View allAll Photos Tagged existentialism
Jag har alltid tyckt att surrealistiska och drömlika bilder är fängslande.
Under det här året har jag utforskat tunga teman som det mänskliga psyket och existentialismen, och jag vill föra dig in i en ny eterisk värld fylld av mystik.
Jag har använt symboliska element för att representera en blandning av introspektion och reflektion. Jag strävade efter att fånga känslor av avskildhet från verkligheten, råhet, utsatthet, kontemplation, och längtan.
Jag kände att varje element kan stå för sig själv, men för att förstärka berättelserna och det känslomässiga djupet utan att övermanna de naturliga miljöerna så har jag använt mig av dubbelexponeringstekniker. Varje verk är tänkt att tolkas på sitt eget sätt.
Följ med mig på min resa, mitt sökande och min omfamning av det okända.
read blogfrizz.wordpress.com/erikson-de/
or blogfrizz.wordpress.com/erikson-en/
photo: my friend joe on his farm near umpachene falls 1996; he escaped the 3rd reich 1940; portrait done by my wife barbara 1996
Can Antioch College Return From the Dead Again?
The long corridors of Antioch Hall are dark. The fluorescent lights, perhaps 50 years old and never updated, do not work. The vinyl floor tiles are loose. There are cobwebs and puddles on the floor, and the whole place smells of mold. You have to squint, almost, to picture this four-story brick building as the birthplace of one of the most vaunted experiments in American higher education.
Antioch College held its first classes here in 1853. There were women among the school’s early students, as called for in the charter of the Christian Connexion, the church group that founded Antioch amid the cornfields and forests of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Blacks soon matriculated as well. And the college’s first president, Horace Mann, the Massachusetts-born education reformer, instilled a spirit of moral resolve that has lingered ever since. At the 1859 commencement, just weeks before he died, Mann exhorted that year’s Antioch graduates: “I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
In the decades that followed, Antioch flourished as a cradle of social activism and freethinking. It was the most liberal of liberal arts colleges. . . . Yet Antioch College has been on shaky financial ground for its entire existence. Four times — in 1863, 1881, 1919 and 2008 — it has had to close. Next month, it will reopen again. The college has been sending recruiters to college fairs nationwide for a year now, eventually hoping to draw brainy iconoclasts willing to pay $35,000 in annual tuition and room and board. The plan is to have 110 students next year and 1,200 students in a decade or so. But when Antioch kicks off the school year on Oct. 4, it will do so as a sort of nanoschool, having chosen to commence with just 35 freshmen from a pool of 145 applicants. This starter batch of students will enjoy four-year full scholarships, paid for with the interest earned from Antioch’s $25 million endowment. They’ll begin, according to Antioch’s promotional literature, “with the premise that the way we live now is not sustainable.” They will be enrolled in a series of “global seminars” — on energy, food, water and health — as well as more standard liberal arts courses like Drawing I and Existentialism. Following Antioch tradition, they will be expected to spend nine quarters on campus and six off campus engaged in “co-op” jobs (on organic farms or in chemistry labs, for instance) meant to reinforce their classroom work.
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system.
Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and education reformer Horace Mann as its first president.
Between 1921 and 2008, the college's educational approach blended practical work experience with classroom learning, and participatory community governance. Students received narrative evaluations instead of academic letter grades.
In June 2007, the University’s Board of Trustees announced that Antioch College would be suspending operations as of July 2008. Antioch University transferred the assets, including the college campus, a $20 million endowment, Glen Helen and the Antioch Review, to the Antioch College Continuing Corporation in 2009 for $5 million. Since then, the Antioch College Continuing Corporation has raised nearly $17 million from alumni in its quest to reopen in fall 2011.
Horace Mann, Antioch's first president, ran the college from its founding in 1853 until his death in 1859. In 1859, Mann gave his final commencement speech, including what became the college's motto: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
In the 1950s Antioch faced pressure from the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee and faced criticism from many area newspapers because it did not expel students and faculty accused of having Communist leanings. College officials stood firm, insisting that freedom begins not in suppressing unpopular ideas but in holding all ideas up to the light. The school, including professors and administration, was also involved in the early stages of the American Civil Rights Movement and was a supporter of free speech.
Antioch became increasingly progressive and financially healthy during the 1960s and early 1970s under the Presidency of Dr. James P. Dixon. The student body topped out at around 2,400 students, the college owned property all over Yellow Springs and beyond, and the college grew throughout the decade. It began to appear in literary works and other media as an icon of youth culture, serving, for example, as the setting for a portion of Philip Roth's novel, Portnoy's Complaint, and an S.J. Perelman satire, "To Yearn Is Subhuman, To Forestall Devine." At this time, Antioch became one of the primary sources of student radicalism, the New Left, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the Black Power movement in the region. The town of Yellow Springs became an island of liberal and progressive activism in southern Ohio.
In the early 2000s enrollment declined to just over 600 students. This combined with a declining economy caused Antioch University to institute a "Renewal Plan" in 2003. The controversial plan called for restructuring Antioch's first year program into learning communities and upgrading campus facilities. Many students and faculty stated that they were shut out of planning. Antioch University's Board of Trustees committed to five years of funding for the renewal plan but discontinued this commitment to the college three years into the plan.
Simultaneously with the announcement of the renewal plan, the University's Board of Trustees announced mandated staff cuts at the college, including the elimination of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Student anger over the mandated renewal plan and program cuts led to a student-initiated protest entitled "People of Color Takeover", which garnered negative media attention.
With the implementation of the controversial renewal plan, enrollment dropped from 650 students to 370 in two years, a decline that many feel was a result of the curriculum change mandated by the Board of Trustees. At an Antioch University Board of Trustees meeting in June 2007 the Board stated that while the college was only in its third year of implementation of the plan they had not raised the funds needed, and that the college would be indefinitely closed at the end of the 2007-08 academic year.
