#&.* j.g. | reflection

[fvrsaeken]

i don't want to be a hero

endless edits by peach part 12 / ∞

[inliebe-joseph]

Did J.G. call himself Ulex sometimes? Or sign letters with "Ulex" or something like that? Is it true? And if so, why? Was there a meaning behind it and what was it?

Yes. Joseph sometimes used the pseudonym “Ulrich Ulex” when signing personal letters or correspondence. He began using it around the 1920s, though he eventually abandoned it as his political prominence grew. The origin of “Ulex” is not fully understood, but it’s thought to have been a personal or literary choice, likely intended to add an intellectual or mysterious flair to his early writings and correspondence. The name “Ulex” may have held symbolic value, given that Joseph was interested in presenting himself as an intellectual. However, beyond its use as a pseudonym, there’s no clear evidence that it had any deeper or widely recognized significance. It reflects his penchant for constructing alternate personas, something that was not uncommon among public figures of the time who wished to separate their personal and professional lives. I personally like it very much (but I like everything about him atp so..).

[livefastdriveyoung]

Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion

The Garden of Time. If something in the back of your brain is itching with the familiarity of the title, perhaps you came across the inspiration for the theme which is a story by the same name written by J.G. Ballard. It's a piece that tells a story about the aristocracy at the height of their wealth relying on the comforting nature as a way of hiding from the inevitable forces of time.

It's a perfect inspiration for the gala intended for the elite of Hollywood.

The exhibit itself features 400 years of fashion pieces, with prominent ones including a Charles Worth gown from 1877 that is too fragile to place in anything but a pressurized container. It is beautifully reanimated in video and breathtaking.

The exhibit also features three key components, land, sky, and sea, as a sort "ode to nature and the poetics of fashion."

It should have been easy. It should have been a walk in the park. Designers could recreate archival pieces, they could put flowers and birds and bees and clouds everywhere.

Instead we got a lot of beige.

But I've also been seeing a lot of analysis that's only been looking for flowers and missing the other two components of the exhibit, sky and sea, as well as the reawakening fashion and time. I think there are some pieces that definitely missed the mark, but I don't think it is as many as people are claiming. I'm going to make this a thread because realistically, I have a lot to say and I can't fit it all here. We'll start with Zendaya's first look:

This is Zendaya's first look of the night. It's a custom John Galliano for Maison Margiela. It's a stunning reference to a Galliano piece from a different century, his 1999 Spring collection with Christian Dior. It was a different era of fashion, and Galliano, so to reimagine it for Zendaya was quite fitting.

The original piece is gold and blue/purple stripes all the way up covered in an assymetical piece of blue fabric starting at the waist that wraps up to one shoulder. There are grapes and leaves incorporated all over it, and, iconically, the model walked down with a glass of wine in her hand.

A Quarter century later, Zendaya's version is perfection. Ocean Blue tulle and organza creates a fluid motion in the skirt. The material itself is iridescent and gives the image of moving water as it climbs her waist to merge with the familiar but darker blue fabric. The grapes at the waist are more prominent, they're designed to stand out more, in shades of metallic emerald. We climb up to her left shoulder and we're greeted to a deep green bust, with grapes acting as a loose strap on her arm, almost like a tree or vine. Over her right shoulder is the deep blue fabric giving her the assymetrical look. It's pinned by a few grapes to keep the motif. Around her neck is a small bird figurine, perched delicately.

Ok you may say, she did the whole garden thing with the grapes and the birds and the reimagining fashion by wearing a reference piece. So what?

It's so much more than that. There are three elements to the exhibit, land, sea, and sky. We have them all, in the exact order they appear to the world. The Ocean, the sea, encapsulates the bottom of the gown. It's deep blues and leaves you wondering what is underneath. Then you climb up onto land and you're greeted to the stunning greens of nature, the fruits that it bears. Finally, over her shoulder is the sky. The ocean is blue because it reflects the color of the sky, that is what a lot of science tells us. Unlike in the 1999 version, the blue sash was the only clearly blue part of the gown. Here it connects the whole piece. You can't have one without the other, a seemingly inseparable piece of material. The bird nestled on her shoulder connects the sky and the sea, and beautifully ties everything together.

