Just...................whatever [8]

Sprawl?

halfwise wrote:Are you expecting that there's a word to describe it?  If looking for a poetical description I think you did pretty well, especially with the fungi analogy.

For writers, try Luc Sante.  He was inspired by this aspect you describe in New York City to write a history of these forgotten undercurrents - a book called Lowlife.

no, not a word, but I wondered if someone has written about these layer cake thingies that are cities. I tried the archaeology analogy going down into layers of time, but that's vertical strata, then I tried horizontal mapping analogy but that's 2 dimensional, not multi-dimensional, and then my brain flaked out for a bit, then I thought of city as museum but that sounded static and preserved in aspic, then I thought of genius loci, but that's a bit airy fairy, then I heard of rhizome philosophy and that sounded pretty good, maybe its a timey wimey Dr.Who kinda thing. I will check out Luc Sante. I just read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, it blew my mind.

{{This might help give inspiration Figg, particularly from 1.18- I think you could adapt that analogy, a city with each layer of time is experienced as a day or something, each day unique in itself, but the entire stack of days up to the last one, the present now, effected by and reflecting all the days of the city stacked beneath...um, something ... }}}



{{ 'Every moment of the city laid out around you, streets full of buildings made of past days, the day (insert famous city place here) was built, the day (insert famous person from city here) died, the day (insert some tragic famous city romance/scandal/war here ) began, the day it died. A whole city built on its past of triumph and heartbreak and boredom and laughter and everyday things done by everyday people leading their ordinary lives. The city is a structure relative to its past. The city is the space made by our lives. Where we stand together forever.'     }}}

Freaky

Forest Shepherd wrote:Sprawl?

that's horizontal but nice try.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{This might help give inspiration Figg, particularly from 1.18- I think you could adapt that analogy, a city with each layer of time is experienced as a day or something, each day unique in itself, but the entire stack of days up to the last one, the present now, effected by and reflecting all the days of the city stacked beneath...um, something ... }}}



{{ 'Every moment of the city laid out around you, streets full of buildings made of past days, the day (insert famous city place here) was built, the day (insert famous person from city here) died, the day (insert some tragic famous city romance/scandal/war here ) began, the day it died. A whole city built on its past of triumph and heartbreak and boredom and laughter and everyday things done by everyday people leading their ordinary lives. The city is a structure relative to its past. The city is the space made by our lives. Where we stand together forever.'     }}}

nice! that is, in a nutshell, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. You should read it, its short but packs a timey wimey punch.

"Yet, there is a point of origin in my consciousness, Invisible Cities came to me precisely when I was ready to read it, when my mind was blasted open to complexity and patterns—after which the world and my memory of it dissolves into a series of visual, theoretical and mathematical illustrations of Calvino’s masterpiece."

"So that: There isn’t a city on a river that isn’t split in two, twice; two parts on either side of the water and two parts on either side of the water’s reflection. There isn’t a massive tangled city centre that doesn’t seduce its residents into its heart, feed upon their life force. There isn’t a city not made of dreams—and over time, broken dreams. No city that isn’t a ghost sooner or later, and throughout its web of streets haunted by a single fleeing spirit. There is no unconquered city; they are all colonies. There are no cities that don’t envy others; no populations who aren’t desperate to have at least one something completely different. There are no storytellers who aren’t Marco Polo recounting far flung adventures to an imperial Kublai Khan. Nor are there listeners who don’t stop listening in order to weave their own synchronistic narrative—a second independent strand of thought, running alongside the first, reflecting and interacting, vying for dominance."

Invisible Cities is a metafictional guide to Venice, an elegy to a succession of exotic and remote cities that are all versions of Venice, according to the Venetian traveller Marco Polo – who in Calvino's book describes them to the emperor Kublai Khan. He never mentions Venice, instead he describes all the other fantastic places he claims to have visited. But when Khan asks him to speak of Venice he replies: "What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?"

So Venice is the city of Hypatia, where you expect to find beauty but instead see crabs biting the eyes of drowned men; it is Chloe, a place full of strangers whose eyes meet momentarily in shared fantasies that no one ever acts on, so as not to spoil this great city's "voluptuous vibration"; it is Sophronia, a city of two halves, one a fairground, the other a collection of classical marble monuments. When the temporary part of the city ends its seasonal visit it is dismantled and taken away – and the fairground that remains all year must wait for the moveable monuments to return.

"All of these places are described in calm, authoritative language by Marco Polo in Calvino's compelling book. Each one is a poetic image of some aspect of urban life: though the book is abstract, you will constantly find yourself picturing the streets of your own city or cities you have visited as you read. Despite being just longer than a hundred pages, Invisible Cities touches inexhaustibly on the essence of the human urge to create cities, be in cities, speak of cities. If all the cities are Venice, it is because Venice is in some sense the perfect distillation of the idea of a city. Ever since the Renaissance, when Shakespeare imagined the lives of its merchants, Venice has floated in the world's imagination as a paragon of cities, real yet unreal"


"The descriptions of cities Marco Polo visited had this virtue: you could wander through them in thought, become lost, stop and enjoy the cool air, or run off."
cool eh?

Okay, Calvino beats Luc Sante. I'll have to get Invisible Cities.

I just read the World of Venice by James Morris, who prefers the Venice of pre 1970 to present Venice, because now in the attempt to save their city from the rising waters the Venetians have become forward looking rather than backward looking.

halfwise wrote:Okay, Calvino beats Luc Sante.  I'll have to get Invisible Cities.  

I just read the World of Venice by James Morris, who prefers the Venice of pre 1970 to present Venice, because now in the attempt to save their city from the rising waters the Venetians have become forward looking rather than backward looking.

that's an interesting concept, as if he is saying backward looking will allow Venice to sink into the Lagoon, but thats preferable, maybe they are turning Venice into a mummified museum for tourists on big ships, instead of the hustle and bustle of merchants fishermen people in a habitat, even though that world has ceased to exist, at least it was real, not a simulacrum, or a Disneyworld.

