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Google, Apple, Inter-IKEA Group and McDonald's would welcome more clarity and certainty about their tax liabilities in the EU, but they are concerned about the administrative compliance costs and reluctant to see tax data being made public. So said their representatives at a public hearing, held by Parliament's Special Committee on Tax Rulings II on Tuesday, to elicit their views on recent and upcoming proposed legislation on corporate tax.
MEPs were keen to hear the multinational companies' views on the proposed directive against base erosion and profit shifting (anti-BEPS), which follows an agreement struck at OECD and G20 levels. They specifically asked about the proposed requirement for country-by-country reporting of profits, taxes and subsidies and whether such information should be made public.
But the anticipated common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) and company specific tax structures - such as Google's “Bermuda” structure, IKEA's “royalties” one, Apple's tax arrangements in Ireland and McDonalds' franchises – were also subject to intense debate.
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160314IPR19295...
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons licenses and must be credited: "© European Union 2016 - European Parliament".
(Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives CreativeCommons licenses creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
For bigger HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
"It was one of those shoots you really werent sure about. You had no
idea what you wanted when you jumped, but you were confident that
something would grow, something would come along and make the
experience valuable. Finally, you could stare down the barrel and
feel alive! Chaos! No order, no restraint, no compromise and no promise of
usefulness for any of the pictures you might be able to get away with
today. The only certainties you had was that one day you'll be dead,
and that tomorrow was the end of your career as a commercial
photographer.
The budget was raped. There was nothing left at all, and considering
that the cost of flying 37 overweight east african women to the old
outdoor olympic swimming pool in Barcelona was just one of the 57
unplanned expenses, one could argue that the client wasnt getting much
for their money. The 5 polish circus dwarfs were far from cheap, and
the hospital bill for the assistant that fell off the diving tower was
almost as painfull as the accident itself, which left 90 kg of turkish
muscle hanging 10 meters above the water, quite literally by the
(long) hairs of his neck.
Your make-up department, that incidently cost you a little over
$300.000, had disintegrated. A row had started over which eyeliner was
best in windy conditions, and now all you had left was a 45 year old
dragqueen with a 35 year old cocaine habit. And some crayons.
It was getting dark by the time you finally managed to get the old,
beaten canon d5 out of the Come n' Shop plastic bag your teenage
stoner assistant had picked as adequate protection for the only camera
on set that was still intact. The 28mm was lying in three separate
places on the bottom of the pool, and all you had left was the 300mm
f.2.8. You pulled out your cellphone, activated its camera function
and started shooting.
The dwarfes did what they were hired to do with ease and grace. They
flew off the diving tower with such grace and elegance that the mere 3
megapixels and plastic lenses on your mobile phone couldnt even come
marginally close enough to capture anything but flying blurry shapes
of green and purple, somehwere in the background.
The east african women, dressed in their tutus and painted rather
agressivly by the remains of the makeup department, were everywhere.
Two had fallen asleep, one almost drowned and the rest were all
willing to have a stab at you if you came within reach. Your producer
had a lovely red, vertical and very very deep smile tatooed on his
thigh as proof of their intentions and their ability to carry knives.
You, on the other hand, had never been more alive. You had always
heeded to advice that told you to try, to do, to push the envelope
further, to be fearless and confident, to think positive and visualise
success, to let the universe reveal itself. You not only lost control,
you positively threw it out the proverbial window the minute it
presented itself, because unlike the others before you, you were a
true artist that allowed art to happen.
You were struck with a sudden, sharp pain somewhere deep inside your
minds eye. The art, the love and the chaos you made was only
temporary. All the mayhem in the world would some day pass, and order
would be restored. The universe is based on the rules of the pendulum
that swings between ying and yang but never settles. Where chaos
reigns now, peace and order will prevail tomorrow morning, when the
pool will be under the control of the pensioners weekly aquatic
excercise club. The pain was heartbreaking and it sent waves of cold
sweat and shivers down your back. You were the only one that saw the
art in your greatest achievment. You were the only one that could
appreciate the image of the universe, represented and explained by
small flying dwarfes amongst a crowd of black, fat, underwater
balletdancers. It was beautifull and scary, clear and conscise,
straight to the point and possibly, just possibly, the greatest
metaphor ever conceived. You were alone, your understanding of
everything was disintegrating before your eyes and no one had stopped
to take notes.
The pain shifts a little, and you see a reflection of your chaos in
the cold steel blade portruding from your forehead. You see a
stunningly elegant hand draped in wonderfully dark skin gripping the
handle and yanking the blade out unceremoniously and completely
disrespectfully. Stabbed in the head. What a shitty way to go."
“Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.”
~Vaclav Havel
January 17, 2010
Shades of Life
Scientific Name: Conocybe lactea (Lange) Metrod
Common Name: White Duncecap
Certainty: positive (notes)
Location: California; Los Angeles; Urban Pasadena
Date: 20060821
The only thing of certainty I found out about this former petrol station is it was called the Three Elms Petrol Station. Johnson's cleaners took over the premises a long time ago and there are few clues at all on Streetview as to any former branding. Possibly Jet with the canopy supports being painted yellow in the earliest Streetview but it could be coincidence.
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5096568,-3.2102763,3a,75y,52.93...
;So patiently persevere: for verily the promise of Allah is true: nor let those shake thy firmness, who have (themselves) no certainty of faith.
bo-kaap, cape town, western cape- kramat of tuan sayeed alawie, in the tana baru cemetery
It is this extraordinary man, who after a prison sentence of 12 years could forgive his goaler and help him keep law and order in the very city to which he was banished. Such a man was Tuan Sayed Alawi. He became a policeman in Cape Town. He obviously had a motive in becoming a policeman. The job gave him access to the slaves, and hence an opportunity to teach them Islam.
Tuan Sayed Alawi was a citizen of Mocca in Yemen, the southern portion of the Arbian peninsula. There is no certainty as to whether he was brought here directly from Mocca, or from Indonesia where he was a missionary. Nonetheless, he and a fellow prisoner, Haji Matarism arrived at the Cape in 1744. They were classified as Mohammedaansche Priesters, who had to be kept in chains for the rest of their lives.
When Tuan Sayed Alawi died in 1803, he was buried in the Muslim cemetery at the top end of Longmarket Street. Those who loved him erected around his grave a simple wall. It was a structure very much Cape in origin, but symbolical of the simplicity of his life. The tombstone of Robben Island slate was wrapped with white cloth, stained with the oils of the atars and other scents which his devoted followers sprinkled on it.
*************
A Kramat is a shrine or mausoleum that has been built over the burial place of a Muslim who's particular piety and practice of the teachings of Islam is recognised by the community. I have been engaged in documenting these sites around Cape Town over several visits at different times over the last few years. They range widely from graves marked by an edge of stones to more elaborate tombs sheltered by buildings of various styles. They are cultural markers that speak of a culture was shaped by life at the Cape and that infuses Cape Town at large.
In my searches used the guide put out by the Cape Masaar Society as a basic guide to locate some recognised sites. Even so some were not that easy to find.
In the context of the Muslims at the Cape, historically the kramats represented places of focus for the faithful and were/are often places of local pilgrimage. When the Dutch and the VOC (United East India Company aka Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) set up a refuelling station and a settlement at the Cape, Muslims from their territories in the East Indies and Batavia were with them from the start as soldiers, slaves and “Vryswarten" (freemen). As the settlement established itself as a colony the Cape became a useful place to banish political opponents from the heart of their eastern empire. Some exiles were of royal lineage and there were also scholars amongst them. One of the most well known of these exiles was Sheik Yusuf who was cordially received by Govenor van der Stel as befitted his rank (he and his entourage where eventually housed on an estate away from the main settlement so that he was less likely to have an influence over the local population), others were imprisoned for a time both in Cape Town and on Robben island. It is said that the first Koran in the Cape was first written out from memory by Sheik Yusuf after his arrival. There were several Islamic scholars in his retinue and these men encouraged something of an Islamic revival amoung the isolated community. Their influence over the enslaved “Malay” population who were already nominally Muslim was considerable and through the ministrations of other teachers to the underclasses the influence of Islam became quite marked. As political opponents to the governing powers the teachers became focus points for escaped slaves in the outlying areas.
