#ya like diptychs?

[2ndwind]

I’m Miles Morales.

[bm-asian-art]

Graffiti on a Storehouse Wall, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1847, Brooklyn Museum: Asian Art

Central page from the triptych known as "Scribblings on the Storehouse Wall" (Nitakaragura kabe no mudagaki). Vertical oban-sized print depicting a wall covered with graffiti, mostly consisting of thinly disguised portraits of well-known actors in celebrated roles. At the center is the figure of a dancing cat. This is the central page of a triptych, one of several groups (2 triptychs and 1 diptych, plus an homage by Kunichika that references the work of Kuniyoshi) of graffiti images that the artist made following new censorship laws that forbade the representation of actors. The Japanese title, Nitakaragura, is a pun, as it sounds like the phrase "nita kara," meaning "don't they resemble them?" The "dancing cat" triptych, as this group is known, differs from the other triptych in its inclusion of the lower section of the wall, with its less artistic scribblings. The actors have been identified, running clockwise from the top center: - Ichimura Uzaemon XII in the role of Tsukimoto Inaba Kosuke, in the play Onoe Baiju Ichidai Banasi - Matsumoto Koshiro VI in the role of Yokogawa Kakuha in Yoshitsune senbon sakura - Nakamura Utaemon IV in the role of Sato Tadanobu Kakuha in Yoshitsune senbon sakura - Bando Shuka - Sawamura Ujuro Jagatara Sanzo in the play Sawamura ski hakata no hanabishi - Ichikawa Shinsha Th publisher for this series is Iba-ya Sensaburo. Size: approx.: 10 × 15 in. (25.4 × 38.1 cm) Medium: Color woodblock print on paper

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/223083

[unstoryteller]

@ascven​ !!

         Sunlight cascaded across matte skin and tousled locks, igniting them with a golden glow. In the late afternoon light, his face had become a diptych between warm pools, and cool evening shadows. There was something peaceful and comforting about sunsets, the temperature like a lukewarm shower against the small of his back. Maybe it was the sunsets themselves Newt liked, or maybe it was the certainty that the day had ended. A clear signifier that he could finally breath out and relax, mentally wipe the day away and prepare himself for another round of problems tomorrow. The company helped, too, and maybe the alcohol. Well, ‘alcohol’, with quotation marks very much necessary. Though he couldn’t recall ever drinking, he has a suspicion that whatever Gally was whipping up didn’t compare to the real thing. But was he complaining? No, it was close enough, good enough, and it did its job. Much like most things in the Glade. As for the company, Newt was just glad to have any. Glancing sideways, he made a brief observation of Minho, acknowledging his continuing presence. It was nice to have him there, reassuring that they could just coexist for a moment and not have to worry about... well anything, really. Not right now. 

         Newt took another swig of the liquid, the burn in his throat akin to the burning light hitting his cheek. Satisfied, he handed the drink to Minho, before falling back into the bed of grass behind him. Lazy fingers ripped at the blades beneath him, collecting them into a cluster which he promptly tossed in Minho’s general direction. It was one part an attempt to catch his attention, and another part just because he could. 

       “ Say we got outta here, what would ya’ wanna see? ” He let the question flitter against the breeze, thinking aloud more than he was actually talking to Minho. “ Ya’ know, like beaches, mountains, forests, the bloody ocean? ” Newt was certain he could describe all these places in great detail, as if he had been there himself. Yet his mind lacked any real memories taking place there. He was utterly devoid of attachments to the settings, fond or otherwise. It really would be nice to have stories to tell, make memories somewhere other than the Glade. 

[caltropspress]

FEEDBACK LOOP #7: Curly Castro’s “Weapon 13X” featuring Breeze Brewin

There was a very old man, an old white man out in the crowd, and he started screaming and crying like a baby and he kept crying and he said, “God damn, God damn, what is this God damn country coming to that the niggers have got guns, the niggers are armed and the police can’t even arrest them!” He kept crying and somebody led him away through the crowd.

