View allAll Photos Tagged electrocution
Fashioned from a single metal tube bent into a sleek, low-slung frame, Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair was a touchstone of Modernism, a manifestation of the movement’s faith in technology, convenience and the promise of a better life. In the artist Iván Navarro’s rendition of the chair, the frame is made from three neon tubes in a glowing shade of disco-era purple. Navarro’s “Red and Blue Electric Chair” is another Modernist remake, this one in the image of Gerrit Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair from 1918. “It was kind of a building block for me,” Navarro says of the fluorescent piece, an exercise in materials and formalism. Unlike the Bauhaus approach to chairs as “machines for sitting,” Navarro’s artwork is not for sitting at all, and he would be more apt to refer to his chairs as machines for killing. “Neon is fragile,” he says, “but it can electrocute you.”
Ivan Navarro e' l'artista che ha creato questa sedia;
Iván Navarro è nato a San-ti-ago del Cile nel 1972, attual-mente vive e lavora a Brook-lyn. Iván Navarro è inter-nazional-mente noto per le sue scul-ture socio-politiche in neon, flu-o-res-centi e ad incandescenza
Iván Navarro si focal-izza in par-ti-co-lare su ques-tioni sociali e politiche, inter-es-san-dosi par-ti-co-lar-mente alle con-seguenze del regno di Pinochet e alle cica-trici di altre dit-tature in Amer-ica Latina. Iván Navarro real-izza opere lumi-nose che riflet-tono il trauma della sto-ria recente. Spesso costru-isce lavori a forma di sedie, porte, o cartelli, uti-liz-zando mate-ri-ali famil-iari e quo-tid-i-ani in modo com-mentare eventi pas-sati; da una sedia elet-trica che fa rifer-i-mento alle tor-ture uti-liz-zate dal gov-erno cileno, ad una tabella che pre-senta una svas-tica fatta di fiori rossi.
That AC-DC song always comes to mind when I see this, or just about anything else with "High Voltage" lettering on it...
Yesterday we saw the stove eyes, today we find their similarly bizarre-looking power source! This was actually a Halloween prop recently seen at the Hernando Kroger. As my assistant demonstrates, by "bravely" holding up the moldy-looking junction box, risking severe "electrocution" (--and too many words in quotes!--) in the process, the wires on this thing dangle wildly when "energized" (sorry, one more quoted word!). Also, the box makes an evil (yet somehow, very fake-sounding) noise, and some cheapo LEDs in the end of the wires light up as they dangle around. Despite all that negativity in the description so far, I have to say this is one of the coolest Halloween things I've ever seen (which proves, perhaps, that I'm a bit too easily amused, Lol)!
And speaing of Dirt Cheap, I hope to have some photos of a visit to the Millington Tennessee Dirt Cheap store ready in time for Thanksgiving...
Vintage Photo Plate Box E.Fischel Jr. Royal Extra Rapid
Size 9x12cm.
Picked up at the Fotografica fair Hilversum March 2018.
E.Fischel Jr. was a Dutch distributor. See also :
camera-wiki.org/wiki/E._Fischel_Jr.
Scene on one of the plates in this box.
More like a scene out of a Frankenstein movie.
Boy very dangerously close to being electrocuted !
.
.
.
I used a strong LED ceiling Luminair (lots of light but very gentle in heat) as a cheap (c.10 Euro) backlight. Put 2 sheets of printer copy paper on it and then the Plate (negative).
Then made a photo with my Nikon DSLR and in PSE removed the color, reversed the image to positive and pimped up the contrast. The result is (just) good enough for web purpose.
West Virginia State Penitentiary
Moundsville, WV
November 3rd, 2014
The Former West Virginia State Penitentiary, a National Historic Places Registered facility, operated by the Moundsville Economic Development Council in Moundsville, West Virginia.
The history of this historic penitentiary:
"The prison at Joliet provided the prototype for the West Virginia Penitentiary. It was an imposing stone structure fashioned in the castellated Gothic architectural style (adorned with turrets and battlements, like a castle). Only the dimensions of West Virginia's facility would differ; it would be approximately one-half the size of Joliet.
No architectural drawings of the West Virginia Penitentiary have been discovered, so an understanding of the plan developed by the Board of Directors must be obtained through their 1867 report, which details the procurement of a title for ten acres of land and a proposal to enclose about seven acres. On the north side would be a street 60 feet in width, and on the west 140 feet for street and yard to the front buildings.
The prison yard would be a parallelogram 682 1/2 feet in length, by 352 1/2 feet in width, enclosed by a stone wall 5 feet in thickness at the bottom, 2 1/2 feet at the top, with foundation 5 feet below the surface, and wall 25 inches thick. At each of the corners of this wall would be large turrets, for the use of the guards, with inside staircases. Guardrooms would be above on a level with the top of the main. The superintendent's house and cell buildings would be so placed that the rear wall of each would form part of the west wall. "
SOURCE:http://www.wvpentours.com/history.htm
Fontaine Stravinsky,
La fontaine Stravinsky et, au fond, l'église Saint-Merri
La fontaine Stravinsky, ou fontaine des Automates, réalisée en 1983 est l'œuvre conjointe de Jean Tinguely et Niki de Saint Phalle. Elle est créée dans le cadre du pourcentage du budget de la construction du Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou. C'est une commande publique entre la ville de Paris, le ministère de la culture et le Centre Pompidou. L'œuvre est la propriété de la ville de Paris qui se charge de son entretien.
Ce monument évoque l'œuvre musicale du compositeur russe Igor Stravinsky. Compositeur russe du xxe siècle, celui-ci est un symbole de l'éclectisme et de l'internationalisme artistique.
La fontaine Stravinsky est bâtie sur la place Igor-Stravinsky près de l'IRCAM (le centre de recherche en musique contemporaine). Elle est composée de 16 sculptures rendant hommage aux compositions du musicien. Sept sont de Jean Tinguely, six de Niki de Saint Phalle et trois des deux artistes. Les sculptures ont été réalisées en résine ou assemblage d'élément en résine et d'éléments métalliques ou assemblage d'éléments métalliques. C'est une œuvre composite conçue pour un espace public et une œuvre en mouvement. Les sculptures sont toutes mécanisées, noires ou colorées et sont animées par des jets d'eaux.
