Ur-Fascism

http://baltimore-art.com/2017/02/11/the-aesthetics-of-the-alt-right/
In his essay Ur-Fascism, Eco identifies themes and rhetorical habits that underpin fascism (although his interrogation is limited to describing what fascism looks and sounds like, as opposed to the mechanism by which it emerges).¹ Some of the characteristics that I will refer to in my aesthetic survey include:

1. the cult of tradition which idealizes a primordial past (think Make America Great Again, or Mussolini’s call to build a new Rome, a call recently echoed by White Nationalist Richard Spencer²).
2. fear of difference, whether difference be sexual, gendered, religious, or racial.
3. a cult of masculinity that, tends to manifest itself in an obsession with sexual politics (refer to online pick-up artistry and the heteronormative gender roles embodied in the nuclear family.)
4. a hostility towards parliamentary politics, criticality, and reason.
5. a belief in permanent warfare and a corresponding cult of action for action’s sake.
6. a worship of technology, not in the manner of an Enlightenment-esque worship of reason, but faith in technology to conquer and to reaffirm inegalitarianism.

annihilation

https://aegis.web.cern.ch/aegis/

https://aegis.web.cern.ch/aegis/images/multimedia/pbar_Anim3D_G1.mov 
Antiprotons annihilating in emulsions and in silicon detectors, December 2012 
After having scanned the developed emulsion under a microscope with depth of field of a few micron and digitized each layer, we can reconstruct the position in 3D of each point on the tracks that the fragments took, and transform this information into a 3D image that can be rotated to see the annihilation event from all angles.


spacetime blackholes


our exposures are insensitive to time 

Peter Geimer  -  Shadow without Objects
photographic paper pressed to the forehead

what does seeing mean in this context?

echinoid

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/echinoid-directory/models/image-index.html

http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/273/1/279.full.pdf

Porphyrogennetos

...touch through the colour

Porphýra, the Purple Chamber, a pavilion of the Great Palace of Constantinople): no child born anywhere else could legitimately be called Porphyrogénnētos. This pavilion was a free-standing building in the Great Palace complex in Constantinople. As the Porphyrogennētē Anna Komnena described it, the room rested on one of the Palace's many terraces, overlooking the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus Strait, "where the stone oxen and the lions stand" (i.e. the Boukoleon Palace), and was in the form of a perfect square from floor to ceiling, with the latter ending in a pyramid. Its walls, floor and ceiling were completely veneered with imperial porphyry, which was "generally of a purple colour throughout, but with white spots like sand sprinkled over it

//www.ancient-egypt.co.uk/people/Imperial%20Porphyry;%20its%20special%20qualities%20which%20influenced%20its%20form,%20function%20and%20use%20in%20antiquity.pdfThe 


mud-purple feeds on rotting slime and the seaweed-purple on seaweed, both being of a very common quality. A better kind is the reef-purple, collected on the reefs of the sea, though this also is lighter and softer as well. The pebble-purple is named after a pebble in the sea, and is remarkably suitable for purple dyes; and far the best for these is the melting-purple, that is, one fed on a varying kind of mud. Purples are taken in a sort of little lobster-pot of fine ply thrown into deep water. These contain bait, cockles that close with a snap, as we observe that mussels do. These when half-killed but put back into the sea gape greedily as they revive and attract the purples, which go for them with outstretched tongues. But the cockles when pricked by their spike shut up and nip the creatures nibbling them. So the purples hang suspended because of their greed and are lifted out of the water.

natural history IX

oxacan purpura dyeing - milking the shellfish

The official fasces and axes of Rome clear a path, and it also marks the honourable estate of boyhood; it distinguishes the senate from the knighthood, it is called in to secure the favour of the gods; and it adds radiance to every garment, while in a triumphal robe it is blended with gold. Consequently even the mad lust for the purple may be excused; but what is the cause of the prices paid for purple-shells, which have an unhealthy odour when used for dye and a gloomy tinge in their radiance resembling an angry sea?

http://www.masseiana.org/pliny.htm#BOOK%20IX

http://www.kremer-pigmente.com/media/files_public/36010e.pdf 

forlorn

 

Origin myths of the Tontemboan of Minahassa, Sulawesi: One says that "a stone once stuck out of the ground somewhere in the east. When the sun rose the stone became hot and sweated. The sweat became a lump which finally burst, giving birth to Lumimu'ut, the ancestress of the Tontemboan. Another account states that there was once a stone as large as a house in the middle of the sea. The waves played over it, and after a time a crow emerged. The stone then sweated, and out came Lumimu'ut.

