Yuri Denisyuk 1927 - 2006

Yuri Nikolaevich Denisyuk (Russian: Юрий Николаевич Денисюк; July 27, 1927, Sochi – May 14, 2006, Saint Petersburg) was a Soviet physicist known for his contribution to holography, in particular for the so-called "Denisyuk hologram".

PART ONE. ULTIMATE COLOUR DENISYUK TECHNIQUE.

After the discovery of white-light holography by Professor Yuri Denisyuk (St.Petersburg, Russia) in the 1960s and the coming of lasers, museum objects and artifacts became the first subjects of holographic recording. Famous museums throughout the world provided artifacts to record as holograms, which reconstruct three-dimensional images of objects with high resolution and maximum accuracy. The principle of Denisyuk holography is rather simple to understand.

Denisyuk hologram recording method Denisyuk hologram reconstruction

The object is exposed by laser light that passes through transparent holographic plate.

The developed plate is illuminated by a white spot light. A viewer sees the object as an holographic image behind the plate.

Working at the State Optical S.I. Vavilov Institute in Leningrad (now St.Petersburg), Prof. Denisyuk developed a technique to use He/Ne and Kr lasers (red band of spectra) and his own high definition photomaterials, sensitized to red light, to create a gallery of high quality holograms of objects from the Hermitage, including large sizes (up to 80 x 120 cm).

Head of the SOI holographic laboratory in 1970s, Prof. Yu.N.Denisyuk (Leningrad, USSR)

Found Here: http://www.holography.co.uk/RPS/Gentet.html

The ACROS Fukuoka

In Fukuoka City in Japan, they have an amazing building called “ACROS Fukuoka” with two very distinct sides: one side looks like a conventional office building with glass walls, but on the other side there is a huge terraced roof that merges with a park. The garden terraces, which reach up to about 60 meters above the ground, contain some 35,000 plants representing 76 species. A huge semicircular atrium and the triangular lobby provide contrast to the greenery, in this space is a symphony hall, offices and shops.

The building was constructed on the last remaining green space in the city center, so the architects, Emilio Ambasz & Associates, created a design to preserve the green space as much as possible, while still fitting in a large office building. In addition, a green roof reduces the energy consumption of a building, because it keeps the temperature inside more constant and comfortable. Green roofs also capture rainwater runoff, and support the life of insects and birds.
The building is a success in Japan, its terraced south facade utilized by many in the area for exercise and rest, affording views of the city and the harbor beyond. Unfortunately it has received little press overseas, especially in the United States.

Found Here: http://www.metaefficient.com/architecture-and-building/amazing-green-building-the-acros-fukuoka.html

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Newell Wyeth (surname pronounced /ˈwаɪɛθ/^[1]) (July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009)^[2] was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalistU.S. artists of the middle 20th century and was sometimes referred to as the "Painter of the People," due to his work's popularity with the American public. style. He was one of the best-known

In his art, Wyeth's favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine.

One of the most well-known images in 20th-century American art is his painting, Christina's World, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Wyeth's art has long been controversial. As a representational artist, Wyeth's paintings have sharply contrasted with abstraction, which gained currency in American art in the middle of the 20th century.

Museum exhibitions of Wyeth's paintings have set attendance records, but many art critics have been critical of his work. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The Village Voice, derided his paintings as "Formulaic stuff, not very effective even as illustrational 'realism.' "^[10] Common criticisms are that Wyeth's art verges on illustration and that his rural subject matter is sentimental.

Admirers of Wyeth's art believe that his paintings, in addition to sometimes displaying overt beauty, contain strong emotional currents, symbolic content, and underlying abstraction. Most observers of his art agree that he is skilled at handling the media of egg tempera (which uses egg yolk as its medium) and watercolor. Wyeth avoided using traditional oil paints. His use of light and shadow let the subjects illuminate the canvas. His paintings and titles suggest sound, as is implied in many paintings, including Distant Thunder (1961) and Spring Fed (1967).^[11]

A close friend and student of Wyeth, Bo Bartlett, commented on Wyeth’s reaction to criticism during an interview with Brian Sherwin in 2008: "People only make you swerve. I won’t show anybody anything I’m working on. If they hate it, it’s a bad thing, and if they like it, it’s a bad thing. An artist has to be ingrown to be any good."^[12]

Fossilized Algae

Stromatolites (from Greek στρώμα, strōma, mattress, bed, stratum, and λιθος, lithos, rock) are layered accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria (commonly known as blue-green algae). They are the oldest living organisms on the planet, and are believed to be the first living organisms on Earth.^[1]

Earth’s oldest fossils are the stromatolites consisting of rock built from layer upon layer of sediment and other precipitants.^[3] Based on studies of now-rare (but living) stromatolites (specifically, certain blue-green bacteria), the growth of fossil stromatolitic structures was biogenetically mediated by mats of microorganisms through their entrapment of sediments. However, abiotic mechanisms for stromatolitic growth are also known, leading to a decades-long and sometimes-contentious scientific debate regarding biogenesis of certain formations, especially those from the lower to middle Archaean eon.