Yeah, the touristy parts feel very Disneyfied. Apparently it didn't feel like that in the middle of the last century. He referred to a sense of triste for bygone glories, which gave Venice a romantic character it doesn't have anymore.

I think parts of Venice outside the tourist season maybe in late Autumn, still has that slightly spooky Death in Venice atmosphere, specially on the Lido and the Ghetto, on the edges, just out of the corner of your eye.

I want to get your opinions on a theory I have about the painting, but I am not sure if its pure fantasy or not. the kings of Siam were seen as Buddhist semi-gods on Earth, but in the 19th century King Chulalongkorn wanted to be seen as Western because of the British and French colonial powers threatening his kingdom, so he had this painting commissioned with himself in Western military uniforn as the axis mundi at the centre, the painting, by an Italian symbolist painter, depicts the Abolition of Slavery, which added to his kudos as a 'civilized' king, anyhow its not so much him as the background cloud formation that I am interested in, those clouds are defo swirling around like in a vortex, he stands still and immobile while time and space, timey wimey Universe, passes by. Do you think this idea is far-fetched, given that there is some hard-core symbolism in his other paintings and architecture? cheerz I would be interested to get some feedback because sometimes my imagination runs a bit doo-lally.  

{{Is the painting flat or is it painted on a curved surface? }}

its in a semi-circular half-dome or apse, like in churches.




showing a different king in same building

{{Well theres two possibilities- either the artist used the shape of the Dome to deliberately create a vortex effect around the figure, or its purely an effect of the shape of the Dome.
If you take your first picture of it and try to flatten out the effect somewhat the sky loses the vortex effect to quite a degree and looks more like a normal painted sky }}

To me it's pretty obviously the effect of having to paint on a dome.

But I'm curious Petty - what tool did you use to morph the painting, that's not a very normal one!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Well theres two possibilities- either the artist used the shape of the Dome to deliberately create a vortex effect around the figure, or its purely an effect of the shape of the Dome.
If you take your first picture of it and try to flatten out the effect somewhat the sky loses the vortex effect to quite a degree and looks more like a normal painted sky }}

well it is perfectly technically possible to paint rounded fluffy clouds on a curved surface, the Baroque is chock full of em, so it must have been an artistic choice. I guess I will have to wing it.

I'm 100% with you on this Figg. Even after Petty has flattened it, it's still an extremely dynamic sky. Wrap it back around on itself and center it so it's swirling around an unnaturally large stylized sun (a standard symbol of the passing of days, seasons and years) and it should be reasonably easy to make the case that it's a visual reference to the passage of time. Besides, weather systems usually cross the sun and moon, not orbit them like whirlpool....No, I'm sure you're right. This was not intended just to be a pretty natural background. It's trying to say something!

but look at the walls behind the men. Do walls normally curve like that? the sky and wall are both just following the dome. This artist was simply following the path of least resistance.

what tool did you use to morph the painting, that's not a very normal one!- Halfy

{{The perspective tool in GIMP. Looking at the other example in the other Dome I'd say there is an element of deliberate design in the clouds to create more of a whirlpool effect in your one Figg- he has used a decreasing thickness of clouds as they go upwards towards the sun as well as making them orange- the two combined- colour change at upper levels and thinner and thinner lines that are elongated creates  the effect.
If you note the other one is much more like a flat 2d design that just happens to be on a domed surface, it doesn't build towards that centre solar point the same way- whereas the first one I think the domed surface was part of what inspired the sky design. }}}

https://www.facebook.com/LifeAndArtCollections/videos/1705839632857248/

David H wrote:I'm 100% with you on this Figg. Even after Petty has flattened it, it's still an extremely dynamic sky. Wrap it back around on itself and center it so it's swirling around an unnaturally large stylized sun (a standard symbol of the passing of days, seasons and years) and it should be reasonably easy to make the case that it's a visual reference to the passage of time. Besides, weather systems usually cross the sun and moon, not orbit them like whirlpool....No, I'm sure you're right. This was not intended just to be a pretty natural background. It's trying to say something!

 thanks Dave, I was wondering whether I had over-egged it. The only time I have ever seen a swirling cloud formation is from this church in Mdina Malta, but its from the 1950s.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f62/17/03/42/33/nslhxg10.jpg

Hi Chris - turning old tires into sandals is actually fairly common in Africa.  When I was teaching there an old man had a shop on the compound where he made them for students.  The students were mandated to wear them as part of the school uniform to prevent spending money trying to compete with each other on shoes. I have a pair of his shoes, but don't wear them because the rubber leaves skid marks on your feet! Less noticeable on African feet.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:what tool did you use to morph the painting, that's not a very normal one!- Halfy

{{The perspective tool in GIMP. Looking at the other example in the other Dome I'd say there is an element of deliberate design in the clouds to create more of a whirlpool effect in your one Figg- he has used a decreasing thickness of clouds as they go upwards towards the sun as well as making them orange- the two combined- colour change at upper levels and thinner and thinner lines that are elongated creates  the effect.
If you note the other one is much more like a flat 2d design that just happens to be on a domed surface, it doesn't build towards that centre solar point the same way- whereas the first one I think the domed surface was part of what inspired the sky design. }}}

thanks Petty, I hadn't noticed the change in colour, and the 2d effect of the second one.

Mrs Figg wrote: The only time I have ever seen a swirling cloud formation is from this church in Mdina Malta, but its from the 1950s.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f62/17/03/42/33/nslhxg10.jpg

I'm not sure those are even clouds. It looks to me like the doves and cherubs are leaving con trails like jets....