"According to a Toumpakewa version, a sky-being made the earth and caused all things to grow. It happened one day that the south wind was blowing, so that a large mass of foam was carried by the waves and finally left high and dry on the shore. Day after day the sun shone upon the foam, till it began to move and work itself deeper into the sand. Finally it gave birth to a youth. One day when walking this youth came to the mouth of a river, where he heard the sound of a child crying in a heap of stones. He listened and said, " Per- haps it is some one who lives here ". He looked for the weeping child, and saw that a small girl had sweated out of a stone, to which her navel-string was still attached. He cut the navel-string with a bamboo knife. He married the girl, whose name
was Lumimu'ut, for she had sweated out of the stone, or Kariso."

https://archive.org/stream/megalithiccultur00perruoft/megalithiccultur00perruoft_djvu.txthttps://archive.org/stream/megalithiccultur00perruoft/megalithiccultur00perruoft_djvu.txt

Wooden slit gongs

Wooden slit gongs played a pivotal role in Bamum society in Cameroon. Their function was to send out signals in times of crisis from within the royal court. By the time German colonists reached the Bamum kingdom for the first time in 1910, they found eight of these spectacular instruments, each hollowed out from a central slit, decaying on the palace ground like felled giants from a mythical past. Two French colonial administrators stationed in the Bamilike region noted that these gongs were carved when a king was enthroned; when he died they were abandoned in the market square and left to rot as if undergoing the same process of decomposition as the king himself.

Drum,_Akan_or_Fante_-_Glenbow_Museum

Revanchism

Irredentism (from irredento for "unredeemed") is any political or popular movement intended to reclaim and reoccupy a lost homeland. As such irredentism tries to justify its territorial claims on the basis of (real or imagined) historic and/or ethnic affiliations.

http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/Timeandphotography/melser.html

P.P.13

A Dream of John Ball

Illustration to William Morris' A Dream of John Ball

Wood engraving, 1892

 

'Ah, ye good people, the matters goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be common, and that there be no villains nor gentlemen, but that we may be all united together, and that the lords be no greater masters than we be. What have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in servage? We be all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve: whereby can they say or shew that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that they cause us to win and labour for that they dispend? They are clothed in velvet and camlet furred with grise, and we be vestured with poor cloth: they have their wines, spices and good bread, and we have the drawing out of the chaff and drink water: they dwell in fair houses, and we have the pain and travail, rain and wind in the fields; and by that that cometh of our labours they keep and maintain their estates: we be called their bondmen, and without we do readily them service, we be beaten; and we have no sovereign to whom we may complain, nor that will hear us nor do us right.'

John Ball, in J Froissart, Froissart's Chronicles (1385) translated by GC Macaulay (1895)

the origin of coral

Before washing his hands, Perseus delicately sets the serpent-crowned head onto a bed of leaves so that it won't be injured. But, on contact, the supple seaweed stems absorb the monsters power and harden. Henceforth coral - called gorgonion in Greek- possesses the property of becoming mineral if exposed to air. In water, its branches are flexible, but as soon as it emerges it turns to stone, saxum. In Ovid it is the Gorgon's contagious touch that petrifies, but in other versions it is her gaze.

Kristeva/ The Severed Head p29

The origin of this scene is a seldom-illustrated passage from Book IV of Ovid's Metamorphoses, describing how Perseus created coral. Having slain the Medusa, one of the three Gorgons, whose gaze turned all who saw her to stone, Perseus witnessed the birth of the winged white horse Pegasus, who sprang from her blood. Mounted on Pegasus with the Medusa's head in a sack, Perseus flew over an island where he saw Andromeda chained to a cliff and threatened by a sea-monster. Perseus slew the monster, freed Andromeda and began washing the creature's blood from his hands, placing the Medusa's head on some seaweed at the water's edge as he did so. The Medusa's blood turned the seaweed into a red stone - coral. Delighted with the effect, the nymphs soaked other algae in the blood, to make more.

Project Gnome Markers

DESIGNING FOR DEEP TIME:

HOW ART HISTORY IS USED TO MARK NUCLEAR WASTE

by

Kelli Anderson

Another pattern that emerged from the referenced texts was the importance of redundancy in creating tangible, long lasting messages. The use of redundancy and multiples may aid in the reception of small scale communications, while contributing to the longevity of large scale messages. The Assyrian stone tablets mentioned in Chapter 1 provide an example of how redundancy can be used in deciphering small scale messages. The overlap of the symbols appearing on the tablets, as well as the patterns emerging from them as a group help later scholars interpret their meaning. Since “...several components within a given marking design, a number of items within each component, and cross referencing to link components...” were used, meaning can be extracted even though the symbols used were not initially understood. The ability to read these symbols comes from the interconnected, self deciphering web created by their overlap, not by the intrinsic communicative properties of the characters themselves. In terms of large scale communications, Goodenough cites Stonehenge as an example where a multiples strategy contributed to the longevity of the monument. He notes that although a third of the stones have been removed from the site, the quantity of stones used ensures that enough remain to reconstruct’ the original design.