—Robert F. Williams, Negroes with Guns (1962)

Gun flash beats the child’s head in, maniac teeth dance in a bloody grin blue lies, badge confessions, yng dude dead just beyond his mama’s arms

—Amiri Baraka, “Stop Killer Cops”

Police said Cleaver and Hutton were holed up at 1218 28th Street with two 9 mm automatic pistols, two AR-15 and one military-type M-14 automatic rifle, and a large supply of ammunition, some armor-piercing.

—Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139

1.

“Weapon 13X” is a diptych. Two verses; one pivot—or volta, for you bookworms. Curly Castro is first with a séance that summons the mysteries of Clarence 13X and Weapon X. These nullified variables and Roman numerals come together in an elixir mix so potent that it would make Aes Rock choke on the amalgam. Castro opens the fission gate and discharges two-hundred forty thousand mega-therms on the city of brotherly love, the city of bombs from above onto a 6221 Osage Avenue row house. Shameek just got bust in his arm, leg, leg, arm, head. The Black man is God personified, and Logan is regenerative. Adamantium claws. Mathematical jaws. Science dropped and experiments performed. Spark this like metal does when dragged across concrete.

2.  “Harriet would grab her balls, / This my gun, and this my rifle.”

Harriet Tubman gets cast by Kubrick for Full Metal Jacket, recites the Rifleman’s Creed, but it was actually a pistol she kept buried within the folds of her calico. She sallied forth seeing visions from the overseer’s heave of a weight—made her skull snap. Don’t sleep. “When the caliber’s inside you,” you can’t necessarily count on “the muzzle smoke revival.”

3.

Quelle Chris provides production, lest we forget his 2019 Guns album with its Dada-bullet, double-barreled barrage album art. The title track armed to the teeth: “Ain’t no cracking that code, / Ain’t no safety on locks, / Might as well get you one, / Procrastinating will get you popped.” The machine gun funk outs finks and COINTELPRO cooperators, conspirators, dispiriters. Here, Castro’s got those same turncoats and sucker MCs in his sights, so to speak.

4.  [The oppressor] teaches the Negro that he has no worth-while past, that his race has done nothing significant since the beginning of time, and that there is no evidence that he will ever achieve anything great. (Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro, 1933)

Castro makes a promise, provoked by those who came before him, those who brandished firearms in the faces of their enemies:

We never will disarm: these are the lies that you were sold, When your glory tripped up, you trade your weapons in for gold. With Yakub in the schools, trade your dreams, knowledge folds. Found the tome, Mis-Education Negroes…

Dr. Yakub sloshing liquids in the lab—Bunsen burners explode and the lab leak is viral whiteness. Tricknology replaces Biology. Castro is looking back while moving forward. “Doomed to repeat it”-type forewarnings. He knows the ledge and also wants his people to.

5.

aim     get your sights & its sound in abstract or journal movements to a peace settlement

dude shot my man

dead,          precious lord blow off theres no willy in th blues theres no you.

—from Tom Weatherly’s Maumau American Cantos (1970)

Castro is a “gunhand, cybernetic with spray cans, / Basquiat, baklava, Mau Mau.” That’s likely an intentional malaprop—surely his militant stance calls for a balaclava. Even still, Castro doesn’t stutter. He will still sh-sh-shift his voice on you—the dynamics of his delivery raise stakes and get guttural, scraping against sewer plates. He’s potent, even if Basquiat’s pistol appears flaccid with its hand-scrawled linework. In another piece, Basquiat starts the decolonization process at the point of a safari helmet. The image detonates.  

6.  Free country? Man, I should fuck you up for sayin’ that stupid shit alone.

“This film is a call to racial violence!” a film critic shouted at Roger Ebert after a screening of Do the Right Thing. She worried Bed-Stuy would set fire to theaters, but Lee’s 1989 film wasn’t The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913. An amerikan psychotic turn to theater violence would be postponed until Aurora in 2012, and it would be white violence, which would come as a shock to none who have tracked the trajectory of white violence. Displacement is white violence, too. White violence is a sine qua non for gentrification. And so Castro allies himself with “Buggin’ Out battle brownstone houses, some Bird fans, / While Mookie turns the radio up and launched the trashcan.”

