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mask131 · 1 year

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Seasonal theme: Magical summer (ending)

This summer will be a season of wonders and enchantments, of spells and wizards - a magical summer!

Here is a list of beings, entities, objects and concepts you can check out if you want to add some magic to your summer:

In fiction (but isn’t fiction a myth-to-be?)

Shakespeare’s work greatly influenced the world’s vision of witches and wizards, be it through the Weird Sisters/Three Witches in Macbeth, or Prospero in The Tempest.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is one of the most famous pieces of “wizard fiction”. Starting out as a German poem by Goethe, adapted from a world-wide folktale, it then became a French “symphonic poem” in the hands of Paul Dukas. Disney then adapted this symphonic poem into a world-famous animated short in their movie Fantasia 2000, before re-adapting the poem into a completely unrelate teenage-urban fantasy movie in 2010. A urban fantasy movie not to be confused with another kid-friendly fantasy movie inspired by the poem of Goethe and sharing the same name (as well as plot elements, such as Arthurian sorcerers finding themselves in the present-day world). This time it is a British “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, released in 2001.

The depiction of Merlin in The Sword in the Stone, both the Disney movie of the 60s and the novel by T. H. White that inspired it, also had a great impact on the vision of the character in popular culture. Both works also contain a famous fictional witch in the person of Madame Mim. A warning, however: Madame Mim only appears in the first editions/first version of the novel, on which the Disney movie was based. In the 50s White rewrote his novel, and excluded the chapter of Madame Mim. Madame Mim in the novel is also very different from the character Disney made her out to be.

A last creation of Disney for this list: Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, the three good fairies (and actual heroes) of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

The Wicked Witch of the West is one of the most famous depictions of a “wicked witch” in the mediatic landscape - and in fact, many witch depictions today are still inspired by her (most notably the green skin or the fact of being melted by water). I am of course here referring to the Wicked Witch as she appears in the MGM movie The Wizard of Oz - this Witch being a very different character from the Wicked Witch of the West appearing in the original novel by L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Not that Baum did not create quite a lot of very famous witches: I can mention Mombi, the antagonist of the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, or the Good Witch of the North and her counterpart Glinda the Good, the Sorceress of the South. These two are quite notorious as being the first “good witches” to ever appear in American literature.

In Tolkien’s Legendarium (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion): Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White and the Rings of Power - especially the One Ring. All became archetypes of the fantasy literature and unchallenged character-types (or artefact-types) in all future high fantasy/epic fantasy sagas. Plus - I almost forgot - the palantiri, the “seeing-stones”, Tolkien’s own spin on the classical “crystal ball”.

Other wizards of fantasy classics would include Belgarath the sorcerer and his daughter Polgara, from David Eddings’ (and his wife) The Belgariad, a duo purposefully designed to play fully while subverting in many ways the “Gandalf-type of character” ; as well as Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face, the alien and otherwordly patron-warlocks of Fritz Leiber’s iconic heroic duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

The magic-users of sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld deserve an entire section of their own. Each one of them is a careful parody or caricature of the wizard or the witch as envisioned and imagined by fantasy literature, witch-hunters or New Age hippies, as well as a reconstruction of these same stereotypes and cliches, based on philosophical, humanist and scientific principles, making them as much realistic takes as bloody hilarious incarnation of the “witch” and “wizard” character types. For the wizards you have Rincewind (with the Luggage, of course), Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons or the Unseen University (a wizard school long before Harry Potter existed). For the witches you have Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick or Tiffany Aching. And let’s not forget the gender-challenging Eskarina...

Speaking of Harry Potter - despite the controversies surrounding its creator, the Harry Potter book series, and the movie series that followed, is a franchise that cannot be ignored when considering the image and perception of witches, wizards and magic in fantasy. The titular character of Harry Potter deeply marked the minds - as much as his two friends/co-protagonists, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his nemesis Draco Malfoy, his mentor/school headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the magic school of Hogswart itself, or the magical sport known as Quidditch.

However, while Harry Potter cannot be ignored, it also must not be forgotten that this franchise was the last of a long set of series depicting children trying to learn magic in a school for witches or wizards, such as Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen, The Circle of Magic by MacDonald and Doyle*, Anthony Horowitz’s Groosham Grange (plus its sequel “The Unholy Grail”), and of course Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch. Special mention for Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic, which do not feature a magic school, but are about a young British boy looking a lot like Harry Potter and training to become the greatest wizard of his era - and that despite being a story released seven years before Harry Potter. [* Again, to avoid confusion, this series is not the same as Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic, which ALSO deals with young wizards learning to control their powers - but this time was released in parallel to the Harry Potter series].

In a similar way, Harry Potter himself is the last of a long “bloodline” (inkline? Since they’re literary character) of fantasy series-protagonist that start out as young teenagers or kids, become sorcerer apprentice or wizards in training, and grow to be famous and heroic figures of the world of magic. Before Harry there was Pug, of the Riftwar Saga (later expanded into the Riftwar Cycle), and before Pug there was Ged from the Earthsea series.

While I do not usually include in those list too-recent works, because I brought up Harry Potter I am in the obligation to mention two big recent successes. On one side, the Japanese anime Mashle: Magic and Muscles, which is a very funny parody of the Harry Potter world, if it met the tropes and characters typical of recent seinen superhero mangas, such as One-Punch Man or My Hero Academia. On the other side, the American cartoon The Owl House, which gently mocks the problems inherent to the Harry Potter franchise, while offering its own alternate plotline about a teenager trying to learn magic in a world divided between “regular” humans and magical witches, only to be confronted with great evil powers beyond what she could imagine...

Two very different dreaded witches: on one side, The Lady from The Black Company, wife and former co-ruler of the dreaded sorcerous overlord The Dominator, and absolute mistress of the Ten Who Were Taken, vile wizards including some terrifying folks such as Soulcatcher, Shapeshifter, The Limper, The Howler or the Hanged Man... On the other, the witch-queen of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, one of the three Lilim sisters of a fairy-land beyond a certain Wall... She was reinvented as the witch Lamia in the movie adaptation of the novel. I will also throw in another dreaded female magical entity invented by Neil Gaiman: The Other Mother, from Coraline - who is, after all, at one point called a “beldam”...

Not a book, not a movie, but a card game! The card game Magic: The Gathering deserves a mention, being one of the first and most famous collectable strategy card games, long before Japan overtook with the world with Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Master and co. The original concept for the game was that each player embodied a wizard fighting another wizard, eac card being a different spell/magical artefact/summoned entity, and each deck was a grimoire/spellbook. The most notorious part of the game is its color system: the Five Colors, representing the various elements and energies of the multiverse, gathered in five different forms of magic forces/divine powers/philosophico-social ideologies. The White of light, peace, law and order. The Black of death, rot, sacrifice, greed and selfishness. The Red of chaos, fury, impulses, emotions, freedom and war. The Blue of intellect, knowledge, logic, deceit, trickery and illusions. The Green of life, nature, evolution and tradition.

To continue on the topic of games. For tabletop roleplaying games - Warhammer, the most famous dark fantasy RPG, whose wizards are divided by the Winds of Magic, the different types of magic powers: Aqshy the Red Wind of Fire, Chamon the Yellow Wind of Metal, Hysh the White Wind of Light, Ulgu the Grey Wind of Shadow, Azyr the Blue Wind of Heavens, Ghur the Brown Wind of Beasts, Ghyran the Green Wind of Life, and Shyish the Purple Wind of Death. For online, virtual roleplaying game, World of Warcraft, the most famous fantasy MMORPG to this day, with its character class of the Mage (sometimes called Wizard), a spellcaster and conjurer who can specialize in three “types” of magic: Frost magic, Fire magic and Arcane magic. They are not to be confused with the other magic-using classes of the game, such as the Shamans (totemic mystics invoking the spirits of their ancestors and manipulating the four elements), the Warlocks (curse-wielding summoners and enslavers of demons), or the Druids (healers, spellcasters and shapeshifters taking their power from nature itself, and celestial bodies such as the sun and the moon).

A few fantasy series centered around magic I heard about positively but haven’t had time to check out myself. Diana Wynne Jones’ Magids duology, with on one side Deep Secret, and on the other The Merlin Conspiracy. Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap series (especially the first book, Magyk, which I heard the most about). And Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician Trilogy.

Being a huge Deltora Quest fan, I will mention as a magical artefact the Belt of Deltora and its seven magical gems.

We have spent so much time talking about witches... But what about witch hunters? I will name two famous examples here. On one side, Solomon Kane, hunter and slaughterer of all things evils, eldritch and unholy, one of the two famous creations of Robert E. Howard alongside Conan the Barbarian, and whose adventures (just like those of Conan) are technically part of the Cthulhu mythos. On the other side, the Wardstone Chronicles, a brilliant little dark fantasy series for young adults, about the seventh son of a seventh son in a fictional version of Renaissance England learning to become a “Spook”, aka a hunter of ghosts, witches, goblins, demons and other evil gods.

Of course, being French I have to sprinkle a few French references in this list. For the foolish, cartoonish-evil sorcerer of children fiction: the evil alchemist/sorcerer Gargamel, the recurring and iconic antagonist of the comic-book, then turned cartoon, then turned hybrid movies, The Smurfs. For an evil but glorious wicked lady of dark magic, Karaba the witch from Michel Ocelot’s most famous animated movie Kirikou and the Sorceress, inspired by a traditional folktale of West Africa. For your classic Gandalf-like fantasy wizard: Zétide, the elderly but powerful wizard who serves as one of the protagonist of the fantasy series La Malerune, initially created by Pierre Grimbert but completed by Michel Robert. For your young adult fantasy hero: Ewilan, from the teenage fantasy series The Quest of Ewilan, an ordinary young girl discovering herself to be the true daughter of powerful sorcerers of another world, another world she will need to save with her own hidden magical powers. And to add a final “French touch”, the witch of Malcombe and Eusaebius the mage, the two magic-users whose actions start the plot of one of France’s most famous comedies, Les Visiteurs.

The French television series Kaamelott deserves an entire section, with its hilarious cast caricaturing the Arthurian mythos from beginning to end - from an inept and incompetent Merlin, to an annoying Lady of the Lake whose ghostly apparitions make everyone believe Arthur is mad, passing by a Morgan le Fay who is tired of constantly having to drag heroes’ corpses back to Avalon. And let’s not forget Le Répurgateur, a cruel, fanatical and overzealous inquisitor and witch-hunter of the early Christian Rome, who however carries numerous modern-day values and norms against the Celtic traditions still honored at Camelot (such as polygamy or a very loose definition of “justice”).

ADDENDUM:

I forgot to put in two items on the first part of this list, so I will add them here as a final conclusion.

When talking about the fairytales of the brothers Grimm that popularized some witch archetypes (Little Snow-White, or Hansel and Gretel), I forgot to evoke The Frog King (wrongly remembered today as “The Frog Prince”), which was the fairytale from which derives the cliche/stereotype/trope of a witch or a fairy turning anyone that displeases them into a toad or a frog.

And of course, I forgot to mention the most “real” of all the magics... The stage magic. The magic tricks of the magician with the top hat and black-and-white wand. The parlor tricks, and stage illusions, and children’s entertainment, and the great magicians that practiced this art: Isaac Fawkes, Robert-Houdin, John Henry Anderson, Herrmann the Great, Houdini, Harry Blackstone, Fred Kaps, and many many more... Pulling rabbits out of hats, changing the numbers and figures of card games, cutting ladies into two, pulling flowers or handkerchiefs out of thin air, and all these sorts of things...