It is most widely accepted that stromatolites from the late Archaean and through the middle Proterozoic eon were mostly formed by massive colonies of cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green "algae"), and that the oxygen byproduct of their photosynthetic metabolism first resulted in earth’s massive banded iron formations and subsequently oxygenated earth’s atmosphere.

Even though it is extremely rare, microstructures resembling cells are sometimes found within stromatolites; but these are also the source of scientific contention. The Gunflint Chert contains abundant microfossils widely accepted as a diverse consortium of 2.0 Ga microbes.^[4]

In contrast, putative fossil cyanobacteria cells from the 3.4 Ga Warrawoona Group in Western Australia are in dispute since abiotic processes cannot be ruled out.^[5] Confirmation of the Warrawoona microstructures as cyanobacteria would profoundly impact our understanding of when and how early life diversified, pushing important evolutionary milestones further back in time (reference). The continued study of these oldest fossils is paramount to calibrate complementary molecular phylogenetics models.

Cyanobacteria Relationship to Earth's History
The biochemical capacity to use water as the source for electrons in photosynthesis evolved once, in a common ancestor of extant cyanobacteria. The geologic record indicates that this transforming event took place early in our planet's history, at least 2450-2320 million years ago (mya), and probably much earlier. Geobiological interpretation of Archean (>2500 mya) sedimentary rocks remains a challenge; available evidence indicates that life existed 3500 mya, but the question of when oxygenic photosynthesis evolved continues to engender debate and research. A clear paleontological window on cyanobacterial evolution opened about 2000 mya, revealing an already diverse biota of blue-greens. Cyanobacteria remained principal primary producers throughout the Proterozoic Eon (2500-543 mya), in part because the redox structure of the oceans favored photautotrophs capable of nitrogen fixation. Green algae joined blue-greens as major primary producers on continental shelves near the end of the Proterozoic, but only with the Mesozoic (251-65 mya) radiations of dinoflagellates, coccolithophorids, and diatoms did primary production in marine shelf waters take modern form. The most common cyanobacterial structures in the fossil record include stromatolites and oncolites. Cyanobacteria remain critical to marine ecosystems as primary producers in oceanic gyres, as agents of biological nitrogen fixation, and, in modified form, as the plastids of marine algae.^[10]

Voyager Golden Record

The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecraftextraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it. The Voyager spacecrafts are not heading towards any particular star, but in about 40,000 years Voyager 1 will be within 1.6 light years of the star AC+79 3888 in the Ophiuchus constellation.^[1] launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent

As the probes are extremely small compared to the vastness of interstellar space, it is extraordinarily unlikely that they will ever be accidentally encountered. If they are ever found by an alien species, it will most likely be far in the future, and thus the record is best seen as a time capsule or a symbolic statement rather than an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life.

Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

The Citroën Karin, 1980

Karin - a reverie
Having no new models to reveal at the 1980 Paris Salon, Citroën stylist Trevor Fiore was given the go ahead to build a model (not a driveable car) for display.

The result was the trapezoidal Karin, clearly inspired by Michel Harmand's design for a GS Coupé.

A three seater with the driver being seated centrally and ahead of the two passengers, this layout pre-empted that of the McLaren F1 of 1992.

Headlamp treatment was reminiscent of that of the SM.

Found Here: http://www.citroenet.org.uk/prototypes/karin/karin.html

The Citroën Karin was never more than a non-drivable model, but what a wonderful wedge it was. The center-mounted steering pod is especially appealing, with its amphitheater HUD surrounded by giant Walkmen-like buttons.

Found Here: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/04/28/photo-citroen-karin.html

Ulrich Lamfuß

ULRICH LAMSFUSS, ''The Raw and the Cooked,'' Lombard-Freid, 531 West 26th Street, (212) 967-8040 (through April 5). This Berlin painter copies photographs from fashion, news, travel and other sorts of magazines. A gallery release and two portraits of Andy Warhol, one a copy of the other, suggest that he has ulterior conceptual motives, but his faithfully nondescript renderings of fighting elephants, a movie zombie and a herd of wild horses leave one uncertain about exactly what he is up to (Johnson).

Found Here: http://www.lombard-freid.com/artists/lamsfuss/lamsfuss_press/lamsfuss_NYT_3_21_03.htm

& here: http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2009/01/ulrich-lamfus-at-max-hetzler/

Metal Spheres Found in 2 Million Year Old Rock

"The Grooved Spheres" Over the last few decades, miners in South Africa have been digging up mysterious metal spheres. Origin unknown, these spheres measure approximately an inch or so in diameter, and some are etched with three parallel grooves running around the equator. Two types of spheres have been found: one is composed of a solid bluish metal with flecks of white; the other is hollowed out and filled with a spongy white substance. The kicker is that the rock in which they where found is Precambrian - and dated to 2.8 billion years old! Who made them and for what purpose is unknown.

