David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :
'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)
(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia. (2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.
Still musing on the TOKYO 2020 intro at the Rio Olympics closing ceremony... A red disc, a red sphere. What could be simpler? A person holding and looking at a red sphere. What could be simpler? Super Mario holding and looking at a red sphere. What could be simpler? Japanese Prime Minister holding and looking at a red sphere. What could be simpler? Japanese Emperor holding and looking at a red sphere. What could be simpler? Adult dragon holding and looking at a red or white sphere. What could be simpler?
"In the figure of Fukurokuju, divine wisdom puts on
a very human face."
- Wisdom : A History by Trevor Curnow Something that came to mind when we saw the image of Super Mario/Prime Minister Abe holding and looking at a red sphere is the scroll pictured below, by Kano Kyuhaku (1621-1688) from the FIAPCE collection. We take this aged, lofty-headed figure to be Fukurokuju, one of Seven Gods of Good Fortune in Japanese mythoLOGOS/HA HA. Fukurokuju is usually associated with wealth, longevity, wisdom. In this image the allegorical objects that would signify these first two fortunate circumstances are not present. We therefore read this as an image of the beholding of wisdom. The symbolic object that the deity holds and regards is ahōju, a flaming pearl of wisdom.
Kano Kyuhaku (1621-1688)
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA
In the previous post we mentioned a few reference points that flickered on the radar as we watched the TOKYO 2020 opener at the Rio Olympics closing ceremony.
Another allusion, less obvious than those, was to David Cronenberg's 'Scanners' (1981).
Theatre of Archetypes Regard
During one sequence of the TOKYO 2020 presentation the performers shape their fluorescent cubes into the outline of an open eye.
At the centre of that eye (above) is the green outlet of the Tokyo-Rio tunnel drilled through our Earth-O-Sphere by Super Mario.
Anatomy of the eye, woodcut circa 1503 'Margarita Philosophica' by Gregor Reisch, Freiburg 1503
The Super One emerges through this green reveal and transforms into Prime Minister Abe who then holds aloft the all-symbolising red sphere he has brought from the other side.
Meeting of the IOC prior to choosing the host for the 2020 Olympic Games :
At this point I'd like to call for volunteers.
Anyone. It doesn't matter...
Darryl Revok volunteers
Fine.
Just, uh... Sit right here, please.
Now, I'd, I'd like you to think of something specific. Something that will not breach the security of your organization. And that you will not object to having disclosed to this group. Something, uh, personal, perhaps.
- All right. Yes, I have something. Do I have to close my eyes?
It doesn't matter.
- All right. Yes, I have something.
from the David Cronenberg script for 'Scanners'
Some time later ...
Tell us what you did, please, Darryl.
- I drilled a hole in my head.
Where?
- Kind of obvious, isn't it? Right here.
Why did you do it, Darryl? Why did you drill the hole?
- Too much pressure. Had to release some pressure.
You wanted to let the pressure out? You wanted to let something out of your head?
- Maybe I'm so smart I can't contain the thoughts in my head.
You wanted to let something out of your head?What?
- People. There are people in my head. Not enough room for Darryl.
You mean voices?
- No. Whole people. Arms, legs, hands.
What's that you've put over the hole?
- It's a door. Put an eye on the door so they won't know it's a door and they can't get back in 'cause this is the eye you know?
Do you think that will fool them?
- Sure. Sure it will. I mean... I mean, sure it will, you know?
Did you see the teaser for TOKYO 2020 at the Rio Olympics closing ceremony? Best thing since Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad (1965), Gary Numan's Cars (1979), Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls (1984)...
Theatre of the Athletes of Regard
SUCH SUFFICIENT FORTUNE One O/ZERO/ENSO in LOVE OneO/ZERO/ENSO in SPORT BINGO!
O FORTUNA twOO/ZERO/ENSO in TOKYO
twOO/ZERO/ENSO in 2O2O BINGO! BINGO!
Theatre of the Athletes of Regard
LOOK! Japanese TAR - PM Shinzō Abe as Super MariO
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
LOOK! West End Girls + East End Boys
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA LO+OS/HA HA LO+OS/HA HA LO+OS/HA HA LO+OS/HA HA LO+OS/HA HA LOGOS/HA HA
Sign of the times, the number of Olympic athletes conspicuously testifying to their God. Perhaps it's not such a good look if you're on the starting block, kiss a cross then break before the starter's gun and are immediately disqualified. Better, perhaps, if you are Neymar, the captain of the host country's beloved football team and you kick the winning goal in the Olympic Final shoot-out for Gold.
Soli Deo gloria
Hoc est Corpus Meum
As if to underline something a couple of newspaper clippings from the same day Qui manducat carnem meam
We've appreciated the inclusion of some of the more contemporary sports at the Rio Olympics. It was great to see running-and-shooting brought to the fore in Modern Pentathlon. Congratulations to Chloe Espesito for winning that.
Chloe Esposito
And in Gymnastics, mandala ideogram rotation. Congratulations to the Aussie mixed doubles team from Sorlie's Revue for taking out the Antipodean Pedal section of that one.
All is matrix detail. Just now on the radio this social anarchy /chemical alchemy / punny poetry :
The crowd's gone berserk - Da Silva wins the Gold for Brasil.
