#which is inspired by italian literature but set in a french time period. and i wonder if the devs chose this track for that very reason

[lopposting]

The original waltz, "Fascination", written in 1904, and quite fitting to the game: composed by a man who had italian origins, but written in france.

Do you ever think he imagined people still like his song?

[gaad]

“The State as apparatus of capture has a power of appropriation; but this power does not consist solely in capturing all that it can, all that is possible, of a matter defined as phylum. The apparatus of capture also appropriates the war machine, the instruments of polarization, and the anticipation prevention mechanisms. This is to say, conversely, that anticipation prevention mechanisms have a high power of transference (...)”. “(...) (W)ar machines have a power of metamorphosis, which of course allows them to be captured by States, but also to resist that capture and rise up again in other forms, with other “objects” besides war (revolution?). Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can go along with the others or go against them (...). Each process can switch over to other powers, but also subordinate other processes to its own power.” (1) “The idea of a constitution (...) involves not only the idea of hierarchy of authority or power but also that of a hierarchy of rules or laws, where those possessing a higher degree of generality and proceeding from a superior authority control the contents of the more specific laws that are passed by a delegated authority.” (2) It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess todays world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities.  As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive, mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now her interest does not lie in presenting her various personal relations with them but to stage them. “(...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature.” This is Elisabeth's inherited background. “(...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis.They establish the national brand: they attempt to control the national market: they create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population that bears, in fact, no relation to the actual regional sub stratum—although in the course of time it partly succeeds in producing the thing it has imagined.” Take Paris for example: “(...) the Champs Elysées, become the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement becomes the ��spiritual power” of this new regime.” (3)

“This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...)  (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts.” (4)

The time of revolution is now back but as Foucault said : “il faut avoir une méfiance absolue et totale à l'égard de tout ce qui se présente comme un retour. L'une des raisons de cette méfiance est logique : il n'y a jamais, en fait, de retour.”(5) Therefore the story of Elisabeth's friends will intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. In Momus from Alberti “the extended climax (of the seventh book) occurs in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, Alberti) repeatedly uses the word persona (and so will we) (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters.” (6) “Or, as is the case now, the mask assures the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask is now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face.” (1) So be it. Let them be the masked actors of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies, systems, embedded in concepts and rituals. “They (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities.” (7)

Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up, do not apologize. This is Elisabeth's Friends. Pandora has inherited a box, a jarre which contains unspeakable truth. She knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others. Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions. She learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters and Metis is renowned for his wiseness and cunning, making problems no longer valid. As a constellation, they are powerful. As a unity, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithful story, it accesses the realm of discussion. As statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where “(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible, and in what cases it makes it possible.(...) The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map.” (1 ) “How disappointing this answer seems to be! We asked what was the origin of Ideas and where problems come from: in reply we invoke throws of the dice, imperatives and questions of chance instead of an apodictic principle; an aleatory point at which everything becomes ungrounded instead of a solid ground.” (8)

“For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it.” (9) To anchor ourselves we will now deepen our reflexion in space with Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : “The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand.” (10)  Their concept and ideas of proportions being a fertile ground from which we should elevate. This palace will be a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, simultaneously, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown. If we follow Alberti and Vitruve who compare the three typologies as such: “(...) (W)e will describe both manners of spectacles. In the first, which is for the delight of peaceful times, are introduced the poets, musicians, and actors. In the second, which regard the studies of war, are performed different kinds of duels and contests having to do with bodily strength and dexterity.To the former is dedicated the theatre, a name which means both ‘spectacle’ and ‘a place to watch’.To the latter, which are spectacles of agility and dexterity such as running or jumping, is dedicated the circus. To events such as assaults and fights against animals or men is dedicated the amphitheatre. There are some things that are proper to all of these spectacles: first, that they are horn shaped and curved; next, that they have an open space in the middle; and finally, that they have steps all around and raised places where people can sit and watch.” (11) “But then they differ as to the Form of the aforesaid Area; for those which have this Area in the Shape of a Moon in its Decrease are called Theatres, but when the Horns are protracted a great Way forwards, they are called Circusses, because in them the Chariots make a Circle about the Goal.” (12) So if we follow them and we free this typologies from their form, we can imagine a place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. This Palace will be entered through a garden where a fountain lies at its very center. Heron's Fountain one could claim. Another form of spectacle.

1) Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 2) Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty 3) Mumford, The Culture of Cities 4) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 5) Foucault, Le savoir, le pouvoir et l'espace 6) Alberti, Momus (Preface) 7) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 8) Deleuze, Difference and Repetition 9) Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 10) Ayache, The Blank Swan 11) Williams, Daniele Barbaros Vitruvius of 1567 12) Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Further quotes: 

Vitruve

these vessels - ( poor vessels) large jars made of clay, but similarly resonant

THE plan of the theatre itself is to be constructed as follows. Having fixed upon the principal centre, draw a line of circumference equivalent to what is to be the perimeter at the bottom, and in it inscribe four equilateral triangles, at equal distances apart and touching the boundary line of the circle, as the astrologers do in a figure of the twelve signs of the zodiac, when they are making computations from the musical harmony of the stars. Taking that one of these triangles whose side is nearest to the scaena, let the front of the scaena be determined by the line where that side cuts off a segment of the circle (A B), and draw, through the centre, a parallel line (C D) set off from that position, to separate the platform of the stage from the space of the orchestra.