Found Here: http://www.theworldsbestever.com/news/

This metal sphere is just one of several hundred in one stratum in South Africa that is estimated to date back millions of years. The carefully shaped grooves that they contain cannot be the results of any natural phenomenon. This discovery shows that metal has been used since the very earliest times, and that for millions of years, humans have possessed the technology to make fine grooves in metal.

Found Here: http://www.thestoneage.org/stone_age_introduction_a.php

Sumerian Crystal Cylinder Seals

(French Sceaux-cylindres, German Zylindersiegel) are small (2-6 cm) cylinder-shaped stones carved with a decorative design in intaglio (engraved). The cylinder was rolled over wet clay to mark or identify clay tablets, envelopes, ceramics and bricks. It so covers an area as large as desired, an advantage over earlier stamp seals. Its use and spread coincides with the use of clay tablets, starting at the end of the 4th millennium up to the end of the first millennium.

After this time stamp seals are used again. Cylinder seals are important to historians. The seals were needed as signature, confirmation of receipt, or to mark clay tablets and building blocks.

The invention fits with the needs caused by the general development of city-states. Inscriptions are mostly carved in reverse, so as to leave a positive image on the clay with figures standing out. Some are directly carved and leave a negative imprint.

Stamp and cylinder seals for identifying ownership of property, and tokens for recording commodities, were other possible sources.

More than two thousand years later, in 2,308 BCE, the Sumerians developed their equivalent of the 11:57pm July 3rd 14,000 BCE sky chart and Narmer Plate combined. It comes in the form of a royal cylinder-seal depicting "The Sun is Risen". The purpose of the seal is to celebrate the Dawn of the Age of Aries. Perhaps not surprisingly it comes complete with Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. In linking the seal with the Ancient Egyptian 11:57 pm July 3rd 14000BCE sky chart the following need to be accounted for: the Celestial Sphinx and the Rising Sun, together with the Constellations of Orion, Gemini, Phoenix, and Grus. There are two other constellations on the sky chart, those of Taurus and Piscis Austrinus.

sculpture source:life

The history of the sculpture is varied and is illustrative of how sculpture has changed extensively over the ages. The art of sculpture continues as a vital artform worldwide. From pre-historic and ancient civilizations to the contemporary, from the utilitarian and religious to Modernist abstraction, and conceptual manifestations of both form and content, a continuous stream of creativity & an extremely modest show of compassion.

Sculpture has been central in religious devotion in many cultures, and until recent centuries large sculptures, too expensive for private individuals to create, were usually an expression of religion or politics. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the Ancient Mediterranean, India and China, as well as many in South America and Africa. Moses's rejection of the Golden Calf was perhaps a decisive event in the history of sculpture. Aniconism remained restricted to the Jewish, Zoroastrian and some other religions, before expanding to Early Buddhism and Early Christianity, neither of which initially accepted at least large sculptures. In both Christianity and Buddhism these early views were later reversed, and sculpture became very significant, especially in Buddhism. Christian Eastern Orthodoxy has never accepted monumental sculpture, and Islam has consistently rejected all figurative sculpture. Many forms of Protestantism also do not approve of religious sculpture. There has been much iconoclasm of sculpture from religious motives, from the Early Christians, the Beeldenstorm of the Protestant Reformation to the recent destruction of the Buddhas of BamyanTaliban. by the

Sculpture in ancient times

Venus of Willendorf.

Sculpture as an art form goes back to Prehistoric times. Most Stone Age statuettes were made of ivory or soft stone, however some clay human and animal figures have been found. Small female statues known as Venus figurines have been found mainly in central Europe. The Venus of Willendorf (24,000-22,000 BC), from the area of Willendorf, Austria, is a well-known example.

Later, in the Near East, (the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers), the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian kingdoms flourished. Materials used for sculpture during this time included basalt, diorite (a type of dark, coarse-grained stone), sandstone, and alabaster. Copper, gold, silver, shells, and a variety of precious stones were used for high quality sculpture and inlays. Clay was used for pottery and terra cotta sculpture. Stone was generally rare and had to be imported from other locations.

Sculptures from the Sumerian and Akkadian period generally had large, staring eyes, and long beards on the men. Votive stone sculptures of this type from 2700 BC were discovered at Tell Asmar. Many masterpieces have also been found at the Royal Cemetery at Ur (2650 BC). Among them are a wooden harp with gold and mosaic inlay with a black-bearded golden bull's head.

Social status

Nuremberg sculptor Adam Kraft, self-portrait from St Lorenz Church, 1490s.

Worldwide, sculptors have usually been tradesmen whose work is unsigned. But in the Classical world, many Ancient Greek sculptors like Phidias began to receive individual recognition in Periclean Athens, and became famous and presumably wealthy. In the Middle Ages, artists like the 12th century Gislebertus sometimes signed their work, and were sought after by different cities, especially from the Trecento onwards in Italy, with figures like Arnolfo di Cambio, Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni. Many sculptors also practised in other arts, sometimes painting, like Andrea del Verrocchio, or architecture, like Giovanni Pisano, Michelangelo, or Jacopo Sansovino, and maintained large workshops.

