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rwby-redux · 4 years ago

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Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: History

In hindsight, I probably should have called this topic political sciences, or social studies, or the humanities. Literally any of those would’ve been more accurate than simply calling it history. Sort of shot myself in the foot with that one. Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to make do.

History (as it’s defined by the Redux) is an umbrella term for human geography, economics, legal systems, global affairs, anthropology, civil rights, technology, and resources. Its primary concern is analyzing how all of these studies shaped the actions of people in the past, and the ripple effects that carried those societies into the present. Being an interdisciplinary topic, it’s nearly impossible to talk about any of these studies in isolation without accidentally overlooking crucial details. Anyone who’s ever opened a history textbook knows that with that complexity comes controversy, and RWBY isn’t exempt from that trend. As we’re told by Salem in the show’s debut, modern-day Remnant was forged by that forgotten past, by the omission of the gods and monsters that set things in motion.

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. And if history is indeed a book, then you’ll quickly find that RWBY’s has pages missing.

Let’s start by laying our cards on the table and talking about what facts we do have. RWBY’s canon can be roughly divided into three vague time periods: the era of Humanity v1.0, prior to the gods’ exodus; the era where Salem and Ozma’s first host briefly ruled together, several million years after Humanity v2.0 evolved; and the era characterized by the aftermath of the Great War, about several thousand years after the collapse of Salem’s and Ozma’s apotheotic kingdom. Anything in-between is obfuscated by the show, either accidentally (due to a lack of worldbuilding) or intentionally (as an attempt to make the series “mysterious”).

My first instinct is to start calling bullshit left and right. There is no justification for spoon-feeding your audience crucial lore through a spin-off series, and then waving your hand and saying that the show doesn’t have the time for worldbuilding. If I had to start pointing fingers, I’d lay the blame on the writers for prioritizing animating bloated fight scenes that ate up the episodes’ already-stunted runtime. I say this knowing that some people will balk at the accusation, because there exists a demographic of viewers that does prefer watching the fight sequences with their brains turned off. And I’m not above that. (I could spend an hour raving about the choreography of the fight between Cinder and Neo, or about the coordination of the Ace Operatives in their takedown of the Cryo Gigas. Believe me, I’m not knocking the absurd enjoyment of spectacle fighting.)

My problem is that RWBY’s premise is so deeply-entrenched in rule of cool that it left its worldbuilding malnourished by comparison.

But fine. Let’s, for the moment, give RWBY the benefit of the doubt. What in-world reasons would the series have for its history being believably underdeveloped? (And no, we’re not talking about the erasure of the Maidens and magic. We know that information was deliberately expunged from the annals of history. We’re focusing on the parts of Remnant’s history that deal with ancient cultures, defunct countries, and influential past events.)

The immediate solution that comes to mind is the Creatures of Grimm. As we’re told by numerous sources, the Grimm not only prioritize attacking humans and Faunus, but they discriminately destroy any of their creations. [1]

“With every alternative form of communication that was proposed, there seemed to be the perfect obstacle. The destructive nature of the creatures of Grimm severely limited the reliability of ground-based technologies.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 3, Episode 3: “Cross Continental Transmit System.”

This leads to the conclusion that Remnant’s past was physically destroyed, and any traces of it were removed by the Grimm. This would include archeological records—artwork, architecture, books, clothing, jewelry, burial sites, tools, ecofacts, and so on.

The issue I have with this explanation is that it’s not consistent. Throughout the show we see ample evidence of immediate-past and distant-past societies. The remains of Mountain Glenn and Oniyuri still stand, despite the high presence of Grimm at the former (and the presumed presence of Grimm at the latter). Brunswick Farms is relatively intact and provisioned with food and fuel, even though the Apathy are quite literally hanging out under the floorboards. The Emerald Forest even has the derelict ruins of an ancient temple that Ozpin incorporated into the Beacon initiation.

Petroglyphs (parietal stone-carving artwork) of early hominids fighting a Death Stalker. | Source: Volume 1, Episode 7: “The Emerald Forest - Part 2.”

If the Grimm are RWBY’s get-out-of-jail-free card, then they’re certainly not being used to their full effect. The examples I provided tell us in no uncertain terms that Remnant does have an accessible history in the form of archeological artifacts. For fuck’s sake, Oobleck is literally an anthropologist. He teaches history classes at Beacon Academy and has a PhD on the subject.

Similarly, if we assume the format of World of Remnant (a classroom lecture given by Qrow) to be applicable in-world, then that means the history of the last few centuries pertaining to the kingdoms is common knowledge. [2] The existence of this information tells us that Remnant has a flourishing history, and yet we see little of it represented in the show.

I chalk up the lack of history to a nasty habit of the writers. You see, CRWBY has this infuriating tendency to treat RWBY like “it’s like our world but…” It’s like our world but with magic; it’s like our world but with Dust; it’s like our world but with bloodthirsty monsters. You get the idea. As I said back in the Worldbuilding: Overview, if you make your fictional world a one-to-one analog of your own, you end up either ignoring, underdeveloping, or erasing the history exclusive to that setting. And RWBY is largely bereft of any historical identity that it could call its own. Here, let me pitch a few examples of what I’m talking about:

If slavery was only outlawed less than eighty years ago, why don’t we see Mistral creating legal loopholes to retain the system, like through indentured servitude or penal labor? An empire built on human rights violations doesn’t lose that disregard overnight. While we see plenty of poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Mistral, [3] and we’re told about its infamous criminal underworld, [4] these aspects of Mistrali culture seem rather disconnected from the recent history of the country, and ultimately have no impact on the main characters or the plot.

The Faunus Rights Revolution was a three-year conflict that (presumably) took place across all four kingdoms, and involved countermanding the reparations made to the Faunus after the Great War. From a chronological perspective, this was extremely recent. I know Rooster Teeth has a track record of poorly handling systemic racism. Usually this manifests in characters doing tokenly racist things, like using slurs or refusing to serve Faunus customers. But here’s the thing: a discrimination-based conflict this recent should have more bearing on current events. We should see examples of things like police profiling, higher incarceration rates, a lack of representation in media, social pressure to conceal Faunus traits or assimilate into human culture, fetishization, inadequate healthcare, forced sterilization, a lack of clothing retailers which stock apparel that accommodates Faunus traits, and so on. To put it bluntly: Faunus are an underprivileged minority, and immediate history should be influencing how that plays out in the show.

To reiterate: the Great War was eighty years ago. Meaning that there are likely still people alive that fought during it. How have their attitudes and beliefs shaped the world in the last few decades? Did they pass on any lingering hostilities or biases to their family members or community? What about in the present-day? Do people from Vale that migrate to Mistral ever deal with bigotry? Do people in Atlas harbor any lingering ideologies from that time? Is authentic pre-war artwork from Mantle considered priceless because most artwork was destroyed during Mantle’s suppression of creative expression? Did immigrants from the other kingdoms help rebuild Atlas’ cultural identity by supplying it with the values that they brought with them? What about shifts in culture? Did kingdoms have to ration resources like sugar or cream? Did this result in cultural paradigms, where nowadays drinking black coffee is more prevalent as a result of adapting to scarcity?

Because Vacuo’s natural resources were heavily depleted by invading countries decades before the Great War, did this have a major bearing on technology? Does modern Vacuo have wind farms or solar arrays to compensate for a lack of Dust? How does this affect their relationship with other kingdoms? Mistral loves to pride itself on its respect for nature. [5] Does this attitude ever anger Vacuites from the perspective of, “Yeah, I can really see how much you ‘respect’ nature. You respected it so much that you invaded our country and destroyed our oases.”

As you can see, history can’t be idly ignored. It has long-lasting impacts on the people who lived through it, and it continues to inform the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of people to come. What we get instead are traditions that only exist within the relevance of the immediate past, like the color-naming trend that emerged in response to artistic censorship. Anything which predates it, though? Remnant might as well have sprung into existence a hundred years ago with how little its history exists beyond that context.

It’s frustrating and disheartening. We know precious little about Remnant because its history either exists separately from the story (and is delivered supplementarily through transmedia worldbuilding), or it wasn’t developed in the first place. This doesn’t even take into consideration how much the writers deliberately withhold for the sake of artificially creating suspense. (A suspense, I might add, that frequently lacks payoff, either because it gets forgotten by the writers, or the characters never bother to seek out knowledge from available sources, like Ozma. Seriously, why do these kids never ask any fucking questions? They did this throughout all of Volume 5—Ruby in particular, who I badly wanted to strangle when she said “I have no more questions” back in V5:E10: “True Colors.”)

RWBY didn’t even bother to give us a calendar era, like the BCE/CE one used today. Hell, if the writers wanted to buck the system, they could’ve gone with something similar to Steven Universe or The Elder Scrolls, where eras are divided by significant historical events.

Sorry. I swear, I’m done dredging up examples. I’ve already made my point. As we talk about the other topics in their respective posts, we’ll be able to analyze these problems in greater detail.

Trust me. We’ve only just scratched the surface.

[1] Volume 1, Episode 1: “Ruby Rose.” Salem: “An inevitable darkness—creatures of destruction—the creatures of Grimm��set their sights on man and all of his creations.”

[2] World of Remnant, Volume 2, Episode 2: “Kingdoms.” Salem: “In the countless years that humanity has roamed the planet, civilizations have grown and fallen. But four have withstood the test of time: Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, Vale.”

[3] Volume 5, Episode 6: “Known by Its Song.”

[4] Volume 5, Episode 1: “Welcome to Haven.”

[5] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 2: “Mistral.” Qrow: “There's one common thread that links all these people together, though, and that's their respect for nature. Particularly the sea and the sky.”

#deconstruction #worldbuilding #writing #history #this is the second time i've mistakenly posted something under the wrong blog #i was like where the hell is the post i know i didn't delete it #and then it dawned on #man. my followers over on my science blog are gonna be really confused when they see the angry rant about anime on their dashboards

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kfromthecastle · 4 years ago

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Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism, Slavoj Žižek, Allen Lane, 27 November 2014, 978-0241004968

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, David Harvey, Profile Books, 3 April 2014, 978-1781251607

After the Future, Franco Bifo Berardi, AK Press, 1 October 2011, 978-1849350594

Non Stop Inertia, Ivor Southwood, Zero Books, 1 March 2011, 978-1846945304

Factories of Knowledge, Industries of Creativity, Gerald Raunig, MIT Press, 12 April 2013, 978-1584351160

This is Not a Program, Tiqqun, MIT Press, 3 June 2011, 978-1584350972

The Thing: A Phenomenology of Horror, Dylan Trigg, Zero Books, 29 August 2014, 978-1782790778

The Last Night: Anti-Work, Atheism, Adventure, Federico Campagna, Zero Books, 25 October 2013, 978-1782791959

Empire, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Harvard University Press, 15 August 2001, 978-0674006713

Thousand Machines, Gerald Raunig, MIT Press, 26 April 2010, 978-1584350859

Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson, Verso Books, 14 January 1992, 978-0860915379

First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, Slavoj Žižek, Verso, 19 October 2009, 978-1844674282

Capital and Affects: The Politics of the Language Economy, Christian Marazzi, MIT Press, 9 August 2011, 978-1584351030

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, Silvia Federici, Autonomedia, 15 June 2004, 978-1570270598

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, Philip Mirowski, Verso Books, 23 July 2013, 978-1781680797

Speculative Realism: Problems and Prospects, Peter Gratton, Continuum Publishing Corporation, 31 July 2014, 978-1441174758

The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism, Steven Shaviro, University of Minnesota Press, 1 October 2014, 978-0816689262

Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, Nick Land, Urbanomic, 1 March 2011, 978-0955308789

A Grammar of the Multitude, Paolo Virno, Semiotext[e], 6 February 2004, 978-1584350217

The New Spirit of Capitalism, Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, Verso, 1 September 2007, 978-1844671656

Agony of Power, Jean Baudrillard, MIT Press, 28 January 2011, 978-1584350927

Technics & Civilization, Lewis Mumford, University of Chicago Press, 30 November 2010, 978-0226550275