Under the VOC it was forbidden to practice any other faith other than Christianity in public which meant that there was no provision for mosques or madrasas. The faith was maintained informally until the end of the C18th when plans were made for the first mosque and promises of land to be granted for a specific burial ground in the Bo Kaap were given in negotiations for support against an imminent British invasion. These promises were honoured by the British after their victory.
There is talk of a prophecy of a protective circle of Islam that would surround Cape Town. I cannot find the specifics of this prophecy but the 27 kramats of the “Auliyah” or friends of Allah, as these honoured individuals are known, do form a loose circle of saints. Some of the Auliyah are credited with miraculous powers in legends that speak of their life and works. Within the folk tradition some are believed to be able to intercede on behalf of supplicants (even though this more part of a mystical philosophy (keramat) and is not strictly accepted in mainstream contemporary Islamic teaching) and even today some visitors may offer special prayers at their grave sites in much the same way as Christians might direct prayer at the shrine of a particular saint.
DEATH OF MR. C. O. DAVIS.
At 7.15 this morning one of New Zealand's earliest colonists passed away. We refer to Mr Charles Oliver Davis, the well-known native interpreter. Mr Davis was a native of Sydney, having been born in 1816. His parents were born in Ireland, but emigrated very early to Australia. The deceased had one sister and four brothers, the sister being the eldest ot the family. As the parents were soon removed by death this sister was left at the age of fifteen with the care of the whole family, five years afterwards she married captain Young, and accompanied him to this colony in 1831, just 56 years ago. As the parents were dead, Captain Young brought with him his wife's two brothers, Edward and Charles Oliver, who were reared up with their own children. They settled at Hokianga, and thus it was that the deceased became one of our earliest settlers. When it was known that Mr C. O. Davis was dead one of our representatives waited upon Mrs Young. The old lady, who is now 81 years of age, received him courteously, and only regretted that owing to a recent illness she was unable to furnish a complete sketch of her brother's career. Notwithstanding her great age, Mrs Young was able to quote dates with great certainty. She said that she was now the last of the family, her five brothers having been buried respectively in Otago, Taranaki, Coromandel, and Sydney, and the last one just deceased in this city. She said that the deceased was never married. He was always of a studious nature, a taste inherited from his father. At one time he was tutor to the family of the Rev. Mr Woon. When the war broke out, he sided with the natives, contending that it was unjust. The old lady said that in this her brother was, quite right. It was because people did not understand the rights of it that more people had not held similar opinions. Her brother always favoured the natives, and she also held that there had been no provocation for the war. When Auckland was formed her brother came to it, and subsequently was appointed a Native Interpreter. She knew that he had written several books, one of which was entitled "Maori Mementoes." She was sure that at one time he had possessed considerable property, but he had lost a lot of it and given other portions away. Herself and her son William Young, and Mrs Tattersal, her daughter, were his nearest relations. Mr J. O. Davis, of Waikato, is a nephew of deceased, and Mrs Halley, of Cambridge, is a niece, and there are other surviving relatives.
Mr C. O. Davis had of late got very weak. He was also almost blind. It appears he underwent an operation at Otago winch was not a success. The trouble was heightened by his catching cold in the eyes, which ended in almost entire blindness. The deceased has been staying with various friends lately, and a few days ago he came to town and remained with Mr Alexander Mackay in Vincent-street. He was suffering from an affection of the chest, for which he was attended by Dr. Mackeller. He became rapidly worse while in Vincent-street, and ultimately passed away at 7.15 o'clock this morning. Mrs Mackay states that he died very peacefully, and was conversing with her on religious matters shortly before his death.
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS18870628.2.21
Took Maori stance in NZ Land Wars
Charles Oliver Davis was a friend of the Maori people – a man who refused to wage war against those he had translated for at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1842.
Instead Hare Rewiti (as he was known to the various Maori tribes), spoke out against the New Zealand Wars, alienating himself from the pakeha majority.
“He had gotten to know the tribes of Northland, Hauraki and Waikato while working for the Government purchasing land,” says historian Graham Murdoch.
“It hurt him deeply to see his own people fighting with the Maori over something he had been involved with.”
Buried at Waikumete Cemetery, Davis was born to Irish parents at Sydney, Australia, in 1817
Orphaned 13 years later, he immigrated to New Zealand with two of his older siblings.
Davis was quick to learn the Maori language and familiarised himself with Maori customs.
“He was a noted expert also in discussions concerning the traditional songs of the Maori people,” reads the Maori inscription on his tombstone.
A contemporary of New Zealand statesman Sir George Grey and church leader Bishop Selwyn, Davis was appointed government translator and interpreter following the formation of a Native Office.
After the seat of government was removed from Russell, He shifted to Auckland to continue his duties – which by now included a job as chief agent for the Native Minister, Sir Donal McLean.
At the outbreak of the New Zealand Land Wars, Davis defended the Maori people, claiming the conflict was unjust and unprovoked
Negative press evolving through his comments failed to halt his interest in the Maori way of life.
He went on to become an acclaimed poet and the biographer of two prominent Maori figures – Eurera Patuone and the chief Kawiti.
“He was certainly a renowned figure in colonial New Zealand – as was anyone who jumped the bridge between the two cultures because of their language ability,” says Mr Murdoch.
Blind in his latter years, Davis died on June 28 1887. He was 70 years old.
Davis Acquired a knowledge of the Maori language, and was subsequently employed by the government as an interpreter, and friend of the Maori. Davis was given a flag by Moetara, as chief of one of the Hokianga tribes (flag had a crescent moon and stars), he would raise the flag as the ships entered the Hokianga harbour. Was an interpreter at Waitangi on Feb 6, 1840, and subsequently employed in the office of the Protectorate of the Aborigines (Maori) and its successor, The Native Department. Regarded by some Pakeha settlers as unduly sympathetic to the Maori. See inscription on tombstone adjacent to Glenview Rd. Wrote two books, “Life and Times of Patuone” and “The Renowned chief Kawiti”.
source: “LOOKING BACK” Local History with Matthew Gray, Western Leader 27/4/1995
“Proud to be a Maori Pakeha”
Charles Oliver Bond Davis learned to speak Maori as a teenager living with Wesleyan missionaries in the Hokianga.
The Australian-born son of Irish migrants quickly became fluent and extended his interest to tribal custom.
His rapidly growing knowledge was put to good use by Crown negotiators meeting with Maori to discuss and sign the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.
That exercise stood Davis in good stead when he applied for a job as clerk and interpreter in an Auckland-based government office two years later.
Davis became well-known and highly regarded by many Maori who sought his advice on land issues.
But his views often differed to those of his white colonial brethren who occasionally questioned his loyalties.
They also earned him the displeasure of his masters from time to time – particularly in the 1860s when he was highly critical of military action against Maori in the Waikato and Tauranga regions.
Davis put his views down on paper in a published pamphlet that included scathing references to the Te Arawa tribe whose members were aligned to the government.
Outraged bureaucrats had him charged with seditious libel – saying his actions could well spark inter-tribal hostilities.
But the defendant, supported by a number of leading Maori scholars, convinced a jury otherwise and he was found not guilty after a much publicised court case.
Davis was born in Sydney around 1817 and travelled across the Tasman with his older sister Elizabeth and her family in 1831 after his parents died.
He was one of six children and apparently inherited his studious nature from their late father, Joseph.
Davis never married and wrote a number of works in his efforts to promote Maoridom.
Among them were biographies of the chiefs Kawiti and Patuone as well as a translation of Maori songs.
He also published a number of Maori newspapers that were unpopular with settlers and officials.
His death in 1887 was widely reported and at least one newspaper referred to him as a Maori Pakeha – a moniker he would no doubt have worn with pride.
Davis' epitaph at Waikumete is written in both languages – further evidence of his bicultural leanings in a time when racial tolerance was largely frowned upon.
www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/local-blogs/tales-fro...
Further links:
teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1d3/davis-charles-oliver-bond
teara.govt.nz/en/1966/davis-charles-oliver-bond
Plot 21: Charles Oliver Bond Davis (69) 1887 – Interpreter – Bronchitis
Hei Whakamau Mahara
ki a
HARE REWITI
i whanau ki poihakene
A.D. 1817
i hem ki akarna
28 Hune A.D. 1887
i u mai ki niu tirani
A.D. 1830.