Une fontaine, en général, est (ou était) un lieu de repos et de rencontre dans la cité. La fontaine Stravinski recrée cela. Les sons que produit la fontaine évoquent la musique. Et l'œuvre de par son emplacement et de par sa nature offre une multiplicité de points de vue. La mobilité des sculptures couplées à la richesse de l'environnement offre au spectateur une œuvre en perpétuelle mouvance et nous interroge sur la pérennité de l'œuvre d'art.
Stravinsky Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stravinsky Fountain
ArtistJean Tinguely; Niki de Saint Phalle
Year1983
TypeFiberglass, steel
LocationParis, France
Coordinates: 48.8595°N 2.3515°E
The Stravinsky Fountain (fr: La Fontaine Stravinsky) is a whimsical public fountain ornamented with sixteen works of sculpture, moving and spraying water, representing the works of composer Igor Stravinsky. It was created in 1983 by sculptors Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, and is located on Place Stravinsky, next to the Centre Pompidou, in Paris.
The Stravinsky Fountain is a shallow basin of 580 square meters located in Place Stravinsky, between the Centre Pompidou and the Church of Saint-Merri. Within the basin are sixteen works of sculpture inspired by Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and his other major works. The black mechanical pieces of sculpture are by Jean Tinguely, the colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle.
The sculptures in the fountain represent:
L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird)
La Clef de Sol (the musical key of G)
La Spirale (the spiral)
L'Elephant (the elephant)
Le Renard (the fox)
Le Serpent (the serpent)
La Grenouille (the frog)
La Diagonale (the diagonal)
La Mort (death)
La Sirène (the mermaid)
Le Rossignol (the nightingale)
L'Amour (Love)
La Vie (Life)
Le Cœur (the heart)
Le Chapeau de Clown (the clown's hat)
Ragtime (Ragtime)
The basin covers some of the rooms and offices of IRCAM, the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique, an organization devoted to promoting modern music and musicology, connected with the Pompidou Center. The founder of the IRCAM, composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, suggested the work of Stravinsky as a theme for the fountain. Because of the offices and rooms below, the fountain was designed to be as light as possible, with very shallow water, a bottom of stainless steel, and sculptures composed of plastics and other light materials.
The Stravinsky Fountain was part of a larger sculptural program, launched by the City of Paris in 1978, to build seven contemporary fountains with sculpture in different squares of Paris. Besides the Stravinsky Fountain, this project included new fountains at the Hotel de Ville and within the gardens of the Palais Royal. They were to be the first public fountains built in Paris since the fountains of the Palais de Chaillot were built for the Paris Exposition of 1937. It was also parmajor project by the City of Paris to redevelop the area around the old city markets, Les Halles, which had been torn down in 1971, and to re-animate the area with pedestrian streets, squares and works of art.
In October, 1981, the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, announced that a new fountain would be built near the Centre Pompidou, and announced that Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle had been selected to design the fountain. "Such a work must necessarily have modern lines, marrying with those of the Centre Pompidou, Chirac said, and he noted the success of the fountain that Tinguely had recently done in Basel, Switzerland.[2] The City of Paris paid two million French francs for the project, which was matched by two million francs from Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture. The financial agreement agreement was formally signed on December 15, 1982, allowing the project to go ahead. Other contribution came from private sponsors; la société Lyonnaise des eaux (500,000 francs), la fondation Scaler (150 francs) and the Swiss government.[3]
One sensitive artistic issue had to be resolved; the commission had originally been given to Jean Tinguely alone, and therefore the work would have been entirely composed of his black-painted mechanical sculptures. But in May 1982 he asked that brightly colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle (who was also Tinguely's wife) also be included. This caused concerns at the Sous-Direction du Patromoine culturel of the Bureau of Monuments of Paris, which had originally commissioned the sculpture; they feared that the brightly colored works of Niki de Saint Phalle would visually overwhelm the dark works of Tinguely. Officials of the Ministry of Culture and Sous-Direction du Patrimoine persuaded Tinguely to reduce the number of works by Niki de Saint Phalle to four or five, and both the Ministry of Culture and City of Paris agreed that it would be a joint project by Tinguely and Saint Phalle.[4]
A few technical issues also needed to be resolved. Tingueley did not want the water treated, and preferred that moss be allowed to grow. Tinguely also wanted to use very low power electric motors for the fountains, to avoid any danger of electrocuting people wading in the fountains. The sculptures were not attached to the bottom of the basin, but simply placed there.
The finished fountain was dedicated on March 16, 1983, by Mayor Chirac, Minister of Culture Jack Lang, and Madame Pompidou, the widow of President Georges Pompidou. During the ceremony, Mayor Chirac and Culture Minister Lang, who were political enemies, avoided looking or speaking to each other.
Under French law and practice, the French state has the legal obligation to maintain fountains, but artists and their descendants have the moral right to control their work. In 1985, Niki de Saint Phalle asked for modifications to be made to one part of the sculpture, Rossignol, to make it more harmonious with other parts of the work. Five years later, she asked that one sculpture, Sirène, be replaced by another earlier work by her, called Nana, seated in a bathing suit. Because of the cost, the substitution was never made.[5]
A note on the sangria from the birthday bbq: it was a sneaky beast. At first, those at the bbq thought it was a light, sugary drink, tasty and harmless. But it was only a little while later that they would come up to me saying some variation of "wow, the sangria is really...." and then they'd trail off, too drunk to remember the word "strong."
Tamara stewed up a wicked concoction this year, universally enjoyed, and yet I think folks feared the sangria after having had way too much of it, as they were surprised to find that they had become, inexplicably, wasted.
Nothing says BBQ like being out of your face in a public park.
Matron's ear wax removal machine has been playing up recently. Yesterday I had to rummage around in the wax collection sack for a few hours in an attempt to find one of her kidneys... she wasn't happy.
So dutifully today, I set about repairing it to bring the likelihood of any similar incidents to a more tolerable level. Now electrics aren't my strong point, but I think I got the measure of this contraption pretty quickly and only endured third degree burns on my elbows.
And on a positive note, I think I've managed to crank up the gigawatts a smidgeon, so Matron might soon have an extra 7 hours a day for me...
*simper*
I know you'd love to:
Strobist:
Splendidly ginormous Bowens Gemini Pro 500 with softbox camera left at 45 degrees to me, set on 3. Second bowens with disappointingly smaller softbox camera right at same angle, also set on 3. Triggered by cable.