Speculative Aesthetics, James Trafford, Robin Mackay, Luke Pendrell, Urbanomic, 22 October 2014, 978-0957529571

Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, Reza Negarestani, re.press, 30 August 2008, 978-0980544008

The Great Accelerator, Paul Virilio, Polity Press, 4 May 2012, 978-0745653891

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Karen Barad, Duke University Press, 25 March 2007, 978-0822339175

Onto-Cartography, Levi R. Bryant, Edinburgh University Press, 17 February 2014, 978-0748679973

Appropriation, David Evans, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1 April 2009, 978-0854881611

The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens, Polity Press, 18 April 1991, 978-0745609232

The Power at the End of the Economy, Brian Massumi, Duke University Press, 26 December 2014, 978-0822358381

The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, Marshall McLuhan, Penguin Classics, 25 September 2008, 978-0141035826

Detroit, Lisa D’Amour, Faber & Faber, 17 May 2012, 978-0571290161

Understanding a Photograph, John Berger, Penguin Classics, 7 November 2013, 978-0141392028

The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Manchester University Press, 9 August 1984, 978-0719014505

Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences, Ulrich Beck, SAGE Publications, 21 November 2001, 978-0761961123

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee, Penguin Classics, 6 April 2006, 978-0141188492

Culture and Materialism, Raymond Williams, Verso Books, 21 October 2005, 978-1844670604

Testo Junkie : Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, Beatriz Preciado, The Feminist Press CUNY, 14 November 2013, 978-1558618374

The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, Jean Baudrillard, SAGE Publications, 1 February 1998, 978-0761956921

The Persistence of the Negative: A Critique of Contemporary Continental Theory, Benjamin Noys, Edinburgh University Press, 14 March 2012, 978-0748649044

Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault, Routledge, 9 May 2002, 978-0415287531

The Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity, Catherine Malabou, Polity Press, 1 June 2012, 978-0745652610

Self: Philosophy In Transit, Barry Dainton, Penguin, 24 April 2014, 978-1846146206

Runaway World, Anthony Giddens, Profile Books, 13 June 2002, 978-1861974297

Pastoralia, George Saunders, Bloomsbury Publishing, 3 September 2001, 978-0747553861

The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester, Gollancz, 8 July 1999, 978-1857988222

Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, Patricia Lockwood, Penguin Books, 27 May 2014, 978-0143126522

Uncommon Places: The Complete Works, Stephen Shore, Thames and Hudson, 20 October 2014, 978-0500544457

Post-Photography: The Artist with a Camera, Robert Shore, Laurence King, 8 September 2014, 978-1780672281

Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Murray Bookchin, AK Press, 12 January 2004, 978-1904859062

True Detection, Gary J. Shipley, Edia Connole, Schism, 17 August 2014, 978-0692277379

Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War, Colum McCann, Da Capo Press, 21 February 2013, 978-0306821769

Mapping It Out: An Alternative Atlas of Contemporary Cartographies, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Thames and Hudson, 16 June 2014, 978-0500239186

The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Arjun Appadurai, Cambridge University Press, 29 January 1988, 978-0521357265

The Flame Alphabet, Ben Marcus, Granta, 2 May 2013, 978-1847086242

Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality, Timothy Morton, Michigan Publishing, 9 August 2013, 978-1607852025

In the World Interior of Capital: Towards a Philosophical Theory of Globalization, Peter Sloterdijk, Polity Press, 6 September 2013, 978-0745647692

Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas, Patrick Modiano, Yale University Press, 4 November 2014, 978-0300198058

Ulrich Beck: A Critical Introduction to the Risk Society, Gabe Mythen, Pluto Press, 20 April 2004, 978-0745318141

Radio Benjamin, Walter Benjamin, Verso Books, 7 October 2014, 978-1781685754

Militant Modernism, Owen Hatherley, Zero Books, 24 April 2009, 978-1846941764

The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena, Jean Baudrillard, Verso, 15 June 2009, 978-1844673452

The MET Office Book of the British Weather, The Met Office, David & Charles, 25 June 2010, 978-0715336403

The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin, Gollancz, 12 August 1999, 978-1857988826

Negative Capitalism: Cynicism in the Neoliberal Era, J.D. Taylor, Zero Books, 29 March 2013, 978-1780992600

Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash, Polity Press, 25 September 1994, 978-0745612782

Chromophobia, David Batchelor, Reaktion Books, 1 September 2000, 978-1861890740

Introducing Meteorology: A Guide to Weather, Jon Shonk, Dunedin Academic Press, 14 February 2013, 978-1780460024

State of Insecurity: Governement of the Precarious, Isabell Lorey, Verso Books, 3 February 2015, 978-1781685969

Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography, Elias Redstone, Phaidon Press, 13 September 2014, 978-0714867427

We Have Never Been Modern, Bruni Latour, Harvard University Press, 31 December 1993, 978-0674948396

Viriconium, M. John Harrison, Gollancz, 13 July 2000, 978-1857989953

Manhunts: A Philosophical History, Grégoire Chamayou, Princeton University Press, 22 July 2012, 978-0691151656

The Corporate Control of Life, Vandana Shiva, Hatje Cantz, 15 April 2011, 978-3775728614

Stuff, Daniel Miller, Polity Press, 23 October 2009, 978-0745644240

The Quadruple Object, Graham Harman, Zero Books, 29 July 2011, 978-1846947001

Stupeur ET Tremblements, Amélie Nothomb, Magnard, 2 February 2009, 978-2210754959

Road to Seeing, Dan Winters, New Riders, 15 March 2014, 978-0321886392

The Language of Things, Deyan Sudjic, Penguin, 27 August 2009, 978-0141031170

The Spectacle of the Void, David Peak, CreateSpace, 1 December 2014, 978-1503007161

Rich and Poor, Jim Goldberg, Steidl, 30 June 2014, 978-3869306889

House of Coates, Brad Zellar, Coffee House Press, 30 October 2014, 978-1566893701

The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul, Random House, 22 February 1973, 978-0394703909

Survey, Stephen Shore, Aperture, 3 November 2014, 978-1597113090

Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, Barbara Cassin, Princeton University Press, 9 February 2014, 978-0691138701

Time Without Becoming, Quentin Meillassoux, Mimesis International, 28 December 2014, 978-8857523866

What Animals Teach Us about Politics, Brian Massumi, Duke University Press, 15 August 2014, 978-0822358008

Gateway, Frederik Pohl, Gollancz, 29 March 2010, 978-0575094239

10:04, Ben Lerner, Granta, 1 January 2015, 978-1847088918

thN Lng folk 2go: Investigating Future Premoderns, The Confraternity of Neoflagellants, Punctum Books, 31 October 2013, 978-0615890258

Phantom Noise, Brain Turner, Bloodaxe Books, 30 October 2010, 978-1852248765

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, George Saunders, Bloomsbury Publishing, 16 April 2007, 978-0747585961

Here, Richard McGuire, Hamish Hamilton, 4 December 2014, 978-0241145968

The Female Man, Joanna Russ, Gollancz, 11 November 2010, 978-0575094994

Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Alice Rawsthorn, Hamish Hamilton, 7 March 2013, 978-0241145302

Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman, Polity Press, 15 March 2000, 978-0745624105

Time Out Of Joint, Philip K. Dick, Gollancz, 11 September 2003, 978-0575074583

The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster, Penguin Classics, 15 February 2011, 978-0141195988

Martin John Callanan. I Cannot Not Communicate (a library consisting of the first 100 books recommended to Callanan by Amazon, based on everything he read and bought since the online retail giant first launched its recommendation algorithm over 15 years ago), 2015.

#martin john callanan #amazon

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no6secretsanta · 6 years ago

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More Than A Thousand Words

For @naniya27 from @into-september.

AN: «Yves» is pronounced similarly to “Eve”, and is the name given the West Block Ophelia in the German translation of the manga.

It was a spring day with the lightest of rain, the sun occasionally peaking through the clouds and drying out the pavement between the showers as he walked home, and the low rays through the windows at the top of the stairwell were particular lovely, he thought, before the walls were sterile grey and he was going up the stairs as the scientists were running down and the sirens were blaring, and everything collapsed into a million moments of blood and gunpowder and adrenaline and a ghost that looked like a girl and in every one of them is he, he, he and what it feels like to have tongs and pliers digging into the flesh of his shoulder and the tremors so fierce boxes and bottles crashing to the floor they'll hit him why isn't he ducking and his wide eyes the blood blooming wet from the bullet burn on his shirt and his still warm hand as they're weightless in the darkness of this narrow stinking there must be a bottom when will you hit the -

and a lifetime has passed and the shadows had barely moved and his next-door neighbor was leaning over him looking worried.

"Hey, are you with me?"

When he opened his mouth to answer a sob came out instead, and he pressed his hand against his mouth.

"Dude, what happened? Are you okay?"

He wanted to say that it was fine, but the hand clinging to the railing was shaking and his arm and his leg were burning from the phantom bullets lodged in them. It took him three attempts until his legs would carry him, and getting up the remaining steps and into his flat was hindered by his limping with imagined wounds.

He sat on in his armchair and stared out of the window, his mind crowding with two lifetimes worth of memories, and one of them was from a world and a place unknown. People he’d never met but still knew exactly which insults would cut them, places he’d never been to but he still knew every shortcut and the best nooks to hide in. He felt at his back and found it as smooth as ever, even as he intimately recalled the endless pain of a burn wound’s slow healing. Voices shouting and pleading and whispering words he didn’t understand even as he knew exactly what they were saying.

He felt as if he even was forgetting his name, even if he didn’t understand either one of the names he had in the vision. The sun was setting outside when he finally felt as if he had some kind of grip on reality again.

One: He was undeniably in NO. 3, where he was undeniably living and had undeniably been living his entire life, seeing that he had undeniably brought home groceries as he came home from work today and the guy next door undeniably knew him and there was undeniably a mark on the wall that his brother had made the last time he was over.

Two: He had undeniably been overwhelmed by memories of a life that wasn’t his, and he couldn’t even start to guess to whom they belonged. He’d say that they were halucinations, but after the first blinding wave, they’d merely taken up space along with his own, like remembering a film that he’d been part of.

Three: Whatever sadistic filmmaker had created it, no-one involved had deserved it. It was a story of innocence lost and replaced by the deepest bitterness, of human suffering of proportions that could kill anyone’s faith in others, of violence on a scale not recorded in -

Of violence on a scale that was had probably not been committed ever since NO. 6, the first one. Of course, the language he didn’t understand. The wall overshadowing the squallid town, the massacres in the slums, the burning of the forest.

He searched for images of the old NO. 6 in the global databases, and remembered in disturbing detail. The park in the city centre, he’d worked there, that was where he was arrested, the first bee - the Moondrop. Chronos, all the houses that looked the same and his could’ve been any of them, it could’ve been onto any of them that he climbs on his birthday in the storm, ignoring how his arm screams in protest as fresh blood runs from the wound on his shoulder -

He forced himself back to his real life and looked up images of the disaster. The wall had fallen in the earthquake and he hadn’t even gotten to see it, lying down beside him and waiting for the world to end because he died after all that and what’s the use, what’s the use of the cursed city meeting its deserved fate if this is the price, if the only thing good has to go down with it and he’s so tired and his body is in shatters, a bullet in his thigh and another in his arm and the wound in his chest inexpertly treated -

He was weeping in grief over a boy he’d never met.

Cross-continental travel was expensive, but he had money put away. “Two weeks”, said his supervisor, who was kind and who hadn’t protested when he insisted that getting to the roots of his mostly harmless but persisting psychosis was to get to the roots of it and get it disproved.

He wasn’t so sure it was more a matter of proving. The NO. 6 city centre looked like it always did in pictures and film, the architecture old but still markedly modern, the people happy, the vegetation abundant. The signs were all in Japanese and English, neither of which helped him much, but through a combination of the help of the travel agency in NO. 3 and the extralinguistic nature of public transportation schedules, managed to catch a light rail going out into the parts of the city that had been the much-abused “West Block” before the earthquake.

