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Reacting camera on Rublevo station of water cleaning. Build in 1907, now it's out of use.
More about this you may find here: steal86.livejournal.com/222525.html
Taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Sigma 12-24/4.5-5.6 EX HSM and two Canon 550EX flashes. The flashes was in my hands and I fired them as many times as possible during 30 sec. exposure. I tries to accent the light on the rusted water pipes and tubes and also made increasement to the forms of the walls and stairs.
i had fun doing that haha,
it wasnt even for a picture.
But oh well, i decided to take one anyway.
Photographer: Alexandre
Model: Alexandre
Taken with: Canon powershot S2 IS
Opening scene
It is late in the 22nd Century. United Planet cruiser C57D a year out from Earth base on the way to Altair for a special mission. Commander J.J Adams (Leslie Neilsen) orders the crew to the deceleration booths as the ship drops from light speed to normal space.
Adams orders pilot Jerry Farman (Jack Kelly) to lay in a course for the fourth planet. The captain then briefs the crew that they are at their destination, and that they are to look for survivors from the Bellerophon expedition 20 years earlier.
As they orbit the planet looking for signs of life, the ship is scanned by a radar facility some 20 square miles in area. Morbius (Walter Pigeon) contacts the ship from the planet asking why the ship is here. Morbius goes on to explain he requires nothing, no rescue is required and he can't guarantee the safety of the ship or its crew.
Adams confirms that Morbius was a member of the original crew, but is puzzled at the cryptic warning Morbius realizes the ship is going to land regardless, and gives the pilot coordinates in a desert region of the planet. The ship lands and security details deploy. Within minutes a high speed dust cloud approaches the ship. Adams realizes it is a vehicle, and as it arrives the driver is discovered to be a robot (Robby). Robby welcomes the crew to Altair 4 and invites members of the crew to Morbious residence.
Adams, Farman and Doc Ostrow (Warren Stevens) arrive at the residence and are greeted by Morbius. They sit down to a meal prepared by Robbys food synthesizer and Morbius shows the visitors Robbys other abilities, including his unwavering obedience. Morbius then gives Robby a blaster with orders to shoot Adams. Robby refuses and goes into a mechanical mind lock, disabling him till the order is changed.
Morbius then shows the men the defense system of the house (A series of steel shutters). When questioned, Morbius admits that the Belleraphon crew is dead, Morbius and his wife being the only original survivors. Morbius's wife has also died, but months after the others and from natural causes. Morbius goes on to explain many of the crew were torn limb from limb by a strange creature or force living on the planet. The Belleraphon herself was destroyed when the final three surviving members tried to take off for Earth.
Adams wonders why this force has remained dormant all these years and never attacked Morbius. As discussions continue, a young woman Altaira (Anne Francis) introduces herself as Morbius daughter. Farman takes an immediate interest in Altaira, and begins to flirt with her . Altaira then shows the men her ability to control wild animals by petting a wild tiger. During this display the ship checks in on the safety of the away party. Adams explains he will need to check in with Earth for further orders and begins preparations for sending a signal. Because of the power needed the ship will be disabled for up to 10 days. Morbius is mortified by this extended period and offers Robby's services in building the communication facility
The next day Robby arrives at ship as the crew unloads the engine to power the transmitter. To lighten the tense moment the commander instructs the crane driver to pick up Cookie (Earl Holliman) and move him out of the way. Quinn interrupts the practical joke to report that the assembly is complete and they can transmit in the morning.
Meanwhile Cookie goes looking for Robby and organizes for the robot to synthesize some bourbon. Robby takes a sample and tells Cookie he can have 60 gallons ready the next morning for him.
Farman continues to court Altair by teaching her how to kiss, and the health benefits of kissing. Adams interrupts the exercise, and is clearly annoyed with a mix of jealous. He then explains to Altair that the clothes she wears are inappropriate around his crew. Altair tries to argue till Adams looses patience and order Altair to leave the area.
That night, Altair, still furious, explains to her father what occurred. Altair takes Adams advice to heart and orders Robby to run up a less revealing dress. Meanwhile back at the ship two security guards think they hear breathing in the darkness but see nothing.
Inside the ship, one of the crew half asleep sees the inner hatch opened and some material moved around. Next morning the Captain holds court on the events of the night before. Quinn advises the captain that most of the missing and damaged equipment can be replaced except for the Clystron monitor. Angry the Capt and Doc go back to Morbius to confront him about what has occurred.
Morbius is unavailable, so the two men settle in to wait. Outside Adams sees Altair swimming and goes to speak to her. Thinking she is naked, Adams becomes flustered and unsettled till he realizes she wants him to see her new dress. Altair asks why Adams wont kiss her like everyone else has. He gives in and plants one on her. Behind them a tiger emerges from the forest and attacks Altair, Adams reacts by shooting it. Altair is badly troubled by the incident, the tiger had been her friend, but she can't understand why acted as if she was an enemy.
Returning to the house, Doc and Adams accidently open Morbius office. They find a series of strange drawings but no sign of Morbius. He appears through a secret door and is outraged at the intrusion. Adams explains the damage done to the ship the previous night and his concern that Morbius was behind the attack.
Morbius admits it is time for explanations. He goes on to tell them about a race of creatures that lived on the planet called the Krell. In the past they had visited Earth, which explains why there are Earth animals on the planet. Morbius believes the Krell civilization collapsed in a single night, right on the verge of their greatest discovery. Today 2000 centuries later, nothing of their cities exists above ground.
Morbius then takes them on a tour of the Krell underground installation. Morbius first shows them a device for projecting their knowledge; he explains how he began to piece together information. Then an education device that projects images formed in the mind. Finally he explains what the Krell were expected to do, and how much lower human intelligence is in comparison.
Doc tries the intelligence tester but is confused when it does not register as high as Morbius. Morbius then explains it can also boost intelligence, and that the captain of the Belleraphon died using it. Morbius himself was badly injured but when he recovered his IQ had doubled.
Adams questions why all the equipment looks brand new. It is explained that all the machines left on the planet are self repairing and Morbius takes them on a tour of the rest of the installation. First they inspect a giant air vent that leads to the core of the planet. There are 400 other such shafts in the area and 9200 thermal reactors spread through the facilities 8000 cubic miles.
Later that night the crew has completed the security arrangements and tests the force field fence. Cookie asks permission to go outside the fence. He meets Robby who gives him the 60 gallons of bourbon. Outside, something hits the fence and shorts it out. The security team checks the breach but finds nothing. A series of foot like depressions begin forming leading to the ship. Something unseen enters the ship. A scream echos through the compound.
Back at the Morbius residence he argues that only he should be allowed to control the flow of Krell technology back to Earth. In the middle of the discussion, Adams is paged and told that the Chief Quinn has been murdered. Adams breaks of his discussions and heads back to the ship.
Later that night Doc finds the footprints and makes a cast. The foot makes no evolutionary sense. It seems to have elements of a four footed and biped creature; also it seems a predator and herbivore. Adams questions Cookie who was with the robot during the test and decides the robot was not responsible.
The next day at the funeral for Chief Morbius again warns him of impending doom facing the ship and crew. Adams considers this a challenge and spends the day fortifying the position around the ship. After testing the weapons and satisfied all that could be done has, the radar station suddenly reports movement in the distance moving slowly towards the ship.
No one sees anything despite the weapons being under radar fire control. The controller confirms a direct hit, but the object is still moving towards the ship. Suddenly something hits the force field fence, and a huge monster appears outlined in the energy flux. The crew open fire, but seem to do little good. A number of men move forward but a quickly killed.
Morbious wakes hearing the screams of Altair. Shes had a dream mimicking the attack that has just occurred. As Morbious is waking the creature in the force field disappears. Doc theories that the creature is made of some sort of energy, renewing itself second by second.
Adams takes Doc in the tractor to visit Morbius intending to evacuate him from the planet. He leaves orders for the ship to be readied for lift off. If he and Doc dont get back, the ship is to leave without them. They also want to try and break into Morbious office and take the brain booster test.
They are met at the door by Robby, who disarms them. Altair appears and countermands the orders given to Robby by her father. Seeing a chance Doc sneaks into the office. Altair argues with Adams about trying to make Morbius return home, she ultimately declares her love for him.
Robby appears carrying the injured Doc. Struggling to speak and heavy pain, Doc explains that the Krell succeeded in their great experiment. However they forgot about the sub conscious monsters they would release. Monsters from the id.
Morbius sees the dead body of Doc, and makes a series of ugly comments. His daughter reminds him that Doc is dead. Morbius lack of care convinces Altair she is better off going with Adams. Morbius tries to talk Adams out of taking Altair.
