Category Archives: Praxis

The function of the hero, John Berger

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Berger

“The function of the hero in art is to inspire the reader or spectator to continue in the same spirit from where he, the hero, leaves off. He must release the spectator’s potentiality, for potentiality is the historic force behind nobility. And to do this the hero must be typical of the characters and class who at that time only need to be made aware of their heroic potentiality in order to be able to make their society juster and nobler. Bourgeois culture is no longer capable of producing heroes. On the highbrow level it only produces characters who are embodied consolations for defeat, and on the lowbrow level it produces idols—stars, TV “personalities,” pin-ups. The function of the idol is the exact opposite to that of the hero. The idol is self-sufficient; the hero never is. The idol is so superficially desirable, spectacular, witty, happy that he or she merely supplies a context for fantasy and therefore, instead of inspiring, lulls. The idol is based on the appearance of perfection; but never on the striving towards it.”

John Berger (b. 1926), British author, painter. “A Few Useful Definitions,” Permanent Red, Writers and Readers Publ. (1960).

Syrian Forces Jail Artist Youssef Abdeke

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Youssef Abdelke, an internationally acclaimed Syrian artist and a communist activist from the Christian community, spent the best part of 1978 to 1980 incarcerated. Following this he went into a self-imposed exile in Paris, until he returned to Syria in 2005, where he has been relating the tragedy of what is happening in Syria through his work.

The artist and dissident had just signed a petition started by Syrian academics and artists calling for a peaceful and political solution to the conflict in the country that has now gone on for over two years. The document demands the ouster of Bashar al-Assad and a transition to a democratic system with an interim government under UN supervision.  Unfortunately, Abdelke was arrested last Thursday (July 19th) by Assad forces at a security checkpoint in the port city of Tartus.

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Over the last few years Syria has seen an increase in the targeting of intellectuals and artists: from the cartoonist Ali Ferzat who was arrested and had his hands broken, to ‘The Singer of the Revolution’, Ibrahim Kashoush, who had his throat cut.

There is currently a Facebook campaign, launched in Syria, calling for the release of Youssef Abdelke.

Street Artists Clash With Weinstein Company Over “Fruitvale” Murals

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To promote the upcoming movie “Fruitvale Station,” about the 2009 fatal shooting of an unarmed Oscar Grant by a Bart police officer on a platform at Oakland’s Fruitvale BART Station, the Weinstein Company. commissioned three murals in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco by street artists Ron English, Lydia Emily and LNY.  Unfortunatley, logistical issues and creative conflicts between some of the artists and the studio have led to delays and disagreements.

Ron English’s work on the Los Angeles mural was supposed to begin June 27th, but production stopped that morning.  For this mural Grant’s face was to be seen over a rainbow-colored backdrop, not unlike the “Abraham Obama” image English created for the 2008 presidential election.

Ron English, "Abraham Obama"

Ron English, “Abraham Obama”

English’s first choice, however, was a version of a Norman Rockwell painting, in which he depicted an African American boy with a target on his back. He was told, however, that the image was “too aggressive.”  “It’s been pretty frustrating,” English told the Los Angeles Times. “They rejected my first idea. The next one we changed about eight times and the director got involved and rejected it. The director said it can’t be anything negative or about the police or guns.”

Lydia Emily, "Oscar Grant"

Lydia Emily, “Oscar Grant”

Los Angeles. artist Lydia Emily was originally to paint the San Francisco wall with Oakland-based street artist Eddie Colla. After creative differences, however, Colla left the project.  Emily painted the San Francisco mural solo on the side of Ian Ross Gallery, south of Market Street.  LNY is set to begin work on her mural in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, once unspecified “logistical issues” are settled.

“Fruitvale” took home both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize at last January’s Sundance Film Festival.

Midsummer Night’s Dreaming

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The Royal Shakespeare Company and Google Creative Lab team in an attempt to create a new performance experience as they produce a three day, real-time performance of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (June 21st through 23rd). The event will be situated in the real world at the RSC’s home of Stratford-upon-Avon and virtually at Dream 40.  During this production, Google wants people to interact with the play in a myriad of ways as they follow the characters’ journeys through the magical forest of dreams to the final marriage scene between Demetrius and Helena, Lysander and Hermia. People can take part online via a Google+ community hangout and other social media using the hashtag #dream40.  Titled thus on account of this being the 40th full production of the play by the RSC.

The live performance, directed by the RSC’s Artistic Director Gregory Doran, takes place at the outdoor Dell Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Audience members on site will be able to  join in on 23 June by making decorations, writing blessings for the happy couples and by attending the wedding itself as part of the congregation.

Project director at Google Creative Lab Tom Uglow wrote a detailed explanation of how he hopes the play will work on multiple platforms, complete with animation of William Shakespeare himself working with a time-traveling pig.

