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Shot Taken by Sharcrista Quan--Photo processing by Mateo
Location: The Photographer's Workshop: slurl.com/secondlife/Trapper/86/61/39
'The Smiths' formed six years after the start of the British punk rock scene, and perhaps projected into their way-of-being three elements from this cultural dynamic: a sense of make-do or DIY, a sense of commentating from outside of society (unemployment culture included), and a sense of opinion generated from polemical example.
Punk rock is today perhaps famous for its blanket nihilisms: “Anarchy in the UK”, “White riot”, “No future” - all with varied forms of the Vivian Westwood dress-sense. Aside this ultra-vivid self-created stigma, the late 70s musical/cultural movement of UK Punk had created lyrical and musical vignettes that stayed on record players and transferred to C60 chrome mix-tapes: “Easy germ free adolescence” ('X-Ray Spex' 78) plotted a closed 'existential' in the life of an individual; 'Lost in a supermarket' ('The Clash' 79) was another vignette, but this time describing a poetic angle into a modern life that many could relate to, and, as a third example - “Love comes in spurts” ('The Voidoids' 76) - featuring a lyric that uses 'childish' shock word-play and active double-meanings to register and parody existing lyrical convention, whilst describing certain truisms. It can be said that depictions of highly specific sentiments; unusual but collective views on the modern world and the shock use of words and their dynamic meanings became the terrain of the 'post punk', 'DIY' Manchester band - 'The Smiths'.
With the lyrical whit of their singer Morrissey, 'The Smiths' kept a punkist sense of polemical charge (“The Queen is Dead”; “Hang the DJ” and “Meat is Murder”) whilst systematically developing individual and social themes. If musical skills were often missing (or denied) during UK Punk, then the Post Punk years saw an overt return of musical virtuosity (hand in hand with groups higher on idea and form than musical technicity). One nest of guitar skills hovered around the New York City band 'The Voidoids' with Tom Verlain, Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd all important Post Punk guitar stylists (even if US 'Post Punk' arrived before UK Punk - for example 'Pere Ubu' 1975). Around 1980 in Manchester England, a man who could match 'Nick Drake' for reserve produced a low-key, but much listened to record titled “The return of the Durutti Column” (a Spanish civil war reference in the name and title) www.youtube.com/watch?v=pddox1SYHko. 'The Durutti Column's Vini Reilly's meticulous detailing of guitar melody was perhaps matched across the city of Manchester by the extraordinary guitar style of Johnny Marr – the principle co-songwriter to 'The Smiths', whose style became clearly visible as early as 'The Smith's' second single. Marr's sense of shimmering detailing is also clearly apparent in the example of this moving lens test.
Fireworks are of so many colours and effects, and the post punk DIY musical alternatives were varied. Despite their differences, there are a few bands that help to put 'The Smiths' into an early context. 'Vic Godard's Subway Sect' had perhaps started out as a British version of 'The Voidoids' ('Double negative' 1978 www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fsYYG_Qf0Q) and had evolved by 1981 into melodic anti pop www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cgzwQBtFaA an approach perhaps akin to the relationship between 'New Wave cinema' and traditional cinema. Again from 1981, the group 'Orange Juice' were inhabiting melody and lyric without the desire to provide 'expected' popularist results: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmpNSpzx2wI. 'The Smiths' projected aside many groups, Dandyisms, deconstructions and observations and, with some of the lyrical landscapes of Morrissey, were one of the groups that held on longest to the polemical side of punk rock. With the guitar of Johnny Marr, they were also one of the groups that pushed furthest from initial DIY ethics into artistic, holistic and highly developed forms. By the release of 'The Queen is Dead' in 1986 they had refined their idiosyncrasies to such an extent that they had produced a record that could be compared against the very “classic” albums they were initially reflecting against.
Prolific songwriters, 'The Smiths' took subject to swathes of British youth, and were another input of inspiration for a new generation of musicians. Postcard, Pop Aural and Rough Trade layered under Creation, Domino and Sarah, and new bands evolved without a close proximity to Punk rock. Contemporary journalists (including ones associated with Manchester's Guardian), muse, relay and decree that it is now time to stop listening to the work of Morressey. The Smiths split in 1987, and in the decades since, Morrissey has remained loyal to his polemical approach to social subjects. I certainly never wanted to hang a DJ, but played the song. One of the tracks that we should apparently be boycotting is a recently released duet with Thelma Houston: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cB93OUF_sA
The track “Some girls are bigger than others' comes from the 1986 record and is a construction with the most minimal idea of verse, and thus arrives almost straight into the chorus, with a slightly detached and minimal refrain. The lyric takes a line that can be associated with both male machismo and the observational naivety of a small child: playing the idea straight as the thought of a young male adult faced by the enormity of mankind's diversity. By referring to the ice age, the lyric also points out that these differences come from the depths of the human race and are not a modern celebrity surface.
"From the ice-age to the dole-age, there is but one concern. I have just discovered; some girls are bigger than others... "
For the images in the lens test I replaced the 'girls' of the song with the animate 'bodies' of 'mother earth', as reflected by her waterfalls. The shots involve a variety of lenses and locations either side of the Pyrénées.
AJM 13.03.20
Press play and then 'L' and even f11. Escape and f11 a second time to return.
French postcard by Images d'Avignon, Avignon. Photo: Atzinger. Laurent Terzieff in the play 'Nicomède' (1964) by Pierre Corneille at the XVIIIe Festival d'Avignon (1964).
French actor and stage director Laurent Terzieff (1935-2010) starred during the 1960s and 1970s in many films by famous French and Italian directors. The magnetic and politically engaged actor began his film career as one of the existential youth in Les Tricheurs (1958) and later often portrayed cynical bohemians or political activists.
Laurent Terzieff was born Laurent Didier Alex Laurent Tchemerzine in 1935 in Toulouse, France. He was the son of a French visual artist and a Russian sculptor who had emigrated to France during the First World War. The spectacle of the bombardments during WW II had a dramatic effect on nine-year-old Laurent. As an adolescent, he was fascinated with philosophy and poetry. He assisted director Roger Blin with the production of the play La Sonate des spectres (The Ghost Sonata) by August Strindberg. Then and there, he decided to become an actor. Terzieff made his debut in 1953 with the Theatre of Babylon in Tous contre Adamov (All Against Adamov) by Jean-Marie Serreau. His film début was opposite Yves Montand in Premier mai/The First of May (Luis Saslavsky, 1958). A year earlier he had gained some notoriety playing a role as an assassin in L'affaire Weidmann/The Weidmann case (Jean Prat, 1957), an episode of the TV series En votre âme et conscience/In your conscience (1954-1969). Legendary director Marcel Carné spotted him and offered him a leading role opposite Pascale Petit, Jacques Charrier and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les Tricheurs/The Cheats (Marcel Carné, 1958), a portrait of the existentialist youth in the late 1950s. At AllMovie, Hal Erickson writes: “Carné's youthful characters are not so much people as symbols of the postwar relaxation of worldwide manners and mores. In anticipation of the hippie flicks of the 1960s, the main characters indulge in a great deal of sex, but abstain from true love and commitment, citing these things as irrelevant in a world full of instant gratification.“ Les Tricheurs was Terzieff’s breakthrough in the cinema. For a long time, the public would identify him with the bohemian and cynical student.