He got off at what seemed like a right-ish distance from the wall and found the slopes of a rising hill exactly where he expected it, even if the buildings spoke of an entirely different world than the ones in his mind. The streets were changed, the houses taller, but he navigated by the sun and managed to keep a course that was steady enough until he’d climbed that hill, and found it covered in family housing with small, cheerful gardens and a school nearby. The view was different, the air smelled clean, and he felt a stab of regret at how there was no finding back to what had once been a home.

The NO. 6 Museum of Human Rights and Democracy introduced its intention to avoid future disaster like the one that had once ravaged the city, and it had an advanced audio-system that plugged into a dozen different languages. He went into the exhibit about the day the city fell, and listened to a calm woman’s voice telling him a story that was the same as the one he remembered from school. A technological Babylon rattled by an earthquake which destroyed 40% of its infrastructure, among them the police headquarters. The reveal of gruesome abuse in the name of the government and the citizens turning a blind eye to those less fortunate. Massacres, sorting human worth on their use for society, mad science, mass surveillance, secret police, human experiments on hundreds of subjects, planting a horrifying disease in their own citizens which ended in a holocaust just as the fatal earthquake set in. Hundreds dead from nature. Thousands murdered by the government elected to protect them.

No mention of lost forest gods. No mention of girls killed for their brilliance and coming back to sing the boy she loved back to life. No mention of two teenagers breaking into the correctional facility and setting off the bombs bringing it all down. The cause of the collapse remains unknown.

But by the door was a photo of the interim assembly that started the rebuilding of the city, overseeing the investigation into the abuses of the previous regime, writing the new laws and settling the philosophy of humanism that had been the guiding principle of NO. 6 ever since. And there, towards one end of the group, was a man of indeterminable age; his hair pure white as an old man’s, but his face young and lineless, save for a thick, pink scar on his left cheek.

Shion was the corresponding name among the many on the plaque below it, and he remembered watching that scar spread on his skin and how his hair had been such a lovely brown before it faded with his fever as the night passed.

Once upon a time, he’d sat on the blood-smeared floor before a lift as the sprinklers rained tepid water, and his body hurt from bullets and bruises and he’d wept, for the first time in years, because of Shion, because Shion had fallen with him and he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t brought him into it. He wiped his tears, and went back outside into the city that always held the rest of humanity to its own hard-earned standards, because maybe there had been a meaning to it and Shion had been the one to fix it, after all.

One of the ladies selling tickets in the museum had spoken some French, and pointed him to some kind of memorial outside the city centre if he was particularly interested in the topic. He followed her instructions, and ended up in some strange kind of nature reserve. In a spot in the middle of the of university district was the crater left behind after the Correctional Facility had collapsed, clearly untouched ever since. The remains of the place running all of the old NO. 6’s sins had been left to nature, and nature had reclaimed it; what hadn’t been run down by the elements had been covered with vegetation.

He walked around the edge until he was standing between the remains of the wall and the crater, closed his eyes and remembered a lightness beyond compare, an Atlas finally free of his burden as the wall had come down and the city would have to face its sins, and he is finished, he is done, and Shion lives, and everything is undone and whatever future will be made now will have to be different. He saw the determination in Shion’s eyes; he knows that he can leave it to him, like she did, because Shion will do better than him and there is an entire world waiting for him beyond this wretched place. He’s delirious from a cocktail of emotions he cannot tell apart, relief and elation and hope and freedom and a looming emptiness and a cutting regret somewhere that he doesn’t understand until Shion calls for him, and he turns around -

”you’ll be fine,” he’d said, before the fallen wall and the city beyond it, and he’d kissed Shion and he’d walked away, and he’d never seen either the city nor the boy again. It was that moment his new memories seemed to dwell on the most, recalled in excellent detail. The light of the sun setting, the faint smell of smoke in the air, the unnatural silence, the warmth of Shion’s mouth as the universe stood still for five heartbeats.

He had never loved anything the way he had loved Shion in that moment, not in that life and not in this one, and that was the core of it. The nightmarish visions made all the more real by the vivid memories of how it felt to live them could be ignored, maybe, could be dealt with with therapy or medication or well-practiced denial. What had proven to be far more distracting was the nagging knowledge that it had been a cruel mistake. If his selfishness hurt him, than that was his own lot to deal with and move on from. But he hadn’t been the only one hurt, and he never forgot how he had loved Shion in that moment, and it had been his final unfinished business, the final promise he’d never made and never got to keep.

This pilgrimage to another life and to someone who must be dead for decades since was ridiculous. Finding the spot had helped nothing, because there were no ghosts around to talk to. He had a name, now; Shion had gone on to become someone reasonably important, so surely there must’ve been a grave or at least some kind of memorial somewhere. Maybe he could go there with a muffin or a piece of cherry cake to absolve his guilt and move on with the life he was living now? Because that was the only way he could think to apologise to someone who wasn’t around any longer.

He turned around to find his way down, and hadn’t gotten more than twenty metres when he saw a figure wheeling a bike up the hill. White-haired, like an old man, but with brisk, quick movements. A teenager with bleached hair? Another tourist? He resolved to look ahead and not get caught up in ridiculous ideas and his own hopeless longing.

He risked a glance as they passed each other, and met a pair of pale blue eyes behind a pair of glasses looking curiously at him. He really did have a striking similarity to the Shion in his memories, and he was staring and it would’ve been mortifying if the other guy hadn’t also stopped to squint at him, and then latched on to his sleeve and spoke three syllables he’d never heard before but instantly recognised as himself.

“Shion?” he said before he could help himself, and those blue, blue eyes grew wide and the grip on his sleeve grew insistent.

“Nezumi,” said Shion, and he looked desperate as a stream of words fell from his mouth, occasionally punctuated by his name and small yanks at his sleeve.

It wasn’t Shion. The pallor of his skin was different, there was no scar, his face wasn’t all that similar, his eyes hadn’t been blue, a different quality to the voice, the name couldn’t be that uncommon, but this Shion seemed to know him, knew a name he’d used back then, knew this godforsaken place. He was looking increasingly more upset, and said his name, a short and despairing sentence, ending with his name.

“Shion, I can’t understand you,” he replied helplessly. “I live in No. 3. I’m sorry.”

Shion’s eyes dimmed, and then he started talking in English, and it was only fractionally better.

“I flunked all English classes,” he said, shaking his head, “shit, it wasn’t as if I’d ever thought I was going to go elsewhere. Sorry. Shion, I’m so sorry.”

Shion looked gravely disappointed, but closed his eyes and nodded. He said something more, and then he smiled a little. He lifted his free hand to his chest, and moved the hand gripping the sleeve down to make him mirror the gesture.

“Shion,” he said emphatically, he felt his hand pressed down by Shion’s.

“Yves,” he replied after a moment of recollection. Shion’s smile widened.

“Eebu,” he repeated, badly.

“Yves,” he said again and couldn’t help rolling his eyes, and Shion laughed.

“Nezumi - iia, Eebu,” he said, and there was no knowing what he meant with the words that followed until Shion remembered. He paused, still smiling widely, and made a gesture down the sides of his head and over his shoulders, and then towards his feet, and Yves rolled his eyes as he realised what Shion meant.

“Go figure,” he muttered, and wondered if it was fate that had made his parents choose that name.

“Ne, Nezumi - iia, Eebu - “

“Nezumi’s okay. Better than mangling my real name, anyway.”

Shion shook his head, still smiling.

“Nezumi, Yves...” he made a motion he hoped communicated it doesn’t matter which one, and Shion nodded, and tugged on his hand and pointed to his bike.

It had been over a decade since he’d last had to balance his body weight on somebody’s bicycle rack, but Shion seemed unfazed by the added weight as he pedaled through the darkening streets. It was utter lunacy: Walking by someone in the street in a strange city, following him to an unknown place because neither spoke the other’s language. It could be some madman, it could be some crazy serial killer, who even trusted someone just like that, believing in the fact that they knew each other but they did, they did.

He leaned his head against Shion’s back as they stopped at a crossing. His body heat leaked through the fabric of his shirt, and he remembered how he used to touch Shion, back then, because Shion was the only person so innocent that he never suspected any other motives, who’d let him feel the comfort of a living person’s warmth.

Shion lived in modest housing within comfortable distance to the university where he probably worked, at least going by the pointing and the looming book shelves and the rock collection taking up space in his living room. He acted as if this was the thousand time Yves had come home with him, and talked as if they’d always shared everyday conversation as he’d pointed Yves to his breakfast table and set to work with a kettle and a tea pot.

“You’ve done well for yourself, huh?”

Shion smiled fondly at him, and gave him a tiny, chewy cake along with the black tea.

“I thought you were all about green tea in this part of the world,” said Yves conversationally as he picked up his cup. Shion pointed to the cake and said something about it.

“I’ve never had anything like it before. It’s pretty good.”

It was ridiculous. They couldn’t communicate, beyond each other’s names and the most basic of English vocabulary. He drank his tea. Shion poked at a console on the table’s edge, and the wall next to them flicked to life of what he recognised as some database. Through a combination of voice commands and flickering touches, Shion brought up familiar images from school classes and his own dreadful research back in NO. 3. He brought them up, pointed and narrated, and Yves nodded in acknowledgement, if not understanding.

“Nezumi...”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and then he tried it in English, and Shion shook his head fondly and shrugged, and scrolled through a list until he found an entry that brought up a familiar face.

“That’s the old man - Rikiga! That’s Rikiga!” He almost jumped out of his seat to point to the picture, and Shion was grinning madly at him.

“Un, Rikiga-san desu! Nezumi - ” the rest of Shion’s overjoyed babble was lost on him, but his joy wasn’t, and for Yves laughed because he felt fully sane for the first time in five months.

Shion pulled up image after image of the old city, and Yves pointed in recognition of places that had been razed to the ground a century before he was born. Shion seemed to move through archives of the reconstruction chronologically. The work with integrating the West Block in the city proper, the new infrastructure, the political aftermath. Bit by bit, the ruins of the city he had known were overtaken by a place that looked much more like the NO. 6 of today. The market nearest to the hill. The river district. There was even one of the theatre he’d once worked at, which made Shion smile slyly and make some comment that ended with “ - ne, Eebu?”

“Shut up,” Yves retorted, and Shion brought up the next image, and froze.

It seemed to be some kind of official opening or function. Standing in the middle of the picture was Shion - the old Shion, older here than Nezumi had ever known him. He seemed to be giving a speech of some sort, serious and intent. He wore well-cut clothing. His hair was trimmed short. He looked tired, but maybe that was just how Shion had looked when he grew up? Yves hardly looked the same today as he had at sixteen.

The Shion of right now looked unhappy, and Yves suddenly wondered what his memories must’ve been like. He would remember a life in the city, probably. A life as the boy who’d had to loose his best friend his innocence and the only city he’d ever known on the same day as he’d lost his - the whatever it was that Nezumi had been to him.

Shion had kissed him, once. Nezumi had kissed him back, and turned around and never come back.

And if Nezumi had wondered how Shion had moved on, then Yves was looking at the man who had been Shion back then, and suspecting in a slow horror that Shion, back then, had waited.

The Shion-without-a-scar, Shion-with-blue-eyes-behind-glasses, tore his eyes away from the image in front of them with a soft word, and wiped his eyes.

“Did you wait?” Yves asked, and Shion, who didn’t understand the question, shook his head with another little sentence, and then he looked straight at him and asked him something in a much firmer voice. He pointed at Yves, and made a vague gesture, going back through the images.

“I went out west,” said Yves, “there were people there - I mean, you probably know that, now. Shion, he - you - wouldn’t have, back then. I think I met his dad, he was a real asshole, but except for that, it was lovely. It was bothersome, too. Uncomfortable. Lots of walking, I got pretty hungry sometimes. People were the same, a lot. Nice in small groups. Bothersome in bigger ones. I wanted to get off Japan, but when I got to the sea, I had to wait so long for a ship to come by. Did you ever see the sea, back then? I mean, NO. 6 is pretty far away from it, and all. Did you travel? Did you visit the other cities?”

