étant donnée // l'origine du monde

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.

wb/ prehistory /

V

Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view. The elk portrayed by the man of the Stone Age on the walls of his cave was an instrument of magic. He did expose it to his fellow men, but in the main it was meant for the spirits. Today the cult value would seem to demand that the work of art remain hidden. Certain statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain Madonnas remain covered nearly all year round; certain sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level. With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products. It is easier to exhibit a portrait bust that can be sent here and there than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple. The same holds for the painting as against the mosaic or fresco that preceded it. And even though the public presentability of a mass originally may have been just as great as that of a symphony, the latter originated at the moment when its public presentability promised to surpass that of the mass.

With the different methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to such an extent that the quantitative shift between its two poles turned into a qualitative transformation of its nature. This is comparable to the situation of the work of art in prehistoric times when, by the absolute emphasis on its cult value, it was, first and foremost, an instrument of magic. Only later did it come to be recognized as a work of art. In the same way today, by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental. This much is certain: today photography and the film are the most serviceable exemplifications of this new function.

 ....

Agamben / philosophical archaeology/ 2009
 
And it is something similar that Benjamin might have had in mind, when, in Overbeck’s footsteps, he wrote that in the monadological structure of the historical object are contained both ‘prehistory’ and ‘post-history’ (Vor- und Nachgeschichte), or when he suggested that the entire past must be immersed into the present in a ‘historical apocatastasis’ (Benjamin 1982, p. 573). (Apocatastasis is the restitution in the origin which, according to Origenes, takes place at the end of times; qualifying an eschatological reality as ‘historical’, Benjamin uses an image very similar to the foucaultian ‘a priori’.)

denuded

 Spoliation entails a forcible transfer of ownership. The spoliated object [animal, person, monument or culture] is denuded of its portable assests [skin, wealth, ornament, artistic patrimony] and the assets - the spolia - are taken as booty or salvaged. Spolia are survivors of violence, about which they might be mute [if they bear no visible signs] or eloquent.

kinney / reuse value


The fact is that history and prehistory, united in origin, at a certain point separate irrevocably:
In the history of every organism there comes the time in which the boundaries which separate it from the world are not any longer subject to change. In this moment, prehistory and emergence-history (Entstehungsgeschichte) separate from history. Thence the similarity that likens this moment to death, and the ease with which we can identify, in any history in the usual sense of the term, the signs of a history of decadence (Verfallsgeschichte). Verfallsgeschichte dissolves the bonds that prehistory had created between elements ... If, therefore, in the realm of things that have a life and a historical efficacy, one has to distinguish between their pre-historical epoch and the historical one, it is prehistory which lays the foundations of their historical efficacy (ibid., p. 53).
Not only prehistory and history are distinct and nonetheless connected: the historical efficacy of a phenomenon itself is inseparably linked to this distinction.

agamben / philosophical archaeology / 2009 / overbeck

APelles painted a Mare and a Dogge so liuelie

APelles painted a Mare and a Dogge so liuelie, that Horses and Dogges pas|sing by woulde neigh, and barke at them; hee grewe so famous for his excellent Art, that great Alexander came often to his shoppe to visite him, and commaunded that none other should paint him; at his death hee left Venus vnfinished, neither was anie euer founde, that durst perfect, what hee had begunne. Zeuxis was so excellent in painting, that it was easier for anie man to view his pictures, then to imitate them, who to make an excel|lent Table, had fiue Agrigentine Vir|gins naked by him; hee painted Grapes so liuelie, that Birdes did flie to eate them. Parrhasius painted a Sheete so artificiallie, that Zeuxis tooke it for a Sheete in deede, and commaunded it to bee taken away to see the picture, that hee thought it had vayled; as learned and skilfull Greece had these excellent|ly renowned for their limning: so Eng|lande hath these; Hiliard,  Isaac Oliuer, and Iohn de Creetes, very famous for their painting.

As Greece moreouer had these Pain|ters; Timantes, Phidias, Polignotus, Pa|neus, Bularchus, Eumarus, Cimon Cleonaeus, Pythis, Apollodorus Atheniensis, Aristi|des The banus Nicophanes, Perseus, An|tiphilus, and Nicearchus: so in Englande wee haue also these; William and Francis Segar brethren, Thomas and Iohn Bettes, Lockey, Lyne, Peake, Peter Cole, Arnolde, Marcus, Iaques de Bray, Cornelius, Peter Golchis, Hieronimo and Peter Vande Uelde. As Lysippus, Praxiteles, and Pyrgoteles, were excellent engrauers: so wee haue these engrauers, Rogers, Christoper Swit|ser, and Cure.