So why grapes? Well, regardless of your belief in religion, a great many people would likely tell you or I that the fruit Adam and Eve ate in the garden was an apple.

Except, that's not really true. There's no record to indicate that the fruit of the tree was an Apple. In fact, there are a number of people that believe the fruit in the garden was a grape. Whether that was the purpose of the reference here or not, it's a beautiful addition that ties in to the garden theme.

This outfit literally checks off every box:

Reawakening Fashion - Referencing an old piece from a previous era of fashion, but making it refreshed without taking away what made it special

Garden of Time - the Grapes and the Greenery

The Land, Sea, and Sky - the whole dress layout.

This is Reawakening Fashion. People want everything so simple and at their fingertips because that is what the world is becoming, and sometimes, yes, you want your clothing to be simple. You want it to fit you and not be stained and feel nice. Rightly so.

But Haute Couture is meant to be thought provoking. It is meant to be outrageous and fun and custom and one-of-a-kind. It is meant to leave you breathless and wanting more. It is meant to be timeless.

Recently there was a video of a young woman getting ready for her senior prom, wearing her mother's prom dress from the late 90s I believe. Every single comment I read called the gown timeless, beautiful, exactly what a prom dress should be.

Why don't we expect the same for high fashion? Why can't a piece from 1999 be as gorgeous and perfect in 2024? Why can't we take parts of it and make it our own?

It's perfect.

[archiveofkloss]

cr fashion book: “get ready with karlie kloss for the 2024 met gala”

When the first Monday in May arrives, attention turns to which designers celebrities will showcase and how they collaborate with design teams to interpret the event’s theme. While this year’s event has officially concluded, the 2024 Costume Institute exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” featured a variety of ensembles that embodied the red carpet theme, “A Garden In Time,” both literally and metaphorically.

This year, Karlie Kloss partnered with Swavrovski’s creative director Giovanna Engelbert and stylist Karla Welch to craft a stunning interpretation of this year’s theme, inspired by J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story “The Garden of Time.” Accompanied by fellow supermodels and Swarovski campaign stars Irina Shayk, Anok Yai, and Imaan Hammam as well as Engelbert, Kloss embodied the crystal flower, a symbol of beauty and elegance in Ballard’s story.

The strapless, mermaid-style gown in a dreamy petal pink featured Swarovski’s Florere and Millenia collections cascading down its hourglass silhouette and was adorned with 180,000 light rose crystals, requiring seven artisans 225 hours to complete. Kloss’ silhouette was further enhanced by a bejeweled corset enveloping her body in garlands of blossoming pink flowers, showing a harmonious blend of jewelry artistry and fashion design. The corset alone was comprised of 60,500 crystals and 75 Florere jewels and took a team of five artisans 1,600 hours to create. From envisioning her look with Swarovski team to her trusted Met Gala tips, Kloss shares an inside look at getting ready for the annual gala with Swarovski below.

CR: Tell us about your look for the Met Gala, what was the inspiration and how did you work with the Swarovski team to interpret the Met’s theme?

KK: Giovanna, Karla Welch and I drew inspiration from the overarching theme of the exhibit, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” which highlights the sensory aspects and cyclical themes of nature in fashion. We focused on the fragility and ephemeral qualities that are central to the exhibit, particularly through the lens of the delicate interplay between nature and the four centuries of fashion showcased. We embodied this concept by integrating Swarovski crystals into the design in a way that reflects both literal and metaphorical fragility. Wearing a delicate garment entirely made of crystals captures the essence of rebirth and renewal, but also respects the fragility of the historical garments featured in the exhibition.

CR: What does the “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” theme and “The Garden of Time” red carpet theme mean to you?

KK: The exhibition celebrates fashion that’s so fragile that it can no longer be worn, elevating these pieces into something almost sacred. I love that we’re celebrating the beauty of these archives and the creativity and inspiration behind them. In Ballard’s short story, the garden symbolizes beauty, peace and innocence. To me, these themes are enduring, not ephemeral. They remind us to find moments of stillness and reflection to appreciate the beauty around us.

CR: You’ve been to a handful of Met Galas at this point, are there any pre-Met rituals you swear by?