Laurent Terzieff played roles in films by such famous directors as Gillo Pontecorvo in Kapò (1959) about a young Jewish girl (Susan Strasberg) who leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp, Claude Autant-Lara in Tu ne tueras point/Thou Shalt Not Kill (1961), a portrait of a conscientious objector, and Jacques Demy in the portmanteau (omnibus film) Les Sept Péchés/The Seven Deadly Sins (1962). He appeared in a segment about the lusty conversation between two young men, one of whom has x-ray eyes that enable him to see through women's clothing. Terzieff starred with Rosanna Schiaffino and Elsa Martinelli in the Italian film La Notte Brava/Bad Girls Don't Cry (Mauro Bolognini, 1959). Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote this social drama about three young Roman criminals and three beautiful prostitutes without any perspective in life but having some money to spend during a night of illusions and adventures. More famous Italian film directors would ask him for their films. Terzieff appeared as a revolutionary on the run from government troops in Vanina Vanini/The Betrayer (Roberto Rossellini, 1961), as the centaur in Medea (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1969) opposite Maria Callas, as an anarchistic petty thief in Ostia (Sergio Citti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1970), and as a military in Il deserto dei Tartari/Desert of the Tartars (Valerio Zurlini, 1976) opposite Vittorio Gassman and Jacques Perrin. In France, he played in A cœur joie/Two Weeks in September (Serge Bourguignon, 1967) with Brigitte Bardot, and La Prisonnière/Woman in Chains (Henri Georges Clouzot, 1968), in which he interpreted a disturbed modern art gallery owner who manipulates Elisabeth Wiener. He made four films with director Philippe Garrel. Le Révélateur/The developper (Philippe Garrel, 1968) was shot in May 1968 during the student revolution, and Les hautes solitudes (Philippe Garrel, 1974), a biographical film about actress Jean Seberg. Terzieff worked with more great auteurs. Famous Spanish director Luis Buñuel took him and Paul Frankeur on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in La Voie lactée/The Milky Way (Luis Buñuel, 1969). He was once directed by Jean-Luc Godard in Détective/Detective (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985). On television, he appeared in the American-Italian Mini-Series Moses the Lawgiver/Moses (Gianfranco De Bosio, 1974) starring Burt Lancaster.
Since the 1980s, Laurent Terzieff was seen less in the cinemas and mostly acted on stage. In the theatre, he often worked as a director, writer and actor with his own troupe, co-founded in 1961 with his companion Pascale de Boysson. He also ran the theatre Lucernaire in Paris. His later film roles include a Trotskyist in Rouge Baiser/Red Kiss (Véra Belmont, 1985), an anarchist in Germinal (Claude Berri, 1993) starring Gérard Depardieu, and the painter Hérigault in Le radeau de la Méduse/The Raft of the Medusa (Iradj Azimi, 1994), inspired by a tragic maritime event that happened in 1816. Politically engaged, Terzieff signed in 1960 La Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission dans la Guerre d'Algérie (Declaration on the Right of Insubordination in the War of Algeria), and in 2002, the petition Pas en notre nom (Not in our name) against the Iraq War. In his seventies, the gaunt-faced actor had not lost his magnetism, as was proved by his appearance in the Agatha Christie adaptation Mon petit doigt m'a dit.../A Little Bird Told Me... (Pascal Thomas, 2005) with Catherine Frot and André Dussollier. Terzieff also stayed active in the theatre. In 2009 he played an acclaimed Philoctetes in the play by Sophocles. His last films were the comedy J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster/I always dreamed of being a gangster (Samuel Benchetrit, 2008) with Jean Rochefort, and the Italian production Le ombre rosse/The Red Shadow (Francesco Maselli, 2009). Posthumously he was seen opposite Sharon Stone in the thriller Largo Winch 2/The Burma Conspiracy (Jérôme Salle, 2011). During his long career, Laurent Terzieff was hailed with many awards (Prix Gérard Philippe, Molière for Best Director and Best Show for Temps contre temps (Time against time) in 1993), and he was also an Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite (Officer of the Order of Merit) and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (Commander of Arts and Letters). Laurent Terzieff died in 2010 in Paris from a lung ailment. He was 75. He was the widower of actress Pascale de Boysson.
Sources: Hans Beerekamp (Het Schimmenrijk) (Dutch), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Evene.fr (French), Ciné-Ressources (Cinémathèque française) (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
I'm new to this photography lark, and 6 months ago I'd never heard of bokeh - I had to go and look it up. (Thank you Wikipedia!) What you might call bokeh is really just camera myopia - this is exactly how I see the world without my glasses to correct short-sightedness! ;-)
An experiment in light, shape, color and grain. Without doubt I love my 55mm Micro-Nikkor. It is manual, old and useful as all hell. The Lensbaby will get out of doors work now. I will use it, but more like an amusing three nosed child rather than a normal primogénito. :-)
One thing is the existential determination of man, which he shares with every pebble, and another thing is his freedom, which he owes to his deiform personality and which causes him to participate in the Divine Nature.
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 996.
French actor and stage director Laurent Terzieff (1935-2010) starred during the 1960s and 1970s in many films by famous French and Italian directors. The magnetic and politically engaged actor began his film career as one of the existential youth in Les Tricheurs (1958) and later often portrayed cynical bohemians or political activists.
Laurent Terzieff was born Laurent Didier Alex Laurent Tchemerzine in 1935 in Toulouse, France. He was the son of a French visual artist and a Russian sculptor who had emigrated to France during the First World War. The spectacle of the bombardments during WW II had a dramatic effect on nine-year-old Laurent. As an adolescent, he was fascinated with philosophy and poetry. He assisted director Roger Blin with the production of the play La Sonate des spectres (The Ghost Sonata) by August Strindberg. Then and there, he decided to become an actor. Terzieff made his debut in 1953 with the Theatre of Babylon in Tous contre Adamov (All Against Adamov) by Jean-Marie Serreau. His film début was opposite Yves Montand in Premier mai/The First of May (Luis Saslavsky, 1958). A year earlier he had gained some notoriety playing a role as an assassin in L'affaire Weidmann/The Weidmann case (Jean Prat, 1957), an episode of the TV series En votre âme et conscience/In your conscience (1954-1969). Legendary director Marcel Carné spotted him and offered him a leading role opposite Pascale Petit, Jacques Charrier and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les Tricheurs/The Cheats (Marcel Carné, 1958), a portrait of the existentialist youth in the late 1950s. At AllMovie, Hal Erickson writes: “Carné's youthful characters are not so much people as symbols of the postwar relaxation of worldwide manners and mores. In anticipation of the hippie flicks of the 1960s, the main characters indulge in a great deal of sex, but abstain from true love and commitment, citing these things as irrelevant in a world full of instant gratification.“ Les Tricheurs was Terzieff’s breakthrough in the cinema. For a long time, the public would identify him with the bohemian and cynical student.
Laurent Terzieff played roles in films by such famous directors as Gillo Pontecorvo in Kapò (1959) about a young Jewish girl (Susan Strasberg) who leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp, Claude Autant-Lara in Tu ne tueras point/Thou Shalt Not Kill (1961), a portrait of a conscientious objector, and Jacques Demy in the portmanteau (omnibus film) Les Sept Péchés/The Seven Deadly Sins (1962). He appeared in a segment about the lusty conversation between two young men, one of whom has x-ray eyes that enable him to see through women's clothing. Terzieff starred with Rosanna Schiaffino and Elsa Martinelli in the Italian film La Notte Brava/Bad Girls Don't Cry (Mauro Bolognini, 1959). Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote this social drama about three young Roman criminals and three beautiful prostitutes without any perspective in life but having some money to spend during a night of illusions and adventures. More famous Italian film directors would ask him for their films. Terzieff appeared as a revolutionary on the run from government troops in Vanina Vanini/The Betrayer (Roberto Rossellini, 1961), as the centaur in Medea (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1969) opposite Maria Callas, as an anarchistic petty thief in Ostia (Sergio Citti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1970), and as a military in Il deserto dei Tartari/Desert of the Tartars (Valerio Zurlini, 1976) opposite Vittorio Gassman and Jacques Perrin. In France, he played in A cœur joie/Two Weeks in September (Serge Bourguignon, 1967) with Brigitte Bardot, and La Prisonnière/Woman in Chains (Henri Georges Clouzot, 1968), in which he interpreted a disturbed modern art gallery owner who manipulates Elisabeth Wiener. He made four films with director Philippe Garrel. Le Révélateur/The developper (Philippe Garrel, 1968) was shot in May 1968 during the student revolution, and Les hautes solitudes (Philippe Garrel, 1974), a biographical film about actress Jean Seberg. Terzieff worked with more great auteurs. Famous Spanish director Luis Buñuel took him and Paul Frankeur on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in La Voie lactée/The Milky Way (Luis Buñuel, 1969). He was once directed by Jean-Luc Godard in Détective/Detective (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985). On television, he appeared in the American-Italian Mini-Series Moses the Lawgiver/Moses (Gianfranco De Bosio, 1974) starring Burt Lancaster.