Shion couldn’t answer, and Yves continued.

“So I went north, after a while. It took me almost a year. There’s this shipping town, but I think it was mostly smugglers going into NO. 4. I wanted to go over there, to the big continent.”

He stopped, snorted. “I got into NO. 4, and contracted some kind of influenza, I think, after a week. I don’t remember much of the last few days, but at least it was somewhere warm and clean.

“I think I was maybe twenty-five, by then. It probably doesn’t help to say that I wanted to go back, right? I thought so, towards the end, that I wanted to go back and see what became of NO. 6. I wanted to meet you again, and see what kind of adult you were. I wanted to - I never could admit it to myself, back then, but I wanted to be with you. I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to live together with you. But it was so far to go, and I had no money - I’d need to save up, and - whatever. I’m sorry, Shion. I’m sorry if you waited. I’m sorry if you were sad. I hope you didn’t miss me for too long. But at least I now that NO. 6 is amazing, now. I’m glad I met you, back then.”

Shion was silent for a while, and then he started speaking. It was a story that was longer than Nezumi’s. He understood nothing out of, except for the words number six. He could only listen, and when Shion’s story closed, he shook his head.

“I wish I knew what you were saying.”

“Eebu,” said Shion.

“Yeah?”

Shion asked him a question.

“Do you think it was Elyurias?” Yves answered, “do you think it was she who made us remember so that we could meet again?”

“Mm, Elyurias,” Shion confirmed.

They sat in silence for a while, until Shion grabbed a notebook and wrote down “NO. 3”, then pointed at Yves, then back to the paper.

Yves reached into his bag, and handed Shion his return ticket, to which Shion nodded, and went out into his living room. In a quick yank, his sofa pulled out into a bed, and he pointed to Yves, and then to the sofa again.

“Sure,” said Yves, “just let met cancel my hotel room.”

He spent ten days with Shion, in a parody of the five months they’d spent together in a previous life. He wandered around the city when Shion was at work, and then they spent the afternoons going places that Shion wanted to take him. Sometimes it was to places he’d known from back then - the renovated theatre, the city park, the main library where Shion pointed to a shelf of antiquated books and Yves could have wept as he recognised them. He ate the food Shion gave him, and fed Shion ice cream and crepes and coffee. They talked at each other. When they talked to each other, it was mostly through pointing and gestures and single words, and even that mostly worked.

He hadn’t known what he expected to get out of this journey when he went there, but he’d certainly found it. He had found the truth, and he’d found that he wasn’t crazy, and he’d found that the Shion who lived now was happy to meet him. The thing he hadn’t found, however, was a solution. There was still so much that he needed Shion to know, and so many things he wanted to ask Shion, and it was impossible to approach it. Any interpreter would think the two of them were crazy, and learning a language took months and years of effort. Yves had ten days, and he’d picked up little more than “yes” and “no” and “thank you” and “goodbye” by the end of his stay.

The night before he left, he dreamed of the correctional facility in disturbing detail, and woke just as he reached the part where Shion was carrying him on his back all the while having the horrible knowledge of what would happen when he sat him down to climb down the refuse chute.

Shion - the one living now, the one with blue eyes and no scar, was kneeling beside the sofa and looked as ill as Yves felt. He was stroking his hair and talking softly.

“You had the nightmare too, huh,” said Yves as he sat up. Shion stood up and caught his wrist, and tugged gently.

“Nezumi.”

He followed Shion into his bedroom, and let Shion push him down so that he sat on the edge of his bed.

“Shion...“

“Sleep,” said Shion in English and didn’t meet his eyes as he crawled into bed, and turned over so that his back faced the middle of the bed.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and curled up on the edge of the bed. The linen smelled like Shion, and there was still a faint warmth from his body in it.

They’d shared the bed in the old room, because the sofa was beyond lumpy and had a spring poking out, and because there was a lot to be said for saving fuel by sharind body heat. They’s slept back-to-back like this for five months. Even after Nezumi had pulled Shion into his arms and taught him the walz. Even after Shion had kissed him, and left him, and Nezumi had hit him for it and agreed to follow him into hell to save a girl who was in love with him.

Yves had told Shion that Nezumi had wanted to be with him. He had no idea if Shion had ever said something about the same. Even if he was still feeling the longing of a young man a century ago, it wouldn’t be right to assume the same of Shion. What had existed between Shion and Nezumi had been so much more than a clumsy teenage romance, and technically, for all Yves knew, Shion might have a lover who had tactfully stayed away while Shion dealt with this past demons.

He couldn’t sleep, and he could tell that Shion too was awake beside him. Five months and a century of unfulfilled feelings were bearing down on them, and if they couldn’t talk about anything, then they could never speak of this night, either.

He turned around, inched closer to Shion, and put an arm around his waist as he pressed his body against his tense back. Shion’s shoulders hitched, once, and then a hand was gripping his, and Shion made a tiny, pained noise as he relaxed, and slipped a foot back to tangle in Yves’.

Breakfast was quiet, and they spoke minimally on the journey out to the airport. Shion followed him up to the boarding gate, and they stood together and waited until the passengers started filing on board. Shion looked tired, eyes bleary behind the glasses, and he was beautiful. He’d spent days looking at Shion and seeing the memories of his past, but it was now, minutes before they’d part ways again, that he realised that the pensive, exhausted man next to him was beautiful in a way that the Shion-back-then had never been to Nezumi.

When the queue formed, Shion turned to him, and said something that he of course didn’t understand.

“Thank you for having me. It was very good to be here,” he answered.

Shion smiled bravely at him, and then the smile fell, and Shion leaned forward and kissed him.

It was different from either of the kisses they’d shared back before they were who they were now. This Shion had clearly kissed more people than the boy from Lost Town had, and Yves had no reason to hold back the way Nezumi had. He pulled Shion closer, and he could have moaned at the feeling of Shion’s hand at his waist as the other cradled his neck. He breathed into Shion’s mouth as they pulled apart, and went in to taste it again, touching Shion’s jaw and ear and the fine strands of his hair. Shion’s glasses kept getting in the way when he tried to press closer, but Shion kept him close, his hands tight and firm.

It was a kiss that spoke more than a thousand words could have said, and it ended only as Yves’ name was announced in the final call by the steward standing three metres away from them and looking at them with pity as they broke apart.

Shion swallowed, handed Yves his bag, and pulled him in for a final, crushing hug before he stepped back, and they both returned to a world in which there weren’t angry forest gods.

The central library of NO. 3 had facilities for audiovisual conferences, and he got a card and paid in advance. Shion, as far as he understood, had access through his university. Their conversations happened mostly mornings before work for him and just after regular working hours for Shion; within three weeks, he knew Shion’s weekly schedule, or at least the hours. He got off early on Tuesdays, work long on Wednesdays, Fridays seemed to be unpredictable.

Every Sunday, without fail, he’d sit down in the booth and connect to Shion’s, and talk to him about his week as Shion listened, and then talked back about lord-knew-what because it wasn’t like he understood a blessed word of Japanese, and Shion seemed to have given up on his English. It didn’t feel like it mattered much. What he needed was the reminder that Shion was there, that Shion still was real.

Sometimes, they’d talk about Back Then. Shion would be saying the words “Rikiga-san” or “Safu” with considerable frequency, and he’d reply with stories about Dogkeeper and the theatre. He never talked about the Correctional Facility. There was too much to say about it, too much that Shion needed to know that he’d never known how to tell him then, and couldn’t tell him now because he spoke no language that Shion understood.

Seeing Shion’s smiling face and hearing the warmth in his voice was soothing the hour it lasted, but every time the beep warning of a minute left of his pre-paid time was a dread, would yank him back into a reality where Shion was on the other side of the world and he was here, and hearing their voices replicated throughte sub-standard speakers was the only thing they had. He’d smile as he waved goodbye, and he’d leave the library full with the knowledge that Shion still loved him, and his every day empty of the person who was meant to be next to him.

Winter was ending, and he knew something had to be done. He’d procured an audio-dictionary, which would recognise a word spoken and repeat it back in English, which eased their communications some. Shion had some kind of French aid, which he used for looking up words. Sometimes he’d speak entire phrases that he’d have to repeat thrice before they were decipherable. Yves was picking up new words in Japanese. He recognised names from Shion’s stories. He could tell when Shion asked him questions. He rarely knew if he answered them.

It had been so much easier when they were in the same place; when there was a world around them, and they could communicated by pointing and gestures and pointing. It had been so much better when they shared the same world, rather than telling each other in meaningless words as they sat in the sterile booths. They shared the same experience, he thought, he was pretty sure that Shion, too, had grown up ignorant of their past; they both shared the trauma of remembering, and the true horrors of the Correctional Facility, and a kiss on a hilltop overlooking the shattered ruins - not to mention the kiss by the airport gate.

“I want to be with you,” he said, knowing that with Shion’s atrocious concept of French pronunciations, he probably couldn’t even tell the words apart, “I wanna be in NO. 6. I want to go back there and live with you. It’s a beautiful city now. I’m tired of life here. I want to be with you.”

Shion replied in English, and he thought he said something like don’t be sad.

“I can’t afford to travel again. I need to save money, but this is so expensive. I’ve started bringing in lunch to work instead of eating out, so I can afford an extra conference card.”

The beep sounded.

“I have to go now. I miss you a lot, and I wish I could talk to you properly, so that we could make a plan. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Shion nodded and said something brief, and the pressed two fingers to his mouth that he moved towards the camera.

“Bye, now,” said Yves, and was sad as he tossed the used card into the bin next to the door.

The next day, he found that his food storage unit had malfunctioned, and the repairman could only shake his head in regret. “The fluid leaked into the cabinet, and cleaning it will be hazardous alone. You’ll have to have it replaced entirely.”

That was worth twice his monthly pay, and he wrote Shion an electronic letter, piecing together the pitifully little he remembered of English grammar with the help of a dictionary.

Shion,

My kitchen is destroyed. It is expensive. I have no money for conferences. I’m sorry.

Yves

A few hours later, there was a reply.

Yves,

I’m sorry to hear that. I wish I could help you. Please tell me when I can talk to you again.

Sion

The entire spring and well into summer, they exchanged brief, daily missives. His English improved, at least in writing. His new food cabinet was sleek and shiny. He kept a photo of Shion in his notebook, and he’d look at it and remember sleeping with his arms around him.

If the conferences had been empty calories, then the letters were the bare minimal above starvation. There was so much left to say, so much he had to tell Shion, so much he needed to know. Had Shion lived a happy life? Had he had a family? Did he grow old? Did he want to be with Yves, still?

Sion,

It’s warm now and the balcony herbs are sprouting. Anette had a cake at work. It was good. I want to talk with you.

Yves

It wasn’t unfair that world was vast - that was just a fact of life. And there had certainly been others before them that had been parted from their lovers. Probably from far more intimate lovers, too, though he felt like it should count for something that they’d been through this nonsense not just in one life, but in the next one too.

Yves,

It’s been eight months since you left. I was so happy to meet you, and I’m happy to send letters too. I wish you could be here.

Sion

He started practicing English words, during idle hours at work, and wondered if it was possible to get a tutor at Japanese.

August was cooling into September, and his dumb, flashy food cabinet was paid down. He had money left over from his paycheck, and he wondered when Shion’s birthday was. Wouldn’t that be some birthday present - a conference from halfway across the globe? Even if it was unlikely that Shion’s birthday was the same now as it had been the last time he lived. He should ask, his English was better, now. Sending a present would cost more than whatever he’d paid for the present proper, but he’d want to send something. Even if it was just something very small, he was sure it would make Shion happy.

He wondered if he could’ve have conversations with Shion, now. He wasn’t at all sure if he could speak English, but it surely couldn’t have been worse than Shion’s attempts at French. He wondered if a lot would have changed, if they talked now; it had been nearly six months since the last time. It had been over a year since they’d touched.