7.  “We are the weapons.”

Of late, Castro has consistently been proving you’re out your depth, with verses so allusive they suggest a strong “Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith, nobody blink. / They don’t now who the fuck that is” vibe. So what, though? At this point, Castro’s a vet, an elder. The youngins need to catch up or cash out. Get KRS-One bookish, kiddies, or be left behind. Be the weapon or never prosper. Create your own mythos: “Omega built a mother by the sun and Cyclops sent / a blurred Baraka poem capable to raise the dead. / Yet instead I use the sword...”—with Wu-Tang pronunciation of the w in “sword,” of course. History moves backwards and forwards at the same time. Language is lost and recovered. The poem is “blurred” because it’s been duplicated on a mimeograph—a machine that involves a “drum.” The words are ink-smudged. Baraka’s former partner, Diane di Prima, shouted, “"Power to the people's mimeo machines!” Accuse and attack, Baraka sloganeered. We’re talking about agency—by hand-crank, handgun, or mic check.

8.

Castro creates imagery like Emory Douglas did with paint: painfully bold and saturated with color like blood soaks clothes. Baraka called Douglas’s art a combo of “expressionist agitprop and homeboy familiarity,” which applies to what Castro does on the track. I quote Mao who called literature and art “part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause,” and Mao quotes Lenin who called lit and art the “cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine.” And Baraka also said Douglas’s work:

functioned as if you were in the middle of a rumble and somebody tossed you a machine pistol. It armed your mind and demeanor. Ruthlessly funny, but at the same time functional as the .45 slugs pouring out of that weapon.

The Panthers were trapped and tear-gassed in a West Oakland basement. Eldridge Cleaver told Bobby to go out naked—unarmed as the day he was born not quite eighteen years earlier—but he emerged from the burning house fully dressed, with dignity, and he was searchlighted and shotshotshotshotshotshotshot dead.

Castro needs Brewin to make the cypher complete—a two-man killarmy using loud words in quiet wars, no silencer.

9.  “Before blurting out, try analysis, brother.”

Breeze’s Yo, listen… at the start of his verse is comparable to Sir Thomas Wyatt intoning Whoso list to hunt… to begin his 16th-century sonnet. The amalgam here is less Five Percenter plus clandestine government experimentation and more a deconstruction of the both violent and sexualized language of braggadocio. “Anything you say isn’t played like Miranda Rights,” and so we’re already with our hands behind our backs, silenced by an pig officer’s gag order. The competition doesn’t get played; they play themselves.

Sir Thomas Wyatt sets it off like so:

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, hélas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow.

Breeze has wanted to stay pleasant to the ears—you know, like Lauryn Hill phone sexing—so this isn’t new territory but rather a well-worn path. Wyatt’s wearied and “so sore” by “the hunt,” the pursuit of his love interest, even though he knows “where is an hind.” Still, “as she fleeth afore / Fainting [he] follows.” He can’t help himself.

Love is lost within violent pursuit. Breeze speaks of a “plan to strike” and “zero in” on a “target,” his quarry. He and Castro are “talking about broads often, no doubt, / We broad and burly as hell, / Brag about the hunt, you was jukin’ a girly gazelle.” Breeze’s assault is dizzying, a salvo from all angles: “Hit ’em with some counter clay rebuttals that’s subtle but still befuddle if dude slow.”

10.  “It’s nothin’, I gotcha, and that’s word to Super Lover Cee.”

Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud’s 1988 single “Girls I Got ’Em Locked” articulates the carceral embrace of “locking” a girl down, which—consequently—requires violence to enforce: “Don’t ever touch a girl owned by me or I’ll ruin ya’, / Slap you with my mic simultaneously as I’m doin’ ya.” The girl is commodified, and Super Lover Cee takes a proprietary attitude toward the relationship. If you overstep, you’ll be ruined, that is, you’ll fall. And while you’re prostrate, you’ll be slapped with the phallic mic simultaneously. Is the Super Lover doin’ her or you, though? What’s truly getting him off? That hypermasculine posturing skews homoerotic. Breeze Brewin laughs at you for subscribing to the nonsense: “Dag, if that was what you believe then your world be a hell.”

11.

Liberal discourse suggests policing your impulses. Put down the gun—don’t touch it. “Touchy subjects,” like racism (apparently), get the “We need to have a conversation” treatment. Look, don’t touch. Don’t touch the exhibit of stolen artifacts—those Benin bronzes in the British Museum. Beneath the topic of orignoo gunn clapping, Curly Castro’s track is about the x’s and o’s of eros as well. Many gestures meant to protect women are merely some other man staking his claim, adorning her with “diamonds in letters plain,” as Wyatt writes of the collar around the deer’s “fair neck.” Wyatt’s sonnet warns against overstepping (or even half-stepping). The collar reads Noli me tangere (touch me not)—she belongs to someone else. It’s a bad touch example. Like his fellow Indelible J-Treds, Breeze Brewin is the living circle-circle-dot-dot: nobody can touch him.

12.

Let’s bring it back to Little Bobby Hutton. When Eldridge Cleaver told him to leave the ambushed basement naked, he was thinking of Bobby’s safety. He thought the extreme measure of appearing on the street without clothes would be enough to convince the pigs he wasn’t armed. Cleaver was naïve to think so. Bobby Hutton was right to emerge clothed. In doing so, he rejected the indignity of the auction block, the lynching, the mutilation and spreading of souvenir flesh. The searchlight made Bobby Hutton the subject of a spectacle, yes, but he refused to consent to the psychosexual desires of white supremacy. He refused the castration ritual. Little Bobby Hutton, in effect, threw down a challenge to the cops: Use your imagination once again. Try to think of a few situations where your own weapon might be used against you…used against you…used against you.

Images:

Emory Douglas, The Black Panther, Vol. IV, No. 78, 1971 (detail) | Weapon X (detail, issue unknown) | Emory Douglas, Rat Subterranean News (1970) | Harriet Tubman with gun sketch | Anti-Mau Mau British propaganda poster | Newspaper headline from Negroes with Guns | Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (date unknown) | Jean-Michel Basquiat, Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, and Amorites on Safari (1982) | Screenshot from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) | Two images from the Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139 (1968) | Emory Douglas, The Black Panther (miscellaneous poster) | Medieval depiction of the hunt (unknown) | Image detail from the Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139 (1968)

[dantays-inferno]

Taylor Swift: Art Historian

All my art historian acquaintances might hate me for this title because their job is *incredibly* serious, but I don’t like most of them anyways.

Anyways, it is my belief that Taylor has incorporated many references to art and literature within reputation and Lover, particularly in the music videos for each album cycle. To the extent that I wonder if all this time she has secretly been getting her B.A. in English Lit...or she is making her way through all the Great Courses.

That is all to say...the music video Easter eggs aren’t merely cats and 13′s. Sometimes they are, I don’t know...diptychs of the Apocalypse. 

Here is perhaps the most iconic (and brilliant, imo) image of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video. Sear it into your memory before we proceed (if Taylor and Joseph Kahn haven’t already done it for you by producing a work of art so brilliant that you can’t stop watching on repeat.)

Okay, when I first saw the video, I thought, “That’s a play on some painting I can’t remember.” I tried to look for it when beginning my research for this blog, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. Was I making it up? No, my co-author swore it was inspired by a painting. My mom did too. Finally we came up with this, Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgment, painted in 1441 and 1442. It hangs at...the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND it was profiled in the New York Times on Feb. 2, 2016, when the painting was part of a special exhibition at the Met. Of course, Taylor was gearing up to help host the Met Gala in the spring too.

