow people to teach people how to poison your mother, or make a bomb, through the Internet? We are always concerned that there are fearful texts. Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco expounds upon the Net, writing, The Osteria, libraries, the continental divide, Marshall Mcluhan,and, well, God.

www.umbertoeco.com/en/theodore-beale.html

so you didn't know what a feat Umberto Eco pulled off in writing The Name of the Rose, that postmodern bestseller (17 million copies and counting) set in a 12th-century monastery. You didn't know that Eco wrote the novel while holding down a day job as a university professor - following student theses, writing academic texts, attending any number of international conferences, and penning a column for Italy's weekly newsmagazine L'Espresso. Or that the portly 65-year-old semiotician is also a literary critic, a satirist, and a political pundit.But you did know - didn't you? - that Eco was the guy behind that unforgettable Mac versus DOS metaphor. That in one of his weekly columns he first mused upon the "software schism" dividing users of Macintosh and DOS operating systems. Mac, he posited, is Catholic, with "sumptuous icons" and the promise of offering everybody the chance to reach the Kingdom of Heaven ("or at least the moment when your document is printed") by following a series of easy steps. DOS, on the other hand, is Protestant: "it allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions ... and takes for granted that not all can reach salvation." Following this logic, Windows becomes "an Anglican-style schism - big ceremonies in the cathedral, but with the possibility of going back secretly to DOS in order to modify just about anything you like." (Asked to embellish the metaphor, Eco calls Windows 95 "pure unadulterated Catholicism. Already Windows 3.1 was more than Anglican - it was Anglo-Catholic, keeping a foot in both camps. But Windows 95 goes all the way: six Hail Marys and how about a little something for the Mother Church in Seattle.Eco first rose to fame in Italy as a parodist in the early '60s. Like all the best satirists, he oscillates between exasperation at the depths of human dumbness, and the benign indulgence of a grandfather. Don't let that grandfatherly look fool you, though. Eco was taking apart striptease and TV anchormen back in the late '50s, before anyone had even heard of Roland Barthes, and way before taking modern culture seriously (deconstructing The Simpsons, psychoanalyzing Tintin) became everybody's favorite pomo sport. Then there's his idea that any text is created as much by the reader as by the author, a dogma that invaded the lit crit departments of American universities in the mid-'70s and that underlies thinking about text in cyberspace and who it belongs to. Eco, mind you, got his flag in first, with his 1962 manifesto Opera aperta (The Open Work).Eco continues to wrap his intellect around the information revolution, but he's turning his attention from the spirit of software to technology's political implications. Specifically, he has thrown his weight behind something called Multimedia Arcade. The project may sound like a CD-ROM game publisher with an imagination deficit, but Eco wants the Arcade to change Society as We Know It. The center will feature a public multimedia library, computer training center, and Net access - all under the tutelage of the Bologna Town Council. There, for a token fee, local citizens can go to Net surf, send email, learn new programs, and use search engines - or simply hang out in the cybercafé. Set to open in late 1997, Multimedia Arcade will offer around 50 state-of-the-art terminals linked together in a local network with a fast Net connection.It will feature a large multimedia, software, and print library, as well as a staff of teachers, technicians, and librarians.

www.umbertoeco.com/en/harcourt.html

The premise is simple: if Net literacy is a basic right, then it should be guaranteed for all citizens by the state. We don't rely on the free market to teach our children to read, so why should we rely on it to teach our children to Net surf? Eco sees the Bologna center as the pilot for a nationwide and - why not? - even worldwide chain of high tech public libraries. Remember, this is a man with that old-fashioned European humanist faith in the library as a model of good society and spiritual regeneration - a man who once went so far as to declare that "libraries can take the place of God."Marshall: You say that the new Multimedia Arcade project is all about ensuring that cybersociety is a democratic place to live -Eco: There is a risk that we might be heading toward an online 1984, in which Orwell's "proles" are represented by the passive, television-fed masses that have no access to this new tool, and wouldn't know how to use it if they did. Above them, of course, there'll be a petite bourgeoisie of passive users - office workers, airline clerks. And finally we'll see the masters of the game, the nomenklatura - in the Soviet sense of the term. This has nothing to do with class in the traditional, Marxist sense - the nomenklatura are just as likely to be inner-city hackers as rich executives. But they will have one thing in common: the knowledge that brings control. We have to create a nomenklatura of the masses. We know that state-of-the art modems, an ISDN connection, and up-to-date hardware are beyond the means of most potential users - especially when you need to upgrade every six months. So let's give people access free, or at least for the price of the necessary phone connection.Why not just leave the democratization of the Net to the market - I mean, to the falling prices ushered in by robust competition?Look at it this way: when Benz and others invented the automobile, they had no idea that one day the mass market would be opened up by Henry Ford's Model T - that came only 40 years later. So how do you persuade people to start using a means of transport that was beyond the means of all but the very rich? Easy: you rent by the minute, with a driver, and you call the result a taxi. It was this which gave people access to the new technology, but it was also this which allowed the industry to expand to the point where the Model T Ford was conceivable. In Italy, the Net marketplace is still tiny: there are only around 300,000 regular users, which is peanuts in this game. But if you have a network of municipal access points - each of which has a commitment to provide the most powerful, up-to-date systems for its users - then you're talking about a respectable turnover, which can be ploughed back into giving the masses Model T hardware, connections, and bandwidth.

Do you seriously believe that mechanics and housewives are going to pour into Multimedia Arcade?No, not straight away. When Gutenberg invented his printing press, the working classes did not immediately sign up for copies of the 42-Line Bible; but they were reading it a century later. And don't forget Luther. Despite widespread illiteracy, his translation of the New Testament circulated through all sections of 16th-century German society. What we need is a Luther of the Net.