The circus was based, so it is said, on the heavens

Unlike that of the amphitheater, the central area of a circus was not empty, nor was it filled with a stage, like that of a theater --------------------------------------------------------------- Alberti

We have dealt with the theater; next we shall discuss the circus and amphitheater.All buildings of this type are derived from the theater: a circus is nothing but a theater with its wings extended along parallel lines, although its nature does not require the addition of a portico; an amphitheater, meanwhile, consists of two theaters, their tiers linked into a continuous circle.They differ in that the theater is a form of semiamphitheater; another difference is that the central area of the amphitheater is quite empty and free of any stage. In every other respect they are similar, especially in their tiers, porticoes, passages, and so on. The amphitheater, we think, was built originally for the hunt; this was why they decided to make it round, so that the wild beast, trapped there and baited, with no corner into which to retreat, would be easier for the hunters to provoke.

The rest of the ornament is taken from the temple

The theater takes the lineament of its area from the hoofprint of a horse.Once this is done, the uppermost portico is built on top. The facade and colonnade of this portico do not receive light from outside, as those we have described below it do, but face instead toward the central area of the theater, as we have mentioned already. This work prevents sound from escaping, and compresses and fortifies it; we shall therefore call the work the circumvallation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Perrault (on Vitruvius)

And the Paintings represented three sorts of Buildings, which made three sorts of Scenes, viz. The Tragick by Magnificent Pallaces, the Comick by Private Houses, the Satyrical (i. e. the Pastoral) by Fields and Groves.The Parascenium or Postscenium was the hinder part of the Theater, and the place whither the Actors retired and dressed themselves, and had their Rehearsals, and where the Machines were kept.Near the Theaters, were Publick Walks, in length a Stadium, which is about 90 Perches. There were Trees planted

[runningtothesea]

French novels - Rec list (part 2/2)

If you want to avoid spoilers, don't read the trigger warnings.

La nuit des temps (1968), René Barjavel

This is a science-fiction novel about scientists finding vestiges of a civilisation, as well as a woman and a man buried under the ice in Antarctica. They manage to wake the woman up and she tells them all about her civilisation, which disappeared 900 000 years prior.

Themes: science, exploring, civilisation, love, unrequited love, soulmates, misunderstandings, death, war.

Trigger warnings: some stuff is done against the consent of characters (not sex), very sad, no happy ending at all (not at all!), pretty tragic really. But it’s still worth it.

*

Un sac de billes (1973), Joseph Joffo

This is an autobiographic novel about Joseph leaving his home with his older brother Maurice during the Second World war to join some of his family in the Zone Libre, in order to escape the Nazis.

Themes: war, Judaism, family, freedom, oppression, Nazism, death of a loved one.

Trigger warnings: obviously Nazism/fascism, death.

Difficulty level: French pupils often read this book in middle-school, so it is not very difficult when it comes to language.

*

Le soleil des Scorta (2004), Laurent Gaudé 

This novel narrates the lives of several generations of the same Italian family, living in a village that rejects it. I loved this novel because it’s really easy to get immersed in the décor and atmosphere of it.

Themes: family, friendship, rejection, life in a small town, cruelty, feuds, death, love, religion, abuse.

Trigger warnings: character deaths, abuse of many kinds.

Difficulty level: I don’t remember it being particularly difficult, then again it won the Goncourt (which is a prestigious award for novels), so the style is probably quite elaborated in some way or other.

*

Le cœur cousu (2007), Carole Martinez

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH (sorry, it’s just THAT good). I don’t think I know anyone who read it and didn’t like it (also I had the chance to meet the author when I was in high-school and got my book signed, and I’ll forever cherish this memory, it is totally irrelevant to this post but I had to talk about it). It is about a girl narrator and her family, it is quite hard to summarise, so I hope my minor freak out will be enough to convince a few people to give it a try. I’ll just add that this book is magical (in the figurative sense, but also because there is literal magic in the world in which the story takes place), and the atmosphere is dreamy and really original imo.

Themes: family, womanhood, mother/daughter relationship, gifts/talents, magic, tradition, travelling, changes, love, depression, religion, art.

Trigger warnings: all that comes to my mind right now is a passage talking about periods at the beginning of the book (so blood tw I guess), and depression.

Difficulty level: it’s pretty recent, so the writing isn’t that complicated I think. It’s still elaborated and beautiful writing, so it might ask for some kind of effort (but it’s definitely worth it).

*

Un homme accidentel (2008), Philippe Besson

A policeman meets an actor during a murder investigation and is immediately entranced by him.

Trigger warnings: this starts with an investigation after a prostitute was murdered, so it is dark.

Themes: love, homosexuality, feelings, adultery, fame, death.

Difficulty level: I honestly can’t remember (sorry), then again it  probably mean it’s pretty standard (if it was particularly difficult, I think I would have remembered it).

