The Bus, 1929 by Frida Kahlo

This painting, The Bus, clearly shows Diego Rivera's influence on Frida Kahlo's political attitudes.
In this painting, a few people are sitting side by side on a wooden bench of a rickety bus. They are
representatives of different classes of Mexican society. From left to right, there are a housewife
holding her shopping basket, a blue-collar guy in his work overall, a barefoot Indian mother who
is feeding her baby, a little boy looking around, a businessman holding his money bag and a young
girl which might be Frida herself. In this painting, Frida demonstrated her sympathy for the
dispossessed. She painted the Indian mother as Madonna-like and the blue-eyed gringo is a
representation for the capitalists.
This painting is also a depiction of the bus accident which happened in 1925 and changed her life
forever. "I suffered two grave accidents in my life," Frida Kahlo once said. "One in which a
streetcar knocked me down. . . . The other accident is Diego." Diego and Frida's union was both
carnal and comradely. The most powerful bond between the two are their admiration for each
other's art. Diego is the greatest artist to her and she called him the "architect of life." To Diego,
Frida was "a diamond in the midst of many inferior jewels" and "the best painter of her epoch."

Diego's encouragement and critics of her art was essential to Frida Kahlo, and part of her impetus
to paint came from her desire to please him. She was, he said, a better artist than he, and he loved
to tell of Pablo Picasso's reaction to Frida's work. "Look at those eyes," Picasso is said to have
written to Rivera, "neither you nor I are capable of anything like it."
 David Hockney

My Parents

1977
In this work, painted a year before his father's death, Hockney's style has shifted towards a closer
study of human behaviour. His mother poses, attentive and graceful, while his father, who
fidgeted during sittings, was painted reading Aaron Scharf's book Art and Photography. A book
on Chardin draws a parallel with intimate domestic scenes of the past, as do the volumes of
Proust's Remembrance of Things Past visible on the shelf. Piero della Francesca's Baptism of
Christ (now in the National Gallery; see below) is reflected in the mirror, forming a triptych (a
picture or relief carving on three panels, typically hinged together vertically and used as an
altarpiece) with the two figures.

Gallery label, August 2004

Nighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner
late at night. It is Hopper's most famous work and is one of the most recognizable paintings in
American art. Within months of its completion, it was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago for
$3,000, and has remained there ever since.
Starting shortly after their marriage in 1924, Edward Hopper and his wife, Josephine (Jo), kept a
journal in which he would, using a pencil, make a sketch-drawing of each of his paintings, along
with a precise description of certain technical details. Jo Hopper would then add additional
information in which the themes of the painting are, to some degree, illuminated. A review of the
page on which "Nighthawks" is entered shows (in Edward Hopper's handwriting) that the
intended name of the work was actually "Night Hawks", and that the painting was completed on
January 21, 1942.

Jo's handwritten notes about the painting give considerably more detail, including the interesting
possibility that the painting's evocative title may have had its origins as a reference to the beak-
shaped nose of the man at the bar:
Night + brilliant interior of cheap restaurant. Bright items: cherry wood counter + tops of
surrounding stools; light on metal tanks at rear right; brilliant streak of jade green tiles 3/4 cross
canvas at base of glass of window curving at corner. Light walls, dull yellow ocre [sic] door into
kitchen right. Very good looking blond boy in white (coat, cap) inside counter. Girl in red blouse,
brown hair eating sandwich. Man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue
shirt (clean) holding cigarette. Other figure dark sinister back at left. Light side walk outside pale
greenish. Darkish red brick houses opposite. Sign across top of restaurant, dark Phillies 5c cigar.
Picture of cigar. Outside of shop dark, green. Note: bit of bright ceiling inside shop against dark
of outside street at edge of stretch of top of window.
Nighthawks was probably Hopper's most ambitious essay in capturing the night-time effects of
manmade light. For one thing, the diner's plate-glass windows cause far more light to spill out onto
the sidewalk and the brownstones on the far side of the street than is true in any of his other
paintings. As well, this interior light comes from more than a single lightbulb, with the result that
multiple shadows are cast, and some spots are brighter than others as a consequence of being lit
from more than one angle. Across the street, the line of shadow caused by the upper edge of the
diner window is clearly visible towards the top of the painting. These windows, and the ones below
them as well, are partly lit by an unseen streetlight, which projects its own mix of light and shadow.
As a final note, the bright interior light causes some of the surfaces within the diner to be reflective.
This is clearest in the case of the right-hand edge of the rear window, which reflects a vertical
yellow band of interior wall, but fainter reflections can also be made out, in the counter-top, of
three of the diner's occupants. None of these reflections would be visible in daylight.

Hopper's biographer, Gail Levin, speculates that Hopper may have been inspired by Vincent van
Gogh's Café at Night, which was showing at a gallery in New York in January 1942. The similarity
in lighting and themes makes this possible; it is certainly very unlikely that Hopper would have
failed to see the exhibition, and as Levin notes, the painting had twice been exhibited in the
company of Hopper's own works. Beyond this, there is no evidence that Café at Night exercised
an influence on Nighthawks. Although there is no evidence at all (other than the fact that Hopper
admired the story), Levin also suggests that he may have been inspired by Ernest Hemingway's
1927 short story, The Killers.
 I and the Village
1911

Painted the year after Chagall

came to Paris, I and the
Villageevokes his memories of
his native Hasidic community
outside Vitebsk. In the village,
peasants and animals lived side
by side, in a mutual dependence
here signified by the line from
peasant to cow, connecting their
eyes. The peasant's flowering
sprig, symbolically a tree of life,
is the reward of their
partnership. For Hasids, animals
were also humanity's link to the
universe, and the painting's large
circular forms suggest the
orbiting sun, moon (in eclipse at
the lower left), and earth.