KK: Taking a moment to center myself through a few different forms of self-care is a must. Squeezing in a facial at Tracie Martin and a gloss by my favorite, Jenna Perry, and a lymphatic massage if time allows!

CR: What have been some of your favorite Met Gala moments?

KK: That’s a tough one…of course the moment of ‘looking camp in the eye’ is something that still gets referenced today and honestly, I’m happy we are able to still laugh about it. Last year, however, was the most special for Josh and me. Getting to share my baby bump on the red carpet was a moment that I will cherish forever.

[agentofdeterioration]

Whenever someone suggests ao3 should implement some kind of court of morality to determine what stories should be allowed on the site I have to resist the urge to physically transform into The Scream

This is the opposite of what ao3 is for. It is the anti-censorship site. If you want censorship go use one of the sites it was created in response to. AO3’s standards are literally just… the law in the country that hosts it. It allows all content that is legal and removes content that is not. SCADS of content (on ao3 and on the internet and in traditional published media) is found in some way Morally Objectionable by one person or another. In fact I’d say verging on 100% of content ever made would not pass SOMEONE’S personal vibe check.

But ao3 does not exist to make case-by-case moral judgments on everything it hosts. It exists to host anything and everything as long as it isn’t illegal in the US. That is the purpose of it, in response to the long history of fics being deleted for the very reason that they did not pass someone’s personal vibe check, often because of homophobia and other pearl-clutching.

Are there stories that I find appalling, that I think reflect badly on their creators? Certainly. One of them is Game of Thrones. The book Crash by J.G. Ballard upset me so much I had to walk out of a college classroom and calm down. And yes, I’ve seen plenty of fanfiction and other amateur works whose authors I think are probably creeps. But here’s the thing about censorship: somebody has to be the censor, and that person is fallible.

My objection to the death penalty is not because I believe there aren’t people who deserve to die. It’s because I believe there aren’t people who should be allowed to decide who those people are. Who do you want to be in charge of the morality council? Because inevitably, whoever you pick, they’re going to personally hate and therefore ban some work that might otherwise have gone on to be taught in college classes or have 8 seasons and a spinoff show.

P.S. Everyone on both sides of this argument needs to be clear on the difference between CENSORSHIP and CRITICISM. I disliked Crash. I gave it a bad review on Goodreads. I did not campaign to have it removed from the syllabus and/or local library. Everyone is and always has been allowed to have a negative opinion of things and that is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who believe a site whose only criterion is the legality of the work should not exist.

[myobsessionsspace]

MET GALA 2024

(The Costume Institute Gala)

Dress Code: ‘The Garden of Time’

The dress code for the event is “The Garden of Time,” which was inspired by J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story of the same name, in which Count Axel and his wife live and listen to Mozart in a magnificent villa, surrounded by a garden of crystal flowers, as an angry and unruly army advances upon them. To keep the “approaching rabble” at bay, Axel must turn back time by plucking the flowers, one by one, until they are all gone, and there is no time left.

Excerpts that could have provided inspiration:

“black velvet jacket, a gold tie-pin”

“cane held stiffly in a white-gloved hand”

“exquisite crystal flowers”

“translucent petals”

“soldiers in ragged uniforms”

“brocade evening dress rustling over the ornamental tiles”

“Her face was serene and intelligent, her hair, swept back behind her head into a jewelled clasp, touched with silver. She wore her dress low across her breast, revealing a long slender neck and high chin.”

“In fact a mere dozen flowers remained of the many hundred that had grown in the garden, and several of these were little more than buds– only three or four were fully grown.”

“straightening his silk cravat”

“Taking the stem between her jewelled fingers”

“The lake was empty, fallen trees rotting at its bottom, an old bridge rusting into it. Weeds flourished among the long grass in the lawn, overrunning the ornamental pathways and carved stone screens.”

“six-foot-high growth of heavy thorn-bushes”

“bearded man in a high-collared jacket, a cane under one arm”

“a woman in an elaborate full-skirted dress, her slim, serene face unmarked by the wind and rain. In her left hand she lightly clasped a single rose, the delicately formed petals so thin as to be almost transparent”

“a shattered cornice and struck the rose, reflected off the whorl of petals on to the statues, lighting up the grey stone so that for a fleeting moment it was indistinguishable from the long-vanished flesh of the statues’ originals”

[anniekoh]

Afterglow: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors                                        edited by Grist (2023)

Afterglow is a stunning collection of original short stories in which writers from many different backgrounds envision a radically different climate future. Published in collaboration with Grist, a nonprofit media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions, these stirring tales expand our ability to imagine a better world.