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byneddiedingo · 1 year

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Chantal Goya, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, and Jean-Pierre Léaud in Masculin Féminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)

Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Chantal Goya, Marlène Jobert, Michel Debord, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, Evabritt Strandberg, Birger Malmsten. Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard, based on stories by Guy de Maupassant. Cinematography: Willy Kurant. Production design: Philippe Dussart. Film editing: Agnès Guillemot, Marguerite Renoir. Music: Jean-Jacques Debout.

In an intertitle during Masculin Féminin, Jean-Luc Godard suggested that his portrait of French (or anyway Parisian) youth in the mid-1960s "could be called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola." But the movie kept reminding me of Lena Dunham's portrait of American youth in the early 2010s, the TV series Girls, which might be called "The Children of Milton Friedman and Xanax." Godard's young Parisians find themselves in a time bursting with revolutionary energy but no particular channel in which to direct it other than sex and pop culture. The political activity of Godard's protagonist, Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud), largely consists of pranks: distracting the driver of a parked military staff car so an accomplice can write an anti-war slogan along its side, and ordering a staff car on the phone under the guise of "General Doinel" -- a cheeky allusion to the role of Antoine Doinel, which Léaud played in The 400 Blows (1959) and four other films directed by François Truffaut. But most of the young people in the film are as shy of committing themselves to anything political or social as the beauty queen called "Mlle 19" (Elsa Leroy) whom Paul interviews at some length in one of the film's more spot-on satirical moments. This is a movie of fits and starts: moments of great energy interrupted by stretches of talk. As usual, Godard plays with viewers' expectations throughout, staging a sequence near the beginning in which a woman guns down her husband, only to ignore any follow-up action, and having a political protester immolate himself off-screen with only the somewhat indifferent reports of Paul and his girlfriend, Madeleine (Chantal Goya), as reactions to the event. The soundtrack is spiced with what sound like gunshots but turn out to be only billiard balls clashing against each other in a neighboring room. There is some of Godard's characteristic self-conscious "movieness" about Masculin Féminin, as when the characters go to a film within the film and Paul has to make a special trip to the projection booth to complain that it's being shown in the wrong aspect ratio. But like the best of Godard's movies it provides a necessary tonic against complacency.

#Masculin Féminin #Jean-Luc Godard #Chantal Goya #Catherine-Isabelle Duport #Jean-Pierre Léaud

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rentaljust · 2 years

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ariel-seagull-wings · 3 years

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TOP 12 PORTRAYALS OF RAPUNZEL

@princesssarisa @sunlit-music @superkingofpriderock @mademoiselle-princesse @amalthea9 @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @astrangechoiceoffavourites @notyouraveragejulie @tilthenextbluemoon @giuliettaluce

Rapunzel, Rapunzel: lay down your hair so i can climb the golden stair!

These are the words to call the lady named after a vegetable, so one can climb her hair and visit the tower where she is kept prisoner. At the same time that she is known for her exotic name and very long hair, personality wise Rapunzel tends to get very underestimated. Some adaptations gaved her a pretty passive role, and pop culture parodies would usually paint her as “just a girl who cries for the Prince to save her”, downplaying the inteligence and resilience to adapt into harsh situations that she showed in the original Brothers Grimm’s tale. So today, i will share my twelve favorite portrayals of the long haired heroine, that showed respect to her, gaved her carisma and made justice to her strenghts.

12º The version from ‘The Story of Rapunzel’ (1951)

At the start of his career as a stop motion animator, Ray Harryhausen made, with the collaboration of his relatives, a series of shorts based on fairy tales. Those shorts were ‘The Mother Goose Stories’, ‘The Tortoise and The Hare’, ‘The Story of Rapunzel’, ‘The Story of Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Story of Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘The Story of King Midas’ (when this tale started to be taken out of greek mythology and be perceived as a medieval fairy tale in the public conscience), where the characters were silent and the voice was given to a narrator. This encarnation of Rapunzel is more on the naive and passive spectrum, but i like her design and the fact she is animated in stop motion, plus the short is historically significant for being one of the early atempts to adapt her tale , and that’s why she has a place on this ranking.

11º The version from Simsala Grimm (1999)

In this german-french, two plushies, Yoyo and Doc Croc, receive life from a magic book to have adventures inside the Brother’s Grimm tales. They go to the tale of Rapunzel and help her and Prince Egmond get together. This encarnation of Rapunzel is kept as both prisoner and apprentice of Frau Gothel, who wants to turn the young woman into a mean spirited sorceress like her. But Rapunzel can only make spells that create pretty and merry things, like squirrels and birds. It’s a nice touch of humour, and that grants her the Eleventh Place at this ranking.

10º Mackenzie Mauzy in Disney’s Into the Woods (2014)

This movie as a whole is a weak adaptation of the now classic Broadway stage musical. But it had some enjoyable elements, one of them being Mackenzie Mauzy’s performance as Rapunzel. Mauzy has a short time on screen, but in that short time she brings beauty, grace, melancholy and anger to the role, and this makes it stand out enough to be the Tenth Place in this ranking.

09º Linda Purl in Timeless Tales from Hallmark (1990-91)

Timeless Tales from Hallmark was a direct to video series that had a live action hosted by Olivia Newton John and animated segments showing the fairy tale of the day, animated by the Hannah-Barbera studio. Purl’s Rapunzel is the romantic dreamer archetype, who sings her wish to be free. She has two encounters with the Prince before getting caught by the Witch Scarlotta, having her hair cutted and exiled to the distant woods. She reunites with the Prince, who has been turned into a blue bird (i see what you did there, screenwriters), and breaks the spell over him with her tears. She should smell more onions to cry and bottle those tears, that can be very usefull.

08º Tisha Campbell in Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995)

In the bayous of Louisiana, Rapunzel is taken from her parents by Zenobia the Hoodoo Diva (played by Whoopi Goldberg, by the way), who seeks to make her a protege and shows her such neat tricks as voodoo dolls and shrinking her head down. Rapunzel is reluctant to do this when she sees Zenobia is hurting innocent creatures. Rapunzel soon attracts a handsome Creole prince, who must rescue Rapunzel and reunite her with her parents, but Zenobia seeks to thwart the interloper. One of the first african-american portrayals, this kind yet rebellious encarnation is a refreshing take on the character, and that is why she takes the Eight Place here.

07º Mandy Moore in Disney’s Tangled (2010)

After her mother dranked a tea made of a magical flower, Rapunzel was born with a magical hair that is able to heal any desease and rejuvenate anyone who touches it. Because of that, she was kidnapped and emprisoned in a Tower by Gothel, who raises Rapunzel to be insecure and afrayed of the outside world. But her curiosity is more powerfull, and with the guidance of a thief named Flinn Rider, the young lady escapes the Tower and goes on a journey to discover both what is scary and what is beautifull on the outside world with her own eyes, along the way captivating people with her merry and spontaneous personality, wich gives her the Seventh Place on this list.

06º Pamela Winslow Kashani in American Playhouse: Into the Woods (1991)

The lady who originated the role in the Broadway stage musical. Like Mackenzie Mauzy, Pamela Winslow Kashani brings the beauty, the grance, the melancholy and the anger to the role, but with an extra touch of energetic humour, taking advantage of the fact that she is in a stage show and getting intense as possible. That humour in the First Act is what makes her PTSD and tragic death in the Second Act all the more heartbreaking. Plus, she probably has the most beautifull singing voice ever gaved to a Rapunzel encarnation, and sometimes that is enough to earn a place in my rankings.

05º Mitsuko Horie/Lara Cody in Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics (1988-89)

This encarnation has a tragic backstory, having been forgotten by her parents after they received a memory spell from the Witch and they had three more kids after her. She is raised in the Tower as the Witch’s granddaughter, and develops a great talent to play the harp. Is the sound of that harp that attracts the atention of the Prince, who comes to the tower and conquers Rapunzel’s love. Sadly, when they are making plans on how to take her away from the Tower, the Witch sees the Prince climbing down, so she cuts Rapunzel’s hair and beats her till unconsciousness before exiling the poor young woman in the desert, where she learns to survive while raising the son that she conceived with the Prince, who searches for Rapunzel despite being blinded by thorns.

04º Luisa Wietzorek in Sechs Auf Einen Streich (2009)

This adaptation gives some interesting touches to Rapunzel’s story and character: until age 12, she lived a nomadic life, travelling in Gothel’s donkey pulled cart. But one day Gothel spots Rapunzel talking with a young boy, and decides to lock her in the Tower, where there is a magic golden haircomb that makes Rapunzel’s hair grow to be used as a ladder by her adoptive mother. Years pass, and the destiny brings the Prince, who was the young boy of the pass, to the Tower where the now grown up Rapunzel lives, and she has to face a dilema: continuing to live in the Tower, that brings the feel of comfort and safety, or taking risks and running away to freedom with the Prince she fell in love with.

03º Kelly Sheridan in Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)

This was my first animated adaptation of the fairy tale, and still is my favorite. In this movie, while giving some painting lessons to her little sister, Barbie tells a version of the Rapunzel story to encourage her creativity: kidnapped as a baby by the Witch Gothel, Rapunzel was raised as a house maid, receiving constant verbal mistreatments. But, thanks to her friendship with a rabbit named Hobie and a dragon cub (who still needs to learn how to fly) called Penelope, and her love of painting, the young long haired lady never lets her spirit be broken, always dreaming of someday go to live free in a castle by the sea. One night, she is surprised to find a haircomb that turns into a magic paint brush, wich can make a portal where she can escape and explore the ouside world, and in her first journey, she meets and falls in love with the dashing Prince Stefan, while asking him to not his name to her, because she is afrayed of being forced to tell it to Gothel. And she doesn’t stay long, because she fears that Gothel will get revenge on Hugo, Penelope’s father, for her escape. Talk about having a great sense of altruism, who wouldn’t want to have this lady as their best friend?!

02º Sylvia Wolff in Rapunzel oder Der Zauber der Tränen (1988)

This german TV Movie combines the tale of Rapunzel with another, more obscure tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, called Maid Maleen. In this version, Rapunzel growed up very acustomed to the comfort and rich life provided by the Old Witch, using a magic reel to roll her hair in and make it grow to be used as a latter. Even tough she is in love with Prince Mathias, she is afrayed of going to the outside world. Later, not being enough that the Old Witch discovers her secret, cuts of her hair and blinds Prince Mathias, the King, after learning the existence of a maiden in the tower who becamed the love of his son, orders his troops to search the tower and seal its window, because he wants Mathias to marry another neighbour princess he arranged for him! Fortunally one of the soldiers takes enough pity to let a loose brick so Rapunzel can breath. She tries to use the point reel to scratch the clay that glues the bricks, and after cutting herself in the reel and crying over it, the reel regains magic, floating, opening the bricks, helping her to escape to the outside world and search for her beloved Mathias...

