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data form exercise for visible certainty 2011
university of wisconsin-milwaukee
school of architecture and urban planning
chris t cornelius, associate professor
Working hard comes naturally to me. Even at that, slaving like a hamster on a wheel took some time to perfect. I took the bait though, hook, line, and bonus check.
In the first twelve months of my employment I proved one thing with absolute certainty. I had no idea how to say "no" when asked to take on a project. This characteristic alone rendered me ripe for the plucking when a management position became available, and I grabbed the ball as soon as it was tossed in my direction.
Every day I rolled up my sleeves and set about the business of leading my team in resolving the issues that prevented emergency room physicians from being paid by insurance companies. I stepped right into the ring and took on the fight while collecting a large salary increase, an annual bonus check, a nice office, and an extra week of vacation every year as my prize. Yep, this was living and I had worked hard earning every perk.
Fast-forward nine years.
"When are you going to finish?" My husband Joe grumbled as he climbed into bed, navigating around a sleeping dog and an ocean of paperwork.
"In a few minutes," I replied.
My track record offered Joe little reason to believe me. Finishing was always just a moment or two away. Then after I knew he was sound asleep, I'd gather my paperwork and move to the kitchen table and work for a few more hours. Later I'd crawl into bed exhausted, knowing that in five or six hours the curtain would rise again on the three-ring circus of stress I called my career.
Somewhere along the way, amid a string of successful insurance appeals, employees that competed for a spot on my team, and a senior management lineup that truly appreciated my efforts, my enthusiasm for living was replaced with grinding drudgery that robbed me of both peace and pleasure. As the company expanded, so did my client base, and with it the chains of responsibility that shackled me to my work grew heavier every day.
One night in particular I remember pulling the covers up to my chin and whispering into the darkness, "Please God, help me find the path back to peace and happiness."
The next morning as I drove to the office, I wondered how long it would take me to gather my courage and resign. Resigning would end the madness and Joe encouraged me to do so daily.
"Just do it A. Quit. We'll make do and you'll find another job. You're heading for a breakdown."
Resign, resign, resign! Not now though, I had a client presentation to prepare for and a conference call to attend in about an hour. Later, later, later!
Then an incoming e-mail bubble bounced across my computer screen and the phrase "position available" caught my eye. When I opened it the words "administrative assistant for senior vice president" glowed like a neon sign. Nah, I thought. They'd think I was crazy. Who in their right mind would step back to a secretarial position from a management position?
At home that evening my interest in the job persisted. I had ten years of experience as an executive secretary long before I ever arrived at the company. They didn't know that, but I did, and I knew how much I loved it too.
The next morning I summoned the nerve and told my boss I intended to apply for the job.
"You're in for a huge salary cut, and you'll lose your bonus, not to mention you'll be bored out of your mind," he said. "You're a leader, A., not a follower. How is it you think this makes any kind of sense?"
"Well," I said. "I imagine it makes no sense at all from your point of view but from where I'm sitting I have a few choices to make. I can choose to give up on this company and resign, or I can look at this secretarial position as an opportunity and try it. If it's not right for me, I'll resign and find something else."
"You're crazy."
"Not yet," I said. "But if I stay in this position much longer, I'm pretty sure I'll end up that way."
Admittedly the manger of human resources was stunned too, but from a budgetary standpoint it's hard to say no to someone who's asking for a salary cut and a decrease in benefits. That's pretty much a novelty you don't run into every day.
I brought to the table a skill set that boasted nine years of in-house experience, which included a working knowledge of every department in the operations area of the company.
Though I negotiated to a salary I felt was reasonable for what I was offering, the lost bonus and salary cut brought me to a twenty percent decrease in my income, not including the vacation time I surrendered. Even I was starting to think I had lost my mind.
I closed the door to my office that last day with very few regrets about leaving my management position, but with one whopping load of anxiety about whether I made a mistake taking a job that would look like a demotion. By the end of my first day in the new position I knew I had made the right decision.
No office, staff, salary, or bonus check can ever replace this new feeling of waking up every morning and actually wanting to go to work. I enjoy that pleasure every day. The tasks I perform and the responsibilities I manage aid one vice president in particular and add to the smooth running of the department in which I work.
When I leave at the end of the day, I take nothing with me but my desire to come back tomorrow knowing that I am respected and appreciated for the contribution that I make.
A. B. T.
Scientific Name: Panicum laxiflorum Lam.
Common Name: Panic Grass
Certainty: pretty sure (notes)
Location: Southern Appalachians; Smokies; CabinCove
Date: 20060531
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
If the destructive certainty of future pandemics were widely enough recognized maybe the U.S. federal government would include a separate well funded research department dedicated to building new defences against waves of constantly evolving diseases, something like a Pandemic Defence Department. Then maybe the politicians and the general public wouldn’t be caught so ignorant, surprised, and unprepared by the next inevitable scourge. The cost of developing effective new antibiotics and vaccines is too high to expect private pharmaceutical companies to invest billions that they might not be able to recover.