Adams demands an explanation of the id. Morbius realizes he is the source of the creature killing everyone. The machine the Krell built was able to release his inner beast, the sub conscious monster dwelling deep inside his ancestral mind.
Robby interrupts the debate to report something approaching the house. Morbius triggers the defensive shields of the house, which the creature begins to destroy. Morbius then orders Robby to destroy the creature, however Robby short circuits. Adams explained that it was useless; Robby knew it was Morbius self.
Adams, Altair and Morbius retreat to the Krell lab and sealed themselves in by sealing a special indestructible door. Adams convinces Morbius that he is really the monster, and that Morbius can not actually control his subconscious desires.
The group watch as the creature beings the slow process of burning through the door. Panicked Morbius implores Altair to say it is not so. Suddenly the full realization comes, and he understands that he could endanger or even kill Altair.
As the creature breaks through Morbius rushes forward and denies its existence. Suddenly the creature disappears but Morbius is mortally wounded. With his dying breath he instructs Adams to trigger a self destruct mechanism linked to the reactors of the great machine. The ship and crew have 24 hours to get as far away from the planet as possible
The next day we see the ship deep in space. Robby and Altair are onboard watching as the planet brightens and is destroyed. Adams assures Altair that her fathers memory will shine like a beacon.
My little niece has a surprising reaction to the very sight of my cousin. If she sees him make eye contact, even from across the room, she bursts into tears. SO funny.
Yearling Cadets from 4th Company conduct React to Contact training at Camp Buckner, U.S. Military Academy, June 13, 2023 (Photos by Eric Bartelt USMA PAO)
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.
Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Soviet Air Force service
3 Soviet space program
3.1 Selection and training
3.2 Vostok 1
4 After the Vostok 1 flight
5 Personal life
6 Death
7 Awards and honours
7.1 Medals and orders of merit
7.2 Tributes
7.3 Statues and monuments
7.4 50th anniversary
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
10.1 Sources
11 Further reading
12 External links
Early life and education
Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]
Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]
In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]
Soviet Air Force service
In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]
On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]
Soviet space program
Selection and training
See also: Vostok programme
Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum
Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]
From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]
Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]
As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:
Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]
The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]
In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.
Vostok 1
Main article: Vostok 1
Poyekhali!
Menu
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Gagarin's voice
Problems playing this file? See media help.
On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:
Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.
Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]
Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]
File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media
An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.
"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]
At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]
After the Vostok 1 flight
Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961
Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]
Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964
Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]
In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]
Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show
Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]
The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]
Personal life
Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.
Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.
Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]
In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]
Death
Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27
Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall
On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]
The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]
On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]
A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]
Awards and honours
Medals and orders of merit
Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.
On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]
He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]
Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]
Tributes
The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]
Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London
A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]
Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]
Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]
Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001
Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]
Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]
In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]
Statues and monuments
There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]
Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India
In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]
In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]
In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]
50th anniversary
50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine
The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.
See www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/bronx.html and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelham_Park_and_City_Island_Railroad
"City Island Road. The brick stationhouse stands in ruins in the woods a short distance S of the road from the Hutchinson River Parkway to the City Island circle. It was also known as Bartow. This lonely spot was the transfer point for the trolley to City Island, which started here, so it rated a good station. To see it, start at the Pelham Bit Stables parking lot on the southbound Shore Road, and walk N along the bridle path. Just before the road to the Parkway, take an overgrown paved path W to the station. Warning: the bridle path is quite active; walk along the edge, but let horses and riders see you. Warning: the golf course parking lot to the north is a little closer to the station, but the walk requires a dangerous crossing of the road to the Parkway. At the station, please do not go near the tracks: high speed Amtrak trains approach around curves from both sides and you will not have time to react."
SpaceX Crew-1 NASA astronaut Victor Glover reacts during an interview with Christopher Williams, STEM educator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in the Oprah Winfrey Theater at the NMAAHC, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. Glover and crew mates NASA astronauts Shannon Walker and Mike Hopkins, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, launched on the first crew rotation mission to the International Space Station for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program and spent 168 days in space across Expeditions 64 and 65. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
Quality of life: from safe food to data protection
SPAGHETTI ALL’UOVO, AGLIO, OLIO E PEPERONCINO
di Carlo Cracco
Per la pasta all’uovo:
kg 1sale grosso affumicato
gr 250zucchero
n 12tuorli d’uovo
Per l’aglio affumicato:
n 1 ½ testa d’aglio
lt 2latte
sale
peperoncino
olio extravergine
prezzemolo fritto
Impastare il sale con lo zucchero , mettere i tuorli d’uovo a marinare per circa 4/5 ore, dopodiché sciacquare sotto l’acqua corrente.
Prendere i 12 tuorli marinati e metterli tra 2 fogli di carta da forno e con l’aiuto di un matterello stenderli in modo uniforme formando uno strato sottile.
Togliere dalla carta e passare la sfoglia nella trafila per spaghetti.
Far bollire l’aglio con il latte e ridurre della metà.
Passare il tutto a maglia fine e tenere da parte.
In una padella, mettere un goccio d’olio, aggiungere gli spaghetti e poco peperoncino.
Saltare per un paio di minuti e servire in una fondina con alla base la crema d’aglio.
Finire con il prezzemolo fritto e un goccio di olio crudo.
-------------------------------------
What does quality of life mean for you? Safe food? Accessible medical care? Breathable air and clean environment? Strong consumers’ rights? Or knowing that your data and privacy are safe? European Parliament holds improving of the quality of life in the EU high on its agenda. Read more here and follow 4th ReACT conference on quality of life on 23 January in Rome live!
Streaming ReACT Rome, 23 January 19:00
www.europarl.it/view/it/react.html
ReACT Rome: web site in IT
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license (CC) and must be credited: "© European Union 2014 - European Parliament" (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license). For HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
Check out a new post on thegoldensieve.com
The mission and a word about post content.
I have long had my eye on the weathered facade of Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo, popularly known as the Carmel Mission. I have family that lives nearby and have heard about it's historical and aesthetic value in the past. I had a few days in Monterey for work recently and sneaked away to get a few images, stopping for nearly an hour at the mission. In the past, I've posted a single image per day. For a while this was fun, but then I found out that an image per day had a number of unintended consequences. Whenever I was taking photographs, knowing that I was going to post a one per day, I began to think about how many times I needed to come up with something worthy of the blog. Sometimes this meant posting a series of photographs that were very similar or separating photographs that belonged together. Though grabbing 365 interesting images per year isn't very difficult - this accounting exercise is extremely stifling to one's creativity - yet it is impossible to understand how limiting it is until you free yourself from this constraint. Some of my readers undoubtedly shoot for a blog or project that requires one image per day. I wonder, do you ever head out with your camera and in the midst of naturally reacting to what you see - say to yourself, "I need a few more," even when you've grabbed your best images? Do you photograph things you don't value or love, just to get images? Maybe I'm alone here, but I doubt it. Today's post features many images, as will most future posts, so I hope you enjoy (and can wait out posts that are spaced more liberally)!
Ancient history by our standards.
The Mission proper, that is a Christian congregation run by its founder, Father Junípero Serra was first established in Monterey in 1770. Serra, with permission of the Viceroy of New Spain, Carlos Francisco de Croix, marqués de Croix, then moved the Mission to what is now the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1771 because of a power struggle with the military enclave. Depending on the source (either the official Mission website or the various historical brevia available online) this struggle is framed either as a desire to control the direction of New Spanish colonialism or as a battle over the mistreatment of the natives by the governor and his soldiers. The mission Serra founded in Monterey eventually became the Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, a.k.a. the Royal Presidio Chapel and still stands as a National Historical Landmark in Monterey. The edifice you see in the photographs below was built by later mission leaders in what is now Carmel-by-the-Sea, the neophytes being served from a smaller, make-shift structure during the first decades of its existence. Typically, I take one or two record shots of information that is available at the site while photographing so that I can retain the information on dates and places that I sometimes have trouble remembering properly. This time I found precious little information in the Basilica and instead had to find as much out online as I could. Interestingly, there is no readily available information online about the interesting statues, curios and relics that are located throughout this beautifully restored mission. Much of what I learned after the fact was about the history of what some call the most beautifully preserved of the California mission chain.
Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on the mission, which contains some information about Father Junípero Serra and his efforts related to this mission, but is woefully short on a number of accounts. I am not a religious person by any stretch of imagination. In fact, I find myself securely camped in the opposite extreme, but this is not the place or the time for a discussion about God or faith, etc. Instead, I am interested in the mission as it relates to human history and the early history of California. Furthermore, I have an interest in how we connect to the narrative thread of historical places like the mission and how I can use my camera to capture moments of beauty within these places.