And my Number One favorite portrayal of Rapunzel is:

01º Shelley Duvall in Faerie Tale Theatre (1983)

There were some small changes made in some detailles of the story (radishes replacing rampion to be more familiar with international, non german audiences, insinuation that the Peasants Wife’s craving of the vegetal was a spell purposefully cast by the Witch, Rapunzel being traped in the Tower at adulthood instead of age twelve and a talking parrot/macaw that tells the Witch of the Prince’s visits), but as a whole, this is probably the most faithfull adaptation of the Brothers Grimm tale, and is all the more benefited for it, specially Rapunzel’s character, portrayed by the shows herself, Shelley Duvall. Duvall presented a very sincere passion for the source material, and in her performance, she showed a deep understanding of Rapunzel’s character and why she resonates with so many people: her rebeliousness, her curiosity, her romanticism, her inteligence, her quiet strenght, her resilience and her sense of hope, all of those qualities that the Grimm’s described in their heroine, are all there! When i watch this episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, i don’t see an actress playing a role, i see an icon of my childhood coming to life!

And that is why Shelley Duvall in Faerie Tale Theatre is whom i consider my definitive Rapunzel.

#rapunzel #literature #brothers grimm #fantasy #moodboards #rankings #musings #fandom musings #wallpapers #tumblr mutuals #pop culture

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dimitrispapageorgiou · 2 years

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Champ de Mars ©Dimitris Papageorgiou (Makos) 2022.

The Pedion tou Areos or Pedion Areos (Greek: Πεδίον του Άρεως or Πεδίον Άρεως, pronounced [peˈðion tu ˈareos], meaning Field of Ares, corresponding to the French Champ de Mars and the ancient Campus Martius) is one of the largest public parks in Athens, Greece.

It is also the name of the wider neighbourhood.

The park was designed in 1934 and its purpose was to honour the heroes of the Greek Revolution of 1821, 21 of whom are depicted in marble busts standing in the park. The initial plan included the construction of a "Pantheon" for the revolutionaries and also a major Christian temple, dedicated to Greek independence.

The park is a state-owned public ground, covering an area of 27.7 hectares, and is located about 1 km NE from the Omonoia Square. Today, it is enclosed by the streets Mavromateon, Evelpidon, Pringiponisson and the Alexandras Avenue. In front of the main entrance of the park there has been an equestrian statue of king Constantine I since 1938.[1] At the other entrance, near Alexandras Avenue, stands a memorial to the English, Australian and New Zealander soldiers who fought in the Battle of Greece in the Second World War. The memorial is surmounted by a statue of goddess Athena. A total renovation of the park was completed in December 2010.

These premises were the primary meeting spot for Athenians during the time of the first king of modern Greece, Otto. In 1927 the area was given to the newly created Commission for Public Gardens and Trees of Athens to transform it into a park like the National Garden.

The commission, however, decided first to improve Thiseion and the National Garden and six years later, in 1933, the works to reform the park began, financed by the restricted funds that were left. The works stopped due to severe administrative problems, as well as severe lack of funds. The then-new governmental institution Special Funds for Permanent Pavements of Athens decided (law 6171/1934) to undertake the costs. A. Dimitrakopoulos, director of the Ministry of Communications, was appointed to prepare a general plan for the park and did so based on the styles of English and French parks popular at that time. N. Vosiniotis was appointed to implement the new plans. Special care was taken not to impede the view of the Acropolis from any central points in the park; however, no limit on the height of the surrounding buildings was enforced.

The work of planting and upgrading began in 1935 and continued through the Metaxas Regime until 1940, when Greece entered World War II. During those five years, 46000 trees and bushes were planted. Continuing the plan, deciduous trees were planted to afford the park shade in the summer and sunlight during the winter.

In the central square of the park there is a fountain surrounded by many plants that thrive in the Mediterranean climate and create beautiful natural colour combinations, corresponding to each season. After the end of the war, in October 1944, irrigation was provided for the park.

The Hellenic Military Geographical Service and the sport camp of Panellinios G.S. can be found at the SW part of the park, in the direction of Kipseli. Inside the park there are also two churches, a playground and the open theatre ‘Aliki’ that is used for plays, events and concerts. One of Athens’ most historic cafeterias, Green Park, is also located in the park.

Source: Wikipedia

#champ de mars #greece #central athens #athens #photographers on tumblr #greek photographers #NikonD610 #50mm #park #parklife #downtown #trees #fullframe #color photography #pedion tou areos

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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episode 9 baby!!! dear lord that was a lot!!

frankly, i'm still in shock that i full on manifested an opera stage, AND it was a rock opera stage at that! plus i got a jazz stage AND a taemin stage??? if they’re pulling out all my favourites now then what on earth are they gonna do in the finale??? this was a very overwhelming crop of stages, i thought i was going to be prepared, but oh no i was not prepared. i'm just going to get right into it because this one is gonna be long and i have many words. i'll discuss in airing order first, and then put my personal rankings for this round at the end.

btob

costume

changsub, you absolute king. spectacular. stunning. incredible. zoot suit riot playing in my brain on repeat. will i finally get the zoot suit revival of my fucking dreams instead of this current drab ill-fitting suit trend? for those who are wondering why in the fuck changsub is dressed like that and what on earth i’m talking about, the specific cut of suit that he’s wearing is called a zoot suit, which were popular in mexican, black and italian american communities in the 30s and 40s, until they were outlawed by the united states war production board as a fabric rationing method as part of the war effort in 1942. there was a huge amount of mob violence surrrounding the wearing of them (there were actual zoot suit riots) as they were direct counter culture fashion to the predominant drab trends of white americans at the time. i'm actually very impressed they got a proper (modernized) cut of zoot suit instead of just putting him in an oversized one; there are actually specific structural differences. the pegged trouser legs, large should pads, and knee length single breasted jacket are key features, and they were often in much more flashy fabrics than a pinstripe, but they get points for effort. i wish they had put all of them in zoot suits but he’s playing the ‘lead’ actor so i will begrudgingly forgive them.

eunkwang those are the stupidest sleeve garters ive ever seen i love them never take them off. they’re like someone decided to repurpose a suspender in the worst way. excellent. i do love that they’ve got three of them in oxford saddle shoes, another great touch.

love the three piece and the fedora* on peniel. it's also in a relatively close period cut; waistcoasts (vests) were generally cut much higher in the neck pre-war, we only start seeing the neckline slide down in the 60s (i think? i don’t remember when exactly). also love to see a proper sleeve and jacket length, it's good practice to have at least a finger’s width of sleeve cuff visible ahead of the jacket sleeve when hanging at rest. also looks like there’s french cuffs on everyone, which is also great.

minhyuk in his slutty lowneck shirt....thank you. in addition to the zoot suit revival i would also like a revival of those ultra low necklines on mens’ shirts from like 2010-2011. i don’t think those are the same boots from the backdoor stage but those are some beautifully cut boots. i also loved the little details of his crewmember look, especially the chunky watch and the string bracelets; those are super realistic, i know so many crew with them and i had several for many years. and who doesn’t love a visible button fly?

none of any of the other costumes are period in any way shape or form but i’m forgiving it because there’s several layers of meta in this stage, and they explicitly based it on la la land, even though we don’t respect la la land in this house. do i wish they had gone more strictly period with at least the jazz club ‘actors’ a little more? absolutely, but i'm not mad about it.

set

again we’ve got a good delineation of the two different ‘stages,’ there’s the club itself in the smaller stage and the soundstage set in the larger space. you can pretty clearly see all the ‘pieces’ of the set on the soundstage, especially the obvious set painting techniques on false prosc frame and the window facade from that first little scene. also the you can see the castors (wheels) on all the setpieces too, which is another nice little versimilitudinous** (triple word score!) touch, as old hollywood movies were made still using theatre stagecraft techniques.

i love how the visual shorthand for ‘this is a set wink wonk’ is just...leaving a ladder on stage. i see it all the time and it's so funny. it doesn’t always make sense because as soon as there’s actors on set the ladders are the first thing cleared because actors cannot be trusted, but yes there are always ladders, so. also psa ladder safety is no joke, please be careful on ladders.

nice streamline of the mnet deco into the club. i’m consistently surprised at how well the designers have been able to mask it or use it to their advantage, because in the normal kingdom stage lighting it is SO obvious and stylistic that it always sticks out.

i'm going to ignore the fact that they implied changsub and miyeon were drinking wine out of martini glasses.

lighting

no complaints, it does its job. everything is visible and super clear. love that the ‘scene’ changes are made through the lighting, it's a really simple and effective device to change atmosphere. purple/blue/amber are the most flattering colours on human skin and that’s why you see it so commonly in stage lighting. also blue/lavendar is the best way to show nighttime/moonlight.

really nice and subtle projection work, especially with the billboard bit and the blue moon sign in the club. despite being obviously meta/’world breaking’ it’s actually very seamless and fits well into the flow of the stage.

sound

i love love love the big band feel in the intro, combined with the piano lead. very duke ellington, as all things should be.

no complaints. i love big band. i love eunkwang’s voice. i have nothing else to say.

staging

i LOVE this movie within a movie within a performance meta nonsense! it's such a fun concept and it is exactly what i wanted ikon’s first round stage to be! i also love to see btob consistently coming up with concepts that are inventive and fun and allow them to showcase their technical performance skills without the aerobics the younger groups are putting themselves through. it provides a really lovely variety and it just goes to show that you can make impressive, dramatic stages without having to be serious or ‘dark.’

i do wish they had leaned into the band director/lead singer with eunkwang a bit more; this could have been a really excellent place for a tap number a la the nicholas brothers or an homage to cab calloway. i know i know this was meant to be la la land themed but la la land is a cheap and whitewashed version of jazz and look me right in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the greatest tap routine of all time. i know i’ve typed this out somewhere before but la la land is just a conglomeration of old hollywood tropes and so stylistically cheap that this would have such a better visual core if they had actually looked back at the real old hollywood musicals like stormy weather. even singing in the rain and an american in paris have such phenomenal visuals and are really beautiful examples of the scope you can pull off with a limited technical capacity and sticking to these old techniques.

now that i'm thinking about it, oh my GOD i would DIE for a lindy hop routine in kpop PLEASE. i know it would never happen because kpop doesn’t like partner dancing and not a single kpop boy has the chops but oh you think fourth gen has too many acrobatics?

this got off track but i think you see my point.