Many Antioch alumni and faculty, upset at the prospect of the loss of the college's legacy, began organizing and raising funds in an effort to save the college, keep it open without interruption, and gain greater transparency in its governance. In August 2007, the college faculty filed suit against the Board of Trustees, charging that the Board was violating various contractual obligations.
The college closed as promised on June 30, 2008. In early 2011 it began recruiting faculty for the 2011-2012 academic year; likewise, it started a campaign to attract a "pioneer class" of freshmen to re-open the college.
Antioch College's rebirth is taking hold
Antioch -- known nationally for its progressive approach to education and for individualistic graduates who made their mark on everything from Congress to Hollywood -- has been a big part of the identity of this southwestern Ohio village for nearly 160 years.
For Mr. Derr, the worst part about his alma mater being closed has been the depressing silence.
"I walk around this campus and I look at the sidewalks and not seeing faculty or students walking -- it doesn't feel right," he said.
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors / Hirshhorn Museum
“Will Kusama’s exhibition—where photography is obviously welcome—suffer similar indignities? It already has. One visitor to All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins reportedly tripped over one of the gleaming pumpkins and damaged it while trying to capture a self-portrait in a mirror. What has become almost laughably clear is that Kusama’s mirrored investigations into existentialism and infinity have become theaters of infinite narcissism.” ―Sarah Boxer
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/yayoi-kusama...
Uh yeah, I Heart Huckabees is pretty much the best movie ever. Great for the existentialy angsty person. Don't know why I added ducks. It's all so meaningless!!!
MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street, NYC
by navema
The almost 9-foot tall Grande Femme Debout II (1959-60) was bought by the Gagosian Gallery for a world record $27.4 million at Christie's auction in New York City on May 6, 2008.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Alberto Giacometti (10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Alberto Giacometti was born in Borgonovo in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known Post-Impressionist painter.
Giacometti attended the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. In 1922 he moved to Paris to study under the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, an associate of Auguste Rodin. It was there that Giacometti experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be regarded as one of the leading surrealist sculptors. Among his associates were Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, and Balthus.
Between 1936 and 1940, Giacometti concentrated his sculpting on the human head, focusing on the sitter's gaze. He preferred models he was close to, his brother and the artist Isabel Rawsthorne. This was followed by a unique artistic phase in which his statues of Isabel became stretched out; her limbs elongated. Obsessed with creating his sculptures exactly as he envisaged through his unique view of reality, he often carved until they were as thin as nails and reduced to the size of a pack of cigarettes, much to his consternation. A friend of his once said that if Giacometti decided to sculpt you, "he would make your head look like the blade of a knife." After his marriage to Annette Arm his tiny sculptures became larger, but the larger they grew, the thinner they became. Giacometti said that the final result represented the sensation he felt when he looked at a woman.
His paintings underwent a parallel procedure. The figures appear isolated, are severely attenuated, and are the result of continuous reworking. Subjects were frequently revisited: one of his favorite models was his younger brother Diego Giacometti.
In 1962, he was awarded the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale, and the award brought with it worldwide fame. Even when he had achieved popularity and his work was in demand, he still reworked models, often destroying them or setting them aside to be returned to years later. In his later years Giacometti's works were shown in a number of large exhibitions throughout Europe. Riding a wave of international popularity, and despite his declining health, he traveled to the United States in 1965 for an exhibition of his works at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Giacometti died in 1966 of heart disease and chronic bronchitis in Switzerland.
Giacometti was a key player in the Surrealist Movement, but his work resists easy categorization. Some describe it as formalist, others argue it is expressionist or otherwise having to do with what Deleuze calls 'blocs of sensation' (as in Deleuze's analysis of Francis Bacon). Even after his excommunication from the Surrealist group, while the intention of his sculpting was usually imitation, the end products were an expression of his emotional response to the subject. He attempted to create renditions of his models the way he saw them, and the way he thought they ought to be seen. He once said that he was sculpting not the human figure but "the shadow that is cast." His figures resembled the way he looked upon himself.
Scholar William Barrett in Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1962), argues that the attenuated forms of Giacometti's figures reflect the view of 20th century modernism and existentialism that modern life is increasingly devoid of meaning and empty. "All the sculptures of today, like those of the past, will end one day in pieces... So it is important to fashion ones work carefully in its smallest recess and charge every particle of matter with life."
Other legacy
*Giacometti created the monument on the grave of Gerda Taro at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
*Giacometti and his sculpture L'Homme qui marche I appear on the current 100 Swiss Franc banknote.
*According to Dr. Michael Peppiatt in a lecture at Cambridge University on July 8, 2010, Giacometti, who had a friendship with author/playwright Samuel Beckett, created a tree for the set of a 1961 Paris production of "Waiting For Godot.
The legend of Sisyphus tells about a hero who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld.
Finally captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a mountain; on the top, the rock rolls down again and Sisyphus has to start over.
Sisyphus, who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is condemned to a meaningless task, as the absurd hero..."
For Albert Camus "The struggle itself is enough to fill a (wo)man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy!?!?!?
movie still from
"pierrot le fou" (1965)
starring:
Jean-Paul Belmondo
&
Anne Karina
directed by:
Jean-Luc Godard
Exhibition view "Francis Bacon and Existential Condition in Contemporary Art", CCC Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze
© photo Martino Margheri
Setup of the exhibition
BETWEEN REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING
Finiteness & Eternity
Admont abbey – Museum of contemporary art
6 September to 4 November 2012
Curator: Michael Braunsteiner
Birth, life and death, remembering, fading and forgetting: the boundaries and the spaces in between. That is the subject of this exhibition. Some areas of the museum display works from the Abbey’s own holdings, drawing on the wealth of objects available. Others reveal the subject naturally inherent in them in the manner of a zoom. Different genres begin to communicate with each other. Past, present and future interweave:
In the furnishings and books of the baroque library and in the museum of natural history, you can find all of the questions of “Remembering and Forgetting” that interest us – and quite probably several answers, too. In the museum of contemporary art, current art on the topic communicates with historical books. In P. Gabriel Strobl’s museum of natural history, stuffed animals, ethanol-preserved specimens, countless plants and insects appear to be alive – and yet they are all long dead.