From the High Renaissance artists like Michelangelo, Leone Leoni and Giambologna could become wealthy, and ennobled, and enter the circle of princes. Much decorative sculpture on buildings remained a trade, but sculptors producing individual pieces were recognised on a level with painters. From at least the 18th century, sculpture also attracted middle-class students, although it was slower to do so than painting. Equally women sculptors took longer to appear than women painters, and have generally been less prominent until the 20th century at least.

Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sculpture

The White Shaman

The white shaman within the complex panel is in his ascendancy, leaving behind his black counterpart, his mortal body. He is headless, but his clawed feet and hands betray his feline affinities. Feathers fringe his outspread arms, enabling him to fly, and hanging from his arm is a medicine bundle that combines human, bird, and animal attributes. Surrounding the white shaman and his shadow are a number of inverted figures, their hair hanging down, signifying the symbolic death of the shaman in his ecstatic trance. Near at hand float schematic spear throwers, ready for the confrontation that lies ahead. Above him is the millipedic monster that he must pass to enter the land of the spirits, the barrier between the two worlds that separates the living from the dead. Above this serpentine obstacle, flying figures illustrate the trance state and death as experienced in this nether world. One of these figures has been reduced to the skeletal condition, his exposed backbone being an artistic convention intended to convey the rebirth from the bones, the most durable element of the body. Minor accessory figures include the delicate line drawing of a deer shaman, and a number of fantastic figures that people the supernatural world. The shaman is expected to encounter unearthly beings on his ethereal transits. These drawings may inform his audience about some of the fantastic apparitions that helped or hindered his voyage.
Found Here: http://www.rockart.org/gallery/rock7.html

Jean Jullien London, UK

Jean Jullien London, UK “There's a great deal of primitivism in the large pieces of paper torn, ripped, cut and assembled, covering the bodies, writing with big brushes and bold black ink. The process itself is full of movement.”

A French design who now lives and works in London, having recently graduated from Central Saint Martins. Jullien continues to pursue his master’s at the Royal College of Art.
Found Here:

http://www.jeanjullien.com/

Grégoire Alexandre Paris, France

Grégoire Alexandre Paris, France “Craft” integrates the possibilities and the limits of the medium, without using the computer to create impossible situations. I like my installations to be abstract but still possible.

Found Here: http://www.gregoirealexandre.com/

Normandy-born Grégoire Alexandre, now stationed in Paris. Cinema was his first interest, but he became more comfortable with photography since it gave him a greater sense of control and allowed him to take something out of reality without having to set it up first.

A Collection of Architecture

The term architecture (from Greek αρχιτεκτονική, architektonike) can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.

As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment, from the macro level of how a building integrates with its surrounding landscape (see town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture) to the micro level of architectural or construction details and, sometimes, furniture. Wider still, architecture is the activity of designing any kind of system.

As a profession, architecture is the role of those persons or machines providing architectural services.

As documentation, usually based on drawings, architecture defines the structure and/or behavior of a building or any other kind of system that is to be or has been constructed.

Architects have as their primary object providing for the spatial and shelter needs of people in groups of some kind (families, schools, churches, businesses, etc.) by the creative organisation of materials and components in a land- or city-scape, dealing with mass, space, form, volume, texture, structure, light, shadow, materials, program, and pragmatic elements such as cost, construction limitations and technology, to achieve an end which is functional, economical, practical and often with artistic and aesthetic aspects. This distinguishes architecture from engineering design, which has as its primary object the creative manipulation of materials and forms using mathematical and scientific principles.

Separate from the design process, architecture is also experienced^[1] through the senses, which therefore gives rise to aural,^[2] visual, olfactory,^[3] and tactile^[4] architecture. As people move through a space, architecture is experienced as a time sequence.^[5] Even though our culture considers architecture to be a visual experience, the other senses play a role in how we experience both natural and built environments. Attitudes towards the senses depend on culture.^[6] The design process and the sensory experience of a space are distinctly separate views, each with its own language and assumptions.

Architectural works are perceived as cultural and political symbols and works of art. Historical civilizations are often known primarily through their architectural achievements. Such buildings as the pyramids of Egypt and the Roman Colosseum are cultural symbols, and are an important link in public consciousness, even when scholars have discovered much about a past civilization through other means. Cities, regions and cultures continue to identify themselves with (and are known by) their architectural monuments.<sup>[7]

Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture</sup>

LANSING-DREIDEN

Lansing-Dreiden is a multi-media company founded in Miami, FL and is currently based in New York. Its output includes artwork in the form of drawings, collages, sculpture and video, as well as the production of music recordings and Death Notice, a free newspaper containing fictional stories and images. All Lansing-Dreiden projects are fragmentary, mere stones in a path whose end lies in a space where the very definition of "path" paths. Great Plates Weekly Salado O'Dalas Much like his fathers interest in creating a sort of ornament for the natural plates, his son’s innovations in sectional ship ornamentation paved the way for how we thought of adding to what had already been created. The son wants to fulfill his father’s dreams, but instead has found himself a builder and designer of vessels and vessel ornamentation. The son dies not ever reaching the top of his father’s spike, instead the aged vessels produced by dad’s factory are recycled into dwellings near Wellington. An entire town created out of large old floaters. Orally Core understandings were taken from the father’s tales, and the town celebrates after completing the Plates. All conditions after completion were controlled from the Core. Another example of newer engineering is a marvel made possible by the earliest water floaters. Decades of research into the systems of creation and deletion advise the most current shifters. As times before, all who grew on board were taken abroad to discuss the nature of our regions tectonics. These very individuals, some of them overlapping, compiled the now known Great Plates. The earliest of floaters used what was learned through tales of past people, they were long and would be gone long. The systems were air based, and they needed a lot of water. It was not long until they found the shore converted to shelter. In these barracks lay eggs from the sphere’s core, and at that core stand Walted Rarter, and the center of middle tale studies. His understandings of the floaters created a method for going, and the stories he told from the bounce were a simple fire. One tale that clamped to the students memory was a favorite of Rarter. It starts out with great hope and is titled "Great Place," which is really a secondary title for "A town of Dusk" where when the night falls the atmosphere thickens, becoming too thick with particles for even one breath. Later the people of the town hide below the tides eye. Moist and damp, the townsmen sleep on tiny floaters docked to the land tie. Most listeners to "A town of Dusk" find it hard to understand exactly why the night brings more dust, but to the teller the tale seems as natural as the ears interpretation. The dust in the tale you learn is the result of conditions meeting the Great Rock. Conditions that, as Rarter put it, "could be changed." Rarter is the last of the tale teachers found at the Center. His career and life revolve around the core. Several students of Rarter have tried to tale, but are forced by creed not to practice while a Core member is at center of the middle studies. Creeds of this nature are all convoys from Wellington, the regions very own center. As it happens Rarter is from Wellington, and his ancestors assembled most of the governing in the form of letters. Rather Rarter refers to them as notes, and keeps all of them near Center. Most notes describe the total growth and outline the path of Wellington before its creation. All documents can be viewed by any middle studies member, but can be seen only at the Center. Rarter’s public journal wows readers. The cover logo was one from his son, which became an icon for local ornament merchants. All merchants were forced into middle studies thanks to Wellington. Some riddled with their chaps, and they add more to the middle with monthly issues. Rarter’s best student starts his tale at the middle, which perplexes the merchant readers. Mostly because of his always adding to the floaters, almost pushing sinking. At the commencement Rarter speaks of the core and tells his final tale. The program outlines the three parts. All three parts, just a sentence long each. The following day a new merchant resumes his family practice, and reads the weekly with Rarter’s last tale. In the photo the merchant’s icon is embroidered into Rarter’s tassel. It’s as big as his head, and at the page bottom an ad for the monthly. Dust from Wellington covered above creating dusk. Found Here: http://www.lansing-dreiden.com/2006/DNIV/GreatPlatesWeekly.htm

Via Grafik Sculptures

Via Grafik is both a graphic design studio and an art collective based in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Working in the fields of graphic design, motion design, art direction and illustration, we are interested in developing design solutions at a unique visual level. Our aim hereby is to provide the best suitable design for the specific content of each individual project, wheter it be large or small.

The realisation of art projects increases our range of experience from which we richly profit on the creative process for commercial projects.

Our clients come from industries such as music, culture, art, and advertising as well as youth culture oriented brands. We work for clients like Nike, Adidas, Nintendo, MTV, VIVA, Junges
Staatstheater Wiesbaden, We the People.

Hopper, Edward (1882-1967)

Hopper, Edward (1882-1967). American painter, active mainly in New York.

• Interior scenes
• Street scenes
• Landscapes

He trained under Robert Henri, 1900-06, and between 1906 and 1910 made three trips to Europe, though these had little influence on his style. Hopper exhibited at the Armoury Show in 1913, but from then until 1923 he abandoned painting, earning his living by commercial illustration. Thereafter, however, he gained widespread recognition as a central exponent of American Scene painting, expressing the loneliness, vacuity, and stagnation of town life. Yet Hopper remained always an individualist: `I don't think I ever tried to paint the American scene; I'm trying to paint myself.'

Paintings such as Nighthawks (Art Institute of Chicago, 1942) convey a mood of loneliness and desolation by their emptiness or by the presence of anonymous, non-communicating figures. But of this picture Hopper said: `I didn't see it as particularly lonely... Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.' Deliberately so or not, in his still, reserved, and blandly handled paintings Hopper often exerts a powerful psychological impact -- distantly akin to that made by the Metaphysical painter de Chirico; but while de Chirico's effect was obtained by making the unreal seem real, Hopper's was rooted in the presentation of the familiar and concrete.