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ateez

costume

these are really sharply cut suits. and the detail work on the beading??? so beautiful. i'm disappointed that they gave me a rock opera stage without the true ridiculousness of rock opera costuming, because they could have pushed this a lot farther if they really wanted. a tragic lack of gay little outfits, seonghwa’s lace choker is just not enough! two favourite suits: hongjoong’s and yunho’s.

that being said i do actually really like these. this stage is actually very modern opera with a kpop twist and i'm a little surprised by that? i continue to be impressed by the ateez team who are clearly doing their research.

i'm absolutely not going back through their stages to check all the choreography but i wonder if you can track all the ‘wound’ placements to places they’ve been ‘hit.’ i wouldn’t put it past them to have put that thought in but also i’m not expecting that much either.

who is this white grim reaper bdsm executioner chain arm man. where did he come from. i have no idea and i love it.

why is honjoong blindfolded. it was such a fast beat, if youre gonna blindfold someone give it a little longer and some more obvious narrative weight!

seonghwa does that quickchange, runs across that massive stage to the smaller set, and gets into places in like 45 seconds. it's not the hardest quickchange in the world but still, under a minute is fast for any quickchange, especially when there’s travel time involved. i think the fastest, most complex quickchange i ever did was in university which was a 50s cocktail dress into a flannel and culottes with a shoe, hair, and jewelry change in 35 seconds. and that took three dressers. quickchanges are always impressive. the added bonus of this review being later is that i can specifically reference that you can see him book it the fuck off stage in the full cam!

cute moment with the backup dancers dressed in costumes from the previous stages. i'm assuming this is a time travel reference? i'll get more into my thoughts on this in the staging section. regardless, love to see that iconic seonghwa moment again.

set

this is such a restricted space! they really pared down their dancing space with those staircases and ....arms? honestly i have NO clue what these are supposed to be. the only thing i can maybe think of is flying buttresses??? but why?? i mean, i'm 90% sure theyre just there for drama and i agree but i do still have questions.

there’s a lot of moving parts in this set? the buttresses, and the upstage centre staircase. i don’t think the staircase is totally automated because i spotted some dancers securing it in place, but it’s still a moving part. i do really like that we get that expanding upwards energy, because it's really tough to get functional level movement in this kind of a performance, mostly because of its length and because it moves so quickly. so seeing the downward vertical movement and then the upward movement was actually a really nice visual contrast that made use of how tall those fucking ceilings are, and the fact that they had less horizontal space. in sort of similar way to sf9’s jealousy stage, using long, narrow vertical lines really makes it feel like a castle space. the interiors of castles, especially the really old ones, are a lot smaller than you think they would be.

i’ve actually seen that type of small house/tent/thing several times in various types of performances before, but i think this is the first time i’ve seen it used as a time travel device (other than in the say my name mv). aesthetically it's a bit incongruent but i dont really mind because i'm used to watching rock operas that look a lot weirder than this.

lighting

there is so much happening. i have NO clue what the projections are doing. i dont hate it though, so that’s a plus? there’s a clear-ish colour arc even if it does get a bit funky in the middle, which is why the projections dont feel as insanely distracting as some of the other stages we’ve seen.

the climax is a perfect example of how to light a busy stage with primarily red but still maintain clarity on the performers. a little bit of red goes a long way; the spark stage from last week would have looked so much better if they had done what the ateez designers did here.

sound

i know it's only ode to joy, but answer already gets my motor running and then i get so gassed by the guitars and then by the time those vocals come in i'm inconsolable. i don’t know why i wasn’t expecting a rock opera stage but i'm so glad i got that surprise because i genuinely love rock operas so much. it's two of the most dramatic genres in music, what more could you possibly want?

staging

the choreo for answer is so goofy that I'm kinda glad this was mostly terrible mnet boom shots. i love it, but you can't deny that it's goofy. i spotted a couple of moves from their other choreos as well?

choreographing dance fights is just as difficult as choreographing real fights and i think they did a fairly good job here. i think it was a solid mix of dance and conflict that erred on the side of dramatic rather than accurate and i prefer that over trying to be ‘realistic.’ i’ve only ever seen one truly realistic fight scene on stage and that was for a deeply naturalist play (boring and a waste of the medium), but the best fight scene i’ve ever seen was in the prague national ballet’s adaptation of kafka’s the trial where three ballet dancers beat the absolute snot out of the main character with the most beautiful leg extensions. that whole show was probably one of the best pieces of dance i’ve ever seen, holy fuck it was so good.

despite how insane the music and the visuals were going, i actually really liked how sedate this was, on the part of ateez’s performance. there was a really sophisticated and resigned energy from them that is very different from what we’ve previously seen and i think that was a pretty admirable risk to take. reaching the top and then throwing away the crown? especially in a competition where every other stage has involved stealing crowns or royalty and there’s a group competing that got here through that very concept? that shows a real maturity, peace of mind, and foresight that i did not at all expect from a bunch of 22 year olds.

here we come to a very interesting comparison. both ateez and tbz are very heavily leaning on previously established group lore. we all know my thoughts on why it isn’t working for tbz, but here’s why i think it is working for ateez: it's because it doesn’t matter to the audience’s understanding of the stage. i had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on the first time i watched this, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the music and all the weird shit they were doing. i totally believed that they understood what was going on. there’s a loose enough established conflict right at the beginning that draws us in, and really it doesn’t matter who they're fighting because they win in the end. the key here is that they’re so earnest. they believe 100% in every move they make on that stage. there’s no winks to camera, there’s not a drop of irony. they really deeply care about the ridiculousness of it all and that’s what makes it work. i sure as fuck dont know what’s going on, but i can see that they do, and i trust that. this is what i meant when i talked about convincing the audience you belong on stage in my stage presence post. i’ve never once believed that juyeon was anything other than an idol. he’s talented and very beautiful and he may occasionally stand on that stage like he owns it but it's always as juyeon. as an idol. but when hongjoong flaps around in that gigantic fur coat i 100% believe he’s a pirate captain. I believe he’s a punk rebel leader. i believe him a resigned king. there’s always a level of irony you have to fight as a performer because we all start from a place of disbelief. acting is not just lying to the audience, it's lying to yourself too. and if you succeed in convincing yourself? well, you’re already halfway to convincing us.

i checked it out because i wanted to see if they did the blindfold how i expected them to and was genuinely surprised by hongjoong’s fancam. the boy is EMOTING even when he knew the camera wasn’t on him; that’s a real dedication to craft.

ok i'm finished talking about this stage, this is over two pages in my document, there’s so many things i have not covered here but that’s fine, i'm quite sure any further thoughts will end up out there at some point.

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sf9

costume

let’s get it out of the way......crop top. crop top? crop top. crop top.

ok, besides the crop top, i think i might actually like the backup dancer outfits more...? i find mannequin adjacent looks really fascinating and i thought there was a lot more they could have done here in connecting the two thematically. i actually think a change of costume on the boys would have been very interesting, especially because there was a lot of inference and direct reference to changes of colour.

ALL the backup dancers are wearing the same wig and i LOVE that.

special mention zuho’s.....jacket? the right idea but it absolutely should have been one of those extreme french cut bodysuits, you COWARDS. don’t come at me with this ‘male version of venus’ if you don’t have your whole torso out! come on!

set

not sure if this is meant to be a department store, a factory, or a white cube gallery. honestly you could make the case that they’re all the same place anyways. more on this later.

i loved the movator and wish they had used it more! that sequence was so good and they could have done some more interesting repetition sequences to further highlight the ‘sameness’/the breaking of that sameness.

i feel like the set could have been used more as a whole? i would have loved to see some mannequin interactions with those boxes, because all they did was dump colour everywhere.

....why did they feel the need to include the rain bit? i know it's likely because it's in the mv and at the 2018 dream concert taemin does perform move in the rain, but with the standing still and the box walls with the words it just looks like a department store ad. which i...dont think is what they were intending?

lighting

nothing really to say here. it has a similar feel to the mayfly rap stage, which is fine because the lighting for that was good. i could tell what was going on all the time and that’s the most important part. notable standouts are the lips sequence, that's fun use of pop iconography and very effective, and the scanning lasers at the beginning.

the repeating sequence in the edm dance break is actually done pretty simply, it's just what happens when you point a camera that’s livestreaming to a monitor directly at that monitor. it's a very cool effect and it was neat to see it used intentionally, especially with the handheld leds.

actually i also really liked the lightbox tables, those were cool.

sound

the remix was fine for the most part, it was about what i expected it to sound like. i did however greatly dislike that unnecessary edm break in the middle. what was the point of that? it didn’t add anything to the overall sound or arc of the stage because it was SO out of place. there was no connective tissue around it.

oh i was also not a fan of the effect on zuho’s mic. no one else had a discernible vocal effect so it felt a little out of place. also for some reason his cadence and tone right at the end made me think of some of the voices that bo burnam uses for his vocal masque sketches/songs, especially repeat stuff, weirdly? took me right the fuck out of it. i listened to it again after i slept and i’m still getting it, so maybe i’m just going insane so best ignore this part.

staging

loved the mannequin tree, not a clue why it was there.

do actually think this is a successful cover because it does what i was hoping it would, which is take move completely out of the taemin context and put it into an entirely new one. however, i’m really struggling to figure out what exactly that new context is? and what theyre trying to say with it?

obviously they went for a ‘show your own colours/individuality’ vibe, like i said in the set section, where exactly is this supposed to be? from the start i get factory/mechanized environment, which is fine and grand because mannequins and making repetitive motions and products and all that, makes sense. but then there’s stacked shelving type units happening and curtains and that combined with the mannequins give me pretty big department store vibes, which is also fine, because that’s still a comment on commercialization and the mass production of product. but then we get to the movator and the repetitive movements of the dancers say pretty clearly factory, but the lighting and projections are very pop art referential, plus combining that with the white set, just makes me think of an art gallery. so now is this a comment on the commercialization and commidification of contemporary art? are they making a statement about being ‘real’ artists among the others who have lost the critical understanding of why pop art was even a thing in the first place? and then the rain bit at the end literally looks like a department store ad, so are they then making another statement that they still are that packaged product? maybe the episode has more clarity in it but i’m genuinely a bit baffled by what the underlying statement is here.

i suspect it is not as deep as i'm making it, but i did say that i was likely to be hyper critical of this stage AND i am a grad student, so here we are.

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tbz

costume

ok of all the ‘fourth gen’ style costumes we’ve seen, i actually like these ones more than most. i'm not entirely clear on the theme but i'm assuming it's meant to be post apocalyptic, and i'll take that.

backup dancers in black!!! we’re beyond this!!!

this will be a running theme with this stage, but i’m disappointed these don’t have more depth.

set

compared to every other stage, the set here seems especially plain. there’s so little set dec that it's disappointing. i do like the movement of the pieces themselves combined with the blocking; that first slide underneath the arches was slick and i would have liked to have seen more of that.

yea ok the big snake was cool and also a fairly complex build, but the transitions around it were a bit awkward for my tastes. especially the turn around, why did they even show that at all? you have control over what the audience sees, you can totally not show scenic transitions. skz were super smart about hiding theirs in last week’s episode.

also if you have a bigass puppet like that, i wanna see some more movement from it! it doesn’t have to be complex, we literally just saw a kraken balloon arm wave around aimlessly, but at least there was movement! that snake had a long ass body, why didn’t they at least take a pseudo dragon dance movement with it, that would have been such fun to watch with the iridescent scales. there was a lot of opportunity here!

lighting

i don’t hate it but also.... not a lot to say about it on the whole.

there were two really smart ideas here, the first being the front projection section, which i was SO glad to see! i explained in a previous review, but the projections in kingdom are not actually projections per se, because they’re actually massive led screens. there are two common types of projections in performance, rear projection and front projection. rear projection is when the projector is behind the screen, and front projection is ‘normal’ projection. rear projection can produce a crisper image because you have full control of the light values, because the projector is in a separate room from the performance space. but the downsides are that the projector has to be in a separate room from the performance space. so if you’re short on real estate, it's not ideal. front projection is much more common, because the tech is a lot cheaper and easier to access, especially now, and it requires less real estate because you can ceiling mount about the audience (you can move a projector wherever, this is just the most common spot in commercial theatres). but! in order to get an actually crisp image, you have to be really careful with your light bounce. it’s exactly the same principle as how you kinda can't see a projected screen when you have all the lights turned on, but when you turn them off it's a lot clearer. front projection works best in pitch dark, so when you use it in a theatre you gotta be smart about it. i use front projection a lot in my personal art practice as a singular light source, and that’s what tbz did here in that traveling/snake intro sequence. it’s a really fun technique that they used as a good gimmick because it’s not something we’ve seen before, and you get some great shadow effects because the projector is throwing light directionally at the performers (they have it set up close to the floor, it’s probably on a wheeled cart of some kind). however i did not like the snake intro. a bit too cheesy and out of place, especially because the asset quality didn’t match the rest of landscapes that we have been seeing.