The painting is a diptych, meaning it has two panels, so focus on the right panel.

I’ll zoom in for ya on a relevant section

Feel a bit familiar? Here’s a later painting inspired by this one that has even more of the same feel as the music video:

(This is Peter Paul Rubens’ The Last Judgment.)

Anyways, there are a couple other paintings I found by Rubens on the same topic with similar compositions...writhing bodies attempting to climb upwards but falling down instead.

(Also, I’m sorry you had to see those fairly disturbing images up close.)

At the top of the painting sits Christ overseeing the aforementioned judgment. 

Here we see the cross that shows up in LWYMMD, plus the image of someone standing above mountain, almost blissfully unaware of the drama and turmoil going on beneath.

What gets more interesting is this figure in the middle of the painting, below Christ but above the hellscape.

So it’s an angel cutting down anyone who has been condemned to hell, preventing them from reaching the light of day and the love of Christ. 

I freaked out when I noticed this angel because...

Exhibit #1: End Game music video

Exhibit #2: reputation magazine

The colors in this look the most similar to the angel in the painting, and the hair is even done the same. I have a theory that the different photos in the reputation magazine are different characters or people discussed in the song corresponding to that page in the other edition of the magazine.

She also is in the same pose as the figure on the top of Taylor Mountain.

Exhibit #3: Karlie Kloss walking in Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2008 show

Kloss named this as one of her favorite runway shows in an interview with British Vogue in 2019. She also shared that she lit her robe on fire by accident backstage, and put this particular dress on the wrong way round and had to switch it last minute. Feels like the kind of story you would tell at every party you went to.

So basically we have a rainbow angel who ruins people’s lives.

Alrighty. Let’s delve into why I think Taylor used this imagery. As a disclaimer, this is just my analysis, and you can take it or leave it. I’ve put hours of thought and research into this because I’m unemployed and in quarantine, so I’m not just pulling this out of my ass, but I’m also not Taylor, so nothing I say is gospel truth.

Analysis

My theory is that the figure at the top of Taylor Mountain is standing in for the roles that Christ and the archangel are playing in the painting. The figure--we’ll call her Rep--is essentially condemning all the Old Taylors to no longer see the light of day (or come to the phone.) The archangel in the van Eyck painting prevents people from ascending out of hell while Christ is presumably the one who condemned the people to hell and now stands above all, nonplussed.

But in an interesting twist, Rep stretches her arms out to crucify herself as she shouts, “bad dreams!” At this, the Old Taylors begin falling off the mountain, and we get the iconic “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” line. Not coincidentally, the other panel of the van Eyck painting depicts Jesus’ crucifixion.

Why is the crucifixion part significant beyond just being a perfect transition in the music video? First off, it obviously points to the younger Taylor being sacrificed unjustly. A theme of reputation and Lover seems to be remorse for losing Taylor’s sense of self and a desire to shift her focus from the trappings of fame to the people who truly care about her. Many people interpreted this song as Taylor announcing that she was a new “bad girl” Taylor, shunning sparkle guitars, unrequited love, and general girl-next-door vibes (which would be a shame because these are some of the best things in life.) But I think this video and album are more retrospective than active. That is to say that Taylor is realizing that she lost her old self in the years prior to reputation, and now she regrets that they can’t come to the phone.

Beyond that, I think the crucifixion moment in the video points to the idea of being a martyr--and not in a good way. This ties into my theory that all of the characters in the video that aren’t a specific Old Taylor (from Taylor’s music videos, tours) are actually meant to be Karlie Kloss. I have one other post about this on my blog now, and I intend to write more.