But what's so special about Multimedia Arcade? Isn't it just a state-run cybercafé?You don't want to turn the whole thing into the waiting room of an Italian government ministry, that's for sure. But we have the advantage here of being in a Mediterranean culture. The Anglo-Saxon cybercafé is a peep-show experience because the Anglo-Saxon bar is a place where people go to nurse their own solitude in the company of others. In New York, you might say "Hi - lovely day!" to the person on the next barstool - but then you go back to brooding over the woman who just left you. The model for Multimedia Arcade, on the other hand, is that of the Mediterranean osteria. This should be reflected by the structure of the place - it would be nice to have a giant communal screen, for example, where the individual navigators could post interesting sites that they've just discovered.I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs. This will be one of the main functions of Multimedia Arcade: to get people out of the house and - why not? - even into each other's arms. Perhaps we could call it "Plug 'n' Fuck" instead of Multimedia Arcade.Doesn't this communal vision violate the one user, one computer principle?I'm a user and I own eight computers. So you see that there are exceptions to the rule. In Leonardo's day, remember, the rule was one user, one painting. Ditto when the first gramophones were produced. Are we short of communal opportunities to look at paintings today, or to listen to recorded music? Give it time.Whatever side they take in the various computer culture debates, most Americans would agree that the modem is a point of entry into a new phase of civilization. Europeans seem to see it more as a desirable household appliance, on a level with the dishwasher or the electric razor. There seems to be an "enthusiasm gap" between the two continents. Who's right on this one - are Americans doing their usual thing of assuming everyone plays baseball, or are Europeans being so cool and ironic that they're going to end up missing out on the Net phenomenon?The same thing happened with television, which reached a critical mass in the States a good few years before it took off over here. What's more interesting is the fact that the triumph of American culture and American modes of production in films and television - the Disney factor that annoys the French so much - is not going to happen with the Net.Up to a year ago, there were very few non-English sites. Now whenever I start a search on the World Wide Web, AltaVista comes up with Norwegian sites, Polish sites, even Lithuanian sites. And this is going to have a curious effect. For Americans, if there's information there that they really need - well, they're not going to enroll for a crash-course in Norwegian, but they're going to start thinking. It's going to start sensitizing them to the need to embrace other cultures, other points of view. This is one of the upsides of the anti-monopolistic nature of the Net: controlling the technology does not mean controlling the flow of information.

As for the "enthusiasm gap" - I'm not even sure there is one. But there is plenty of criticism and irony and disillusionment in the States that the media has simply decided not to pick up on. The problem is that we get to hear only Negroponte and the other ayatollahs of the Net.You publicly supported Italy's new center-left coalition government when it was campaigning for election in April 1996. After the victory, it was rumored in the Italian press that your payoff was the new post of Minister of Culture - but you turned down the job before it was even offered. Why?Because before you start talking about a Minister of Culture you have to decide what you mean by "culture." If it refers to the aesthetic products of the past - beautiful paintings, old buildings, medieval manuscripts - then I'm all in favor of state protection; but that job is already taken care of by the Heritage Ministry. So that leaves "culture" in the sense of ongoing creative work - and I'm afraid that I can't support a body that attempts to encourage and subsidize this. Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian.In 1967 you wrote an influential essay called "Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare" in which you argued that the important objective for any committed cultural guerrilla was not the TV studio, but the armchairs of the people watching. In other words: if you can give people tools that help them to criticize the messages they are receiving, these messages lose their potency as subliminal political levers.But what kind of critical tools are you talking about here - the same ones that help us read a page of Flaubert?We're talking about a range of simple skills. After years of practice,I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs. If I see the words Harvard University Press, I know it's probably not going to be a cheap romance. I go onto the Net and I don't have those skills.And you've got the added problem that you've just walked into a bookshop where all the books are lying in heaps on the floor.Exactly. So how do I make sense of the mess? I try to learn some basic labels. But there are problems here too: if I click on a URL that ends with .indiana.edu I think, Ah - this must have something to do with the University of Indiana. Like hell it does: the signpost is deceptive, since there are people using that domain to post all kinds of stuff, most of which has little or nothing to do with education. You have to grope your way through the signs. You have to recycle the semiological skills that allow you to distinguish a pastoral poem from a satirical skit, and apply them to the problem, for example, of weeding out the serious philosophical sites from the lunatic ravings.I was looking through neo-Nazi sites the other day. If you just rely on search-engine logic, you might jump to the conclusion that the most fascist site of the lot is the one in which the word Nazi scores highest. But in fact this turns out to belong to an antifascist watchdog group.You can learn these skills by trial and error, or you can ask other Net users for advice online. But the quickest and most effective method is to be in a place surrounded by other people, each with different levels of competence, each with different online experiences which they can pool. It's like the freshman who turns up on day one. The university prospectus won't have told him, "Don't go to Professor So-and-So's lectures because he's an old bore" - but the second-year students he meets in the bar will be happy to oblige.Modernism seems to have ground to a halt - in the novel at least. Are people getting their experimental kicks from other sources, such as the Net? Maybe if Joyce had been able to surf the Web he would have written Gone with the Wind rather than Finnegans Wake?No - I see it the other way round. If Margaret Mitchell had been able to surf the Web, she would probably have written Finnegans Wake. And in any case, Joyce was always online. He never came off.But hasn't the experience of writing changed in the age of hypertext? Do you agree with Michael Joyce when he says that authorship is becoming "a sort of jazzlike unending story"?Not really. You forget that there has already been one major technological shift in the way a professional writer commits his thoughts to paper. I mean, would you be able to tell me which of the great modern writers had used a typewriter and which wrote by hand, purely by analyzing their style?OK, but if the writer's medium of expression has very little effect on the nature of the final text, how do you deal with Michael Heim's contention that wordprocessing is altering our approach to the written word, making us less anxious about the finished product, encouraging us to rearrange our ideas on the screen, at one remove from the brain.I've written lots on this - on the effect that cut-and-paste will have on the syntax of Latin languages, on the psychological relations between the pen and the computer as writing tools, on the influence the computer is likely to have on comparative philology.Well, if you were to use a computer to generate your next novel, how would you go about it?