the second smart idea, which is partially also a set and blocking thing but whatever, was that final image of the eclipse within the circle architecture with all the members standing in front of it. it was a great shot and a great ending pose, but it felt like a concept photo. like someone had that image as the idea that they then built the stage around, instead of a narrative first and then imagery after.

sound

this remix had SO much promise! those first two minutes were SO GOOD. i love that dirty discordant strings bit, it's gross and right up my alley. but it really fell off in the back half and i'm sad about that.

staging

i'm sorry tbz but.....what did you actually do differently than exo here? with the exception of the continual game of thrones references? nothing here felt transcendentally different from the original monster. and especially coming RIGHT after sf9’s move, which did go beyond its original context. this feels more like an awards show stage cover than a stage at the level of the others we’ve seen just this episode.

again like with the skz stage, there’s no conflict here. no tension. yes they do a great job covering the dance but it just isn’t enough! this is obviously personal preference and i'm sure lots of people liked the fact that it was uncomplicated, but even just a hint of narrative tension could have pushed this into more engaging territory. and if they didn’t want to do that, i would have loved to see them make up for that with extra visual spectacle. this is the no limits round! ikon is putting a full jungle on stage and these are grey cubes!

i think this is a perfect example of what i talked about at the end of my tbz section in my episode four review; this is a good performance, there are good elements at play and good ideas at their genesis, but the core of the issue is that nothing about this is transformative. all of the ideas here are just exaggerations of the original song. fuck, the snake was even IN the mv! and they didn’t even include the best part which is the lip chains! ive said before and i'll say it again; being a good artist has two steps, the first is understanding the material and its context, and the second is elevating the material from that context and synthesizing something new. tbz are really good at the first step, but terrible at the second.

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ranking

btob - the cleanest and the most fun of the round. everything i wanted.

sf9 - fun and a good cover, despite being conceptually baffling.

ateez - very extra dramatic nonsense with an unexpected dose of sincerity. and it’s rock opera, of course i love it.

skz - fun, with some good thematic devices but generally lacking in arc. also australian accents, that’s an automatic ding.

tbz - honestly the first two minutes of the remix and the costume are holding this above 6th. it just wasn’t fully formed.

ikon - aesthetically this is a great set design and although i do love the opening and closing moments, everything else scrapes me the wrong way. super personal preference here, i’m not expecting anyone else to agree with me.

i feel like my rankings were probably pretty easy to guess if you’ve been around reading the reviews for long enough. i do have very specific tastes after all. i know sf9 ranked first in the episode but i have no idea what the other slots are. i’ll find out when i watch the episode in a couple of days, but i think yea a first for sf9 is fair. i do think its mostly because it’s a taemin song and you have to do something horrendous in order to fuck up a taemin song, but there is a lot of thought and work that went into that stage.

ok i'm done now, sorry this was later than usual, but i was busier and there were four stages that i had to review. also technical difficulties because tumblr is a garbage platform and nothing works properly. comments/questions/opinions always welcome, i know i didn't expand on a couple of points that i could have so hopefully y'all have some thoughts too!

* the type of hat that ~society~ has told you is a fedora is actually a trilby. what peniel is wearing is a real fedora, i felt the need to correct this unjust hat malignment.

** meaning ‘the appearance of being true or real.’ you do sometimes hear it used by normal people, but it’s more commonly used as a descriptor in film and theatre. it’s also one of the five rules of neoclassical theatre, which are: versimilitude, purity of form, five act structure, decorum, and purpose. the most prominent playwrights from that era are moliere and racine if youre interested in what those look like in an actual text.

#kingdom #kingdom review #btob #ateez #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #tumblr is so broken it would NOT let me save this as a draft #does my constant hyperlinking make you angry tumblr? too bad im gonna keep doing it #i played in a jazz band in school for seven years #which is another indicator as to why i am like this #one of the first songs i remember learning was zoot suit riot #i have very strong memories of yelling RIOT during performances #i will however forever question the logic of our band teacher making us learn a song written by 'the cherry poppin daddies'#christ on a bicycle this is TEN pages #and it took a full eight hours last night and then i did like two hours of editing after i woke up #maybe i should go back to bed #ah i forgot to tag ikon again lmao #ikon #kpop analysis #text #if there are any spelling errrors do not tell me im tired of reading this #im pretty sure this is my longest review so far i decided to hate myself and did a wordcount #its 5.2K you're welcome you better get a snack for this one #i hope this is an interesting read for people ive lost all objectivity at this point #pls enjoy my semi-comprehensible word vomit!

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milk-karton-kids · 4 years

Text

Russia's Haunted Military Radio Station

In the 1970s the Povarovo Military Base in Russia was a functional, top-secret military facility. Today, the area is abandoned, but somewhere between 1972 and 1973 a strange signal started broadcasting from the base. Anyone could tune in to this frequency if they found the right channel

For decades, though the last decade of the cold war and Russia’s tumultuous post-cold-war era, the station, known as UVB-76, or "The Buzzer", only played a series of repetitive and consistent beeps about a second long each.

However, in 1992, the broadcast changed, as if it were experiencing interference, the tones becoming erratic as they varied in volume, spacing, and pitch, becoming more of a buzz than a beep, and at the top of every hour two buzzes sounded.

Fascinated listeners across the world kept record of these changes. Eventually, another change came when a male voice speaking in Russian could be heard, starting with a call sign before going on to list a series of incomprehensible numbers and words.

These strange broadcasts became a regular occurrence, all starting with the call sign UVB-76 (УВБ-76), however each message was different. These broadcasts happened once every few weeks in an irregular pattern.

On June 5th, 2010, the broadcast stopped and the channel went silent for 24 hours. On June 6th, the broadcasts returned.

This happened again in the middle of August 2010, however this time the broadcast fluctuate for days, turning on and off over and over again.

An example of a broadcast at this time (Augst 23rd) is as follows:

UVB-76, UVB-76. 93 882 NAIMINA 74 14 35 74. 9 3 8 8 2 Nikolai, Anna, Ivan, Mikhail, Ivan, Nikolai, Anna. 7 4 1 4 3 5 7 4

On August 25th, the buzzing stopped again, however the silence that listeners had cautiously become accustomed to was replaced with the sounds of scraping and bumping, as if someone were in the broadcasting room. When the buzzing returned, it was different. The traditional noises were broken up with what listeners hypothesized was bits of Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Little Swans.

At 8:48pm Moscow Standard Time on September 7th, 2010, a male voice started speaking again, listing four names, the letters of which became the new call sign MDZhB (МДЖБ). This was to signify the signal moving from where it had been broadcasting for the last 30 years to hundreds of miles northwest in a Russian city near the boarder of Estonia.

This area is known to be an important position in Russia’s military efforts, and the signal is believed to bounce off three radio towers in a swap surrounded by seemingly abandoned buildings surrounded by fences and walls.

It has been noted that 2010 was a significant year of military reorganization when the Moscow and Leningrad military districts were combined into a new command center in St. Petersburg, near the new transmition site.

Other changes included no longer designating the top of the hour with two buzzes, verbal messages became much more common, and listeners were able to discern patterns of repeated codes.

Sometimes these messages coincided with significant Russian events. In November 2014, 28 different verbal broadcasts were sent out, a record high for the station. During this period, a massive fireball lit up Siberia, and Russia experienced massive wildfire damages. A theory is that the broadcast signal at this time was a warning of the impending natural disaster.

In 2020, the number of messages has increased, along with a number of other strange occurrences:

From Wikipedia:

On May 15, 2020, The Buzzer was interrupted by a third-party transmission, likely sent by French fishermen.

On the same day, about four hours later, The Buzzer began playing Russian music.

On May 17, 2020, UVB-76 (a.k.a. "The Buzzer") was interrupted again by a short third-party transmission. It is suspected to have been sent by the same French fishermen as on May 15, 2020.

On May 30, 2020, at about 20:00 UTC, music was heard on The Buzzer's frequency.

On June 9, 2020, two events could be witnessed. At 20:03 UTC, the buzzing generator of UVB-76 broke down; the buzzing continued only a few seconds later. Another anomaly happened at around 21:00 UTC, multiple transmission of morse code (of unknown origin) were heard.

On June 16, 2020, the buzzer stopped at 20:40 UTC for unknown reasons. It returned about one hour later at 21:40 UTC.

On July 15, 2020 a Voice message of unknown origin was heard on 4624.2 kHz, just below the Buzzers frequency. The message didn't come from UVB-67 itself because the buzzing didn’t stop. The message was in English and contained only numbers, no letters. The only word that appeared in the message was “Attention”.

On August 16, 2020, from 17:26 UTC to 01:50 UTC, on the buzzer frequency, with occasional moments of pause, there was some music playing and some carrier tones. During the strange occurance, the buzzer marker never stopped, suggesting a third-party origin, possibly from someone who wanted to disturb the buzzer.

There are many theories about the UVB-76/MDZhB radio station including coded military messages, communications from outer space, emitting a “dead hand” signal that if stopped will trigger nuclear missiles to be deployed, and more, however no one has claimed the broadcast from these seemingly abandoned areas.

Sources: unexplained mysteries, Wikipedia, Wired

Listen to UVB-76 here

#uvb76 #uvb-76 #military radio #unsolved mysteries #phenomenon #russia #spooky #unsolved #true crime community #tcc #MDZhB #mdzhb #conspiracy theories #haunted #ghost

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

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Do you have a common first name? Yes. It seemed really common growing up, like there were a few of us Stephanie’s in my classes.

Do you like your middle name or your first name more? My first, but they go well together.

What year would/did you turn 21? I turned 21 in 2010.

What was popular when you were a kid? Barbies, Beanie Babies, jelly sandals...

Do you wear more rings or necklaces? Rings out of the two, but I haven’t worn any jewelry in quite awhile. I used to have 3 rings I wore 24/7 for years.

Have you ever been engaged? Nope. I’ve never had anything serious that came even close to that.

Can you see your veins through your skin? Yes.

Do you have a certian song you sing aloud often? Not one certain song, but various songs.

Do you concern yourself with what's in? Nah, not anymore. I’m so out of the loop.

Do you worry about having good grammar online? Yes.

Do you know anyone with a lazy eye? I don't think so.

Did your parents let you have pets when you were a kid? Yeah, we’ve always had dogs and I had fish and a couple hamsters as well.

Would you rather live in an apartment or a duplex? I’ve lived in a duplex for most of my life.

Have you ever seen Boondock Saints? I know what it is, but I never got into it.

Do you like spicy chips? I used to love spicy chips and spicy food in general, but a few years ago for whatever reason I developed a serious sensitivity to spicy food and can’t eat it anymore. :( It sucksss.

Do you have any 'different' keychains on your keys/purse? What would be considered “different”?

Do you collect pins? Yeah.

What band was on the last band t-shirt you wore? Linkin Park.

Do you wear more pink or yellow? I don’t wear much of either one. Most of my clothes are black.

What's the last movie you watched at a friend's house? I have no idea. It’s been several years since I’ve done that.

Have you ever been out of the state you were born in? Yeah, a few times.

Do you have any tattoos on your arms? Nope. Or anywhere.

Have you ever owned or known someone who owned a black cat? I haven’t, but yeah I’ve known people who have.

When was the last time you felt jealous? >> --

What's the last thing you bought besides food/drink? Halloween decorations.