American scene painting

Edward Hopper painted American landscapes and cityscapes with a disturbing truth, expressing the world around him as a chilling, alienating, and often vacuous place. Everybody in a Hopper picture appears terribly alone. Hopper soon gained a widespread reputation as the artist who gave visual form to the loneliness and boredom of life in the big city. This was something new in art, perhaps an expression of the sense of human hopelessness that characterized the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Edward Hopper has something of the lonely gravity peculiar to Thomas Eakins, a courageous fidelity to life as he feels it to be. He also shares Winslow Homer's power to recall the feel of things. For Hopper, this feel is insistently low-key and ruminative. He shows the modern world unflinchingly; even its gaieties are gently mournful, echoing the disillusionment that swept across the country after the start of the Great Depression in 1929. Cape Cod Evening (1939; 77 x 102 cm (30 1/4 x 40 in)) should be idyllic, and in a way it is. The couple enjoy the evening sunshine outside their home, yet they are a couple only technically and the enjoyment is wholly passive as both are isolated and introspective in their reveries. Their house is closed to intimacy, the door firmly shut and the windows covered. The dog is the only alert creature, but even it turns away from the house. The thick, sinister trees tap on the window panes, but there will be no answer.

Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor

Chicago’s Millenium Park features two incredible pieces of public art that are worth seeing in person - Cloud Gate and The Crown Fountain. (www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/).
Photos by Carly Haffner and text by Don Porcella

Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millenium Park. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates and was installed in July 2004.

Looking up through the middle of Cloud Gate. A visual Vortex is created where the viewer seems farther away than possible. The small group of people in the center circle is the reflection of the viewer and the people around the viewer, looking up.

A fun house mirror effect is created under and around the whole sculpture. Viewer’s delight in seeing themselves reflected and distorted.

Because of it’s highly polished and reflective surface, the viewer becomes the art. Cloud Gate’s adornment is the surrounding environment. Whatever surrounds Cloud Gate defines the sculpture at that moment. In that way it is emblematic of its environment and at the same time ever changing.

Found Here: http://artcomments.blogspot.com/2008/05/chicagos-millenium-park-cloud-gate-and.html

Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by British artist Anish Kapoor. It is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, and is located on top of Park Grill and adjacent to the Chase Promenade. The sculpture was constructed between 2004 and 2006 and was temporarily unveiled in the summer of 2004. Nicknamed "The Bean" because of its legume-like shape, its exterior consists of 168 highly polished stainless steel plates. It is 33 feet by 66 feet by 42 feet (10 m × 20 m × 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (99.8 t; 98.2 long tons). The sculpture and the plaza are sometimes referred to jointly as "Cloud Gate on the AT&T Plaza" or "Cloud Gate on AT&T Plaza".

Cloud Gate has become a very popular sculpture that is known worldwide. Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture's exterior reflects and transforms the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's arch, which is 12 feet (3.7 m) high. On the underside of the sculpture is the omphalos, a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, although many tourists simply view the sculpture and its unique reflective properties as a photo-taking opportunity.

The sculpture was the result of a design competition. After being chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Eventually, a feasible method was found, but the sculpture fell behind schedule. It was unveiled in an incomplete form during the Millennium Park grand opening celebration before being concealed for completion.

Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate

Pergamon Altar

The Great Altar of Pergamon, a massive stone podium about one hundred feet long and thirty-five feet high, was originally built in the 2nd century BCE in the Ancient Greek city of Pergamon (modern day Bergama in Turkey) in north-western Anatolia, 25.74 kilometers (16 miles) from the Aegean Sea. The Great Altar of Pergamon has figured in lists of the Wonders of the World.^[1]

It has long been assumed that the magnificently-scaled and opulently decorated open-air altar— for it is not a temple—^[2] was dedicated to Zeus.^[3] The altar appears to be mentioned in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 2:12-13: "In Pergamos where Satan's Throne is".^[4]. The only lengthy reference to it in Antiquity is in the Liber Memorialis of Ampelius (8.14), where it is described as "a large marble altar, forty feet high with a great many sculptures, among which a Battle of the Giants."

"Political considerations at Pergamon made it necessary to glorify the civic and religious center of the small city-state", Herbert Hoffmann observed in 1952. "The high podium served to impress the exalted position of the altar, situated as it was on a high elevation, upon foreign visitors as they approached along the plain to partake in the biennial festival of Athena Nikephoros".

Some fragments from the frieze (the back view of a Giant, probably from Worksop Manor, and a dead giant, found at Fawley Court have been identified), perhaps collected by William Petty, were part of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel's collection of Antiquities at Arundel House, Strand, London, but rejected, as too weathered, for inclusion in the gift to the Ashmolean Museum.^[5] However, the main excavation was carried out in two campaigns, in 1879 and 1904, and shipped out of the Ottoman Empire by the German archaeological team lead by Carl Humann; it was reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, built in part to receive it, from 1910, where it can be seen alongside other monumental structures such as the Market Gate of Miletus and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon.