Since the 1980s, Laurent Terzieff was seen less in the cinemas and mostly acted on stage. In the theatre, he often worked as a director, writer and actor with his own troupe, co-founded in 1961 with his companion Pascale de Boysson. He also ran the theatre Lucernaire in Paris. His later film roles include a Trotskyist in Rouge Baiser/Red Kiss (Véra Belmont, 1985), an anarchist in Germinal (Claude Berri, 1993) starring Gérard Depardieu, and the painter Hérigault in Le radeau de la Méduse/The Raft of the Medusa (Iradj Azimi, 1994), inspired by a tragic maritime event that happened in 1816. Politically engaged, Terzieff signed in 1960 La Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission dans la Guerre d'Algérie (Declaration on the Right of Insubordination in the War of Algeria), and in 2002, the petition Pas en notre nom (Not in our name) against the Iraq War. In his seventies, the gaunt-faced actor had not lost his magnetism, as was proved by his appearance in the Agatha Christie adaptation Mon petit doigt m'a dit.../A Little Bird Told Me... (Pascal Thomas, 2005) with Catherine Frot and André Dussollier. Terzieff also stayed active in the theatre. In 2009 he played an acclaimed Philoctetes in the play by Sophocles. His last films were the comedy J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster/I always dreamed of being a gangster (Samuel Benchetrit, 2008) with Jean Rochefort, and the Italian production Le ombre rosse/The Red Shadow (Francesco Maselli, 2009). Posthumously he was seen opposite Sharon Stone in the thriller Largo Winch 2/The Burma Conspiracy (Jérôme Salle, 2011). During his long career, Laurent Terzieff was hailed with many awards (Prix Gérard Philippe, Molière for Best Director and Best Show for Temps contre temps (Time against time) in 1993), and he was also an Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite (Officer of the Order of Merit) and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (Commander of Arts and Letters). Laurent Terzieff died in 2010 in Paris from a lung ailment. He was 75. He was the widower of actress Pascale de Boysson.
Sources: Hans Beerekamp (Het Schimmenrijk) (Dutch), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Evene.fr (French), Ciné-Ressources (Cinémathèque française) (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Rovingian Council - Isolation on social media as a commercial and political strategy by Daniel Arrhakis (2026)
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Isolation on Social Media as a Commercial and Political Strategy
Introduction
Isolation as universal death is the ultimate point of convergence between quantum physics, biology, philosophy, and digital society. In all these areas, life and existence depend on relationships. When a system is completely isolated, it ceases to exchange information with the outside world and collapses.
When citizens are isolated from the perspective of others, empathy disappears. Society ceases to be a living organism and becomes an aggregate of enraged digital atoms incapable of dialogue. It is the death of culture, of shared truth, and of public space. Without bridges to the outside world, individual minds close in on themselves, generating an existential death where the individual is surrounded by screens, but profoundly alone.
To exist is to relate: Be it an atom, a cell, an animal, a tree, a human being, or a galaxy, the rule of the universe is unanimous: total isolation is synonymous with extinction. Life only manifests itself in the relational space that exists between things. Isolation as a Business Model and Thought Modeling
Isolation on social media is not a technological accident, but rather a business model and a highly lucrative tool for ideological control. By isolating users in personalized information bubbles, platforms and political actors transform social fragmentation into revenue and power.
This dynamic works through two complementary strategic fronts.
1. The Commercial Strategy: Monetizing Loneliness and Polarization
Social networks operate under the Attention Economy. The commercial objective is to keep the user glued to the screen for as long as possible to display advertisements. Isolation is the ideal tool for this:
Architecture of Addiction: Social isolation in the real world generates boredom and anxiety. Platforms exploit this vulnerability by offering "dopamine rewards" through likes, digital validation, and notifications.
Creation of Epistemic Bubbles: Algorithms filter content to show only what validates the user's beliefs. Intellectual isolation creates an artificially comfortable environment that users don't want to leave.
Micro-segmentation in Advertising: A user isolated in their bubble becomes predictable. Their fears, desires, and prejudices are precisely mapped, allowing companies to sell specific products to that exact profile.
Engagement through Hate: Content that generates outrage and division spreads faster. Isolating groups into opposing tribes maximizes virtual conflict, generating traffic and click spikes.
2. The Political Strategy: Divide and Conquer
For governments, parties, and political strategists, the digital isolation of the population facilitates mass manipulation through psychological warfare techniques:
Destruction of the Common Public Space: By isolating citizens in parallel realities, factual consensus is destroyed. Two people on the same street can live in completely different information ecosystems, making rational public debate impossible.
Factories of Radicalization: Social and digital isolation leaves individuals vulnerable to the search for belonging. Extremist political groups exploit this to offer a tribal identity and a "common enemy" to be fought.
Target Disinformation Dissemination: Defamation campaigns and fake news are injected directly into isolated bubbles. Because members of this bubble do not consume external information channels, the lie is never challenged.
Collective Demobilization: Isolated citizens, distrustful of each other, lose the capacity for community organization and real protest. Activism is channeled into clicks and shares that do not threaten power structures.
The Parallel with Quantum Isolation
If at the physical level isolation preserves the purity of the particle, at the social level isolation destroys the cohesion of the human fabric. The user becomes an isolated unit, highly reactive to external stimuli (advertisements or propaganda), whose ability to connect with the real ecosystem has been deliberately sabotaged to generate profit and control.
Schrödinger's Cat in Social Media
In Quantum Physics: The cat in the box is both alive and dead at the same time until the box is opened.
On Social Networks, the user lives in a constant duality. The digital profile shows a perfect, happy, and ultra-social life. Real life, behind the screen, faces loneliness, anxiety, and boredom. The person is digitally "alive" and socially "dead" simultaneously.
Quantum isolation occurs because nature tries to protect pure information from the noise of the world. Digital isolation occurs because the noise of the virtual world distances us from our pure nature. In both cases, hyperconnectivity destroys the original state.
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O Isolamento nas redes sociais como estratégia comercial e política
Introdução
O isolamento como morte universal é o ponto de convergência definitivo entre a física quântica, a biologia, a filosofia e a sociedade digital. Em todas estas áreas, a vida e a existência dependem da relação. Quando um sistema é completamente isolado, ele deixa de trocar informação com o exterior e colapsa.
Quando o cidadão é isolado da perspetiva do outro, a empatia desaparece. A sociedade deixa de ser um organismo vivo e passa a ser um agregado de átomos digitais enfurecidos e incapazes de diálogo. É a morte da cultura, da verdade partilhada e do espaço público. Sem pontes com o exterior, as mentes individuais fecham-se em si mesmas, gerando uma morte existencial onde o indivíduo está rodeado de ecrãs, mas profundamente só.
Existir é Relacionar-se: Seja um átomo, uma célula, um animal, uma árvore, um ser humano, ou uma galáxia, a regra do universo é unânime: o isolamento total é sinónimo de extinção. A vida só se manifesta no espaço relacional que existe entre as coisas.
O Isolamento Como Modelo de Negócio e Modelação de Pensamento
O isolamento nas redes sociais não é um acidente tecnológico, mas sim um modelo de negócio e uma ferramenta de controlo ideológico altamente lucrativa. Ao isolar os utilizadores em bolhas de informação personalizadas, as plataformas e os atores políticos transformam a fragmentação social em receita e poder.
Esta dinâmica funciona através de duas frentes estratégicas complementares.
1. A Estratégia Comercial: Monetizar a Solidão e a Polarização
As redes sociais operam sob a Economia da Atenção. O objetivo comercial é manter o utilizador colado ao ecrã o maior tempo possível para exibir anúncios. O isolamento é a ferramenta ideal para isso:
Arquitetura do Vício: O isolamento social no mundo real gera tédio e ansiedade. As plataformas exploram esta vulnerabilidade oferecendo "recompensas de dopamina" através de gostos, validação digital e notificações.