*

Du Domaine des Murmures (2011), Carole Martinez

And Carole Martinez appears a second time in my list with this shorter novel set in the Middle Ages. A young woman named Esclarmonde chooses not to marry and to stay confined in a cell until she dies. However she soon gives birth, which is taken as a miracle by the population.

Themes: religion, marriage, motherhood, miracles, loss, abandonment.

Trigger warnings: abuse, rape, incest, death by fire (yes, it’s a dark story).

Difficulty level: it can be pretty difficult because there is some unusual vocabulary (since the story takes place in the Middle Ages).

*

La vérité sur l’affaire Harry Quebert (2012), Joël Dicker  

A woman disappears in 1975. Her bones are found in Harry Quebert’s garden in 2008. Marcus, a writer, decides to help prove his friend Harry’s innocence. To be honest, I’m not even sure I remember how the book ends, but I really loved it. I remember being so hyped up on it I even wrote an essay to defend this book against my literature teacher’s criticism (because she didn’t like it for some obscure reason, while every one of my friends who read it absolutely loved it… I mean, this book is like more than 600 pages and I did read most of it in one sitting).

Themes: friendship, love, treason, writer’s block, inspiration, past and present.

Tigger warnings: I think someone is disfigured in this book, and we have a scene telling how it happened, if my memory hasn’t already gone whacky at such a young age. Apart from that, keep in mind that it is an investigation story.

Difficulty level: I do think it is quite easy, so go for it guys! :D

*

Le livre des Baltimore (2015), Joël Dicker  

This book is about the Goldman family. Marcus Goldman lives in New Jersey with his parents, and he’s fascinated with the Goldman family (his aunt, uncle and cousins) from Baltimore. This part of the family is a lot richer and more successful than Marcus’ family, but a tragic event disrupts everything. Will Marcus finally be able to find out what happened to the family he admired so much in his youth? I’ll let you see for yourself ;) I remember being disappointed by that book, but to be honest my expectations were too high because of how much I had loved the author’s previous book a few years before. It’s still a pretty good book.

Themes: friendship, family, money, success, family drama.

Trigger warnings: as the summary suggests, there is a tragic event that happened at some point, so it isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Apart from that, I can’t think of anything in particular.

Difficulty level: pretty much the same as the previous book, I think ;)

[acdemic]

hey hello hi!!! it’s been ages (6 months?!) since my last masterpost, and i’ve been seeing so many great educational apps on the google play store. so here’s a list of some educational smartphone apps that you should check out! 

disclaimer: i have not used most of these applications (i generally don’t use study or even productivity apps), so i’m recommending them based on reviews!

general education

curiosity [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] curiosity is a super cool app that’s all about learning new quirky facts! every 24 hours new content is released, including mind-blowing science, history and technology facts. it’s like having the best museum and the most fascinating library at your disposal.

coursera [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] with coursera, you can access more than 1,000 courses and specializations developed by 140+ of the best colleges and universities in the world, and master subjects from python programming and data science to photography and music.

edx [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] edx provides free online courses from the world’s best universities and institutions. there are so many topics to discover, including computer science, engineering, history, psychology, nutrition, big data, statistics and hundreds more. with edx, you have the flexibility to learn on your schedule. it is free education, when and where you want it.

khan academy [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] khan academy allows you to learn (almost) anything for free. browse over 10,000 videos and explanations at your fingertips in math, science, economics, history, and much, much more. sharpen your skills with over 40,000 interactive practice questions with instant feedback and step-by-step hints. khan academy is a wealth of resources and it’s all free!  note: i really really recommend khan academy! it is super helpful and there’s also the free sat prep (and the upcoming free lsat prep for people interested in law school)!!

udemy [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] udemy is your place to learn real world skills online. with over 32,000 online courses and tutorials, offered in more than 80 languages, you can choose from a wide range of topics to inspire creativity, hone your skills, be your own boss, and more. courses in everything from programming, it & software, business, marketing and entrepreneurship, health, design, languages, music, and much more.

goodwall [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] goodwall is basically a social network for students - you can share your skills and achievements and win scholarships (and even be recognized by colleges and universities!) when you join, you are eligible for a $500 weekly new student award, in addition to the $1000 student of the month scholarship. people seem to think that it’s a great way to connect to other motivated students throughout the world (obviously the studyblr community is The Best ;) but here’s an awesome alternative!)

schoold [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] schoold is a super cool app that allows you to find information on 3000+ colleges and 25k+ scholarships by major and admission chance. It also offers free college counseling (advice on applications, financial aid, majors, and careers) and future planning tools! 

science

phywiz [ play store, free ] need help with your physics homework? phywiz provides step by step solutions for questions in over 30 physics topics, including kinematics, forces, gravity, and quantum physics. ask phywiz a question like "if mass is 6 and velocity is 7, what is momentum?" and get your answer immediately. many of the positive reviews call it “one of the best apps i’ve ever used”.

little alchemy [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] [ website ] this is such a cute game where you start with four elements and combine them to create interesting, fun and surprising items. it’s definitely addictive!

chemistry quiz [ play store, free ]  500+ quiz questions covering the elements, the periodic table, bonding and interactions, matter and mixtures, chemical reactions, acids and bases, organic chemistry, nuclear chemistry, history of chemistry, and labs.