The Altar has a 113 metre (371 feet) long sculptural frieze depicting the gigantomachy, or struggle of the gods and the giants. "the frieze is composed of a sequence of isolated, tightly-knit and self-contained groups and figures" each unit assigned to one workshop. Many inscriptions on the lower moulded margin identify the sculptor responsible and his city.^[6]

Dazzle Camouflage WWI Battleships

Dazzle camouflage, also known as Razzle Dazzle or Dazzle painting, was a camouflageships, extensively during World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. Credited to artist Norman Wilkinson, it consisted of a complex pattern of geometric shapes in contrasting colors, interrupting and intersecting each other.Dazzle is a disruptive type of camouflage used in World War I to camouflage ships against German U-boats. The disruptive design resembled Cubist paintings and confused German U-boats on the speed and direction of a ship. paint scheme used on

During 1917 and 1918 Maurice L. Freedman was the District Camoufleur for the U.S. Shipping Board in Jacksonville, Florida. He was in charge of dazzling merchant ships. After the War, he came to RISD to study drawing and painting and decorative design. While at RISD he donated over 400 plans and 20 photos of the dazzled ships.

The top-secret nature of camouflage during World War I has made Dazzle one of history's hidden gems, and a collection of Dazzle Camouflage drawings and photographs have recently been rediscovered at RISD. It is believed the RISD collection is one of only two in the United States (the other is at National Archives in College Park, Maryland). Identifying the collection has inspired the RISD library to host an exhibit and symposium.

For many years RISD was not aware of its treasure trove. Identifying this collection has inspired the Library to have this exhibit and symposium. The "Artists at War: Exploring the Connections Between Art and Camouflage" Symposium will examine the questions surrounding the relationship of art and camouflage.

The symposium will be in the Michael P. Metcalf Auditorium in RISD's Chace Center and is free and open to the public on February 14, 2009 from 2-4 pm.

Frank Auerbach Paintings

Frank Auerbach was born in Berlin, to Max Auerbach and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, both of whom had studied art.^[3] His parents sent him to England in 1939 to escape the Nazis as part of the Kindertransport programme^[4]. (The family was jewish; his parents subsequently died in a concentration camp). He left Germany 7 April 1939, a month before his eighth birthday, to attend Bunce Court, a boarding school for refugees near Faversham in Kent, where he was sponsored by the writer Iris Origo. At Bunce Court, he was already seen as an artistic prodigy, and where his work already showed an expressionistic style. He also distinguished himself there as a stage actor.^[1][5] Auerbach has remained in England ever since, taking British nationality in 1947.^{[citation needed]} He studied art at St Martin's School of Art in London and later at the Royal College of Art, but was more strongly influenced by lessons with David Bomberg at Borough Polytechnic, and especially so by Bomberg's exploratory attitude. He also encouraged his St Martin's classmate Leon Kossoff to attend Bomberg's classes.^[1]

At 17, while playing a bit part in Peter Ustinov's first play House Of Regrets, he met the 32-year-old Estella Olive West, (generally known as "Stella" but referred to as "E. O. W." in the titles of his works), a widowed amateur actress who ran a boarding house in Earl's Court whose residents at the time included historian and novelist Len Deighton. She would be his lover for the next 23 years (including after his marriage to fellow Royal College of Art student Julia Wolstenholme) and also one of his most-depicted models. With her, he established his pattern of working and reworking paintings, so that some works took hundreds of sittings to complete: "It was quite an ordeal," West later remembered, "because he would spend hours on something and the next time he came he would scrape the whole lot down. That used to upset me terribly. I wondered what I was doing it all for." Their relationship was "often fraught, occasionally bordering on violence"; both agree that the violence was mainly Stella's, but that his work captured that intensity.^[1][6]

His paintings of E. O. W. featured in Auerbach's 1955 Royal College of Art graduation show, leading Helen Lessore of the Beaux Arts gallery to give him his first solo exhibition in January 1956. While reviews of that show were mixed, David Sylvester of The Listener declared it "The most exciting and impressive first one-man show by an English painter since Francis Bacon in 1949."^[1] Auerbach had five solo shows at the Beaux Arts Gallery between 1955 and 1963.^[3][2] (Before Kossoff, the studio had been used by Gustav Metzger, who was also a young Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.^[3]) He was slow to find his artistic bearings again; in nearly two years he produced no paintings, and only 10 drawings. "I somehow felt that what had been private had become public," the Guardian quoted him saying in 2001. "I had put myself into a uniform: there I was, this chap who had done these thick paintings in earth colours."^[1] Auerbach married Julia Wolstenholme in 1958; they had one son, Jake; but they broke up over his continuing, passionate relationship with Stella West. They reunited in 1976, after he and Stella had split.^[1] While still a student at the Royal College, he took over from his friend Leon Kossoff the Camden studio that has been his base since.

Chemtrails

Introduction
If you are unfamiliar with the subject of chemtrails, you should first read this general overview of the chemtrail spraying operations which began in earnest in late 1997. Without first reading the introductory overview, it's difficult to understand the later informaiton that is being presented here. There are several key points to understand about the chemtrail spraying program.