The geometries of I and the

Village are inspired by the
broken planes of Cubism, but
Chagall's is a personalized
version. As a boy he had loved
geometry: "Lines, angles,
triangles, squares," he would later recall, "carried me far away to enchanting horizons."
Conversely, in Paris he used a disjunctive geometric structure to carry him back home. Where
Cubism was mainly an art of urban avant-garde society, I and the Village is nostalgic and
magical, a rural fairy tale: objects jumble together, scale shifts abruptly, and a woman and two
houses, at the painting's top, stand upside-down. "For the Cubists," Chagall said, "a painting was
a surface covered with forms in a certain order. For me a painting is a surface covered with
representations of things . . . in which logic and illustration have no importance.
Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

BY PETER ELEEY
EQ.BMP

Many artists have used randomness as a

determining function in their work, with John
Cage's compositions being perhaps the most
recognized application of this technique in
sound. Listening Post (2001-2), a seductive
collaboration between statistician Mark Hansen
and artist-designer Ben Rubin, continues in this
vein, aiming to provide a sonic and visual
environment through which the voice of the
Web can express its contours and complexity.
But the piece marks a distinct turning-point
within this tradition, largely because
technological advances in data-mining techniques have allowed Hansen and Rubin to work
with real-time information, and let it mostly speak for itself. At a stroke Listening Post fulfils
the promise of most Internet-based art, affecting a simultaneous collapse and expansion of time
and space with implications ranging from notions of private and public space to individual
thought and its role in group dynamics - and it advances all of this within a form that finally
allows net art to compete with the more sensual pleasures we associate with sculpture.

Hansen and Rubin's collaboration began as a sound-based research project three years ago,
after they met at a conference for artists and researchers facilitated by the Brooklyn Academy
of Music (BAM) and Lucent Technologies, for whom Hansen works. (The visual component
of the piece was introduced after a presentation at The Kitchen in New York.) An earlier
version of Listening Piece was first presented at BAM in 2001 and, in an evolved form, at On
the Boards in Seattle in late 2002 before coming to a small, hot room on the Whitney's first
floor. Hansen and Rubin have written a programme that culls communication from chat rooms
and other virtual spaces, identifying the prevailing themes and topics of discussion, and
funnelling them to a concave, hanging grid of 231 small digital screens of the type usually
found in cash registers. They arranged six formal acts through which the chatter expresses
itself visually on the screens and aurally via eight male, British-tinged computer voices from
speakers installed around the room. The communications appear as either whole or truncated
phrases that include statements about nationality, age, gender, sexual preference, religion,
politics or everyday life. At particularly striking moments the text washes rapidly across the
screens in patterns akin to the topologies created by the movement of wind across a wheat field
(also evoked by the soundtrack) before clicking to a legible halt. At one point, what begins
with one phrase builds into a cacophonic deluge of communication, suggesting a kind of horror
vacui in the human psyche. During another act the text bursts across the screens like a flock of
birds alighting, crawling in a Holzerian manner, like stock quotes. In this act the words move
most slowly across the middle of the grid, creating an illusion of perspectival depth. The very
form of Listening Post's curved proscenium adopts theatrical conventions, which are reinforced
by the location of benches and speakers that place visitors against the wall, within its focus.

The theatrical effects of the piece stem equally, however, from the responsive, dramatic
soundscape that Hansen and Rubin have created beneath the spoken text. Appropriately, the
timbre and tone of their sounds give one the feeling of being inside a tiny submarine, with the
weight of an unspeakably vast ocean pushing in on the space where one sits listening. In places
this sonic landscape flips and expands to suggest a huge and sonically wet room: one can
imagine a billion droplets of sound overhead, engorging and waiting to fall and be heard. The
vocabulary Hansen and Rubin have created for this score - which, unlike its behaviour, is not
dependent on real information - evokes the drama of our technological lives as we've come to
understand them by way of television advertising for computer systems and other devices.
(Whether Hansen and Rubin intend this connotation ironically or not seems to be beside the
point.) The achievement of Listening Post begs a fundamental question that has been nagging
for some time: from here on, how convincingly can art be made using virtual information, in
all its visual and physical impoverishment, without such seductive theatrics?

Visiting Listening Post immediately after the worldwide protests against the pending American
invasion of Iraq, it was startling to witness the appearance of a phrase such as 'I am a Muslim
and am afraid of nothing', which could have been intended as stoicism or aggression. Here, in a
room only blocks from where thousands of New Yorkers had gathered as part of a global
groundswell of dissent the day before, one could be party to the same transcendent feeling of
connection on a grand scale, regardless of what one actually had in common with any of the
voices materializing in the installation. In this artwork the thrill is provided by the excitement
of recognition, the discovery of something legible or poignant in what could be a foreign and
distant utterance, or simply coming from the room next door. In a perfectly timed Foucaultian
twist Listening Post brought to the people a version of the knowledge the government collects
on a sublime scale - along with its attendant power, fear and pleasure. Whether the piece
ultimately serves more as assuaging entertainment than as provocation is irrelevant to its
evaluation, but a fascinating question nevertheless.
The Oath of the Horatii
Department of Paintings: French painting
In the 7th century BC, the three Horatii
brothers, chosen by the Romans to defy
the Curiatii, the champions of the town of
Alba, are swearing to defeat their enemies
or die. As they receive their weapons from
their father, the women of the family are
prostrate with suffering. This painting, a
royal commission, was the manifesto for a
new style, neoclassicism. Both the
architecture of the room and the poses of
the warriors are rigorously geometrical.
The Horatii and the Curiatii
In the 7th century BC, to put an end to the
bloody war between Rome and Alba, both cities designated champions: the former chose the
Horatii, the latter the Curiatii. The two families were linked by marriage. Jacques-Louis David
depicts the Horatii swearing to defeat their enemies or die for their country. On the right, the
grief-stricken women of the family already fear the worst: Sabina, the sister of the Curiatii and
wife of the eldest of the Horatii, and Camilla, the sister of the Horatii and betrothed to one of the
Curiatii, hang their heads in sorrow, while behind them, the mother of the Horatii hugs her
grandchildren.
A new moral painting
David chose this episode in Roman history for his first royal commission in 1784. A Prix de
Rome laureate in 1774 and a member of the Académie, he wanted to launch his public career by
creating a stir with a radically innovative picture. He forsook the amorous and mythological
subject matter of his first teacher, Boucher, for the Roman historians and Corneille's classical
play Horace (1640). David presents this episode as an example of patriotism and stoicism. In this
respect, he is close to philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Diderot, who advocated the
painting of moral subjects. David also wanted to give his painting an orginal form. He sought to
emulate the grand style of his 17th-century forebears Poussin and Le Brun. David returned to
Rome, where he could draw inspiration from ancient art for this painting. He presented the
finished canvas in his studio in Rome in 1785, then at the Paris Salon later that year, on both
occasions to acclaim.
The manifesto of neoclassicism
The Oath of the Horatii is the first masterpiece of a new style breaking with the rococo style. The
composition is broad and simple, with the life-size figures arranged in a frieze in the foreground,
as on Roman sarcophagi and Greek vases. The figures are separated by large empty spaces in a
stage-like area shown head-on. David emphasizes the room's geometry. The harsh, slanting light
gives the figures their relief, and their contrasting characters are conveyed using different forms.
He gives the men energetic bodies constructed out of straight lines and dresses them in vivid
colors, while the women are all sinous curves and muted colors. The painting became the model
throughout Europe for the new style of painting later known as neoclassicism.
Connected