skyview [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] a beautiful and intuitive stargazing app that uses your camera to precisely spot and identify celestial objects in sky, day or night. it’s a great app for people who love space but don’t want to purchase fancy equipment to enjoy its beauty. you can see what each star and planet is and where it’s going. be sure to calibrate it first!

coding

encode [ play store, free ] encode is packed with bite-sized coding lessons that combine succinct explanations and clear real-code examples. it is a wonderful way for beginners to start programming.

sololearn has a ton of apps that are all about learning to code: java, c#, python, javascript, c++, etc.!

programming hub [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] your one-stop solution to learn all of the top programming languages! you can learn c, c++, java, html, javascript, r, css, vb.net, c#, python 2.7, python 3, linux shell scripting, swift, sql, jquery, and assembly 8086. there are over 1800+ pre-compiled programs with output for practice and learning. a new feature seems to be the programming-related interview questions that can help you prepare for a job interview!

codenza [ play store, free ] codenza is a dictionary of 3000+ ready-made computer programs: the ultimate coding encyclopedia for university curriculum. codenza covers everything from computer graphs to artificial intelligence! note: codenza does not teach programming. it only provides programs and offers explanations for the more complex programs.

math

cymath [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] [ website ] stuck on a math problem? cymath allows you to enter your problem, and helps you to solve it step-by-step. topics include pre-algebra, algebra (equation solving, factoring, logarithms, exponents, complex numbers, quadratic equations, trigonometry, partial fraction, polynomial division, etc.), and calculus (product rule, quotient rule, chain rule, u-substitution, integration by parts, integration by partial fraction, trigonometric substitution, rationalizing substitution, etc.)

photomath [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] math is full of symbols that we are inconvenient to type, and photomath solves that problem: simply point your camera toward a math problem and photomath will show the result with detailed step-by-step instructions. there is a new feature of handwriting recognition as well!

mathway [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] [ website ] yet another math problem solver! this one allows you to type your problem or scan a picture of your problem. mathway covers basic math, pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, calculus, statistics, finite math, linear algebra, chemistry, and graphing. one flaw seems to be that you need to be online for it to work, but otherwise, it’s a fantastic tool!

history

history timeline [ play store, free ] okay, woah. this is a detailed timeline of world history with thousands of entries! it includes world history (events, nations, leaders, and wars) AND history of science, art, literature, music, and philosophy.

today in history [ play store, free ] [ similar apple, free ] for the history enthusiast who wants to learn something new every day: today in history tells you what historical events happened on that day! it works offline and you can choose from over 50 languages.

ancient history encyclopedia [ play store, free ] [ website ] thousands of informative and reliable articles on ancient history. articles are written with students in mind and are carefully reviewed to ensure accuracy, and are easy to read. 

languages

duolingo [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] one of the leading language learning apps, duolingo gives you the ability to learn english, spanish, french, german, italian, portuguese, dutch, irish, danish, swedish, russian, ukrainian, esperanto, polish, and turkish for free. you can practice your speaking, reading, listening, and writing skills and improve your vocabulary and grammar.

productivity

forest [ play store, free ] [ apple, $1.99 ] forest is a cute productivity app that keeps you off of your phone! you set a certain amount of time, and during that time a tree ���grows’, but if you use your phone before the times up, the tree dies. :( 

habitica [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] have you heard of ‘gamification’? habitica is an app that allows you to gamify your tasks! check off tasks to level up your avatar and unlock features such as armor, pets, skills, and even quests! it’s a great way to have fun while being productive! note: habitica is another one of these apps that i’ve actually attempted to use - it is super cute and it’s definitely a great way to stay on track!

timetune [ play store, free ] timetune is a great app for people who have established a daily routine or would like to. you can set up a routine (or multiple routines) and add your daily tasks. it can be used as a daily task reminder, student calendar, timetable planner, routine schedule organizer, routine optimizer, habit creation tool, daily time manager, or daily planner.

ike [ play store, free ]  ike is a to-do list that uses eisenhower’s priority matrix. you can organize your tasks by importance and urgency, and add all sorts of details such as due dates and location reminders.

habithub [ play store, free ] habithub is based on seinfeld’s productivity secret, which involves building long streaks of days that will motivate you to keep moving forward. (snapchat for habits? i think yes!) it includes a full calendar view for every habit, reminders, compatibility with smartwatches, the option to write notes every day, more flexible goals, the ability to categorize your habits, and graphs that show you how you’re doing. the interface looks beautiful and people seem to love the abundance of settings.

pomotodo [ play store, free ] [ apple, free ] there is an abundance of pomodoro timers in the app store, and pomotodo is one of them! pomotodo easily syncs across platforms, has advanced to-do list options, the ability to customize pomo and break times, offers background noise to keep you focused, and sends you weekly email reports to help you track your productivity. i don’t want to list a ton pomodoro apps in this masterpost, but here are the many options on google play store!

alright, that’s all i’ve got for you today !! i hope that this was helpful, and feel free to send me an ask with any questions, suggestions for future masterposts, or your recommendations for other study apps/websites!! :) have a great day!

icon by madebyoliver

[femersonfmp]

Research

Instead of being categorised by genre, contemporary theatre is defined by the time at which it was written and first performed, that being from the mid-20th century to the present (anything before that but not before the late 19th century is considered a 'modernist' play). This is because contemporary theatre covers all genres, but with a different approach to them to modernist and older playwrights. An approach that causes contemporary theatre to be incredibly distinct.