78

If the designers of Stonehenge had employed a single, monolithic approach, wherein only one stone was used, it would almost surely be gone today. The use of multiple stones, which creates a sense of environment versus a sense of object, promotes the longevity of a site. Stonehenge remains intact today largely due to the multiples strategy employed in its construction.

http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf

How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations.

 

Preventing Human Intrusion into A High Level Nuclear Waste Depository 1994

Excerpts from Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation PilotPlant
(Sandia National Laboratories report SAND92-1382 / UC-721, p. F-49)

Figure 4.3-6. Spikes Bursting Through Grid, view 2 (concept by Michael Brill and art by Safdar Abidi).  

4.2 Descriptions of the Permanent Marker Components 

General descriptions of the conceptual design for the permanent marker components contained in the CCA are provided below; Figure 2 illustrates their locations. Additional detailis provided in Section 5.0.

1.Large Surface Markers - The conceptual design calls for 32 Large Surface Markers erected on the perimeter of the controlled area, and 16 markers erected on the perimeter of the repository footprint, within the Berm. Each marker will consist of two separate stone monoliths joined by a mortise-and-tenon joint; the lower member will be a truncated pyramid and the upper member will be a right prism. 

2. Small Subsurface Markers - The Small Subsurface Markers will be small buried disks warning of the presence of the repository. They will be buried throughout the repository footprint, within the Berm, and within the shaft seals. They will be randomly spaced and buried at depths ranging from two to six feet below the surface. 

3. Berm- The Berm will enclose an area that is 110 percent of the repository footprint. As currently planned, it will have a core base material of salt; the core will be protected by at least two other types of materials. Magnets and Radar Reflectors will be buried in the Berm. These will be buried at specified intervals in the Berm, producing distinctive anomalous magnetic and radar-reflective signatures. A Buried Storage Room will also be constructed at grade inside the Berm on its south side.

4.Buried Storage Rooms- One Buried Storage Room will be buried within the Berm. This room will be constructed at grade level at the center of the southern section of the Berm. It will be completely covered by Berm material. A second Buried Storage Room will be buried in the controlled area outside of the Berm and the repository footprint. This room will be buried approximately 20 feet below the surface, north of the Berm on a line passing through the Information Cent er, the center of the northern and southern sections of the Berm and the Hot Cell. 

5. Hot Cell - This is an existing reinforced concrete 40-by-70 foot structure with walls 4.5 feet thick. Its foundation extends 30 feet below grade, and the roof is 60 feet above grade. The Hot Cell will remain after closure as an “archeological remnant,” effectively serving the function of an additional permanent marker. 

6. Information Center- The Information Center will be an open structure having a rectangular design. It will be located on the land surface at the center of the repository footprint.
....

stone kissing

The act of fixing a stone to mark a place of worship is as old as history. In the Bible we are told that Jacob, on whom be peace, had fixed a stone at a place where he saw a vision. He poured oil on it and called it Bethel meaning 'house of God' (see Genesis 28:18). He did this again upon God's instruction (see Genesis 35:1, 14, 15). No one should understand from this that God instructed Jacob to worship the stone. (Shabir Ally, Common Questions People Ask About Islam, p. 46)

The Black stone is not worshipped by the pilgrims:

Muslims go to Makkah to glorify God, not to kiss a stone or worship a man or a semi-divinity. Kissing or touching the Black Stone at the Ka`bah is an optional action, not obligatory or prescribed. Those who kiss the Black Stone or touch it do not do it because they have faith in the Stone or attribute any superstitious qualities to it. Their faith is in God only. They kiss, touch or point at the Stone only as a token of respect or a symbol of love for Prophet Muhammad, who laid the Stone at the foundation of the Ka`bah when it was reconstructed. (1)

A sapphire hard drive is reported to have been developed that can store information on nuclear waste dumps for up to a million years - enough time for safe radioactive decay

The sapphire disk is one product of that effort. It's made from two thin disks, about 20 centimeters across, of industrial sapphire. On one side, text or images are etched in platinum—Charton says a single disk can store 40,000 miniaturized pages—and then the two disks are molecularly fused together. All a future archaeologist would need to read them is a microscope. 

pro itu et reditu

 

petrosomatoglyph