This page was copied from the c2017 Kindle edition.
Onufri or Onouphrios of Neokastro (Greek: Ονούφριος) was a 16th century icon painter active in Central and Southern Albania and South-western Macedonia. His works are characterized by post-Byzantine and Venetian influences. He also painted portraits, landscapes and churches.
Little is known with certainty about Onufri's life and his existence only emerged in the early 20th century. Regarding his birthplace only an inscription in the Holy Apostles church, near Kastoria has survived. Onufri is believed to have been born in the early 16th century either in the region of Berat (in today's Albania) or near Kastoria or Grevena (in today's northern Greece), while his ethnic background, whether Albanian or Greek, is disputed among scholars. The epithet Argitis, which appears in a fresco near Kastoria may point to Argos (southern Greece) as his place of birth, although as he used it only once it is regarded probable that it refers to a location in the area of Kastoria. In the climate of the time, the painting of Christian icons can be seen as an act to restore pre-Ottoman culture. He was active in Berat and possibly Venice until 1547. Then he worked in both Berat and Kastoria and in 1555, in Shelcan near Elbasan. He may have also been the painter of various murals in the church of St. Nicholas near Prilep(Republic of Macedonia). After 1554, he lived and painted in the village of Valsh. His works were signed with the title "Protopapas" (Greek: Πρωτόπαππας), demonstrating a senior position in the church hierarchy.
Onufri introduced greater realism and individuality into facial expressions, breaking with the strict conventions of the time. He was the first to introduce the colour pink into icon painting. The secret of this colour was not passed on and died with him. His work is noted for the intense use of colours and the use of natural dyes. According to Georgios Golobias the works of Onufri were significantly influenced by western art, as a result of his possible stay in Venice, being a member of the local Greek fraternity. On the other hand, Manolis Chatzidakis claims that western traces are few and they can be explained due to the contact with the paintings of the Cretan School.
Onufri founded a school of painting in Berat, which was passed on to his son Nikolla, upon his death, and by Onouphrios Cypriotes and Kostandin Shpataraku.
Many of his paintings are stored and displayed at the Onufri Iconographic Museum in a former church in the old town of Berat.
(Wikipedia)
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever (Isaaih 40:7)
The people who are to receive this news are like “grass” and “the flower” (vv. 7, 8). One withers, and the other fades. But in “the word of our God” confidence can be maintained, for his word “will stand forever” (v. 8). Our comfort rests not in the consistency of human leaders, even ecclesial ones, but in the certainty of the divine word.
Here the “word of God” is spoken, but with the coming of the Messiah, the Word is made flesh. He will come as a shepherd who “will gather the lambs in his arms,” carrying them “in his bosom” as a loving Lord (v. 11) despite his great power (see vv. 12–17). Jesus self-identifies with this portrait, describing himself as the “good shepherd” who “lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:1–18). The Messiah will face a withering, even unto death, but this incarnate Word, with power beyond this world, overcomes death and sin, rising from the grave and making it certain that God’s Word will never die and can be trusted unto death. The apostle Peter even describes the unfading word of God of Isaiah 40:8 as the gospel message itself (1 Pet. 1:25). - ESV Gospel Transformation Bible
I have made it to the end of my 366 and I have made it to the grand old age of 50, two things that were never a certainty! Observations on a 365 (366) 1. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be - keeping motivated and not taking too many crap photo's just because you need to take something. 2. It's an interesting look back on the last year. 3. I can now go back to just taking photographs for fun so there will be less photo's that I probably wouldn't ordinarily have posted and there will be less photographs of things I've eaten. So I'm finishing with a mosaic of birthday celebrations including a few of the 50 presents beginning with C from Matt and Garrett - thank you everyone for making it a Birthday to remember..
This goose preened for a good fifteen minutes before I got bored and walked away. I think this is a Taverner's Cackling Goose. I say this with no certainty. www.sibleyguides.com/2007/07/identification-of-cackling-a...
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
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: Stereum hirsutum
Common Name: Hairy Parchment
Certainty: pretty close (notes)
Location: Appalachians; Smokies; CabinCove
Date: 20071119
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.
data form exercise for visible certainty 2013
university of wisconsin-milwaukee
school of architecture and urban planning
chris t cornelius, associate professor
*Copyright © 2012 Lélia Valduga, all rights reserved.
Briefly, a little silence, a few gestures, but mainly the sincerity in his eyes! That's what makes children angels land!
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.