Meres, Francis, 1565-1647.
Title: Palladis tamia Wits treasury being the second part of Wits common wealth. By Francis Meres Maister of Artes of both vniuersities.
Date: 1598 

Giorgio Agamben - We Refugees

Giorgio Agamben. "We Refugees." Symposium. 1995, No. 49(2), Summer, Pages: 114-119, English, Translation by Michael Rocke.

7. Before the extermination camps are reopened in Europe (which is already starting to happen), nation-states must find the courage to call into question the very principle of the inscription of nativity and the trinity of state/nation/territory which is based on it. It is sufficient here to suggest one possible direction. As is well known, one of the options considered for the problem of Jerusalem is that it become the capital, contemporaneously and without territorial divisions, of two different states. The paradoxical condition of reciprocal extraterritoriality (or, better, aterritoriality) that this would imply could be generalized as a model of new international relations. Instead of two national states separated by uncertain and threatening boundaries, one could imagine two political communities dwelling in the same region and in exodus one into the other, divided from each other by a series of reciprocal extraterritorialities, in which the guiding concept would no longer be the ius of the citizen, but rather the refugium of the individual. In a similar sense, we could look to Europe not as an impossible "Europe of nations," whose catastrophic results can already be perceived in the short term, but as an aterritorial or extraterritorial space in which all the residents of the European states (citizens and noncitizens) would be in a position of exodus or refuge, and the status of European would mean the citizen's being-in-exodus (obviously also immobile). The European space would thus represent an unbridgeable gap between birth and nation, in which the old concept of people (which, as is well known, is always a minority) could again find a political sense by decisively opposing the concept of nation (which until now has unduly usurped it).
This space would not coincide with any homogeneous national territory, nor with their topographical sum, but would act on these territories, making holes in them and dividing them topologically like in a Leiden jar or in a Moebius strip, where exterior and interior are indeterminate. In this new space, the European cities, entering into a relationship of reciprocal extraterritoriality, would rediscover their ancient vocation as cities of the world

À bout de souffle

deller's stone henge deflated




 STONEHENGE. This place contains in it, within the circumference of three Hun|dred foot, a rude and indigested Mass of vast large Stones, rough, and of a grey colour, 25 Foot in length, 10 in breadth, and 8 in thickness; they look as if they were hewen square, and are joined two and two toge|ther, and every couple hath a third Stone lying a-cross, which is fastened by Tennants that enter into Mortesses, not closed with a|ny Morter. It appears as if they had been set in three Ranks going round, as Circles, one within another, whereof the uttermost and largest is in compass about 300 Foot, but the other Ranks are decayed, and some of them being faln down to the ground, 'tis very dif|ficult to reckon how many there are; like|wise it seems very strange, how such im|mense Bulks should happen here, where there is no Stones of any small demension within the Neighbourhood: Whereupon some are of an Opinion, That they are not purely na|tural, or had their growth in this place. 'Tis now generally credited and believed, that they were a Monument set up by Au|relius Ambrose, in Remembrance of the Brit|tains that were Slain and Buried there, in the Reign of Vortiger, at a Banquet and Com|munication of Hengist, which the Saxons and

Brittish Chronicles testifie, That whereas the Saxons about the Year of our Lord 450. had slain Four hundred and eighty of the Brittish Nobili|ty by Treachery, under a Colour of a Parley and Treaty; this Aurelius Ambrose being then King of the Brittains, desirous to continue their Memo|ry, as well as the Infamy of his base and treache|rous Enemies, caused these Stones to be set up in the very place of their Death and Burial, the which Stones had been first brought out of Africk into Ireland, and there placed on Mount Killare, and from thence, by the Art and Magick of Mer|lina, a renowned Magician in that Age, were at length conveyed to this place upon this very Occa|sion. Others think, that the Brittains did E|rect this, as a Monument for Ambrosius him|self, to perpetuate his glorious Name to Po|sterity, who died afterwards upon this place by the Sword, in the Answer of their Quar|rel, and Vindication of their Liberties; how|ever certain it is, that there are thereabouts certain little Hills, or Banks, under which there are sometimes found Bones of tall, gi|gantick Men, and pieces of Armour; and not far from hence, remains still some of the Ruins of an old kind of Fortress, which the Romans, as it is probable, did raise for them|selves, during their Possession of these our Territories, &c.