The experimental nature of Midsummer Night’s Dreaming hopes to explore how or if theatrical performance can engage with the online world in real time. However, Puck is the only character to bridge the live and digital performances with his own online profile.

http://youtu.be/7IatrprhNcU

 

Beckett’s original manuscript of “Murphy” up for auction

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Six notebooks, containing the handwritten draft of Samuel Beckett’s first published novel, Murphy, are to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in London on July 10th, and has an estimated price of £800,000 – £1.2 million.

Initially entitled Sasha Murphy, the heavily revised draft was penned by Beckett between August 1935 and June 1936 when he was undergoing an intense period of psychoanalysis.

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The manuscript – originally titled Sasha Murphy – is filled with doodles and extensive corrections, including sketches of his friend and mentor James Joyce, himself, and Charlie Chaplin,  as well as astrological symbols and musical notations.

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The first 11 pages are entirely crossed out.  The novel’s famous opening sentence did not come easily for Beckett.  He tried “The sun shone, as only the sun can, on nothing new”, working through various alternatives before ending up with: “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

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At over 800 pages long, the draft provides a substantially different text from the printed version of the published 1938 novel. which concerns Murphy and his farcical attempts to find peace without intrusion from the outside world, most notably by working in an insane asylum.  Despite its dark philosophical underpinnings, it is a comic masterpiece, and marks Beckett’s last major effort at writing in English, prior to switching to French.

“The sensation of the seat of a chair coming together with his drooping posteriors at last was so delicious that he rose at once and repeated the sit, lingeringly and with intense concentration. Murphy did not so often meet with these tendernesses that he could afford to treat them casually. The second sit, however, was a great disappointment.”

Peter Scott, Cat Burglar

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Peter Scott, 'King of thee Cat Burglers'

Peter Scott, Britain’s most notorious cat burglar, recently passed away at the age of 82 and received an obituary fit for those that he stole from in the The Telegraph.  His victims included Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, and Maria Callas.

“I felt like a missionary seeing his flock for the first time,” he explained when he recalled casing Dropmore House, the country house of the press baron Viscount Kemsley, on a rainy night in 1956 and squinting through the window at the well-heeled guests sitting down to dinner. “I decided these people were my life’s work.” (from the Telegraph’s obituary)

Da Vinci’s Cover Letter

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My Most Illustrious Lord,

Having now sufficiently seen and considered the achievements of all those who count themselves masters and artificers of instruments of war, and having noted that the invention and performance of the said instruments is in no way different from that in common usage, I shall endeavour, while intending no discredit to anyone else, to make myself understood to Your Excellency for the purpose of unfolding to you my secrets, and thereafter offering them at your complete disposal, and when the time is right bringing into effective operation all those things which are in part briefly listed below:

1. I have plans for very light, strong and easily portable bridges with which to pursue and, on some occasions, flee the enemy, and others, sturdy and indestructible either by fire or in battle, easy and convenient to lift and place in position. Also means of burning and destroying those of the enemy.

2. I know how, in the course of the siege of a terrain, to remove water from the moats and how to make an infinite number of bridges, mantlets and scaling ladders and other instruments necessary to such an enterprise.

3. Also, if one cannot, when besieging a terrain, proceed by bombardment either because of the height of the glacis or the strength of its situation and location, I have methods for destroying every fortress or other stranglehold unless it has been founded upon a rock or so forth.

4. I have also types of cannon, most convenient and easily portable, with which to hurl small stones almost like a hail-storm; and the smoke from the cannon will instil a great fear in the enemy on account of the grave damage and confusion.

5. Also, I have means of arriving at a designated spot through mines and secret winding passages constructed completely without noise, even if it should be necessary to pass underneath moats or any river.

6. Also, I will make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable, which will penetrate the enemy and their artillery, and there is no host of armed men so great that they would not break through it. And behind these the infantry will be able to follow, quite uninjured and unimpeded.

7. Also, should the need arise, I will make cannon, mortar and light ordnance of very beautiful and functional design that are quite out of the ordinary.

8. Where the use of cannon is impracticable, I will assemble catapults, mangonels, trebuckets and other instruments of wonderful efficiency not in general use. In short, as the variety of circumstances dictate, I will make an infinite number of items for attack and defence.

9. And should a sea battle be occasioned, I have examples of many instruments which are highly suitable either in attack or defence, and craft which will resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon and powder and smoke.

10. In time of peace I believe I can give as complete satisfaction as any other in the field of architecture, and the construction of both public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another.

Also I can execute sculpture in marble, bronze and clay. Likewise in painting, I can do everything possible as well as any other, whosoever he may be.

Moreover, work could be undertaken on the bronze horse which will be to the immortal glory and eternal honour of the auspicious memory of His Lordship your father, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.

And if any of the above-mentioned things seem impossible or impracticable to anyone, I am most readily disposed to demonstrate them in your park or in whatsoever place shall please Your Excellency, to whom I commend myself with all possible humility.

Leonardo da Vinci’s application to the court of Ludovico Sforza.
A decade later, it was Sforza who commissioned him to paint The Last Supper.
Source: Letters of Note.  From: Leonardo on Painting: An Anthology of Writings by Leonardo da Vinci with a Selection of Documents Relating to His Career