Santa Elena Augusta
Flavia Julia Helena Augusta
Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady on Thorns (Aranzazu)
Municipality of San Mateo
Province of Rizal
Philippines
SantaCruzang Bayan 2008
May 25, 2008
About SAINT HELENA
Venerated in:
Roman Catholicism
Eastern Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy
Lutheran
Anglicanism
Canonized:
Her canonization precedes the practice of formal Canonization by the Pope or the relevant Orthodox and Lutheran churches.
Feast:
Roman Catholic: August 18
Lutheran: May 21
Orthodox: May 19
Coptic Orthodox: 9 Pashons
**Finding of the True Cross: May 03
Symbol: Cross
Derivatives: St. Helena of Constantinople, St. Helen, St. Eleanor
Patronage: archeologists, converts, difficult marriages, divorced people, empresses
Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, also known as Saint Helena, Saint Helen, Helena Augusta or Helena of Constantinople (ca. 250 – ca. 330) was consort of Constantius Chlorus, and the mother of Emperor Constantine I. She is traditionally credited with finding the relics of the True Cross.
Family Life: Helena's birthplace is not known with certainty. The sixth-century historian Procopius is the earliest authority for the statement that Helena was a native of Drepanum, in the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor. Her son Constantine renamed the city "Helenopolis" after her death in 328, giving rise to the belief that the city was her birthplace. Although he might have done so in honor of her birthplace, Constantine probably had other reasons for doing so. The Byzantinist Cyril Mango has argued that Helenopolis was refounded to strengthen the communication network around his new capital in Constantinople, and was renamed to honor Helena, not to mark her birthplace. There is another Helenopolis, in Palestine, but its exact location is unknown. This city, and the province of Helenopontus in the Diocese of Pontus, were probably both named after Constantine's mother.
The bishop and historian Eusebius of Caesarea states that she was about 80 on her return from Palestine. Since that journey has been dated to 326–28, Helena was probably born in 248 or 250. Little is known of her early life. Fourth-century sources, following Eutropius' Breviarium, record that she came from a low background. Ambrose was the first to call her a stabularia, a term translated as "stable-maid" or "inn-keeper". He makes this fact a virtue, calling Helena a bona stabularia, a "good stable-maid". Other sources, especially those written after Constantine's proclamation as emperor, gloss over or ignore her background.
It is unknown where she first met her future partner Constantius. The historian Timothy Barnes has suggested that Constantius, while serving under Emperor Aurelian, could have met her while stationed in Asia Minor for the campaign against Zenobia. Barnes calls attention to an epitaph at Nicomedia of one of Aurelian's protectors, which could indicate the emperor's presence in the Bithynian region soon after 270. The precise legal nature of the relationship between Helena and Constantius is unknown: the sources are equivocal on the point, sometimes calling Helena Constantius' "wife", and sometimes calling her his "concubine". Jerome, perhaps confused by the vague terminology of his own sources, manages to do both. Some scholars, such as the historian Jan Drijvers, assert that Constantius and Helena were joined in a common-law marriage, a cohabitation recognized in fact but not in law. Others, like Timothy Barnes, assert that Constantius and Helena were joined in an official marriage, on the grounds that the sources claiming an official marriage are more reliable.
Helena gave birth to Constantine I in 272. In 293, Constantius was ordered by emperor Diocletian to divorce her in order to qualify as Caesar of the Western Roman Empire, and he was married to the step-daughter of Maximian, Theodora. Helena never remarried and lived in obscurity, though close to her only son, who had a deep regard and affection for her.
Constantine was proclaimed Augustus of the Roman Empire in 306 by Constantius' troops after the
latter had died, and following his elevation his mother was brought back to the public life and the imperial court, and received the title of Augusta in 325. Helena died in 330 with her son at her side. Her sarcophagus is on display in the Pio-Clementino Vatican Museum. During her life, she gave many presents to the poor, released prisoners and mingled with the ordinary worshippers in modest attire, exhibiting a true Christian spirit.
Sainthood: She is considered by the Orthodox and Catholic churches as a saint, famed for her piety. Her feast day as a saint of the Orthodox Christian Church is celebrated with her son on May 21, the Feast of the Holy Great Sovereigns Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles. Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church falls on August 18. Her feast day in the Coptic Orthodox Church is on 9 Pashons. Eusebius records the details of her pilgrimage to Palestine and other eastern provinces (though not her discovery of the True Cross). She is the patron saint of archaeologists. The names "Saint Eleanor" and "Saint Eleanora" are usually synonymous for Saint Helen.
Relic Discoveries: In 325, Helena was in charge of a journey to Jerusalem to gather Christian relics, by her son Emperor Constantine I, who had recently declared Rome as a Christian city. Jerusalem was still rebuilding from the destruction of Hadrian, a previous emperor, who had built a temple to Venus over the site of Jesus's tomb, near Calvary.