Criação de Bolhas Epistémicas: Os algoritmos filtram o conteúdo para mostrar apenas o que valida as crenças do utilizador. Este isolamento intelectual cria um ambiente artificialmente confortável de onde o utilizador não quer sair.
Micro-segmentação Publicitária: Um utilizador isolado na sua bolha torna-se previsível. Os seus medos, desejos e preconceitos são mapeados com precisão, permitindo que as empresas vendam produtos específicos para aquele perfil exato.
Engajamento pelo Ódio: Conteúdos que geram indignação e divisão espalham-se mais rápido. Isolar grupos em tribos opostas maximiza o conflito virtual, gerando picos de tráfego e cliques.
2. A Estratégia Política: Dividir para Governar
Para governos, partidos e estrategas políticos, o isolamento digital da população facilita a manipulação de massas através de técnicas de guerra psicológica:
Destruição do Espaço Público Comum: Ao isolar os cidadãos em realidades paralelas, destrói-se o consenso factual. Duas pessoas na mesma rua podem viver em ecossistemas de informação completamente diferentes, tornando o debate público racional impossível.
Fábricas de Radicalização: O isolamento social e digital deixa indivíduos vulneráveis à procura de pertença. Grupos políticos extremistas aproveitam-se disso para oferecer uma identidade tribal e um "inimigo comum" a ser combatido.
Disseminação de Desinformação Alvo: Campanhas de difamação e notícias falsas são injetadas diretamente nas bolhas isoladas. Como os membros dessa bolha não consomem canais de informação externos, a mentira nunca é contestada.
Desmobilização Coletiva: Cidadãos isolados e desconfiados uns dos outros perdem a capacidade de organização comunitária e protesto real. O ativismo é canalizado para cliques e partilhas que não ameaçam as estruturas de poder.
O Paralelo com o Isolamento Quântico
Se no nível físico o isolamento preserva a pureza da partícula, no nível social o isolamento destrói a coesão do tecido humano. O utilizador torna-se uma unidade isolada, altamente reativa a estímulos externos (anúncios ou propaganda), cuja capacidade de ligação com o ecossistema real foi deliberadamente sabotada para gerar lucro e controlo.
O Gato de Schrödinger Social
Na Física Quântica: O gato na caixa está vivo e morto ao mesmo tempo até que a caixa seja aberta.
Nas Redes Sociais o utilizador vive numa dualidade constante. O perfil digital mostra uma vida perfeita, feliz e ultra-social. A vida real, atrás do ecrã, enfrenta solidão, ansiedade e tédio. A pessoa está digitalmente "viva" e socialmente "morta" em simultâneo.
O isolamento quântico ocorre porque a natureza tenta proteger a informação pura do ruído do mundo. O isolamento digital ocorre porque o ruído do mundo virtual nos afasta da nossa natureza pura. Em ambos os casos, a hiperconexão destrói o estado original.
Tsibi Geva presents Archeology of the Present in the Israeli Pavilion at The 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
Geva, who lives and works in Tel Aviv, is one of Israel’s most prominent and influential artists and has exhibited extensively in major exhibitions across Israel, America, and Europe.
His show Archeology of the Present extends outside the pavilion as well as through its interior, destabilising familiar divisions between inside and outdoors, functional and the representational, high and low, abandoned, found, and manipulated elements. It encompasses formal and thematic elements characteristic of Geva’s work throughout his career.
The exhibition presents paintings alongside sculptural installations and abandoned and manipulated objects, abolishing hierarchical distinctions between artistic mediums and structures. In doing so, the project is giving an expression to Geva’s ongoing concern with elements related to the notion of ‘home’ – including terrazzo tiles, windows, shutters, lattices, and cement blocks; elements which exist as fragments of what once was, or could in principle constitute, a home. Tseba’s work poses self-reflexive artistic concerns and epistemological questions, as well as political and cultural interrogations about locality and immigration, hybrid identity, existential anxiety and existence in an age of instability.
When defenses against the most immediate forms of mental disturbance have been raised, the assimilation of the principles of "right conduct" arouses in the mind an "intimate, unalloyed joy" joined with the stability and sureness of one who feels himself in a state of "justice." For which we are given the simile of a lawfully crowned king who knows that his enemies are routed and that there is no threat of any kind to his sovereignty. We have also acquired the strengthened "neutrality" or "sidereality" of the mind that, thanks to the fourfold contemplation, has further freed itself and is now at the center of all its experience, both internal and external. At this point we undertake the really cathartic action whose aim is to neutralize, by degrees, any possibility of "combustion" and of self-abandonment to the multiple variety of "contacts."
Contacts wound; contacts consume by exciting the fire that burns the body and the mind, which nourishes the samsaric stem and prostrates the higher principle. "The fool, struck by force, perishes; the wise man, when struck, does not tremble," he remains intact, remains unshakable, remains elusive; we must become like the wise man. It is a question, then, of dealing a blow at the transcendental "desire" that lurks in the visual and other senses, in the khandha (the groups of the personality), in the elements, and which is corruption, disease, suppuration. All this must naturally take place, not on the psychological or moral plane, but on the existential and metaphysical one. The beginning of the process of alteration lies in the senses, which are likened to so many "wounds." (…) In order to "bandage the wounds" and neutralize the infection provoked by contacts, we must ensure that "the internal sight, the internal smelling, the internal hearing, the internal tasting, the internal touching, the internal thinking are not distracted," that is to say, that we are present in the sixfold seat of the senses in such a way that we can immediately prevent any self-relaxation, self-attachment, self-intoxication, any luring of ourselves by enjoyment. There will be, then, no further building of combinations, at first in the fundamental stem of the will, and then in the five stems of the personality." This is the essence of the new work of catharsis.
This work is based on what is known as the "watch over the doors of the senses," for which the canonical formula is: "Upon perceiving a form with the eye, the ascetic conceives no inclination, no interest. Since craving and aversion and damaging and harmful thoughts soon overcome the man who lives with the eye unguarded, he remains vigilant, he guards the eye, he remains vigilant over the eye." Upon hearing a sound with the ear, upon smelling an odor with the nose, upon tasting a flavor with the tongue, upon touching a contact with the body, upon representing to himself a mental state with the mind, he conceives no inclination, he conceives no interest. Since craving and aversion and damaging and harmful thoughts soon overcome the man who lives with his mind unguarded, he remains vigilant, he guards the mind, he remains vigilant over the mind." To fail in this vigilance at some point is to suffer the fate of the tortoise: when the tortoise unthinkingly put out one of its limbs a jackal seized it by that limb and carried it off to its ruin.
In this matter then, we have to come to grips with the samsaric entity with which we are associated and that constitutes our double, composed of thirst. A continually tightening circle closes round it. It is effectively likened to an enemy who, knowing that he cannot openly defeat his adversary, gets himself employed by him as a servant and gains his confidence so that he may then defeat him by treachery: this is the part that the illusory "I," created by identification, plays in us until the time of initiation into the doctrine of the Ariya.
That the discipline of the watch over the senses or binding the wounds leads to a higher liberation is shown by the simile of the man who has at a crossroads a thoroughbred team and can guide them wherever he pleases. The man who does not know or who forgets this practice is dominated by forms, sounds, smells, tastes, contacts, and thoughts, instead of being their master.
In another way this discipline can also he summed up by the word silentium: "to gird oneself with silence," silence in the technical and initiatory sense. Impressions are arrested at the periphery, at the limit of the senses. Between them and the "I" there is now a distance, a zone of "silence." We thus become endowed with that form of silence that consists of not pronouncing either the exterior word or the interior word, and this in turn implies not hearing, not seeing, not imagining. This theme has also been expressed in a popular form. It is, in fact, the deeper, hidden significance of the well-known statuette of the three sacred monkeys, one with the ears closed, one with the mouth closed, and one with the eyes closed: speak not, hear not, see not. And we may here also recall the curious hermetical formula: "Who has ears, let him open them [in the sense of a close watch on every impression], who has a mouth, let him keep it shut [in the sense of the aforesaid silence, of calm, intangible 'neutrality']."