This is my brother Shawn when he was two years old. Pretty cute, huh?
The shot was probably taken by my mother and was outside of the last house we lived in in New York before she and Dad split up and we moved to Florida with her.
The house was built by our father, who was a contractor. Dad spent about 2 years building the thing virtually by himself. He laid the foundation and did most of the construction aside from plumbing and electrical work. It had a sun deck off my parents' and my bedrooms, a pool, a shed and fallout shelter, which was more of a storage room than anything, but back in the day, people had nuclear attacks on the brain, and calling a room a fallout shelter sounded cooler than a concrete pantry with a toilet in it! The house was built up against a hill, back in the woods, 200 feet from the road, and had a brook in the front yard. I lived on one side or the other of that brook in three different houses!
We never did have grass in the yard. When Dad moved us into the house, the electric outlets weren't even covered, and Mom was so scared one of us would be electrocuted that she wouldn't let us turn the lights on and off. One night, as she was saying goodnight to me, she flipped the switch to turn my light off, and was literally thrown across the room by the electric current! It was terrifying! Mom was okay, but swore Dad was trying to kill us. I think that was when she decided to pack us up and move to Florida because we were out of that house in a matter of months. By that November, we were in South Daytona, where we stayed. The house was sold to a man who owned the local deli, Jim Verni.
It's hard to picture that this cute little boy was my brother, since now he's 6'3 1/2" tall! You can tell he was a tall child, even then. People always thought he was much older than he was, and when they would say he was a big boy, he would almost cry and say, "I'm a LITTLE boy!"
It's been about 49 years since this pic was taken and it's not faring too well. I scanned it with a hand held scanner, which I regret, since it seems to warp many of the images. I used "thinify" on IPiccy to get rid of some of the stretch to the pic. Looks like I'll be back to photo scanning with my printer, which takes a long time, is a pain in the neck, but comes out right! Hopefully, many of the shots I've tried to save are still hanging in there when I have time to do it.
The last and sort of least of the Assassins Electrocution hand paint and glued to lock as accurate as possible. Please leave comment and favorite, let me know what you think
I'm trying to reroute an eletrical outlet in my house but I'm not an electrician. I want to livestream incase I get electrocuted but also it might just be really boring to watch me succeed.
She's the first person I've shot whom I met through flickr.
Wait. That's not exactly right. She's the first model I've met through flickr. The whole Nerd Out crew was flickr-generated, so, yeah.
But with them, there'd been extensive conversations beforehand, to the point where we were all already interweb friends. With Calethia, I'd only commented on a few of her photos, knew almost nothing about her.
The usual awkwardness of shooting a model for the first time was amplified by the fact that we were complete strangers to each other. Either one of us could've been a psycho, or a weirdo, or a drooling maniac. She could've been a cannibal, who lured unsuspecting prey to her hotel room. I could've been a slaver, working for the Russians, kidnapping women for a life of indentured servitude in Croatia.
Fortunately, we share a mutual interest. {If you can't guess what that is, you have no business on this site}, and that cut short the time it usually takes to create a comfortable atmosphere for taking pix. Sometimes that awkwardness can last the entire shoot, and so far I've found very little to do about that, so it was a great relief that we were able to get past that, and take shots like this.
Anybody else ever experience that, that unease, that awkwardness between you and your model? Anyone?
No longer is electricity a mysterious concept...
It is now an angry floating demon that will zap the bejeebus out of your child.
See it in the book: rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/acatalog/How_Fast_Can_A_Falcon_D...
The red "raptor hood" seen on the left hand phase protects raptors like this Bald Eagle from accidental electrocution. If a raptor makes contact with two phases, or a phase and a ground, they get fried (fried meaning they can have their feet blown off, catch on fire, and even have a 'sub-lethal' where the electricity courses through their body, causing internal injury, and yet the raptor can still fly away to die elsewhere. I once participated in the recovery and rescue of a Red-tailed Hawk that had one blown pupil, burns on it's feet, and an exit burn near it's "elbow" on one wing).
Covering the middle phase, and eliminating a ground wire, will prevent electrocutions on most poles without additional hardware. The "industry standard" is sixty inches (five feet) of clearance between energized hardware, yet eagles have a much wider wingspan.
In this case, this pole is much safer--the new style raptor hoods are very good, and by covering the center phase, a raptor is very unlikely to be electrocuted. There is still a possibility that an eagle coming in at an odd angle could make contact beyond the cover--but I think I remember that most eagles approach from above, so it's not likely.
This is an old, but very good, article on the raptor electrocution issue: audubonmagazine.org/incite/incite0001.html
The Twin Sisters are Armed with a Pair of Electric shields that can either Stun, or Electrocute their Opponent!
Electrocuting an Elephant, a short film by the Edison Film Co. was the first depiction of such a death....
45146 awaits departure with the 12.57 Scarborough - Bangor. Some stations were renowned for certain smells. Bank Quay was synonymous with the smell of soap from the Unilever factory right by the station formerly Lever Brothers. On doing a bit of cursory research on the factory I was saddened to hear that the factory closed in October 2020 with the loss of 123 jobs. A factory had been at the site of Bank Quay since 1814. Other stations that spring to mind were Bridgwater and 'The Pong' from the British Cellophane works that was sometimes so bad I felt like throwing up. That was closed in 2005 with the loss of 250 jobs. The smell at both these stations was very strong but mostly I was passing through and not spending time there. Other stations that come to mind were Burton-On-Trent with its abattoir and disgusting smells mixed in with the aroma of the brewing process. I only alighted here once and had to spend just short of an hour listening to squealing pigs being electrocuted. Anyway the morals of meat eating, what we wrap our food in and how we keep clean are a long way from this Toton EH beast which I boarded at the unfamiliar surrounds of Earlestown and took to Bangor and back to Rhyl for beers in The Load Of Mischief by the station before retiring to the Peak Army caravan for the night. I spent a day spotting at Warrington Bank Quay in 1975 after a tip off that it was one of the best places in Britain for sheer volume and variety of traffic and locos. I would probably add Doncaster and Newport to that spotting heaven list. There was a road just away from the station in a triangle of lines that you could see everything on the low level lines and Arpley freight line. Just on this three minute stop I observed 25069 & 25048 on coal empties to the north of the station as well as 86030 on goods. 47305 was on an MGR and 40099 on railfreight. To the south of the station 56057 & 56064 were paired on a Llandudno Jn - Fidlers Ferry MGR and 40196 on sodium tanks.
www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/18799572.crosfields-lev...