According to legend, Helena entered the temple with Bishop Macarius, ordered the temple torn down and chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. Refused to be swayed by anything but solid proof, a woman from Jerusalem, who was already at the point of death from a certain disease, was brought; when the woman touched a cross suddenly recovered and Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross. On the site of discovery, she built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, while she continued building churches on every Holy site.
She also found the nails of the crucifixion. To use their miraculous power to aid her son, Helena allegedly had one placed in Constantine's helmet, and another in the bridle of his horse. Helena left Jerusalem and the eastern provinces in 327 to return to Rome, bringing with her large parts of the True Cross and other relics, which were then stored in her palace's private chapel, where they can be still seen today. Her palace was later converted into the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
The reliquary of Jerusalem was committed to the care of Saint Macarius and kept with singular care and respect in the magnificent church which Saint Helen and her son built there. Saint Paulinus relates that, though chips were almost daily cut off from it and given to devout persons, yet the sacred wood suffered thereby no diminution. It is affirmed by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, twenty-five years after the discovery, that pieces of the cross were spread all over the earth; he compares this wonder to the miraculous feeding of five thousand men, as recorded in the Gospel. The discovery of the cross would have happened in the spring, after navigation began on the Mediterranean Sea, for Saint Helen went the same year to Constantinople and from there to Rome, where she died in the arms of her son on the 18th of August of the same year, 326.
Reference:
8/365
Self-portrait.
You're roused from your sleep by the nagging certainty in the back of your mind that your alarm hasn't gone off and it's already time for you to leave for work. You wrench yourself out of your dreams and, in an almost involuntary action, sit bolt upright in panic. You're late for work!!!
Except... no, you're not, because it's still dark and when you reach over to the (at least usually accurate) alarm clock it says it's just after four in the morning.
This has got to stop.
------
When I started doing mornings at the cafe I used to work at, I was a nervous wreck. The first few mornings I would wake just before my alarm went off, because all my mind was thinking the entire night was "Ican'tbelateIcan'tbelateIcan'tbelate". The next morning, I woke up at 6.30. Then 5am. Then a little before four in the morning.
There is something MISSING from this photo, and I can't put my finger on what it is. If you can, please tell me, it's driving me crazy!! Today's shot actually ended up being the opposite of yesterday's; I meant for it to be a bit serious, but with the title I think it ends up being kind of humorous!
"I do not know what to do with my life"
"I do not know what to do with my life"
Is it wise for a person to seek the true purpose of life? No, of course, since this purpose is already known with certainty. The general principle is that, since there is life beyond the grave, the purpose of life, without exception, must be there and not here. Everyone knows this, but, unfortunately, few remember it. So you make it a rule in your life: Pursue this goal with all your might. You will then see what light will shine on your short earthly paradigm and on your works.
First of all, you will realize that in this world there are only means for that other life. All the temporary are means to the conquest of eternity. All you have to do is use them in such a way that they lead you to this goal; that they do not turn you away from it and that you do not oppose it. So here is the answer to your question, "I do not know what to do with my life." What to do; Look at the sky and measure every step of your life, so that it is a step towards the sky. The rule is so simple and at the same time so comprehensive! You ask: "Shouldn't I do something?", And of course I should. Do what the circumstances of your circle and your work demand each time, believing that this is - and should be - your duty. You are not asked for anything more. It is a great mistake to think that you have to undertake great and great struggles either for heaven or, as the modernists say, for the good of humanity. This is not necessary at all. All that is necessary is to do everything according to God's commands. And when I say everything, I mean what is presented in your daily life. Nothing else. God cares for every human being. He is the one who causes or concedes what happens to us. His omnipotent providence embraces not only the general course of our lives, but every moment and every circumstance.
Let us take an example: A poor man is approaching you. God has sent him. What should you do? Help him. So the Lord is watching you to see if you will act according to His will. If you help the poor, He will be pleased and you will have taken a step towards your ultimate goal, eternal life.
I do not need to use another example, because I am sure you understood what I mean: In every circumstance, without exception, do what God wants. As for what he wants, you know it from the orders he has given us. Does anyone need your help? Help him. Did anyone insult you? Forgive him. Did you offend anyone? I ran to apologize to him and reconcile with him. Did anyone praise you? Do not be proud. Did anyone fight you? Do not be angry. Is it time for prayer? Pray. Is it time for work? Work… If you act in this way in every situation, that is, if everything you do is in accordance with God's commands, then all the problems in your life will be solved.