Akona ana ki te reo Maori Mohio rawa. Ka Whakaturia.
Hei kaiwhaka Maori ki te kawanatanga. A maha noa
atu ona tau i tera mahi.
He hoa aroha poni ia ki te
iwi Maori he tohunnga rawa
hoki ki nga korero a namata waiata aha a te tangata
Maori.
In Memory of
CHARLES OLIVER BOND
DAVIS
born Sydney 1817.
died at Auckland June 28th 1887
He came to New Zealand
in 1830. And having attained proficiency as a Maori
scholar. entered into the service of the Government. And
for many years held the position of chief Inter-
-preter. He was a staunch
friend of the Maori People
and was learned in Maori
lore of all kinds.
Nature has given you everything. You have unlimited resources. The foundation of your State has been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can ... and I wish you good speed.
Father of Nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Speech at the Dacca University Convocation, March 24, 1948
A Hope to Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, i'll rise.
Just like moons and like stars,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise.
Taken: One beautiful evening when the star and moon were aligned , Islamabad, Pakistan.
Scientific Name: Trametes versicolor
Common Name: Turkey Tail
Certainty: positive (notes)
Location: Appalachians; Smokies; CabinCove
Date: 20071119
October 27, 2018 at 12:00pmuntil November 11, 2018 at 5:00pm at GENERATOR Projects
The exhibition, “Flesh and Finitude”, has borrowed its title from Cary Wolfe’s book, What is Posthumanism (2010). It explores the boundaries of human life and body. What is the end of the human and where does something else begin? This year’s NEoN festival’s theme is ‘Lifespans’ and our exhibition’s aim is to investigate the ‘posthuman condition’, the lifespan of ‘human’ as we know it.
Five artists were invited to provide different points of enquiry into what it means to be human in relation to other species, Nature, objects, technology, and humanity itself.
“Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that.” (Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (2013) p.1) Today, when artificial intelligence, 3D printed organs and genetic engineering are a reality, what it means to be human is extended and redesigned. At the same time, technological advancement also reflects on our relationship (and most importantly similarities) with the Other.
Digital and sculptural works reflect on different aspects of human and its boundaries, its uncanny symbiotic relationship with others, held together by a melancholic sense of uncertainty.
Curated by Zsofia Jakab
Artists:
Caitlin Dick (UK) – Caitlin Dick recently graduated from her Master’s in Contemporary Art from Edinburgh College of Art and previously studied a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. Caitlin’s most recent work The Problem Begins When…, shown in Embassy Gallery Edinburgh, has focussed on the fusion of the technological and the human, creating an uncomfortable hybrid through digital and kinetic sculpture.
Give in to that Easy Living expands upon this previous work, attempting to explore these matters in a playfully cynical way, experimentally introducing an object-based installation which highlights our relationship with the bizarre, posthuman form that technology has created. Mobility assistance devices, kinetic sculpture and film create a sad scene of near total technological integration. Technology has become an extension of ourselves, no longer a separate entity; we feel lost or uneasy without it. The expectation of connection to anything and anyone at any time and for it then to be reciprocated immediately is an assumed part of capitalist consumer culture. Not only do we need to be accessible 24/7, we also believe that it is essential to be constantly active as part of our techno-ego. Our technological addiction has melted into everyday life, becoming monotonously accepted as part of normality. Website
Caitlyn Main (UK) – Caitlyn Mains practice operates from a state of uncertainty: through sustained linguistic unravelling and temporal installation, she presents works that speak of intimacy, agitation and balance. She accommodates, and indeed, propagates conditions encouraging fragility: every piece has the potential to collapse in on itself, and contains obvious indications of temporality. The work is a physical manifestation of precariousness – the use of dangling, leaning, bound and suspended elements serves to underline the flimsiness of matter.
Mains compositions reverberate between a situation of familiarity and abstraction. As firm edges become dissolved, or ignored, the parameters of her work seem to become floppy, saggy, and fluid – seeping outward to be absolved into the daily mass of visual information that surrounds us. The flesh of her assemblages is that of the world – the bones and tendons extrapolated from the domestic and the detrital, from our illuminated back lit phone screens and the phrases uttered to one another. Her frantic constellations continually oscillate between contradictory states: they are simultaneously saturated and empty, humorous, pathetic, sexual, exquisite and insignificant. Website
Rodrigo Arteaga (CHILE) – Rodrigo’s work aims to redefine some notions and ideas around nature and culture, considering what sort of division can exist between them. He has used material culture that comes from science and its varied systematic methods in the form of books, maps, diagrams, furniture and tools. There is some inherent contradiction in this effort to bring together order and disorder, the useful and the useless, unearthing the coded enigmas of our relationship to the environment. He has responded to scientific culture in an attempt to embrace its limits, maybe turn it back onto itself, finding a crack, subjectivizing something meant to be objective. Website
Alicia Fidler (UK) – Alicia’s practice expands how aesthetics of an object can be used to allude to the presence of action and a premise for performance. Functionality and Agency are contexts, which she employs to transcend an object’s still state. Adopting motifs such as handles, hooks, hinges, nets, harnesses and hoops, she dips into our preexisting relationships with objects and actions. Using Function as a guide for how the body enters the work. ‘Where the handle meets the hand to produce the thing’.
The work’s interaction is the crux, the genesis. She is fascinated by the anticipation and desire for engagement with sculpture. Changing and twisting the nature of the body and the object, into a moment caught in time. She makes works, which in every sense give instructions and demand usage but are so still. Wrapped up in potentiality. Stalling the moment of activity, producing an object that screams its performative past and future out. Recently working with visual suggestion, she has begun to use photographs of past performances. Distorting them with pattern and abstraction. Absorbing images directly onto materials. Re-digesting the echoes of action, presenting a twisted instruction. Through self-referencing, function and performance my work has become anthropomorphic. The sculptures embody their own Agency through visual clues.
They play out their own situations and actions extending beyond the tools, objects and apparatus they resemble. She moves from the realms of interaction, into works that represent a single moment; Bodilyobjects. Website
Callum Johnstone (UK) Callum Johnstone’s practice explores environmental collapse and the implications it will have on humanity. Knowing that our environment is changing at an accelerated pace due to climate change, humanity must quickly adapt by re-imagining and re-designing the structures in which we live. Johnstone aims to show that it is not the physical structures alone which must change, by also the underlying structures of our society which need to be rethought.
Though his work is primarily understood as sculpture, it often verges on the boundaries of architecture and design. His structures often incorporate repeating modular elements which allow the potential for a continuation, acting simply as a beginning component to a much larger superstructure. These ideas can then extend to the actions of the individual which as a collective become a greater movement and have the potential to alter society as we know it. Johnstone sees himself not only as a commentator and illustrator of current events but also as a module of the superstructure we call society. As a catalyst of ideas, the artist intends to inspire a conversation on ways in which humanity may adapt to imminent environmental threats.
Image Credit: Kathryn Rattray Photography
All we can say with reasonable certainty about this picture is that it shows the members of Arbroath Instrumental Band in 1896. One might speculate that their repertoire might have been more formal and more classical than that of today's excellent ensemble
"I know nothing with certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."⠀
⠀
- Vincent Van Gogh⠀
⠀
This image, as well as the next two to follow, actually came about as a result of some experimenting in my room late last Wednesday night. I had decided I wanted to try something new, and so I experimented with makeup art and white hair spray. What resulted was an ethereal and/or ice queen shoot that was really quite a lot of fun. So fun I stayed up three hours past my bedtime!⠀
⠀
ninety-two | three hundred and sixty-five
Scientific Name: Cladonia macilenta Hoffm.
Common Name: Lipstick Powderhorn
Certainty: not sure (notes)
Location: Northwestern California; Trinity Mts
Date: 20070220
Or is this an apotheciate C. umbricola?
The LUXE Paris CERTAINTY Outfit is about quiet power and confidence that doesn’t need to be explained. The textured crop top is structured yet softened by sheer, flowing sleeves that add movement and balance to the silhouette. Paired with a fitted skirt and a clean thigh-high slit, the look feels controlled, elegant, and undeniably strong. Every detail is intentional, from the rich tones to the way the fabrics shape the body without overwhelming it. CERTAINTY isn’t about being loud or dramatic it’s about presence. It’s the kind of outfit that walks into a room knowing exactly who it is, and never feels the need to prove it.