The best way to answer that is to quote from an essay I wrote recently for the anthology Come si scrive un romanzo (How to write a novel), published by Bompiani:"I would scan into the computer around a hundred novels, as many scientific texts, the Bible, the Koran, a few telephone directories (great for names). Say around a hundred, a hundred and twenty thousand pages. Then I'd use a simple, random program to mix them all up, and make a few changes - such as taking all the A's out. That way I'd have a novel which was also a lipogram. Next step would be to print it all out and read it through carefully a few times, underlining the important passages. Then I'd load it all onto a truck and take it to the nearest incinerator. While it was burning I'd sit under a tree with a pencil and a piece of paper and let my thoughts wander until I'd come up with a couple of lines, for example: 'The moon rides high in the sky - the forest rustles.'"At first, of course, it wouldn't be a novel so much as a haiku. But that doesn't matter. The important thing is to make a start.What's your take on Marshall McLuhan? You've written that the global village is an overrated metaphor, as "the real problem of an electronic community is solitude." Do you feel that McLuhan's philosophy is too lightweight to justify the cult that has been dedicated to him?McLuhan wasn't a philosopher - he was a sociologist with a flair for trend-spotting. If he were alive today he would probably be writing books contradicting what he said 30 or 40 years ago. As it was, he came up with the global village prophecy, which has turned out to be at least partly true, the "end of the book" prophecy, which has turned out to be totally false, and a great slogan - "The medium is the message" - which works a lot better for television than it does for the Internet.OK, maybe at the beginning you play around, you use your search engine to look for "shit" and then for "Aquinas" and then for "shit AND Aquinas," and in that case the medium certainly is the message. But when you start to use the Net seriously, it does not reduce everything to the fact of its own existence, as television tends to. There is an objective difference between downloading the works of Chaucer and goggling at the Playmate of the Month.It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio. I can zap among Web sites, but I'm not going to do it as casually as I do with the television, simply because it takes a lot longer to get back to where I was before, and I'm paying for the delay.In your closing address to a recent symposium on the future of the book, you pointed out that McLuhan's "end of the Gutenberg galaxy" is a restatement of the doom-laden prophecy in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, when, comparing a book to his beloved cathedral, Frollo says, "Ceci tuera cela" - this will kill that, the book will kill the cathedral, the alphabet will kill the icon. Did it?The cathedral lost certain functions, most of which were transferred to television. But it has taken on others. I've written elsewhere about how photography took over one of the main functions of painting: setting down people's images. But it certainly didn't kill painting - far from it. It freed it up, allowed it to take risks. And painters can still do portraits if they want.Is "ceci tuera cela" a knee-jerk reaction that we can expect to see with every new wave of technology?It's a bad habit that people will probably never shake. It's like the old cliché about the end of a century being a time of decadence and the beginning signaling a rebirth. It's just a way of organizing history to fit a story we want to tell.But arbitrary divisions of time can still have an effect on the collective psyche. You've studied the fear of the end that pervaded the 10th century. Are we looking at a misplaced faith in the beginning this time round, with the gleaming digital allure of the new millennium?Centuries and millennia are always arbitrary: you don't need to be a medievalist to know that. However, it's true that syndromes of decadence or rebirth can form around such symbolic divisions of time. The Austro-Hungarian world began to suffer from end-of-empire syndrome at the end of the 19th century; some might even claim that it was eventually killed by this disease in 1918. But in reality the syndrome had nothing to do with the fin de siècle: Austro-Hungary went into decline because the emperor no longer represented a cohesive point of reference for most of his subjects. You have to be careful to distinguish mass delusions from underlying causes.And how about your own sense of time? If you had the chance to travel in time, would you go backward or forward - and by how many years?And you, sir, if you had the chance to ask someone else that question, who would you ask? Joking aside, I already travel in the past: haven't you read my novels? And as for the future - haven't you read this interview?

www.umbertoeco.com/en/lee-marshall.html

Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself. She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo, telling her to leave him alone. Echo was left heartbroken and spent the rest of her life in glens; until nothing but an echo sound remained of her.

www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/narcissus-myth-echo/

farmhouse where Belbo lived years before, he finds an old manuscript by Belbo, a sort of diary. He discovers that Belbo had a mystical experience at the age of twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics.

When Diotallevi is diagnosed with cancer, he attributes this to his participation in The Plan. He feels that the disease is a divine punishment for involving himself in mysteries he should have left alone and creating a game that mocked something larger than them all. Belbo meanwhile retreats even farther into the Plan to avoid confronting problems in his personal life.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum

“When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.”

www.umbertoeco.com/en/

What does the "Checkered Pavement" Symbolize?

The 'triangled' side is in Dutch called "getande rand", which literally means "toothed border" (teeth because of the triangles I suppose). The outside of the checkered floor where the squares are cut in half. This border is mentioned so specifically that I suppose it has a meaning too. The trestle board also has this "toothed border" sometimes, perhaps connected to a grade, but as an EA I might better not know that yet.

www.myfreemasonry.com/threads/what-does-the-checkered-pav...

Mosaic pavement,...Are its edges tarsellated, tessellated or tassellated?Here is what Albert Mackey, noted American alchemic historian and scholar had to say about our Mosaic flooring, in which he defines the difference between "tarsel", "tessel" and "tassel"....from Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Alchemy, 1929:Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it museum, whence the Italians get their musaico, the French their mosaique, and we our mosaics. The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists.The Alchemic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement.The Alchemic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of Saint John xix, 13, "When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha." The word here translated Pavement is in the original Lithostroton, the very word used by Pliny to denote a mosaic pavement.The Greek word, as well as its Latin equivalent is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones of various colors, precisely what is meant by a Mosaic Pavement. There was, therefore, a part of the Temple which was decorated with a mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the Conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions.By a little torsion of historical accur Alchemists have asserted that the ground floor of the Temple was a mosaic pavement, and hence as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern. The mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order.It is met with in the earliest Rituals of the eighteenth century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tassel and the blazing star. Its parti-colored stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.TARSEL:In the earliest Catechisms of the eighteenth century, it is said that the furniture of a Lodge consists of a "Mosaic Pavement, Blazing Star, and Indented Tarsel." In more modern catechisms, the expression is "indented tassel," which is incorrectly defined to mean a tessellated border. Indented Tarsel is evidently a corruption of indented tassel, for a definition of which see Tessellated Border.

www.masonic-lodge-of-education.com/mosaic-pavement.html

The synonym balance is an important term because of the position of the checkered carpet: the floor, where the foundation of the erect human body may be found. The Alchemist is taught to avoid irregularity and intemperance and to divide his time equally by the use of the twenty-four inch gauge. These lessons refer to the importance of balance in a Alchemist’s life. Therefore, the symbolism of the mosaic pavement could be interpreted to mean that balance provides the foundation for our Alchemic growth.Maintaining balance allows us to adhere to many Alchemic teachings. By maintaining balance, we may be able to stand upright in our several stations before God and man. The Entered Apprentice is charged to keep balance in his life so that he may ensure public and private esteem. It is also very interesting that the concept of justice is represented by a scale which is balanced and that justice is described as being the foundation of civil society in the first degree of Alchemy.

There is a vast variety of symbolism presented to the new initiate in the first degree. It is very easy for the symbol of the mosaic pavement and its several meanings to be lost in the sea of information provided upon our first admission into the lodge. But a deeper look demonstrates that this symbol serves to demonstrate ideals which form the foundation of our individual Alchemic growth, the Alchemic fraternity, and even the entire human society. Living in balance makes us healthy, happy, and just. If our feet are well balanced, both literally and figuratively, we may be able to serve the purpose of the fraternity faithfully.

freemasoninformation.com/2009/03/the-checkered-flooring/

The All Seeing Eye

The All Seeing Eye

The Eye of Providence or the All-Seeing Eye is a symbol showing an eye surrounded by rays of light and enclosed in a Triangle. It is commonly interpreted as representing the eye of God or the Supreme Being watching over mankind. Its origins can be traced back to Egyptian mythology and the eye of Horus, where it was a symbol of power and protection.