Fontaine Stravinsky,
La fontaine Stravinsky et, au fond, l'église Saint-Merri
La fontaine Stravinsky, ou fontaine des Automates, réalisée en 1983 est l'œuvre conjointe de Jean Tinguely et Niki de Saint Phalle. Elle est créée dans le cadre du pourcentage du budget de la construction du Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou. C'est une commande publique entre la ville de Paris, le ministère de la culture et le Centre Pompidou. L'œuvre est la propriété de la ville de Paris qui se charge de son entretien.
Ce monument évoque l'œuvre musicale du compositeur russe Igor Stravinsky. Compositeur russe du xxe siècle, celui-ci est un symbole de l'éclectisme et de l'internationalisme artistique.
La fontaine Stravinsky est bâtie sur la place Igor-Stravinsky près de l'IRCAM (le centre de recherche en musique contemporaine). Elle est composée de 16 sculptures rendant hommage aux compositions du musicien. Sept sont de Jean Tinguely, six de Niki de Saint Phalle et trois des deux artistes. Les sculptures ont été réalisées en résine ou assemblage d'élément en résine et d'éléments métalliques ou assemblage d'éléments métalliques. C'est une œuvre composite conçue pour un espace public et une œuvre en mouvement. Les sculptures sont toutes mécanisées, noires ou colorées et sont animées par des jets d'eaux.
Une fontaine, en général, est (ou était) un lieu de repos et de rencontre dans la cité. La fontaine Stravinski recrée cela. Les sons que produit la fontaine évoquent la musique. Et l'œuvre de par son emplacement et de par sa nature offre une multiplicité de points de vue. La mobilité des sculptures couplées à la richesse de l'environnement offre au spectateur une œuvre en perpétuelle mouvance et nous interroge sur la pérennité de l'œuvre d'art.
Stravinsky Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stravinsky Fountain
ArtistJean Tinguely; Niki de Saint Phalle
Year1983
TypeFiberglass, steel
LocationParis, France
Coordinates: 48.8595°N 2.3515°E
The Stravinsky Fountain (fr: La Fontaine Stravinsky) is a whimsical public fountain ornamented with sixteen works of sculpture, moving and spraying water, representing the works of composer Igor Stravinsky. It was created in 1983 by sculptors Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, and is located on Place Stravinsky, next to the Centre Pompidou, in Paris.
The Stravinsky Fountain is a shallow basin of 580 square meters located in Place Stravinsky, between the Centre Pompidou and the Church of Saint-Merri. Within the basin are sixteen works of sculpture inspired by Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and his other major works. The black mechanical pieces of sculpture are by Jean Tinguely, the colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle.
The sculptures in the fountain represent:
L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird)
La Clef de Sol (the musical key of G)
La Spirale (the spiral)
L'Elephant (the elephant)
Le Renard (the fox)
Le Serpent (the serpent)
La Grenouille (the frog)
La Diagonale (the diagonal)
La Mort (death)
La Sirène (the mermaid)
Le Rossignol (the nightingale)
L'Amour (Love)
La Vie (Life)
Le Cœur (the heart)
Le Chapeau de Clown (the clown's hat)
Ragtime (Ragtime)
The basin covers some of the rooms and offices of IRCAM, the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique, an organization devoted to promoting modern music and musicology, connected with the Pompidou Center. The founder of the IRCAM, composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, suggested the work of Stravinsky as a theme for the fountain. Because of the offices and rooms below, the fountain was designed to be as light as possible, with very shallow water, a bottom of stainless steel, and sculptures composed of plastics and other light materials.
The Stravinsky Fountain was part of a larger sculptural program, launched by the City of Paris in 1978, to build seven contemporary fountains with sculpture in different squares of Paris. Besides the Stravinsky Fountain, this project included new fountains at the Hotel de Ville and within the gardens of the Palais Royal. They were to be the first public fountains built in Paris since the fountains of the Palais de Chaillot were built for the Paris Exposition of 1937. It was also parmajor project by the City of Paris to redevelop the area around the old city markets, Les Halles, which had been torn down in 1971, and to re-animate the area with pedestrian streets, squares and works of art.
In October, 1981, the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, announced that a new fountain would be built near the Centre Pompidou, and announced that Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle had been selected to design the fountain. "Such a work must necessarily have modern lines, marrying with those of the Centre Pompidou, Chirac said, and he noted the success of the fountain that Tinguely had recently done in Basel, Switzerland.[2] The City of Paris paid two million French francs for the project, which was matched by two million francs from Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture. The financial agreement agreement was formally signed on December 15, 1982, allowing the project to go ahead. Other contribution came from private sponsors; la société Lyonnaise des eaux (500,000 francs), la fondation Scaler (150 francs) and the Swiss government.[3]
One sensitive artistic issue had to be resolved; the commission had originally been given to Jean Tinguely alone, and therefore the work would have been entirely composed of his black-painted mechanical sculptures. But in May 1982 he asked that brightly colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle (who was also Tinguely's wife) also be included. This caused concerns at the Sous-Direction du Patromoine culturel of the Bureau of Monuments of Paris, which had originally commissioned the sculpture; they feared that the brightly colored works of Niki de Saint Phalle would visually overwhelm the dark works of Tinguely. Officials of the Ministry of Culture and Sous-Direction du Patrimoine persuaded Tinguely to reduce the number of works by Niki de Saint Phalle to four or five, and both the Ministry of Culture and City of Paris agreed that it would be a joint project by Tinguely and Saint Phalle.[4]
A few technical issues also needed to be resolved. Tingueley did not want the water treated, and preferred that moss be allowed to grow. Tinguely also wanted to use very low power electric motors for the fountains, to avoid any danger of electrocuting people wading in the fountains. The sculptures were not attached to the bottom of the basin, but simply placed there.
The finished fountain was dedicated on March 16, 1983, by Mayor Chirac, Minister of Culture Jack Lang, and Madame Pompidou, the widow of President Georges Pompidou. During the ceremony, Mayor Chirac and Culture Minister Lang, who were political enemies, avoided looking or speaking to each other.