The story of the Camel Mission is but one fascinating chapter in the story of the Spanish colonization of Mexico and the Americas. At the time, these missions and the nearby Presidios (military outposts) represented the first formal European establishments focused on colonizing the west coast. The Viceroys sent explorers, soldiers and members of the Franciscan Order to bring "civilization" (and it's attendant religious trappings) to the native Americans. Within this post I will refrain from considering what benefits, if any, were brought to the native peoples by the introduction of the mission chain into Alta California. New Spain was an empire whose lifespan is still longer than the American timeline, with aristocratic titles originating in the 16th century. The trail of European devastation through native populations begins at about the same time and includes names of these original dignitaries - Cortés and Pizarro. Although Christians may feel differently, it isn't clear to me that Serra and the mission movement brought anything to the Indians besides an acceleration of destructive European influence. Yet, some readers will note that waves of devastation had damaged native populations throughout the Americas both before and after the arrival of Europeans, and that by all accounts the Father Serra was a truly dedicated missionary and cared deeply about fulfilling his oaths and tending his flock. The magnitude of devastation both natural, domestically made and of European origin are topics I do not pretend to fully comprehend. How the mission system fits into the tragic backdrop of these events is something I think is best left to the historians. Serra, true to his word, worked until death building the mission and died with nothing more than a cot, his habit and a few other daily trappings - having worked continually to do what he thought was best for the native members of his congregation. There was, and still is, a chain of 21 missions extending from San Diego to Sonoma, north of San Francisco, and the Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo is widely accepted as one of the most faithfully restored/preserved.
A large step backward in time.
I love visiting places like the mission because they represent such a strong counterpoint to much of the tourist-trap culture in which an out-of-towner like myself might normally find himself. There is a reason you'll never see a photograph of Disneyworld on this blog. Some places, though commercially successful and valuable for one reason (or person) or another, for me possess no aesthetic or cultural value and will simply not see the business end of my camera. I think all people make this mental calculation when photographing and each person's calculation will be different from his peers. Here at the mission, outside of the labyrinthian giftshop, I find myself standing in a square flanked by a museum and the stately, aging facade of the capilla of the Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo. The rose window, Moorish bell-tower dome and roughly hewn door are your first clues that stepping inside is stepping back over 200 years in time.
The chapel is no stranger to a camera, but whenever I am in a place like this I am very careful not to disturb the atmosphere of the place or my fellow visitors. I extend my tripod legs outside the building and, if I am taking bracketed images for HDR, wait between taking images so that I don't create a continual noise of my shutter clacking open and closed.
Just inside the wooden doors the soft white light of Monterey marine-layer-noon drops to zero and the chapel is lit by a single hanging lamp, votive candles and a few recessed windows. A large stoup of holy water is held within an ancient iron basin atop a carved wooden pedestal placed upon an ornate and plush rug. A long center aisle extends beyond the stoup, through the pews to the apse.
The walls are adorned with various oil paintings of religious and historical personages and events. Just past the first set of pews is the entrance to the burial chapel to the left and an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the right. The air is cool and calm and I was nearly alone here in the nave.
The burial chapel has no external light and is instead lit by a single set of votives and the hanging lamp. I could not find any information on the figure of Our Lady of Bethlehem within glass frame above the altar, but did discover that the previous Pope, John Paul II had visited the mission in September of 1987 and designated it a Minor Basilica. As I took these images, I waited for many other visitors to percolate through the burial chamber. Many of these folks would stop and take a photograph of the plaque you see on the floor commemorating the papal visit. I found this to be a particularly interesting vignette of the sieving capacity of memory. Within the hallowed grounds of this mission there are layers of memory and narrative history to which we connect in different ways. Perhaps more than any other pope I can name, the previous Catholic leader was truly an example of a fascinating individual who used his political influence for good, yet I do not connect to his story as strongly as I do to the historical thread of the California missions. Then again, I'm not a Catholic.
Through the central aisle, up to the altar and then to the left is a claustrophobic and darkened alcove with a small altar and votive. I found this corner of the mission the most interesting to photograph. Here the room is lit by a small gas lamp and a round votive stand, the light flickering and revealing the carefully painted walls and ceilings. The air is richly perfumed by the hanging thurible above the votives. A mirror and door provide all the frames a photographer could possibly need and I played a bit with my position relative to the door to frame both the door to the sacristy and the relic containing the fragments of the Fray Serra's original coffin. Here we go beyond the literal narratives within the mission and invent our own stories. A penitent or devout missionary shuffles through these halls, observing his duties and escaping the damp cold of a coastal winter. A modern pilgrim stops to say a prayer and light a votive, sharing the same footsteps as his invisible predecessor. Recreating the mood and memory of places like this little alcove by an act as simple as taking a photograph is my favorite pastime.
The beautified Serra is interred just before the altar along with several other figures who feature prominently within the history of the Carmel Mission.
Quality of life: from safe food to data protection
What does quality of life mean for you? Safe food? Accessible medical care? Breathable air and clean environment? Strong consumers’ rights? Or knowing that your data and privacy are safe? European Parliament holds improving of the quality of life in the EU high on its agenda. Read more here and follow 4th ReACT conference on quality of life on 23 January in Rome live!
In the past few years, European parliament worked on wide range of rules to improve the quality of life in Europe: ensuring safe and accessible medicines and medical treatments, strengthening passenger rights, enabling consumers to buy clearly and correctly labelled food, cutting CO2 emissions and preventing other environmental pollution, but also making sure that privacy of European citizens is protected and their data safe. Read more in our Top Story.
Three of those topics: environment, health and food and the “European way” to protect them are to be debated during fourth ReACT conference “Cutting Quality of life: past, present and future” that takes place on 23 January in Rome. Chef Carlo Cracco, climatologist Riccardo Valentini and Professor Michele Mirabella present their points of view and debate them with the audience. Conference is moderated by geologist Mario Tozzi. Follow live and comment #Reactroma via links on the right.
ReAct Roma is the fourth in a series of five interactive conferences on subjects vital to the EU, ahead of the European elections in May 2014. They take place in different European cities where opinion leaders will share their ideas about today's issues. Previous events were dedicated to jobs and employment (15/10 Paris), EU in world (14/11 Warszawa), EU and finances (5/12 Frankfurt). The fifth event will be about EU and economy and will take place on 20/2 in Madrid.
Streaming ReACT Rome, 23 January 19:00
www.europarl.it/view/it/react.html
ReACT Rome: web site in IT
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license (CC) and must be credited: "© European Union 2014 - European Parliament" (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license). For HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
Lovebytes - Digital Spring.
UNQUIET : Art and music events at Sheffield's Central Library
Sat 24 March 11am-4pm
Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield.
Sheffield Central Library provided the venue and inspiration for a spree of artistic interventions, impromptu performances and creative workshops:
Sheffield Library's documentation from Unquiet (requires Flash):
Reactable
The Reactable is a revolutionary new electronic musical instrument, designed to create and perform the music of today and tomorrow. It combines state of the art technologies with a simple and intuitive design, which enables musicians to experiment with sound, change its structure, control its parameters and be creative in a direct and refreshing way - unlike anything you have ever known before.
Juxtavoices
Juxtavoices is a large 'antichoir' under the direction of composer Martin Archer and writer Alan Halsey. The group includes many familiar faces from Sheffield's leftfield music, poetry and visual arts scenes. Although the group performs structured scores, no fixed pitches are ever notated, and the group uses improvisation to shape the detail of the scores as the music progresses. Both trained and untrained voices are included. As well as playing "normal" concerts, the group is to be found in various unexpected public places, and at poetry / text events. For this event, Juxtavoices have created 2 special pieces for performance: one in suitably hushed tones inside the main library, and one utilising the rich acoustic of the adjacent stairwell.
20Hz by Semiconductor
05.00 minutes / HD video installation / 2011
20 Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Working with data collected from the CARISMA radio array and interpreted as audio, we hear tweeting and rumbles caused by incoming solar wind, captured at the frequency of 20 Hertz. Generated directly by the sound, tangible and sculptural forms emerge suggestive of scientific visualisations. As different frequencies interact both visually and aurally, complex patterns emerge to create interference phenomena that probe the limits of our perception.
20Hz is a Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Audio Data courtesy of CARISMA, operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.
Co-commissioned by Arts Santa Monica + Lighthouse for the Invisible Fields Exhibition at Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona. 2011-2012. Supported by the British Council.
Catalyst
This sound installation in the Lending Library presents a series of collaborative works by a number of Sheffield based writers and sound artists.
In 2011 composers from the University of Sheffield Sound Studios (USSS) were asked to produce a work drawing on Brian Eno's concept of 'ambient music' - music that could be subtly diffused into the atrium space at Bank Street. These compositions were played throughout the day and the writers spent an hour free-writing in response to them. These initial responses were then developed into poems by the writers and then were recorded reading their poems. These sound recordings formed the source material for a new series of compositions - in some cases settings of the poems themselves, in others more abstract manipulations of the source material.