One way in which this contemporary approach manifests itself is in the form of Postmodernist theatre. While classic realism, a more modernist technique popularised in Russia and centred around making a play as Stanislavskian as possible, was popular among early contemporary playwrights, a lot of contemporary plays use Postmodernism or American Realism, a technique centred around the 'American Dream' of a stable, well-paying 9-to-5 job, a nuclear family and a large house in the suburbs, or a mixture of the two, depending on where the play was written. Postmodernism, although overlapping the modern and contemporary periods of drama, is far more prevalent in the contemporary period now that Russian influence isn't as frequent anymore. 'Postmodernism' refers to the revolutionary philosophical movement that draws upon the thoughts that are often present in our intellectual lives (examples including philosophy, literature, art and creativity), but is rooted in human history, therefore is difficult to give an exact definition. This movement manifests itself in theatre through practitioners such as Brecht and Artaud, who both take a far more abstract and Avant-Garde approach to their style of theatre as compared to practitioners popular during the modernist era like Strasberg or Grotowski.

Another politically affected way in which contemporary theatre can be recognised is a significant increase in diversity from the modernist theatre. This comes with the increase in migration from former European colonies - a lot of which have become almost destitute after having their resources stolen as a result of colonisation - in the mid-20th century, more commonly known as the 'Windrush' in the UK. This influx of mass migration left a great impact on the cultural landscape across Europe and the theatrical element of that was no exception. Despite systematic reprisals, immigrant theatre-makers were soon making a huge impact on the theatrical scene, creating and performing plays that would be relatable to an audience of newly migrated people. A play that's an excellent example of this is Barber Shop Chronicles written by Iuna Ellams which toured many UK cities in 2019. It follows a selection of different barbershops in several different cities including Peckham, Johannesburg, Lagos, Accra and more. All of these barber's shops are connected in the play's overall plotline. Beyond the obvious, Barber Shop Chronicles is a very distinctly contemporary play from its use of theatre in the round to the choreography, typical of the cultures of the countries in which each barbershop is set, to the minimal staging. 

However, the play we're performing isn't as contemporary as The Barber Shop Chronicles and other similar plays. One Man Two Governors is a loose translation and adaptation of Corlo Goldoni's play 'The Servant of Two Masters', originally published in 1746. The Servant of Two Masters is a play sticks strictly to the style of Commedia Dell'arte and its distinct conventions, although the setting and time has changed in this adaptation, One Man Two Governors kept true to this. Commedia Dell'arte is a satirical and slapstick Italian theatrical form that was at its most popular between the 16th and 18th centuries. This was then naturalised when the style was introduced in the UK and became what we now know as the pantomime and the 'Punch-and-Judy Show', two staple theatrical styles in the UK. Before that, however, Commedia Dell'arte was defined by its improvisation around a set framework of archetypal characters and stock situations and plots, which were often borrowed from the literary tradition 'Commedia erudita'. 

Although the true origins of Commedia Dell'arte aren't known for sure, theories suggest that its inspiration came from classical and preclassical mime and farce pieces. However, what is considered to be true is that Commedia Dell'arte arose from regional dialect farces in Italy dating back to the Middle Ages. Professional companies, consisting of unorganised street performers, acrobats, strolling players and educated travellers, took the style of these plays and made them more comprehensible and entertaining to the general Italian public by translating the plays from their original dialect, which was hard for a majority of the Italian population to understand, and experimenting with popular forms. These performances included a plethora of comedic action and slapstick, exaggeration both in almost every element of the play and archetypal characters. All of which was done with little scenery, props or costume, to leave as much room for improvisation as possible, which is what ended up defining this style. Some of the most famous Italian Commedia Dell'arte groups of the time are the Gelosi, who performed between 1568 and 1604 and were the most famous early group; the Comici Confidènti, active from 1574 to 1621; the Accesi and a second Confidènti group active in the 17th century. There were even reports of Commedia Dell'arte groups in other European countries, particularly France after the king summoned the Gelosi to Blois in 1577 and later Paris. The French adored Italian theatre and soon enough, French Commedia Dell'arte groups were performing their adaptations with added original French characters. This continued until Louis XIV outlawed Italian theatrical tropes in 1697.

In classic Commedia Dell'arte performances, each actor would play a specific archetype (0therwise known as 'masks' since each character was performed with a mask, sans the lovers in the second act) that they specialised in. This character would be the only character they would be cast as, so that they can perform to the highest comedic potential, knowing exactly how to play that archetype to perfection. These archetypes are:

The Arlecchino, more commonly known as the Harlequin: the most famous of the Commedia Dell'arte archetypes, Arlecchino is a servant (or Zanni) who is equal parts dexterous and idiotic. This character will end up accidentally getting involved in many elaborate plots, not out of mal intent rather than pure stupidity and scatterbrainedness. In original Commedia Dell'arte, this character could be identified by his costume that consisted of a skin-tight bodysuit covered in brightly multi-coloured patches. In One Man Two Governors, the character Francis Henshall is the Arlecchino.