Under French law and practice, the French state has the legal obligation to maintain fountains, but artists and their descendants have the moral right to control their work. In 1985, Niki de Saint Phalle asked for modifications to be made to one part of the sculpture, Rossignol, to make it more harmonious with other parts of the work. Five years later, she asked that one sculpture, Sirène, be replaced by another earlier work by her, called Nana, seated in a bathing suit. Because of the cost, the substitution was never made.[5]
At one of the staffed Camps that we passed through in Philmont, we were asked: "Why y'all here?" to which I replied: "We came for Weather" (note the absence of the word 'the' in that sentence ;-)
It rained *every* day between the hours of 2-5pm, and we were generally under direct threat of being electrocuted by serious lightening! Temps varied from Low-40's (F) to Low-90's (F) daily; even hailed so hard the last day it looked like snow had accumulated in some parts.
Picture of us Southern Californians experiencing more rain, clouds, and temp variations in one(1) day than we do in a WHOLE YEAR in SoCal (I'm semi-serious when saying that).
Philmont Scout Ranch, New Mexico.
Woke up, got out of bed, walked the dog, fed the dog, turned on the computer(oh, who am i kidding, the computer's always on), managed Flickr, read the NY & LA Times(online), then decided a nap is what i needed.
and that's when the dream began:
-My building was a hotel room, and at the top was a catered meal, where one of the servers was a guy i'd met at a film shoot a few weeks earlier.
-Trying to check in, i left my bags in the elevator, then had to rush down the stairs, and of course, back up the stairs, to catch them.
-Both Jason Schwartzman, Sarah Silverman and Jenny Lewis live in my building. Jason Schwartzman I'm not so impressed with, hasn't done a good movie in awhile, but i take care to ask Sarah Silverman about Jimmy Kimmel, as i'd heard he was ill. I call him Jimmy, then apologize for being so familiar.
-They are shooting a movie right next to my building, which makes parking impossible, and so i have to park far away, causing me to walk quite a ways to get back to my apartment, where, at the front steps, i find Electrocuted. She looks, well, she looks like she just woke up, crusties in the corners of the eyes, hair matted down on one side, dried drool at her lips. I know, weird. it is a dream. but i've been trying to get ahold of her for weeks, so i figure, she's here, why not finally take more pix. so i take her up to the apartment, where she's acting all weird and depressed, down in some deep hole, and i'm at a loss.
-Avolare shows up, knows just what to say to Electrocuted, she gets freshened up, and now we're all doing a photo shoot, only Avolare keeps turning her head to the side, much likeOlivia does in many of her photos. So it's up to me to reprogram her model's instincts.
Then I wake up. The moral of the story is:
be careful what you do before taking a nap. or, never have two flickr models in the same place. or, never live in a hotel or near a movie set.
We headed towards the sunrise today and got lost in Indiana on a little beer run.
We ended up in a beautiful place talking about how genius Nikolai Tesla was and what a dick Thomas Edison was.
You know that dude kidnapped people's dogs and cats in order to electrocute them and try to convince people that Tesla's version of electricity was more dangerous?
We also talked about the color receptors in the eyes of various animals and the fact that Mantis Shrimp can see about five times as many colors as we can.
Colors that we don't have names for and can't even comprehend.
Where we see a rainbow made of three colors the mantis shrimp sees 'a thermonuclear explosion of color .'
Getting lost in a beautiful place on a beautiful day in good and interesting company is alright.
I hope you're feelin' the love today and havin' a good time with your peeps.
First Appearance - Detective Comics #181 (March 1952)
David Wist was a jeweller and secretly a small time thief who wanted to go big time with a gang. After being rejected by mob bosses, Wist decided to go it alone by robbing a mansion. But he tripped the alarm and Batman and Robin turned up. In Wist's escape he climbed the fence in to a nuclear power plant, and somehow got electrocuted by low hanging cables. Batman and Robin left assuming he was dead, and to avoid radiation. But Wist survived and realised that he now had magnetic hands, with a positive charge in his right hand, and a negative charge in his left. Becoming The Human Magnet, he then proceeded to go on a crime spree each time evaifing Batman and Robin through some metalic means such as spraying them in metalic paint, or covering them in metallic tinsel and then pushing them away. Batman finally beat Wist when he tricked him in to clapping his hands together, attracting the positive and negative charges, and leaving him unable to pull them apart.
I went to Nicaragua with a goal in mind; it was to have an impact on the people I met. Whether it be in the present moment or vicariously through what is done with my photos, I wanted to help make a positive change.
I feel like I achieved that while I was there, but I was surprised with how much Nica changed ME.
Yes, it's true, everyone should visit a third world country. In the U.S. we are certainly lucky people. We don't want for much and when we do want something we can usually just go out and get it. We can take a shower whenever we want and we can have hot water if we wish and we don't run the risk of being electrocuted in the process. (Look, bathing in nica was just really stressful, okay?)
Most of us have air conditioning and dishwashers and washing machines and don't have to really worry about wasting water or not having any at all.
But in Nicaragua those things aren't really the norm.
A lot of Americans would be fed up quite quickly and want to pack up and get back home to Netflix, but the Nicaraguans are just as happy as can be despite the things we would consider an inconvenience.
They are seemingly stress free!
They aren't bogged down with the things we get senselessly wrapped up in here in the U.S. They go outside and sit on the stoop with their neighbors, they cook meals as a family and eat as a family. They buy food from their friends' markets. They take naps in the shade in their hammock. The kids play games in the streets and when the home baseball team wins a game, the ENTIRE town runs outside to celebrate and makes AS MUCH NOISE AS POSSIBLE... for hours. (Seriously, if what I saw ever happened in the states, people would have been arrested.)
What I'm trying to say is, even though we have "everything" in the USA, these people have something we don't.
They have what you get when you are experiencing life. It's something so special and everyone deserves to know what it tastes like.
So go outside with a parrot on your head!
Live your life and be with the people who are around you. Make friends! Laugh! Cook and eat good food. Introduce yourself to your neighbor. Walk somewhere. Don't take things that don't matter so seriously and be happy you have a life and you can do anything with it.
It's a beautiful way to be and I thank Nica for showing me that
This is my favourite graveyard shot for all sorts of reasons.
One is that I'm still amazed I managed to convert the camera to infrared without electrocuting myself.
It's gothic and a bit creepy obviously. But beyond that I like to think the skulls are looking at one another tenderly.
Faversham, Kent, England. Infrared.