Juana Gómez's embroidered family photos – in

pictures

Chilean artist Juana Gómez uses weaving and

embroidery to explore themes of genealogy,
mythology and biology in her own female lineage.
Juana Gómez’s hand-embroidered photographic
canvases combine the spheres of scientific exploration
with ancestral tradition.

Weaving complex scientific and mythological patterns

on to images of both her own and her daughters’
bodies, her work is interested in placing mankind
within a broader context of interconnectivity. Rather
than seeing us as individuals, detached from one
another and the world around us, Gómez positions us
as part of an ancient chain that goes back to the origin
of life: a combination of patterns, molecules and small
organisms.
SET 2
Wynyard station’s Interloop: a rare win for public art in a city that can leave you cold
Alex McKinnon
Sydney underground station’s repurposed
wooden escalators are a charming
anachronism in a city too eager to
bulldoze its own history
It is extraordinarily difficult to make
people stop in busy train stations. A
virtuoso violinist can be playing a
masterpiece on a $3.5m Stradivarius and
most people will be so intent on making
their train they won’t even slow down. So
it says something about Wynyard
Station’s new artwork, Interloop, that
people stop in their tracks mid-rush hour
to look at it.
In 20 minutes either side of 9am on Tuesday, dozens of people slowed, stopped and gazed up at
the four entwined loops of old wooden escalator stairs hanging above the concourse, curving
over and under each other like a living scene from Inception. Office workers and public servants
snapped pictures for social media, taking selfies with it or just staring: little islands of stillness in
rivers of fast-walking travellers.
Ten-year-old Toby was entranced by it, grinning his head off as he craned his neck; he and is
mother knew the project manager, John Sung, who died several months before the work was
unveiled. Jessica and Nick, two 20-somethings on their way to work in Barangaroo, were
delighted the wooden stairs “we used to take to work” were reappropriated rather than thrown
away.
In real life and online, Interloop has already proven to be a success – at least from a PR point of
view. On one level, that’s unsurprising. The timber escalators that comprise it are a part of
bygone-Sydney folklore: the object of belated love other relics such as the monorail and the
Sirius building came in for, en route to decommissioning. First installed in 1931, they were
among only seven wooden escalators left in the world when they were removed last year.
From a health and safety perspective, an upgrade was overdue – they cause far more injuries than
modern aluminium and stainless steel escalators, particularly to guide dogs, and pose more of a
fire risk. But for the millions of people who used them over their lifespan, Wynyard’s wooden
escalators retained a sentimental value. They were a charming anachronism in a city too eager to
bulldoze its own history. The reaction may also stem from a collective relief that, for the first
time in years, central Sydney is beginning to look like something other than a bomb site.
Interloop was unveiled the same week as a swathe of the new-look pedestrianised George Street,
complete with light rail tracks, plant life and festively decorated anti-terror bollards.
First Sydney's stadiums, now Hordern Pavilion site slated for redevelopment

People wander warily down the middle of the thoroughfare like they expect to be told off,
cautiously testing out the vibe in a space once hostile to all non-wheeled forms of life.The
gorgeous historic shopfronts so long overwhelmed by traffic – The Block, The Strand, the old
Nock & Kirby building – have their day in the sun again.
Even the benches are free of the metal armrests designed to stop homeless people sleeping on
them: a growing fixture in a city where hostile architecture has steadily encroached on public
spaces. But there is another story to tell here: the story of how, in a city where taxpayer-funded
artwork is one of the few things more despised than the public transport authority, a taxpayer-
funded artwork commissioned by the public transport authority became a popular hit rather than
the latest tabloid outrage.
Decrying various public art projects as evidence of spend-happy elitist zeal is one of the
conservative establishment’s favourite weapons in the endless culture war against inner-city
progressives. Broadcaster Alan Jones seemingly suggested hanging City of Sydney lord mayor
Clover Moore from the planned Cloud Arch sculpture on George Street in 2016. Moore’s
proposed installation of a giant milk crate in Belmore Park, meanwhile, was indefinitely deferred
after a canny Daily Telegraph subeditor labelled it “a crate big waste of money”.

More broadly, Australia’s relationship with public art can best be described as agnostic.
Channeling the conservative outrage of the 1970s, when prime minister Gough Whitlam spent
hard-earned taxpayer dollars on a bunch of squiggles called Blue Poles, Liberal senator James
Paterson last year called on the beloved artwork to be sold off for the sake of the national debt.
From Canberra’s Skywhale to Melbourne’s unfortunately nicknamed Yellow Peril to King
Cross’s infamous Stones Against the Sky, better known as “poo on sticks”, public art
commissioned by government bureaucracy has a habit of becoming a citywide punchline. But
according to architect Chris Fox, who won a Transport for NSW design competition for the
space at Wynyard, and has been working on Interloop since January, the agency had no
hesitation about the work, despite the “very complicated” logistical, legal and safety compliance
challenges it presented.
“It was pretty bold for Transport to do. I put this very ambitious project forward and they just got
right behind it,” he says. “It was such a complex project, to make this thing hang there as though
it were floating.”
Given the agency’s desperate need for a PR boost, going for broke on Interloop must have
seemed worth the gamble. Controversial train timetable changes, plans to privatise bus services
in the inner west and accusations that private contractors building the Sydney Metro Northwest
are exploiting workers have done little to dispel the agency’s lingering nickname, CityFail.
In a city where the government’s highest fiscal priority is knocking down two football stadiums
and building them again; where old-age pensioners in public housing face uncertainty about
where they’ll live out the rest of their years, as their homes are flogged to developers; and
where public enjoyment in any capacity is stiflingly policed, Interloop cuts against the grain. It
will not drive up local house prices to ever more horrendous levels. It was not gifted to the city
by a property plutocrat in exchange for a slice of prime public land. Along with George Street’s
upgrade, it was built with the people in mind, and it stands out because so little else does.
Gemelli (Twins). 1968, Photomontage.