So let’s say it’s Karlie standing on the top of Taylor Mountain (and saying the old Taylor can’t come to the phone.) She essentially crucifies herself, making herself a martyr--someone who was killed unjustly. In my ongoing analysis of the album, I think this ties in to the song “So it Goes...” in which Taylor sings, “Come here dressed in black now / Scratches down your back now.” While this is generally interpreted to be a sexual scene, I think it depicts Karlie coming back to Taylor after the two have had a falling out, and acting like she is the victim in the relationship (black being a color of mourning) and that Taylor inflicted pain on her (scratches down her back.)

What’s more is that scratches down her back ties in with the crucifixion/martyrdom idea...Jesus was whipped/flogged before being crucified, which obviously leaves notable scars that would not look dissimilar to scratches. So basically Karlie is acting like a martyr and a victim in the relationship, when, according to Taylor in the LWYMMD video’s narrative, Karlie was the one who helped “kill” Taylor’s true self.

Plus, the video also implies that Karlie exploited her relationship with Taylor for fame and financial gain and became controlling and even tried to sabotage Taylor’s relationship with Tom by calling the paps on them. Sounds like a pretty toxic relationship, and people who are emotionally abusive often use the tactic of flipping the script on the person confronting them.

I know these are harsh accusations, but they’re in the video just beneath the surface concept of “look at all these controversies.” The more I delve into the album, the more I see that Taylor is trying to process her toxic relationship with Karlie even more than her breakup with Tom. (Sorry, no Joe.) I’ll be writing more posts to explain all this, but keep an open mind. I think Taylor hid a lot in reputation and Lover that we haven’t necessarily unearthed yet.

[tigermoths]

noot  noot  this  took  me  far  too  long  but  !  hope  you  guys  are  having  a  lovely,  lovely  day  ♡  so  so  excited  for  interactions

name  /  alias  :  arden,  den  den  den  den gender  /  pronouns  :  she, her where  ya  from  ?  :  singaporeeeee  ! the  current  time  :  it  was  11.52pm  and  now  it’s  11.54  :0)  height  :  1.61m job  or  major  :  waiting  for  sem  to  begin  !  currently  majoring  and  minoring  in  english  lit  and  psych  respectively pet  (  s  )  :  my netherland dwarf, lulu :D she’s turning one in about two months favorite  thing  (  s  )  about  yourself  :  the  color  and  length  of  my  hair,  prob   —   it’s  not  very  common  to  have  ash  brown  /  lighter  hair  here  and  ruh  freaking  roh  it’s  in  dire  need  of  a  trim any  special  talents  ?  :  i  can  play  half  of  london  bridge  with  my  nose  PXPSPXPZP why  you  joined  hqclouds  :  it  looked  terrific  and   so  thoroughly  well  considered,  i’d  also  been  on  a  hiatus  up  till  then  and  this  compelled  me  to  break  it birthday  /  zodiac :  gemini  rahahaahah hogwarts  house :  slytherin  /  ravenclaw fandom  (  s  )  you’d  like  to  write  in :  acotar,  the  raven  cycle,  last  of  us fandom  (  s  )  you  aren’t  in  but  are  curious  about :  absolutely  hadestown canon  ships  you  can’t  help  but  love  :  my  brain  is  embarrassingly  hollow  rn  but  STEVEN  &  CONNIE  trope  (  s  )  you  tend  to  be  guilty  of  :  growing   (  instead  of  falling  )   in  love,  dark  academia,  familial  solidarity   (  be  it  forged  by  blood  or  choice  )   and  redemption  arcs  bb  also  .  multifaceted  three  -  four  -  dimensional  antagonists i  prefer  .  .  .  angst  ,  smut  ,  or  fluff  :  everything  and  anything  under  the  sun long  or  short  replies  :  both  !  i  do  tend  to  ramble  and  go  off  on  tangents  but  engagement  in  any  form  will  always  be  truly  appreciated  and  cherished pre  plotting  or  chemistry  :  i’ve  felt  the  merits  of  both  on  countless  occasions  so  i’ll  cheat  a  little  n  say  plotting  and  letting  it  take  flight  and  find  its own  way sentence  starters  or  headcanon  memes  :  me me s  . single  muse  or  multimuse  blogs  :  mumu  ! gif  icons  ,  medium  gifs  ,  or  static  icons  :  geef grab  the  book  nearest  to  you  and  pull  a  quote  from  it  :  a  memory  is  a  re - creation,  precious  because  it  is  both  more  and  less  than  the  original.  the  paper  menagerie,  ken  liu what’s  a  quote  or  song  lyric  that  speaks  to  your  soul  ?  :  we  come  into  the  world  /  worse  for  the  wear  /  but  the  wars  of  our  fathers  /  are  not  ours  to  bear  /  are  you  with  me,  nilu favorite  movie  (  s  )  of  all  time  :  princess  mononoke,  portrait  of  a  lady  on  fire,  chungking  express,  pan’s  labyrinth favorite  tv  show  (  s  )  of  all  time  :  the  originals,  game  of  thrones,  mr.  robot,  twin  peaks favorite  series  of  books  /  novels  /  comics  :  millennium,  leningrad  diptych,  harry  potter,  hunger  games,  a  series  of  unfortunate  events,  kimetsu  no  yaiba favorite  video  game  (  s  )  :  STARDEW !  skyrim,  god  of  war,  tlou,  league  XPZPXPZPZP favorite  youtube  channels :  stephanie  soo,  trin  lovell,  bingotheotter,  nikkietutorials  if  i  could  live  anywhere  ,  it’d  be  :  norway favorite  food  (  s  )  :  pho,  dumplings,  potatoes  in  any  form what’s  a  subject  you  know  too  much  about  +  never  get  tired  of  talking  about  ?  :  rhythmic  gymnastics  and  i  have  never  even  attempted  it,,  couldn’t  even  dream  of  accomplishing  such  a  feat  closest  i’ve  been  is  ballet