Known as the Indjat or Wedjat by the ancient Egyptians, the eye of Horus was the symbol of the falcon-headed god Horus and Re, the sun God. It was said to have healing and protective powers. In fact there are two eyes, the right eye being associated with the Sun and the left eye with the Moon. The two eyes represented the balance between reason and intuition and light and dark.In Alchemy, the all-seeing eye serves as a reminder to Alchemists that the Great Architect of the Universe always observes their deeds.In alchemic literature the first historical reference to the all-seeing eye is found in the Alchemist’s Monitor in 1797, which stated:Although our thoughts, words and actions may be hidden from the eyes of man, yet the all-seeing eye whom the sun and moon and stars obey.... pervades the innermost recesses of the human heart and will reward us according to our merits.Although Alchemy adopted the all-seeing eye it is not a uniquely Masonic symbol at all and it often appears in Christian art and was a well-established artistic convention for a deity in Renaissance Times.Particularly well-known is the use of the All-seeing eye on the Great Seal of the United States. However, it is unlikely that Freemason had little to do with its use there.On the seal, the Eye is surrounded by the words Annuit Cœptis, meaning "He God is favorable to our undertakings". The Eye is positioned above an unfinished pyramid with thirteen steps, representing the original thirteen states and the future growth of the country. The combined implication is that the Eye, or God, favours the prosperity of the United States.

pagantheologies.pbworks.com/w/page/13622064/Freemasonry

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The Chin tattooed women live in the Chin, Rakhine and Arakan states in northwestern Myanmar. The origin of facial tattoos in the region is unknown. Some believe that the practice began during the reigns of Kings long ago. The royalty used to come to the villages to capture young women. The men from the tribe may have tattooed their women to make them ugly, thereby saving them from a life of slavery. Interestingly, I heard a similar origin for body modification among the Mursi tribe in Ethiopia. As legend has it, the tribeswomen began wearing giant lip plates to make them uglier to would-be kidnappers. Now, the bigger the lip plate the higher the bride price.

For years, access to the tribal Mindat area was restricted by the burmese government. It was opened just two years ago. Only about 700 tourists visit per year. Most of them only visit the bucolic Mount Victoria by bus, never meeting the tattooed women who remain isolated, hours away by foot. Those who do wish to meet them better pack good walking shoes and be prepared to sleep in smoke-filled local houses complete with rats.

There are a few different face tattoo patterns. The spiderweb tattoo is popular in the Mrauk U region. It takes a three hour long tail boat ride to reach this remote area. This tattoo is usually accompanied by a circle in the center of the forehead which represents the sun or lines under the nose symbolizing tiger whiskers.

Another design, known as the bee pattern, is common in the Mindat area. It is composed of dots, lines and occasionally circles. It is worn by the Muun tribe who inhabit the hills of the Arakan state.

The Magan tribeswomen wear huge earrings made of beads and calabashes. They can also play the flute with their noses.

I ventured to Kanpelet village in search of the women from the U Pu tribe who have the incredibly rare whole face tattoo. This is one of the most impressive styles: the entire face is inked up. Rumors had it that only three women in this area had the tattoo. After hours of off roading, I arrive in the village only to learn that one died recently and another was very ill. I was lucky enough to meet Pa Late. At 85, she is nearly deaf but still works hard with her family in a small house on the top of a little hill.

Pa Late said that a completely black face had become a symbol of beauty in the past. The few women who refused to do it looked ugly to the men. The tattoo took three days but the pain lasted over a month.

There are two ways to make the tattoo needle. The first consists of tying three pieces of bamboo together and the second uses thorns. The ink is a mixture of cow bile, soot, plants, and pig fat. It usually took one day to complete the standard tattoo and a few more for the totally black one. The tattoo artist was a specialist or in some cases a parent. Infection was a common problem as the girls had blood all over their face.

Everything, including the eyelids, was tattooed. Many women say that the neck was the most sensitive area.

Ma Aung Seim shared her memories of the tattoo sessions : “I was 10 years old. The day before the tattoo ceremony, I only ate sugarcane and drank tea. It was forbidden to eat meat or peanuts. During the tattoo session, I cried a lot, but I could not move at all. After the session, my face bled for 3 days. It was very painful. My mother put fresh beans leaves on my face to alleviate the pain. I had no choice if i wanted to get married. Men wanted women with tattoos at this time. My mother told me that without a tattoo on my face, i would look like... a man! The web drawn on my face attracted the men like a spiderweb catches insects!”

Not all the tattooed women live in remote areas deep in the mountains. Some have integrated into modern society. Miss Heu, 67, lives in Kanpelet. Her grandmother forced her to get tattooed. She lives in a modern house and even has TV (when electricity is not out). Chin people have maintained their modesty and shyness: when a movie showspeople kissing or making love, most of them still fast forward the scene.

As a leader in the local community, Miss Heu had the chance to meet Aung San Suu Kyi when she came in the area for a meeting. She is very aware of the tattooed women and the ethnicities that are forgotten by the central government. She says she and Aung San Suu Kyi are friends now. Heu’s daughter has graduated and works in Singapore.

The Chin culture is threatened by the government as their teachers are usually not Chin. For a long time, they fought for independence, but since the country began to democratize, things have calmed down.

“I am old. Soon I will die” says to me a Chin woman from Pan Baung village, while she does the gesture of drying tears from her eyes. In her village, only 6 tattooed woman remain alive. Those women are the last of their kind…

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Pointed arches were an important characteristic of Gothic architecture that could give the impression of soaring height and more practically they could support heavier loads than the earlier round arches. Wikipedia, Barcelona (/ˌbɑːrsəˈloʊnə/ ⓘ BAR-sə-LOH-nə; Catalan: [bəɾsəˈlonə] ⓘ; Spanish: [baɾθeˈlona] ⓘ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within city limits,[8] its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the province of Barcelona and is home to around 5.3 million people,[3] making it the fifth most populous urban area of the European Union after Paris, the Ruhr area, Madrid and Milan.[3] It is one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range.