The Innamorati are the lovers of the production, hence why they wouldn't wear masks, letting their faces be free. They would wear exaggerated makeup and the latest fashions. Their exaggerated affections for one another is what makes their characters so comedic. In most Commedia Dell'arte, the Innamorati have to overcome a significant obstacle to be able to be with one another, usually their parents' disapproval. In our play, Alan and Pauline, who are the Innamorati, have to deal with Roscoe's 'rising from the dead' to marry each other.

The Capitano: this character is a coward who puts on a confident and brash facade to hide that fact. Often recognisable by his puffed chest and booming voice, the Capitano will promise great things, yet find excuses not to act upon them. The humour of his character comes from other characters showing him up. Stanley Stubbers and Alan are the characters in our play that fit this description best, in my opinion.

The Pulcinella: a parody of the poor and oppressed workers of the day and he's deceitful because he has nothing to lose. Pulcinella is a hunchback with a hooked nose and a potbelly. The character who best fits this description is Charlie, although his physical appearance doesn't match that of Pulcinella, he does lead Rachel (or 'Roscoe') into believing he can deliver her the money she needs when he doesn't even have it.

The Coviello: Coviello is Pulcinella’s lower-class double. He is a grimacing and playful servant with flushed cheeks and a nose the length of his face. The only character from One Man Two Governors that I think could fit this archetype is Lloyd.

The Pantalone: an incredibly affluent retired merchant whose disoriented brain is controlled by lust. He can be recognised by his bathrobe-like coat paired with a tight red vest and comfortable slippers, he also sports a scraggly and unkempt beard. He usually ends up as a puppet to everyone, despite being the superior of his household. There aren't any characters in One Man that particularly fit this archetype though.

The Dottore: Pantalone's friend and confidant, he's pretentious and pompous about his intelligence wearing an academic's robe around. However, in his learning, he's about as fruitless as you can get. He's known to blurt out inappropriate and poorly pronounced Latin phrases that he doesn't have a complete grasp on the meaning of, something that the One Man character, Harry Dangle tends to do, although he isn't as unsuccessful as Dottore.

[caveartfair]

16 Critics Who Changed the Way We Look at Art

For over 1,000 years, humans have attempted to define what makes an artwork “good.” Deciding factors, such as a work’s realism, beauty, decoration, and moral idealism, have gone in and out of fashion. Fresh generations of art critics have significantly spurred these shifts in taste, forever altering the public’s perception of aesthetic styles.

The following 16 critics have helped translate and unpack now-seminal artists’ occasionally confounding visions, and cemented our conception of the canon. This list, admittedly, comprises predominantly European and American white men. For centuries, they’ve dictated what artwork has been seen and appreciated. Slowly but surely, the demographic is shifting. (Although Jerry Saltz’s recent Pulitzer Prize win prompted many on the Internet to quickly assert that his fellow critic—and wife—Roberta Smith deserved it more.) Diverse critical voices don’t just offer new perspectives on art: They change how we look at the world, beyond the frame.

Pliny the Elder (23–79)

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 15th century. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Title page of Pliny, Natural History, published 1519. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In his book Natural History, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder addresses zoology, astrology, botany, and all subjects he deemed worthy of their own history, including several chapters dedicated to craftsmen, artists, and architecture. Pliny traces the origin of painting, suggesting that it began when man tried to trace his own shadow. Scholars have theorized that Pliny’s writings (in particular, his reverence for antiquity) influenced Giorgio Vasari, who wrote his famous history of art over 1,000 years later.

Xie He (6th century)

Hundreds of years ago, art was an explicit competition. In the 6th century, Chinese artist Xie He developed his “Six Principles” in order to rank painters according to merit. Even then, however, the standards were subjective. For example, “spirit resonance” refers to a certain ineffable vitality. Other measures are more technical or formal: “bone method,” or structural brush use; composition; and, in the case of artists who made copies of existing works, adherence to originals. Xie He’s principles have proven so enduring that they are still used to evaluate traditional Chinese painting today.

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574)

Giorgio Vasari, Portrait of Giorgio Vasari, between 1571-74. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Giorgio Vasari, Cover of Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1550. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Often considered the first art historian, Giorgio Vasari also established influential preferences and prejudices. His canonical 1550 text, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, created a (highly biased and exaggerated) roster of the day’s most important creative figures. They were all Italian, and skewed Tuscan, in particular (Michelangelo, Giotto, Sandro Botticelli). Vasari himself coined the term the “Renaissance,” mythologizing the so-called rebirth of culture in Europe from the 13th to 16th centuries.