Catalyst is a collaboration involving Bank Street Arts' Poet in Residence Angelina Ayers; writers on the MA Writing at Sheffield Hallam University; Bank Street Arts Resident sound artist Ian Baxter and fellow composers working from the USSS.
Animation/Pixilation Workshop
Children's Library session beginning 11am, 12pm, 2pm and 3pm (4 x 45min workshops)
Age 6+ Free. Book in advance / places are limited.
To book a place email - kidsandteens.library@sheffield.gov.uk
or tel. - 0114 273 4734
Come and have a go at animating...Yourself! Pixilation is an exciting form of animation where everyday objects and humans are the made to do extraordinary things such as disappear into walls, change into other people, fly, get eaten by black holes and ice skate on carpets!
In this workshop you'll learn how to make use pixillation to create animated films. You and your parents or carers will also find out how to film animation at home using your home computer, a webcam and free software. No experience or equipment necessary - just bring yourself! The workshop is led by Melvyn Turnan - you can see his films at www.melmation.com
Places are very limited, so please book in advance to avoid disappointment.
Sssh! There's going to be a FREE secret film show for kids at 1PM, somewhere in the Library...
Are spy pigeons and lost mechanical aliens your kind of thing? Do you know a cat who belongs to Simon? (or is it a Simon who belongs to a cat?)...
You can only find out the secret location for this screening when you collect a free golden ticket from our information desk in the Winter Garden. Make sure you get there early, it's first come first served and there are only a few places available for this extra special, hush hush event for those in the know. The films are suitable for any age but children must be accompanied by an adult.
These films are 100% guaranteed to totally amaze you... here's a sneak preview of what you will see...
The Lost Thing by Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tan (Passion Pictures, Australia 2011). This film won an Oscar for best short animated film in 2011. A boy finds a strange creature on a beach, and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to pay attention to.
Pigeon Impossible by Lucas Martell. This amazing bagel bite-sized adventure was 5 years in the making. It's the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase?
Love Over Goldfish by Janet Jennings and Jon Harrison. Have you ever seen a movie that is upside-down from beginning to end? Well the star of this film has, he's lived it! He's a goldfish and this is his life story. Love Over Goldfish was filmed in Sheffield, see if you can spot any familiar locations (but don't get a crick in your neck;)
Thanks to all the staff at Sheffield Libraries for hosting this event.
Special thanks to:
Emma Croft, Sarah Hogan, Martin Dutch and Andrew Milroy at Sheffield Libraries, Martin Archer and Juxtavoices, Ian Baxter (Catalyst), Sergi Jordà (reactable), Sheffield University Sound Studios, Passion Pictures, Lucas Martell, Flatpack Festival, Amber and Joab Harrison
Technical wizards: Darren Chouings (Prism), Melvyn Turnan (Melmation), Richard Bolam (RB Digimedia).
Lovebytes 2012 - Digital Spring
A Festival of Art, Science and Technology
22-24 March
Sheffield UK
Tomo el tren a Pirna. Con bicicleta también. El boleto está aquí en Pirna también válido para autobuses o ferries. Inmediatamente me subo al autobús para Pirna-Sunstone y él se va. El conductor del autobús no parece arrogante, sino enojado. Es gordo y tiene pérdida de cabello, cabello negro y ojos. Él siempre comienza a toda velocidad. Conduce hasta la rotonda y gira 90 grados a 20 o 30 km / h. Casi caes en el vaso. Se siente como un maestro. Luego llego a la terminal de Sonnenstein. Luego se dirige a mí y dice que está aquí, a donde quiero ir. Como he dicho, conduce por aquí. Debería haber dicho que esto es un obstáculo y que no puede continuar aquí. Terminé con la piedra solar después de un tiempo. Los pensionistas me han estado esperando en ciertos puntos: Boleslawiecer Straße, Struppener Straße, Reutlinger Straße. Eran como nazis. Me miró como si fuera un criminal. Uno de ellos resultó estúpido por mi bandera argentina, el de Struppener Strasse parecía loco y su vecino incluso se detuvo para hurgarse la nariz. Masivamente fueron perseguidos en la carretera de Longuyoner o incluso informados por teléfono. También había un informador con un perro inglés y se quedó a mi lado para observarme. Spitzeln está aquí de forma gratuita. Extraño es que los parques en la piedra del sol no tienen nombres. Un árabe ha sido dirigido por la milicia de Pirna a través de un teléfono inteligente. Eso fue en la calle de la juventud. En la escuela primaria, Sonnenstein fue nuevamente una educación de tránsito para niños. Había dos policías. Se trata de pensar que el estado solo quiere hacer el bien. Así que si no funciona, entonces lo tienes tú mismo. Luego conocí a las abuelas y les hablé brevemente. Voy a bajar de nuevo porque he terminado. Esta vez va directo a Pirna-Neundorf. Comienzo en el Gimnasio Protestante. El conductor del autobús me grita hostil: "¿Qué tal si se muestra el boleto?" Voy a él y le digo: ¿Tienes un director o algo así? Él: "¡No los hemos tenido en mucho tiempo!". Así que han abolido sus fichas para que más personas estén desempleadas y no tengan familias. Inmoral. La sala de juntas es probablemente corrupta. El dinero es suficiente está allí. Entonces estoy en Neundorf. Aquí hay algunos amigos de élite que han sintonizado automóviles y conducen por allí. Todos se ven bonitos también. Está limpio, pero un edificio prefabricado necesita una nueva capa de pintura. Las ventanas parecen quemadas. La escuela aquí es más grande de lo que pensabas. Llegan furgonetas que miran. Yo conduzco de regreso En el castillo de Rottwerndorf, los propietarios vienen a verme. Una mujer muy hermosa. Ellos llevan un piso alrededor. Ellos reconstruyen el castillo solo. Olvidé un camino. La calle Brahms. El "barrio de los músicos" / asentamiento Rottwerndorf ahora está fotografiado. Por extraño que parezca, las personas reaccionan a mí de una manera diferente que antes. Ahora son más abiertos o sonrientes. Es muy rápido aquí. En Mühlenstraße, un anciano conduce el ciclomotor y me mira con enojo. Él sale del restaurante y se parece al dueño. Luego conduzco a Waschhausstraße, donde un Nazi me insulta como un maricón. También se me acerca por la pequeña bandera argentina. Su jardín está totalmente descuidado y es una pena para la reputación de la ciudad. Ese fue un barrio elitista aquí. Con demasiada frecuencia se han encontrado nazis bien alimentados aquí. Su madre rubia y gorda lo besa por abuso verbal en mi contra. Tiene ojos negros, pelo alto y negro. Me quedo allí y pienso ahora. Los minutos pasan. Una mujer pelirroja viene en bicicleta. Como si ella hubiera conducido aquí por mí. Ella me mira sin comprender. Conduzco desde Max Schwarze Straße ahora en Erich Sagittarius Pirna. Allí me sigue durante unos minutos una furgoneta en blanco y negro. Se ve poco atractivo e inmoral. Su coche tiene máscaras y esposas de Jason. Otro espía está de vuelta en la práctica, donde siempre observaba desde el balcón y toda la Kohlbergstraße tiene a la vista y siempre me registra directamente. Aquí estoy hecho. Luego me dirijo a la estación de Pirna. Compro un café allí y me pregunto por qué es tan barato. Cuando lo bebo, me doy cuenta de que sabe a agua. El café en la Dippoldiswalder Straße, al lado de la LIDL no está mal. La mujer es muy agradable allí.
