Still Life?

Or, how to bring classic paintings to life. Or to stillness. Or something. Anyway, for a bit of fun:

It all started in 2006, when the Malatheatre company’s founder Ludovica Rambelli — passed away in April 2017 — gave a lecture at the University of Naples, on Caravaggio’s way of working. That’s when Ludovica realised that the best way to explain it was through a theatrical performance. “He used actors to build the scenes he painted, in fact we did not reproduce his work, but recreated what happened in his studio,” said current company director, Dora De Maio, referring to what for a few years has become a real play entitled La conversione di un cavallo. 23 Tableaux Vivants dalle opere di Caravaggio, or simply, Tableaux Vivants.

Inspired, among others, by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s short film La Ricotta, the intention of this show is to achieve “a great visual impact” with a minimalist scenography, baroque melodies — by composers such as Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi — and a focus located on one side, which emulates the suggestive light effect of the Italian master’s paintings.

Watch them at work here, too:

I think it would be fun to try at home (or with a dedicated group of amateurs), but I also think it would be incredibly difficult to pull off their wonderful level of ‘casual movements of (un)dress PERFECT POSE’. Excellent co-ordination and execution. And such perfect expressions.

Now, nobody beats the original, but k.d. lang does a pretty fine job, if you ask me.

Another must-listen version.

Winter Drama

We saw them in sunlight, but after some of you mentioned a love of fog, I give you these same rooftops on that same day – this is reasonably early in the morning (it did get lighter, as the last picture shows), but the drama is only deepened by the looming darkness.

The fog lasted all through the day.

The wide view
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Where’s that shiny cupola disappeared?
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I don’t know what feels creepiest, the paired streetlights or the general sense of loomingness…
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Midday was considerably brighter, but visibility was still what it was.
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And here’s a creepy winter song, too.

Airports and Timeskips

In TNET, we had a small conversation about omens and quests, but I think the answer is much simpler than that.

See, I got some cookies in the mail (more about that sometime next week). Because I was expecting a long day of travel, I packed some as snacks for the trip. My original first connection was to a large hub airport that is reasonably close to the cookies’ region of origin. Obviously, this was not acceptable to the cookies (they are not meant to go home!), so they sent out waves of distress into the spacetime ether, and destiny listened – not only was that first flight delayed for more than 2 hrs (in the end!), but I couldn’t even be placed on the same route without missing one or some other of my later connections. However, instead of the double-plus-best-good option of visiting two completely new airports this trip, I got one very nice one at Zagreb. Add to that an earlier (than original) arrival at my final destination, and this is a win no matter how I look at it. It is now snowing outside my hotel window, and I have a happy ending, and one full productive work day behind me.

(And the cookies ended up saving both my life and the lives of my passengers between Vienna and Zagreb, but that is a much more mundane story and requires no fantastic elements. Thank you, cookies.)

Let us retrace my steps, then (though the Skopje photo is from last trip, as by the time I got in I couldn’t be bothered):

Riga
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Vienna (it’s a bad photo, so what, the cookies were calling my name)
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Zagreb (not a complicated airport, but so much I love about that construction and its geometry)
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Skopje
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This is Peteris Vasks writing about everything that is the opposite of anything related to heights, it is here for the the quietness and stillness. The moment the choir happens is the one where time stops for me.

Oh, speaking of stopped time, my favourite part through my terrible ordeal with delays and undelays was watching luggage trains make pretty tracks in the snow:

Hearts and ribbons? Particle collisions?
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Macedonia 9 – Skopje At Night

This is the last piece in the series (previous one here), which is fitting, because things have come around and I am back in Macedonia for the week. I doubt I will be taking many pictures this time, because work and I’m taking the opportunity to not really think about anything else outside of that.

So here’s a few pictures of Skopje at night, enjoy the light.

Alexander at dusk.
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Bridges into darkness.
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Mornings at the Station

It’s getting dark. Once again, an impressionist shot. But I will say that this darkness is unusual – for one, crappy camera, but also today has been a particularly foggy day, and it’s only getting worse now that evening is upon us.

I’m enjoying the atmosphere of the second shot, though. I’m standing between the two tracks, and something about that light effect and the out-of-focus is very appealing to me.

The usual angle, as it were…
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Incidentally, I am currently reading José Saramago’s Blindness (mixed feelings). Today’s weather is a lot like his characters describe their blindness: just a lot of white. Although the fog here is probably less luminescent; going home is going to be interesting. Oh yes, and we lost all our snow.

Speaking of keeping a lid on things, I travel next week to Macedonia again, returning on the 23rd. I have mixed feelings about this trip, but I guess it’s good to be recognized?

Contortions

Many things have fascinated me over the course of my life, not necessarily because I understood or understand them fully, but usually because there is some element of incomprehension – the idea of Schrödinger’s cat, for example, or a mysterious book that is actually a treasure hunt. While the first led to many… odd creations of art that included cats perched pensively in boxes in outer space surrounded by snakes and spiral galaxies, the second had gorgeous paintings of their own that I can still remember clearly (though I never solved the riddle itself).

About a year ago, I found myself returning to the paintings of Masquerade – though subconsciously. I was playing around with cats contorted into unusual positions by virtue of being forced into a small box: the frame, as it were. The whole idea was that you could place it any way you like, there was no proper up-down orientation. Later, as it happened, I had to adjust the subject matter to more closely align to a colleague’s preferences, and the final painting is of a horse (of course), about 10cm x 15cm.

It even works when upside down.
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And although one’s own paintings should look familiar, there was something more to it that wouldn’t stop poking at the back of my brain, until I remembered this image:

A page from Masquerade by Kit Williams.