Our purpose is the blissful life after death. The means, I repeat, for achieving the goal are the divine works. The issue is, I think, simple and clear. There is no reason to torment yourself with complex questions and difficult problems. Get rid of any thoughts of "social", "mass", "universal" action, as modernists say, and then you will peacefully reach your ultimate goal without obstacles. Remember that the Lord does not forget a single glass of cold water, offered to someone thirsty.
"Nevertheless," you will tell me, "it is necessary to choose and determine a way of life!" How will she define him, right? He will start thinking, thinking… until he is dizzy! And where will it end up? Rather in confusion and impasse. The best and safest of all is to accept with obedience, gratitude and love what God determines for you. And what God determines for each of us is revealed in the circumstances and circumstances of our lives. Take your case. For the time being you are under the protection of your parents. What better would you like? You have warmth, security, carefree. Live in these conditions, consciously doing what the circumstances demand each time, and do not let your thoughts fly away.
"But it is impossible for me to remain in this state forever," you will say again. "Someday I will have to take my own path. What will I do then? Can I not think about it? The best thing to do is to leave yourself in the hands of God, to pray, asking Him to put you on the path that He considers best for you, and to wait patiently for the time when He will speak to you, He will speak to you. from the facts. So, after you find peace, leaning on God, live simply, without making big and futile plans. Your daily activities and relationships with people do not need to change. Do not think that such a simple life has no meaning or value. Whatever one does on earth, big or small, important or insignificant, is a task. And if a work is in accordance with the divine commands, then it is also pleasing to the Lord. Well, every work pleasing to the Lord has invaluable and eternal value, no matter how simple or insignificant it may seem
Kenny Scharf shared about his vision and mission as a pop surrealist at the "Tuesday Evenings" lecture series at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (www.http://themodern.org/). His artistic mindset started early in life when he was "very much influenced" by his Los Angeles surroundings where the space-age prospect of the Jetsons's seemed a future certainty. "It was a time filled with fantasy, and I clicked on that fantasy." Even though the starry-eyed romance of space travel was dashed by the harsh reality of the 70s, Scharf never let it stray far from his artistic orbit. "The fantasy of space travel had left, but I wanted to keep it going." Visit his website and social media channels via the links below to witness Sharf's consistent relaunching of the space theme.
Another concept Scharf unpacked was "customization." The idea is to bring art into real life by adding it to everyday household objects (e.g., a vacuum cleaner). Scharf framed his mission to "get art out into everyday life" in the spirit of ancient cultures, such as the Greeks, who decorated everyday objects such as urns. The most visible expressions of Scharf's customization are the 100+ "car bombs" he has painted during the past year and a half. See his Instagram link below for more on how he turns autos into mobile canvases. Kids are more likely to notice these mobile paintings, Scharf stated, which is a strong reason for funding art education in schools. "Adults don't see things, but kids do." (See www.flickr.com/photos/75403842@N08/15470257330/ for a "car bomb" Scharf did while in Fort Worth).
Oh, about this photo...I took only a small baby step by using my phone to add artistic elements that could be in the spirit of a Kenny Scharf work...with none of the artistic talent, of course. I added the spirals, a life-long fascination for Kenny, who sees them as "powerful and important symbols" that serve as portals "to get to another world."
Learn More About:
Tuesday Evenings at the Modern
www.themodern.org/programs/category/Tuesday-Evenings-at-t....
Kenny Scharf's Presentation
www.themodern.org/programs/Upcoming/Kenny-Scharf/2751
Kenny Scharf:
www.youtube.com/channel/UC250QSEZmU4ef2yEbdRz9Dg
This photo is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
www.facebook.com/fortworthportraitproject
www.twitter.com/FWPortraitProj
www.instagram.com/fortworthportraitproject
Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
Digital
"OCD tricks us into believing certainty is possible. In reality, certainty is found at the bottom of a bottomless pit or deep inside a black hole, always sucking us in."
For hundreds of years, the church of Saint Spyridon the Old continues to beautify, through its discreet presence, the life of Bucharesters.
Although its founders and the year of construction are not known with certainty, and its religious architecture does not attract the attention of those who love beauty in any special way, the place of worship impresses with its authenticity and simplicity.
Some historical writings mention as founders the Florești boyars, "old-line and generous boyars", whose sumptuous residence was located nearby, in the former neighborhood of "Scorțarului", most likely named after those who processed tree bark, indispensable to tanners.
It is also known that during the reign of Prince Constantin Mavrocordat, the small wooden church was replaced with another one made of stone, surrounded by cells, the religious establishment soon becoming a monastery.
In addition to the significant financial contribution of Prince Mavrocordat, Patriarch Silvestru of Antioch was also a co-founder.
Also during this time, as in the case of other places of worship in Bucharest, an inn was built around the monastery, but it was demolished with the start of the Dâmbovița sewerage works.