Google, Apple, Inter-IKEA Group and McDonald's would welcome more clarity and certainty about their tax liabilities in the EU, but they are concerned about the administrative compliance costs and reluctant to see tax data being made public. So said their representatives at a public hearing, held by Parliament's Special Committee on Tax Rulings II on Tuesday, to elicit their views on recent and upcoming proposed legislation on corporate tax.
MEPs were keen to hear the multinational companies' views on the proposed directive against base erosion and profit shifting (anti-BEPS), which follows an agreement struck at OECD and G20 levels. They specifically asked about the proposed requirement for country-by-country reporting of profits, taxes and subsidies and whether such information should be made public.
But the anticipated common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) and company specific tax structures - such as Google's “Bermuda” structure, IKEA's “royalties” one, Apple's tax arrangements in Ireland and McDonalds' franchises – were also subject to intense debate.
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160314IPR19295...
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons licenses and must be credited: "© European Union 2016 - European Parliament".
(Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives CreativeCommons licenses creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
For bigger HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
October 27, 2018 at 12:00pmuntil November 11, 2018 at 5:00pm at GENERATOR Projects
The exhibition, “Flesh and Finitude”, has borrowed its title from Cary Wolfe’s book, What is Posthumanism (2010). It explores the boundaries of human life and body. What is the end of the human and where does something else begin? This year’s NEoN festival’s theme is ‘Lifespans’ and our exhibition’s aim is to investigate the ‘posthuman condition’, the lifespan of ‘human’ as we know it.
Five artists were invited to provide different points of enquiry into what it means to be human in relation to other species, Nature, objects, technology, and humanity itself.
“Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that.” (Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (2013) p.1) Today, when artificial intelligence, 3D printed organs and genetic engineering are a reality, what it means to be human is extended and redesigned. At the same time, technological advancement also reflects on our relationship (and most importantly similarities) with the Other.
Digital and sculptural works reflect on different aspects of human and its boundaries, its uncanny symbiotic relationship with others, held together by a melancholic sense of uncertainty.
Curated by Zsofia Jakab
Artists:
Caitlin Dick (UK) – Caitlin Dick recently graduated from her Master’s in Contemporary Art from Edinburgh College of Art and previously studied a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. Caitlin’s most recent work The Problem Begins When…, shown in Embassy Gallery Edinburgh, has focussed on the fusion of the technological and the human, creating an uncomfortable hybrid through digital and kinetic sculpture.
Give in to that Easy Living expands upon this previous work, attempting to explore these matters in a playfully cynical way, experimentally introducing an object-based installation which highlights our relationship with the bizarre, posthuman form that technology has created. Mobility assistance devices, kinetic sculpture and film create a sad scene of near total technological integration. Technology has become an extension of ourselves, no longer a separate entity; we feel lost or uneasy without it. The expectation of connection to anything and anyone at any time and for it then to be reciprocated immediately is an assumed part of capitalist consumer culture. Not only do we need to be accessible 24/7, we also believe that it is essential to be constantly active as part of our techno-ego. Our technological addiction has melted into everyday life, becoming monotonously accepted as part of normality. Website
Caitlyn Main (UK) – Caitlyn Mains practice operates from a state of uncertainty: through sustained linguistic unravelling and temporal installation, she presents works that speak of intimacy, agitation and balance. She accommodates, and indeed, propagates conditions encouraging fragility: every piece has the potential to collapse in on itself, and contains obvious indications of temporality. The work is a physical manifestation of precariousness – the use of dangling, leaning, bound and suspended elements serves to underline the flimsiness of matter.
Mains compositions reverberate between a situation of familiarity and abstraction. As firm edges become dissolved, or ignored, the parameters of her work seem to become floppy, saggy, and fluid – seeping outward to be absolved into the daily mass of visual information that surrounds us. The flesh of her assemblages is that of the world – the bones and tendons extrapolated from the domestic and the detrital, from our illuminated back lit phone screens and the phrases uttered to one another. Her frantic constellations continually oscillate between contradictory states: they are simultaneously saturated and empty, humorous, pathetic, sexual, exquisite and insignificant. Website
Rodrigo Arteaga (CHILE) – Rodrigo’s work aims to redefine some notions and ideas around nature and culture, considering what sort of division can exist between them. He has used material culture that comes from science and its varied systematic methods in the form of books, maps, diagrams, furniture and tools. There is some inherent contradiction in this effort to bring together order and disorder, the useful and the useless, unearthing the coded enigmas of our relationship to the environment. He has responded to scientific culture in an attempt to embrace its limits, maybe turn it back onto itself, finding a crack, subjectivizing something meant to be objective. Website
Alicia Fidler (UK) – Alicia’s practice expands how aesthetics of an object can be used to allude to the presence of action and a premise for performance. Functionality and Agency are contexts, which she employs to transcend an object’s still state. Adopting motifs such as handles, hooks, hinges, nets, harnesses and hoops, she dips into our preexisting relationships with objects and actions. Using Function as a guide for how the body enters the work. ‘Where the handle meets the hand to produce the thing’.
The work’s interaction is the crux, the genesis. She is fascinated by the anticipation and desire for engagement with sculpture. Changing and twisting the nature of the body and the object, into a moment caught in time. She makes works, which in every sense give instructions and demand usage but are so still. Wrapped up in potentiality. Stalling the moment of activity, producing an object that screams its performative past and future out. Recently working with visual suggestion, she has begun to use photographs of past performances. Distorting them with pattern and abstraction. Absorbing images directly onto materials. Re-digesting the echoes of action, presenting a twisted instruction. Through self-referencing, function and performance my work has become anthropomorphic. The sculptures embody their own Agency through visual clues.
They play out their own situations and actions extending beyond the tools, objects and apparatus they resemble. She moves from the realms of interaction, into works that represent a single moment; Bodilyobjects. Website
Callum Johnstone (UK) Callum Johnstone’s practice explores environmental collapse and the implications it will have on humanity. Knowing that our environment is changing at an accelerated pace due to climate change, humanity must quickly adapt by re-imagining and re-designing the structures in which we live. Johnstone aims to show that it is not the physical structures alone which must change, by also the underlying structures of our society which need to be rethought.
Though his work is primarily understood as sculpture, it often verges on the boundaries of architecture and design. His structures often incorporate repeating modular elements which allow the potential for a continuation, acting simply as a beginning component to a much larger superstructure. These ideas can then extend to the actions of the individual which as a collective become a greater movement and have the potential to alter society as we know it. Johnstone sees himself not only as a commentator and illustrator of current events but also as a module of the superstructure we call society. As a catalyst of ideas, the artist intends to inspire a conversation on ways in which humanity may adapt to imminent environmental threats.
Image Credit: Kathryn Rattray Photography
It cannot be said with certainty when the Lahore Fort was originally constructed or by whom, since this information is lost to history, possibly forever. However, evidence found in archaeological digs gives strong indications that it was built long before 1025 A.D
1241 A.D. - Destroyed by Mongols.
1267 A.D. - Rebuilt by Sultan Ghiyas ud din Balban.
1398 A.D. - Destroyed again, by Amir Tamir's army.
1421 A.D. - Rebuilt in mud by Sultan Mubark Shah Syed.
1432 A.D. - The fort is occupied by Shaikh Ali of Kabul who makes repairs to the damages inflicted on it by Shaikha Khokhar.
1566 A.D. - Rebuilt by Mughal emperor Akbar, in solid brick masonry on its earlier foundations. Also perhaps, its area was extended towards the river Ravi, which then and up to about 1849 A.D., used to flow along its fortification on the north. Akbar also built Doulat Khana-e-Khas-o-Am, the famous Jharoka-e-Darshan (Balcony for Royal Appearance), Masjidi Gate etc.
1618 A.D. - Jehangir adds Doulat Khana-e-Jehangir
1631 A.D. - Shahjahan builds Shish Mahal (Mirror Palace).
1633 A.D. - Shahjahan builds Khawabgah (a dream place or sleeping area), Hamam (bath ), Khilwat Khana (retiring room), and Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque).[6]
1645 A.D. - Shahjahan builds Diwan-e-Khas (Hall of Special Audience).
1674 A.D. - Aurangzeb adds the massively fluted Alamgiri Gate.
(Sometime during) 1799-1839 A.D. - The outer fortification wall on the north with the moat, the marble athdera, Havaeli Mai Jindan and Bara Dari Raja Dhiyan Singh were constructed by Ranjit Singh, Sikh ruler from 1799-1839 A.D.