Only human intervention has saved the specimens from decay and rot. The fight against the ravages of time is also evident in the museum of art history. We try to preserve the finest art works for as long as possible, in most cases for many years and even centuries. But not for ever. Against the backdrop of the philosophy of existentialism, the paintings and prints of Hannes Schwarz (b. 1926) explore the depths of this important topic.
The baroque columned hall presents the multimedia experience of the Dramatic Poem, generally believed to be unperformable, to the music of Robert Schumann’s “Manfred”. The poem is based on a text by Lord Byron, originally conceived as an Anti-Faust. This work, directed and visualised by media artist Johannes Deutsch in 2010, and only performed three times at the Düsseldorfer Tonhalle, is concerned with a man who believes his life to be at an end, begging to be able to forget and finally dying from grief. Original drafts and storyboards give an insight into the creation of this total work of art.
Everything has an expiry date. Without exception. And in the end? What then?! We human beings are all different. Some believe that it’s all over then. Others say they will be reborn into this transient world. Christians believe and hope – believe in God and hope for eternal life after death. And some believe quite different things. Everyone thinks that they know that they are right. What do you think?
Humankind has pondered these questions from the very beginning. They are focal topics above all in religion, philosophy, science and art. Admont Abbey with its richly varied museum and library is the ideal place to explore the most burning, timeless and topical questions of our human existence.
I was gonna upload some more Tori Amos pictures but this whole Decemberist thing kinda threw me off balance, so if you're looking for them come back tomorrow and they'll be here...
So:
I've started noticing people on the bus. Not in the, hey I'm not the only one who uses public transportation sort of way, more the, hey I recognize your face and see you everyday on this bus kind of way.
Which leads me to think, am I one of those people to? Do they also recognize me? And if they do is that a fortunate sign? Is it good to be "one of the regulars" a recognizable face in the crowd? Is it an unfortunate sign? I'm not sure. What does it mean to be able to pick out a few random faces that have no names or identities just on the fact that we ride the same bus day in, day out?
I wonder, do they have fictitious back stories for me, like I have for them? How do random strangers who only notice me for the mere fact that we spend 17 minutes sitting or standing near each other everday perceive me?
I mean, I know how I percieve them. I know the varied and ludcrious biographies I've made up for them. The different names. The different occupations and love lives. It's sometimes none too flattering or gracious. Who am I to them? Other than the fat balding guy with glasses who always has a book.
Who am I to myself really? Which is where I'm going with this whole thing, trying to tie it back in with the Mask post.
Who am I to myself. What is my relationship between personal identity and the person I actually am.
I wasn't really clear the other day with the whole Mask thing. While I am interested in perception and the subjectivity of perception and the philosophical and neurological ramifications of the discussion I wasn't really getting at that. While it's a perfectly legit interpretation of what I was talking about, and while I do think about perception more than the next guy, I was more getting towards the existential doubt of idenity.
Now I'm not talking about the Who am I, why am I here, what are my goals, how do I become succesful Tony Robbins self help bent on existentialism, I'm more talking about the What am I, What is my relationship between my "conciousness" and my physical body and brain, What is the physical universe Rene Descartes kind of existential bent.
A few years ago I was under a lot of stress and such things that will be better documented in a private post later, but anyway I was in a mental place where I was questioning the nature of reality a lot.
I've read Descarte's Meditations. That seemed to work well for him, so I sat down one day and tried to go through an equivalent line of reasoning. First I had to prove to myself that I existed.
Rene Descarte got through it pretty easily.
I on the other hand to this day have not gotten past step one in any form of satisfying manner. I'm still not clear on what epistomological or emprical proofs there are that show that I exist.
But anyway for practical purposes I moved on. I allowed myself to accept for the time being that being able to form the mere question of existence proved I existed.
My second step, prove to myself that a physical universe outside my own "mind" existed. Prove there were other "existing" and "concious" things, i.e. people. Again I hit a roadblock which I am faced to this day. But again, practical purposes lead me to move on.
And that's basically what it boiled down to up into this point. Practicallity. I enjoy being alive. I enjoy whatever "existence" and "conciousness" are. Even if other people aren't real I generally enjoy most of them. Sensorarly pleasure are still pleasant regardless of what it is and what my relationship to it is.
So for practical purposes I must except this state of doubt to:
What I am.
What the world I percieve is.
What the world I don't percieve is.
What the other so-assumed concious people are.
and so on.
What the really strange this is is that as I type this I feel this rising panic in me. Some kind of profound anxienty rising up in my trying to prevent me from typing this or continuing this line of reasoning. As if something in me or something external to me is trying to stop me.
I've paced around the apartment ten or fifteen times. Drunk countless cups of water. Done all kinds of nervous habitual things to keep myself busy. Some kind of strange euphoria washing over inside me.
What if this is all there is? That's the happiest and saddest thought to me. This is it. Liberating and confining. If you've guessed yet, I'm not a dualist, but that's for another time.
with love,
TN
Week 2 Dogs (2) (1006 – 1010)10/06 – 10/10/2019 ID 1009
Henry Koerner American (born in Vienna, Austria), 1915-1991
Under the Overpass, 1949
Oil on Masonite
In 1938, Henry Koerner immigrated to America from Vienna to escape persecution by the Nazis. Koerner later learned that his family members were among the millions of Jews who were systematically murdered in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. The artist described how that personal trauma and the general destruction wrought by the violence and chaos of the war made him feel that “Reality had turned into surreality…’normal’ life into existentialism.”