[frankensaint]

@wholockeddruid @iamafullyrealizedcreation

OKAY SO

im gonna preface this with that I learned this in my Renaissance and Baroque  art history class for my minor, so thats cool

Anyway. 

In the Renaissance (and a little bit of the early years of the baroque, but not much) murals, diptychs, and triptychs of people rising to Heaven and falling to Hell during the Last Judgement were SUPER in, cause ya know. Religion. 

Some that come to mind are Giotto’s  The Last Judgment

Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights,  

and Angelico’s The Pains of Hell 

(Big fan of Bosch’s work btw, that crazy son of a bitch)

But anyway. We don’t know why- at least I wasn’t taught why ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - but if Hell wasn’t shown below, on the bottom of the painting, than it was shown on the right. The Right was the side of Hell. The Left is Heaven. My professor made sure we remembered that. 

SO Becuse of this unspoken part of H&H in art, I thought it was so interesting that most of the scenes that we see Crowley and Azirphale, Crowley is on the right, Aziraphale on the left. 

This post and this post really shows it, I think, how Constant, Crowley is on the right of Aziraphale, and Aziraphale on the left. Like, the only time we the viewer see the positions swap are either a) when they themselves switch faces, and b) when the view is to their backs.

And idk if it was a purposeful thing that the crew for the show did, another way to represent heaven and hell, or if they just thought ‘hey this looks good’ or whatever, but I thought it was really neat. :)

[defnehuzmeli-blog]

I WAS AFFECTED AT KUDOS GALLERY

Choose a work that appeals to you in each space.

How does it work? why/ why not?

How does display factor into the final work?

How does it relate to the viewer? To the space? To the other works?