I take the train to Pirna. With bike too. The ticket is here in Pirna also valid for buses or ferries. I immediately get on the bus for Pirna-Sunstone and he leaves. The bus driver does not look arrogant, but angry. He is fat and has hair loss, black hair and eyes. He always starts at full throttle. He drives into the roundabout and 90 degrees turns at 20 or 30 km / h. You almost fall into the glass. He feels like a master person. Then I arrive at the terminus Sonnenstein. Then he addresses me and says that it's over here, where I want to go. Like I said, drive around here. He should have said that this is a roadblock and you can not continue here. I was done with the sunstone after some time. Pensioners have been waiting for me at certain points: Boleslawiecer Straße, Struppener Straße, Reutlinger Straße. They were like Nazis. Looked at me as if I was a criminal. One of them proved stupid because of my Argentina flag, the one from Struppener Strasse looked like crazy and his neighbor even stopped to pick his nose. Massively they were pursued on the Longuyoner road or even reported by telephone. Also an informer with an english dog was there and stayed extra beside me to watch me. Spitzeln is here for free. Strange is that the parks on the sunstone have no names. An Arab has been led by the Pirna militia via smartphone. That was on the street of youth. In the primary school Sonnenstein was again a traffic education for children. There were two policemen. It is about thinking that the state wants to do only good. So if it does not work, then you have it yourself. Then I met grandmas and talked to them briefly. I'm going down again because I'm done. This time it goes straight to Pirna-Neundorf. I start at the Protestant Gymnasium. The bus driver shouts unfriendly to me: "How about ticket showing !?" I go to him and say: You have a conductor or something? He: "We have not had them for a long time!". So they have abolished their checkers so that more people are unemployed and have no families. Immoral. The boardroom is probably corrupt. Money is enough is there. Then I'm in Neundorf. Here are some elite friends who have tuned cars and drive around there. They all look pretty too. It's clean, but a prefab building needs a new coat of paint. The windows look like burned out. The school here is bigger than you thought. There arrive vans that take one's view. I drive back. At the castle Rottwerndorf the owners come to me. A very pretty woman. They carry a floor around. They rebuild the castle alone. I forgot a road. The Brahms Street. The "musicians quarter" / settlement Rottwerndorf is now photographed. Strangely enough, people react to me in a different way than before. They are now more open-minded or smiling. It is very fast here. On Mühlenstraße an old man drives off on the moped and looks at me angrily. He comes out of the restaurant and looks like the owner. Then I drive to Waschhausstraße, where a Nazi insults me as a fagot. He also approaches me because of the small Argentina flag. His garden is totally neglected and is a shame for the reputation of the city. That was an elitist quarter here. Too often you have run well-nourished Nazis here. His fat blonde mother kisses him for verbal abuse against me. He has black eyes, tall, black hair. I stand there and think now. The minutes pass. A red-haired woman comes on a bicycle. As if she had just driven here for me. She looks at me blankly. I drive from the Max Schwarze Straße now on the Erich Sagittarius Pirna. There I am followed for a few minutes by a black and white van. He looks unattractive and immoral. His car has Jason masks and handcuffs. Another spy is back at the practice, where he always observed from the balcony and the entire Kohlbergstraße has in view and always logs me straight. Here I am done. Then I make myself to the station Pirna. I buy a coffee there and wonder why it's so cheap. When I drink it, I realize that it tastes of water. The coffee on the Dippoldiswalder Straße, next to the LIDL is not bad. The woman is very nice there.
Ich fahre mit dem Zug nach Pirna. Mit Fahrrad dazu. Die Fahrkarte ist hier in Pirna auch gültig für die Busse oder Fähren. Ich steige sofort in den Bus für Pirna-Sonnenstein ein und er fährt los. Der Busfahrer schaut nicht arrogant, sondern böse. Er ist dick und hat Haarausfall, schwarze Haare und Augen. Er fährt immer mit Vollgas los. Er fährt in den Kreisverkehr und 90 Grad Kurven mit 20 oder 30 km/h. Man fällt fast in die Scheiben. Er fühlt sich als Master-Mensch. Dann komme ich an der Endstation Sonnenstein an. Da redet er mich an und sagt, dass es hier zuende sei, wo ich denn hinwill. Als hätte ich gesagt, fahr mich mal hier herum. Er hätte sagen müssen, dass hier eine Straßensperre ist und man hier nicht mehr weiter kann. Ich war mit dem Sonnenstein nach einiger Zeit fertig. An bestimmten Punkten haben Rentner auf mich gewartet: Boleslawiecer Straße, Struppener Straße, Reutlinger Straße. Die waren wie Nazis. Haben mich angesehen, als wenn ich kriminell sei. Einer belegte mich wegen meiner Argentinienfahne dumm, der von der Struppener Straße schaute wie verrückt und sein Nachbar blieb sogar stehen, um die Nase zu mir zu pflücken. Massiv wurde man an der Longuyoner Straße verfolgt oder gar mit dem Telefon gemeldet. Auch ein Spitzel mit einem englischen Hund war dort und blieb extra neben mir stehen, um mich zu beobachten. Spitzeln ist hier für umsonst zu haben. Seltsam ist, dass die Parkanlagen auf dem Sonnenstein keine Namen haben. Ein Araber ist unter Anleitung von der Pirna-Miliz per smartphone geleitet worden. Das war auf der Straße der Jugend. In der Grundschule Sonnenstein war wieder ein Verkehrslehrgang für Kinder. Da waren zwei Polizisten. Es geht hierbei darum, dass man denken soll, dass der Staat einen nur Gutes tun will. Also wenn es nicht klappt, dann man selber daran schul sei. Dann traf ich Omas und habe mit denen kurz geredet. Ich fahre wieder runter, weil ich fertig bin. Diesmal geht es gleich nach Pirna-Neundorf. Ich steige am Evangelischen Gymnasium ein. Der Busfahrer schreit mich unfreundlich an: "Wie wäre es einmal mit Fahrkarte-Vorzeigen!?" Ich gehe zu ihm hin und sage: Sie haben doch Schaffner oder so? Er: "Die haben wir schon lange nicht mehr!". Also die haben ihre Kontrolleure abgeschafft, damit mehr Leute arbeitslos sind und keine Familien haben. Unmoralisch. Wahrscheinlich ist die Chefetage korrupt. Geld ist genug ist da. Dann bin ich in Neundorf. Da kommen nun ein paar elitäre Freunde an, die getunte Autos haben und dort herum fahren. Die sehen auch alle schön aus. Es ist sauber, aber der eine Plattenbau braucht einen neuen Anstrich. Die Fenster sehen aus wie ausgebrannt. Die Schule hier ist größer als man gedacht hat. Da kommen Transporter an, die einen die Sicht nehmen. Ich fahre zurück. Am Schloss Rottwerndorf kommen mir die Besitzer an. Eine sehr schöne Frau. Sie tragen einen Fußboden herum. Sie bauen das Schloss alleine wieder auf. Eine Straße habe ich vergessen. Die Brahms Straße. Das "Musikerviertel" / Siedlung Rottwerndorf wird nun abfotografiert. Seltsam ist, dass die Leute ganz anders auf mich reagieren als vorher. Sie sind nun aufgeschlossener oder lächeln. Es geht hier sehr schnell. An der Mühlenstraße kommt ein alter Mann auf dem Moped losgefahren und schaut mich böse an. Er kommt aus dem Restaurant und sieht aus wie der Besitzer. Dann fahre ich zur Waschhausstraße, wo ein Nazi mich als schwuchtel beschimpft. Er geht mich auch an, wegen der kleinen Argentinienfahne. Sein Garten ist total verwahrlost und ist eine Schande für das Ansehen der Stadt. Das war mal hier ein elitäres Viertel. Zu oft hat man hier gut genährte Nazis laufen. Seine dicke, blonde Mutter küsst ihn dafür, dass er verbale Gewalt gegen mich ausführt. Er hat schwarze Augen, groß, schwarze Haare. Ich stehe da und denke nun nach. Es vergehen die Minuten. Eine rothaarige Frau kommt mit dem Fahrrad angefahren. Als wenn sie nur wegen mir hier hergefahren sei. Sie schaut mich leer an. Ich fahre von der Max Schwarze Straße nun auf den Erich-Schütze-Weg Pirna. Dort verfolgt mich einer Minutenlang mit einem schwarz-weißen Transporter. Er sieht unattraktiv und unsittlich aus. Sein Auto hat Jason-Masken und Handschellen. Ein anderer Spitzel steht wieder an der Praxis, wo er auch vom Balkon immer observiert und die gesamte Kohlbergstraße im Blick hat und mich immer gleich meldet. Hier bin ich fertig. Dann mache ich mich zum Bahnhof Pirna. Ich kaufe mir einen Kaffee dort und wundere mich, warum der so billig ist. Als ich ihn trinke, merke ich, dass er nach Wasser schmeckt. Der Kaffee an der Dippoldiswalder Straße, neben dem LIDL ist nicht schlecht. Die Frau dort ist sehr lieb.
Quality of life: from safe food to data protection
What does quality of life mean for you? Safe food? Accessible medical care? Breathable air and clean environment? Strong consumers’ rights? Or knowing that your data and privacy are safe? European Parliament holds improving of the quality of life in the EU high on its agenda. Read more here and follow 4th ReACT conference on quality of life on 23 January in Rome live!
In the past few years, European parliament worked on wide range of rules to improve the quality of life in Europe: ensuring safe and accessible medicines and medical treatments, strengthening passenger rights, enabling consumers to buy clearly and correctly labelled food, cutting CO2 emissions and preventing other environmental pollution, but also making sure that privacy of European citizens is protected and their data safe. Read more in our Top Story.