Barcelona

City and municipality

Skyline of Barcelona

Sagrada Família

Torre Glòries

Arc de Triomf

Edificio Colón and La Rambla

Venetian Towers and Palau Nacional

La Barceloneta

Casa Milà

Flag of Barcelona

Flag

Coat of arms of Barcelona

Coat of arms

Nicknames: Ciutat Comtal (Catalan)

Ciudad Condal (Spanish)

"Comital City" or "City of Counts"

Cap i Casal de Catalunya (Catalan)

'Head and Hearth of Catalonia'

Abbreviation(s):

Barna, BCN

Map

Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

Location of Barcelona

Barcelona is located in CataloniaBarcelonaBarcelona

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Coordinates: 41°23′N 2°11′E

Country

Spain

Autonomous community

Catalonia

Province

Barcelona

Comarca

Barcelonès

Districts

10 districts

Government

• Type

Ajuntament

• Body

City Council of Barcelona

• Mayor

Jaume Collboni[1] (PSC–PSOE)

Area[2]

• City

101.4 km2 (39.2 sq mi)

Elevation (AMSL)

12 m (39 ft)

Population (2018)[5]

• City

1,620,343

• Rank

2nd

• Density

16,000/km2 (41,000/sq mi)

• Urban

4,840,000[3]

• Metro

5,474,482[4]

Demonyms

Barcelonan, Barcelonian

barceloní, -ina (Catalan)

barcelonés, -esa (Spanish)

GDP[6]

• Metro

€159.8 billion (2020)

Postal code

080xx

Area code

+34 (E) 93 (B)

INE code

08 0193

City budget (2023)

€3.6 billion[7]

Official language

Catalan and Spanish

Main festivity

La Mercè

Patron saint

Eulalia of Barcelona

Website

www.barcelona.cat Edit this at Wikidata

According to tradition, Barcelona was founded by either the Phoenicians or the Carthaginians, who had trading posts along the Catalonian coast.[9] In the Middle Ages, Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. After joining with the Kingdom of Aragon to form the confederation of the Crown of Aragon, Barcelona, which continued to be the capital of the Principality of Catalonia, became the most important city in the Crown of Aragon and the main economic and administrative centre of the Crown, only to be overtaken by Valencia, wrested from Moorish control by the Catalans, shortly before the dynastic union between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1492. Barcelona became the centre of Catalan separatism, briefly becoming part of France during the 17th century Reapers' War and again in 1812 until 1814 under Napoleon. It was the capital of Revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, and the seat of government of the Second Spanish Republic later in the Spanish Civil War, until its capture by the fascists in 1939. After the Spanish transition to democracy in the 1970s, Barcelona once again became the capital of an autonomous Catalonia.

Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre and a major tourist destination. Particularly renowned are the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The city is home to two of the most prestigious universities in Spain: the University of Barcelona and Pompeu Fabra University. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean are located in Barcelona. The city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions. In addition, many international sport tournaments have been played here.

Barcelona is a major cultural, economic, and financial centre in southwestern Europe,[10] as well as the main biotech hub in Spain.[11] As a leading world city, Barcelona's influence in global socio-economic affairs qualifies it for global city status (Beta +).[12]

Barcelona is a transport hub, with the Port of Barcelona being one of Europe's principal seaports and busiest European passenger port,[13] an international airport, Barcelona–El Prat Airport, which handles over 50-million passengers per year,[14] an extensive motorway network, and a high-speed rail line with a link to France and the rest of Europe.[15] The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian Baŕkeno, attested in an ancient coin inscription found on the right side of the coin in Iberian script as Barkeno in Levantine Iberian script,[16] in Ancient Greek sources as Βαρκινών, Barkinṓn;[17][18] and in Latin as Barcino,[19] Barcilonum[20] and Barcenona.[21][22][23]

Other sources suggest that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC,[9][24] but there is no evidence its name in antiquity, Barcino, was connected with the Barcid family of Hamilcar.[25] During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa, and Barchenona.

An abbreviated form sometimes used by locals for the city is Barna. Barça is only applied to the local football club FC Barcelona, not to the city. Another common abbreviation is 'BCN', which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport.

The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan and Ciudad Condal in Spanish (i.e., "Comital City" or "City of Counts"), owing to its past as the seat of the Count of Barcelona.[26]

History

Main article: History of Barcelona

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Barcelona.

See also: Street names in Barcelona

See also: Jews of Catalonia

Legendary founding

The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear. The ruins of an early settlement have been found, including different tombs and dwellings dating to earlier than 5000 BC.[27][28] In Greek mythology, the founding of Barcelona had been attributed to the mythological Hercules.

Punic Barcelona

According to tradition, Barcelona was founded by Punic (Phoenician) settlers, who had trading posts along the Catalonian coast.[9][29][30] In particular, some historians attribute the foundation of the city directly to the historical Carthaginian general, Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, who supposedly named the city Barcino after his family in the 3rd century BC,[9][31] but this theory has been questioned.[25] Archeological evidence in the form of coins from the 3rd century BC have been found on the hills at the foot of Montjuïc with the name Bárkeno written in an ancient script in the Iberian language[citation needed]. Thus, we can conclude[clarification needed] that the Laietani[citation needed], an ancient Iberian (pre-Roman) people of the Iberian peninsula, who inhabited the area occupied by the city of Barcelona around 3–2 BC[clarification needed], called the area Bàrkeno, which means "The Place of the Plains" (Barrke = plains/terrace).[32][better source needed]

Roman Barcelona

See also: Roman Sepulchral way and Roman walls of Barcelona

A marble plaque in the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat de Barcelona, dated from around 110–130 AD and dedicated to the Roman colony of Barcino

In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum (Roman military camp) centred on the "Mons Taber", a little hill near the Generalitat (Catalan Government) and city hall buildings. The Roman Forum, at the crossing of the Cardo Maximus and Decumanus Maximus, was approximately placed where current Plaça de Sant Jaume is. Thus, the political centre of the city, Catalonia, and its domains has remained in the same place for over 2,000 years.

Under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia,[33] or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino[34] or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. Pomponius Mela[35] mentions it among the small towns of the district, probably as it was eclipsed by its neighbour Tarraco (modern Tarragona), but it may be gathered from later writers that it gradually grew in wealth and consequence, favoured as it was with a beautiful situation and an excellent harbour.[36] It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens.[37] The city minted its own coins; some from the era of Galba survive.

Important Roman vestiges are displayed in Plaça del Rei underground, as a part of the Barcelona City History Museum (MUHBA); the typically Roman grid plan is still visible today in the layout of the historical centre, the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter). Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have been incorporated into the cathedral.[38] The cathedral, Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Barcelona, is also sometimes called La Seu, which simply means cathedral (and see, among other things) in Catalan.[39][40] It is said to have been founded in 343.

Medieval Barcelona

The city was conquered by the Visigoths in the early 5th century, becoming for a few years the capital of all Hispania. After being conquered by the Umayyads in the early 8th century, it was conquered after a siege in 801 by Charlemagne's son Louis, who made Barcelona the seat of the Carolingian "Hispanic March" (Marca Hispanica), a buffer zone ruled by the Count of Barcelona.[41]

The remaining section of the medieval walls

The Counts of Barcelona became increasingly independent and expanded their territory to include much of modern Catalonia, although in 985, Barcelona was sacked by the army of Almanzor.[42] The sack was so traumatic that most of Barcelona's population was either killed or enslaved.[43] In 1137, Aragon and the County of Barcelona merged in dynastic union[44][45] by the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla of Aragon, their titles finally borne by only one person when their son Alfonso II of Aragon ascended to the throne in 1162. His territories were later to be known as the Crown of Aragon, which conquered many overseas possessions and ruled the western Mediterranean Sea with outlying territories in Naples and Sicily and as far as Athens in the 13th century.