Alighiero Fabrizio Boetti known as Alighiero e

Boetti (16 December 1940 – 24 February 1994) was
an Italian conceptual artist, considered to be a
member of the art movement Arte Povera

Guiding Questions

o Consider Marc Chagall’s take on Cubism.

How can art be used to depict memories, and can
different styles of art evoke the past in different
ways?
o Take a look at this modern parody of a
classic artwork, and discuss: does such a recreation
honor and immortalize the original work, or does it
diffuse its cultural impact? If you were in Vermeer’s position, would you be happy with it?
o Look through this gallery of pictures created by two artists and lovers. Note how, on their
about page, they say that “the message inside each artwork becomes stronger as it is
reproduced by the audiences”. Is this true? Is art more powerful when it’s not just relatable,
but potentially recreatable?
o Are there any downsides to the padlock metaphor—and is it right for cities to encourage such
installations?
o Over the years, the “Happy Birthday” song has been translated into dozens of languages,
permeating into different cultures worldwide. How did this process take place? What is
unique about each version, and what (if anything) do they all share?
o The Amen Break is only the most famous musical sample of all time, having inspired
everything from the entire genre of drum ‘n’ bass to the Powerpuff Girls theme song. What is
it about this drum fill that inspires people to sample it in so many styles? And is it ethical to
do so, considering the original drummer never received any royalties for it?
o Is your city featured in this video? Watch this man goofily dance in cities across the world
(including some of our Global Round locations!) and discuss the implications of the fact that
so many people from disparate cultures came together to make this happen. Can we consider
dance to be a universal language?
o Listen to You Will Be Found, and discuss with your team: what does it mean to need to be
found? Would something like the Connor Project be realistic in today's world, and how can
(and should) we use social (or other forms of) media to help those who might need to be
found?
o
 SET 2
The 15th-Century Monk Who Crowdsourced a Map of the World
Fra Mauro was the Google Earth of the 1450s.
BY ADAM KESSLER
APRIL 03, 2017

If you had landed in Venice during the mid-15th century, you might have been accosted by a monk
with a prominent nose and baggy, smurf-like hat. Ignoring your exhaustion and atrocious body
odor after a long sea journey, he would have dragged you to a nearby tavern and cross-examined
you about your travels. What was the weather like? What kind of precious gems were mined?
What animals did you encounter, and how many heads did they have?
The monk was Fra Mauro, a 15th-century version of Google Earth. Famous for his cartographic
skills, he had been commissioned by King Alfonso of Portugal to produce a map of the world.
The Portuguese were eager explorers and wealthy clients, and in the days before satellite imagery,
Venice was a cartographers’ heaven. Arab traders and world explorers passed through the port,
giving Fra Mauro an incomparable source of gossip and tall tales about the world. The fall of
Constantinople, occurring a few years before the map was finished, would also have provided a
rich source of well-traveled refugees, presumably willing to swap their stories for some bread or
beer.
Crowdsourcing a map had never been easier, and Fra Mauro took full advantage. He interrogated
these travelers with an inquisitiveness verging on belligerence, cross-checking their tales against
the extensive library in his monastery in the Venice lagoon. He used their information to draw the
map itself and pepper it with almost 3,000 annotations.

Fra Mauro loved a good story, and his map is packed with pictures of amber, rubies, pearls,
diamonds, manna, and “other notable things”. He was also fascinated by exotic animals and
practices. Seven-headed serpents roam the province of Malabar in India, troglodytes run wild in
East Africa, and the Barents Sea near Norway harbors fish that can “puncture the ships with a
spike they have on their backs”.

More exotic treasures include a lake on an island in the Indian Ocean that can turn iron into gold.
In the accompanying annotation, Fra Mauro hastily explained that he didn’t believe a word of this
story, and included it “just to do justice to the testimony of many people.” Given that he repeated
this particular tale in three different places and drew a spectacular gold lake in the middle of the
Andaman Islands for good measure, his skepticism seems ambiguous to say the least.

To modern eyes, the monsters, lakes of honey-wine, and cannibals suggest credulity. In fact,
however, the annotations on the map are full of doubt and skepticism. In both India and Africa,
Fra Mauro gives no credence to the wild tales of “human and animal monsters,” noting that none
of the travelers with whom he spoke could confirm the stories. “I leave research in the matter,” he
concluded sarcastically, “to those who are curious about such things.”

Fra Mauro was also exceptional in his rejection of religious and classical authority. Europe was
not a haven of religious tolerance at the time; the Spanish inquisition started just 20 years after the
map was completed. Mapmakers, consequently, focused on keeping the Church happy rather than
worrying about minor geographic details. Medieval maps showed the location of Noah’s Ark,
discussed the depravity of pagans, and illustrated the hideous giants Gog and Magog, lurking in
the far North and eagerly awaiting the apocalypse. Fra Mauro, by contrast, took a rigidly empirical
approach. The Garden of Eden was relegated to a sidebox, not shown in a real geographic location.
He sternly noted that the tradition that the Gog and Magog lived in the Caucasus Mountains “is
certainly and clearly mistaken and cannot be upheld in any way,” since plenty of people lived in
and traveled to the mountains, and they would have noticed any monstrous giants living nearby.
Fra Mauro also criticized various classical authorities. Like a cheeky schoolchild—or a
commentator on an online forum—Fra Mauro prefaced his criticism by saying that he didn’t want
to seem contrary but couldn’t help it that everyone else was wrong. Ptolemy got the size of Persia
wrong, mislabeled Sri Lanka, and didn’t realize that you could sail all the way around Africa.
Regarding the circumference of the Earth, Fra Mauro cited a couple of expert opinions and
concluded dismissively that “they are not of much authenticity, since they have not been tested.”
His robust skepticism marked a transition away from medieval traditions towards the intellectual
excitement of the Renaissance.