Three of those topics: environment, health and food and the “European way” to protect them are to be debated during fourth ReACT conference “Cutting Quality of life: past, present and future” that takes place on 23 January in Rome. Chef Carlo Cracco, climatologist Riccardo Valentini and Professor Michele Mirabella present their points of view and debate them with the audience. Conference is moderated by geologist Mario Tozzi. Follow live and comment #Reactroma via links on the right.
ReAct Roma is the fourth in a series of five interactive conferences on subjects vital to the EU, ahead of the European elections in May 2014. They take place in different European cities where opinion leaders will share their ideas about today's issues. Previous events were dedicated to jobs and employment (15/10 Paris), EU in world (14/11 Warszawa), EU and finances (5/12 Frankfurt). The fifth event will be about EU and economy and will take place on 20/2 in Madrid.
Streaming ReACT Rome, 23 January 19:00
www.europarl.it/view/it/react.html
ReACT Rome: web site in IT
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license (CC) and must be credited: "© European Union 2014 - European Parliament" (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license). For HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
Lovebytes - Digital Spring.
UNQUIET : Art and music events at Sheffield's Central Library
Sat 24 March 11am-4pm
Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield.
Sheffield Central Library provided the venue and inspiration for a spree of artistic interventions, impromptu performances and creative workshops:
Sheffield Library's documentation from Unquiet (requires Flash):
Reactable
The Reactable is a revolutionary new electronic musical instrument, designed to create and perform the music of today and tomorrow. It combines state of the art technologies with a simple and intuitive design, which enables musicians to experiment with sound, change its structure, control its parameters and be creative in a direct and refreshing way - unlike anything you have ever known before.
Juxtavoices
Juxtavoices is a large 'antichoir' under the direction of composer Martin Archer and writer Alan Halsey. The group includes many familiar faces from Sheffield's leftfield music, poetry and visual arts scenes. Although the group performs structured scores, no fixed pitches are ever notated, and the group uses improvisation to shape the detail of the scores as the music progresses. Both trained and untrained voices are included. As well as playing "normal" concerts, the group is to be found in various unexpected public places, and at poetry / text events. For this event, Juxtavoices have created 2 special pieces for performance: one in suitably hushed tones inside the main library, and one utilising the rich acoustic of the adjacent stairwell.
20Hz by Semiconductor
05.00 minutes / HD video installation / 2011
20 Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Working with data collected from the CARISMA radio array and interpreted as audio, we hear tweeting and rumbles caused by incoming solar wind, captured at the frequency of 20 Hertz. Generated directly by the sound, tangible and sculptural forms emerge suggestive of scientific visualisations. As different frequencies interact both visually and aurally, complex patterns emerge to create interference phenomena that probe the limits of our perception.
20Hz is a Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Audio Data courtesy of CARISMA, operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.
Co-commissioned by Arts Santa Monica + Lighthouse for the Invisible Fields Exhibition at Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona. 2011-2012. Supported by the British Council.
Catalyst
This sound installation in the Lending Library presents a series of collaborative works by a number of Sheffield based writers and sound artists.
In 2011 composers from the University of Sheffield Sound Studios (USSS) were asked to produce a work drawing on Brian Eno's concept of 'ambient music' - music that could be subtly diffused into the atrium space at Bank Street. These compositions were played throughout the day and the writers spent an hour free-writing in response to them. These initial responses were then developed into poems by the writers and then were recorded reading their poems. These sound recordings formed the source material for a new series of compositions - in some cases settings of the poems themselves, in others more abstract manipulations of the source material.
Catalyst is a collaboration involving Bank Street Arts' Poet in Residence Angelina Ayers; writers on the MA Writing at Sheffield Hallam University; Bank Street Arts Resident sound artist Ian Baxter and fellow composers working from the USSS.
Animation/Pixilation Workshop
Children's Library session beginning 11am, 12pm, 2pm and 3pm (4 x 45min workshops)
Age 6+ Free. Book in advance / places are limited.
To book a place email - kidsandteens.library@sheffield.gov.uk
or tel. - 0114 273 4734
Come and have a go at animating...Yourself! Pixilation is an exciting form of animation where everyday objects and humans are the made to do extraordinary things such as disappear into walls, change into other people, fly, get eaten by black holes and ice skate on carpets!
In this workshop you'll learn how to make use pixillation to create animated films. You and your parents or carers will also find out how to film animation at home using your home computer, a webcam and free software. No experience or equipment necessary - just bring yourself! The workshop is led by Melvyn Turnan - you can see his films at www.melmation.com
Places are very limited, so please book in advance to avoid disappointment.
Sssh! There's going to be a FREE secret film show for kids at 1PM, somewhere in the Library...
Are spy pigeons and lost mechanical aliens your kind of thing? Do you know a cat who belongs to Simon? (or is it a Simon who belongs to a cat?)...
You can only find out the secret location for this screening when you collect a free golden ticket from our information desk in the Winter Garden. Make sure you get there early, it's first come first served and there are only a few places available for this extra special, hush hush event for those in the know. The films are suitable for any age but children must be accompanied by an adult.
These films are 100% guaranteed to totally amaze you... here's a sneak preview of what you will see...
The Lost Thing by Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tan (Passion Pictures, Australia 2011). This film won an Oscar for best short animated film in 2011. A boy finds a strange creature on a beach, and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to pay attention to.
Pigeon Impossible by Lucas Martell. This amazing bagel bite-sized adventure was 5 years in the making. It's the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase?
Love Over Goldfish by Janet Jennings and Jon Harrison. Have you ever seen a movie that is upside-down from beginning to end? Well the star of this film has, he's lived it! He's a goldfish and this is his life story. Love Over Goldfish was filmed in Sheffield, see if you can spot any familiar locations (but don't get a crick in your neck;)
Thanks to all the staff at Sheffield Libraries for hosting this event.
Special thanks to:
Emma Croft, Sarah Hogan, Martin Dutch and Andrew Milroy at Sheffield Libraries, Martin Archer and Juxtavoices, Ian Baxter (Catalyst), Sergi Jordà (reactable), Sheffield University Sound Studios, Passion Pictures, Lucas Martell, Flatpack Festival, Amber and Joab Harrison
Technical wizards: Darren Chouings (Prism), Melvyn Turnan (Melmation), Richard Bolam (RB Digimedia).
Lovebytes 2012 - Digital Spring
A Festival of Art, Science and Technology
22-24 March
Sheffield UK
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Fokker D.VII was a German World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz of the Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. Late in 1917, Fokker built the experimental V 11 biplane, fitted with the standard Mercedes D.IIIa engine. In January 1918, IdFlieg held a fighter competition at Adlershof, and for the first time, front line pilots participated in the evaluation and selection of new fighters. Fokker submitted the V 11 along with several other prototypes. Manfred von Richthofen flew the V 11 and found it tricky, unpleasant and directionally unstable in a dive. On short notice, Platz reacted and lengthened the rear fuselage by one structural bay and added a triangular fin in front of the rudder. Richthofen tested the modified V 11 and praised it as the best aircraft of the competition. It offered excellent performance from the outdated Mercedes engine, yet was safe and easy to fly. Richthofen's recommendation virtually decided the competition but he was not alone in recommending it. Fokker immediately received a provisional order for 400 production aircraft, which were named D.VII by IdFlieg.
Fokker's factory was not up to the task of meeting all D.VII production orders and IdFlieg directed Albatros and AEG to build the D.VII under license, though AEG did not ultimately produce any aircraft. Because the Fokker factory did not use detailed plans as part of its production process, Fokker simply sent a D.VII airframe for Albatros to copy. Albatros paid Fokker a five percent royalty for every D.VII they built under license. Albatros Flugzeugwerke and its subsidiary, Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke (OAW), built the D.VII at factories in Johannisthal [Fokker D.VII (Alb)] and Schneidemühl [Fokker D.VII (OAW)] respectively. Corresponding aircraft markings included the type designation and factory suffix, immediately before the individual serial number.
Some parts were not interchangeable between aircraft produced at different factories, even between Albatros and OAW. Each manufacturer tended to differ in both nose paint styles and the patterning and layout of their engine compartment cooling louvers on the sides of the nose. OAW produced examples were delivered with distinctive mauve and green splotches on the cowling. All D.VIIs were produced with either the five-color (“Fünffarbig”) or, less often, the four-color (“Vierfarbig”) lozenge camouflage covering, except for early Fokker-produced D.VIIs, which had a streaked green fuselage. However, these factory camouflage finishes were often overpainted in the field with colorful paint schemes or insignia for the Jasta or for a specific pilot, making identification during aerial combat easier.