It is thus that the conditions for further liberation and then for awakening the extrasamsāric principle are consolidated.
As the natural counterpart of the watch on the doors of the senses, a world of disintoxication is carried out within the zone that is now isolated, in order to eliminate or reduce those internal smoldering embers of agitation and self-identification that may be made to burst into life by external contacts. This is what is known as the removal of the five nīvarana, a term that means a "dross," a "hindrance," or an "impediment." The five nīvarana are: desire (kāmacchanda); hate or anger (vyāpāda); slothful idleness (thīna-middha); pride and impatience (uddhacca- kukkucca); doubtful uncertainty (vicikicchā).
The action of these five hindrances is clearly indicated by the following similes: it is like trying to look at one's reflection in water wherein all kinds of colors are mixed (desire), or in boiling water (hate and anger), or in water full of mud and moss (slothful idleness), or in water agitated by the wind (pride and impatience), or finally, in dark and murky water (doubt). Removal is effected by direct action of the mind on the mind, together with accurate and calm self-examination. The discipline is described in the texts in the following manner.
The ascetic finds a solitary place and begins to meditate. A well-known yoga position is counseled: sit with legs crossed and body straight upright. This traditional Indo-Aryan position is, however, only suitable if one is so accustomed to it that it is quite natural and requires no special effort and does not produce fatigue. In general, the position recommended for this, as for other contemplations, must be one of equilibrium, which does not have to be changed; it must have a kind of symbolical meaning of self-awareness and it must not demand efforts that would distract the mind.
It is fundamentally a more advanced development of the states already induced by sīla or "right conduct." The aim here is obviously to bring us to a deeper zone by means of the strengthened power of internal vision that we have gained through the preceding disciplines. It is a matter of attacking, to some degree, the sankhara, that is to say, the innate and congenital tendencies that come, in part, from the extra-individual heredity that we have assumed.
Here, too, the purity achieved at certain moments comes to be developed until it has almost attained a state of permanency. This is how we must understand what is known as the "threefold watch": "by day, walking and sitting, turn the mind away from disturbing things; in the first watch of the night, walking and sitting, turn the mind away from disturbing things; in the middle watch of the night, lie down on the right side, like the lion, one foot on the other, bringing to mind the hour of waking; in the last watch of the night, after arising, walking or sitting, turn the mind away from disturbing things."
This is a kind of continuous examination of consciousness. The yama, the watches of the night that are recognized in this discipline consist, according to the Buddhist tradition, of four hours each; the first runs from six until ten in the evening, the second from ten until two in the morning, the third from two to six in the morning. Thus, strictly speaking, the period of true sleep or of the state that in the common man would correspond to sleep is restricted to four hours only, from ten in the evening until two in the morning. In this we must not see an "ascetic" discipline in the Western sense of mortification: on the contrary, it is natural that in advancing along the road of illumination the need for sleep is considerably reduced, and this reduction produces no ill effect. Here, too, a unilateral "authoritarian" intervention would only serve to create states of fatigue and inattention unfavorable for spiritual life by day.
With attentive care of the "wounds" and with action taken against the hindrances or impediments, the zone of "silence" is strengthened, and a gradual interior increase of the extrasamsāric quality takes place therein; this increase should he aided by illuminated effort and it is related to the aforesaid "seven awakenings". These "awakenings" are the positive counterpart of the cathartic or prophylactic action, that is to say, they are a "defence against intoxication produced by action." The canonical formula is: "[The ascetic] rightly causes the awakening of mindfulness derived from detachment, derived from dispassion, derived from cessation [of the flux], ending in renunciation, he causes the awakening of investigation -of inflexible energy- of enthusiasm -of calm- of concentration -of equanimity, of these awakenings derived from detachment, derived from dispassion, derived from cessation, ending in renunciation."
Various interpretations of the place of these awakenings in the whole development are, nevertheless, possible. Their sense as a whole, indeed, reflects that of the four jhānas, of the contemplation that is to be performed in complete detachment from external experience. Here, however, we may understand them on a more relative plane, as a kind of transfiguration and liberation of faculties that are already pervaded by the element of bodhi, whence the expression bojjhanga. It must be realized that we are not dealing with a simple schematic enu¬meration, but rather with a series in which the meditation whereby they are appre¬hended should pursue an intimate causal linking of the single terms so that we are naturally led on from one to the next, and so that in the one we see the integration and resolution of its predecessors. Thus, we must first achieve nondistracted medita¬tion: then we must awaken the state of "mindfulness," fix it in the mind, develop it, master it, and see how this state leads to the second awakening and passes into "investigation," which may find support in some element of the doctrine; this inves¬tigation, when developed, fixed, extended, and mastered must lead on to the awak¬ening of "inflexible energy," whose perfect conquest should herald a state of spe¬cial, purified "enthusiasm," of purified joy. By further developing the meditation, we should realize that this enthusiasm, this joy, awakened and perfectly developed in a body that is becoming calm, in a mind that is becoming calm, will become resolved and liberated in the next awakening, which is that of "calm." When calm has been developed, extended, fixed, and mastered, "concentration" awakens; this, in its turn, when completely developed, becomes established and shines forth in the "equanimity" that is the seventh awakening.
These form a series of landmarks in meditation that is concerned with realization and they are connected by an inherent continuity. Through these, one is led in another way to the confirmation of what was already becoming established in the satipatthāna, the fourfold contemplation of detachment, that is to say, one is led to that impassibility that is qualified as "pure, clear, ductile, flexible, resplendent," but which has nothing to do-it should be noted-with the indifference of a blunt mind, with the indifference "of a fool, of an ignorant man, of an inexpert common man." For our part, we think it opportune to add that the state in question must on no account be confused with apathy, and that it develops together with a feeling of purified intellectualized and heroic joy, although this may at first seem difficult to understand. The Bhagavadgītā says: "When the mind, lamed by ascesis, becomes quiet; when [the ascetic], seeing the self in the self, rejoices in himself, knows that boundless joy which, transcending the senses, can only be ap¬prehended by the intellect and, when fixed in it, does not stir from the truth ... he knows that this detachment from union with pain is called yoga." At the same time, Buddhism speaks of a pleasure that is "like dung" when compared to that based on detachment, calm, and illumination (thus two kinds of joy are considered and contrasted. the one bound to life in the world, to mania, to enjoyment, the other to ascesis or to ultramundane states of detachment and of freedom from mania; and it is said that the second is the higher joy. "Extinction is the greatest joy.")
Furthermore, such sequences as these are frequent: "In the ascetic joy arises; this joy makes him blissful; being blissful, his body becomes calm: with the body calmed, serenity arises; in this serenity the mind comes to rest, becomes concentrated"; this is a preparation for the four jhāna. This is another sequence that has the character of a connected series, developing in an upward sense, not unlike that which, through the twelve nidana, led us downward to samsāric existence. The point of departure of this new series is, in fact, the state of suffering, of agitation, of contingency, which corresponds to the last nidāna of the descending path. Beyond it, there is the state of confidence; this leads to purified joy; then follows serenity, which gives place to bliss, passing on to equanimity - the term used here literally means also to vanish, to cease being in a place: it is a question of detached equilibrium. In this text the supreme realization has behind it a linked series in which special states of liberated joy play a particular part: a kind of joy that Plato contrasted with all mixed and conditioned forms of joy or of pleasure.
Let us quote another text that represents the state at which we may reckon to have arrived at this point of our exposition: „Concentration which knows neither increase nor decrease, which is not based on wearisome subjugation, which, because of its detached nature is constant, because of its constancy is full of bliss, because of its bliss cannot be destroyed — such concentration has suprene wisdom as its result.”
This should destroy the idea that the path of awakening is arid and desolate, that it kills all joy, that it offers only renunciation and destruction. That everyone whose furthest horizon is still within the effective, samsarically conditioned world should have this idea is quite natural but is of very little account.