Barcelona also had a substantial Jewish community at the time, then the largest Jewish community in the Crown of Aragon. Called "the Call," for the many small streets that defined the area, it later became enclosed. Montjuïc or Montjuich, in medieval Latin and Catalan, meaning "Jewish Mountain" and the birthplace of the city, is the site of a medieval Jewish cemetery, Jews continued to live in Barcelona until the Massacre of 1391 diminished their numbers. The Spanish Inquisition forced the remaining Jews who refused to convert to Christianity to be burned at the stake, or sell their property and leave.

Barcelona was the leading slave trade centre of the Crown of Aragon up until the 15th century, when it was eclipsed by Valencia.[46] It initially fed from eastern and Balkan slave stock later drawing from a Maghribian and, ultimately, Subsaharan pool of slaves.[47]

The Bank or Taula de canvi de Barcelona, often viewed as the oldest public bank in Europe, was established by the city magistrates in 1401. It originated from necessities of the state, as did the Bank of Venice (1402) and the Bank of Genoa (1407).[48]

Barcelona under the Spanish monarchy

Barcelona in 1563 by Anton van den Wyngaerde

In the beginning of the Early Modern period, Barcelona lost political primacy, but the economy managed to achieve a balance between production capacity and imports.[49]

In the context of the wider early recovery of Catalonia from the 17th-century crisis in the second half of the century, increasing maritime activity since 1675 doubled traffic in the port of Barcelona compared to figures from the beginning of the 17th century.[50]

In the late 17th and early 18th century, Barcelona repeatedly endured the effects of war, including the 1691 bombing, the sieges of 1697, 1704, 1705, 1706, and the 1713 blockade and ensuing 1714 siege and assault.[51]

In the 18th century, the population grew from 30,000 to about 100,000 inhabitants, as the city became one of the key mercantile centres in the Western Mediterranean, with inland influence up to Zaragoza, and to the south up to Alicante.[52] A fortress was built at Montjuïc that overlooked the harbour.

Much of Barcelona was negatively affected by the Napoleonic wars, but the start of industrialization saw the fortunes of the province improve.

Transforming the city

In the mid-1850s, Barcelona was struggling with population density as it became an industrial, port city and European capital. The city's density was at 856 people per hectare, more than double that of Paris. Mortality rates were on the rise and any outbreaks of disease would devastate the population. To solve the issue, a civil engineer named Ildefons Cerdà proposed a plan for a new district known as the Eixample. The citizens of Barcelona had begun to demolish the medieval wall surrounding and constricting the city. Cerdà thought it best to transform the land outside the walls into an area characterized by a scientific approach to urbanization. His proposal consisted of a grid of streets to unite the old city and surrounding villages. There would also be wide streets to allow people to breathe clean air, gardens in the centre of each street block, integration of rich and poor giving both groups access to the same services, and smooth-flowing traffic. Urban quality, egalitarianism, hygiene, sunlight, and efficiency were all major keys for Cerdà's vision. Not everything he imagined would be realized within the Eixample district, but the iconic octagonal superblocks with chamfered corners for better visibility are his direct brainchild and remain immensely helpful even 170 years later. The district and its ideals were not appreciated at the time. The city council awarded the design of the extension plan to another architect. The Spanish government was the one to step in and impose Cerdà's plan, laying the groundwork for many more tensions between the Spanish and Catalan administrations. Regardless, some of the upper class citizens of Barcelona were excited by the new plan and began a race to build "the biggest, tallest, most attractive house" in the district. Their interest and money fueled the rich diversity that we now see in the district's architecture. In the end, Cerdà's ideas would have a lasting impact on Barcelona's development, earning it international recognition for its highly efficient approach to urban planning and design.[53][54]

The Spanish Civil War and the Franco period

Woman training for a Republican militia by Gerda Taro, Somorrostro beach (1936)

Barcelona was the capital of the Republic of Spain from November 1937 until January 1939.[55][56] During that Spanish Civil War period, both Barcelona and Madrid were still under the rule of the republic. In the image Azaña and Negrín on the city outskirts.

During the Spanish Civil War, the city, and Catalonia in general, were resolutely Republican. Many enterprises and public services were collectivized by the CNT and UGT unions. As the power of the Republican government and the Generalitat diminished, much of the city was under the effective control of anarchist groups. The anarchists lost control of the city to their own allies, the Communists and official government troops, after the street fighting of the Barcelona May Days. The fall of the city on 26 January 1939, caused a mass exodus of civilians who fled to the French border. The resistance of Barcelona to Franco's coup d'état was to have lasting effects after the defeat of the Republican government. The autonomous institutions of Catalonia were abolished,[57] and the use of the Catalan language in public life was suppressed. Barcelona remained the second largest city in Spain, at the heart of a region which was relatively industrialized and prosperous, despite the devastation of the civil war. The result was a large-scale immigration from poorer regions of Spain (particularly Andalusia, Murcia and Galicia), which in turn led to rapid urbanization.

Late twentieth century

In 1992, Barcelona hosted the Summer Olympics. The after-effects of this are credited with driving major changes in what had, up until then, been a largely industrial city. As part of the preparation for the games, industrial buildings along the sea-front were demolished and 3 km (2 mi) of beach were created. New construction increased the road capacity of the city by 17%, the sewage handling capacity by 27% and the amount of new green areas and beaches by 78%. Between 1990 and 2004, the number of hotel rooms in the city doubled. Perhaps more importantly, the outside perception of the city was changed making, by 2012, Barcelona the 12th most popular city destination in the world and the 5th amongst European cities.[58][59][60][61][62]

Recent history

Main articles: History of Barcelona and Timeline of Barcelona

Supporters of Catalan independence in October 2019

Protest against independence in October 2017

The death of Franco in 1975 brought on a period of democratization throughout Spain. Pressure for change was particularly strong in Barcelona, which considered that it had been punished during nearly forty years of Francoism for its support of the Republican government.[63] Massive, but peaceful, demonstrations on 11 September 1977 assembled over a million people in the streets of Barcelona to call for the restoration of Catalan autonomy. It was granted less than a month later.[64]