The D.VII entered squadron service with Jasta 10 in early May 1918. When the Fokker D.VII appeared on the Western Front in April 1918, Allied pilots at first underestimated the new fighter because of its squarish, ungainly appearance, but quickly revised their view. The type had many important advantages over the Albatros and Pfalz scouts. Unlike the Albatros scouts, the D.VII could dive without any fear of structural failure. The D.VII was also noted for its high manoeuvrability and ability to climb, its remarkably docile stall and reluctance to spin. It could "hang on its prop" without stalling for brief periods of time, spraying enemy aircraft from below with machine gun fire. These handling characteristics contrasted with contemporary Allied scouts such as the Camel and SPAD, which stalled sharply and spun vigorously.
Nevertheless, several aircraft suffered rib failures and fabric shedding on the upper wing. Heat from the engine sometimes ignited phosphorus ammunition until additional cooling louvers were installed on the metal sides of the engine cowling panels, and fuel tanks sometimes broke at the seams through high G loads and a twisting, wooden airframe. Aircraft built by the Fokker factory at Schwerin were noted for their lower standard of workmanship and materials. But despite some faults, the D.VII proved to be a remarkably successful design and a true fighter benchmark, leading to the familiar aphorism that it could turn a mediocre pilot into a good one and a good pilot into an ace.
In September 1918, eight D.VIIs were delivered to Bulgaria. Late in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian company Magyar Általános Gépgyár (MÁG, Hungarian General Machine Company) commenced licensed production of the D.VII with Austro-Daimler engines. Production continued after the end of the war, with as many as 50 aircraft completed.
Richthofen died days before the D.VII began to reach the Jagdstaffeln and never flew it in combat. Other pilots, including Erich Löwenhardt and Hermann Göring, quickly racked up victories and generally lauded the design. Aircraft availability was limited at first, but by July there were 407 in service. Larger numbers became available by August, by which point D.VIIs had achieved 565 victories. The D.VII eventually equipped 46 Jagdstaffeln. When the war ended in November, 775 D.VII aircraft were in service, and they were outfitted with various, ever more powerful engines, but the aircraft remained outwardly virtually identical. Some late production machines had a rare BMW IIIa 6-cyl. water-cooled in-line piston engine fitted. It had a continuous output of 137.95 kW (185 hp), but also an emergency rating of 180 kW (240 hp) at low level that gave the aircraft a top speed in level flight of 200 km/h (124 mph; 108 kn) and a phenomenal rate of climb (four times as good at low altitude as the early machines and still twice as good at higher altitudes), even though at the risk of engine damage.
After the war, the Allies confiscated large numbers of D.VII aircraft after the Armistice. The United States Army and Navy evaluated no less than 142 captured examples and used them in what would today be called “aggressor” units for dissimilar air combat in training and for the development of indigenous military aircraft. Several of these aircraft were re-engined with American-built Liberty L-6 motors, which were very similar in appearance to the D.VII's original German power plants and hard to tell apart. France, Great Britain and Canada also received numbers of war prizes, but these aircraft did not enter active service. Other countries used the D.VII operationally, though: the Polish deployed approximately 50 aircraft during the Polish-Soviet War, using them mainly for ground attack missions; the Hungarian Soviet Republic used a number of D.VIIs, both built by MAG and ex-German aircraft in the Hungarian-Romanian War of 1919; the Dutch, Swiss, and Belgian air forces also operated the D.VII. The aircraft proved still so popular that Fokker completed and sold a large number of D.VII airframes that he had smuggled into the Netherlands after the Armistice. As late as 1929, the Alfred Comte company manufactured eight new D.VII airframes under license for the Swiss Fliegertruppe.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 6.95 m (22 ft 10 in)
Wingspan: 8.9 m (29 ft 2 in)
Height: 2.75 m (9 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 20.5 m² (221 sq ft)
Empty weight: 670 kg (1,477 lb)
Gross weight: 906 kg (1,997 lb)
Powerplant:
1 × 137.95 kW (185 hp) BMW IIIa 6-cyl. water-cooled in-line piston engine with a 180 kW (240 hp)
emergency only rating at low level, driving a wooden 2-bladed fixed-pitch propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 189 km/h (117 mph, 102 kn) at normal power
200 km/h (124 mph; 108 kn) at emergency power
Range: 266 km (165 mi, 144 nmi)
Service ceiling: 6,000 m (20,000 ft)
Rate of climb: up to 9.52 metres per second (1,874 ft/min) at emergency rating
Time to altitude:
1,000 m (3,281 ft) in 1 minutes 40 seconds
2,000 m (6,562 ft) in 4 minutes 5 seconds
3,000 m (9,843 ft) in 13 minutes 49 seconds
4,000 m (13,123 ft) in 10 minutes 15 seconds
5,000 m (16,404 ft) 14 minutes 0 seconds
6,000 m (19,685 ft) 18 minutes 45 seconds
Armament:
2× synchronized 7.92 mm (0.312 in) LMG 08/15 "Spandau" machine guns,
firing through the propeller disc
The kit and its assembly:
My fifth submission for the “Captured” group build at whatifmodellers.com, and a very simple one, since the kit was built OOB. Inspiration came from a profile of a captured Albatros D.III in USAAC markings, unfortunately without further explanation. However, the aircraft sported a garish paint scheme, including bright green and even pink, so that I assumed that it would be not only WWI booty, but also in some operational use, since the paint scheme/camouflage did not look like a German pattern, but rather like an American design, similar to the aircraft operated by the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in continental Europe, just with bright colors.
When I checked options for a different aircraft to apply this idea to, I came across the common Fokker D.VII and the fact that a lot of these aircraft had been captured and tested/flown by the USAAC – and then the weird scheme started to make sense, and this what-if model was born.
The D.VII kit is the ESCI offering, which was released in 1983 but is actually a mold from 1968. I thought I gave it a chance, instead of the Revell kit, which dates back to 1963 and is rumored to be not a pleasant build. The bet and newest one in 1:72 is probably the Eduard kit, which also has the benefit of offering optional parts for various production versions.
As a small biplane model, the ESCI kit is a simple, straightforward affair, and no major conversions were made, I just added a pilot figure, because the ESCI kit lacks one as well as any interior detail except for a kind of tub that it molded into the fuselage halves. IIRC, the figure I used comes from a Revell biplane, and I had to chop the legs off to make it fit into the D.VII’s tight cockpit. However, this solution had the benefit that I did not have to worry about any interior details.
Another weak point of the ESCI kit is that it lacks some finer details like the boarding ladder or handles at the tail. These were scratched with thin wire. Overall fit is also not the best – PSR on the fuselage halves, and on some visible ejection markers (e.g. under the single-part wings) and sinkholes. Esp. the integral cockpit tub with its rather massive walls left visible dents in the flanks that had to be filled! On the other side, the fabric structure on the wings and the fuselage is nicely reproduced, and the cowling is apparently from a late production D.VII with additional/bigger air scoops, so I decided that my model would also be one of the final machines with the uprated BMW engine.
A problem that cannot be blamed on the mold but rather the specific 2nd hand kit I bought is that the stabilizer was missing – it had probably detached from the sprue long ago, and slipped through the box lid, gone and eaten by some carpet monster… ☹ I had to improvise and decided to cut a replacement stabilizer from 1mm styrene sheet. I used the painting instructions (which are almost 1:72 scale) as benchmark and tailored a piece of sheet into shape, sanding away the edges for some light curvature and also added some shallow grooves to mimic the rib structure. Not perfect, but I also did not want to spend too much time on this. As a bonus, though, I added the (tiny) rudder levers of the tail surfaces and the ailerons, which originally are also not part of the ESCI mold. These were later, after painting, outfitted with wires during the final rigging process with heated sprue material – thankfully the D.VII does not require too many strings, just some wires between the landing gear struts and on the tail.
Painting and markings:
The funnier part, with many, really bright colors united in a tiny space – almost like an anime movie prop! I stuck to the original Albatros benchmark and applied scheme, colors and markings truthfully to the D.VII. Paints/tones became, as a guesstimate, Humbrol 155 (Olive Drab), 7 (Light Buff), 47 (Sea Blue) and a mix of 200 (Pink) with a little 68 (Purple), maybe at a 5:1 ratio, for a deeper tone. The contrast between the colors is pretty strong and aircraft looks very individual!
The wing struts were painted in black, the interior in a light olive drab tone. The engine was painted with Revell 99 (Aluminum) and treated with grinded graphite for a more metallic look, and the propeller was painted with a streaky wet-in-wet mix of Humbrol 71 and 113.
The roundels come from a Hobby Boss F4F, and since they have a rather odd style with a kind of dark blue border, they suit the model pretty well, because these roundels were introduced around 1920, so that deviations from the later, “classic” look appear plausible. The tactical code comes from an RAF Gloster Gladiator and the BuNo on the fin were created from a post-war Spitfire code.