As a result, Fra Mauro’s map was the most accurate ever made at the time. It wasn’t just his
piercingly accurate national stereotypes; the Norwegians were “strong and robust,” while the
Scottish were “of easy morals.” He was the first to depict Japan as an island, and the first European
to show that you could sail all the way around Africa. The latter finding drew on reports from
unfortunate traders blown by a storm ‘round South Africa, learning that it was circumnavigable
and liberally endowed with 60-foot birds, capable of picking up elephants. Through depicting the
riches, navigation routes, and people around the world, Fra Mauro didn’t just describe terrain, but
played a part in encouraging further exploration and analysis, leading up to the famous Age of
Exploration and the discovery of the Americas.
Modern interest in Fra Mauro’s map was sparked by Placido Zurla, a monk at the same monastery,
who published a lengthy study in 1806. Since then, it’s been widely recognized that Fra Mauro
was way ahead of his time for his accurate geographical knowledge, willingness to challenge
authority, and emphasis on empirical observation.

The map is accurate enough to guide researchers to as-yet undiscovered archaeological sites. For
example, Fra Mauro’s contacts in the Ethiopian Church allowed him to map medieval Ethiopia in
surprising detail. He accurately portrayed a number of geographical features; the Awash River,
mountain ranges surrounding Addis Ababa, and the Ziquala mountain and monastery (which is
still there, 500 years later). Alongside geographical features, Fra Mauro plotted ancient cities that
for centuries scholars assumed never existed. This assumption is challenged by archaeologists
today, who have found unmistakable signs of past habitation in the sites that Fra Mauro indicated.
Although no excavation has started, obsidian shards and pottery pieces litter the landscape, and
small walls, old grindstones, and worn foundations are visible under moss and bushes.

If he were alive today, Fra Mauro would probably be disappointed to know that lakes of gold and
wine existed just in the imagination of the travelers he interviewed. He would, however, be happy
to know that his map is proving more accurate than skeptical cartographers gave it credit for, and
that it still acts as a starting point for research and discovery.

Half n half Project

SHINLIART | Shin Danbi Li Seok Art

“I want to record every moment of our love.” – Danbi Shin

SHINLIART started from a question on how to record every moment of their love.
They are lovers sharing their everyday lives and art, and a collaborative artist couple.

Both are from Seoul, Korea, and they named themselves by bringing together their last names-
Shin and Li. Shin has a passion for crafts while Li loves computers, and as a couple, they create
art under a theme of ‘love.’ Their works are not limited in a specific genre. Instead, they combine
various mediums- photograph, sculpture, film and etc.

SHINLIART aimed to discover love in everyday life, and succeeded in sublimating their efforts
into art. They also say that they wish to bring the ideals into life. Their idealistic thoughts are
reborn as artworks that can communicate with various people by embracing love and emotions.

‘What is the strongest among all basic emotions of people?’

The energy created by the couple chemistry is quite strong. It is another form of ‘love.’
They seek to deliver the energy to the audience in a dramatic way. It provides a valuable
education that goes beyond simple emotivity.

“We hope that our works can guide those who are in love.” - SHINLIART

What they are interested is the fact that the message inside each artwork becomes stronger as it is
reproduced by the audiences. It becomes a good opportunity to amplify the message. In fact,
some of the relatively simpler works were realized without much hassling thanks to the audience.
Such action is emerged as a positive campaign. They have sophisticated artistic ideas that reflect
the flow of our time. SHINLIART look at the popular emotion- ‘love’ – very seriously.

Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas

The Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, contains an exceptional assemblage of cave art, executed
between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. It takes its name (Cave of the Hands) from the stencilled
outlines of human hands in the cave, but there are also many depictions of animals, such as
guanacos (Lama guanicoe ), still commonly found in the region, as well as hunting scenes. The
people responsible for the paintings may have been the ancestors of the historic hunter-gatherer
communities of Patagonia found by European settlers in the 19th century.
Outstanding Universal Value
Brief synthesis
The Cueva de las Manos,
Río Pinturas, contains an
exceptional assemblage of
cave art, with many painted
rock shelters, including a
cave, with magnificent
pictographies surrounded
by an outstanding
landscape, with the river
running through a deep
canyon, which were
executed between 9,300 and
1,300 years ago.

It takes its name (Cave of

the Hands) from the
stencilled outlines of human
hands in the cave, but there are also many depictions of animals, such as guanacos (Lama
guanicoe ), still commonly found in the region, as well as hunting scenes that depict animals and
human figures interacting in a dynamic and naturalistic manner. The entrance to the Cueva is
screened by a rock wall covered by many hand stencils. Within the rock shelter itself there are five
concentrations of rock art, later figures and motifs often superimposed upon those from earlier
periods. The paintings were executed with natural mineral pigments - iron oxides (red and purple),
kaolin (white), and natrojarosite (yellow), manganese oxide (black) - ground and mixed with some
form of binder.

The artistic sequence, which includes three main stylistic groups, began as early as the 10th
millennium BP [Before Present]. The sequence is a long one: archaeological investigations have
shown that the site was last inhabited around AD 700 by the possible ancestors of the first
Tehuelche people of Patagonia. The Cueva is considered by the international scientific community
to be one of the most important sites of the earliest hunter-gatherer groups in South America during
Early Holocene that still maintains a good state of preservation and has a singular environment
formation, unique at Santa Cruz province.