Thanks to Skeletalmess for the texture.
so now he has a scar from how the energy leak (as seen in The End of Time) was sort of electrocuting him from the inside out. it's meant to be glowing (i used metallic paint)
I apologize ahead of time to anyone I might offend by the posting of this photo--but I have to say that its one of the strangest things I've ever seen. We stopped in at the local marina to see how frozen things are and were getting ready to leave when an object on the overhead powerline caught my eye. I have no good theory as to what led to this squirrel's demise.
Indiana State Prison MICHIGAN CITY, IND.
Date: 1908
Source Type: Postcard
Printer, Publisher: J. H. King (#50)
Postmark: August 7, 1908, Chicago, Illinois (Logan Square Station)
Collection: Steven R. Shook
Remark: The state prison at Michigan City, LaPorte County, Indiana, was originally referred to as State Prison West. The first prison for the state was located in Jeffersonville, Indiana, which was referred to as State Prison East.
The Indiana State Prison in Michigan City dates to 1859 when the state appropriated $50,000 for the construction of a new prison. The following year, 100 acres of land was purchased in Michigan City for the sum of $4,500. The first building to be erected at the site was called the Temporary Prison Building, a 200-foot long red brick structure. Numerous structures were added on the prison grounds through the 1920s.
Executions in Indiana for state crimes are carried out at this prison. Executions taking place through 1913 were done by hanging. From 1914 through 1994, death sentences were carried out by electrocution. Lethal injection became the standard method of execution in 1995.
One of the most notable prisoners of this facility was John Dillinger, who was released on parole in 1933.
Copyright 2023. Some rights reserved. The associated text may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Steven R. Shook.
Woody Welch-Original Art
Posted with the kind permission of the artist.
Monstrous Art www.woodywelch.net/
Woody (Artboy) Welch
Born in: New Yawk City
Lives in: Hollywood, CA
Occupations: Writer/Illustrator, Photographer, Storyboard Artist, Concept Illustrator, Portrait Artist, Sculptor and Creature Designer
Woody Welch is following in the tradition of Basil Gagos who’s art graced the covers of Forrest J Ackerman’s, Famous Monsters of Filmland since 1958.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOBn-g5VTfM
This is an obscure little British sci-fi, from producers who did everything but sci-fi before (or after). This might explain why Devil Girl from Mars (DGfM) is such a departure from the usual sci-fi formulae. On the surface of things, DGfM is akin to the usual saucer-alien-invasion motif. That kinship is only skin deep, though. Beneath the surface is a delightfully different movie.
Synopsis
Reports come in of a strange meteor landing the remote area of Scotland. A professor of astrophysics and a newspaper reporter are traveling up from London to find it. They stop for the night at a country inn. Meanwhile, a man who escaped from prison has snuck into the inn to seek help from his girlfriend who works there. Also staying at the inn is a fashion model hiding/sulking from a failed romance, and a young boy, the nephew of the man and woman who run the inn. With a grand flash, a flying saucer lands dramatically near the inn. Inside is Nyah, a tall shapely woman dressed in black leather, a black leather skull cap and long black leather cape. She announces that she's from Mars. The male population has grown weak and feeble on Mars, so they are looking for breeding stock. She's the first of what will be a wave of invaders taking the best men, now her trip has proven the success of "organic metal" ships. The people are powerless to stop her. She cannot be shot or electrocuted. Nyah has a force field around the inn, so no one can escape or get help. Nyah has a big robot which can disintegrate things with his head-beam, so resistance is futile. The professor does some recon aboard the ship. He feels the ship's power source is its achilles heel. The men draw straws to see who will go with Nyah -- essentially a suicide mission to destroy her ship. While they argue, the convict tells Nyah that he's the one. Her ship leaves and blows up high in the sky. The earth is safe. The end.
Sure, it's low on action and very talky. It was adapted from a stage play, after all. But there's just so many little touches in DGfM that are delightful. One thing is the total reversal of the usual they're-after-our-women trope. This is so refreshing. What makes this even more fun is that the men do not act all wolfish and slobbery about being a stud for martian women. Instead, they act like it's exile to Siberian salt mines. This, despite Nyah being a hot chick in her own way. Hollywood could not have done this story. Another very fun visual is Nayh herself, all in black with Vulcan-like eyebrows and stoic demeanor. She's like Spock's evil sister or Darth Vadar's wife. This is just great fun for viewing. The model work and matte art are pretty good for a low-budget B-film.
As mentioned above, DGfM reverses the usual alien agenda. Instead of the ruthless alien trying to take away our curvaceous ladies, a leggy lady arrives to take away earth's hunkiest men.
This isn't treated like the usual adolescent fantasy about being the lone guy in the girls' dorm. No, the men at the Bonnie Charlie Inn regard Nyah's plan as a terrible fate. Perhaps the Brits were able to see beyond their underpants that the martian women's plans would mean the subjugation of the entire earth. There was much more at stake than their own personal gratification. How un-Hollywood!
The writer sets up an interesting contrast between earthly love and the martian woman's buisness-like approach to procreation. Between Robert, the convict and Doris, we see her loyalty and charity. Robert shows a sort of desperate reaching out for help, but then the willingness to sacrifice himself for others. Between the reporter, Michael, and Miss Prestwick, the budding of new romance which softens his cynicism and coaxes her out of her funk over a failed prior romance. Mr. and Mrs. Jamison show parent-like concern of little Tommy. The Professor shows an altruism for mankind. All these earthly manifestations of love stand in contrast to Nyah's passionless approach to duty.
DGfM features a little thing that gets attention in films much later. Her ship is made of "organic metal" which can heal itself. She miscalculated the density of earth's atmosphere, so upon entry a part of her ship broke off. That was the meteor people reported. Nyah had to land in Scotland instead of London, as originally planned, so that her ship could heal itself. In the meantime, she figures to take the best of the men at the inn, just to make the side trip worthwhile. We won't see the concept of organic metal and ships healing themselves until the Alien series in the 90s. Stargate Atlantis has it's Wraith ships which are partially organic too. DGfM might be the first film to feature self-healing ships.
The robot in DGfM is tall, but like many other B-movie robots, it's so slow and clumsy it's hard imagine it inspiring fear. Oh sure, it has its disintegrator beam, but it's even slower than a muzzle-loading musket to fire. Instead of running away (or even just walking away) from it, everyone stands "paralyzed" in fear while the walking refrigerator lumbers up to them. This is necessary, of course, since it's a sound-stage production, not an action film, but it looks a little odd. They could have tackled Nayh and taken away her remote control before robo-fridge could manage turning around. Perhaps in the early 50s the concept of killer robots were more frightening.