Nezumi had spent years mulling over how he was mulling over the fear that Shion had found someone else. Nezumi hadn’t wanted to want Shion, hadn’t wanted to want for Shion to want him. Nezumi had thought that love was dangerous, but Yves had lived twenty-five years without any such suspicions. He wanted his Shion, blue-eyed, unscarred, to wait for him; he wanted to be wanted, and there was a quiet despair growing that for every day that passed, Shion would realise just how stupid this was. Bonding over a shared past was one thing. Pursuing a relationship on opposite sides of the globe was impractical, at best. It was stupidly expensive, it was a constant ache.

It was the learning of a language he’d never need, because he needed for Shion to know about Nezumi’s regrets, and what Nezumi had wanted, and that he wanted to make it right, this time around.

Sunday afternoon was quiet by the library, and he leafed through the book he’d borrowed. Shakespeare. He remembered that one; remembered the contents of the play could’ve maybe cited lines from them if they hadn’t sounded all wrong when he tried speaking them in French. He soon realised that it probably wasn’t the best option for practicing his English; the language was strange and stilted, old-fashioned, probably; he couldn’t follow the sentences, and the single words he recognised were not enough to bring meaning.

He put the book down and closed his eyes. Being able to quote Shakespeare at any situation was a talent of limited applications. Being a traumatised genocide survivor was hardly better. Unconsciously destroying fourty percent of the infrastructure of the world’s most modern city was something, he supposed, but the years of unhappiness had not been worth it.

It was so much better to live comfortably with a new food cabinet, and knowing that somewhere out there was Shion, and this time, Shion knew that he’d be back.

“Do you not like the book?”

He opened his eyes, and Shion grinned at him, blue eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses and his face shadowed by a truly ridiculous straw hat.

“Didn’t understand it,” he replied, and reached out a hand.

“You must practice,” said Shion as he took it. “I practiced a lot,” he said as he sat down and switched his grip so that his hand rested comfortably in Yves’.

“Don’t mock me, genuis boy,” said Yves, and Shion turned his back to the sun and took off the sunglasses.

“Nezumi. I never told you. It was very important. I love you.”

“I know.”

“Yves.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah. Shion, you know - Nezumi - “

“Yves,” Shion interrupted him, and smiled brilliantly, “I know. I know what a kiss means.”

He tilted his head expectantly, and Yves, remembering the airport, plucked the hat from his head beforehand, this time.

#no6 #no.6 #no. 6 #no 6 #nezushi #into-september #into september #naniya27

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dzismycity · 6 years ago

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An Insight on Algeria’s Architecture!

Ketchaou Mosque in Algiers, Algeria

I have always wanted to know more about Algeria’s Architecture, gladly I was able to gain more insight about this great countries Architectural Identity through conducting an interview with Manel Zeghbib, an Algerian Master’s student in Architecture, in the University of Constantine 03, east of Algeria. She specifically has drawn her focus on the Architectural Conception and Urban Development.

I have asked Manel many questions that spiraled through my head, and thankfully she was able to answer them all with such great passion and enthusiasm towards the subject. The answers will give you a broader perspective behind architecture as a whole and in Algeria specifically too.

What was your understanding of architecture before University and what is your definition of architecture now?

Before university I didn't think much about architecture, it was certainly pleasing to see beautiful buildings that was all I saw, I didn't understand the meaning behind it nor did I know the history it tells. It never crossed my mind that I would be studying it, but alas I did, and after 5 years of studying my views about architecture have shifted from complete indifference into a burning passion. Architecture for me is not only a practical living arrangement or a functional working area, it's an expression of oneself, an expression of a current ideology, it marks milestones in history and identifies the shift in the eras of human existence.

Do you think architecture is vital to a country and why?

Yes, architecture is, in my opinion, vital to a country, it serves the economy as well creating an identity to the place. If we take the city of Bilbao in Spain for example, having Frank Gehry, an architect from the star system, design and build the Gugunheim museum saved the city's collapsing economy. The museum single handedly restored a city's economic development, and it became one of the biggest tourist attractions, this phenomenon is now known in the world of architecture as the Bilbao effect.

What are the factors that influence architecture?

The factors that influence architecture are too many to count but I will mention in short the social factors, cultural factors, the state of a country and the time and place in which the architecture is conceptualized. Architecture has been through many different consecutive movements following different groups of architects each trying to take it into the next generation, starting from the very first forms of architecture as Mésopotamie which relied heavily on functionality to the latest post modern movement which takes into consideration the shape as well as the function of its buildings. A country's political situation can also influence the architecture it brings, taking for example the Russian deconstructivist movement, following the cold War, or the brutalist movement, or even the modern movement following the industrial revolution. In short architecture can be affected by many factors each taking it in a different direction.

What are the types of architectural designs in Algeria? And what is the history behind them?

Algeria is a vast country, spreading from the Mediterranean sea to the great Sahara passing by the Atlas mountain chains , and this leads to the co-existence of divers ethnic groups located in different geographical areas with different climatic conditions, it comes as no surprise that these factors as well as its long history of being colonized by various forces, created a variety of architectural styles, each adapting to the needs of the people as well as their cultural and social traditions. For instance, the effect of the Ottoman invasion gave us the Medina type of urbanism, the best example for this is the Casbah of Algiers where we can find typical Medina houses with an Islamic influence which is portrayed in an inverted style where all the windows and doors are looking over the courtyard instead of the outside, in order to seek intimacy and shield the ladies of the house from the outside world. The French invasions impact is clear through the colonial style buildings which are more adapt to the European style of living, with windows overlooking the streets, they are almost a replica of buildings found in France and we can find these in the big cities like Algiers, Constantine and so on. Other less popular but authentic styles include the vernacular villages of native habitants, which in their turn change depending on the geographic location. In the great kabyle the houses are adapted to the difficult topography of the site, building their houses in a compact manner up the mountains, these villages are meant to take advantage of the naturally defensive nature of the site in which they are located for protection. Moving more towards the Sahara we can find what we call Ksour which come from the Nomadic nature of the people of the desert, they build their villages according to resources, once it’s no longer habitable, or they're in need of expanding, they find a better location to start a new Ksar. The houses simple squares with domes to fend against sand storms, they are shielded from the sun and have little to no windows to avoid direct sunlight exposure.

How many are they as a whole?

As a whole I could count off the top of my head 7 different styles: Medina, Colonial, Kabyle style, small Kabyle, Chaoui, Ksourian, Mozabite. I wouldn't count the post war buildings as I don't feel they appropriately speak for the Algerian society.

How were they influenced?

They were all influenced by the need for keeping up with the modern person's needs, seeking comfort in technological advances and the need to stay up to date with the modern world. The world is fast changing and so is the architecture, having a roof over one's head is not enough anymore, it's important to produce architecture that gives solutions to contemporary problems, such as energy efficiency and sustainable development.

What is the difference between Kabyle style and Small kabyle architecture??

The big Kabyle covers Titiouzou and Bouira, it's in the heart of the Djurjura, this leads to a very difficult geography so the villages are built uphill, they're more compact and the houses are rather small. As for the small kabyle, it includes Bejaia, Jijel and Setif in the region of Babour, these places are downhill and they have a more level ground which results in bigger houses and less compact villages.

What is the most prominent architecture design in Algeria?

The most prominent type would have to be, unfortunately the post war mass buildings which have no architectural identity. After the war the living conditions had to be taken care of as fast as possible, with half the population being homeless, resulting in a series of buildings following a new European movement called the International style. This style denies the cultural identity of people, their social practices or their traditions, it produces model buildings following calculated norms, thus stripped from any architectural value. These mass buildings don't conform to society's needs and so they were heavily modified by the users creating a large mess.

Are there new emerging ideas and designs in the construction of buildings in Algeria now?

Yes, Algeria, just like any developing country, is following the new sustainable movement, this means that it needs to think about energy efficiency before anything in the process of constructing it’s buildings, this lead to a series of new interesting ideas, architects now are taking into consideration the old ways of construction which take advantage of climatic conditions and build according to them, we are still in early stages of this movement, but a lot of projects are being put forward in this direction. This may be overlooked by people because everyone has the idea that architecture deals with forms and shapes only, but everything from technological to ecological advances are part of this field.

Are there any well known architects in the nation or growing architects as well? Do they get the recognition they deserve or? How did they affect the country’s architectural identity?

For Algeria, the torch of great architects have been handed down to the simple person, Algeria is one of the most iconic countries when is comes to vernacular architecture and earth architecture, this type is unique in the sense that it doesn't require a certified architect, it's built on the knowledge passed down from generation to the next. The habitants take pride in knowing their land and their social values more than anyone else, and so they take that into their advantage and construct masterpieces of sustainable architecture using only local materials. Analyzing this style brought so many things into the world of modern architecture and building technology. For example the technique of wind towers and sun chimney, which appeared in the Mozabite architecture, and which is not used worldwide to acclimate buildings and regulate heat and ventilation. Algerian architects who deserve credit for what they brought into the field are none other than simple villagers with a deep understanding of their land, and how to use the resources it gave them.

How is the designs of the west different to that of the east of Algeria? what are the similarities?

The west and east Algerian architecture shares a lot of similarities due to being in the same conditions, close to the mediterranean, differences can be found in the way that western architecture is more about prestigious buildings, big houses and castles, and the eastern is more of a medina style architecture.

Does Algeria share a similar architecture to that of other Maghreb neighboring countries?

Yes, it does this is due to the similarities they both share with their neighboring countries, Morocco has a more Maghariban style with the massive buildings just like the western states of Algeria; Oran, Tlemcen, Mostaganem, etc. And Tunisia has more of a Medina type architecture as it holds the record for the most well preserved Medinas in the world. Moreover, The east of Algeria like Constantine, Batna, Annaba, etc. shares a similar architecture with Tunisia.

By the end of the interview as a whole, I have gained new knowledge about the different architectural types in Algeria and how were they influenced, but not only that, I am happy to now call Manel a friend, who is a loving, kind and passionate soul! My idea about how the architecture of Algeria was only dominated by the last colonial rule has changed, because the architectural identity is more than that and is a reflection of the people's lifestyle as a whole. I have now a new interest to occupy myself in during my leisure time; reading more about the idea of architecture in Algeria. Not to forget to mention, my answers now to people asking me about my country’s architecture is much more complete to how it used to be, all thanks to Manels insightful answers.

#architecture youth Algeria Culture Diversity NorthAfrica Art

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twatd · 6 years ago

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6000 Years of Murder – Part Two: Sun Kings Last A Long Time

Tim: The Wicked + The Divine #36 finally gave us a definitive list of every damn Recurrence that has occurred since Ananke first started exploding heads, so we thought we’d take a walk through the annals of history and provide some context for what was happening at the time. Welcome to 6,000 Years of Murder.

In our second octet of Recurrences, the Bronze Age starts to get some traction, Egypt and Northern China dominate our Early Civilisation Showcase, and it’s still Big Boi Season when it comes to proboscideans. Spoilers (for real-world history, mostly) after the cut.

3128BC – Egypt Gillen notes in the letters page for this issue that he could easily have spent many, many pages of this section purely in Egypt. And while that’s clearly not what ended up happening, this little chunk of eight panels spends almost half its time there – and for good reason. In 3128BC, we’re just over 20 years into the reign of Menes aka Narmer, the first pharaoh to unify Upper and Lower Egypt (aka the upper Nile River and the Nile Delta respectively) and the founder of the First Dynasty.

It’s during this period, which lasts until around 2686BC, that the capital will move from Thinis to Memphis, and many of the hallmarks of what we think of as Ancient Egypt will emerge, from hieroglyphics to architecture to religion. This period is also when the idea of the pharaohs as god-kings, acting as intermediaries between the divine and the people of Egypt, emerged.

3036BC – Crete Egypt isn’t the only place where interesting stuff is happening, however. In nearby Crete, the Minoan civilisation is beginning to get into the swing of things. While the Bronze Age proper won’t truly arrive for a couple of hundred years, Crete during this period holds the “promise of greatness”, according to Kinder & Hilgemann in the Anchor Atlas of World History.