Brome, James, d. 1719.
Title: An historical account of Mr. Rogers's three years travels over England and Wales giving a true and exact description of all the chiefest cities, towns and corporations in England, Dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick upon Twede : together with the antiquities, and places of admiration, cathedrals, churches of note in any city, town or place in each county, the gentleman above-mentioned having made it his whole business (during the aforesaid time) to compleat the same in his travelling, : to which is annexed a new map of England and Wales, with the adjacent parts, containing all the cities and market towns bound in just before the title.
Date: 1694  

overspent// disasters of spring

origin of the serif

Abri Castanet Vulva

We report here on the 2007 discovery, in perfect archaeological context, of part of the engraved and ocre-stained undersurface of the collapsed rockshelter ceiling from Abri Castanet, Dordogne, France. The decorated surface of the 1.5-t roof-collapse block was in direct contact with the exposed archaeological surface onto which it fell. Because there was no sedimentation between the engraved surface and the archaeological layer upon which it collapsed, it is clear that the Early Aurignacian occupants of the shelter were the authors of the ceiling imagery. This discovery contributes an important dimension to our understanding of the earliest graphic representation in southwestern France, almost all of which was discovered before modern methods of archaeological excavation and analysis. Comparison of the dates for the Castanet ceiling and those directly obtained from the Chauvet paintings reveal that the “vulvar” representations from southwestern France are as old or older than the very different wall images from Chauvet.

new scientist seals

Cave paintings in Malaga, Spain, could be the oldest yet found – and the first to have been created by Neanderthals.

Looking oddly akin to the DNA double helix, the images in fact depict the seals that the locals would have eaten, says José Luis Sanchidrián at the University of Cordoba, Spain. They have "no parallel in Palaeolithic art", he adds. His team say that charcoal remains found beside six of the paintings – preserved in Spain's Nerja caves – have been radiocarbon dated to between 43,500 and 42,300 years old.

That suggests the paintings may be substantially older than the 30,000-year-old Chauvet cave paintings in south-east France, thought to be the earliest example of Palaeolithic cave art.

The next step is to date the paint pigments. If they are confirmed as being of similar age, this raises the real possibility that the paintings were the handiwork of Neanderthals – an "academic bombshell", says Sanchidrián, because all other cave paintings are thought to have been produced by modern humans.

Neanderthals are in the frame for the paintings since they are thought to have remained in the south and west of the Iberian peninsula until approximately 37,000 years ago – 5000 years after they had been replaced or assimilated by modern humans elsewhere in their European heartland.

Until recently, Neanderthals were thought to have been incapable of creating artistic works. That picture is changing thanks to the discovery of a number of decorated stone and shell objects – although no permanent cave art has previously been attributed to our extinct cousins.

kracauer / the last things before the first

History resembles photography in that it is, among other things, a means of alienation..

photography produces artefact, a field of detail, not memory


last

pro itu et reditu

 

petrosomatoglyph

The oldest known depiction of Stonehenge

Lucas Deheere 1573-75  I myself have drawn them on the spot  British Library Add MS 28330, fol 36

1440? Corpus Christi College MS 194, fol 57

"That year Merlin, not by force but by art, brought and erected the giants' round from Ireland, at Stonehenge near Amesbury". 1440 Douai manuscript  Scala Mundi

Folio 30r of British Library, Egerton 3028, a manuscript of English chronicles including an abreviated version the Brut by Wace. This illustration shows the construction of Stonehenge with the assistance of Merlin and is the oldest known illustration of Stonehenge. 1338 -40