Many B-films end on a supposedly happy note when the lone alien is killed, as if there was no other threats out there. DGfM might look like one of these loose-thread flicks, but it's not. Nyah's ship was THE experimental prototype of the organic metal ship. Only such a ship could make the trip from Mars and hold up to our harsh Earth conditions. She said that when she returns to Mars, it will prove the success of the organic metal and a whole fleet of ship will be built like hers. By Robert blowing up her ship, the Martians will assume the organic metal ship was a failure and not re-try Nayh's organic metal approach. This buys Earth much needed time. All this assumes Nayh had no radio chats with Mars once she got here. A naive assumption.
Bottom line? Devil Girl is certainly worth watching, not for the effects or action, but just for the sheer role-reversal aspect.
The Philippine long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis Philippensis) is a subspecies of the crab-eating macaque.
It is endemic in the Philippine forests and woodlands, but especially in the mangrove forests of western central
Philippines— particularly in Palawan, the Visayas, and Mindanao. The names M. F. Philippinensis or even M. F. Philippinenesis have also been used, but arise from orthographical error. The Philippine long-tailed macaque has a reddish brown coat. Its tail has an average length of 50 cm to 60 cm. It can reach a height of 40–50 cm (16–20 in). It is the size of a domestic cat. Male macaques weigh 4–8 kg, but females only attain 3–4 kg. It is found on all major Philippine islands (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao). However, though assessed Near Threatened, it is actually in serious retreat or already extinct in much of its original range.[citation needed] For instance, in Olongapo in Zambales Province (western central Luzon), where a patch of old-growth forest remains, the monkeys have found some refuge; however, they are often road killed, accidentally electrocuted by live wires, and sometimes stoned.
Must Watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iPp9iLihaA&feature=youtu.be
So Congratulations to those who made it in! I am sorry to those who didn't.
So for the next theme, All of you are going get Murdered. But in different ways! Also you get to pick who killed you and how you die.
Requirements:
-Must be broken/Dead
-Dull and dark
-Still look fierce even though dead
-Wearing fancy clothes
-In description:
1.Who Killed you? (Pick another model from the competition)
2. Why Did they Kill you!
-Make sure that in the PHOTO we can see how you died.
So you guys get to pick how you die, 1 girl Per death.
Here is the List:
-Shot In the head: Chloe
-Poisoned: Lexxi www.flickr.com/photos/83876128@N06/8566316386/in/photosof...
-Electrocuted: Haley www.flickr.com/photos/84271682@N06/8581915829/in/photostr...
-Drowned: Rose www.flickr.com/photos/romanticswan/8564827502/in/photosof...
-Pushed Of a tall building:
-Pushed down stairs: Melrose
-Stabbed: Aerith www.flickr.com/photos/glglover78/8565796533/in/photosof-8...
-Gutted: Vanessa www.flickr.com/photos/cutiecatn/8570729752/in/photostream
-Broken Neck: Ryder www.flickr.com/photos/bratzlove/8576475517/in/photosof-86...
-De-capitated:
-Frozen: Tiffany www.flickr.com/photos/xdollywoodx/8576010808/in/photosof-...
-Hung: Misty www.flickr.com/photos/bratzjaderox/8562316949/in/photostream
-Head smashed into a Wall: Felicia www.flickr.com/photos/avery8597/8563465601/in/photosof-86...
-Beaten to death: Paige www.flickr.com/photos/beautiful30bratz/8571145241/in/phot...
Good Inspiration: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOSfuCTDv5M
Skip to 3:28
Good Luck! Deadline is 21st March!
Byexox
Charing X station. Slightly off-centre composition, but capturing the symmetry would entail walking on the railway tracks, possible electrocution and almost certain arrest.
So after my grisly death last week, Mrs. Flibble had a go at sticking back my shredded body with some domestic strength wood glue. Apparently it took her quite a while, and she tells me she only had a few bits left over.
I think she did a pretty good job, although I've yet to try out all bodily functions.
Anyway. After a quick jump-start I was left with the arduous task of recharging my brain back up to 30 percent. Any more than that and things can go horribly wrong. You wouldn't like to see me when I'm 31 percent, let alone 32.
Splendid.
Strobist info: This photo was excruciatingly painful to make. I really did clamp that clip to my ear and it has a mighty strong spring. Lit with two flashes: main was from above camera left through an umbrella and second was from bottom right reflected off something spangly for a bit of fill. Wide-angle lens about 15cm from gurning idiot.
I know you'd love to:
Fontaine Stravinsky,
La fontaine Stravinsky et, au fond, l'église Saint-Merri
La fontaine Stravinsky, ou fontaine des Automates, réalisée en 1983 est l'œuvre conjointe de Jean Tinguely et Niki de Saint Phalle. Elle est créée dans le cadre du pourcentage du budget de la construction du Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou. C'est une commande publique entre la ville de Paris, le ministère de la culture et le Centre Pompidou. L'œuvre est la propriété de la ville de Paris qui se charge de son entretien.
Ce monument évoque l'œuvre musicale du compositeur russe Igor Stravinsky. Compositeur russe du xxe siècle, celui-ci est un symbole de l'éclectisme et de l'internationalisme artistique.
La fontaine Stravinsky est bâtie sur la place Igor-Stravinsky près de l'IRCAM (le centre de recherche en musique contemporaine). Elle est composée de 16 sculptures rendant hommage aux compositions du musicien. Sept sont de Jean Tinguely, six de Niki de Saint Phalle et trois des deux artistes. Les sculptures ont été réalisées en résine ou assemblage d'élément en résine et d'éléments métalliques ou assemblage d'éléments métalliques. C'est une œuvre composite conçue pour un espace public et une œuvre en mouvement. Les sculptures sont toutes mécanisées, noires ou colorées et sont animées par des jets d'eaux.
Une fontaine, en général, est (ou était) un lieu de repos et de rencontre dans la cité. La fontaine Stravinski recrée cela. Les sons que produit la fontaine évoquent la musique. Et l'œuvre de par son emplacement et de par sa nature offre une multiplicité de points de vue. La mobilité des sculptures couplées à la richesse de l'environnement offre au spectateur une œuvre en perpétuelle mouvance et nous interroge sur la pérennité de l'œuvre d'art.