Inspired by cutting-edge literary movements, such as Afrofuturism, hopepunk, and solarpunk, Afterglow imagines intersectional worlds in which no one is left behind—where humanity prioritizes equitable climate solutions and continued service to one's community. Whether through abundance or adaptation, reform, or a new understanding of survival, these stories offer flickers of hope, even joy, as they provide a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.

Afterglow welcomes a diverse range of new voices into the climate conversation to envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress. A creative work rooted in the realities of our present crisis, Afterglow presents a new way to think about the climate emergency—one that blazes a path to a clean, green, and more just future.

Magazine: https://grist.org/fix/arts-culture/imagine-2200-climate-fiction-afterglow/

Economic Science Fictions  https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781906897734/economic-science-fictions/

Edited by William Davies (2018)

An innovative new anthology exploring how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics.

From the libertarian economics of Ayn Rand to Aldous Huxley's consumerist dystopias, economics and science fiction have often orbited each other. In Economic Science Fictions, editor William Davies has deliberately merged the two worlds, asking how we might harness the power of the utopian imagination to revitalize economic thinking.

Rooted in the sense that our current economic reality is no longer credible or viable, this collection treats our economy as a series of fictions and science fiction as a means of anticipating different economic futures. It asks how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics and provides surprising new syntheses, merging social science with fiction, design with politics, scholarship with experimental forms.

With an opening chapter from Ha-Joon Chang as well as theory, short stories, and reflections on design, this book from Goldsmiths Press challenges and changes the notion that economics and science fiction are worlds apart. The result is a wealth of fresh and unusual perspectives for anyone who believes the economy is too important to be left solely to economists.

Drowned Worlds

edited by Jonathan Strahan (2016)

Review: “The title and the editor both pay tribute to the inspiration of J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World, that prescient piece of nascent cli-fi first published in 1962. Strahan lauds this “lush, powerful book that tells of a post-apocalyptic world … seen through a romantic haze that hangs over the flooded, inundated ruins of a world laid waste by rising oceans.” Many of the stories in the collection, indeed almost all, share a similar dreamlike or fantastic Ballardian ambience of a world long past the climate change, where remnants of our current civilization often persist just as fantastic fragments.“

Futures From Nature: 100 Speculative Fictions from the pages of the leading science journal

by Henry Gee (2008)

Are aliens really not interested in us at all? Is there a significant health benefit from drinking your own urine? Is loading your personality into a computer the best way to survive the death of the body? Is the death of the body really necessary? Here are a very large number of very small fictions on the subject of the future and what it might be like. The authors include scientists, journalists, and many of the most famous SF writers in the world. Futures from Nature includes everything from satires and vignettes to compressed stories and fictional book reviews, science articles, and journalism, in eight-hundred-word modules. These pieces were originally published in the science journal Nature between 1999 and 2006.

[o-avosetta]

Hey

I am osmiaavosetta on AO3. If you wanna read my stuff, I recommend:

The Lost Wardens, a Stardew Valley fan novel that leans hard into the game's magical side; makes up stuff to fill in the lore about Yoba, the Void, and the Community Center; and began as the question, "What if Alex was a magical boy?" Features a love vs. gridball vs. [REDACTED] arc for our protagonist; backstories for the Witch, Mr. Qi, and others; and fluffy kitchen scenes. Rated a conservative M for Mature / T for Teen with some reservations about relationships and non-explicit sex.

No Expiry, a Destiny 2 epistolary long story where a disillusioned Bray Exoscience employee tries and fails to not fall in love with someone whose human days are numbered. Kind of a reflection on loving someone with chronic illness. Rated T.

Away From the Spine, a Dishonored/Transistor crossover short story where Jessamine lives and carves a runesword out of whalebone. Rated T.