Under the Overpass is a meditation on the transience of life and pain of loss and death. The changing colors of the leaves and the streaks of rust on the overpass evoke time and decay. What looks like an urban streetcar or trolley could represent the train that transported the Koerner family to the concentration camp. Scholars believe the artist’s mother is the crying woman in the yellow dress as well as the woman on the train (sitting next to his father). The scene is intentionally ambiguous. His magic realist style—visible in the painting’s hyper-realistic details, improbable shifts in scale, and elimination of shadows—creates a low-frequency sense of confusion and unease in the viewer.
Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 2012.33
From the Placard: Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Koerner
Quadralectic Architecture - Marten Kuilman (2011).
quadralectics.wordpress.com/4-representation/4-2-function...
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Nan ELLIN (1997) wrote a book and several articles on the relation of fear and city building. She stated that fear has never been absent from the human experience and that protection from invaders might be the principal incentive for building cities. Ellin noted that the city-as-a-save-place has recently become associated with danger and a lack of safety. This trend started, in her opinion, in the year of the French Revolution (1789) and the conception of the panopticum by Jeremy Bentham.
The nature of fear changed in the early twentieth century when a modern type of industrial city developed, with an emphasis on time management. The city became a machine itself, reflecting a mechanical efficiency in its division of functions (zone regulations). Mass produced houses were the backbone of the new city development. Ellin pointed out that the acceleration in the rate of change and the decline of the public space were the main reason for an increased sense of insecurity.
Three different type of response were pinpointed: retribalization (a search for ‘roots’), nostalgia and escapism. The retirement communities are a form of separatism, just like the ‘gated communities’ (of which there are some twenty thousand in the United States alone). Security is a big issue here, materialized in high fences and sophisticated security equipment, with the ‘safe room’ as the ultimate place of security. The nostalgic response is reflected in renovation of old houses and the revitalization of warehouses and factories as living quarters. Another option of escapism is the building of fantasy worlds, like theme parks (Disney Land) and huge recreational buildings, like stadiums, convention centers and mega-stores.
Fear as a psychological entity is something for the young, inexperienced adults facing the complexities of life and for the elderly and retired. In the latter case fear is often related to the end of their visible visibility period, known as death. Fear, as an instinctual emotion, is the most persistent and all-embracing of the four basic human emotions: fear, aggression, nurture and desire. The Greek word for fear is phobos, which points in a psychiatric context (phobia) to an intense and irrational situation, activity, things or persons. Emotional intensity is an important constituency of fear, which can be translated as a heightened visibility. The psychological entity of fear, as seen in a quadralectic context, is the emotion, which breaks loose shortly after a maximum approach (intensio) to one-self is experienced.
The theme of anxiety and fear is closely related to the existentialism of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855). He placed in his book ‘The Concept of Anxiety’ (1844) the psychological entity of unfocused fear in an environment of sin, with a reference to Adam, who was forbidden to eat the apple (of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). The prohibition implied a form of freedom, either to eat or not to eat. Kierkegaard drew the conclusion that Adam’s state of initial bliss was the result of ignorance, which ended with the predicament of losing his freedom when consuming the ‘knowledge of good and evil’. The result is a state of anxiety, and a lost innocence.
The events unfolding around the ‘first sin’ can be compared to the philosophical-quadralectical implications of the ‘first division’ – and touches in many aspects the same psychological bedrock. The First Quadrant (I) was visualized as the place in a communication without any boundaries or divisions. The First Quadrant embodied – on a psychological level – an unknown situation before division (choice). The very moment of division – seen in Kierkegaard’s terminology as a ‘leap’, when ‘sin’ suddenly comes into the world – creates the freedom to choose (i.e. the type of division thinking). The position of this event is in a quadralectic communication situated at the border of the First and Second Quadrant. The Second Quadrant (II) is characterized by freedom and experimentation in a ‘state of innocence’ (of division thinking). Kierkegaard’s anxiety is produced by a state of ‘nothing’, which holds ‘a possibility of the repetition of the originary forced choice prior to its actualization’ (CAMERON, 2007; p. 99).
The group of young adults and the elderly, who are the most vulnerable to the effects of fear, could be seen in a wider, quadralectic perspective. These hypothetical clusters – with their lost innocence – can be placed on a universal communication graph (CF-graph) of an average human life with a duration of eighty years (fig. 755). The increased awareness takes place in the fourth part of the Second (II, 4) for the young adults and in the second part of the Fourth Quadrant (IV, 2) for the elderly. The marker points of fear are approximately between the CF-values 8 and 9 in an upward movement with increasing CF-values. The Observational Presence (OP) – which is the position in time of the observer (writer) – is in 2009 (when this graph was created).
Fig. 755 – The position of the prominence of fear as a psychological entity on the universal communication graph compared to an average human life of a duration of eighty years (upper figures) and to a projection of the European cultural history (lower figures).
The young adults are in the process of leaving their family homes to enter a vast moving world of uncertainty. The elderly people face the other side of the coin, with diminishing movement and a need to face the accomplishments of their life. A temporary review of life can cause disappointment and fear. Failure might be caused by bad luck, lost chances or other reasons, but there is no way to recover the past. The lack of perspective in the future can aggravate the situation, leading to the elementary emotion of fear.
The period of a real, material setback in a communication is situated at the Second Visibility Crisis (SVC). This position in the Third Quadrant (III) is different from the fear experienced in the Second and Fourth Quadrant. The former deals with life threatening experiences, while the latter two positions of fear have a more imaginary nature. The position of the SVC is indicated in the European cultural history around 1650 and in a common human life around the age of forty-eight years.
Further observations into the historical consequences of this observation could lead to interesting conclusions with regards to the behavior of modern cultural units. For instance, it would place the present geopolitical situation of a young, adolescent American cultural entity and an elderly European cultural presence in a similar position with respect to their relation to a heightening of fear.
Two different cultural settings recognize each other in a most basic human emotion: the former pursuant to a major blow of their self-confidence after the events of the 11th of September 2001 and the latter as a realization of the approach of (cultural) retirement. Many of the political decisions taken today might have, for these very reasons, the innate characteristics of fear.