1846 A.D. - Occupied by the British.
1927 A.D. - The British hand over the Fort to the Department of Archaeology after demolishing a portion of the fortification wall on the south and converting it into a stepped form thus defortifying the fort.
There's no doubt, I'll not keep asking myself '' Am I really love him?''
my emotions might be out of control, I think it's called '' passion''
as Jess said'' love it's simple'' I guess it means if you really into someone,
you would not doubt your feeling, you don't even think about any questions
about what your real feel about him,cuz you just want him. that's simple.
It's sort of instinct or body reaction.
After we getting older, It's really hard to in love with someone. we always think too much, too rational,maybe we still got some feeling for someone easily, but we might also take it off right away.
For me, LOVE is a beautiful song.
A period of time, I wasn't touched by any songs.
I feel nothing and numb, at the same time, I'm afraid that I'll not touched by any songs,
as I'm afraid I will not fell in love with someone till an amazing song show up
unconsciously. When the first beat drop, my heart pumps,
right at the moment, I found my joy again, and all the panic and worries were gone.
I guess I'm just looking for a beautiful song.
and It's just so special and wonderful that I have to taking more time to searching for.
It's worth to wait. I will wait.
Cuz most of songs were flat and disappointed.
Part of the Crab Brittlegill group smelling strongly of shellfish. The colouring suggests R. graveolens although not possible to say with certainty.
For Britain’s biggest bus operator, co-operation with Scania and the Keltruck dealership means freedom and certainty. Freedom to focus on its core business and the certainty of knowing exactly what its day-to-day operations will cost.
Text: ÅSA LARSBO
Photos: CARL-ERIK ANDERSSON
National Express Group is one of the world’s largest public transport companies. Every year more than one billion passengers use its buses, trolleys, city and express buses in the UK, America and Spain.
With more than 1,000 destinations and 16 million passengers per year, the group’s UK-based express bus company National Express Ltd is Europe’s largest, and its distinct white buses are a common sight on British roads. The group also operates local transport systems around the UK through a number of local companies.
Several of the group’s companies are also Scania customers. For Travel West Midlands, with an 80 percent market share of public transport in the Birmingham area, co-operation with Scania began with the need to replace an ageing double-decker fleet.
“We move a million people a day so we mainly need double-deckers,” says Jack Henry, Engineering Director of the city bus division at National Express. “The original plan was to replace like for like, but in my discussions with Scania we started looking at the Omni articulated bus, which was attractive because it is an integral bus which we could buy from a single supplier.”
With his background in trucking, Mr Henry also had a relatively unorthodox approach to buying buses.
“Traditionally, when buying buses we used to have to be very prescriptive, to say I want these particular bolts,” he says. “But I turned the specification around to output and performance, saying ‘This is the performance I want from it, you tell me what I need.’ And Scania preferred working like that. They had confidence in their products; they knew the components to give the longevity, ensuring that the vehicles are available and reliable all the time.”
Mr Henry bought eleven Scania Omni buses, with a five-year service and maintenance contract at Scania dealer Keltruck in West Bromwich.
Under the contract, Keltruck handles everything related to the buses, from the monthly inspections required under British law to repairs and parts supply ? an arrangement Jack Henry is so pleased with that he is increasingly working the same way with his other bus suppliers as well.
“Scania was the first manufacturer we have built this type of long-term partnership with. They were very capable and willing to take on the responsibility, and from my perspective it has worked very well. We can concentrate on providing the service we are here to provide, and we have a fixed cost.”
Good example
Partnering with Keltruck to take care of Omni buses for Travel West Midlands served as a good example. When National Express Ltd bought a number of Scania Irizar PB coaches for its express services, it was natural to leave servicing and maintenance to Keltruck.
According to National Express Operations Director Bill Cahill, the bus industry lags behind the truck industry when it comes to thinking in terms of total fleet operating costs, but it is definitely moving in that direction. “Personally, I think the vehicles are now getting so complicated that doing it yourself will be history in the near future. They require expertise in areas that fall outside our core business. So it is a natural step to buy from experts the services you need to keep your vehicles in top-notch condition.”
Keeping a high profile is important in order to compete both with other express coach operators and other modes of transport, such as trains and cars. Traditionally, coaches have been viewed in the UK as a transport alternative for students and pensioners, an image National Express is well on the way to changing. The company’s modern, comfortable coaches – equipped with TVs and, on some routes, wireless broadband – are steadily gaining new ground.
The Scania Irizar PB coaches are one element of the company’s deliberate investment in the “wow factor”, Mr Cahill explains. A few years ago, National Express accepted the challenge of showing that coach travel could be fun and different. It has more than achieved this with the Scania Irizar PB, which he considers the most attractive bus in the market.
“No one had noticed when we bought new coaches before, because we just replaced the old ones with similar ones. Then we put the PBs on the road starting in 2003 and immediately we had positive comments from customers.”
Aside from the “wow factor”, National Express seeks an optimal balance between operating cost and reliability. Each of the company’s 600 buses and coaches average some 225,000 kilometres a year, a workload that takes its toll.
“What you are buying effectively from Scania and Keltruck is certainty. Certainty of operating cost, and you’re also buying certainty of supply. We know that the vehicle will be available when we need it, and exactly what it will cost.”
Bill Cahill, Operations Director at National Express buys certainty...
... just like Jack Henry, Engineering Director at the city bus division.
A holistic view
Uptime and reliability mean everything to bus and coach operators in the deregulated British market. Far-sighted Scania dealer Keltruck realised this some years ago and began offering bus and coach customers comprehensive servicing and maintenance at a fixed monthly cost.
Every month, about 100 city buses and coaches pass through Keltruck’s main workshop in West Bromwich in the British Midlands. The number is increasing all the time.
“Nowadays buses and coaches account for around 30 percent of our daily sales at the West Bromwich workshop,” explains Russ Warner, Regional General Manager. “That’s a 20 percent increase just in the past year.”
A large part of the increase is due to the company’s proactive efforts to sell service and maintenance contracts, both to existing and new Scania customers. More and more bus and coach operators are discovering the advantages of one-stop shopping for all their vehicle needs.
“We don’t sell buses and coaches. Scania (Great Britain) handles that,” explains Andrew Bentley, Keltruck’s Group Aftersales Business Development Manager. “But we are there as part of a comprehensive customer offer, with our service and maintenance agreements. Together we offer a complete package that gives customers a stable platform to focus on their core business.
“With our packages, customers can make decisions based on operating economy and uptime,” he continues. “A service and maintenance contract saves them money and problems in the long-term.”
With 500 employees, Keltruck is the largest independent Scania dealer in Britain. Aside from West Bromwich, the company runs twelve Scania authorised aftersales depots and five customer vehicle maintenance units. Keltruck’s West Bromwich and Nottingham workshops also belong to the network of specialised bus and coach servicing and maintenance centres that Scania (Great Britain) has created around the country.
The 25 service technicians employed by the 24-hour workshop in West Bromwich include seven Scania Master Technicians. Nearly half of the workshop’s service techs are bus and coach specialists, which Mr Warner says is necessary in order to maintain expertise.
“Buses and coaches, like all other vehicles, are becoming more technically complex to service,” he says. “So it is natural for our employees to specialise either in buses or trucks.”
Today Keltruck has some 20 bus and coach customers with full service and maintenance contracts. A major element of these contracts is the regular inspections all bus and coaches in the UK must undergo - every two weeks for tourist coaches and intercity buses and every four weeks for city buses - but repairs of any defects discovered during these inspections and any necessary parts are also covered.
“If we spot anything during an inspection, we repair it immediately,” Mr Bentley says, “in order to keep customer downtime at a minimum.”
At Keltruck the whole bus, not just the Scania components, is well cared for. The workshop has gradually expanded its expertise and can now handle repairs of air conditioning, WCs, wheelchair lifts, rear-view cameras and electronic destination signs.
“We are always open to suggestions from our customers on how we can make their lives easier,” says Mr Bentley, who is currently looking into the possibility of also cleaning customers’ buses while they are in for service. “We do everything but drive the bus. All the customer has to do is add
the driver and fuel.”