Over time, other buildings were erected on the site of the inn, among the most famous being the "Tyre Society", later transformed into a theater, which following renovation works became the "Operetta Theater".
In 1815, during the terrible plague epidemic during the reign of Prince Caragea, the Bucharesters who had not left the Capital, in order not to infect each other, closed themselves in monasteries, including "St. Spiridon the Old".
In the 19th century, the church suffered significant damage due to the earthquakes of 1802 and 1838, then the reform of the secularization of the monastery's assets, initiated by Prince Cuza, left it terribly impoverished.
During the communist regime, in 1987, it was demolished, and was not rebuilt until 1995.
A year later, on the occasion of its consecration, on Saint Demetrius' day, on October 26, the two inscriptions in Greek and Arabic, unique in the church world, the entrance portico, the carved stone columns inside and on the porch, the window frames, as well as the icons in the iconostasis were re-installed in their place.
Photo showing Alistair McClymont (UK) and his installation "The Limitations of Logic and the Absence of Absolute Certainty"
Credit: tom mesic
A comprehensive and competitive income tax applicable to the LNG industry gives proponents the certainty they need to make investment decisions while ensuring British Columbians receive the revenues they deserve from this new industry, Finance Minister Michael de Jong said with the introduction of Bill 6, the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act in the BC legislature today.
The LNG Income Tax framework reflects government’s announcement in February 2014 and government’s ongoing consultation with industry.
READ MORE: www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/2014/10/lng-income-tax-ensures-fai...
An evening spent at Marie's Crisis Cafe belting out Broadway tunes is, in all certainty, an evening very well spent.
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.
I think this was an strip called Fashion Street, but cannot recall with certainty. This mother, daughter and dog (well, the mom and kid at least) are what I'd typically call fashion victims. They were lovely and dressed to the nines, but not sure in any practical sense. The mom is pushing a baby buggy type stroller, but it is obviously intended for the dog. In case poor Poopsie gets tired. The daughter is desperately trying to keep up with mom as she is rushing somewhere. The daughters heeled boots made keeping up a struggle. Frankly, I think her kid will get tired before Poopsie, but I am guessing Poopsie comes first in the pecking order. *No, I don't know the dogs real name.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Honeymoon
October 2006
Photo showing Alistair McClymont (UK) and his installation "The Limitations of Logic and the Absence of Absolute Certainty"
Credit: tom mesic
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: Aspicilia cinerea (L.) Korber
Common Name: Cinder Lichen
Certainty: positive (notes)
Location: Canadian Rockies; Wells Gray Provincial Park; Edgewood Blue
Date: 20080415
This is what happens if you add KOH to an apothecial section while watching under the compound microscope. Out of seemingly nowhere all these cool red radiating needle-like crystals form. This is a reaction of the lichen substance norstictic acid with KOH.
Macroscopically, if you put a drop of KOH on the nice ashy-white surface, it also turns a very pleasing bright red. Always amusing, no matter how many times you see it!
Apparently, the shape of the crystal is diagnostic of the type of acid present. They will also show up nicely under cross-polarized light, but I'm not set up to get good photos of that yet.
What's not to love about a swamp? I do like a good swamp and there's plenty of them up here; some small, some hanging, and some like this one — Bogong Swamp — swamps of substance.
Bogong; now there's a peculiar word! There are multiple claims about which language group gave us the word. It is sufficient in the absence of a verifiable certainty that it pre-dates European adoption of the word and functioned as a noun; the name of a brown moth — Agrotis infusa. In common usage this is the Bogong moth.
Such was the significance of this moth that usage of the word bogong has resulted in unusual back formations to include a general usage for a place of high elevation — Bogong High Plains — and individual peaks: Grey Mare Bogong, Dicky Copper Bogong and so on.
Describing the view from behind Hospital Hill I mentioned the human migrations that used this terrain as ramps up to the high country to collect and feast on bogong moths. The moths had themselves flown south to these same high places to aestivate over summer after fattening on more northerly pastures. This behaviour was so ingrained as to become a defining term not just for the moth but the places.
Wait; no this isn't such a high place! Bogong Swamp is barely 1000m ASL; not high enough for the moths to aestivate and not equiped with the boulder fields and rock crevices they need. Instead I think we can look at how important the creek lines here were as pathways into the high places. Bogong Creek spreads out into and fills this swamp. What chance that the creek got its name from the human migration that followed its course? The rock shelter above this swamp has evidence of human occupation going back to 8000 years ago. There are others on this same trending axis to the north, through a gap in the terrain where the creek is now named Rendezvous Creek. I wonder what happened there and whether its rock shelter was occupied for a similar purpose? Oh, and the creek between them with its own rock shelter? That would be Middle Creek. There is a big body of evidence that this was a significant place, gathering and guiding peoples, funneling them upwards.