Nan ELLIN (2006) proposed a new sense of diversity in her book ‘Integral Urbanism’ as a remedy against the fear-measures of fortifying the city, but also against the wrongly attempted dismantling of boundaries and distinctions. Master planning is rejected, integral urbanism aims at connection, communication and celebration. The city should be given back to the people as a playground for the interaction, regardless of their background.
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Architecture of Fear - Nan Ellin
Princeton Architectural Press, 1997 - Architecture - 320 pages
"Architecture of Fear" examines the ways in which the contemporary landscape is shaped by our society's preoccupation with fear, as apparent in home design, security systems, gated communities, semi-public spaces (shopping malls, theme parks, casinos, office atriums), zoning regulations, and cyberspace. This fixation also manifests itself in efforts to provide public parks but control the problem of homelessness. The essayists in "Architecture of Fear" explain that such disjointed efforts exacerbate rather than eradicate the sources and perception of fear and insecurity. Thus, in contrast to alarmist, apocalyptic treatments, the contributors offer concrete, level-headed suggestions for proaction, not reaction, to counter both real (actual crime) and perceived (media-magnified) problems in contemporary society.
"I assure you I'm quite conscious of my position. Shall I tell you what it feels like?."
Salut-S
Vega 12-B 2.8 80mm lens
Ilford HP5+ film
Kodak HC-110 developer (solution A for 4 min. @ 72 F.)
Scanned from negative
I have known Michael Carter for quite awhile and we have shared many adventures together. He is known to be one of the last true beatniks living in the East Village. He is a writer, poet and a Zen beer master. To give an example beer mysticism: A Zen beer master, a Taoist beer master and Michael Carter walk in to a bar. The bartender comes over and asks what they will have, the the Zen beer master says: 'that which can be called beer is not the true beer...'the Taoist beer master stares at the bowl of peanuts, after a while he ceases to see the peanuts; he no longer sees the bowl, then after another while he once again sees the peanuts and bowl as before... finally Michael Carter opening his third eye looks over at the others and says: 'I'll have what they're having...'
Michael is an East Village icon of sorts or sorted. Michael has produced thousands of art events in New York. He produced, created and participated in wacky art happenings, readings, musical performances and video presentations. He has appeared as his alter ego "Vindaloo" creating artistic ruckus and mayhem in his path. He is more known for being a poet giving fiery readings in cafes and clubs. He was also the editor and publisher of Redtape literary magazine. The East Village magazine communicated innovative artistic ideas with the collaboration of writers, artists and visual artists. Redtape featured comics, fiction, poetry, graphic art, and photography. It also provided a venue for both established and emerging artists and writers of the downtown New York scene. It was published between the years 1980 to 1992 and had a strong impact on the New York downtown scene. Michael would have monthly Redtape events with readings, art shows and music.
Michael formed a band in the 80's/90's with Julius Klein called Vacuum Bag. They were known for their wild shows and the unexpected behaviour of the singer, Michael Carter. Michael would often lose himself with emotion, go in a trance and jump from table to table, standing on bars half naked screaming. Unfortunately Vacuum Bag does not exist anymore, but you can still catch Michael Carter reading his poems in a dark bar or cafe. He really is the last Beatnik and one hell of a beer mystic. He is a full pledged member of the writer's beer mystic group The Unbearables. Michael is a featured writer in their various publications such as"Between C & D" and "Peau Sensible". Michael is the author of a book of poems called, "Broken Noses and Metempsychosis".
Michael Carter sometimes goes into a trance while reading and has visions. He is a strongly influenced by existentialism. He must have been channeling prophecy with the following, from his 1982 poem: “terror is released in lower manhattan/and the terrorists neither carry guns/nor subvert the state/but simply buy it off with promises."
The best way to close is to read one of Michael's poems. It speaks for itself.
La Mairie '89
Nearly full moon, black Jewish star
Lofted above inscrutable, cabalic hebrew
Same street where only fifty years ago
Hitler's dicks rounded up the usual suspects
And dispatched them to eternity
While Cocteau behind shuttered doors
Bewailed bold Eurydice's plight
And Picasso played socialist apostle
Both of 'em prancing bacchanals
Upon these high gates which once boasted
The skewered heads of nobility
Oui, in Paris this year they celebrate the guillotine
Doubtless the apex of Western Civ...
There's a slight slope to these streets
How the blood must run easily
Into the gutters
Like fresh spring rain
Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man II (1/6), 1960, bronze, 188.5 × 27.9 × 110.7 cm (National Gallery of Art)
When my mind wanders, or at least when I let it wander, it always seems to take a trip to Europe. Paris seems like a nice stop for now :)
Robert Indiana, an American Pop artist known for his "scuptural poems," is best known for his "LOVE" with a titled "O." This image, first created for a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964, was included on an 8 cent United States Postal Service postage stamp in 1973, the first of their regular series of "love stamps." This sculptural version in Shinjuku in one of many. The others can be found on the Pratt Institute campus in Brooklyn, NY; along Sixth Avenue in New York; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; Scottsdale's Civic Center, in so called "LOVE Park" in Philadelphia, the New Orleans Museum of Art's sculpture garden, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, at the Museum of Modern Art at Brigham Young University, on the campus of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, outside the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan, at the Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino in Las Vegas, and on the world-famous Orchard Road, Singapore.