I'm on a break from writing fics and AO3 in general until I'm not, which is another way of saying that my job currently leaves me too tired to do more than reblog things I like — but I'll let you know if inspiration strikes and I find a minute to write.

Elsewhere, I am a 30-something agender neurodiverse woman from the Philippines. The blog's title is a play on a Bisaya/Cebuano expression.

Thanks for being a friend.

--

Pic Reference:

Rozen, J.G. (2010). Brood cells of Osmia avosetta [Photograph]. In J.G. Rozen, H. Özbek, J.S. Ascher, C. Sedivy, C. Praz, A. Monfared, & A. Müller, “Nests, petal usage, floral preferences, and immatures of Osmia (Ozbekosmia) avosetta (Megachilidae: Megachilinae: Osmiini), including biological comparisons with other osmiine bees”. American Museum Novitiates 3680, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1206/701.1

[spaceintruderdetector]

https://archive.org/details/89f9c84b-be5c-4020-8edc-6fbe0b1c25f5/mode/2up

The B-genres science fiction and fantasy were contemporaries of cinema’s emergence out of the scientific and experimental study and recording of motion made visible. In an early work like H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, which Tolkien credited as work of fantasy, the transport through time – the ununderstood crux of this literary experiment – is conveyed through a cinematic–fantastic component in the narrative, reflecting optical innovations and forecasting the movies to come. Although the historical onset of the rivalry between the B-genres is packed with literary examples, adaptation (acknowledged or not) followed out the rebound of wish fantasy between literary descriptions of the ununderstood and their cinematic counterparts, visual and special effects. The arrival of the digital relation out of the crucible of the unknown and the special effect seemed at last to award the fantasy genre the trophy in its contest with science fiction. And yet, although science fiction indeed failed to predict the digital future, fantasy did not so much succeed as draw benefit from the mere resemblance of fantasying to the new relation. While it follows that digitization is the fantasy that is true (and not, as Tolkien had hoped, the Christian Gospel), the newly renewed B-genre without borders found support in another revaluation that was underway in the other B-genre. Once its future orientation was “history,” science fiction began indwelling the ruins of its faulty forecasts. By its new allegorical momentum, science fiction supplied captions of legibility and history to the reconfigured borderlands it cohabited with fantasy. The second volume also attends, then, to the hybrids that owed their formation to these changes, both anticipated and realized. Extending through the topography of the borderlands, works by J.G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, and John Boorman, among others, occupy and cathect a context of speculative fiction that suspended and blended the strict contest requirements constitutive of the separate B-genres.

[non-reader]

Favorite Authors: Coffee, Dinner, or Drinks

This post is based on the sections of My Reading Life. It is a reading journal that bought from Barnes and Noble to track and reflect on my readings. I bought this one specifically because of the extra pages that ask little questions or focus on different topics such as this.

I will be honest, I do not really think about the authors when I read. Unless I am reading a lot of their content, the author is often an after thought. So I had to think about it for a bit. Who do I want to get to know and what settings would be best?

Firstly, I don't think I would want to have dinner with anyone. It just feels a bit much and like its supposed to be a little more intimate. Doesn't feel right to have dinner with any of the authors I want to talk to.

Now for coffee, I would want to get coffee with Junji Ito, Craig Thompson, and Grady Hendrix. These authors have made some of my favorite pieces of literature and I feel that getting coffee with them is the right fit. For Craig, I want to discuss about his book Habibi because it is my favorite book and there is a shit ton to talk about. Why did he write it, how he was able to get himself to write it, how is his creation a reflection of his life and perspective.

For Junji Ito, I would treat him to coffee and whatever else he wants at the coffee shop. I would want to know how he is able to get so much inspiration to create everything he did. I'd wanna know how he is able to draw the way he does. But most of all, I would want to get to know him as a person. He seems like he'd be such an interesting dude and I would want to get to know him on a personal level.

Grady I feel like would be someone I would bounce story ideas off of. I would love to brain storm with him, think of random scenarios, and write short stories with. I'm not as big of a fan as I am with Junji Ito or Habibi, but so far I've liked what he's written an I think he would be a good writing partner.

Getting drinks, I would do it with Stephen King and J.G. Ballard. With Stephen King, it would be a casual thing. Get to know him, how he was able to write all his stories, if there were any he had in mind but never wrote; kind of like an interview.