➡️ keltruckscania.com/about-keltruck/news-centre/press-relea...
It's a bit like angling; setting out with no certainty that you will succeed. A run up to the airport in the morning produced one of these Scanias heading south on the opposite carriageway working service 50 closely followed by 3056CKH. Having figured out what I thought was the diagram for the K114 I went out to get it at Ocean Park. Either I was wrong or it had been substituted. 3088BDY glided past as I walked, behind the trees.... Back to the car and 1470 appeared on a southbound 36. This I can do, and here's the result. Passing the Plaza Arucas stop working the 36 back and passing 1719 loading. (d21-0882f)
Although it is impossible to identify this woman with any certainty, her hair style indicates she lived in the first half of the 3rd century CE. It was made fashionable by Plautilla, wife of the emperor Caracalla, and remained in style until that dynasty ended. This woman may have been one of the wives of the emperor Elagabalus, who came from the Roman province of Syria.
Many people want to lose weight and be slim, and in this, they are helped by diet. But such approaches are often exhausting and boring, so everyone wants to lose weight, to the food, allowing to lose weight, was not only useful but also delicious.We can say with certainty that everybody knows...
ジャーマンスラッシュ、KREATORの3rd。87年作。Noise International(88561-8214-2)。USオリジナル盤。ジャケ。
Matrix:88561-8214-2(V):MASTERED BY NIMBUS
再発盤と比べて、バンドロゴのデザイン、ジャケデザインの寸法、アルバムロゴが若干違います。NIMBUSプレス。
Hieronymus Bosch born Jheronimus van Aken c. 1450 – 9 August 1516) was an Early Netherlandish painter. His work is known for its fantastic imagery, detailed landscapes and illustrations of moral and religious concepts and narratives. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell.
Little is known of Bosch's life, though there are some records. He spent most of it in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, though his roots are from Aachen, Germany. His pessimistic and fantastical style cast a wide influence on northern art of the 16th century, with Pieter Bruegel the Elder his best known follower. His paintings have been difficult to translate from a modern point of view; attempts to associate instances of modern sexual imagery with fringe sects or the occult have largely failed. Today he is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into man's desires and deepest fears. Attribution has been especially difficult; today only 35 to 40 paintings are confidently given to his hand. His most acclaimed works consist of a few triptych altarpieces, the most outstanding of which is the Garden of Earthly Delights. His best surviving panels make innovative use of oil paint and especially glazed finish.
Hieronymus Bosch was born Jheronimus (or Joen,respectively the Latin and Middle Dutch form of the name "Jerome") van Aken (meaning "from Aachen"). He signed a number of his paintings as Jheronimus Bosch (pronounced Yeronimus Bos[needs Dutch IPA] in Middle Dutch). The name derives from his birthplace, 's-Hertogenbosch, which is commonly called "Den Bosch" ('the forest').
Little is known of Bosch’s life or training. He left behind no letters or diaries, and what has been identified has been taken from brief references to him in the municipal records of 's-Hertogenbosch, and in the account books of the local order of the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady. Nothing is known of his personality or his thoughts on the meaning of his art. Bosch’s date of birth has not been determined with certainty. It is estimated at c. 1450 on the basis of a hand drawn portrait (which may be a self-portrait) made shortly before his death in 1516. The drawing shows the artist at an advanced age, probably in his late sixties.
Bosch was born and lived all his life in and near ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a city in the Duchy of Brabant. His grandfather, Jan van Aken (died 1454), was a painter and is first mentioned in the records in 1430. It is known that Jan had five sons, four of whom were also painters. Bosch’s father, Anthonius van Aken (died c. 1478), acted as artistic adviser to the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady.It is generally assumed that either Bosch’s father or one of his uncles taught the artist to paint, but none of their works survive. Bosch first appears in the municipal record on 5 April 1474, when he is named along with two brothers and a sister.
's-Hertogenbosch was a flourishing city in 15th-century Brabant, in the south of the present-day Netherlands, at the time part of the Burgundian Netherlands, and during its lifetime passing through marriage to the Habsburgs. In 1463, 4,000 houses in the town were destroyed by a catastrophic fire, which the then (approximately) 13-year-old Bosch presumably witnessed. He became a popular painter in his lifetime and often received commissions from abroad. In 1488 he joined the highly respected Brotherhood of Our Lady, an arch-conservative religious group of some 40 influential citizens of 's-Hertogenbosch, and 7,000 'outer-members' from around Europe.
Sometime between 1479 and 1481, Bosch married Aleyt Goyaerts van den Meerveen, who was a few years his senior. The couple moved to the nearby town of Oirschot, where his wife had inherited a house and land from her wealthy family. An entry in the accounts of the Brotherhood of Our Lady records Bosch’s death in 1516. A funeral mass served in his memory was held in the church of Saint John on 9 August of that year.
October 27, 2018 at 12:00pmuntil November 11, 2018 at 5:00pm at GENERATOR Projects
The exhibition, “Flesh and Finitude”, has borrowed its title from Cary Wolfe’s book, What is Posthumanism (2010). It explores the boundaries of human life and body. What is the end of the human and where does something else begin? This year’s NEoN festival’s theme is ‘Lifespans’ and our exhibition’s aim is to investigate the ‘posthuman condition’, the lifespan of ‘human’ as we know it.
Five artists were invited to provide different points of enquiry into what it means to be human in relation to other species, Nature, objects, technology, and humanity itself.
“Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that.” (Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (2013) p.1) Today, when artificial intelligence, 3D printed organs and genetic engineering are a reality, what it means to be human is extended and redesigned. At the same time, technological advancement also reflects on our relationship (and most importantly similarities) with the Other.
Digital and sculptural works reflect on different aspects of human and its boundaries, its uncanny symbiotic relationship with others, held together by a melancholic sense of uncertainty.
Curated by Zsofia Jakab
Artists:
Caitlin Dick (UK) – Caitlin Dick recently graduated from her Master’s in Contemporary Art from Edinburgh College of Art and previously studied a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. Caitlin’s most recent work The Problem Begins When…, shown in Embassy Gallery Edinburgh, has focussed on the fusion of the technological and the human, creating an uncomfortable hybrid through digital and kinetic sculpture.
Give in to that Easy Living expands upon this previous work, attempting to explore these matters in a playfully cynical way, experimentally introducing an object-based installation which highlights our relationship with the bizarre, posthuman form that technology has created. Mobility assistance devices, kinetic sculpture and film create a sad scene of near total technological integration. Technology has become an extension of ourselves, no longer a separate entity; we feel lost or uneasy without it. The expectation of connection to anything and anyone at any time and for it then to be reciprocated immediately is an assumed part of capitalist consumer culture. Not only do we need to be accessible 24/7, we also believe that it is essential to be constantly active as part of our techno-ego. Our technological addiction has melted into everyday life, becoming monotonously accepted as part of normality. Website
Caitlyn Main (UK) – Caitlyn Mains practice operates from a state of uncertainty: through sustained linguistic unravelling and temporal installation, she presents works that speak of intimacy, agitation and balance. She accommodates, and indeed, propagates conditions encouraging fragility: every piece has the potential to collapse in on itself, and contains obvious indications of temporality. The work is a physical manifestation of precariousness – the use of dangling, leaning, bound and suspended elements serves to underline the flimsiness of matter.
Mains compositions reverberate between a situation of familiarity and abstraction. As firm edges become dissolved, or ignored, the parameters of her work seem to become floppy, saggy, and fluid – seeping outward to be absolved into the daily mass of visual information that surrounds us. The flesh of her assemblages is that of the world – the bones and tendons extrapolated from the domestic and the detrital, from our illuminated back lit phone screens and the phrases uttered to one another. Her frantic constellations continually oscillate between contradictory states: they are simultaneously saturated and empty, humorous, pathetic, sexual, exquisite and insignificant. Website
Rodrigo Arteaga (CHILE) – Rodrigo’s work aims to redefine some notions and ideas around nature and culture, considering what sort of division can exist between them. He has used material culture that comes from science and its varied systematic methods in the form of books, maps, diagrams, furniture and tools. There is some inherent contradiction in this effort to bring together order and disorder, the useful and the useless, unearthing the coded enigmas of our relationship to the environment. He has responded to scientific culture in an attempt to embrace its limits, maybe turn it back onto itself, finding a crack, subjectivizing something meant to be objective. Website
Alicia Fidler (UK) – Alicia’s practice expands how aesthetics of an object can be used to allude to the presence of action and a premise for performance. Functionality and Agency are contexts, which she employs to transcend an object’s still state. Adopting motifs such as handles, hooks, hinges, nets, harnesses and hoops, she dips into our preexisting relationships with objects and actions. Using Function as a guide for how the body enters the work. ‘Where the handle meets the hand to produce the thing’.