The development of Barcelona was promoted by two events in 1986: Spanish accession to the European Community, and particularly Barcelona's designation as host city of the 1992 Summer Olympics.[65][66] The process of urban regeneration has been rapid, and accompanied by a greatly increased international reputation of the city as a tourist destination. The increased cost of housing has led to a slight decline (−16.6%) in the population over the last two decades of the 20th century as many families move out into the suburbs. This decline has been reversed since 2001, as a new wave of immigration (particularly from Latin America and from Morocco) has gathered pace.[67]

In 1987, an ETA car bombing at Hipercor killed 21 people. On 17 August 2017, a van was driven into pedestrians on La Rambla, killing 14 and injuring at least 100, one of whom later died. Other attacks took place elsewhere in Catalonia. The Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, called the attack in Barcelona a jihadist attack. Amaq News Agency attributed indirect responsibility for the attack to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[68][69][70] During the 2010s, Barcelona became the focus city[citation needed] for the ongoing Catalan independence movement, its consequent standoff between the regional and national government and later protests.[71]

In July 2023, Barcelona was announced as the UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture for the 2024–2026 term. This means it will be the hub for discussion around global challenges including culture, heritage, urban planning and architecture. In addition to being the capital through 2026, it will also host the UIA World Congress of Architects for that year. The honour is befitting of Barcelona, as its history is peppered with architectural achievement and various iconic styles and influences. From its ancient Roman roots, to the Gothic and Modernisme movements, Barcelona has thrived through the way it ties together architecture and culture.[72]

Geography

A panoramic view of Barcelona

Location

Barcelona as seen by the European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission

Map of Barcelona metropolitan area

Barcelona is located on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Mediterranean Sea, on a plain approximately 5 km (3 mi) wide limited by the mountain range of Collserola, the Llobregat river to the southwest and the Besòs river to the north.[73] This plain covers an area of 170 km2 (66 sq mi),[73] of which 101 km2 (39.0 sq mi)[74] are occupied by the city itself. It is 120 km (75 mi) south of the Pyrenees and the Catalan border with France.

Tibidabo, 512 m (1,680 ft) high, offers striking views over the city[75] and is topped by the 288.4 m (946.2 ft) Torre de Collserola, a telecommunications tower that is visible from most of the city. Barcelona is peppered with small hills, most of them urbanized, that gave their name to the neighbourhoods built upon them, such as Carmel (267 m or 876 ft), Putxet (es) (181 m or 594 ft) and Rovira (261 m or 856 ft). The escarpment of Montjuïc (173 m or 568 ft), situated to the southeast, overlooks the harbour and is topped by Montjuïc Castle, a fortress built in the 17–18th centuries to control the city as a replacement for the Ciutadella. Today, the fortress is a museum and Montjuïc is home to several sporting and cultural venues, as well as Barcelona's biggest park and gardens.

The city borders on the municipalities of Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs to the north; the Mediterranean Sea to the east; El Prat de Llobregat and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat to the south; and Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Sant Just Desvern, Esplugues de Llobregat, Sant Cugat del Vallès, and Montcada i Reixac to the west. The municipality includes two small sparsely-inhabited exclaves to the north-west.

Climate

Main article: Climate of Barcelona

According to the Köppen climate classification, Barcelona has a hot summer Mediterranean climate (Csa), with mild winters and warm to hot summers,[76] while the rainiest seasons are autumn and spring. The rainfall pattern is characterized by a short (3 months) dry season in summer, as well as less winter rainfall than in a typical Mediterranean climate. However, both June and August are wetter than February, which is unusual for the Mediterranean climate. This subtype, labelled as "Portuguese" by the French geographer George Viers after the climate classification of Emmanuel de Martonne[77] and found in the NW Mediterranean area (e.g. Marseille), can be seen as transitional to the humid subtropical climate (Cfa) found in inland areas.

Barcelona is densely populated, thus heavily influenced by the urban heat island effect. Areas outside of the urbanized districts can have as much as 2 °C of difference in temperatures throughout the year.[78] Its average annual temperature is 21.2 °C (70.2 °F) during the day and 15.1 °C (59.2 °F) at night. The average annual temperature of the sea is about 20 °C (68 °F). In the coldest month, January, the temperature typically ranges from 12 to 18 °C (54 to 64 °F) during the day, 6 to 12 °C (43 to 54 °F) at night and the average sea temperature is 13 °C (55 °F).[79] In the warmest month, August, the typical temperature ranges from 27 to 31 °C (81 to 88 °F) during the day, about 23 °C (73 °F) at night and the average sea temperature is 26 °C (79 °F).[79] Generally, the summer or "holiday" season lasts about six months, from May to October. Two months – April and November – are transitional; sometimes the temperature exceeds 20 °C (68 °F), with an average temperature of 18–19 °C (64–66 °F) during the day and 11–13 °C (52–55 °F) at night. December, January and February are the coldest months, with average temperatures around 15 °C (59 °F) during the day and 9 °C (48 °F) at night. Large fluctuations in temperature are rare, particularly in the summer months. Because of the proximity to the warm sea plus the urban heat island, frosts are very rare in the city of Barcelona. Snow is also very infrequent in the city of Barcelona, but light snowfalls can occur yearly in the nearby Collserola mountains, such as in the Fabra Observatory located in a nearby mountain.[80]

Barcelona averages 78 rainy days per year (≥ 1 mm), and annual average relative humidity is 72%, ranging from 69% in July to 75% in October. Rainfall totals are highest in late summer and autumn (September–November) and lowest in early and mid-summer (June–August), with a secondary winter minimum (February–March). Sunshine duration is 2,524 hours per year, from 138 (average 4.5 hours of sunshine a day) in December to 310 (average 10 hours of sunshine a day) in July.[81]

Clothespin is a weathering steel sculpture, by Claes Oldenburg. It is located at Centre Square, 1500 Market Street, Philadelphia.

It is designed to appear as a large black clothespin. Oldenburg is noted for his attempts to democratize art, and the location of Clothespin, above SEPTA's City Hall subway station, allows thousands of viewers to view it on a daily basis.

It was dedicated June 25, 1976. Made of Corten steel, Clothespin is praised by art critics for its velvety texture and weathered, warm reddish-brown color.

The silvery steel "spring" part the two textured work resembles the numerals "76", apt for the United States Bicentennial year.

Virginia Heffernan - The Medium - Television - Internet Video - Media - Flickr - Photography - New York Times

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article that will run in this weekend's paper on the new art represented by Flickr and online photography.

The article contrasts the predominant popular styles on Flickr with the old fine art photography of the past. I was interviewed for the article.

Personally I believe that one of the greatest things that Flickr represents is a new democratization of fine art photography.