A text reminds us that only an Awakened One can comprehend the Awakened One. An expressive simile demonstrates this: two companions leave a city together and reach a rock that one of them climbs. He says to the other: "I see from up here a wonderful view of gardens, woods, fields, and lakes," but the other retorts: "It is impossible, it is inadmissible, friend, that from up there you can see all that." Then the companion standing on the rock comes down, takes the other by the arm, makes him climb up on the rock and. after he has recovered his breath, asks him: "What do you then see, friend, standing on the rock?" The other replies: "I see a wonderful view of gardens, woods, fields, and lakes." "And your previous opinion?" "While I was obstructed by this great rock, I could not see what is now visible." It concludes: it is impossible that what is knowable, discernible, capable of achievement, capable of realization through detachment can be known, discerned, achieved, realized by one who lives among desires and who is consumed by desires." Quite apart from the higher "sidereal" principle. the Buddhist also knows the kind of joy that is contentedness, rejoicing, jubilation, enthusiasm, exultation, transport of the spirit and that, among others, is considered as "a factor of the great awakening”.
[Countering those who believe that the Buddhist road is one of desolation and aridity, Louis de La Vallée-Poussin most opportunely writes: “We must, rather, recognise that India is difficult when it comes to being and bliss; that as she puts being beyond existence, so she puts bliss beyond sensation.”]
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Julius Evola: The Doctrine of Awakening - Part II., Chapter 4. - Sidereal Awareness: The Wounds Close (excerpt)
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Outlining a Theory of General Creativity . .
. . on a 'Pataphysical projectory
Entropy ≥ Memory ● Creativity ²
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Study of the day:
. . / . .
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rectO-persO | E ≥ m.C² | co~errAnce | TiLt
A mound of ash, what remains after the fire has passed.
On top, a glass sphere found by chance — or perhaps left behind by someone who no longer wished to carry the weight of the world.
Inside, everything is reflected: sky, structures, presences.
Outside, extinguished matter, fragile and ready to disperse.
The world keeps its balance,
even when it rests on ash.
Una montagna di cenere, ciò che resta dopo il passaggio del fuoco.
Sopra, una sfera di vetro trovata per caso — o forse lasciata lì da qualcuno che non voleva più portare con sé il peso del mondo.
Dentro si riflette tutto: cielo, architetture, presenze.
Fuori, la materia spenta, fragile, pronta a disperdersi.
Il mondo continua a stare in equilibrio,
anche quando poggia sulla cenere.
How can we not be in denial when the sunflowers appear at farmers' market? San Diego's farmers' market in Little Italy is so full of color I had to tone it down in my favorite monochrome.
Talkin' to myself and feelin' old
Sometimes I'd like to quit
Nothin' ever seems to fit
Hangin' around
Nothin' to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
What I've got they used to call the blues
Nothin' is really wrong
Feelin' like I don't belong
Walkin' around
Some kind of lonely clown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
Funny, but it seems I always wind up here with you
Nice to know somebody loves me
Funny, but it seems that it's the only thing to do
Run and find the one who loves me
Confessions of a Hypocritical Environmental Artist
If we stop fighting we're all ******. Oh that blessed release when you confess and apologise and the weight of all that regret makes you feel light as air.
I've lived my adult life in two sections and at half time along with my quarter orange I sunk into a depression of existential despair. As I ran onto the pitch for the second period I chose life as Renton would say. I swapped money, office walls and pointlessness for insecurity, authenticity and a chance to live. But as I balanced on the taut tight-rope of the strung out breadline I was served up a soup of emotional freedom and the fear of not being able to make ends meet.
Opportunities are everywhere to sell out, dumb down, say it how you want it to be heard, succumb to fake authenticity.
Don't swear, always be family friendly, all sunlight and leaves and not ecological armagedon and suffocation in plastic. **** me it's all so fake and I'm drowning in a sea of my own mediocrity and yet just like all of you, I have a volcano set to simmer on the inside and sometimes I want to cry, or laugh or scream with joy at the sheer beauty and madness of it all.
I don't make art to show you or make money or educate the world. I create to live, to discover, to feel.
When I looked into my soul via my sorry ass I asked myself a question.
“What can you do?”
The first answer that came back was “nothing.”
Sometime later I asked again and the answer was “perhaps find yourself amongst nature.” And on that day I chose to do that and somehow get along by taking some of you, however few, along with me.
I teach people of all ages about what I do but really all I do is hang out with you and bring you along for my ride. We all go out into the woods together and we're kids again wondering at the dragon fly and rustle of leaves. That's all I am. A guide to take you there just for a little bit. I sell tickets, but I also have to eat.
But there's more so much more. I'm a saint and an arsehole, a sage and an idiot. I am trying to peg out all those inconsistencies, anxieties, regrets and bad decisions out onto the washing so I can let them flutter in the wind. I so damn well want to grow and realise what I am, be able to look around me and know that what annoys is what ails me and fix it and stop projecting my failures.
Ok so what of this rant? Where is the truth when you are weighed down by cynicism, the need to portray something out there via the fibre optic network to make you guys to want to help me live this life.
Well it's this. Social media like all relationships is multi faceted. I am grateful to be able to have a voice to express what I feel and put it out there somewhere. But it brings me down. It makes me jealous and fearful and scared that it will all come crashing down. That I'm not good enough and everyone else is doing better than me. But it's road rage for the soul. Cut off from that real connection with you guys out there, from your warm smile and your eyes, behind the windscreen, with the radio on in the warm, I can project all of my insecurities onto you and have them reflect back until I feel bad. When you add to the toxic mix the need to use social media to make sure the lights are on then the temptation to devalue authenticity is very strong. And yet...
This is my art and I want to let it out. I choose to feel and to live and not partake in the 9-5 futile office stare down.
And the irony is the answer has been staring at me all the time. My malaise is to be disconnected, I find hope, solace, truth and growth and connection in being whatever is. However scary and difficult, it is not life if it is not authentic.
I connect to the natural world through my art and experience the full gamut of what I am while I do it. The good the bad, the bored and the excited, the sublime and the ridiculous and then bring it back here and write it on a screen.
When I made my art but worked in an office the words came unfiltered. You got both barrels right between the eyes and then something changed. I was scared and I disconnected and I dumbed down what I said. Well it's back and it's cathartic and the paradox of finding stability through confession and the risk of confirming you are a fool to anyone out there is so bloody liberating.
There's another reason I am a hypocrite and it's this.
I describe myself as an environmental artist. What a load of baloney.
Do you know why? Well, I live in no more harmony with our environment than any of you. It rings hollow when I try and claim that I am doing something to put things right.
We are so far down the hole that there are only nano-seconds in which to reverse. It's coming, ecological disaster is but moments away. All our attempts to reverse the damage are so inconsequential and late that it is quite obvious to anyone with their eyes open that we're just playing at it. The enormity of where we are at is too much to bare and when you feel it full force it very nearly obliterates all hope.
But if we stop fighting we're all ****** anyway.
So what are we going to do?
Making sculptures out of leaves isn't going to do it. Signing a petition that we want recycled coffee cups isn't going to do it. Moaning about Donald Trump isn't going to do it. All those ships have sailed. We need big action, honest and quick.
We need to stop flying places. We need to stop driving our cars. We need to live in the same clothes for years. We need to grow our own food. We need to stop using energy. And most important of all we need to stop having more children.
You can recycle to your heart's content but every child we have will use up so many resources it will make your eyes water as the sea levels rise and you drown in oceans of plastic.
Am I still a hypocrite for saying these things? Damn right, I'm not doing those things either. But I am afraid if a great deal of us don't then all hope is lost and your children that are born will live in a world of scarcer resources and wars and all those things will come to pass anyway.
Is there a suitable epilogue for this diatribe? Five minutes after writing this I realised my art has been blocked for probaby eight years. I feel light as a feather and ready to begin once again. Is the world still screwed? Yep, but I guess like everything I need to begin with myself.