The work’s interaction is the crux, the genesis. She is fascinated by the anticipation and desire for engagement with sculpture. Changing and twisting the nature of the body and the object, into a moment caught in time. She makes works, which in every sense give instructions and demand usage but are so still. Wrapped up in potentiality. Stalling the moment of activity, producing an object that screams its performative past and future out. Recently working with visual suggestion, she has begun to use photographs of past performances. Distorting them with pattern and abstraction. Absorbing images directly onto materials. Re-digesting the echoes of action, presenting a twisted instruction. Through self-referencing, function and performance my work has become anthropomorphic. The sculptures embody their own Agency through visual clues.
They play out their own situations and actions extending beyond the tools, objects and apparatus they resemble. She moves from the realms of interaction, into works that represent a single moment; Bodilyobjects. Website
Callum Johnstone (UK) Callum Johnstone’s practice explores environmental collapse and the implications it will have on humanity. Knowing that our environment is changing at an accelerated pace due to climate change, humanity must quickly adapt by re-imagining and re-designing the structures in which we live. Johnstone aims to show that it is not the physical structures alone which must change, by also the underlying structures of our society which need to be rethought.
Though his work is primarily understood as sculpture, it often verges on the boundaries of architecture and design. His structures often incorporate repeating modular elements which allow the potential for a continuation, acting simply as a beginning component to a much larger superstructure. These ideas can then extend to the actions of the individual which as a collective become a greater movement and have the potential to alter society as we know it. Johnstone sees himself not only as a commentator and illustrator of current events but also as a module of the superstructure we call society. As a catalyst of ideas, the artist intends to inspire a conversation on ways in which humanity may adapt to imminent environmental threats.
Image Credit: Kathryn Rattray Photography
Scientific Name: Oligonema schweinitzii
Common Name: Yellow Slime
Certainty: guess (notes)
Location: Appalachians; Smokies; CabinCove
Date: 20071120
Marble statue of a wounded warrior
Roman, Antonine period, ca AD138-181
Copy of a Greek bronze statue of ca 460-450BC
The subject of this statue has not been identified with certainty. The warrior held a shield on his left arm and probably a spear in his right hand, and he stands with his feet carefully placed on a sloping surface. The figure must have some association with the sea because a planklike form surrounded by waves is carved on the plinth of a second copy in the British Museum, London. It has been suggested that he is the Greek hero Potesilaos, who ignored an oracle's warning that the first Greek to step on Trojan soil would be the first to dies in battle. This statue might represent him descending from the ship ready to meet his fate. Following the discovery of a wound carved in the right armpit, the figure was reinterpreted as a dying warrior falling backward and identified as a famous statue by the sculptor Kresilas. Many other identifications have been suggested to explain the unusual stance and the unique iconography of this statue and of the copy in London, but none has been generally accepted.
[Met Museum]
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5th Avenue, New York
October 27, 2018 at 12:00pmuntil November 11, 2018 at 5:00pm at GENERATOR Projects
The exhibition, “Flesh and Finitude”, has borrowed its title from Cary Wolfe’s book, What is Posthumanism (2010). It explores the boundaries of human life and body. What is the end of the human and where does something else begin? This year’s NEoN festival’s theme is ‘Lifespans’ and our exhibition’s aim is to investigate the ‘posthuman condition’, the lifespan of ‘human’ as we know it.
Five artists were invited to provide different points of enquiry into what it means to be human in relation to other species, Nature, objects, technology, and humanity itself.
“Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that.” (Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (2013) p.1) Today, when artificial intelligence, 3D printed organs and genetic engineering are a reality, what it means to be human is extended and redesigned. At the same time, technological advancement also reflects on our relationship (and most importantly similarities) with the Other.
Digital and sculptural works reflect on different aspects of human and its boundaries, its uncanny symbiotic relationship with others, held together by a melancholic sense of uncertainty.
Curated by Zsofia Jakab
Artists:
Caitlin Dick (UK) – Caitlin Dick recently graduated from her Master’s in Contemporary Art from Edinburgh College of Art and previously studied a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. Caitlin’s most recent work The Problem Begins When…, shown in Embassy Gallery Edinburgh, has focussed on the fusion of the technological and the human, creating an uncomfortable hybrid through digital and kinetic sculpture.
Give in to that Easy Living expands upon this previous work, attempting to explore these matters in a playfully cynical way, experimentally introducing an object-based installation which highlights our relationship with the bizarre, posthuman form that technology has created. Mobility assistance devices, kinetic sculpture and film create a sad scene of near total technological integration. Technology has become an extension of ourselves, no longer a separate entity; we feel lost or uneasy without it. The expectation of connection to anything and anyone at any time and for it then to be reciprocated immediately is an assumed part of capitalist consumer culture. Not only do we need to be accessible 24/7, we also believe that it is essential to be constantly active as part of our techno-ego. Our technological addiction has melted into everyday life, becoming monotonously accepted as part of normality. Website
Caitlyn Main (UK) – Caitlyn Mains practice operates from a state of uncertainty: through sustained linguistic unravelling and temporal installation, she presents works that speak of intimacy, agitation and balance. She accommodates, and indeed, propagates conditions encouraging fragility: every piece has the potential to collapse in on itself, and contains obvious indications of temporality. The work is a physical manifestation of precariousness – the use of dangling, leaning, bound and suspended elements serves to underline the flimsiness of matter.
Mains compositions reverberate between a situation of familiarity and abstraction. As firm edges become dissolved, or ignored, the parameters of her work seem to become floppy, saggy, and fluid – seeping outward to be absolved into the daily mass of visual information that surrounds us. The flesh of her assemblages is that of the world – the bones and tendons extrapolated from the domestic and the detrital, from our illuminated back lit phone screens and the phrases uttered to one another. Her frantic constellations continually oscillate between contradictory states: they are simultaneously saturated and empty, humorous, pathetic, sexual, exquisite and insignificant. Website
Rodrigo Arteaga (CHILE) – Rodrigo’s work aims to redefine some notions and ideas around nature and culture, considering what sort of division can exist between them. He has used material culture that comes from science and its varied systematic methods in the form of books, maps, diagrams, furniture and tools. There is some inherent contradiction in this effort to bring together order and disorder, the useful and the useless, unearthing the coded enigmas of our relationship to the environment. He has responded to scientific culture in an attempt to embrace its limits, maybe turn it back onto itself, finding a crack, subjectivizing something meant to be objective. Website
Alicia Fidler (UK) – Alicia’s practice expands how aesthetics of an object can be used to allude to the presence of action and a premise for performance. Functionality and Agency are contexts, which she employs to transcend an object’s still state. Adopting motifs such as handles, hooks, hinges, nets, harnesses and hoops, she dips into our preexisting relationships with objects and actions. Using Function as a guide for how the body enters the work. ‘Where the handle meets the hand to produce the thing’.
The work’s interaction is the crux, the genesis. She is fascinated by the anticipation and desire for engagement with sculpture. Changing and twisting the nature of the body and the object, into a moment caught in time. She makes works, which in every sense give instructions and demand usage but are so still. Wrapped up in potentiality. Stalling the moment of activity, producing an object that screams its performative past and future out. Recently working with visual suggestion, she has begun to use photographs of past performances. Distorting them with pattern and abstraction. Absorbing images directly onto materials. Re-digesting the echoes of action, presenting a twisted instruction. Through self-referencing, function and performance my work has become anthropomorphic. The sculptures embody their own Agency through visual clues.