Most people discover the reality of chemtrails by initially reading about it on the Internet and then going outside and looking up into the sky. They are shocked to realize that what they had been reading about (and studying photographs of) is also taking place right over their heads. What some people had dismissed as mere "jet plane exhaust" (because there are now scores of internet propaganda web sitestrying to convince you that 'everything is well' and 'there's nothing to be alarmed about' and that unaccountable 'jet plane exhaust' plumes are magically being converted into horizon-to-horizon overcasts of "cirrus clouds" !) are dismayed to realize that chemtrails are indeed the toxin-laden aerosols that have been described here and at other web sites since 1998 and they are not being sprayed for any benign or national security reason as the disinformation peddlers would have you believe.

Nothing brings home the comprehension of the New World Order depopulation agenda than the realization that you and your family are also on the "useless eaters" (Henry Kissinger) elimination list.

Shiva the Destroyer Statue at CERN

The statue of Lord Shiva at CERN near the building A40. Given by Department of Atomic Energy, India. [1]

The statue is a gift from India, celebrating CERN's long association with India which started in the 1960's and continues strongly today. Unveiled at June 18, 2004.

Photographed by Arpad Horvath

Indian gift unveiled at CERN: the statue of the Indian deity Shiva was unveiled by His Excellency K M Chandrasekhar, ambassador (WTO Geneva), shown above signing the visitors' book, Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and secretary of the Indian Department of Energy, and CERN's director-general, Robert Aymar.

Lord Shiva Statue Unveiled
Inauguration d'une statue du dieu Shiva

23 min. MiniDV / / CERN Copyright 2004
Keywords: Shiva, India
Reference: CERN-VIDEORUSH-2004-05
Language: French

Found Here: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/search?ln=en&sc=1&p=shiva+statue&f=&action_search=Search&c=Articles+%26+Preprints&c=Books+%26+Proceedings&c=Presentations+%26+Talks&c=Periodicals+%26+Progress+Reports&c=Multimedia+%26+Outreach
CERN Document Server

Josh Keyes Paintings

Josh Keyes was born in 1969 in Tacoma Washington. Keyes graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and later received his MFA in painting from Yale University. Josh’s work brings to mind the detail and complexity of natural history dioramas, and the color and diagrammatic complexity one might find in cross section illustrations from a vintage science textbook. His work has developed over the past years into an iconic and complex personal vocabulary of imagery that creates a mysterious and sometimes unsettling juxtaposition between the natural world and the man made landscape. The work conveys an anxious vision of what the world might be like in the future as a result of current global warming predictions. Keyes’ interest in creating paintings that fuse realism with the possible often evokes the imagery found in dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature, while other works express the optimism and utopian ideas found in the writings of Buckminster Fuller and Paolo Soleri. Keyes often incorporates objects and animals into his dissected environments that have personal iconographic significance. He weaves his personal mythology through fractured and isolated landscapes that are either overgrown with vegetation or underwater, and often depict historic or military monuments covered with graffiti. The imagery functions as a way for Keyes to express his personal experience and also allows him to comment and interpret events in the world. His work has been featured in numerous publications and exhibited in galleries in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Denver. Keyes currently lives and works in Oakland California.


Found Here: http://www.joshkeyes.net/paintings.htm

Mariko Mori

Tea with Mariko
by Kay Itoi

It was an impressive little piece of performance art. Mariko Mori, arguably the most visible Japanese artist in the West today, entered the all-white, glass and plastic tea room she had specially designed for the posh apartment that serves as her Tokyo studio. Dressed in a white, simple two-piece cotton dress and socks, Mori bowed to her guest (me), seated us both on the tatami mats and slowly proceeded to perform a tea ceremony.

Since I ignored my mother's order to learn the Way of Tea as a young girl, I could not tell whether her movement was exactly in sync with the traditional cha no yu -- although some of the utensils, like a glass chawan, or tea bowl, and a lime-green plastic chashaku, or tea scoop, looked rather unorthodox.

I was there because the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, had just announced plans to present Mori's first solo museum show in Japan, to be held early next year. So I finished drinking bitter tea in three gulps (as instructed) and took my pen in hand.

Mori, who was born in 1967 and has worked in New York City for 10 years, turned her smiling face to me. To me the tea room felt uncomfortably small, though obviously the artist was at home. Relaxed and in control, she spoke slowly, taking her time considering each question and answering in a low voice.

"Mariko Mori Pure Land" will be on display at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Jan. 19-Mar. 24, 2002. It will be curated and organized by the Tokyo museum and the Milan-based Fondazione Prada.
KAY ITOI is a critic and reporter based in Japan.

Mariko Mori (森万里子, Mori Mariko, b. 1967 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese video and photographic artist. While studying at Bunka Fashion College, she worked as a fashion model in the late 1980s. This strongly influenced her early works, such as Play with Me, in which she takes control of her role in the image, becoming an exotic, alien creature in everyday scenes. In 1989, she moved to London to study at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Found Here: http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/FEATURES/itoi/itoi11-20-01.asp & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariko_Mori