I've come back from magic. Transported to a world, parallel to ours where giant mechanical elephants, belly filled with dignitaries, roam the centre of a city very similar to London. Spaceships that have travelled from afar crash into tarmac, and girls, little girls who are quite humungous, wander around and sleep in a place that seems close to where the Queen lives.
Image from flikr — See more photos on flikr
If you travel to central London tomorrow or Sunday, you may very well see them for yourself; just make sure you practice your most regal bow for you may meet the Sultan himself...
See individual entry…The insectophile in me is very excited that the first festival celebrating, to quote:
... appreciation of “insects in art and the art of being an insect”, the Pestival aims to create positive PR for this 400-million-year-old, highly evolved taxon that has had thousands of years of bad press.
is happening soon in London. With a humourous title of Pestival the programme includes:
- Dr. Mark Benecke: Adventures in Forensic Entomology — Benecke will enlighten us with his knowledge and understanding of maggot behaviour, illustrating his talk with fresh and juicy demonstrations.
- Dr. Claire Preston: The Art and Allure of the Bee — Claire Preston follows the natural and cultural history of our relationship with the bee and the development of these legends, from ancient political descriptions of the bee to Renaissance debates about monarchy, and the accompanying scientific discoveries about insects, to the modern conversion of the virtuous, civil bee into the dangerous swarm of the Hollywood horror flick.
- Prof. David Rothenberg: Why Do Insects Sing? — Crickets, cicadas, katydids, cecropia moths. They're the original polyrhythmacists, jammers in the dark, trance tuners of the dark soundwaves of night. Music is at the center of their lives, as they sing to find each other, to celebrate the warming of the seasons, their sonic place in the ecology. Science knows the reasons, but not the grooves. Why do insects synchronize across species lines? Why do they produce sounds we can enjoy, which they are sometimes unable to hear themselves?
- Films including Ladislaw Starewicz’s The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912) and Phase IV, a mesmerising, thoughtful 1974 eco-science fiction film, directed by Saul Bass.
- Insect inspired music.
The overlords are fast approaching. All hail our insect masters...
See individual entry…
Igor is extirpated, and the hefty fabric of reality sighs briefly. Yet his creases, delicate but sharp, remain.
Let us have some fun and read Igor's obituaries. Let us compare them and then categorise them:
Independent gushes at celebrity links
Guardian effuses at famous people connections
blah blah blah from the Times with celebrity roll call
Who wins? Well, I put the Independent in a box of spoons, while the Guardian sits on the bottom shelf, under a pile of other obituaries. The Times, well, it is not even fit for lining the cutlery draw is it? Funny how tedious you can make someone just by writing an obituary about them. For Igor, that is doubly the case.
Let us ponder, ideally thoughtfully yet directionlessly; and let some of the word combinations he formulated and their effects on our reality live on...
See individual entry…When I do die I shall be glad to get away from loud pop music and motor cars, but I shall miss, insofar as when one is dead one can miss anything, the beautiful kindnesses of those people to whom courtesy comes naturally.
When something transcends the 'intellectualisation' of that thing and reaches so very deep into the pulsing blood-red of our inside - that is art. Art isn't about accurate oil paintings of bowls of fruit, or Velázquez masturbating images of the rich and/or dwarves - it is about challenging the indescribable 'feeling' of experience. That is why paintings by the 'masters' very rarely classify as 'art' to me - and cinema is actually one of the peaks of true 'artistic' endeavour (and not only 'entertainment'). Paintings by Michelangelo and the other poster boys of 'classical art' leave me cold - we are told time-and-again that this is 'art', conditioned to restrict Duchamp's urinal to paraphernalia. Well, classical painting is the dull paraphernalia of what I consider 'true' art - and cinema sits at the core of this vision.
And so Lukas Moodysson (also the director of Together & Show me Love1), has achieved in Lilya 4-Ever a deserved claim to 'masterpiece'. I really can't overstate what a profoundly intense and fucking amazing film this is. I can't (don't want to) approach it intellectually, but it really devastated me emotionally.
It is the story of Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), a 16 year girl in Russia, and her slow slide into prostitution and eventual trafficking to a pimp in Sweden. Core to the film is the desperate and tender friendship with a younger boy, Volodya (Artiom Bogucharsky), who often sleeps on the street because of the whims of an abusive father. I won't really objectify the film into description - it is a film to be felt - combining a transcendent poetry with the raw bloody viscera of reality. It is wonderfully directed and structured, brilliantly acted and flawless in so many ways.
Yolanda (my friend whose MSc dissertation will be on trafficking of women) pointed out (rightly) that the film is probably not representative of many women's experiences of sex-trafficking. Many trafficked sex-workers often live together and have this as a kind of support network, something that Lilya never experiences. I agree it may not be representative, yet this film is about the experience of one girl, and was not for me a film whose aim was overtly 'political' (unlike In This World ), but it was a portrait of a life, a fellow being. It was, from my point above, a real and profound portrait, not like the trivial craftsmanship2 of Raphael, but of the true kind of transcendental art.
1 See an Interview with him here
2 A substantial body of 'classical art' for me is 'just' craftsmanship. Technically impressive and pleasing to the eye - but as reflections that deeply touch us inside and make us think about or challenge our existence (my claim to true art), they fail miserably.
3 Here is a brief sketch I wrote last night in my diary: it is a profound and intense masterpiece. Combining transcendent poetry with the raw bloody viscera of reality - it is a true work of art. Like all such peaks, it has the ability to pierce deep into your heart, and therefore be very disturbing. But the poetry flowing through the film elevates it SO very far above the usual emotional 'shock-tactics' of contrived Hollywood tear-jerkers. A true and profound treasure!
See individual entry…"Living Jewels":http://living-jewels.com/ (seen in metafilter) See individual entry…
Camera: Lomo LC-A Film: Jessops 100ASA cheap slide film (cross-processed) p(spacer). See individual entry…
Camera: Lomo LC-A Film: Jessops 100ASA cheap slide film (cross-processed) p(spacer). See individual entry…