The end
and for those
who think that
climate change
is just someone's
fantasy
watch the News as
the Maldives disappear under
rising waters
as tornadoes strike earlier, more frequently
and deserts spread, glaciers
crack and melt
leaving polar bears
alone.
Jean-Paul Sartre - La nausée
Collection Folio 805, 1997
Couverture: Albrecht Dürer - "Mélancholie I" (détail). Bibliothèque nationale, Paris
Donc, j'étais tout à l'heure au Jardin public. La racine du marronnier s'enfonçait dans la terre, juste au-dessous de mon banc. Je ne me rappelais plus que c'était une racine. Les mots s'étaient évanouis et, avec eux, la signification des choses, leurs modes d'emplois, les faibles repères que les hommes ont tracés à leur surface. J'étais assis, un peu voûté, la tête basse, seul en face de cette masse noire et noueuse entièrement brute et qui me faisait peur. Et puis j'ai eu cette illumination.
Ça m'a coupé le souffle. Jamais, avant ces derniers jours, je n'avais pressenti ce-que voulait dire «exister».
I always like a mirror. I found their plumbing solution ironic when paired with the sign. I am a compulsive fixer; this scene provocative (maybe only for me). In a cosmic sense, I accept that everything is temporary. The question is, how long? Stones last longer than blossoms. Permanence is an illusion.
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clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
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www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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This year I asked myself, like so many Sicilian and non-Sicilian photographers, where to go to take pictures for Good Friday, to discover one of the many popular traditions scattered throughout Sicily, in fact Easter in Sicily is a cathartic moment for those in search of traditional popular events, to be able to tell with words and above all (for those like me) with photographs, a research that may appear not without contradictions, for example for that great Sicilian thinker who was Leonardo Sciascia, for he Sicily cannot be called Christian, which he defined the Sicilian festivals, at best it is only in appearance, in those properly pagan explosions, tolerated by the Church; Sciascia deals with the topic as an introductory essay in the book "Religious feasts in Sicily" (a volume that is still found on flea markets at ever higher prices), illustrated with photographs of a young and still unknown Ferdinando Scianna (in the first edition they made a mistake also his name, Fernando Scianna can be read on the cover), a book that did not fail to raise some controversy precisely because of the introductory note of the Sicilian thinker, appearing in open controversy with the sacredness of that popular devotion (so much so that the book was the subject of a criticized by the newspaper of the Holy See, The Roman Observer), Sciascia writes “What is a religious feast in Sicily? It would be easy to answer that it's anything but a religious holiday. It is, above all, an existential explosion; the explosion of the collective id, where the collectivity exists only at the level of the id. Because it is only in celebration that the Sicilian emerges from his condition as a lonely man, which is after all the condition of his vigilant and painful superego, to find himself part of a class, a class, a city ”. Going back over the thought of Gesualdo Bufalino, Sicilian writer and poet, we find interesting indications on the meaning that the Sicilians give to these traditional popular events, he says "during Easter every Sicilian feels not only a spectator, but an actor, before sorrowful and then exultant, for a Mystery which is its very existence. The time of the event is that of Spring, the season of metamorphosis, just as metamorphic is the very nature of the ritual in which, as in a story from the “Opera dei Pupi” (Puppets work), the fight of Good against Evil is fought. The Deception, the Pain and the Triumph, the Passion, the Death and the Resurrection of Christ are present”.
In short, Easter in Sicily is a recurrence deeply felt throughout the island since ancient times, it has always had the moving participation of the people as its fulcrum, with representations and processions that have become rites and traditions that unequivocally characterize many Sicilian towns, which recall the most salient moments narrated in the Gospels and which recall the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, with processions formed by the various brotherhoods (sometimes with theatrical re-enactments) which have in themselves contents and symbols often coming from the Spanish domination, which in Sicily between the 16th and 17th centuries.
Returning to my question, expressed at the beginning, I had several suggestions from friends and acquaintances, among these a nurse friend of mine, originally from Leonforte, Vincenzo, managed to tickle my interest in a particular way, hence the photographic story that I present, made this year, is that of the Good Friday procession of Leonforte.
The procession begins in the late morning, which proceeds from the Oratory to the Mother Church, through the Piazzale Matrice, during the short journey the Stations of the Cross are meditated on; the procession that advances towards the Cathedral (which will represent Golgotha, because it is there that the Crucifixion of Christ will take place) is started by a large Cross, behind it proceed two long lines of sisters and brothers, there are those who carry cushions with nails, the crown of thorns, and the sheet of the deposition with a "Red Rose" on it; then we find Christ with an uncovered face supported by five brothers, followed by the Virgin of Sorrows, carried on the shoulders of the confraternity of the same name. At noon, inside the Mother Church, once in front of the Cross, the statue with jointed arms is "crucified". When dusk comes everything is ready for the procession, which starts from the Mother Church with the rite of the deposition of Christ down from the Cross, which is taken care of by the priests; the procession winds along an estimated route of just over 7 km, involving the 13 churches of Leonforte (thirteen as there are stations of the “Way of the Cross”), a procession called "'U Mulimentu", a term that indicates the sepulcher which it guarded for three days the body of Christ before his Resurrection (The procession of the “'U Mulimentu” can be dated around 1650). This itinerary also includes the lighting of a huge bonfire placed in the square in front of the " Great Fountain of Leonforte" (built on the remains of an ancient Arab fountain), from whose 24 spouts water does not come out only on Good Friday, as a sign of mourning the death of Christ.
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Quest’anno mi ponevo la domanda, come tanti fotografi, siciliani e non, dove recarmi a realizzare fotografie per il Venerdì Santo, alla scoperta di una delle tantissime tradizioni popolari sparse in tutta la Sicilia, la Pasqua infatti in Sicilia, è un momento catartico per chi è alla ricerca di eventi popolari tradizionali, da poter così raccontare con parole e soprattutto (per chi come me) con fotografie, una ricerca che può apparire non priva di contraddizioni, ad esempio per quel grande pensatore Siciliano che fu Leonardo Sciascia, per lui la Sicilia non può dirsi cristiana, che definiva le feste Siciliane, al massimo lo è solo in apparenza, in quelle esplosioni propriamente pagane, tollerate dalla Chiesa; Sciascia affronta l’argomento come saggio introduttivo nel libro “Feste religiose in Sicilia” (volume che si trova ancore sui mercatini dell’usato a prezzi sempre più alti), illustrato con fotografie di un giovane ed ancora sconosciuto Ferdinando Scianna (nella prima edizione sbagliarono anche il suo nome, sulla copertina si legge Fernando Scianna), libro che non mancò di sollevare qualche polemica proprio per la nota introduttiva del pensatore Siciliano, apparendo in aperta polemica con la sacralità di quella devozione popolare (tanto che il libro fu oggetto di una stroncatura da parte del quotidiano della Santa Sede, l’Osservatore Romano), Sciascia scrive “Che cos’ è una festa religiosa in Sicilia? Sarebbe facile rispondere che è tutto, tranne che una festa religiosa. E’, innanzi tutto, un’esplosione esistenziale; l’esplosione dell’es collettivo, dove la collettività esiste soltanto a livello dell’es. Poiché e soltanto nella festa che il siciliano esce dalla sua condizione di uomo solo, che è poi la condizione del suo vigile e doloroso super io, per ritrovarsi parte di un ceto, di una classe, di una città ”. Andando a ripercorrere il pensiero di Gesualdo Bufalino, scrittore e poeta Siciliano, si trovano indicazioni interessanti sul senso che i Siciliano danno a questi eventi popolari tradizionali, egli dice “durante la Pasqua ogni siciliano si sente non solo uno spettatore, ma un attore, prima dolente e poi esultante, per un Mistero che è la sua stessa esistenza. Il tempo dell’evento è quello della Primavera, la stagione della metamorfosi, così come metamorfica è la natura stessa del rito nel quale, come in un racconto dell’Opera dei Pupi, si combatte la lotta del Bene contro il Male. Sono presenti l’Inganno, il Dolore e il Trionfo, la Passione, la Morte e la Resurrezione di Cristo”.