What album is the last song you listened to from? I forget what song I listened to last.

Do you know what the word lumiere means? Isn’t it “light” in French?

Do you own a tea pot? Nope.

Who scheduled your last doctor visit? My mom.

What's the last video game you played? The latest Life is Strange game.

Do you have anything on your wrists right now? Nope.

Do you have any holiday theme'd socks? Yeah, several.

What kind of accent do you have? Apparently we all have one, but I don’t feel I, a Californian, has one. Like, I don’t think someone would guess I was from here based on how I talk.

What's the last funny movie you watched? Easy A.

Can you remember your parents' birthdays? Yes.

Is there anyone who you just absolutely cannot STAND being around? Myself.

What is the design on your shirt? I’m wearing a black sweatshirt that says, “This is my too tired to function sweatshirt” in bold, all caps, white font.

Do you know anyone who just flat-out fails at life? Me.

Are you a Ghoulscout? I’ve never heard of a Ghoul Scout, that’s really a thing?

Do you know someone who's just always wrong about everything? No.

Do you make fun of people often? >> Nope. Regarding people with respect and compassion is a value of mine, so I've been working pretty hard on that. I do have a teasing nature, though, so if we mean lighthearted teasing, yeah, I do that a lot. <<<

Do you read your friend's surveys? I keep up with a few people on here.

If you had to get a tattoo tomorrow, what would you pick? I’ve wanted to get ‘free bird’ tattooed on my inner wrist for several years.

How do you feel about band tattoos? I don’t care.

Do you know anyone with a glass eye? I don’t think so.

How much are you willing to pay for a pair of sunglasses? I don’t wear sunglasses.

Did you have a GI Joe when you were a kid? No.

What is the origin of your last name? Irish.

What piercing do you like most on the opposite sex? I don’t care for piercings.

What brand of hair dye do you prefer to use? Whatever kind the lady at the salon I go to uses.

What county do you live in? I’m not sharing that.

Did/do you ride the bus to and from school? I had to take the public bus sometimes in college.

Do you prefer beef, chicken or steak? Chicken for sure.

What is your salad dressing of choice? Ranch.

Do you know anyone who's a really funny type of weird? Not really.

Do you make faces at certain people? I mean, I might make a silly face or jokingly roll my eyes with my family.

Is there something you won't let one of your friends live down? --

Are you any good at applying make up? I was never really good and just kept it pretty simple. I didn’t have much of an interest to put in much effort.

Do you know anyone who's hair looks like a wig? Only those who are actually wearing a wig.

Do you misuse commas? I try not to.

Have you ever bitten your dentist? No.

Are you someone who likes to make simple things difficult? I don’t like to, but I know I do. I make everything complicated.

Who makes you laugh the most? My brother.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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crystallizedtwilight · 7 years

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When I first read Romeo and Juliet in middle school, I didn’t understand that Mercutio and Paris were neither Montagues nor Capulets, but instead members of the Royal Family. You can understand my confusion as they both clearly...picked sides.

#romeo and juliet #romeo et juliette #designs based on 2010 french play #prince escalus #mercutio #paris #benvolio #romeo #myart #I AM ASHAMED OF HOW MESSY THIS IS DONT JUDGE PLEASE

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architectureandfilmblog · 4 years

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20 MOVIES WHICH FEATURE BEAUTIFUL ARCHITECTURE

PART #2: HOTELS AND NON-RESIDENTIAL (AND A FEW MORE HOUSES)

The purpose of this blog has always been to explore, through cinema, buildings that we may not have the chance to visit in person. With most of us stuck at home right now, that kind of cinematic escape feels more appealing than ever, so here's a bumper list of some more of my all-time favourite structures in movies. (Part #1: HOUSES is Here)

1. QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2009) The tradition of housing Bond villians in sci-fi worthy contemporary architecture was continued with Auer+Weber’s ESO Hotel at Cerro Paranal.

2. SPECTRE (2015) This Bond features Johann Obermoser’s striking mountaintop ICE Q restaurant, at Austria’s Sölden Ski Resort.

3. GATTACA (1997) Gattaca’s futuristic world is assembled from iconic elements of California’s architectural past. The characters glide down minimalist roadways in electrified Citroens and inhabit monumental Brutalist, Futurist or International Style structures, such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin County Civic Center.

4. PLAYTIME (1967) Jaques Tati poked fun at Modern architecture, but depicted it onscreen more beautifully than perhaps any other filmmaker. For his masterwork, he built his own Modernist mini-Paris, with steel and concrete buildings, streets, working traffic lights, and a power plant.

5. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2001) Leonardo DiCaprio’s fraudster poses as a Pan Am pilot in two scenes shot within Eero Saarinen’s 1962 TWA Terminal.

6. EX MACHINA (2014) Nathan’s contemporary alpine residence is actually Jensen and Skodvin’s 2013 Juvet Landscape Hotel.

7. A VIEW TO KILL (1985) In this 80′s Bond, Roger Moore shoots unsuccessfully at Grace Jones from around the steelwork of the Eiffel Tower, as he pursues her up it, dodging his own would-be assassins.

8. VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008) Woody Allen features several of Barcelona’s iconic structures, including Gaudí’s Church of La Sagrada Familia, and Casa Milà, and Josep Lluis Sert’s Miro Foundation.

9. THE INTERNATIONAL (2009) As globe-trotting thrillers go, this is unremarkable, but it does feature an extended scene at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum.

10. THE ITALIAN JOB (1969) This film featured the beautiful rooftop test track of the 1923 Fiat Lingotto Factory in Turin, by Matté Trucco (pictured above).

11. INCEPTION (2010) The snow fortress was allegedly based on the iconic 1970 UCSD Geisel Library, by William Pereira & Associates + Gin Wong.

12. BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016) Despite the extreme similarity to both Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson’s Glass House, Bruce Wayne’s Modernist-inspired residence was purpose-built for the film.

13. GOLDFINGER (1964) One of Bond’s most stylish outings, complete with a Ken Adam-designed villian’s lair.

14. PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008) Ted the Homicidal Drug Boss (Gary Cole) lives in R M Schindler’s 1941 Rodriguez House.

15. EQUINOX FLOWER (1958) Yashujiro Ozu was a master of the use of domestic space in cinema, and his meticulous and contemplative films are a beautiful catalogue of traditional Japanese architecture.

16. INTERIORS (1978) There may be nothing uplifting in the bleak, subdued tale of a waspish interior designer and her slowly imploding family, but the sparse perfectionism of the world she has constructed, especially that of her Southhampton beach house, is alluring.

17. HIGH RISE (2016) Tom Hiddleston moves into a luxury 70′s Brutalist apartment tower, and faces some grim and gory consequences, in this adaptation of J G Ballard’s dystopian novel.

18. THE PHANTOM THREAD (2018) The clean, meticulous, interiors of this film, especially those of the minimalist Georgian townhouse -the curves of the staircases, the William Morris wallpaper - are as absorbing as the characters.

19. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS (2016) Director and ex-architecture student Tom Ford set much of this film at Scott Mitchell Studio’s contemporary Kurt Rappaport House.

20. FRENCH POSTCARDS (1979) Corbusier’s best-known building, Villa Savoye, can be seen in this film, where it plays the home of one of the characters. (Photo: Fiat Lingotto Factory (The Italian Job) by Gabriele Basilico via area-arch.it)

#architecture #movies #houses #bond

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Losers: Chris Evans, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana’s Forgotten Superhero Movie

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Even The Losers get lucky sometimes. Before the DCEU was formed to compete against the ever-expanding, cash cow that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the approach at Warner Bros. was far looser. With the booming business of comic book adaptations in full swing, the studio was throwing money at several eclectic comic book titles like Watchmen and Jonah Hex, trying to stay competitive and seemingly more adult than their rivals. Hence before leaving to create his own superhero project, Hancock, wrier-director Peter Berg started penning an adaptation of DC/Vertigo’s The Losers, bringing in French director Sylvain White to helm the picture.

Produced by Joel Silver, The Losers centered on a team of elite, black-ops Special Forces operatives betrayed by their handler. Director White connected with the material immediately.

“What appealed to me about The Losers was that it wasn’t the typical superhero-with-superpowers thing,” White told MTV. “It was based on real characters—realistic characters—and based in reality, like a lot of the European graphic novels that I had grown up reading.” The director worked with creators Jock and Andy Diggle to refine the script and lend their expertise with design to give the film a distinct visual palette that changes with new locations.

Frequent Silver collaborator Idris Elba was cast as Captain William Roque, with the cast being rounded out by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, coming off his turn as The Comedian in the studio’s adaptation of Watchmen, Zoe Saldana, fresh off of starring in the highest-grossing film of all-time, Avatar, Chris Evans, still mainly known for playing the Human Torch in Fox’s early Fantastic Four films, and rising actor Columbus Short. While current audiences would go on to become intimately familiar with most of this cast, their names didn’t generate enough buzz in 2010 to get folks into the theater. The Losers only made about $30 million on a $25 million budget.

Of course a tepid response at the box office does not mean that a movie is destined for obscurity. Just recently hitting Netflix and ready to capitalize off its now A-list cast, The Losers is currently the most popular film on the streaming service. Besides the even greater interest in comic book properties, the cast of The Losers have gone on to such success that they revitalized interest in one of DC’s almost-forgotten adaptations. Let’s look at where the cast of The Losers have been since the film’s release in 2010 to explain the sudden spike in love.

Idris Elba

While Elba, a star of British television via Luther, had already made an impression with American audiences by 2010 thanks to 28 Weeks Later, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, and a guest stint on The Office, Elba’s star would rise considerably after his appearance in The Losers. In 2011, Elba would join the MCU as Heimdall in Thor, who’s role in the Thor films would expand as the franchise progressed. Elba would also pop up in prominent roles in blockbusters like Prometheus, Pacific Rim, The Jungle Book, and Star Trek Beyond. Away from blockbusters though he really broke out with a SAG-winning performance in Beasts of No Nations, and starring in fare like Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game.

More recently, Elba stole scenes away from Jason Statham and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the villain in Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. Finally, things have come a bit full circle for Elba, as he’s set to appear in another DC adaptation over 10 years after The Losers, portraying Bloodsport in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

In 2010, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was probably most well-known for his roles on television in series like Supernatural and Grey’s Anatomy. That all changed after Morgan was cast in an adaptation of the “unfilmable” graphic novel Watchmen as The Comedian. While his time onscreen in the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons adaptation was minimal, bringing such an iconic comic book character to life earned Morgan a deeper cachet with the Comic-Con crowd. Morgan would work steadily in films like The Possession and the Red Dawn remake, but he arguably made a bigger impact on television portraying yet another iconic comic book character on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Negan.

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Morgan received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the villainous Negan upon his debut, earning the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series, MTV Movie and TV Award for Best Villain, and Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role on Television. He’s been going steady as Negan since while doing other occasional comic-con friendly projects like Rampage.

Zoe Saldana

Zoe Saldana was on top of the world in 2010, and in the time since, she’s only become more successful. After appearing in the buzzy Star Trek reboot in 2009 and a little film called Avatar, the former Center Stage star would go on to headline her own action film Colombiana. However, that would seem like small potatoes compared to what would come in 2014. Saldana was cast as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s riskiest adaptation to date. Would audiences get onboard with an off-beat space opera featuring C-tier Marvel characters? Turns out, yes. Gamora not only became the heart of the Guardians, but the character would feature prominently in the grand Phase 3 finales Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

In the shadow of that, Saldana has starred in more Star Trek sequels, an ill-advised TV remake of Rosemary’s Baby, and as Nina Simone in in Nina, a performance did come under fire for due to the lightness of her skin. Still, Saldana now has leading roles in the two highest grossing films of all-time, and is still expected to star in Guardians and Avatar sequels. Not too shabby.