The rock art, its natural environment and the archaeological sites on this region are some of the
very important reasons that made this area a focus for archaeological research for more than 25
years. They made an impact on the observer due not only the deep gorge walls surrounded by a
privileged landscape, but also by the artistic compositions, variety of motifs and its polychromies.
These scenes represent a unique evidence to know aboutthe first Patagonian hunters’ behaviour
and their hunting techniques. Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas contains an exceptional
assemblage of cave art, unique in the world, for its age and continuity throughout time, the beauty
and the preservation conditions of the paintings, the magnificence of the collection of stencilled
outlines of human hands and the hunting scenes, as well as the environment that surrounds the
place of exciting beauty and for being part of the cultural value of the site itself.
Criterion (iii): The Cueva de las Manos contains an outstanding collection of prehistoric rock art
which bears witness to the culture of the earliest human societies in South America.

Integrity
The inscribed property encompasses 600 ha with a buffer zone of 2,338 ha. The attributes of the
property, represented by the archaeological site, the surrounding setting, and its artistic depictions,
that convey the Outstanding Universal Value of the Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, are fully
present both in the nuclear and buffer zones and have not been altered and do not face any
imminent threats due to development or negligence.

The habitat surrounding the archaeological site remains intact and has the same animal species
depicted through cave art approximately 10,000 years ago. This also applies to plant species. As
mentioned above, this is a particular, unique, and a typical setting, both at a provincial and regional
level, with great value for the preservation of the Argentine natural systems. The favourable
conditions (very low humidity, no water infiltration, stable rock strata) at the rock shelter have
ensured that the state of conservation of all but the most exposed paintings is excellent. However,
the increase of tourism to Patagonia in recent years has resulted in damage from human vandalism.
These has included graffiti, removal of fragments of painted rock, touching of painted surfaces,
accumulation of dust and refuse, etc. although measures undertaken have reduced impacts from
these factors.

Authenticity
The authenticity of the rock art of the Cueva de los Manos is unquestionable. It has survived several
millennia untouched and no restoration has been carried out since it became widely known to the
scientific community in the second half of the 20th century. The archaeological excavations have
been very restricted, so as to obtain the maximum cultural information for dating the art with the
minimum disturbance to archaeological layers or to the appearance of the rock shelter.

Scientific excavations have made it possible to relate the cave depictions located in the site to the
communities living in the region since the 10th millennium Before Present. The evidence of the
excavations made in the cave area led to the establishment of context links between the cultural
levels and paintings. The authenticity of the pictorial sequence was also verified by in-depth
research. The art sequence of the Cueva de las Manos is based on a detailed study of overlapping,
the different use of hues, its various states of conservation, and the location of the depictions along
different defined sectors. Its relation to the various cultural levels of the site is supported by carbon
dating and indicators showing a direct association with them, such as mineral pigments or remains
of painted fragments that came off the wall and found in the excavations.

These elements, along with research evidence and interdisciplinary analyses, strongly support the
authenticity of the Cueva de las Manos site as a unique example of one of the earliest hunter-
gatherer communities living in the South American region in the Early Holocene.

Protection and management requirements

In 1975 the Province of Santa Cruz issued the law N° 1024 for the conservation of historic,
archaeological and paleontological heritage. At the provincial level, the Government of the
Province of Santa Cruz declared the City of Perito Moreno as the Archaeological Capital of Santa
Cruz, because of the importance of the archaeological site of the Cueva de los Manos, by Decree
No 133 of 13 May 1981. The National Congress of the Argentine Republic declared the Cueva de
los Manos a Historic National Monument by Law No 24.225 of 20 July 1993. In 1997, the
Government of the Province of Santa Cruz promulgated the law N°2472 for the protection of the
provincial cultural heritage. In 2003 National Law N°25743 for protection of archaeological and
paleontological heritage was promulgated.

In 1997 a management plan was presented for the global administration of the site. It proposed
many specific actions that had been carried out along the last 10 years of management: local
permanent custody, visitor management strategies and an interpretation centre at the reception
area. Additionally, assessments of the state of conservation of the site and natural deterioration
causes were implemented, along with geomorphologic and geotechnical studies of the area and
rock art conservation surveys.

The Cuevas de las Manos Site Committee was formed in March of 2006. It requires strengthening
for the implementation of its activities and to ensure its operation and continuity. It would be very
important to have a permanent presence of the Committee at Perito Moreno, closest village. This
would facilitate decision-making when it is needed to solve concrete problems.

Cologne's Love Locks Bridge

Thousands of tourists and residents in Cologne affix "love padlocks" on the
Hohenzollernbrücke Bridge (The Hohenzollern Bridge (German: Hohenzollernbrücke) is

a bridge crossing the river Rhine in the German city of Cologne-German: Köln)to symbolize
their affections.
Collections are a whimsical thing. Strolling through a silent museum, or a private space, filled
with hundreds of interrelated pieces lovingly curated by one or two devoted experts or fans, one
can’t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder.

If that same collection were actually created organically by thousands of unrelated individuals,
that sense of awe can increase a thousandfold. And so does the fun. Case in point: the wall of
“Love Padlocks” on display on the Hohenzollernbrücke bridge in Cologne, Germany,
painstakingly created piece by piece as an endless stream of couples have come to publicly honor
their love. Thousands of padlocks now hang from the railings of the bridge, each inscribed,
painted, or otherwise decorated by the couple that hung it.

40,000 padlocks hang on the bridge to date – a shocking number considering that the tradition
only started in 2008. That means 40,000 couples – 80,000 individuals in all – have participated
in this fast-growing, spontaneous collection. The padlocks have added over 2 tons of weight to
the bridge, causing local officials to question how long the practice can be sustained. But for
now, the burgeoning wall of padlocks is enchanting – though not nearly as enchanting as the
actual tradition of hanging one. A happy couple, hopelessly enthralled by their own affection,
brings an open padlock to the bridge, prepared to mark it with their names and clasp it
permanently into the collection, symbolizing the strength of their attachment to one another.