In breve, la Pasqua in Sicilia è una ricorrenza profondamente sentita in tutta l’isola fin dall’antichità, essa ha sempre avuto come fulcro la commossa partecipazione del popolo, con rappresentazioni e processioni divenuti riti e tradizioni che caratterizzano inequivocabilmente numerosissimi centri Siciliani, che rievocano i momenti più salienti narrati nei Vangeli e che ricordano la Passione, la Morte e la Resurrezione di Gesù Cristo, con cortei formati dalle varie confraternite (a volte con rievocazioni teatrali) che hanno in se contenuti e simbologie spesso provenienti dalla dominazione Spagnola, avvenuta in Sicilia tra il XVI ed il XVII secolo.
Ritornando alla mia domanda, espressa all’inizio, ho avuto diversi suggerimenti da parte di amici e conoscenti, tra queste un mio amico infermiere, originario di Leonforte, Vincenzo, è riuscito a solleticare il mio interesse in particolar modo, da qui il racconto fotografico che presento, realizzato quest’anno, è quello della processione del Venerdì Santo di Leonforte.
La processione inizia in tarda mattinata, che procede dall’Oratorio fino alla Chiesa Madre,attraverso il piazzale Matrice, durante il breve tragitto vengono meditate le stazioni della Via Crucis; ad inziare la processione che avanza verso il Duomo (che rappresenterà il Golgota, perché è li dentro che avverrà la Crocifissione del Cristo) è una grande Croce, dietro procedono due lunghe file di consorelle e confrati, ci sono coloro che portano i cuscini con i chiodi, la corona di spine, ed il lenzuolo della deposizione con sopra una “Rosa Rossa”; poi troviamo il Cristo a volto scoperto sorretto da cinque confrati, segue la Vergine Addolorata, portata in spalla dall’omonima confraternita. A mezzogiorno, dentro la Chiesa Madre, giunti dinnanzi alla Croce, la statua con le braccia snodabili viene “crocifissa”. Quando sopraggiunge l’imbrunire tutto è pronto per la processione, che inizia dalla Chiesa Madre col rito della deposizione del Cristo giù dalla Croce, della quale se ne occupano i sacerdoti; la processione si snoda lungo un percorso stimato in poco più di 7 Km, interessando le 13 chiese di Leonforte (tredici quante sono le stazioni della Via Crucis), processione chiamata “’U Mulimentu”, termine che indica il sepolcro che custodì per tre giorni il corpo del Cristo prima della sua Resurrezione (La processione del “’U Mulimentu” è databile intorno al 1650). Questo percorso prevede anche l’accensione di un enorme falò posto sul piazzale antistante la “Gran Fonte di Leonforte” (costruita sui resti di una antica fontana araba), dalle cui 24 cannelle non esce acqua solo il giorno del Venerdì Santo, in segno di lutto per la morte del Cristo.
The season of colour is rapidly approaching. I had to go hunting to see what the leaves are doing but time is on the very cusp and there were only a handful of leaves on the turn here and there, just enough to make this sculpture. But sure enough the plants and trees will draw back into their roots and trunks ready to hibernate until the days lengthen again.
In the midst of all this I am left asking myself so many important existential questions:-
Why am I covered in gnat bites and would I be able to feed myself if I lived on an island and the supermarkets were permanently closed?
I went sea fishing the other day for probably the last and definitely the first time.
I used to go coarse fishing as a youngster (it didn't involving swearing at the slimey ichthyoids, coarse fish are freshwater pond, lake and river dwellers) but I gave it up eventually for a number of reasons: I was very bad at it; I spent many a summer day from dawn to dusk catching absolutely zilch: that's near enough 15 hours staring at the water's surface per session water staring fans; and a fair proportion of that time untangling line from tree branches, getting it stuck around an unseen submarine log, being a rich food source for the local insects and getting rained on. But the thing that really got to me was the abuse of the fish: the catching them at all thing, the throwing them back as it was only for my amusement thing, the sometimes swallowing the hook and needing to dispatch the fish thing, well the whole thing thing. So I gave away all my rods and tackle to someone who may be able to put those things aside.
Nowadays I live near the sea and I have been idly pondering what it would be like to fish in the ocean.
I live just to the south of the Lake District and on the northern edge of Morecambe Bay. The tide would come in only for a few short hours so I would need to be on my game.
I parked up on the promenade with the sea lapping at the base of the wall. I had been swotting up on the internet and watching how-to-fish videos, what could possibly go wrong?
I have a great deal of trouble concentrating when I am being observed, or where there are a lot of distractions. A spot of peaceful fishing would be just the ticket then as I remembered fondly those halcyon days of golden youth sat on a tranquil river bank whilst the water voles swum around in little circles, happily in denial about my seeming inability to do even a passing impression of someone who knows how to fish.
I put together all my kit whilst trying to ignore the heavy and noisy traffic a few yards behind me and carefully unwrapped the carefully folded newspaper bundle containing fresh bait, the innocuously named ragworm.
Oh god, the ragworm, these little critters really creep me out. They have mouth-parts that extend out and bite and they wriggle almost as much as my skin crawls in response. I dare you to google for a video on how to put a ragworm on a hook but believe me when I say it is entirely unpleasant both for me and the poor bloody worm. Nail number one in the will-Richard-go-fishing-again-likelihood-coffin. I'm still shuddering now at the thought of those little blighters. Euurggh.
Finally I hook up a worm and I'm ready to go, I'm not putting another one on so this one will need to get me a fish. Rod held aloft I make the first cast.
Not bad for a first go but I need more distance to get to where the fish are so I try again and for a third time.
Still not far enough so I start reeling in for a fourth try until the line went suddenly very tight. It seemed to be caught on something, I tugged and tugged and tugged as though I was struggling against Jaws himself but it just wouldn't budge.
Hummph.
I eventually cut the line and tied it off to the railings next to me so I could retrieve the tackle once the tide had gone out. This seemed to be going really well.
During all this a van had pulled up along side my pitch and the driver in between bites of his sandwich gawped at my attempts at angling. It wasn't helping.
I rigged up again: new hook, new weights and oh god, another ragworm and tried to cast again. On the positive side my casting was very consistent. I had the right skill level to cast the same distance each and every time. This would be very useful if I needed to cast 15 yards but it really needed to be 100.
I unpacked my folding chair and sat down deflated under no illusion that I'd catch anything except some nasty ragworm-borne virus with my bait only 15 yards out from the shore. Especially as the tide had receded for 5 of those.
It was a showery and blustery day and the wind whipped up as a large black cloud threatened overhead. I imagined myself stoof proud on the prow of a fishing boat, complete with beard and yellow sou'wester, the plumes of spray carrying away my words as I shout 'thar she blows!"
My reverie was dashed on the rocks as an especially large gust blew straight underneath my chair and lifted the newspaper parcel beside me before depositing the wriggling ragworms all down the sea wall.
I actually thought this was quite funny. I now clearly remembered the real reason I gave up fishing. Fish welfare was the least of my issues. Ineptitude was a much bigger barrier to breach.
A couple of minutes after this an old guy in a clapped out car parked even closer than mr van man, wound down his window, perched an elbow on the sill and pointedly shot a toothless grin right in my direction.
Call it ESP but I could hear his thoughts in my mind: "what you caught then? Anyfing big?"
By this point I was pretending to actually fish. I'd reeled in the tackle I had left, put it back into the tackle box and retied the stuck tackle to my rod and line. All I was doing now was waiting for the tide to go out so I could retrieve the stuck mess and go home.
I wondered to myself how I would like to spend the next cringe-worthy hour pretending to fish in the sea? Well for starters I would like to have at least two people watch me do that and one of them in particular should be found to be staring at me every time I turned round to catch his eye, with a grin and a nod as if saying "eh, eh, fishing, hmm, eh?"
Yes those things would make time absolutely fly by and being a very nice way to spend one hour that would actually feel like several decades.
And finally when the tide did eventually go out I'd want them to witness me go an retrieve my tackle snagged beneath the tiniest of pebbles as if that is what real fisherman do.
Sea fishing? Nah.