Infamously, Indiana failed to register a copyright for the work, and found it difficult to deter unauthorized commercial use. The image has been reproduced in countless times in varying forms, including sculptures, posters, and 3-D desk ornaments. It has been translated into Hebrew, Chinese, and Spanish. It strongly influenced the original cover of Love Story, the Erich Segal novel. It was parodied on the Rage Against the Machine album cover for Renegades, as well as the cover for Oasis' single Little by Little from the 2002 album Heathen Chemistry. Recently it has been parodied by London artist D*Face with his "HATE", the "A" tilted similarly. The LOVE emblem has been adopted by skateboarders, frequently used in skateboard magazines and videos. After skateboarding was banned in Philadelphia's LOVE Park, the emblem was used by organizations opposing the ban.[
Indiana moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism, that gradually moved toward what Indiana calls "sculptural poems". Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like "EAT", "HUG", and "LOVE". He is also known for painting the unique basketball court formerly used by the Milwaukee Bucks in that city's U.S. Cellular Arena, with a large M shape taking up each half of the court.
Indiana, born Robert Clark,moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism. Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like "EAT", "HUG", and, of course, "LOVE". He is also known for painting the unique basketball court formerly used by the Milwaukee Bucks in that city's U.S. Cellular Arena, with a large M shape taking up each half of the court. Despite his early success at the center of the art world, Indiana retreated to rural obscurity in later life. Indiana has lived as a resident in the island town of Vinalhaven, Maine since 1978.
visit his youtube channel at www.youtube.com/user/Pajarillo57 - he is a professional guitar teacher and concert performer in Russia, Ukraine, Dniepropetrovsk - Dniepropetrovsk Conservatory - he studied at the Leningrad Music College + at the East-Ukrainian University in Lugansk and is now a professor in Dniepropetrovsk, National University - Andrey founded a brand-new flickr photo-stream: www.flickr.com/photos/52586516@N07/ would nice, if you would make a comment there ... my wordpress article about Andrey Shilov and "Russian Strength":
"The Luxembourg Palace (French: Palais du Luxembourg, pronounced [palɛ dy lyksɑ̃buʁ]) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the regent Marie de' Medici, mother of King Louis XIII. After the Revolution it was refashioned (1799–1805) by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building and subsequently greatly enlarged and remodeled (1835–1856) by Alphonse de Gisors. The palace has been the seat of the upper houses of the various French national legislatures (excepting only the unicameral National Assembly of the Second Republic) since the establishment of the Sénat conservateur during the Consulate; as such, it has been home to the Senate of the Fifth Republic since its establishment in 1958.
Immediately west of the palace on the Rue de Vaugirard is the Petit Luxembourg, now the residence of the Senate President; and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former orangery. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare (62-acre) green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and large basins of water where children sail model boats.
The 6th arrondissement of Paris (VIe arrondissement) is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as le sixième.
The arrondissement, called Luxembourg in a reference to the seat of the Senate and its garden, is situated on the Rive Gauche of the River Seine. It includes educational institutions such as the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and the Institut de France, as well as Parisian monuments such as the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, the Pont des Arts, which links the 1st and 6th arrondissements over the Seine, Saint-Germain Abbey and Saint-Sulpice Church.
This central arrondissement, which includes the historic districts of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (surrounding the abbey founded in the 6th century) and Luxembourg (surrounding the Palace and its Gardens), has played a major role throughout Parisian history and is well known for its café culture and the revolutionary intellectualism (existentialism, authors such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir) and literature (writers Paul Éluard, Boris Vian, Albert Camus and Françoise Sagan) it has hosted.
With its cityscape, intellectual tradition, history, architecture and central location, the arrondissement has long been home to French intelligentsia. It is a major locale for art galleries and fashion stores, as well as Paris's most expensive area. The arrondissement is one of France's richest districts in terms of average income; it is part of Paris Ouest alongside the 7th, 8th and 16th arrondissements, as well as the Neuilly-sur-Seine inner suburb. The 6th arrondissement is the smallest in Paris in terms of area covered.
Paris (French pronunciation: [paʁi]) is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,150,271 residents as of 2020, in an area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles). Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, science and arts. The City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2020 population of 12,278,210, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €709 billion ($808 billion) in 2017. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, and ahead of Zürich, Hong Kong, Oslo and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong Kong, in 2018.
The city is a major railway, highway and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle (the second busiest airport in Europe) and Paris–Orly. Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, but the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015 Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2019, with 9.6 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet, and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, and the Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso exhibit the works of two noted Parisians. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site, and popular landmarks in the city centre included the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, on the Île de la Cité, now closed for renovation after the 15 April 2019 fire. Other popular tourist sites include the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, also on the Île de la Cité; the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur on the hill of Montmartre.
Paris received 38 million visitors in 2019, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and China. It was ranked as the second most visited travel destination in the world in 2019, after Bangkok and just ahead of London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. The city hosted the Olympic Games in 1900, 1924 and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as the 1960, 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were also held in the city. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Well that's just about the hottest thing ever is what that is.
(Taken at last night's Literary Nudes event)
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889 at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward, a complete loss of his mental faculties. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900.
Nietzsche's body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. His early inspiration was drawn from figures such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favor of perspectivism; his genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and his related theory of master–slave morality; his aesthetic affirmation of existence in response to the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; his notion of the Apollonian and Dionysian; and his characterization of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and the doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome social, cultural and moral contexts in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health.
After his death, his sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts, reworking his unpublished writings to fit her own German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism; 20th century scholars contested this interpretation of his work and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th and early-21st century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, psychology, politics and popular culture.
Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm). Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a Lutheran pastor and former teacher; and Franziska Nietzsche [de] (née Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre.
Artwork by TudioJepegii
view on black: www.flickr.com/photos/frizztext/4887777983/lightbox
black gospel, native Americans, African tribes, Aborigines, Gypsies - there's a long list of inspirations - and oppressions ...
"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still."
"Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
friedrichnietzsche.free.fr/17.php
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
"999" English version with English subtitles is available >>>
HD movie - scenario thierry Ehrmann - filmed by Etienne Perrone
----------
voir les secrets de la Demeure du Chaos avec 112 pages très étranges (adult only)
999 : visite initiatique au coeur de la Demeure du Chaos insufflée par l'Esprit de la Salamandre
Film HD d'Etienne PERRONE selon un scénario original de thierry Ehrmann.
courtesy of Organ Museum
©2011 www.AbodeofChaos.org
2011年首獎 2011 First Prize
蔡昌吉 / 台中大安
拍攝動機：
當年過半百之後，人的身心靈總是處於衰退老化狀態。焦慮、不安、空虛、膽怯...隨著時間一一迎面而來，自2010年起興起了參加新光三越國際攝影大賽的念頭。目的：一來活化自我的身心靈，二來考驗攝影技能是否退化。從上網、填表、送件、等待、失落、驚喜...，過程中一切的酸、甜、苦、辣...點滴在心頭，相當慶幸這兩年來的收穫頗豐，讓自己有了「老而不休」的真實體現。
攝影心得：
存在哲學指出“生命是一種不斷被拋入某種現實情境的歷程，而生命一開始即為面向死亡的存在”。因此，海德格爾指出，人必須正視死亡，從恐懼中明白自己活著的重要性。
我以“貼近土地，面對死亡，體現存在”作為攝影表現中影像的核心，藉由影像展現對死亡與生命存在意義的描述。並以時間化為「此在之存有」的寓圖，讓生命中憂心、虛浮、陷落與醒覺...在自我中開顯「存在」的真實。
Tsai Chang-chi / Ta’an Township, Taichung
Why I Took These Pictures :
Once you’ve passed the half-century mark, you tend to go downhill, both physically and mentally. Slowly, feelings of anxiety, restlessness, emptiness or timidity start cropping up. So when in 2010 I heard about the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi International Photo-Taking Contest, the idea of participating soon took hold of my mind. I saw it as a way of revitalizing my body and mind, and also a chance to find out how rusty my photographing skills had become. I downloaded the form online, filled it out and sent it in. The period of waiting and uncertainty was followed by a very pleasant surprise—basically the whole process was an emotional roller coaster for me, but I’m glad I went ahead with it, because the last two years were filled with interesting experiences and have made me realize that in spite of my age, I’m still capable of doing something positive and meaningful.
What I Learned :
Existentialism tells us that to live is to be thrown into the world, and having to deal with reality. From its very beginning, all existence must face its own death. Or, as Heidegger puts it, we all need to look death in the eye, because confronting our worst fears helps us to realize the importance and value of being alive.
At the heart of all my photographs, then, lies the basic principle of staying rooted in my native soil while maintaining a constant awareness of my own mortality. In this way, I can achieve a truthful expression of my own existence, and, through my motifs, offer a personal account of life and death and what they mean to me. Time is distilled into the present moment. The photograph serves as an allegory for all the doubts and uncertainties, the vanity and insubstantiality, the dissipation but also the awakening, the process of becoming aware: I become the medium through which reality manifests itself.
I must have walked this path 100 times or more, and every time I've thought that folly is worth a photograph. But every time I've also assumed that I'd have to get closer to the folly to make a photo work well. But now I have a 300mm lens, I tried this shot from the path, and I like it. To me, the folly loses its appeal when you get close to it. For me, maybe because I associate it with this walk along the path, it only really makes sense as a view from the path. It is not, as Kant would have it, really a thing-in-itself. It is not just about its 'thingness', its solitary identity as a thing. No! It's bound-up heavily with its associations (i.e. experienced from the path), at least for me. Pity Kant isn't here to discuss it with me.
Interestingly (or not), I would agree with Kant in the purest sense of agreeing that the folly does exist as a 'thing'. I don't deny it a solitary identity. But I do think it's experienced - at least by me; at least here - as a part of an environment. Also interestingly (a word I overuse), it's words that push me into talking of 'things' as if they were separate, as if they were nouns. Photos don't push us that way, at least not so much. We don't have to name things. We just say 'look at the picture - experience the picture'. In fact, we say nothing (unless we write, write, write....). Words push us into naming 'things'. And by naming, we bring those 'things' into life, into existence. Kind of. They kind of exist anyway, unless you're Richard Rorty, playing devil's advocate, and being non-essentialist.
My argument there probably flags up differences between aesthetic theory and theories of existence. I agree that the folly exists as a thing on its own with essential qualities of its own, but I experience it as part of this landscape. Well, I say I agree that it exists as a thing on its own, but the fact that I don't experience it that way maybe means I also don't fully agree that it exists on its own. I might accept it exists on its own in some theoretical sense, but hey, I've never seen it own its own or experienced it on its own.
(I apologise to Kant if I've misunderstood him here, but he does talk a lot about thing-in-itself. Although I get the impression he might have used that as a means to an end. Which he should have made more explicit if he was! Anyway, if not Kant, I can hang it on Plato. Everyone else has, if everyone else is Richard Rorty. Which they are! And Rorty's dead too now, which is a pity.
And if nothing else, I can't imagine too many landscape photos are tagged with 'kant', 'rorty', and 'plato'. Here's hoping some philosophy undergraduate plugs those into Google and finds their way here. If that's you... HELLO! HAVE A LOOK AROUND :-)
And after.... As I read back over this, I wonder how much I squirm and how chippy I'm being, or not. Some of this is my little rant against 'science' in writing theory - how scientists are big on naming things. Once 'they' name things, they assume that those things exist. They might accept that such names are 'constructs' (i.e. a way of approaching - tentatively and critically naming), but then they go ahead as if they exist anyway. I suppose I do that too - I've named this photo "Powderham Folly...". But then at least I had the self-reflexive dignity to undermine myself.
Rorty was being chippy about science too, seeing that maybe science had taken precedence over philosophy, and that people weren't so much interested in the 'big questions' anymore. As someone from an artsy background, gradually becoming middle aged, I'm realizing that a lot of people don't take artsy theories seriously. I'm becoming more and more irrelevant. To me, Rorty's theory is pressing. Kant is pressing too, and Baudrillard, and Nietzsche.