As time goes on, the early Minoan cities will become centres of commerce and craftsmanship, enabling the development of an upper class that will expand their influence and eventually become nobility and monarchy. The Minoan culture will go on to form the template for the Mycenaean Greeks, basically the beta test for what we think of as Ancient Greece. Which I guess makes this Recurrence the buggy pre-alpha for Socrates et al, and may explain why this is one of the few glimpses we get of a young Ananke/Minerva/whatever you want to call her.

2942BC – Japan We cross over into the 30th century and Ananke’s latest trip takes her further East than she’s ever been before, to Japan during the Early Jōmon period. As a relatively isolated island nation with little in the way of domesticated animals, Japanese culture at this point is comparable to pre-Columbian North America, i.e. hunting and gathering with a sprinkling of agriculture. The name Jōmon comes from distinctive pottery produced during this period, generally accepted to be among some of the oldest in the world.

To get more specific, as the Jōmon period stretches on for a long damn time, the culture at this point was relatively sedentary, with pit-houses and large pottery vessels not suited to frequent travelling. Japan was undergoing a population explosion at the time, and sustained itself with small-scale agriculture including soybeans, gourd and even peaches. (Mmm, peaches.) Fish was also a big deal, both along the coast and in deep-water lakes. The Jōmon period will remain relatively stable until around 300BC, when the Iron Age hits Japan and rice farming takes off in a big way.

2849BC – Northern China Between this Recurrence and the next one in Northern China, there seems to be some kind of competition going on for coolest names. Based on the mountains in the background of this panel, I suspect we’re dealing with the Majiayao culture of the upper Yellow River region, which also coincided with the supposed period of the Three August Ones and Five Emperors.

Let’s start with the Majiayao. Known for distinctive pottery which featured black pigments in sweeping parallel lines and dots, this early civilisation is also responsible for the oldest known bronze object in China, a knife found in Dongxiang dated to between 2900BC and 2740BC. As for the Three August Ones and Five Emperors, these are mythological culture heroes along the lines of Prometheus or Māui, credited with bringing the use of fire, houses, farming and silk weaving to people, as well as imparting morality and wisdom. Sounds suspiciously like a successful Pantheon to me...

2757BC – Egypt We head back to Egypt just in time for the end of the Early Dynastic Period and the start of the Old Kingdom aka THE AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS. I’m not kidding – that’s what it’s called in serious historical circles. The Old Kingdom won’t officially kick off until around 2686BC, and in fact the tail end of the Second Dynasty is a relatively obscure period for ancient Egypt, but it’s around now that the capital officially moves to Memphis, close to Giza where the Great Pyramids will be built.

Speaking of pyramids, it’s also during this time that wealthy Egyptians start demanding fancier funeral practices, and the construction of mastabas (imagine the bottom quarter of a pyramid) becomes commonplace. These will later become Step Pyramids, and finally the grand pointy constructions we all know and love. Language and agricultural practices are also developing at speed, and Egypt is quickly becoming the dominant cultural and economic power in the region.

2666BC – Northern China If our first trip to Northern China involved the Majiayao, I’m fairly sure our second features us paying a visit to the Longshan culture, named after the modern town of Longshan, or “Dragon Mountain”. This late Neolithic civilisation, centred on the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas, is also called the Black Pottery Culture. See what I meant about cool names? Like the Jōmon and the Majiayao, the Longshan culture was known for its distinctive pottery, and represented a period of intensified agriculture of millet, rice and wheat, and increased domestication of pigs, dogs, sheep and cattle.

Those Three August Ones and Five Emperors are still kicking around too, with the Huangdi or the Yellow Emperor supposedly reigning during this time. Regarded as the creator of the calendar, the initiator of Chinese civilisation and the ancestor of all Chinese people, he was until relatively recently thought to be a historical person rather than a mythical figure, and is still a powerful nationalist symbol in modern China.

2574BC – Egypt We’re basically ping-ponging between Egypt and Northern China at this point, and it’s easy to see why. Check out those PYRAMIDS IN THE BACKGROUND YO. While we were off visiting China, the Old Kingdom period began, marking one of the high points of civilisation in the lower Nile Valley. We are most likely here during the reign of Khufu, known to the Greeks as Cheops, who commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza and who, according to Herodotus was a heretic and a cruel tyrant. But what does the Father of History know, right?

As you might imagine from a culture capable of producing monuments that are still around today, Old Kingdom Egypt had gotten pretty advanced. The rulers of the formerly independent states became governors subject to the Pharaoh, funneling taxes towards him. Architects, masons, artists and sculptors all mastered new techniques as Egyptian art flourished. As in Uruk last time, it seems like this leap forward in progress might have helped Ananke’s quarry escape her.

2483BC – Wrangel Island Then again, maybe not. Wrangel Island, positioned in the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, wasn’t exactly winning awards as a beacon of civilisation back in the 25th Century BC. What it did boast was the last surviving population of woolly mammoths, which would still be hunted by pre-Inuit cultures until around 2000 BC, when they finally went extinct. Feel free to blame that on Ananke if you like.

What was life like for these tribes, living in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth? Well, they were working with stone and ivory tools and probably hunting reindeer, which migrated annually across the ice. Linguist Michael E. Krauss argues that Wrangel Island may have served as a way station for cultures following the reindeer, and there may even have been trade routes between what is now the north Siberian coast and Alaska. Within 500 years, the cultures in this area would switch their focus to fishing and hunting sea mammals, an innovation that would shape Arctic culture right up to the modern day.

Like what we do, and want to help us make more of it? Visit patreon.com/timplusalex

#WicDiv #The Wicked + The Divine #The Wicked and The Divine #TWATD #6000 Years of Murder #woolly mammoth

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wiadomosciprasowe · 5 years ago

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Finalist and shortlisted photographers in the Professional competition for the Sony World Photography Awards 2020

https://www.y6.no/finalist-and-shortlisted-photographers-in-the-professional-competition-for-the-sony-world-photography-awards-2020/

Finalist and shortlisted photographers in the Professional competition for the Sony World Photography Awards 2020

Dato: 11-02-2020 13:00 CET Opprinnelig tittel på pressemeldingen: Finalist and shortlisted photographers in the Professional competition for the Sony World Photography Awards 2020 Kategori: , Livsstil, mote, fritid Vitenskap, teknikk Detaljhandel

The World Photography Organisation is pleased to reveal the finalist and shortlisted photographers in the Professional competition for the Sony World Photography Awards 2020. Also included are details of new photographic projects by Sony Professional Grant 2019 recipients. Works by both Professional competition finalists and Grant recipients will go on display as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2020 exhibition at Somerset House this April.

Now in its 13th year, the Awards’ Professional competition rewards a remarkable body of work for technical excellence and a fresh perspective on contemporary subjects. The winner of Photographer of the Year 2020 will be selected from the group of Professional finalists and announced during the Sony World Photography Awards 2020 ceremony in London on 16 April.

Over 345,000 images from 203 territories were submitted across the 2020 Awards’ four competitions and over 135,000 were entered across the Professional competition’s 10 categories – the highest number of entries to date. A new Environment category has been introduced this year in recognition of the growing importance of this topic in both fine art photography and photojournalism.

This year’s finalist projects engage with a wide array of topics, photography techniques and presentation methods, covering personal subjects and observations, inventive approaches to storytelling and shedding light on little known but critical issues.

Sony World Photography Awards 2020 finalist photographers and projects are:

ARCHITECTURE

Forms and textures are the focus of abstract photographs by José De Rocco (Argentina), featuring vibrant building exteriors in Formalisms, as well as Jonathan Walland’s (UK) Structures; a minimalist black & white series depicting modern constructions. Sandra Herber’s (Canada) Ice Fishing, Lake Winnipeg presents whimsical images of the colourful ice fishing huts that dot the frozen surface of the lake in winter.

CREATIVE

In Seeds of Resistance, Pablo Albarenga (Uruguay) pairs pictures of landscapes and territories in danger from mining and agribusinesses with portraits of the activists fighting to conserve them. Using shots of social media posts, chats and Skype or WhatsApp calls, Kill Me With an Overdose of Kindnessby Dione Roach (Italy) examines the way in which relationships and intimacy are lived and expressed online. Witness Objects by Luke Watson (UK) comprises images of pinhole cameras made using historical objects from the Bosnian War alongside photographs taken with these makeshift cameras of meaningful locations around Sarajevo.

DISCOVERY

In Invisible Wounds, Hugh Kinsella Cunningham (UK) stains his images in red to communicate the suffering and distress caused by a viral Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo while in The Cave, Maria Kokunova (Russia) uses symbolism and allegory to examine personal trauma. Cast Out of Heaven by Hashem Shakeri (Iran) looks at the lives of those forced to leave Tehran due to the economic downturn and move into inadequate state-funded housing projects.

ENVIRONMENT

Wahala by Robin Hinsch (Germany) documents the devastating effects of continued oil spillage and natural gas flaring along the Niger delta river. In Atlas from the Edge, Álvaro Laiz (Spain) explores the concept of ‘natural symmetry’ as practiced by the indigenous group, the Chukchi, whose traditional lifestyle evolved according to their mode of subsistence. In The Future of Farming, Luca Locatelli (Italy), portrays high tech agrofarming systems from around the world, a possible solution to future food shortages.

DOCUMENTARY

Didier Bizet’s (France) series Baby Boom examines the reborn phenomena, a lifelike baby doll collected by enthusiasts and used by adoptive parents in preparation and by elderly patients in need of companionship. Poignant portraits of Hongkongers injured during the protests are the focus of Chung Ming Ko’s (Hong Kong) project Wounds of Hong Kong, whereas Zhang Youqiong’s (China) From ‘Made in China’ to ‘Made in Africa’ documents workers in the Chinese funded venture, the Ethiopian Oriental Industrial Park, a key enterprise in China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ in Africa.

LANDSCAPE

Torii by Haggard Benhert (Germany) features photographs of Buddhist and Shinto temples across Japan, while New Home by Chang Kyun Kim (Korea), comprises photographs of Japanese Internment Camps in which thousands of US citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned during the Second World War. Project 596 by Florian Ruiz (France) depicts the barren landscape of Lop Nor, a former salt lake in China previously used as a nuclear weapons test site.

NATURAL WORLD & WILDLIFE

Masahiro Hiroike (Japan) captures the enchanting lights emitted by fireflies in the forests of Tottori, Japan in Himebotaru and in Macro, Adalbert Mojrzisch (Germany) uses macro lens technique to provide a closeup view of the intricate colours and patterns of insect and amphibian eyes. Pangolins in Crisis by Brent Striton (South Africa) looks at the illegal trade and rescue efforts of pangolins, the world’s most illegally trafficked mammals.

PORTRAITURE

In Passengers, Cesar Dezfuli (Spain) juxtaposes striking portraits of migrants taken in 2016 as they first arrived on European shores with more recent images that better convey their personalities and the transformation they’ve experienced. Unsung Heroes by Denis Rouvre (France) presents the portraits and harrowing tales of women who have been victims of violence and in Ukrainian Railroad Ladies, Sasha Maslov (Ukraine) portrays the women who work as train station guards and explores their social role as a symbol of continuity in a country torn by war and political upheavals.

STILL LIFE

Disassembled Memory is a catalogue of photographs depicting the disassembled parts of Fangbin Chen’s (China) childhood bicycle in an attempt to recall and preserve his memories from that time, while in Plexus, Elena Helfrecht (Germany) delves into her family’s archive to examine the effects of inherited trauma and collective memory. In IMMORTALITY, INC. Alessandro Gandolfi (Italy) goes into research labs and institutions to document the processes and objects which represent modern science’s advancements in its pursuit to overcome death.