Chris Evans

Speaking of the MCU, Chris Evans wasn’t floundering in 2010, but he did seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut, typecast as handsome smart alecks prior to The Losers. In fact, his big mainstream break is probably the less than classic spoof comedy, Not Another Teen Movie (2001); afterward he played Johnny Storm in Tim Story’s lukewarm Fantastic Four movies in the mid-2000s; in fact, arguably his most amusing role up to 2010 was when he appeared as a douchebag movie star in Edgar Wright’s genre-bending comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010).

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That said, The Losers found him playing against type as an awkward tech expert. Perhaps his chance to show a different side of himself led to his life-changing role as Steve Rogers in the MCU’s Captain America. Anchoring the Avengers franchise for eight years, Chris Evans rose to the top of the A-list, and used that newfound celebrity to help get passion projects like Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out made. Evans is one of the most popular celebrities on social media right now and looks to continue his profitable relationship with Disney by voicing Buzz Lightyear in the animated origin film, Lightyear.

Columbus Short

Perhaps the only member of the cast not to launch into the stratosphere after The Losers, Columbus Short has had a few issues that have prevented his rise. Short booked a role on the popular ABC series Scandal, but personal issues derailed his involvement in the show. In 2014, as part of a no-jail plea agreement, Short pled guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence and performed 30 hours of community service. Short also avoided jail by pleading no contest to a felony assault charge after throwing “a running punch” at his in-law during a family gathering at a bar.

In an interview with Access Hollywood Live, Short shared that substance abuse due to the stress of family issues and personal loss had led to his departure from Scandal. However, Short has appeared to move past his personal struggles and can next been seen portraying Martin Luther King Jr. in Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Storyand returning as Quadir Richards in True to the Game 3.

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sciforce · 4 years

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Computational Aesthetics: shall We Let Computers Measure Beauty?

As we all know, tastes differ and change over time. However, each epoch tried to define its own criteria for beauty and aesthetics. As science was developing, so was the urge to measure beauty quantitatively. Not surprisingly, the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence pushed forward the question of whether intelligent models can overcome what seems to be human subjectivity.

A separate subfield of artificial intelligence (AI), called ‘computational aesthetics’, was created to assess beauty in domains of human creative expression such as music, visual art, poetry, and chess problems. Typically, it uses mathematical formulas that represent aesthetic features or principles in conjunction with specialized algorithms and statistical techniques to provide numerical aesthetic assessments. Computational aesthetics merges the study of art appreciation with analytic and synthetic properties to bring into view the computational thinking artistic outcome.

Brief History of Computational Aesthetics

Though we are used to thinking about Artificial Intelligence as a recent development, computational aesthetics can be traced back as far as 1933, when American mathematician George David Birkhoff in “Aesthetic Measure” proposed the formula M = O/C where M is the “aesthetic measure,” O is order, and C is complexity. This implies that orderly and simple objects appear to be more beautiful than chaotic and/or complex objects. Order and complexity are often regarded as two opposite aspects, thus, order plays a positive role in aesthetics while complexity often plays a negative role. Birkhoff applied that formula to polygons and artworks as different as vases and poetry, and is considered to be the forefather of modern computational aesthetics.

In the 1950s, German philosopher Max Bense and French engineer Abraham Moles independently combined Birkhoff’s work with Claude Shannon’s information theory to develop a scientific means of grasping aesthetics. These ideas found their niche in the first computer-generated art but did not feel close to human perception.

In the early 1990s, the International Society for Mathematical and Computational Aesthetics (IS-MCA) was founded. This organization is specialized in design with an emphasis on functionality and aesthetics and attempts to be a bridge between science and art.

In the 21st century, computational aesthetics is an established field with its own specialized conferences, workshops, and special issues of journals uniting researchers from diverse backgrounds, particularly AI and computer graphics.

Objectives of Computational Aesthetics

The ultimate goal of computational aesthetics is to develop fully independent systems that have or exceed the same aesthetic “sensitivity” and objectivity as human experts. Ideally, machine assessments should correlate with human experts’ assessment and even go beyond it, overcoming human biases and personal preferences.

Additionally, those systems should be able to explain their evaluations, inspire humans with new ideas, and generate new art that could lie beyond typical human imagination.

Finally, computing aesthetics can also provide a deeper understanding of our aesthetic perception.

In practical terms, computational aesthetics can be applied in various fields and for various purposes. To name a few, aesthetics can be used in the following applications:

as one of the ranking criteria for image retrieval systems;

in image enhancement systems;

managing image or music collections;

improving the quality of amateur art;

distinguishing between videos shot by professionals and by amateurs;

aiding human judges to avoid controversies, etc.

Features

The backbone of all classifiers is a robust selection of features that can be associated with the perception of a certain form of art. In the search for correlation with human perception, aesthetic systems apply specific sets of features for visual art and music that are developed by theorists in arts and domain experts.

Visual Art

Image aesthetic features could be categorized as low-level or high-level plus composition-based. However, some research is based on features related to saliency (Zhang and Sclaroff, 2013), object (Roy et al., 2018), and information theory (Rigau,‎1998). The selection of features largely depends on the type of art and the level of abstraction, as well as the algorithm applied. For instance, photography assessment relies heavily on the compositional aspects, while measurement of the beauty of abstract art requires another approach assessing color harmony or symmetry (Nishiyama et al.,2011).

Low-level features try to describe an image objectively and intuitively with relatively low time and space complexity. They include color, luminance and exposure, contrast, intensity, edges, and sharpness.

High-level features include regions and contents as aspects that make great contributions to overall human aesthetic judgment and try to establish the regions of an image that seem to be more important for human judgment and find the correlation between the content and human reaction.

Composition-based features differ for photography and artwork and may include depending on the form of art a range of features, such as Rules of Thirds, Golden Ratio (Visual Weight Balance), focus and focal length, ISO speed rating, geometric composition and shutter speed (Aber et al., 2010).

Music

Similarly to image analysis, music aesthetics assessments try to combine research in human perception and cognition of basic dimensions of sound, such as loudness or pitch and in higher-level concepts related to music, including the perception of its emotive content (Juslin and Laukka, 2004), as well as performance specific traits (Palmer, 1997) to develop a comprehensive set of features that would be able to assess a piece of music.

In 2008, Gouyon et al. offered a hierarchy organized in three levels of abstraction starting from the most fundamental acoustic features, to be extracted directly from the signal, and progressively building on top of them to get to model more complex concepts derived from music theory and even from cognitive and social phenomena:

Low-level features are related to the physical aspect of the signal and include loudness, pitch, timbre, onsets, and rhythm (e.g., see Justus and Bharucha, 2002).

Mid-level features move to a higher level of abstraction within the music theory and cover tempo, tonality, modality, etc.

High-level features try to establish a correlation between abstract music descriptors like genre, mood, and instrumentation and human perception.

Methods and Algorithms

At its broadest, we can speak of computational aesthetics as a tool to assess aesthetics in visual art or music and as a means to generate new art.

For aesthetics assessment, various algorithms have been proposed over the past few years based either on classification or clusterization.

Classification approach

There are a number of algorithms that are extensively used to assess image aesthetics by means of classification. Among the most popular are AdaBoost, Naive Bayes, and Support Vector Machine, and substantial work is also conducted using Random Forests and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs).

AdaBoost in computational aesthetics is a widely used method that is believed to render the best results. It was first offered in 2008 by Luo and Tang who conducted a study on photo quality evaluation, with the unique characteristic of focusing on the subject. They utilized Gentle AdaBoost (Torralba et al., 2004), a variant of AdaBoost that uses a specific way of weighting its data, applying less weight to outliers. The success rate obtained was 96%. However, when Khan and Vogel (2012) utilized their proposed set of features for photographic portraiture aesthetic classification, the accuracy rate with the multiboosting variant (multi-class version) of AdaBoost fell to 59.14% (Benbouzid et al., 2012).

Naïve Bayes is another popular method that was used in the same study by Luo and Tang (2008). In 2009, Li and Chen utilized the Naïve Bayes classifier to aesthetically classify paintings in which the results were described as robust. The success rate achieved utilizing a Bayesian classifier was 94%.

Support Vector Machine is probably the most wide-spread algorithm for binary classification in computational aesthetics. It has been used since 2006 when Datta et al. studied the correlation between a defined set of features and their aesthetic value, by using a previously rated set of photographs and showed up to 76% of accuracy. Other studies that rested on the same classifier include Li and Chen (2009) who aesthetically classified paintings; Wong and Low (2009) who built a classification system of professional photos and snapshots, Nishiyama et al. (2011) who conducted a research on the aesthetic classification of photographs based on color harmony, and others, with an average accuracy rate of about 75% and higher.

Random Forest, though usually showing lower results as compared to Bayesian classifiers or AdaBoost, were used in a number of studies of photograph aesthetics. For instance, Ciesielski et al. (2013) achieved a 73% accuracy to assess photograph aesthetics. Khan and Vogel (2012) utilizing their proposed set of features for photographic portraiture aesthetic classification, achieved an accuracy of 59.79% by making use of random forests (Breiman, 2001).

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) rendered extremely good results when used with compression-based features by Machado et al. (2007) and Romero et al. (2012). The former research aimed at the identification of the author of a set of paintings and reported a success rate from 90.9% to 96.7%. The latter work used an ANN classifier to predict the aesthetic merit of photographs at a success rate of 73.27%.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are state-of-the-art deep learning models for rating image aesthetics that have been extensively used in the past few years. CNNs learn a hierarchy of filters, which are applied to an input image in order to extract meaningful information from the input. For example, Denzler et al. (2016) applied the AlexNet model (Krizhevsky et al., 2012) on different datasets to experimentally evaluate how well pre-learned features of different layers are suited to distinguish art from non-art images using an SVM classifier. They report the highest discriminatory power with a Network trained on the ImageNet dataset, which outperforms a network solely trained on natural scenes.

Clustering

Image clustering is a very popular unsupervised learning technique. By grouping sets of image data in a particular way, it maximizes the similarity within a cluster, simultaneously minimizing the similarity between clusters. In computational aesthetics, researchers use K-Means, Fuzzy Clustering, and Spectral Clustering in image analysis.

K-Means Clustering is widely used to analyze the color scheme of an image. For instance, Datta et al. (2006) used k-means to compute two features to measure the number of distinct color blobs and disconnected large regions in a photograph. Lo et al. (2012) utilized this method to find dominant colors in an image.

Fuzzy Clustering is a form of clustering in which each data point can belong to more than one cluster, therefore it is used in multi-class classification (see, for example, Felci Rajam and Valli (2011)). Celia and Felci Rajam (2012) utilized FCM clustering for effective image categorization and retrieval.

Spectral Clustering is used to identify communities of nodes in a graph based on the edges connecting them. In computational aesthetics, a spectral clustering technique named normalized cuts (Ncut) was used to organize images with similar feature values (Zakariya et al., 2010).