British Archaeology
The foundation myth appears in the 12th century. Stonehenge, or Stanenges, is first briefly mentioned c1130 in Historia Anglorum, written by the archdeacon of Lincoln, Henry of Huntingdon, at the command of his bishop Alexander of Blois. "Noone can work out", says Henry, "how the stones were so skilfully lifted up to such a height or why they were erected".
Shortly after, around 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his Historia Regum Britanniae, drawing on a vast range of material, from the Venerable Bede to British and continental legends, to build a history of the British kings from the Trojan Brutus up to the 7th century. The immense success of his much copied text shows the deep interest it rapidly inspired.
The passage concerning Stonehenge has often been described, and is well elaborated in Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete (Thames & Hudson, 3rd ed 2004). The legitimate British king, Aurelius Ambrosius, is in exile in Brittany while his usurper Vortigern allies himself with the invading Saxon king Hengist. Vortigern and Hengist arrange a peace meeting at the "cloister of Ambrius" (Amesbury), but the Saxons treacherously slay 460 British lords. Aurelius returns, defeats both Vortigern and Hengist, and seeks a memorial to the dead. Merlin recommends the chorea gigantum, a stone monument on the Irish Mount Killaraus. Only his magic, however, can bring the stones to Amesbury, and he reconstructs them exactly as they were in Ireland. The text shows Aurelius's coronation in c480 and the erection of Stonehenge c485. Later Aurelius and his brother Uther Pendragon (father of Arthur) are buried at Stonehenge.

Historians have spent years debating whether Stonehenge was once a complete circle. Despite numerous tests and excavations, the mystery remained unsolved for almost 5,000 years. But staff at the neolithic site believe the question has finally been answered - all because a hosepipe was too short. 

6 September 2014 Last updated at 04:05

Barack Obama in Stonehenge visit on return from Nato summitThe White House said the presidential helicopter Marine One stopped at Boscombe Down Airbase, Wiltshire, before his motorcade drove to the ancient monument.
Mr Obama described seeing the monument as "cool" and said it was something he could tick off his "bucket list".

10 September 2014 Last updated at 01:40  

Archaeologists have unveiled the most detailed map ever produced of the earth beneath Stonehenge and its surrounds. They combined different instruments to scan the area to a depth of three metres, with unprecedented resolution. Early results suggest that the iconic monument did not stand alone, but was accompanied by 17 neighbouring shrines. Future, detailed analysis of this vast collection of data will produce a brand new account of how Stonehenge's landscape evolved over time.

 

Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, has a message to Earth: it's time to go to Mars. He's been broadcasting it loud and clear for years, but now has made his mission even more majestic by posting this picture of himself taken at Stonehenge.

Plaatje van Stonehenge (GMG 432 88)
Date	vanaf 1645
Source	Biblioteca Nacional Espana
Author	Blaeu,J

We promptly sat down with our backs to the sight we had come to see, & began to eat sandwiches: half an hour afterwards we were ready to make our inspection.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/03/virginia-woolf-visits-stonehenge/

http://www.historyextra.com/stonehenge-tourism

enid blyton / christmas book

 http://www.silentearth.org/silent-earth-and-pete-glastonbury-film-project/

jubliee

epistemo-critical prologue

In literary-historical analysis differences and extremes are brought together in order that they might be relativized in evolutionary terms; in a conceptual treatment they acquire the status of complementary forces, and history is seen as no more than the coloured border to their crystalline simultaneity.

WB / The Origin of German Tragic Drama / 38

Banksia serrata

plate and print

Joseph Banks' Floriegium
Sydney Parkinson travelled to the Pacific with Banks on board Cook's ship, the Endeavour. He made nearly 1000 drawings... but died on the voyage. Banks employed 18 engravers to produce 753 copper plates for his anthology of flowers. He sent proofs to Linnaeus who gave Banks' name to a new genus of plant.

science of origin

Thomas Hariot, 1560-1621, John White, fl. 1585-1593, illustrated by, and Richard Hakluyt, 1552?-1616, translated by

A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia: of the Commodities and of the Nature and Manners of the Naturall Inhabitants : Discouered bÿ the English Colonÿ There Seated by Sir Richard Greinuile Knight In the ÿeere 1585 : Which Remained Vnder the Gouerenment of Twelue Monethes, At the Speciall Charge and Direction of the Honourable Sir Walter Raleigh Knight Lord Warden of the Stanneries Who therein Hath Beene Fauoured and Authorised bÿ Her Maiestie and Her Letters Patents / This Fore Booke Is Made in English by Thomas Hariot seruant to the Aboue-Named Sir Walter, a Member of the Colonÿ, and There Imploÿed in Discouering.

Yeder onheyb iz shver

arche / archon

agamben

what is a commandment?