A light black ink washing was applied, and some light post-shading was done, in order to emphasize edges and the boxy form of the aircraft with its fabric-covered surfaces. After the decals had been applied, I also added an overall light dry-brushing with khaki drill (Humbrol 72) and light grey (Revell 75). Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri), final bits were assembled and the rigging was added.
A simple build, but a very colorful one – hard to believe that there were aircraft in real life that actually looked this way! But the small D.VII now really stands out among “seriously” camouflaged biplanes in my collection, a very picturesque model. BTW, I am also surprised how effective the camouflage is, at least in the air - despite the garish colors!
REact2022 Real Estate Conference | Miami, Florida, November 4, 2022. To learn more visit the Hollo School of Real Estate realestate.fiu.edu/.
Quality of life: from safe food to data protection
RISOTTO CON ACCIUGHE E LIMONE,CACAO
di Carlo Cracco
240 gr. Carnaroli del Pavese
45 gr. burro
1 piccolo scalogno tritato
½ bicchiere di vino bianco secco
½ l acqua
50 gr. mascarpone
50 gr. pasta d’acciughe
la buccia grattugiata di 1 limone
50 gr. cacao puro
1 pizzico di sale
Temperare il cacao stendendolo in un foglio, mettere il sale e il peperoncino. Far asciugare e “coppare” con uno stampino rotondo dal diametro di 2,5 cm.
In una padella soffriggere lo scalogno con il burro, unire il riso e tostarlo leggermente.
Sfumarlo con il vino bianco secco e continuare la cottura aggiungendo piano l’acqua. Aggiustare di sale e pepe.
Mantecare fuori dal fuoco con il mascarpone.
Spalmare la pasta d’acciughe sul fondo del piatto, distribuire la buccia del limone, versare sopra il risotto e appiattirlo.
Finire con il disco di cioccolato.
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What does quality of life mean for you? Safe food? Accessible medical care? Breathable air and clean environment? Strong consumers’ rights? Or knowing that your data and privacy are safe? European Parliament holds improving of the quality of life in the EU high on its agenda. Read more here and follow 4th ReACT conference on quality of life on 23 January in Rome live!
Streaming ReACT Rome, 23 January 19:00
www.europarl.it/view/it/react.html
ReACT Rome: web site in IT
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license (CC) and must be credited: "© European Union 2014 - European Parliament" (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license). For HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
React, Respect, Intersect was created by two professional artists and a team of youth artists as part of the Groundswell Community Mural Project’s flagship Summer Leadership Institute (SLI). SLI teams spend seven weeks during working with artists and community-based organizations, learning job skills and creating public art throughout New York City. This mural depicts a utopian environment where vehicular traffic, pedestrians of all ages and abilities, bicyclists, skateboarders, and animals respectfully share the street. It focuses not only on traffic and pedestrian safety education, but also site-specific themes and cultural diversity.
The safety education focus of this mural was informed by workshops lead by NYCDOT Safety Education. The artists and youth artists researched safety issues near the mural site which influenced their final design. Speed of vehicular traffic, high levels of carbon dioxide in the air, and the need for all modes of transportation to respectfully share the streets are just a few of the themes beautifully integrated in to this mural.
NYCDOT Urban Art Program, Special Project
React, Respect, Intersect by Yana Dimitrova and Adam Kidder
Presented with NYCDOT Safety Education and Groundswell Community Mural Project
East 5th Street in Kensington, Brooklyn
Lovebytes - Digital Spring.
UNQUIET : Art and music events at Sheffield's Central Library
Sat 24 March 11am-4pm
Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield.
Sheffield Central Library provided the venue and inspiration for a spree of artistic interventions, impromptu performances and creative workshops:
Sheffield Library's documentation from Unquiet (requires Flash):
Reactable
The Reactable is a revolutionary new electronic musical instrument, designed to create and perform the music of today and tomorrow. It combines state of the art technologies with a simple and intuitive design, which enables musicians to experiment with sound, change its structure, control its parameters and be creative in a direct and refreshing way - unlike anything you have ever known before.
Juxtavoices
Juxtavoices is a large 'antichoir' under the direction of composer Martin Archer and writer Alan Halsey. The group includes many familiar faces from Sheffield's leftfield music, poetry and visual arts scenes. Although the group performs structured scores, no fixed pitches are ever notated, and the group uses improvisation to shape the detail of the scores as the music progresses. Both trained and untrained voices are included. As well as playing "normal" concerts, the group is to be found in various unexpected public places, and at poetry / text events. For this event, Juxtavoices have created 2 special pieces for performance: one in suitably hushed tones inside the main library, and one utilising the rich acoustic of the adjacent stairwell.
20Hz by Semiconductor
05.00 minutes / HD video installation / 2011
20 Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Working with data collected from the CARISMA radio array and interpreted as audio, we hear tweeting and rumbles caused by incoming solar wind, captured at the frequency of 20 Hertz. Generated directly by the sound, tangible and sculptural forms emerge suggestive of scientific visualisations. As different frequencies interact both visually and aurally, complex patterns emerge to create interference phenomena that probe the limits of our perception.
20Hz is a Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Audio Data courtesy of CARISMA, operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.
Co-commissioned by Arts Santa Monica + Lighthouse for the Invisible Fields Exhibition at Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona. 2011-2012. Supported by the British Council.
Catalyst
This sound installation in the Lending Library presents a series of collaborative works by a number of Sheffield based writers and sound artists.
In 2011 composers from the University of Sheffield Sound Studios (USSS) were asked to produce a work drawing on Brian Eno's concept of 'ambient music' - music that could be subtly diffused into the atrium space at Bank Street. These compositions were played throughout the day and the writers spent an hour free-writing in response to them. These initial responses were then developed into poems by the writers and then were recorded reading their poems. These sound recordings formed the source material for a new series of compositions - in some cases settings of the poems themselves, in others more abstract manipulations of the source material.
Catalyst is a collaboration involving Bank Street Arts' Poet in Residence Angelina Ayers; writers on the MA Writing at Sheffield Hallam University; Bank Street Arts Resident sound artist Ian Baxter and fellow composers working from the USSS.
Animation/Pixilation Workshop
Children's Library session beginning 11am, 12pm, 2pm and 3pm (4 x 45min workshops)
Age 6+ Free. Book in advance / places are limited.
To book a place email - kidsandteens.library@sheffield.gov.uk
or tel. - 0114 273 4734
Come and have a go at animating...Yourself! Pixilation is an exciting form of animation where everyday objects and humans are the made to do extraordinary things such as disappear into walls, change into other people, fly, get eaten by black holes and ice skate on carpets!
In this workshop you'll learn how to make use pixillation to create animated films. You and your parents or carers will also find out how to film animation at home using your home computer, a webcam and free software. No experience or equipment necessary - just bring yourself! The workshop is led by Melvyn Turnan - you can see his films at www.melmation.com
Places are very limited, so please book in advance to avoid disappointment.
Sssh! There's going to be a FREE secret film show for kids at 1PM, somewhere in the Library...
Are spy pigeons and lost mechanical aliens your kind of thing? Do you know a cat who belongs to Simon? (or is it a Simon who belongs to a cat?)...
You can only find out the secret location for this screening when you collect a free golden ticket from our information desk in the Winter Garden. Make sure you get there early, it's first come first served and there are only a few places available for this extra special, hush hush event for those in the know. The films are suitable for any age but children must be accompanied by an adult.
These films are 100% guaranteed to totally amaze you... here's a sneak preview of what you will see...
The Lost Thing by Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tan (Passion Pictures, Australia 2011). This film won an Oscar for best short animated film in 2011. A boy finds a strange creature on a beach, and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to pay attention to.
Pigeon Impossible by Lucas Martell. This amazing bagel bite-sized adventure was 5 years in the making. It's the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase?
Love Over Goldfish by Janet Jennings and Jon Harrison. Have you ever seen a movie that is upside-down from beginning to end? Well the star of this film has, he's lived it! He's a goldfish and this is his life story. Love Over Goldfish was filmed in Sheffield, see if you can spot any familiar locations (but don't get a crick in your neck;)
Thanks to all the staff at Sheffield Libraries for hosting this event.
Special thanks to:
Emma Croft, Sarah Hogan, Martin Dutch and Andrew Milroy at Sheffield Libraries, Martin Archer and Juxtavoices, Ian Baxter (Catalyst), Sergi Jordà (reactable), Sheffield University Sound Studios, Passion Pictures, Lucas Martell, Flatpack Festival, Amber and Joab Harrison
Technical wizards: Darren Chouings (Prism), Melvyn Turnan (Melmation), Richard Bolam (RB Digimedia).
Lovebytes 2012 - Digital Spring
A Festival of Art, Science and Technology
22-24 March
Sheffield UK