But to be fair to science, they're not all stuck fast to naming and essentialising things. I watched some Brian Cox last week talking about 'the big bang'. The gist of it, I think, was that everything was crammed into something a billionth the size of a grain of sand. Then that thing became unstable and kind of exploded. Except it didn't explode, as such, because whatever it did, that doing created time and space. So what was 'it', and 'what' did 'it' 'do'? None of it really has a name as far as I could tell from Brian. Most of what he had to go by here was some understanding of physics and some observations that the universe 'thing' was constantly expanding. Brian seemed happier with his photos than with the talking bits. He was good at the talking too though! Yay Brian!!
The question remains unchanged no matter how many conquests are implemented. Even if at some point “man” manages to beat the odds he has put on himself and the existence of finite. “The deadly tedium of immortality” in a constant attempt to achieve the sterile. We pass to the “trans” state and we enjoy, though complaining, the hyper-realistic with the secret desire of eternal youth. We suck the beast which was created by the Divine element as full image and likeness. The thermodynamic cage in an already alleged entropic balance. The planet is ours! That is what the hypocritical honesty of the motivated Ego requires. An endless wind blowing towards a hypothetical “dusk” and opposite the fluttering, towards an unexpected “dawn”. Building consisting of foundational stereoscopic structures adjacent strongly in a shimmering sphere yet seemingly exist in a harmony. It is the view of the transient, the ephemeral, through the eyes of the anhydrous inevitable. I wonder what is the purpose of all this? It makes sense to seek a “reasonable” and an enlarged subjectivity that encapsulate the desired laconic? Is a form of awareness feasible, in which the distant perspective would fit in the “individual” ? Maybe, but remains a challenge set in the background of the need to overcome or at least control the brittleness of this equilibrium, that only the mantle of the present, of the every present, translates into unbreakable pseudo-continuum.
my little tribute to Louis Armstrong - read my comments to this song in my daily column EXISTENTIALISM www.flickr.com/groups/existentialism/discuss/721576243747... - comment by Melanie (msamaclean): Mr. Armstrong put on somewhat of a happy facade for the general public, but had some very hard feelings for the state of race relations here, quite understandably, & did not think he was treated as an equal by many of his fellow entertainers or employers...
+
Lincoln is infested with right-wing bible-bashing cults.
This one has nothing better to do than stand outside Barclays Bank taking turns berating busy shoppers about their sinful worldly existence.
Metaphysical discourse of any kind should be welcome in this age of bland humanism.
But surely we deserve something a little more up to date than Jesus With A Pitchfork?
Here's a city where people suffering from alleged madness and genuine desperation coming in one direction routinely lurch into the welcoming arms of concerned happy-clappers from the other, usually via some fluoridated pharmaceutical intervention of an SSRI nature. That'll sort them out.
There is something of a problem locally with demonic possession, hearing voices, yes, gabbling unintelligbly, yes. Social Services is holding a corporate review of the situation with a view to establishing a Demon Monitoring Unit with responsibility to the Dept of Xenolalia and Glossolalia at the Peter (As Chairman of the Health Authority I Put Fluoride In Them) Hodgkinson Psychiatric Unit.
Column hectares of Lincoln newspaper letters pages are devoted to dire warnings, complete with biblical quotes, of the influence of Harry Potter on children's desire to get involved in witchcraft.
There's no such thing as a white witch, they opine, evidently hoping for a revivial of popular assent to the existence of a few black ones upon whom they can vent their sexual frustrations.
A good slogan might be: "Down with thongs, in with tongs, out with their tongues." Poor Miss Rowling.
In the midst of this primitive superstitious timewasting, perhaps a sermon on string theory from the local philosophy society would make a nice change from this fantastical question-begging over what God says about you not believing in God.
Unfortunately it meets at the Bishop's Palace, part of the cathedral, suggesting that even the non-shouty metaphysicians have not progressed very much further than their anti-telephone brethren depicted here.
I suspect they chose that venue because the more "normal" godbotherers want to keep a shifty eye on any rival isms that might be taking hold, such is the competition for fee-paying disciples.
Paranoid? But then what is God but a big conspiracy theory?
Worse even, the Bishop's Palace do is actually a philosophy COURSE, where after a brief loss leader event you go and pay quite a large sum to listen to someone else's rather eggy philosophy.
This illustrates the fascinating thing about philosophy - that going on courses about it or even spending years on it at university is acceptable, even admirable behaviour for a human being to indulge in.
But actually HAVING a philosophy, or discussing "reality" or "existence" outside these confines, is a risky, oddball (and in a thudheaded provincial nuthouse like Lincoln even dangerous) thing to do.
At least with these street philosophy vendors you get a free show, and you can take your own eggs if you desire.
Over twenty years this group has dwindled from a peak of about nine, to four.
Due, I suspect, to the group's lack of a proper business plan and a well-defined market niche, the sinful shoppers have failed to flock to this particular version of what Jesus said.
Right wing or wrong, in a battle between mindless consumerism and mindless deism these are the losers.
If only the public wanted a saviour, instead of a saver.
But a few theologico-financial schisms away the Plymouth Brethren are thriving, a sort of inbred, Amish-style, our-children-are-not-mixing-with-the-Devil-yes-that's-you group with their very own computerless, telephoneless, televisionless, outsiderless and doubtless clueless "school".
Where the fruits of their irrepressibly naughty loins are educated about how great it is not finding out about things or meeting other people, except God and his chosen representatives.
Better hide the razor blades on the top shelf, maw.
.
"Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
friedrichnietzsche.free.fr/17.php
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
"999" English version with English subtitles is available >>>
HD movie - scenario thierry Ehrmann - filmed by Etienne Perrone
----------
voir les secrets de la Demeure du Chaos avec 112 pages très étranges (adult only)
999 : visite initiatique au coeur de la Demeure du Chaos insufflée par l'Esprit de la Salamandre
Film HD d'Etienne PERRONE selon un scénario original de thierry Ehrmann.
courtesy of Organ Museum
©2011 www.AbodeofChaos.org