This traditional use, this behaviour, this habit was so important despite happening somewhere else as to gift the name of the moth through the European explorers and settlers, these intruders or invaders if you will, to geographical features in perpetuity. They were clearly quite in tune with this place, its culture, its people in a way we have mostly forgotten.
Now back to that swamp. It isn't an awful place; not a bog or morass. It works like the kidneys, like a bladder for the rain and the snow melt coming off those mountains. The flow spreads out and is slowed, sediments trapped, nutrients harvested, water absorbed. Instead of rushing off to the sea, even though it will drain into Australia's second longest river and take a couple of thousand kilometers to get there, it is held up to both nurture this place, but also slowly drain down to join and become the Gudgenby River. It feeds, nurtures and breeds a whole web of life.
Right here, right now it blocks my way. I don't resent that. I'll just move on to a place where it drains out into a creek, narrows and lets me jump across and on my way.
On Monday November 16, the foundation stone of the building to be called the Rhine Villa Institute was laid by Mr Theo Hack MP.
A luncheon was served to the members of Parliament, committee, trustees, and others at 1 o'clock.
In the evening a public meeting was held, which was attended by about 140 persons, when Mr Hack gave ‘An evening with Jerome K. Jerome’.
The building when completed is to serve for school, institute, and chapel.
The residents generally are assisting, and the building is to be opened within three months. A school building particularly is much needed here. This, together with the railway, which is deemed a certainty, will assist the district very much. It should be mentioned that the Hon J Warren MLC, presided at the evening meeting, and that the Attorney-General (the Hon R Homburg) has promised to open the building when completed. [Ref: South Australian Chronicle 28-11-1891]
RHINE VILLA (Murray Flats) February 26
The new Institute was opened here on the 16th inst by the Hon R Homburg, Attorney-General, in the presence of a large number of people. Messrs Hack and Holder MP were also present and delivered addresses.
During the afternoon meeting, Mr J A Payne, on behalf of the Committee of Institute, and the residents of the district, presented Mr Homburg with a very handsome address printed on silk, and framed.
At 5.30 pm a tea took place in the hall.
In the evening a concert was held: an excellent programme consisting of solos, duets, recitations, dialogues and farces, was most efficiently carried out.
The Rev C W Genge, who is leaving for Western Australia after two years residence here, was presented, by Mr C Groth, on behalf of the three churches, Rhine Villa, Pine Hut, and Saunders' Creek, with a handsome testimonial.
After the usual vote of thanks a most enjoyable evening was brought to a close, despite the excessive heat. [Ref: Bunyip 4-3-1892]
A party consisting of the Attorney-General and Mr T Hack, members for Gumeracha, and Mr F W Holder MP, left Adelaide at half-past 6 on Wednesday morning for Rhine Villa in order to take part in the opening of the new institute. The people from the surrounding districts had assembled in the morning and indulged in a picnic.
The institute is a fine building, the principal room being some 20 x 40 ft. and the smaller room 14 x 16. The necessary funds have been subscribed by the inhabitants, the action being a very plucky one considering that the past season is the worst they have ever known.
The debt on the building, of which the foundation stone was laid by Mr Hack in November, is only £200: a very small amount, as it is to be used for a school, for an institute, for public meetings, and for services on Sunday.
The building is plastered throughout and thoroughly finished. Mr Homburg opened the ceremony at a quarter past 3 by taking a position in front of the door and declaring the institute open. He complimented the inhabitants on the energy they had shown and the success with which it had been crowned. All present then entered the building where further speeches were made, the Attorney-General contributing one in English and one in German. Mr Hack and Mr Holder both made very happy speeches.
After tea had been taken a programme of music and recitations was carried out, interspersed with addresses from the visitors, and a pleasant though warm evening was thus spent.
The Parliamentary party set out on the return journey at half-past 5 on Thursday morning and reached Adelaide at 2 o'clock thoroughly baked after their 50-mile drive in the intense heat. [Ref: Express & Telegraph 19-2-1892]
New Rhine Villa Institute Hall [Addition]
The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the new Rhine Villa Institute Hall was performed by Mr R T Melrose, of Rosebank, Mt Pleasant.
Mr H Mickan senior, President of the Institute Building Committee, in introducing Mr Melrose, made reference to the building of the original institute 21 years ago. Since then the growing population had made it necessary to build a new hall, and he hoped that the people of the district would give the committee all the assistance in their power to make the movement a success. He presented Mr Melrose with a silver trowel in honour of the occasion. [Ref: Kapunda Herald 13-9-1912]
Institute Addition
An unusually large number of towns-people and visitors assembled at the Rhine Villa Institute on Saturday last to witness the laying of the foundation stone of the new hall, which is being added to the present institute. The hall, when finished, will be a great improvement to the town from an architectural point of view, besides affording greater convenience to the public. The building is to be of limestone, 66ft long, 32ft wide and l6ft high.