They play out their own situations and actions extending beyond the tools, objects and apparatus they resemble. She moves from the realms of interaction, into works that represent a single moment; Bodilyobjects. Website
Callum Johnstone (UK) Callum Johnstone’s practice explores environmental collapse and the implications it will have on humanity. Knowing that our environment is changing at an accelerated pace due to climate change, humanity must quickly adapt by re-imagining and re-designing the structures in which we live. Johnstone aims to show that it is not the physical structures alone which must change, by also the underlying structures of our society which need to be rethought.
Though his work is primarily understood as sculpture, it often verges on the boundaries of architecture and design. His structures often incorporate repeating modular elements which allow the potential for a continuation, acting simply as a beginning component to a much larger superstructure. These ideas can then extend to the actions of the individual which as a collective become a greater movement and have the potential to alter society as we know it. Johnstone sees himself not only as a commentator and illustrator of current events but also as a module of the superstructure we call society. As a catalyst of ideas, the artist intends to inspire a conversation on ways in which humanity may adapt to imminent environmental threats.
Image Credit: Kathryn Rattray Photography
Although indistinguishable in the field from imm. Allen's, its presence with abundant Rufous hummers while Allen's are rare in the dry oaks and chaparral here make me call this bird a Rufous with 95% certainty. The rufous in upper tail coverts speaks to a male, and spreading rufous in the green back also indicates probable Rufous Hummingbird. Deer Canyon, Arroyo Grande, CA.
outside my window
a black bird sang darkly
frantically bidding me wake
there to rush into the wood
and so shabbily
I shook off but a little sleep
running out the door
to seek the company of ghosts
and when I arrived
the dawn was just breaking
and I heard the trees
breathing heavily from the rain
and when we've spent
enough time missing something
there's a peace that comes
in owning it all in silence
and so I chose
to stop in and consider
how good it feels
to lay down in the fog
and maybe it's because
of this soft pale certainity
that no one will see us
or hear us as we weep
Human beings have been enthralled by natural phenomena since time immemorial. Alistair McClymont (UK) constructed a model of one in order to better understand it. Thus, he literally tore a tornado out of its natural surroundings, thereby reducing the phenomenon to its essential form and then using technological aids to bring it back to life. Nevertheless, there’s still that certain something—in the mockup just like in the original—that remains essentially incomprehensible to us, something upon which we humans can exert no influence.
Credit: tom mesic
Google, Apple, Inter-IKEA Group and McDonald's would welcome more clarity and certainty about their tax liabilities in the EU, but they are concerned about the administrative compliance costs and reluctant to see tax data being made public. So said their representatives at a public hearing, held by Parliament's Special Committee on Tax Rulings II on Tuesday, to elicit their views on recent and upcoming proposed legislation on corporate tax.
MEPs were keen to hear the multinational companies' views on the proposed directive against base erosion and profit shifting (anti-BEPS), which follows an agreement struck at OECD and G20 levels. They specifically asked about the proposed requirement for country-by-country reporting of profits, taxes and subsidies and whether such information should be made public.
But the anticipated common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) and company specific tax structures - such as Google's “Bermuda” structure, IKEA's “royalties” one, Apple's tax arrangements in Ireland and McDonalds' franchises – were also subject to intense debate.
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160314IPR19295...
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For bigger HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
www.castelrubello.it/cr_cas.php: There are no certain dates related to its foundation, due to its name changing throughout the time and to the lack of archive documents, before 1200; however, judging by the state of the walls as well as by its architectural elements, it can be approximately estimated that the castle dates back to the 12th century. In the "Piviere di San Fortunato" (an old version of the current land register), Carpenter (pg 6 and on) individuated, with absolute certainty, the original chore of "Villa Podii", which is nowadays a tiny, enclosed village, together with "Villa Porrani" and "Villa Canale". The same structure can also be found under the name of Castel Ribello (as Ceccarelli called it, pg. 18) as well as in the 1297 parish land register, with reference to the tithe payments (Sella, pgs 801-916).
Later on, the Castle became a possession of the Monaldeschi family, who took refuge there in 1345, before gaining the entrance to the city of Orvieto, of which they previously were the Lords (Fumi, 1884, pg. 501). The Castle remained a shelter for exiles until 1420, when the Pope Martino V allowed special privileges to the inhabitants of Castel Rubello and Porano, including the exemption from paying the " heads and acres tax, as a reward for the damages suffered under the war" (Fumi, 1884, pg. 677).
The Monaldeschi family re-gained possession of Orvieto in 1437, thanks to Gentile della Sala (Gentile Monaldeschi della Vipera) who, in agreement with Pietro Ramponi, the Civical Rector of the Patrimony, entered in in Orvieto with Ugolino da Montemarte, Ranuccio da Castel di Piero as well as other "Mercorini", slaughtering the members of the opposing faction, the "Muffati". As a result of this battle, over 60 people died and numerous houses were burnt.
Many "Muffati" managed to survive by taking shelter in Castel Rubello, whose constable had been Francesco da Bologna, since 1422, a mercenary captain belonging to the "Muffati" faction, hence at the service of the Church. For record purposes, Francesco da Bologna negotiated the Pope's betrayal with Gentile Monaldeschi della Vipera, who was, at the time, one of Francesco Sforza's emissaries (b. 1400, d. 1465, a very powerful and popular troop leader and an implacable enemy of the Papacy; amongst his various roles, he also became the Duke of Milan). In 1439, della Vipera reached Castel Rubello, with 400 foot soldiers, unaware of Francesco da Bologna's imminent betrayal; he was captured and imprisoned; 36 of his soldiers were killed in the battle. Once freed in return of his treachery, della Vipera offered his services to the Papacy, but, as a traitor, he plotted in favour of the Ghibellini, who were hostile to the Pope. In February of the following year, his plot was discovered and he first was locked up in the Assisi quarterdeck, with Francesco da Carnaiola and, subsequently, incarcerated in Perugia. He was freed with Carnaiola in June, thanks to his brother's offer of Orvieto, including Castel Rubello, to the State of the Church, in return of 2000 florins worth of compensation (www.condottieridiventura.com).
Towards the end of 1400, the castle was hard-fought by various noble families, in particular the Della Rovere and the Valenti (Tommaso di Silvestro, pgs 106 and on). In 1497, Giovanni Savelli, Lord of Rignano, Flaminio and Benano, exploited Castel Rubello as a strategical base to attack the near Castel Giorgio, home of Giorgio della Rovere, who was the Bishop of Orvieto's nephew. Assaulted by 400 foot soldiers, Castel Giorgio was conquered, destroyed and the lord of the castle was chained and dragged to Castel Rubello. Brandolino Valenti, acting on behalf of the Bishop, easily obtained the release of the prisoner, as well as the handing over of Castel Rubello, in return of a consistent ransom. The Valenti family resided in Castel Rubello from 1519 to the 18th century, after having married into the Avveduti, Lords of Porano, who had dwelled in the castle at the beginning of the 15th century (Fumi, 1888).
The Valenti family restructured the castle, by turning it into a villa. Giacomo Valenti, who was amongst the judges of the great "couple joust" of the Orvieto carnival, in 1542 (Satolli, 1986, pg 157), repaired a portion of the palace, also by assigning the making of some remarkable frescos to the popular Umbrian painter Cesare Nebbia (b. 1535, d. 1614). The culminating point was the construction of a monumental fireplace, in 1541.
His son Federico, together with his wife Lucrezia Ottieri, concluded the restoration, as from 1587, by renovating another wing of the building, which he used as his own abode, and having it decorated with frescos, which have recently been ascribed to Lombardelli (Satolli, 1987, pgs 66-68).
In the 18th century, the castle was owned first by the Salvatori family, then by the Marini, whose last heiress, Emma, married in 1892 the Marques Nicola Serafini Trinci, whose direct successors are still the proprietors of the Castle.
Unfortunately, in 1944, the allied troupes shelled two of the smallest towers, perhaps as a way to discourage attempts of sharp-shooting. Which, since then, were not rebuilt anymore.
Scientific Name: Hypomyces lactifluorum
Common Name: Lobster Mushroom
Certainty: positive (notes)
Location: Southern Appalachians; Smokies; CabinCove
Date: 20060725
The name is misleading: it is actually just (admittedly colorful) mold growing on top of some poor hapless malformed mushroom. In fact the host is so badly developed it can be impossible to identify. Fortunately this particular species of mold only grows on edible mushrooms, because it is highly-esteemed by those who esteem this sort of thing.