With J.G. Ballard, I'm going to need a drink if I was to talk to him. His book was one of the first I reviewed and it's about a man who gets sexually aroused by car crashes. To talk about something like that with him, I'm gonna need a drink. I would specifically ask him 3 questions: 1) how did you come up with a story like that, 2) how did you get the courage to write a story like that, and 3) did you write anything else.

[dazzlerrtalenthub01]

SABYASACHI MUKHERJEE: THE FIRST INDIAN DESIGNER TO GRACE THE MET GALA RED CARPET

The Met Gala, known as the “Oscars of Fashion,” is an event where the world’s most influential figures in fashion, entertainment, and art converge to celebrate the Met’s annual Costume Institute exhibition. This year’s theme, “The Garden of Time,” was a nod to J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story of the same name, evoking a surreal and enchanting world of crystalline blooms and timeless beauty.

Amidst the glitz and glamor of the event, one name shone brighter than ever before – Sabyasachi Mukherjee, the man who, by his own admission, prefers to be called a tailor rather than a designer.

With his delicate and sparkling interpretation of the theme for Alia Bhatt, he etched his name in the annals of fashion history, becoming the first Indian designer to walk the Met Gala red carpet.

Indian craftsmanship has long been celebrated on the global couture stage, with designers like Gaurav Gupta, Rahul Mishra, Falguni Shane Peacock, and Manish Malhotra dressing Hollywood’s biggest stars. However, the Met Gala had remained an elusive dream for Indian designers – until now.

Alia Bhatt’s ethereal appearance was a breathtaking embodiment of the “Garden of Time” theme. Clad in a Sabyasachi creation, she was a vision of blush perfection, adorned with hand-embroidered silk floss, beads, sequins, semi-precious stones, and fringed with glass beads. A hand-crafted blouse studded with emeralds, Basra pearls, tourmalines, and multi-colored sapphires completed the look, along with exquisite jewelry selected from Sabyasachi’s Bengal Royal collection.

But the true showstopper was Sabyasachi himself, gracing the red carpet in a regal, embroidered sherwani-style coat adorned with tourmalines, pearls, emeralds, and diamonds from his own jewelry line. This moment marked a significant milestone not only for the designer but for the entire Indian fashion industry, which has long sought recognition on the global stage.

While some critics took to social media to criticize his look and draw comparisons to the eccentric style of Bappi Lahiri, Sabyasachi’s unapologetic embrace of maximalism and opulence is a reflection of his authentic, regal signature. This is the man who has put Indian fashion on the global map, celebrating the country’s rich heritage and craftsmanship with every creation.

As the first Indian designer to walk the Met Gala red carpet, Sabyasachi has paved the way for many more to follow. His achievement is a testament to the growing influence and appreciation of Indian fashion on the world stage, and a source of immense pride for the entire nation.

With his latest triumph at the Met Gala, he has not only made history but also inspired a new generation of designers to dream big and celebrate their cultural heritage with pride.

Keep Following Dazzlerr for more such updates.

[fvrsaeken]

feel you slippin’ through my fingers and i know i’ll never reach you but you’re part of me, i can’t let you go

endless edits by peach part 8 / ∞

[cewritten23]

Stephen Dunne:

• Stephen Dunne was born in Ireland and now works in East London.

• Dunne creates his works through zombified art techniques.

• The artist makes use of automatism within the creation of his works.

• Dunnes works are inspired by pseudo- scientific occult system, as well as Austin Osman spare, Philip Guston, J.G. Ballard, Comte de Lautreamont, Thomas Pynchon as well as Looney Tunes.

• There is a sense of violence within the artists' works.

• Dunne achieved an M.A. in Fine Art painting at the Rolay College of Art in 2001.

• The artist has exhibited in many places within the UK.

• He participated in ‘Pilot 3’ at the 2007 Venice Biennale.

• The art is created by haphazardly spilling ink onto the surface in order to create shapes.

“I don’t have a plan. I just spill ink and make blobs and they suggest images”-Dunne.

• The fluidity of the technique creates a strange atmosphere and warped reality.

• The horror and dark element comes naturally due to the media used and how it is utilised.