Mr H Mickan (President), in opening the ceremony … briefly gave the history of the present institute. Nearly 21 years ago, he said, a forward movement was made to erect a public building of some kind.
It was very hard to build in those days, as four families constituted the inhabitants of Rhine Villa, but the work was done and since then the building had served many purposes, including church, school, council chamber, library, and a place for public amusement.
The school fife band enlivened the proceedings.
Mr Arthur Payne moved a vote of thanks to Mr Melrose.
Afternoon tea was supplied by the ladies, and the proceeds therefrom went to the funds of the new hall. [Ref: Mount Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser 13-9-1912]
Thursday April 24 was quite a red letter day at Rhine Villa, the occasion being the opening of the new Institute Hall by the Hon John Cowan, MLC. The day was beautifully fine, and a large gathering of spectators assembled to witness the ceremony of opening the building. Mr Cowan complimented the Building Committee on the erection of so fine a building in the district.
During the afternoon a bazaar and sale of gifts by auction were held, and proved satisfactory, as over £157 was taken during the day. This will be a big help in paying off the expenses of the building, which cost £640 to erect. [Ref: Kapunda Herald 9-5-1913]
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
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
For hundreds of years, the church of Saint Spyridon the Old continues to beautify, through its discreet presence, the life of Bucharesters.
Although its founders and the year of construction are not known with certainty, and its religious architecture does not attract the attention of those who love beauty in any special way, the place of worship impresses with its authenticity and simplicity.
Some historical writings mention as founders the Florești boyars, "old-line and generous boyars", whose sumptuous residence was located nearby, in the former neighborhood of "Scorțarului", most likely named after those who processed tree bark, indispensable to tanners.
It is also known that during the reign of Prince Constantin Mavrocordat, the small wooden church was replaced with another one made of stone, surrounded by cells, the religious establishment soon becoming a monastery.
In addition to the significant financial contribution of Prince Mavrocordat, Patriarch Silvestru of Antioch was also a co-founder.
Also during this time, as in the case of other places of worship in Bucharest, an inn was built around the monastery, but it was demolished with the start of the Dâmbovița sewerage works.
Over time, other buildings were erected on the site of the inn, among the most famous being the "Tyre Society", later transformed into a theater, which following renovation works became the "Operetta Theater".
In 1815, during the terrible plague epidemic during the reign of Prince Caragea, the Bucharesters who had not left the Capital, in order not to infect each other, closed themselves in monasteries, including "St. Spiridon the Old".
In the 19th century, the church suffered significant damage due to the earthquakes of 1802 and 1838, then the reform of the secularization of the monastery's assets, initiated by Prince Cuza, left it terribly impoverished.
During the communist regime, in 1987, it was demolished, and was not rebuilt until 1995.
A year later, on the occasion of its consecration, on Saint Demetrius' day, on October 26, the two inscriptions in Greek and Arabic, unique in the church world, the entrance portico, the carved stone columns inside and on the porch, the window frames, as well as the icons in the iconostasis were re-installed in their place.
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.
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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.
Market Jew Street, Penzance, Cornwall, England, UK
Whilst visiting Cornwall, I tried to rewind a 35mm film with energy and certainty of purpose when the ratchet release on the camera was not fully engaged. The result was a snapped film in the camera, and no changing bag to rescue the situation. Enter Joey Lamb, my knight in proverbial shining armour. He is a film enthusiast, and has a similar camera to mine. He used his dark box to fix the situation and I am so thankful for his friendly service and advice.
A truly great ambassador for Jessops, sometimes somewhat maligned by photographers. See his photostream on Flickr here.
Penzance is the most westerly port in the UK, and has existed for at least 2,500 years. It was the place to which the daughter of Herod II, Salome, was banished after her famous seven veil dance and the beheading of John The Baptist.
Under the then law, it was forbidden for such a high born woman to engage in salacious dancing, and to avoid a scene and possible prison or worse, Herod had her packed off to remote Albion. There was a lively trade between Palestine and the tin mines of Cornwall, and its remoteness served the plan just fine. There is no record of how Salome fared in her new home, but as there was a thriving Jewish community here at the time she may have fitted in without trouble.
Taken on 19th April, 2012 at 1409hrs with a Olympus OM-2n through a Zuiko 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens on 35mm Fujifilm Fujicolor Reala 100 ASA negative film, processed by Jessops, Penzance in Fujifilm C-41 chemicals.
©2012 Tim Pickford-Jones
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