Stepping into the Kudos gallery the first thing that caught my eye and I believe many others was the video Magic Dyke. It was interesting because I did feel like some people tried to avert their eyes and hide the fact that it caught their eye. When I saw it my first thought was “Yas something about the body” and was interested to know what the sound was. When I recognised that it was “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys I just kind of thought “lol this is like all the stupid videos I have shared on my Instagram of me singing and dancing”, though nothing as sexually suggestive. It was the fact that it was also such standard footage and like their head would be cropped out at some point but it also really added to the authenticity of it. I felt like the actual title was perfect “the labour of letting your body be read as a joke” because I think what really captured people’s attention was how shameless the person was. It just felt like your standard youngster making a fool out of themselves that you would see on social media or like YouTube and that’s why it was really interesting to see this in an actual art gallery. Maybe my old instagram videos will be hunted down one day and put up in a museum where somebody will be like “this is a savage”?

What I also really liked was the printed sheet that said “How empty of me to be so full of you”. I connected to that because it was poetic but also related through the actual concept as well as I interpret it as losing oneself by being so besotted with someone else. I like how well the words connected to the actual print as well which I interpreted as the night sky or galaxy which is in a sense full of stars but empty. What was also interesting was the fact that it was hanging in front of the doorway so wind also caused it to move a bit.

The Mirror Machine threw me off a bit I think because it took me a while to figure out how they had made that effect but then I was also reminded of the days of old and slow computers and a Windows msg would pop up and if you dragged it it would make a trail of messages :’)

I really liked the “Self Portrait Diptych” because when I read that caption I was like what how is this a self portrait and then when I realized it had all these descriptions of the person they were I fell in love. I love how some were contradictory like “shy” and “confident” because I think a lot of our personalities can be contradictory like that in regards to different things.

What was interesting about this visit was realizing what didn’t really interest me and further confirmed how I am interested in things that are to do with humans and when there is an obvious link to humans conceptually. I was really drawn to all the performance art because of that but also because of my theatre background and how I just find performance art fascinating and want to learn more more about it, witness more of it, be more of a part in it, and create more of it. I loved the Blood Balance piece and the use of red lighting and her facial expressions in acknowledging the people and also the fact that there was an artist statement explaining the piece because I do really appreciate knowing the artist’s intention and the concept behind it with most things when it isn’t just completely up to interpretations.

I loved the position of monitors for the drone pieces and thought that was really clever that the bird-eye angle was on the monitor on the floor as if we were high up looking down and that the eye level view of mountains was on an eye level monitor.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

I WAS AFFECTED

The performance art “Two Skins” first just disgusted me because there were things dripping down but when i put on the headphones I was so disgusted because of the sounds of like liquid. However even though it was disgusting I still kept watching it because it was fascinating. It took me a second till I realized this was probably meant to recreate childbirth. And yuh I took photos of myself while watching to capture the effect it was having on me.

[unstoryteller]

 To, @ascven​

Within Newt’s mind existed a diptych, wherein one side he had to study to stay sane, the consistency and pattern being all that kept him above water. And on the other side? The other side was a picture of mental exertion and burnout; a weight tied to his ankle to pull him under the waves. He wasn’t thriving, he wasn’t suffering, but he sure as hell was existing. No time in the day for happy thoughts, no time for sad ones. A licked finger slides the next page over in his textbook, before promptly flipping it over to hold his spot ( he didn’t dare dog ear the corner, the condition had to stay mint to sell ). Drawing his attention away from the paper was like pushing a switch in his brain, flooding him with the instant relief of no longer having to focus. The pads of fingers briefly rub against soft temples, before moving to a clenched jaw. “ Pizza . ” and a drink. It was said as a verbal objective rather than a question posed for his company. Newt reached for his phone, plucking it from its position on the glass coffee table, before dialling in a curt call. He didn’t need to ask what Minho wanted, reciting his order was practically muscle memory at this point. 

No longer needing to stay on the floor, Newt retracted from his spot on the carpet and made his home on the sofa; sitting lengthwise and kicking his feet onto Minho’s lap. It would likely be received as an act of war by the brunet, but a fight might actually benefit Newt right now, the adrenaline would wake him up at least. “ Haven’t ya’ got crap to be doin’? 'stead of sittin’ there nice and pretty like? ” A small decorative cushion was thrown towards Minho’s direction, intentions friendly and teasing.