Not quite the contortioning example of equine flexibility I came up with, but one can see the signs of influence. And it’s always fascinating how these sorts of little things can come together to become something new and different.

Anyway, I like my horse-in-a-box, and one day I will also complete the originally-intended cat-in-a-box.

To be honest, I always pictured Schrödinger’s poor cat as something of an unfortunate astronaut.

Vanitas of Mushrooms

As tends to happen, I’d forgotten about these beauties. This is a fungal skeleton I came across one early autumn morning, and in that delicious light, it was irresistible. The word that comes to mind is fragility.

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Translucency at its best.
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Delicate like a thin film of soap.
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One with the light.
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For more mushroom fun, I found this wonderful piece:

And Sting has the perfect song for us:

Closer to the Sun

I work on (essentially) the fourth floor so I have a great view of some rooftops. As we had another sunny day, I couldn’t help myself and gave the work camera another workout. Most photos below the fold, since I got a bit… carried away.

(They’re a bit of an obscure Canadian band but something about them caught my ear – their music makes me a little bit happy, a little bit upbeat, a lot like winter sunlight…)

It was much earlier in the morning – I had my fun before the work day began, and it was beautiful.
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A Pair of Beautiful Mornings

As promised, same time, same place… Except does the ‘same time’ argument count if it’s a few weeks later?

First, an overcast morning. I was a bit disappointed because the previous morning had been clear skies and lovely dawn colours, but as it happens, I didn’t have a camera on me – I’ve been using the work camera since the dog out country chewed up my handy little soapbox, and my phone camera has given up ages ago (the selfie camera leaves much to be desired). So I borrowed the work camera, but this particular morning insisted on a blanket of clouds. Oh well, says I.

Lovely snow everywhere. Though a bit thin.
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Then I left the work camera at work, of course, and the following morning arrived – clear skies, and those lovely dawn colours through the darkness. Screw it, I thought to myself – this needs a photo. And did my best with the selfie camera on my phone. Just pretend it’s an impressionist painting, and I think you can get past the blurriness and enjoy the atmosphere.

Bit of a different angle because the photo I took from the platform was terrible. See the drama!
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It was still November when I took these photos, and the picture shows, I believe, electric train cables.

Achievement Unlocked: Status “Winter Wonderland” Acquired

Yes, it’s a winter wonderland out there right now (complete with angry driving and the fools who didn’t change to winter tires on time because ‘the law says December 1!’). I have said it before, and I will say it again: I love snow. A winter without snow is a desolate mess of oversalted streets and sooty puddles and pure, unadulterated darkness (and this ain’t even Finland!), but a winter with snow – ah! Ice Swimmer said it once, twice the light, and this is true. Yes, it’s a slushy, desolate mess in the city, but I far prefer hopping the irregular snow banks to slogging along the dirty trottoir without them.

Alas, the work schedule forbids me daylight hours, but here’s a glimpse into the wonderland of my backyard. I can only hope that there will be more.

It’s not much, but it makes a difference, even in that orange sodium glare.
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Little solar light, doing its best, wearing a lovely winter hat!
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Wee little icicles! So long as they’re not hanging from our eaves, they’re adorable.
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Look at that crispy goodness!
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The beginnings of the skating rink – after a years’ hiatus, it will be up this year! Though I’ve been told there will be no skeleton track. Boo.
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And I had to retake the previous shot, because Ronja insisted she had to get in on the photo fun. She’s all puffed up and happy.
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Singing the beauty out, it’s the Latvian Voices – the video is shot in the attic part of the National Art Museum (worth a visit), which is all painted white, and I hope this is a good omen for the winter to come.

 

Winter Light

With yesterday’s sunny weather, the buildings across the street at work were showing off some beautiful crisp lines and shadows.

This is the view down the street – it’s not so much the buildings you should enjoy, but that lovely low golden light. About as bright as it gets.
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And here’s the view across the street – you can see the years these two were built, and also compare and contrast the degree to which they’ve been taken care of.
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Detail of 1912, it’s got a funky little piece of identifying art at the top: judging from the implements, someone in the building industry (engineer or architest) was the initial owner of the building.
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Here’s 1900 next door with no such identifying marks, but it has a certain respectability to it.
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Snow-clad rooftops against that pale, delicate sky…
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An hour later, the sun had moved enough to cast significant shadow and all the impressive lighting was on the other side of the building.
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Indeed, nothing compares to the magic of a sunny winter’s day. Who knows how many we shall have this year?

Winter Has Come

And nobody knows for how long!

This morning I left home about a half hour later than usual because I had to take the car in for pre-winter-season servicing, which is always a fun time of year, but that’s not the point.

The point is the wonderful clear winter morning light – compare the darkness with the photos from the train station a few weeks ago. I’m determined to get that same shot tomorrow, though I have no idea if it will be overcast darkness, or the wondrous pearly dawn we had today. In any case, here’s the backyard all snowy, and the subtly dramatic colouring of the sky, heralding a sunny winter’s day:

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There’s a bright light in the sky!
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This isn’t a theme with the moon again – but it’s interesting to see the same half moon at a different angle.
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And the song I wanted by this band, Fight the Feeling, could not be found by me on youtube, but here’s something appropriate in theme by The Music.

Imaginary Experiments in Transgenics

I have a colleague who has a pet horse and also a pet spider.

This is the card she got for her birthday:

I haven’t worked out the internal anatomy. That’s an issue for an actual geneticist, I’m just the conceptual artist!
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It’s a bit rushed because I totally forgot that I had to have it done for that day, but I had the idea all set up in my head. And mostly got it right.