Stravinsky Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stravinsky Fountain
ArtistJean Tinguely; Niki de Saint Phalle
Year1983
TypeFiberglass, steel
LocationParis, France
Coordinates: 48.8595°N 2.3515°E
The Stravinsky Fountain (fr: La Fontaine Stravinsky) is a whimsical public fountain ornamented with sixteen works of sculpture, moving and spraying water, representing the works of composer Igor Stravinsky. It was created in 1983 by sculptors Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, and is located on Place Stravinsky, next to the Centre Pompidou, in Paris.
The Stravinsky Fountain is a shallow basin of 580 square meters located in Place Stravinsky, between the Centre Pompidou and the Church of Saint-Merri. Within the basin are sixteen works of sculpture inspired by Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and his other major works. The black mechanical pieces of sculpture are by Jean Tinguely, the colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle.
The sculptures in the fountain represent:
L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird)
La Clef de Sol (the musical key of G)
La Spirale (the spiral)
L'Elephant (the elephant)
Le Renard (the fox)
Le Serpent (the serpent)
La Grenouille (the frog)
La Diagonale (the diagonal)
La Mort (death)
La Sirène (the mermaid)
Le Rossignol (the nightingale)
L'Amour (Love)
La Vie (Life)
Le Cœur (the heart)
Le Chapeau de Clown (the clown's hat)
Ragtime (Ragtime)
The basin covers some of the rooms and offices of IRCAM, the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique, an organization devoted to promoting modern music and musicology, connected with the Pompidou Center. The founder of the IRCAM, composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, suggested the work of Stravinsky as a theme for the fountain. Because of the offices and rooms below, the fountain was designed to be as light as possible, with very shallow water, a bottom of stainless steel, and sculptures composed of plastics and other light materials.
The Stravinsky Fountain was part of a larger sculptural program, launched by the City of Paris in 1978, to build seven contemporary fountains with sculpture in different squares of Paris. Besides the Stravinsky Fountain, this project included new fountains at the Hotel de Ville and within the gardens of the Palais Royal. They were to be the first public fountains built in Paris since the fountains of the Palais de Chaillot were built for the Paris Exposition of 1937. It was also parmajor project by the City of Paris to redevelop the area around the old city markets, Les Halles, which had been torn down in 1971, and to re-animate the area with pedestrian streets, squares and works of art.
In October, 1981, the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, announced that a new fountain would be built near the Centre Pompidou, and announced that Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle had been selected to design the fountain. "Such a work must necessarily have modern lines, marrying with those of the Centre Pompidou, Chirac said, and he noted the success of the fountain that Tinguely had recently done in Basel, Switzerland.[2] The City of Paris paid two million French francs for the project, which was matched by two million francs from Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture. The financial agreement agreement was formally signed on December 15, 1982, allowing the project to go ahead. Other contribution came from private sponsors; la société Lyonnaise des eaux (500,000 francs), la fondation Scaler (150 francs) and the Swiss government.[3]
One sensitive artistic issue had to be resolved; the commission had originally been given to Jean Tinguely alone, and therefore the work would have been entirely composed of his black-painted mechanical sculptures. But in May 1982 he asked that brightly colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle (who was also Tinguely's wife) also be included. This caused concerns at the Sous-Direction du Patromoine culturel of the Bureau of Monuments of Paris, which had originally commissioned the sculpture; they feared that the brightly colored works of Niki de Saint Phalle would visually overwhelm the dark works of Tinguely. Officials of the Ministry of Culture and Sous-Direction du Patrimoine persuaded Tinguely to reduce the number of works by Niki de Saint Phalle to four or five, and both the Ministry of Culture and City of Paris agreed that it would be a joint project by Tinguely and Saint Phalle.[4]
A few technical issues also needed to be resolved. Tingueley did not want the water treated, and preferred that moss be allowed to grow. Tinguely also wanted to use very low power electric motors for the fountains, to avoid any danger of electrocuting people wading in the fountains. The sculptures were not attached to the bottom of the basin, but simply placed there.
The finished fountain was dedicated on March 16, 1983, by Mayor Chirac, Minister of Culture Jack Lang, and Madame Pompidou, the widow of President Georges Pompidou. During the ceremony, Mayor Chirac and Culture Minister Lang, who were political enemies, avoided looking or speaking to each other.
Under French law and practice, the French state has the legal obligation to maintain fountains, but artists and their descendants have the moral right to control their work. In 1985, Niki de Saint Phalle asked for modifications to be made to one part of the sculpture, Rossignol, to make it more harmonious with other parts of the work. Five years later, she asked that one sculpture, Sirène, be replaced by another earlier work by her, called Nana, seated in a bathing suit. Because of the cost, the substitution was never made.[5]
Executions down across globe, says Amnesty International
The number of people executed by their own governments fell by 25 per cent last year, with China carrying out the most executions, Amnesty International said Friday.
The human rights organization report — the Annual Death Penalty Statistics — outlines the number of executions and death sentences carried out in the world in 2006.
According to the report, at least 1,591 people were known to be executed by their own governments in 25 countries last year.
Of those executions, 90 per cent took place in six countries:
China - 1,010
Iran - 177
Pakistan - 82
Iraq - 65
Sudan - 65
U.S.A. - 53
Amnesty International believes the Chinese figures are drastically underestimated, suggesting the real total is close to 8,000 executions, based on information from a Chinese legal expert. China keeps its prisoner executions a state secret.
Five of the executions are known to be people under 18: four in Iran and one in Pakistan
"The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," said Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan. "It must be abolished and a universal moratorium will be an important step forward."
Thousands on death row
The same year, 55 countries handed down 3,861 new death sentences, adding to the more than 20,000 people waiting on death row, said the report.
"A death penalty free world is possible if key governments are willing to show political leadership," said Khan.
Across the globe, Amnesty reports 128 countries have abolished the death penalty either by law or in practice, while 69 countries retain or use the death penalty.
Methods of execution include beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, shooting, stoning and stabbing.
While Canada abolished capital punishment in 1976, it retained the death penalty for military crimes such as treason or mutiny. All references to the death penalty were wiped from the National Defence Act in 1998.
The final execution in Canada took place in Toronto in December 1962, when two men were hanged for murder www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/27/amnesty-executions.html...