• The heads and gory characters show a culture of fear and terror.

• His works at times convey elements of Christianity and evil.

• Red-eyed and long-haired figures are common within Dunne’s works.

• Some may say Dunne’s work are very cartoon like due to the horror and humour conveyed in a childlike and playful manor.

• The marks created are very lose.

• Abstract bogeyman or possibly something more sinister.

• The eyes of the figures stare back at the viewer who engages with the works.

• The imagery of Noon’s paintings reflects a horror narrative.

“When you show people Rorschach bolts, they tend not to see nice things. It taps into the subconscious in a very strange way- it's something that psychologists still use. We don’t see happy things. We see horror and misery or weirdness or nightmare”- Dunne.

“the idea of a collapsed narrative that becomes hallucinatory. It doesn’t have a beginning, middle or end-it be-comes a loop; a closed loop of violence.”

• I have included these quotes within my research as I feel they resonate with similar ideas i have for/towards my works.

The piece on the right hand side is called, Preaching to the Choir, 2006

Graverobber, 2006

Vulgar Power, 2006

How this influences my work;

• My works will be drowned with a sinister and horror like atmosphere.

• I will be utilising my chosen mediums in a way that allows the paint to do what it wants creating fluidity.

• The fluidity of my works will intensify the sinister figures.

• I will also make use of red and black within lots of my works.

[denimbex1986]

The real story of this movie is told by Andrew Scott’s dejected face. When set before a more-or-less certain and phantasmal present, the character, played by the formidable Irish actor, becomes a little boy rendered glum and puzzled by a time not his own. Such was the natural order for people who thought differently, and were excited by that which was still unspeakable in most societies. Like many other 1980s teenagers in the United Kingdom, where All of Us Strangers takes place, the young man was loved deeply by his family. But his parents didn’t know how to recognize or confront his weak demeanor, his nocturnal sobs, his musical tastes, his silence. And he became a solitary, creative and wary adult. A stranger, perhaps.

Inspired by the novel Strangers, published by the Japanese author Taichi Yamada in 1987, and made into a film adaptation — Nobuhiko Obayashi’s The Discarnates (1988) — in All of Us Strangers, British filmmaker Andrew Haigh has crafted a painful and unrelenting, romantic and reflective, but above all, mysterious film about love: the familiar, the sentimental, the sexual. It’s an overwhelmingly stylized work about an encounter and a reencounter. There is an encounter with a neighbor in a massive and apocalyptic recently-built London building, one that seems to have been plucked from a J.G. Ballard novel, and which only the two main characters seem to inhabit, each in their own apartment; a place devoid of realism, as is the film itself, a symbol of both men’s loneliness. There’s a reencounter with parents who want to embrace and share, remember and celebrate. Even amidst the grief of death.

All of Us Strangers is a film based on the value of its interpretations, and on its eerie sense of uneasiness within an apparently calm plot. Although perhaps, it is the other way around: A commotion arrived at through shapes. Through Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s enveloping soundtrack made up of festive, sad, generation-specific songs featuring Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys and The Housemartins; through the spectral design of its tortuous interiors; through its phantasmagoric lighting; through its resounding colors.

Haigh, who directed the excellent Weekend (2011) and 45 Years (2015), with which All of Us Strangers shares much of its romantic ecstasy and conceptual reflection on the true nature of desire and affection, utilizes perhaps unconsciously (one would have to ask him) some of the narrative formulas of the best of Carlos Saura from the 1970s, that of Cousin Angelica, The Garden of Delights and Cria Cuervos. All feature impossible meetings of human beings in different times and even universes.

The protagonist has arrived to his promised land (cue Joe Smooth’s track Promised Land, a late-1980s house classic) thanks to the tolerant society of a contemporary era in which homosexual love need no longer be relegated to the shadows. Nonetheless, the burden of the past, of bewilderment and depression, still weighs too heavily. Scott and Mescal, the latter the priest from Fleabag and the father from Aftersun, have it written all over their faces. And their performances, along with those of Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, round out a fascinating film. One will remember the sequence of their meeting at the door of Scott’s apartment, its conversation’s leisurely tempo and exchange of looks between two acting heavyweights, for a long time to come.'