Thiago Braz da Silva Wins GOLD for Brasil : Olympic RECORD 6.03m Muybridge in the slo mo Memories in the hurdles . . . Fifty years ago, October 1966, your correspondent in 100yd hurdles final at Olympic Park, Melbourne - photo Bernard Higgins Malevich in the costumes and on and on . . . Usain Bolt wins the 100m at 2016 Rio Olympics in 9.81 sec
TAR : they're lining up . . . Kasimir Malevich, The Sportsmen, 1928-30 (Russian State Museum, St Petersburg). Photographed at Tate Modern by Guy Bell, 2015. Theatre of the Actors of Regard
On Tuesday night Australia attempted a national census.
By 7.30pm, after just two million citizen entries and four concerted Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shut their site down.
Thirty-six hours later, it is still down.
"Heads will roll," declares PM.
Endusers :
Two key messages :
The first is, if y0u want enduser acceptance, you need to actually go and consult with them and listen to the endusers.
And then the second thing is, you need to listen to concerns when seven Senators, a Deputy Privacy Commissioner, and a former lead statistician of the country all raise privacy concerns and you sweep them away as if they count for nothing, don't be surprised if people are pretty unhappy.
- Dr Suelette Dreyfus (Computer Security lecturer, Melb. Uni)
The Drum, ABC.TV yesterday.
Endgamers :
Since the narrow re-election of the conservative Turnbull government last month, we've been intrigued to note the preference for an 'Endgame' set in the Prime Minister’s Press Conference Room, the Blue Room.
Instead of the previously favoured dark minimal unobtrusive lecterns...
Environment minister Greg Hunt, Prime minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop at a press conference in the blue room of Parliament House, Canberra this morning, Tuesday 11th August 2015. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian
...the would-be gravitees now elect to address the nation from monumental white heraldic dustbins.
When I walk around Enfolder, there is always a man in front of me. When he gets to a corner, his twin momentarily appears in profile, but rapidly disappears. I never catch up with him. If I hasten, he also speeds up; if I tarry, he also lingers and has longer consultations with his twin at the corners.
You too, when you walk around this glassy ambulatory by Natasha Johns-Messenger, will encounter someone in front of you, a taciturn wanderer who is enigmatically duplicated at various moments and mysteriously preserves a regular distance in front of you. Actually, it is you, your image from behind who becomes your forerunner, the person whom you never see in the mirror. Your ghost from the rear leads you without a moment's contact.
Natasha Johns-Messenger's Enfolder at Heide MoMA photo by Christian Capurro
This engaging work at Heide recalls Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte's painting Not to be reproduced, where a man looks in the mirror only to see the view from the back instead of the front. But the installation by Johns-Messenger is not a passive mirror upon a wall but a slick circular sculpture shaped like a Kugelhopf tin, the causeway of which clamps around your head and leads you on the vain chase for your double . . . .
. . . . Reflection itself is a great metaphor as well as a physical reality. The mirror that Johns-Messenger holds up to space and subject-object relations is intriguing; but ultimately it's up to us to supply the last reflection of ourselves between appearance and reality.
Natasha Johns-Messenger's Encircler at Heide MoMA photo by Christian Capurro
Another Op'nin', Another Show from Kiss Me, Kate (1948) by Cole Porter
Another op'nin', another Show
Another op'nin', another show
In Philly, Boston or Baltimoe,
A chance for stagefolks to say "hello"
Another op'nin', another show.
Another job that you hope, at last,
Will make your future forget your past...
click image to enlarge
Las Meninas by Diego Velázquezi, 1656, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Another verso another show : mysterious future portrait revealed
Following the recent clear exposure of an earlier portrait of a woman beneath the present surface of Degas' Portrait de femme (c.1876–80), scientists have again used synchroTAR imaging to revealed another such. In so doing, they have added a further layer of intrigue to one of the world's most famous Theatre of the Actors of Regard tableau, Las Meninas, painted by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez in 1656.
It now appears that Velázquez has playfully 'concealed in plain sight' a mystery future portrait painted with permanent pigments craftily mixed under and over and through the fugitive pigments of his own portrait.
courtesy SynchroTAR Imaging
The future portrait is not yet visible to the unaided eye as the fugitive pigments used by Velázquez are not expected to disappear for another 5-600 years.
Las Meninas is usually translated as The Ladies-in-Waiting. In his writings about this complex work, Velázquez refers to the then immediate project as Las Meninas whereas when he mentions it in the future tense it is asLas Kesminas - a differentiation that has long puzzled art historians. Who or what is or will be The Kesminas?
Further to our previous scene(s) of investigation... - Portrait of a Man of TAR - Portrait of a woman (Daruma Muralist) - Portrait of a bLOGOS/HA HA visitor
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
...there's been considerable ARSCIENTIA media interest in the unveiling of the latest layer of an image of a mysterious woman by the Men of TAR. Their findings are revealed in the latest 'Nature'.
How to cite this article: Thurrowgood, D. et al. A Hidden Portrait by Edgar Degas. Sci. Rep. 6, 29594; doi: 10.1038/srep29594 (2016).
Dance of the Seven SynchroTAR
Previously, this was the best achieveable image of the under-layer. Below, scanning 'Portrait de femme' at Melbourne Synchrotron. A verso view as Dr David Thorrowgood prepares a through view. Et voila! False colour reconstruction of Degas’ hidden portrait