SPORT

Wrestling has become the number one sport in Senegal and is also a means of social ascendance steeped in tradition and ritual, in Senegalese Wrestlers, Angel Lopez Soto (Spain) explores these practices through images of young wrestles in training, whereas Dives by Andrea Staccioli (Italy) presents poetic portraits of athletes in mid-dive at the Gwangju Diving World Championships. Lucas Barioulet’s(France), The Long and Difficult Path of the Mauritanian National Women's Football Team looks at the challenges and cultural tensions faced by the female players in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

The work of finalist and shortlisted photographers in the Professional competition was judged by: Claudi Carreras Guillén, Independent curator, editor, and cultural manager; Touria El Glaoui, Founding Director of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair; Katie Hollander, Director, Annenberg Space for Photography; Gwen Lee, Director, Singapore International Photography Festival; Brent Lewis, Photo Editor, The New York Times / Co-Founder, Diversify Photo; and Chair and exhibition curator Mike Trow, picture editor and consultant.

SONY PROFESSIONAL GRANT 2019

Chosen from the Professional category finalists of the Sony World Photography Awards 2019, the latest Sony Professional Grant recipients are Yan Wang Preston (UK, 1stplace, Landscape), Edward Thompson (UK, 3rd place, Brief), Kohei Ueno (Singapore, 2nd place, Sport) and Tuomas Uusheimo (Finland, 2nd place, Architecture). Each photographer was given $7,000 (USD) and the latest Sony digital imaging equipment in April 2019, along with the freedom to create entirely new works or to to develop a long-term project.

Exhibited projects include:

Wilderness Expanses by Yan Wang Preston continues the artist’s long-term investigation towards the complexities of nature in modern societies. Taken in different ecology-recovery areas in China, Preston uses a black & white aesthetic in the tradition of classic landscape photography to explore questions surrounding the recreation and recovery of our wildernesses. Edward Thompson uses the Brexit process as the backdrop to his project, documenting related national and local events.

The beauty of life, forgiveness, and the power of positive change by Kohei Ueno looks at the annual migration and slow recovery of the 'Tongan Tribe', a pod of whales, which was almost hunted to extinction during the devastating large-scale commercial whaling that occurred during the post-war era. Out of bounds by Tuomas Uusheimo examines the architecture, spatiality and boundaries of sports fields.

PROFESSIONAL COMPETITION 2020 FINALISTS AND SHORTLIST

ARCHITECTURE:

Finalists:

Sandra Herber, Canada José De Rocco, Argentina Jonathan Walland, England

Shortlist:

Swen Bernitz, Germany Liang Chen, China Mainland Jeoffrey Guillemard, France Marcin Płonka, Poland Maria Burasovskaya, Russian Federation Laurin Schmid, Germany Alexander Tatarenko, Russian Federation

CREATIVE:

Finalists:

Pablo Albarenga, Uruguay Dione Roach, Italy Luke Watson, UK

Shortlist:

Michel Le Belhomme, France Nicoletta Cerasomma, Italy Joseph Ford, United Kingdom Ritsuko Matsushita, Japan Serge Varaxin, Russian Federation Reuben Wu, UK

DISCOVERY:

Finalists:

Hugh Kinsella Cunningham, UK Maria Kokunova, Russian Federation Hashem Shakeri, Iran

Shortlist:

Diogo Baptista, Portugal Emmanuelle Firman, France Adrian Francis, USA Massimo Gurrieri, Italy Thomas Hänisch, Germany Edward Kaprov, Israel Murat Yazar, Turkey

DOCUMENTARY:

Finalists:

Didier Bizet, France Chung Ming Ko, Hong Kong Youqiong Zhang, China Mainland

Shortlist:

David Butow, USA Nicholas Moir, Australia Patrick Wack, France Eddy van Wessel, Netherlands Ian Willms, Canada

ENVIRONMENT:

Finalists:

Robin Hinsch, Germany Álvaro Laiz, Spain Luca Locatelli, Italy

Shortlist:

Jenny Evans, Australia Marco Garofalo, Italy Eddo Hartmann, Netherlands Maximilian Mann, Germany Pierpaolo Mittica, Italy Carolina Rapezzi, Italy Kristof Vrancken, Belgium

LANDSCAPE:

Finalists:

Ronny Behnert, Germany Chang Kyun Kim, South Korea

Florian Ruiz, France

Shortlist:

Mauro Battistelli, Italy Jeroen van Dam, Netherlands Andrius Grigalaitis, Lithuania Sybren Vanoverberghe, Belgium Peixia Xie, China Mainland

NATURAL WORLD & WILDLIFE:

Finalists:

Masahiro Hiroike, Japan Adalbert Mojrzisch, Germany Brent Stirton, South Africa

Shortlist:

Pierre Anquet, France Songda Cai, China Mainland Marko Dimitrijevic, Switzerland Tobias Friedrich, Germany Joan de la Malla, Spain Yevhen Samuchenko, Ukraine

PORTRAITURE:

Finalists:

Cesar Dezfuli, Spain Sasha Maslov, Ukraine Denis Rouvre, France

Shortlist:

Richard Ansett, United Kingdom Raul Ariano, Italy Jon Enoch, UK Adam Ferguson, Australia Adrián Markis, Argentina Magdalena Stengel, Germany Tomáš Vrana, Czech Republic

SPORT:

Finalists:

Lucas Barioulet, France José López Soto, Spain Andrea Staccioli, Italy

Shortlist:

Giuliano Berti, Italy Anton Dotsenko, USA Frédéric Duhayer, France Mikhail Kapychka, Belarus Sarah Sasani, Iran Federico Tardito, Italy

STILL LIFE:

Finalists:

Alessandro Gandolfi, Italy Elena Helfrecht, Germany Fangbin Chen, China Mainland

Shortlist:

Sabina Candusso, Italy Emilia Cocking, United Kingdom Sandrine Dippa, France Paul Fuentes, Mexico Molly Percy, United Kingdom Yelena Strokin, Russian Federation Cecilia Manzanares Vargas, Mexico

IMAGES AVAILABLE AT WORLDPHOTO.ORG/PRESS

IMAGE CREDITS

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

VISITOR & LISTING INFORMATION

TITLE:Sony World Photography Awards 2020

VENUE:Somerset House, London, WC2R 1LA

DATES: 17 April – 4 May, 2020

OPENING TIMES: Monday – Friday, 10am-9pm / Saturday – Sunday, 10am-8pm

TICKETS: Available to buy on 5 March, 2020 (£9-14). Find out more at worldphoto.org/exhibition

Kilde: Pressekontor – PRESSEMELDING –

————

Hashtags: # #Livsstil, mote, fritid Vitenskap, teknikk Detaljhandel Livsstil, mote, fritid Vitenskap, teknikk Detaljhandel

#fritid Vitenskap #Livsstil #mote #teknikk Detaljhandel #Pressemeldinger

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architectnews · 3 years ago

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Chulalongkorn University presents 10 student design projects as part of INDA Parade

An educational programme based on a train and a cultural funhouse are included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Also featured is a digital display exploring the river species in the Gulf of Thailand and a bus stop that also functions as a florist.

Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

School: Chulalongkorn University, Thailand Courses: Architecture Tutors: Design Studio Instructors, Dr. Surapong Lertsithichai, Dr Sorachai Kornkasem, Dr Scott Drake, Christo Meyer, Marie-Louise Raue, Tijn van de Wijdeven, Paul Francis Feeney, William Bertram Hulbert, Michal Jurgielewicz, Patrick Donbeck, Payap Pakdeelao, Pratana Klieopatinon, Takanao Todo, Thomas Lozada, Chon Supawongse, Ekapob Suksudpaisarn, Pitchapa Jular, Eduardo Cassina, Per Stefan Svedberg, Hseng Tai Lintner, Warisara Sudswong, Liva Dudareva, Oliver Losser, Juan Cuevas Duran, Ema Hana Kacar and Kamonsin Chathurattaphol Design team: Takanao Todo, Wasutop Viriyasuebpong, Nattha Dhamabutra and Santasak Apasuthirat Video Team: Wiput Vitayarueangdej and Thanapat Chintanapramote

School statement:

"INDA is the International Programme in Design and Architecture of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. It aims to nurture diversity in design approaches and methodologies based on a clear framework of constructive dialogue.

"The school is a four-year bachelor programme with a strong emphasis on design studios through architectural design, topics and methodologies relevant to contemporary architecture, with a particular focus on South East Asian dynamics and specificities. Although INDA has adopted architecture as its main course topic, it aims to show how architecture connects to other disciplines, such as landscape architecture and urban design.

"INDA Parade is the main event of the school held at the end of each academic year. It aims to enable the community of students, instructors, alumni, guests and the public to discover and celebrate students' works collectively as an ongoing conversation.

"Today, we are bridging between physical reality, AR/VR, and online platforms for communication. INDA annual student show, INDA Parade 2021 – The Butterfly Dream represents the seamless dialogues between these realities."

Atlas by Jew – Chinnapat Asavabenya

"Atlas is an autonomous digital platform created to govern change and enable the flow of data. To map time, the transaction, proposition, and interaction of our nature are discussed without making assumptions. Different systems and ideas of ownership are contextualised in various layers.

"Where the hierarchies of each layer are established through their relevancy among each inhabiting entity. Usage of the 'map' is done in parallel with the simulation of time, allowing us to envision the consequences of each decision consciously.

"Each map becomes an artefact of dialogue, an archive of the past discussion and simulation of the future."

Student: Jew – Chinnapat Asavabenya Course: Year Four, Semester Two Tutor: Michal Jurgielewicz Email: chinnapat.asavabenya[at]gmail.com

Bureau of the Urban Commons by Orm – Santhila Chanoknamchai

"The 'Bureau of the Urban Commons' is redefining the rule of engagement within the public realm of Bangkok through a series of civic-scale interventions that stitch the urban fabric vertically and horizontally.

"The project capitalises on the spatial potential of The Green Mile, a hidden 1.3-kilometre linear bridge that stitches across central Bangkok. It deploys multi-level connectivity strategies to promote active participation and co-creation engagement, operating on a feedback system expressed through the performative structures. Where along with the commonalities throughout the Green Mile, our everyday life would never be the same."

Student: Santhila Chanoknamchai Course: Year four, Semester one Tutor: Christo Meyer Email: Santhila.ch[at]gmail.com

Funhouse by BamBam – Rachapon Jidapasirikul

"The project challenges the notion of symbolism and ornament in architectural design. It explores a new typology of a public building, destabilising the increasingly obsolete libraries, cinemas and museums today.

"Instead, this building, its architecture, and its interior apparatus act as an interface between the physical world and the virtual world of the internet.

"Through a series of interactive sensory media rooms and AR and VR devices, visitors interface with information, education, communication, gaming, multimedia consumption, exhibitions and other forms of exchange. It is the spatialisation of the internet in the form of a recontextualised funhouse."

Student: BamBam – Rachapon Jidapasirikul Course: Year four, Semester two Tutor: Per Stefan Svedberg Email: rachapon.jidapasirikul[at]cuinda.com

Quarantine Cities: The Continuous Journey by Minnie – Anchalika Thepnumsommanus

"Quarantine Cities: The Continuous Journey" approaches the civic as an architecture for the instrumentalization of mental and emotional conditions as a consequence of the essential solitary quarantine during pandemic society.

"'Quarantine is a disease towards mental health', explores the possibility of offering 14-days quarantine as a continuous trip where travel is fearless."

Student: Minnie – Anchalika Thepnumsommanus Course: Year three, Semester two Tutor: Payap Pakdeelao

Against the Dry by Khem – Thongthat Harnvorrayothin

"This era's consummation of 'dryness' has contributed to the rise of inequality throughout architecture and society. Dryness criticizes the in-create disconnection between existing and new builds. This project compares 'wet' and 'dry' design. It explores architectural ideas and modern needs and how theory influences design in the contemporary era.

"It explores the connection between them, discussing the widespread usage of architectural approaches in modern design through the observation from indigenous living in Bangkachao Bangkok. The natural layer is separated from the concrete coating.

"It concludes with the utopian planning proposal, which touches on all the subjects that made the city more 'wet'. The plan was called "fluid design," which included the allocation of the site, the architecture, and the community."