And to symbolize the everlasting nature of their love, the key is dropped over the edge, tumbling
far below into the eternal waters of the river Rhine. All to say, as impressive as the collection of
padlocks is, perhaps the more intriguing collection – and almost certainly the longer-lasting one
– are the tens of thousands of tiny keys that now line the riverbed of the mighty Rhine.
MIT’s Memory Matrix Installation: Preserving Culture in Digital Perpetuity
This installation physically and cryptog raphically commemorates
monuments across the globe that have been destroyed by conflict.
Dana Snyder

Azra Aksamija is no stranger to the fragile nature of national identity. Born in Bosnia, a country
torn apart by a genocide that resulted in the slaughter of more than 100,000 people, about 80,000
of whom were Bosnian Muslims, she is all too aware how destruction rewrites history by
physically erasing the evidence of a culture. In the case of Bosnia, the targeted destruction of places
and objects was an attempt to replace a long history of coexistence with a far more oppositional,
imaginary past.

As an architectural historian and an artist—Aksamija is currently a professor at MIT—she grapples

with the physical manifestations of particular ideas or identities. Her latest work of art, the Memory
Matrix, on display at MIT until May 7, commemorates monuments across the globe that have been
destroyed by conflict.

The project, open to participation by the public, emphasizes both individual self-expression as well
as collective memory. The exhibit consists of more than 20,000 little, green plexiglass tiles, laser
cut with smal images of lost monuments, chosen by people around the world. They include
everything from a German synagogue destroyed in WWII to a tree in the Amazonian forest that
represents indigenous knowledge. Each “pixel” hangs from a chain-link fence. The fence, which
represents borders, is supported by scaffolding, which provides both structural support and
symbolizes the monument’s “constant state of restoring, rebuilding, and repairing.”

Seen from afar, the pixels recreate the iconic image of the Palmyra Arch of Triumph, destroyed by
ISIS in May of 2015. “For the Memory Matrix, it was about global heritage,” says Aksamija. The
fragments bring different cultures and civilizations into conversation with each other—a 2,000-
year-old symbol of transcultural exchange.

Each tile is also stamped with a bitcoin address that only the user of the pixel has control over. The
bitcoin database is open to everyone, but protected from any tampering. This allows the owner to
encode the pixel with a theoretically indestructible message: “I have been at this monument. I’ve
seen it in this time and day and this location. I testify that this monument existed.” Even when the
Matrix itself is gone, the pieces that comprise this digital Palmyra Arch will still be preserved in
perpetual, indestructible cyberspace. This component of memory matrix is part of a larger research
effort by A. collaborator Dietmar Offenhuber to explore “cryptographic heritage.”
DAVID BUCKLEY BORDEN
Hemlock Hospice; landscape ecology, art, and design
Location: Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, USA
Exhibition Run: October 7, 2017 to November 18, 2018.
Hemlock Hospice is a year-long, art-based interpretive trail by David Buckley Borden, Aaron M.
Ellison, and their team of interdisciplinary collaborators. This immersive site-specific science-
communication project tells the story of the ongoing demise of the eastern hemlock tree at the
hands (and mouth) of a tiny aphid-like insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) from Asia.
Scientists project that the hemlock forests in Massachusetts will functionally disappear by 2025.
While telling the story of the loss of eastern hemlock, the project addresses larger issues of climate
change, human impact, and the future of New England forests.

David Buckley Borden, an interdisciplinary artist and designer, was in residence at the Harvard
Forest for a year as a 2016/2017 Charles Bullard Fellow in Forest Research. During that period,
he collaborated with Harvard scientists on interdisciplinary art-design-science communication
projects involving landscape installations and art-based interpretive trail design. The Hemlock
Hospice installation was created in collaboration with Senior Ecologist Aaron Ellison, and
designed to communicate the latest scientific research on eastern hemlock and HWA being done
at Harvard University’s center for forest research and education. Hemlock Hospice features 18
sculptures installed on an interpretative trail through a nearly 200-year-old grove of hemlocks of
Harvard Forest.

Says Borden, “Artists and designers can play a

unique role in communicating the reality of
science. As environmental challenges become
more critical, scientists are increasingly asked to
provide vital information to policy makers,
community groups, and individuals. During my
time as a Bullard Fellow I answered the question
‘How can art and design support science
communication to foster cultural cohesion
around ecological issues and help inform
ecology-minded decision making.’”

“Wayfinding Barrier, No. 2,” installation at Harvard

Forest, 2 x 3.5 x 4 feet, wood, acrylic paint, vinyl,
hardware, aluminum tape, and recycled ant nests and
specimen box) 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley
Borden, Jack Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison, and Salua
Rivero.
 “Fast Forward Futures,” installation at Harvard
Forest, 4 x 8 x 26 feet, wood, acrylic paint, and
assorted hardware, 2017. Collaborators: David
Buckley Borden, Jack Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison,
Salvador Jiménez-Flores, and Salua Rivero.

“A field-based installation that blends science,

art, and design, Hemlock Hospice respects the
eastern hemlock and its ecological role as a
foundation forest species; promotes an
understanding of the adelgid; and encourages
empathetic conversations among all the
sustainers of and caregivers for our forests—
ecologists and artists, foresters and journalists,
naturalists and citizens—while fostering social
cohesion around ecological issues,” adds
Ellison. “As a scientist, I study how our forests
may respond to the loss of this ‘foundation’ tree
species,” he continues. “As a human being, I cry,
I mourn, and I look to the future for hope.
David’s installation tells the story of the
hemlock in a new way, communicating why so
many scientists and poets care about it, and what
their plight tells us about the future of our
environment.”

While the Hemlock Hospice trail takes visitors on a journey of the disappearance of a species at
the Harvard Forest, an accompanying exhibition inside the Fisher Museum and curated by
Penelope Taylor extends the story of the Museum’s famous dioramas that chronicle the history of
New England’s forests until the1930s. Borden continues the story from 2017 onwards with a
collection of silkscreen prints, illustrations, and art-objects created collaboratively as part of his
Fellowship. Both Hemlock Hospice and the museum exhibition are on display through mid-
November 2018; together, they imagine a future ecology supported by a new creative wave of
interdisciplinary science-communication.

The interdisciplinary Hemlock Hospice project was made possible by both leading Harvard
scientists and an A-team of creative professionals with a wonderfully diverse set of skills and
interests. The year-long project was collaborative in intent, process, and production. Beyond the
artwork itself, the final project can be viewed as an allied exhibition of science, art, and design
talent from across the country.
 “Sixth Extinction Flag,” installation at Harvard Forest, 5 x 5
feet, canvas, thread, nylon rope, and grommets, 2017.
Collaborators: Jackie Barry, David Buckley Borden, and Dr.
Aaron Ellison. Photography by Salua Rivero.