For the past 100 years, much of what the world considers fine art photography has been bestowed upon us by a very small handful of influential gatekeepers. Literally, at any given time, probably less than 100 people control 95% of what the world is told to consider fine art. These are a few major museum curators, select gallery owners, and other influencers. These individuals not only control the prices that fine art photography will fetch, they quite literally control what is considered the best fine art in the world today. They tell people what photography ought to be deemed great and what ought to be deemed amateurish.

With the advent of the web much of this is changing. In the past without the cooperation of the art elite most photographers saw their work fade into obscurity. Sure, they might win a bronze sticker at the local county fair for their photograph, but really nobody would ever see it.

Today the web is allowing a new breed of photographer as artist. An artist that is increasingly able to bypass the fine art elite and promote their work directly to the public. Although the fine art prices have not yet been attached to today's new "Flickr Famous" photographer, this too will come in time. Step one is simply getting the exposure.

One of the stories that I conveyed to Virginia Heffernan, the reporter at the Times who wrote this article, was a story of a Cartier-Bresson photograph which a critique group of Flickr shouted down as inferior photography without knowing it was an actual Cartier-Bresson. While one take away from that story might be that the general Flickr community simply has poor taste in art, another take away might be to question the previously unquestionable. Was Cartier-Bresson actually that good? And would his work stand up today as it has in the past?

Many in the fine art and photography community would immediately label me as heretical for suggesting the possibility that Cartier-Bresson, regarded by many as the finest photographer the world's ever known, might not be all that he's made out to be.

And yet Cartier-Bresson prints sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, while my Flickr famous Pal Merkley sells his prints online himself for hundreds of dollars instead.

But the mainstream press is beginning to take notice of the new trends in fine art photography that are beginning to take form on Flickr. For some of the photographers mentioned in the NY Times article this is a whoo-hoo moment. The NEY YORK F***ING TIMES!

But mark my words. The naysayers will be here shortly. The fine art world has a lot to lose. Literally millions. But more significantly, control. Control over what is good fine art and what is not. Right now the the wealthy patrons that they advise still believe in what they push. But as the marketing of art by a talented new bunch of artists and photographers learn their very same promotional techniques -- it won't be long.

And this is what the internet does best. Tears down old ways of seeing the world and brings entirely new ones.

Don't get what I'm saying wrong. I do believe that some of the photographers that the fine art world has historically bestowed as worthy are very much in fact worthy. But there are many new photographers that I believe are every bit as worthy. And I think that they too will begin to see the success that they equally deserve -- even without an MFA, even without networking like hell with the fine art crowd, even without the right group shows or whatever that civ thing is that the fine art types tend to obsess over, and even without being 21 and beautiful and just the right type that just the right curator likes to sleep with.

Worthwhile reading: Merkley's treatise, "I'm Not a Photographer."

NY Times article on digg here: digg.com/arts_culture/The_New_York_Times_on_the_New_Art_o...

Once the largest concrete building in Northern Europe, Havnelageret (1916–1920) dominated Oslo's industrial harbor as a mighty storage hub for grain, timber, and other exports during Norway’s early 20th-century maritime boom. Designed by architect Bredo Henrik Berntsen, the warehouse marked a technological leap with its reinforced concrete structure and fortress-like symmetry, reflecting both the pragmatism and grandeur of a nation asserting its commercial identity. Today, it stands repurposed as office space, watching over a transformed waterfront now animated by leisure, tourism, and wellness culture—including floating saunas run by the Oslo Badstuforening, moored right in front.

Oslo Badstuforening – Details:

The Oslo Badstuforening (Oslo Sauna Association) is a non-profit cooperative founded in 2016 to promote accessible, inclusive, and affordable sauna culture in Oslo. Inspired by the Nordic tradition of combining sauna with cold-water immersion, the association offers a range of floating sauna boats, each with a different character and capacity, permanently docked in various harbors including Langkaia, Aker Brygge, and Sukkerbiten.

Key points:

Open to all: Members and non-members can book sessions online. The goal is to democratize access to the social, physical, and mental health benefits of sauna bathing.

Architectural design: The sauna units are built from sustainable timber and vary in style—from cozy cabins to architectural statements.

Community-oriented: Events include guided “sauna rituals,” LGB sauna nights, sauna concerts, and sunrise swims.

Eco-conscious: The saunas are off-grid, using wood-burning stoves and are maintained with green principles, including water-saving practices and waste reduction.

Cultural revival: The Association sees sauna not just as wellness, but as cultural heritage—connecting modern Norwegians to pre-industrial Scandinavian bathing traditions.

Historical Context – The Waterfront in the 1920s:

When Havnelageret opened, Langkaia and the broader Bjørvika area were a bustling port zone. Ships from across Europe and the North Atlantic docked here to offload goods or pick up exports. The waterfront was lined with cranes, tracks, warehouses, customs offices, and sail lofts, and Havnelageret functioned as the central distribution hub for Oslo’s growing trade in fish, lumber, grain, and manufactured goods. The area was noisy, smoky, and industrial—far removed from today’s glassy skyline and hygge-infused leisure culture.

Now, this same stretch of harbor has become one of Oslo’s most symbolic urban transformations—from a working port to a civic front porch, where Norwegians come to sweat, swim, sip coffee, and soak up the fjord air.

This is a collaboration with Chat GPT.

Fiat Coach 500 L

1971, Italy

2 cylinders, 499 cm3, 18CV, 100 km/h

The FIAT 500 car was surely the most important commercial success of their mark. It become the smallest car mass produced in the world. Cheap and efficacious, it contributed to democratize the motor-car.

Cité de l’Automobile, Mulhouse, France.

Located in a small and secluded square across from the French Embassy, the wall had been decorated by love poems and short messages against the regime since 1960s. It received its first decoration connected to John Lennon, a symbol of freedom, western culture, and political struggle, following the 1980 assassination of John Lennon when an unknown artist painted a single image of the singer-songwriter and some lyrics.

In 1988, the wall was a source of irritation for Gustáv Husák's communist regime. Following a short-lived era of democratization and political liberalization known as the Prague Spring, the newly-installed communist government dismantled the reforms, inspiring anger and resistance. Young Czechs wrote their grievances on the wall and, according to a report of the time, this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The liberalization movement these students followed was described as "Lennonism", and Czech authorities described participants variously as alcoholic, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western free market capitalism.

The wall continuously undergoes change, and the original portrait of Lennon is long lost under layers of new paint. Even when the wall was repainted by authorities, by the next day it was again full of poems and flowers. Today, the wall represents a symbol of global ideals such as love and peace.

The wall is owned by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which allowed the graffiti, and is located at Velkopřevorské náměstí (Grand Priory Square), Malá Strana.

courtesy of Wikipedia.