Student: Khem – Thongthat Harnvorrayothin Course: Year three, Semester two Tutor: Eduardo Cassina Email: fahkhem[at]gmail.com

GoogleExpress by Than – Thanapat Limpanaset

"GoogleExpress is an educational programme situated within a train. It critiques traditional institutions, and is a proposal built off of the upcoming 'Google Institute' with the ambition to disrupt the college degree by launching a new programme on digital citizenship and business start-up.

"Google Culture is embedded in the programme, treating education as a hectic, crash course to be completed together alongside the company, allowing levels of intimacy to be formed in every aspect of life on the train.

"To conquer the train, it strips away schedules, exams and uniforms and pushes friendships and connections, where the emphasis is not the courses, but a rather hectic sprint towards digital citizenship. Here, trainees are fully in control of their own education."

Student: Than – Thanapat Limpanaset Course: Year three, Semester one Tutor: Liva Dudareva Email: Tansinstagram[at]gmail.com

Responsible Incinerated Passing (R.I.P.) by Poon - Tassaporn Sukhumhanakul

"Responsible Incinerated Passing (R.I.P.) is a site-specific methodology that aims to offset the carbon emitted into the atmosphere of Bangkok in the process of cremation.

"R.I.P. merges the technology of direct air capture with the sensitivity of Buddhist belief and aims to not only redesign the three existing temple typologies (the temple for The Commoners, The Monks, and The King) to decrease their environmental harm, but also acts as a behavioural guide on how to reduce one's carbon footprint, both before and after your remains are emitted into the sky, in the form of harmless mist rather than smoke."

Student: Poon - Tassaporn Sukhumhanakul Course: Year two, Semester two Tutor: Ema Hana Kacar Email: sukhumdhanakul.t[at]gmail.com and poonsukhumdhanakul[at]gmail.com

Dressed for the dead by Pann – Nara Lojanatorn

"This project investigates a range of informal to formal outfits. They are explored through contrasting rituals of the Teochew Cemetery, the everyday routine of a cemetery that has become a public park and an annual gathering place for ancestral worship.

"The typology of the cemetery presents no end. The tomb tiers are developed from traditional tombstone forms and construction, while the wood scaffold facilitates changing activities throughout the years. The visits may cease, but the spirit remains."

Student: Pann – Nara Lojanatorn Course: Year two, Semester one Tutor: Pratana Klieopatinon Email: pannnara[at]gmail.com

The Crustacean by Poon – Poonyapa Arakwatan

"The Crustacean explores the sea and river species in the Saen Saeb canal and the Gulf of Thailand. It is a series of cabinets of curiosities inspired by exoskeleton sea creatures and the darkness of the polluted canal.

"To express aesthetic sea creatures through digital display in contrast to pollution caused by people living along Saen Saeb canal and to encourage people to take responsibility for our waterways and the ocean.

"The cabinet includes two main displays; the AR texture is hidden in part of the cabinet, and the VR effect for experiencing the whole cabinet creatures come alive in the digital world."

Student: Poon – Poonyapa Arakwatan Course: Year one, Semester two Tutor: Per Stefan Svedberg Email: poonyapaarakwatana[at]gmail.com

The Petal of Time by Poon – Poonyapa Arakwatan

"Every place has character uniqueness, similar to Wat Kheak (Sri Maha Mariamman Temple) Hindu temple. Focusing on transportation and the rotting process of organics offering to the god, The Petal of Time is a kiosk where arrival and departure are waiting for the bus and interacting with flowers.

"The main programmes of The Petal of Time are the bus stop and the flower shop. Providing an opportunity for passengers waiting for the bus, buying flowers, and composting them after use. The essential concept that makes these programmes run harmoniously is inspired by organic transformation."

Student: Poon – Poonyapa Arakwatan Course: Year one, Semester one Tutor: Patrick Donbeck Email: poonyapaarakwatana[at]gmail.com

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

The post Chulalongkorn University presents 10 student design projects as part of INDA Parade appeared first on Dezeen.

#Architecture – Dezeen

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abriabriabri · 4 years ago

Photo

Bibliographie architecture / photographie

- Basic forms, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Prestel

- Atlas of form, Eric Tabuchi, Antenne books

- Bunker, Boris Becker, Snoeck

- Modern Forms: A Subjective Atlas of 20th-century Architecture, Prestel

- Soviet bus stops, Fuel editions

- Handmade Houses & Other Buildings: The World of Vernacular Architecture, Anthony Reid

- Jean Prouvé, architecte des jours meilleurs, Phaidon

- Mobitecture, Phaidon

- Cabane : L'architecture : du vernaculaire au contemporain, l’inédite

- California crazy, Taschen

- La maison, la ville et les gens, le phénomène bidonville, édition du passage

- Learning from Vernacular, Acte sud

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janegregorycontextlog · 4 years ago

Text

Context Log: Gerhard Richter

Abstraktes Bild Abstract Painting

2009 200 cm x 300 cm Catalogue Raisonné: 911-2

Oil on canvas

Cage 52006 300 cm x 300 cm Catalogue Raisonné: 897-5Oil on canvas

Eisberg im Nebel Iceberg in Mist1982 70 cm x 100 cm Catalogue Raisonné: 496-1Oil on canvas

September

2005 52 cm x 72 cm Catalogue Raisonné: 891-5

Oil on canvas

Biography

Richter was an outsider post-war due to various relocations.

World War 2 and the woe of his mother over the death of her siblings impacted him.

Germany under Soviet control.

His mother bought him a single plate camera. The camera shop owner taught him how to develop photos when he was a child.

Soviets turned rich houses into libraries, Richter was able to access illustrated books which prompted his first drawings.

At 15 years Richter started to draw regularly. He drew people dancing and enjoying themselves and then he felt bitter; the anger and energy appeared in his drawing.

He was an apprentice for different companies, he realised he wanted to go to art school but He had an unsuccessful application. The new Germany dictated that if he worked for a state-run textile plan as a painter he was accepted into art school.

The teachers were real artists however there was a Soviet agenda imposed a socialist realism and ideology where they were not allowed to study decadence and western ideas.

Richter had a long fascination with murals and sat and watched Lillig at work.

Richter had family in the west and was able to stay in touch with trends there.

Richter had to ‘fall in line’, but he could no longer adhere to the dictates of the state.

Turning point for him was Documenta II, Kassel 1959 when he saw work by Jackson Pollock, Lucio Pontana etc. which made his realise there was something wrong with the whole way of thinking in east Germany; there work an expression of a totally different and new context.

He moved to West Germany and studied at Dusseldorf which led to him co-exhibiting and then having his first solo exhibition in main galleries where collectors visited. He worked on the side as a teacher.

Throughout his early career consciousness of death became the characteristic of his work.

In 1967 he introduced geometric abstraction to his work through colour charts influenced by Polermo. By the end of the 60’s Richter had become a successful contemporary artist.

Analysis of Artists Practice

(In the artists own words:)

Leave everything as it is (historical documentation)

Never plan anything (perhaps because of the uncertain years of WWII)

Add nothing and omit nothing but invent, alter and manipulate work (a combination of painting and photography).

The strength and terrifying power of an idea which goes to death (Conscious of death)

Most impressive thing to his is inextricable ideologies as harmful (Soviet/police state)

Ideologies must be taken seriously as a behaviour and not a content

..otherwise they become foes (force of the state over free thinking)

Not knowing where the painting is going – an extension of an action (like life)

Beings lost, being a loser reveals the most possible fate and options

Against collective security (borrowing from and doctoring photographs)

A spectator with something to do makes life more bearable (how he sees the profession)

Being able to do something is never a reason for doing it (meaning)

Richter’s work of paint racing across the frame at a running speed could be described as action painting similar of the work of Jackson Pollock which first inspired him as a young art student (perhaps from the anger and energy in his youthful work).

Richter’s work exists in the post-modernism era, known mainly for appropriation. An era in which artists borrowed from other artists. Post-modernism was not a movement but a wide-ranging term for a range of techniques including the late 1970’s emergence of Neo-expressionism (reviving German art of the 1920’s) for which Richter’s work is described.

The post-modern art draws from philosophical ideas Freud’s theory of existentialism which emphasises the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will which can be seen in Richter’s work. The borrowing or stealing of an artist’s work; creating new work, reinterpreting images relates to the dualistic nature of his work of ‘reality versus interpretation’.

Richter’s active painting of blurring the image with paint depicting the action of the planes (September (2005)), records the reality of the event. The distorted image appears almost healed from the sharp photograph - erasing the emotion. To me it depicts energy the speed and movement, the pathway of the jets into the building.

Definitions and Techniques

He is referred as the painter without the brush

He uses metal, wood and home-made squeegees to paint with

He recognises the movement in making – ‘Cage’ after a composer - movement

Everything has to be completely under control

Every move has a purpose – active painting

He changes his pallet and technique to no brush but movements in colour, deep surfaces in all colour in the work: Abstrakte Bilder

Formative years in communist East Germany and then exposed to pop painters.

Richter’s work of paint racing across the frame at a running speed could be described as action painting similar of the work of Jackson Pollock with his western ideas first inspired him as a young art student.

He used a small canvas with an image of the twin towers with a blue sky. He actively scraped a horizontal blur colliding with the two vertical pushes against a blue-sky backdrop.

He actively scraped paint across the surface of an existing image. The dualistic nature of his work of ‘reality (photograph) versus interpretation’ (painterly strokes) fixes his own idea on the subject.

In the work Abstrakte Bilder he moves his body back and forth, up and down the use of black and white tones to create a link between the two canvases.

He looks at construct and composition and directs the pathway of the viewer’s eyes causing active participation in the viewer.

On glass he either paints over painting or he uses reflected painting from glass works. He uses glass installations as partitions in his exhibition as the glass plays with light and structure in linear forms like architecture.

His work ‘Atlas’ (photo-based paintings into a visual set) a photograph projected onto the canvas; Richter traced the image with charcoal and a ruler. Every minute detail is traced ready for paint. While the pigment is still wet he drags over the paint with a dry brush or sponge, blurring the lines. (Seeing murals being created as a young man may have influenced his large-scale work).

Richter’s painting (woman with umbrella) has an element of psychology, drawing on moments such as – Jackie Kennedy after the death of her husband. The feathery strokes create a blurred confusion of events.

His blurred canvas’ are like ghosts, whispering at the viewer.

Sheena Wagstaff ‘Paint After All’ describes Richter’s technique as ‘an excavation of a memory’ and ‘complex’. He uses a dual mode of representation, investigating imagery using the nature of painterly approaches which act as a paradox in the photo.

Cage work: 6 huge abstract canvases – named after American minimalist John Cage.

Richter listened to Cage’s music whilst he painted. Richter used the process of smearing paint in a active sweep using hand-made squeegee tools over metres of canvas in response to Cage’s conducting of music.

Context

In relation to his stripes and patterns work he said he played like a little child. He experimented, dabbled, divided, mirrored but didn’t design. He said the pattern came out of the method of painting.

The interviewer said that his work usually viewed in America is of ambient candles and depth, the stripes had flatness about them. He said that the work reflects the time that we are living in.

He said he doesn’t know what time (era) it is and it fascinates him.

Today, he says, we don’t need painting anymore, but entertainment. He said viewers want to be entertained and look at ‘nice things’ whereas he said as young artist it was about the important things, the seriousness of politics. He said, we have gone from serious things to interesting things.

He said that he emerged from a Soviet Ideology where people were not interested in the learning because it was all propaganda lies. He said he had to learn Russian, learn how to draw and paint and move away from communist ideology and state control.

Richter believes in art. He believes that he can make something better than himself.

Richter’s work of paint racing across the frame at a running speed could be described as action painting similar of the work of Jackson Pollock which first inspired him as a young art student.

His work has an emphasis of realism based off of over painting photographs and large-scale abstracts produced by dragging squeegees across layers of paint onto the canvas. He wants to keep painting alive through his practice he says.

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