Generative models

A separate task of computational aesthetics is to generate artwork independently from human experts. At present, the algorithm that is best known for directly learning the transformations between images from the training data is Generative Adversarial Network(GAN). GANs automatically learn the appropriate operations from the training data and, therefore, have been widely adopted for many image-enhancement applications, such as image super-resolution and image denoising. Machado et al. (2015) also used GANs for automatically enhancing image aesthetics by performing mainly tone adjustment.

Example that combines the content of a photo with a well-known artwork

Conclusion: Restrictions and Limitations

Aspiring to reach objectivity, research in computational aesthetics tries to reduce the focus to form, rather than to content and its associations to a person’s mind and memories. However, from a psychophysiological viewpoint, it is not clear whether we can have a dichotomy here or whether aesthetics is intrinsically subjective.

Besides, it is difficult to ascertain whether a system that performs on the same level as a human expert is actually using similar mechanisms as the human brain and, therefore, whether it reveals something about human intelligence.

It might be that in the future we will rely on machines in our artistic preferences, but for now, human experts will dictate their opinions and try to get machines simulate their choices.

#artificial intelligence #Machine Learning #Deep learning

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ofhouses · 4 years

Photo

Dear friends, for the next three weeks OfHouses will be guest curated by Thomas Daniell. Thomas is Professor of Architectural Theory and Criticism at Kyoto University, Japan. He holds a B.Arch from Victoria University of Wellington, M.Eng from Kyoto University, and Ph.D from RMIT University. From 2011 until 2017, he was Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau. In 2017 he was the M+/Design Trust Research Fellow, and in 2019 he was a Research Fellow at the Canadian Center for Architecture. A two-time recipient of publication grants from the Graham Foundation, his books include FOBA: Buildings (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), After the Crash: Architecture in Post-Bubble Japan (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), Houses and Gardens of Kyoto (Tuttle, 2010; second edition 2018), Kiyoshi Sey Takeyama + Amorphe (Equal Books, 2011), Kansai 6 (Equal Books, 2011), An Anatomy of Influence (AA Publications, 2018), and The Cosmos of Sei’ichi Shirai (The MIT Press, forthcoming). Thomas Daniell had made a very consistent selection of houses by Toyokazu Watanabe and Monta Mozuna, for which he wrote this short introduction:

Two Kansai Eccentrics

In the early 1970s, three young Japanese architects based in Kansai (encompassing Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe) started to produce experimental house designs in implicit and explicit dialogue with each other, and soon became known as the Three Kansai Eccentrics. One was Tadao Ando, now an international star who needs no introduction, but the other two have remained relatively obscure: Toyokazu Watanabe and Kiko (Monta) Mozuna. Though only Ando was born in Kansai (Watanabe is from Akita, and Mozuna from Hokkaido), their work shared an exuberant, aberrant quality that was welcomed in Kansai, a region known for its vulgar humor and colorful iconoclasm. Rejecting the mainstream emphasis on efficient, utilitarian mass housing, these architects produced freestanding private houses that were aggressively opposed to “easy living.” Mozuna’s most famous work is the Anti-Dwelling Box, a composition of three nested cubes that was designed, almost unbelievably, as a home for his own mother. Watanabe is best known for an extension to his own house that provided sleeping and playing spaces for his children, a forbidding double tower made of bare concrete. He called it the Gaki-no-ya, which means something like “Shed for Little Brats,” though the word gaki can also be translated as “hungry ghost,” a Buddhist term for greedy, dangerous spirits. Indeed, both Watanabe and Mozuna drew upon esoteric Buddhist motifs, mandalas, and “cosmological” principles in their buildings and writings, but the exaggerated mysticism was less than serious, or at least tempered by a surrealist sense of humor. Watanabe was obsessed with dome geometries that he related to female breasts, most infamously in his Oppai House. Mozuna liked to suggest his career was supernaturally guided, which was also his reason for having changed his name more than once. Born Kazuhiro Mozuna, at the age of 18 he was climbing Osorezan (“Fear Mountain,” an active volcano in northern Japan with a pilgrimage temple set in its caldera, considered to be a gate to the afterlife) where – as he tells it – he encountered the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. She introduced herself as MM and told Mozuna he should have the same initials, so he thereupon invented the name Monta, partly in homage to French-Italian singer Yves Montand, and partly because in Japanese it gives the impression of a cheerful, ingenuous child. As a young critic and architect, he was known as Monta Mozuna, but at the age of 35, he awoke one morning to find a white-haired male ghost standing beside his bed, who told him that the name Monta had become an emblem of bad luck inscribed on his forehead. It had to be removed. Deciding that “k” sounds were the most auspicious, Mozuna settled on Kiko for its mysterious, macho nuances (active listening, spiritual cultivation, systematic organization, testicles), but chose to render it in kanji characters so obscure that his request for an official name change was initially rejected, and required a legal appeal before it was approved. He then established an office in Tokyo as Kiko Mozuna, but for a while afterward signed his work Monta Mozuna Kiko. In 1986, he wrote his own death poem (an obscene, anacreontic haiku that was nonetheless deeply Buddhist in sensibility) and predicted that in 2029 there would be a third and final name change to Uchuan Kodaimoso Koji, a posthumous name that translates as something like “Cosmic Hermitage Megalomaniac.” A man who liked to drink too much until liver damage prevented him from drinking at all, he didn’t make it to 2029. Mozuna died in 2001, and Watanabe is now suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, but both of them produced sons who have become architects themselves. To be continued.

(Cover: Monta Mozuna /// Mandala 1 /// 1991. Source: AA Folio XIV - Kojiki of Architecture, London: AA Publications, 1991; Monta Mozuna Archive.)

#thomas daniell #OfHouses #oldforgottenhouses #www.ofhouses.com #the collection of houses

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twilightfansofcolor · 4 years

Text

Daisies (Black and Quileute reader)

Based on the Katy Perry song

2006

Ever since you were a child, you had dreams of singing on stage, performing was in your blood and you grew up around music. Your mother was the first black prima ballerina in the Paris Opera Ballet while your dad was the first male indigenous opera singer in Paris, so you grew up watching your parents perform, and it wasn’t shocking that you wanted to follow in their footsteps. Your family was very supportive, and they signed you up for lessons; your mother signed you up for ballet lessons as soon as you started walking and you took to it like a fish to water while your dad signed you up for singing lessons. With each and every lesson you succeeded, and it wasn’t until middle school that you began writing your own songs and playing guitar and piano. You were so talented, and all of your teachers and classmates were sure you were going to be the one to make it out of La Push and be a famous singer.

Everyone thought that, except for your pack.

Told them your dreams and they all started laughing

Guess you’re out of your mind till it actually happens

I’m the small town

One in seven billion

Why can’t it be me?

“Look Y/N, you’re very talented, but what are the odds of you actually making it? What happens if you don’t?” You had the third watch with Paul as you were tracking the redheaded leech that was after Bella Swan, and after three hours, you had yet to see her though you came close the night before. “Why can’t it be me? Success isn’t an overnight thing, it takes time. And anyway, this gives me more time to perfect my craft.” You had been dancing with the Pacific Northwest Ballet since middle school, and you had auditioned for the New York City Ballet before you turned into a wolf some months ago, but you didn’t get in and he knew that. Damn pack mind collective.

“You already got rejected by New York, and there aren’t any music producers near. All I’m saying is, just have a game plan ready in case things go south.” You knew he meant well, and you do in fact have an alternative, but it’s the fact Paul didn’t believe in you, none of them do except for Leah and Seth, and you swore that if you did end up making it big, you’d take them with you and live in a giant house in Bel Air or Beverly Hills or any glamorous place you could think of.

They told me I was out there

Tried to knock me down

Took those sticks and stones

Showed em I could build a house

They tell me that I’m crazy

But I’ll never let em change me

Till they cover me in daisies

Daisies, daisies

Two days later and you’re hanging out with Leah in Port Angeles at an ice cream shop after seeing the newest Johnny Depp movie. “You know what Y/N? Screw em. Screw all of them. You’re so fucking talented, and the whole town knows that. Who the fuck cares what Paul says? After we catch that redhead, let’s stop phasing.” Yeah, you’re definitely taking Leah with you if you make it. The two of you finish your ice cream cones before driving back to your house to listen to your finished song that you completed a few days ago.

“Oh my god, Y/N, this is amazing, what the actual fuck?” Leah was always your biggest hypewoman, whether it was helping pick out an outfit, setting you up with a guy or when you showed her a new song you were working on. “Glad you think so. What if I am being crazy? Seriously Leah, what are the odds of me landing some record deal or dancing in New York or Paris or London or wherever?” She stuck her head out of your closet, her hands on a floral tube top. “Y/N you can’t be serious. You’re going to listen to Paul, of all people?”

“Well… what if he’s right? What if it never happens, and then I’m the laughing stock of all of La Push?” “Don’t listen to him, Y/N, your time will come, and when you’re accepting Grammys, Paul will just be on his couch. Please, don’t listen to him, just keep working at it.” And that’s exactly what you did. After the redhead was gone, you and Leah packed up and moved into an apartment in Seattle; you and Leah had just started University of Washington and Leah was studying marine biology while you were studying accounting, with a minor in dance.

You were still with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and that’s where it happened. You had just landed the lead as Clara in The Nutcracker, the first black woman in the company’s history, and after the first show of the holiday season, a woman from the Paris Opera Ballet and told you about an opening, in case you were interested, and one thing led to another, and within two weeks, you and Leah were in (somewhat) crappy apartment in Paris but you didn’t mind. You were in Paris of all places with your best friend, and while your French was rusty, the streets crowded, you loved every minute of it.

They told me I was out there

Tried to knock me down

Took those sticks and stones

Showed em I could build a house

They tell me that I’m crazy

But I’ll never let em change me

Till they cover me in daisies

Daisies, daisies

2010

“And the Grammy for Song of the Year goes to…” You are actually sitting in the front row at the Grammys, as a first time nominee after years of working your ass off. After a three year stint at the Paris Opera Ballet, you decided that it was time to move on and begin your music career, and you performed original music in cafes around Paris before signing to a record label and immediately began working on your album which came out last year to great reviews. Now you were actually nominated for three Grammys: Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Song of the Year. You won the Best New Artist category but lost BPVA, and now you were clutching Leah’s hand as you anticipated the winner for Song of the Year.

And speaking of Leah, she became a model, walking the runways for some of the biggest fashion designers in the world and gracing magazines like Vogue, Elle, GQ, and British Vogue. “Y/N L/N, Daisies!” A Jonas Brother helped you up the steps and Lionel Richie handed you your trophy. You could see Leah with her phone as she snapped pictures of what was sure to be a big smile on your face. “Wow, I really don’t know what to say. This is… insane. I never thought I would be here. First, I want to say thank you to my parents for encouraging me, for inspiring me, and to my best friend Leah, I’m so grateful to call you my best friend, my soul sister. Thank you for never giving up on me when even I felt giving up on myself, and I’m so glad we’re on this journey together.”

The music played as you walked off the stage. You did it. Against all odds, you, a biracial kid from a reservation in the pacific northwest actually made it in the ever changing music industry.

They said I’m going nowhere

Tried to count me out

Took those sticks and stones

Showed em I could build a house

They tell me that I’m crazy

But I’ll never let em change me

Till they cover me in daisies

Daisies, daisies

#twilight imagines #twilight fans of color #leah clearwater #leah clearwater x reader #leah clearwater x black reader #leah clearwater x quileuete reader

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