“Hemlock Memorial Shed,”

installation at Harvard Forest, 8 x 8 x 9 feet, wood, acrylic
paint, and assorted hardware, 2017. Collaborators: David
Buckley Borden, Dr. Aaron Ellison, and Lisa Q Ward.
Maurits Cornelis Escher (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmʌurɪts kɔrˈneːlɪs ˈɛsxər]; 17
June 1898 – 27 March 1972), or commonly M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist who
made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations
of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic
geometry, and tessellations. Although Escher believed he had no mathematical ability, he
interacted with the mathematicians George Pólya, Roger Penrose, Harold
Coxeter and crystallographerFriedrich Haag, and conducted his own research into tessellation.
Early in his career, he drew inspiration from nature, making studies of insects, landscapes,
and plants such as lichens, all of which he used as details in his artworks. He traveled in Italy and
Spain, sketching buildings, townscapes, architecture and the tilings of the Alhambra and the
Mezquita of Cordoba, and became steadily more interested in their mathematical structure.
Escher's art became well known among scientists and mathematicians, and in popular culture,
especially after it was featured by Martin Gardner in his April 1966 Mathematical Games
column in Scientific American. Apart from being used in a variety of technical papers, his work
has appeared on the covers of many books and albums. He was one of the major inspirations
of Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach.
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for long somewhat neglected in the art world; even in
his native Netherlands, he was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. In the twenty-first
century, he became more widely appreciated, with exhibitions across the world.
Mathematically-
inspired work
Escher's work is
inescapably
mathematical. This has
caused a disconnect
between his full-on
popular fame and the
lack of esteem with
which he has been
viewed in the art world.
His originality and
mastery of graphic
techniques is respected,
but his works have been
thought too intellectual
and insufficiently
lyrical. Movements such
as conceptual art have to
a degree reversed the art
world's attitude to
intellectuality and
lyricism, but this did not
rehabilitate Escher because traditional critics still disliked his narrative themes and his use of
perspective. However, these same qualities made his work highly attractive to the
public.[20] Escher is not the first artist to explore mathematical themes: Parmigianino (1503–
1540) had explored spherical geometry and reflection in his 1524 Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror,
depicting his own image in a curved mirror, while William Hogarth's 1754 Satire on False
Perspective, foreshadows Escher's playful exploration of errors in perspective.[21][22] Another
early artistic forerunner is Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), whose dark
"fantastical"[23] prints such as The Drawbridge in his Carceri ("Prisons") sequence depict
perspectives into complex architecture with many stairs and ramps, peopled by walking
figures.[23][24] Only with 20th century movements such as Cubism, De
Stijl, Dadaism and Surrealism did mainstream art start to explore Escher-like ways of looking at
the world with multiple simultaneous viewpoints.[20] However, while Escher had much in
common with, for example, Magritte's surrealism, he did not make contact with any of these
movements.
Geometries
Although Escher did not have mathematical training—his understanding of mathematics was
largely visual and intuitive—his art had a strong mathematical component, and several of the
worlds which he drew were built around impossible objects. After 1924, Escher turned to
sketching landscapes in Italy and Corsica with irregular perspectives that are impossible in natural
form. His first print of an impossible reality was Still Life and Street (1937); impossible stairs and
multiple visual and gravitational perspectives feature in popular works such
as Relativity (1953). House of Stairs (1951) attracted the interest of the mathematician Roger
Penrose and his father the biologist Lionel Penrose. In 1956 they published a paper, "Impossible
Objects: A Special Type of Visual Illusion" and later sent Escher a copy. Escher replied, admiring
the Penroses' continuously rising flights of steps, and enclosed a print of Ascending and
Descending (1960). The paper also contained the tribar or Penrose triangle, which Escher used
repeatedly in his lithograph of a building that appears to function as a perpetual
motion machine, Waterfall (1961).[36][37][38][39]
Escher was interested enough in Hieronymus Bosch's 1500 triptych The Garden of Earthly
Delights to recreate part of its right-hand panel, Hell, as a lithograph in 1935. He reused the figure
of a Mediaeval woman in a two-pointed headdress and a long gown in his lithograph Belvedere in
1958; the image is, like many of his other "extraordinary invented places",[40] peopled with
"jesters, knaves and contemplators".[40] Escher was thus not only interested in possible or
impossible geometry, but was in his own words a "reality enthusiast";[40] he combined "formal
astonishment with a vivid and idiosyncratic vision."
Escher worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he
made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed
mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Integrated into his prints were mirror
images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals.
Escher was also fascinated by mathematical objects like the Möbius strip, which has only one
surface. His wood engraving Möbius Strip II (1963) depicts a chain of ants marching for ever
around over what at any one place are the two opposite faces of the object—which are seen on
inspection to be parts of the strip's single surface. In Escher's own words.
An endless ring-shaped band usually has two distinct surfaces, one inside and one outside. Yet on
this strip nine red ants crawl after each other and travel the front side as well as the reverse side.
Therefore the strip has only one surface.
The mathematical influence in his work became prominent after 1936, when, having boldly asked
the Adria Shipping Company if he could sail with them as travelling artist in return for making
drawings of their ships, they surprisingly agreed, and he sailed the Mediterranean, becoming
interested in order and symmetry. Escher described this journey, including his repeat visit to the
Alhambra, as "the richest source of inspiration I have ever tapped."
Escher's interest in curvilinear perspective was encouraged by his friend and "kindred
spirit"[43] the art historian and artist Albert Flocon, in another example of constructive mutual
influence. Flocon identified Escher as a "thinking artist"[43] alongside Piero della Francesca,
Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Wenzel Jamnitzer, Abraham Bosse, Girard Desargues, and
Père Nicon.[43] Flocon was delighted by Escher's Grafiek en tekeningen ("Graphics in Drawing"),
which he read in 1959. This stimulated Flocon and André Barre to correspond with Escher, and to
write the book La Perspective curviligne ("Curvilinear perspective").