Jonathan Richardson the Elder (1667–1745)

Jonathan Richardson, Juliana Boyle, Contess of Ailesbury (d. 1739), first half of 18th century. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Jonathan Richardson, Self-portrait, 1729. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1715, British painter and collector Jonathan Richardson the Elder penned what’s widely accepted as the the first work of art theory written in English. Richardson begins his “Essay on the Theory of Painting” by finding fault with what he claims is a widely held belief: “Many, I believe, consider the art of painting but as a pleasing superfluity; at best, that it holds but a low rank with respect to its usefulness to mankind.” Painting, Richardson counters, is important because it allows us to communicate ideas, elevates us beyond brutishness, and allows for individual style or expression. Richardson is also credited as the first writer to use the term “art criticism.” In his 1719 “Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism,” Richardson attempts to lay a groundwork for how to judge an artist or a painting, as well as how to ascertain the authenticity of an artwork.

Etienne La Font de Saint-Yenne (1688–1771)

One of the earliest documented art critics in France, Etienne La Font de Saint-Yenne visited and reported on the salons at the Louvre in the mid-18th century. In a 2009 essay, Marijke Jonker posits his enduring influence on aesthetic critiques. “After a discourse on the state of contemporary art and of contemporary society,” she writes, the salon works “were then subject to critical analysis, beginning with the highest genre of history painting. This structural approach established the pattern for art criticism for more than a century to come.”

Yet La Font offered more than just a framework for writing reviews. In another2009essay, Katerina Deligiorgi notes that since the days of Plato, philosophers have considered the morality of art itself. In Enlightenment France, La Font was eager to integrate his revolutionary views into his writings (some scholars suggest that he was critical of the king in the years leading up to the French Revolution). Jonker, however, isn’t so convinced of La Font’s radical politics. According to her, the critic blamed art’s “decadence” on women’s “growing influence” in society.

Denis Diderot (1713–1784)  

Louis-Michel van Loo, Portrait of Denis Diderot, 1767. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Sculpture, Fontes des Statues �questres, Figure Equestre de Cire, avec les Jets, les Events et les ‚gouts des Cires, 1762-1812. Denis Diderot Getty Research Institute

In 1747, at the height of the Enlightenment, Denis Diderot began editing the widely influential French Encyclopédie, which covered philosophy, criticism, and science. Throughout his tenure, he published such major thinkers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jacques Necker, and Voltaire. Diderot himself contributed many articles on literature, as well as art. His “Essay on Painting” (written in 1765, published in 1796) influenced both poet Charles Baudelaire (himself a prominent art critic) and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Diderot began visiting the salons at the Louvre in 1759. According toThomas Crow, he’d assess the artwork during the summertime run of an exhibition, then spend months writing his analyses. Perhaps more than any of his predecessors, Diderot integrated his own personality into his long, involved art essays. He wrote not for political ends or for the benefit of other artists, but, perhaps, for himself. This style introduced a significant amount of subjectivity into the genre.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768)

Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Cover of Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Anton Raphael Mengs, Portrait of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, ca. 1777. Photo via the Metropolitan Museum of Art

German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann encouraged the resurgent interest in classical art during the Enlightenment. In his 1765 essay “Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks,” he asserts: “The only way for us to become great, or even inimitable if possible, is to imitate the Greeks.” Working at the Vatican (as a librarian, then president of antiquities, and finally secretary to a cardinal), Winckelmann had access to the Catholic Church’s vast collection of ancient treasures, and developed a system to distinguish different periods in early Western art history that is still used today.

Notably, Winckelmann never visited Greece: His life was cut short when an acquaintance murdered him in Italy under mysterious circumstances. “On the learned world of Europe the effect of Winckelmann’s murder was similar to that of President Kennedy in our own time,” claimed Lionel Grossman in a 1992 essay. Call it art criticism’s greatest unsolved mystery. The sordid affair has inspired poems, novels, and plays.

John Ruskin (1819–1900)

Herbert Rose Barraud, John Ruskin, 1885. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Mercury and Argus, before 1836. J. M. W. Turner "J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free" at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2015)

A devotee of J.M.W. Turner’s landscapes, John Ruskin concerned himself with what “truth” meant in painting. He published five volumes of his Modern Painters (1843–60), which celebrated and popularized Romantic art. Ruskin helped to cement Turner’s legacy and translate his ideas into persuasive critique—his writings encouraged the English to accept the painter’s later, more abstract work. Yet Ruskin’s moral view of art eventually lost out to the philosophy of British-based aesthetes such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who favored “art for art’s sake.” Truth, according to them, was of no consequence to aesthetic production.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)

Jean Metzinger, Etude pour le portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire, 1911. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Guillaume Apollinaire, 1902. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Best known as a stylistically innovative poet, GuillaumeApollinaire is also responsible for popularizing modernist art. In particular, he supported the Cubist endeavors of his friends Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, and Georges Braque well before the public accepted their new, fractured painting style. In a 2003 essay, Pamela A. Genova connects the painters’ patchwork technique with the poet’s verse. Apollinaire identified, she writes, with “the juxtaposition of reality and imagination, and the simultaneity of spatial and temporal movement.” Apollinaire wrote prefaces to salon catalogues, as well as a text, The Cubist Painters, which lyrically affirmed the artists’ place in history.  

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)

Walter Benjamin’s membership card to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1940.

Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” situates art within a larger socioeconomic context. He notes that as long as humans have been making art, they’ve also been copying it—printing, retracing in a master’s style, or reusing the same sculptural molds. Yet in the modern age, photography and film could capture the world better than any traditional art form. Then why are painting and sculpture still worthwhile? Benjamin suggests that what truly makes an original artwork special is intangible. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art,” he writes, “is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” After Benjamin, it’s difficult not to connect an artwork to the larger system in which it operates.

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) and Clement Greenberg (1909–1994)

Harold Rosenberg #2, 1956. Elaine de Kooning Forum Gallery

Clement Greenberg, 1977. Photo By Kenn Bisio/The Denver Post via Getty Images.

A critic for the erudite quarterly Partisan Review and then The New Yorker, Harold Rosenberg may be most famous for developing the term “action painting.” Along with Clement Greenberg, he avidly promoted Abstract Expressionism, which required fluid, personal gestures (or actions) to apply paint to canvas. He was a particular fan of Willem de Kooning, while Greenberg preferred Jackson Pollock.

Greenberg, for his part, wrote for The Nation and Artforum,and offered a doctrinaire approach to art. In his writings, abstraction is the endgame, and art’s political or social context is unimportant. In his 1975 book The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe writes: “Greenberg hadn’t created Pollock’s reputation, but he was its curator, custodian, brass polisher, and repairman, and he was terrific at it.” A critic, Wolfe asserts, can also be an artist’s best publicist.

Linda Nochlin (1931–2017)

Philip Pearlstein, Portrait of Linda Nochlin, 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Betty Cuningham Gallery.

Linda Nochlin’s influential 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” posited a simple reason for the title question. The canon is full of male artists not because they’re better, but because institutional structures have prevented women from advancing in the field. Nochlin suggests that, for centuries, “good art” has merely been sanctioned by white men. Her essay called for a change. Nochlin was a prolific author, and throughout her career, she wrote monographic essays on female artists like Louise Bourgeois, Mary Cassatt, and Sophie Calle, among many others.

Lucy Lippard (1937–)

From the start of her career, Lucy Lippard was critical of the division between art and earthly concerns. Unlike Greenberg and Rosenberg, her interests lay in unpacking the larger social context in which artworks were produced. In 1977, she co-founded the feminist art journal Heresies. For Lippard, art and activism could be linked. The collective of women artists who contributed to the journal—a group that included Joan Snyder, Miriam Schapiro, and Pat Steir—frequently addressed female representation in its pages.

Rosalind Krauss (1940–)

Prominent editor and scholar Rosalind Krauss was propelled to art world notoriety in 1974, when she published an article in Art in America taking to task the imperious critic Clement Greenberg for mishandling the estate of sculptor David Smith. Krauss was making a name for herself as a proponent of the burgeoning Minimalist scene (she once wrote an entire essay on how to explain Richard Serra to the French). In 1976, she co-founded October, an influential, theory-heavy journal that introduced the dense post-structuralist ideas of French thinkers like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault to American art audiences.

Jerry Saltz (1951–)

Jerry Saltz, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for criticism, diverges from the quintessential academic, theory-revering critic: An avid social media user, he’s unafraid of sexually explicit content, hot takes (Burning Man attendees, for instance, are deemed “Fauxhemians”), and outright provocation (Saltz on Mary Boone’s tax evasion: “More power to her….I think it’s a little bit bad-ass”). He writes for New York magazinewith an accessible, enjoyable tone about topics ranging from must-see exhibitions to art fair disdain to Salvator Mundi (the alleged, recently uncovered Leonardo da Vinci portrait).

from Artsy News

[jamesodell2]

Dada Movement (Philosophy) of Political Punk Case Study

In this blog post I will be explaining the Dada movement and discussing its relevance towards my project; I will show a detailed background behind the movement which will include influential artists which will inspire me for future practical experiments. I want to explain the cultural changes involved within this movement such as the punk era and political scene which can stem towards my collage experiments. I will be looking at the artwork which was created during this time and visually analysing these to puck out characteristics I could explore. within my own outcomes. I think this research will broaden out my project and give me a wider range of outcomes which explore my project concept behind recent and iconic events.

What was the Dada Movement?

Dada was an artistic and literary movement which started in Zurich, Switzerland and this was a reaction to the First World War but also the nationalism which many people thought lead the war. This movement was inspired by other big movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism and its output was widely diverse which ranged from poetry, photography, sculpture and most importantly collage. The aesthetics Dada movement involved inspired many young artists in loads of different cities such as Berlin, New York, Paris and Hanover.

The Dada movement was the first conceptual art movement where the focus on the artists was not on their crafting aesthetics but their works which upended sensibilities and generated difficult questions about society, the role of the artist and the purpose of their art work. Many Dada artist are known for their use of ready made objects which are brought and presented as art with only little manipulations by the artist. This technique of using ready made sources forced questions behind the artist creativity but also the very creation behind art and its purpose towards society. The aims of Dada was to help stop the war and vent frustration towards the nationalist and bourgeois conventions that lead it. Their anti-authorisation stance made for a protean movements which was because they opposed any form of group leadership and ideology.

Parties At Cabaret Voltaire

The Spread Of Dada:

The artists in Zurich published a dad magazine to display their ideas and thoughts and also held art exhibits that helps spread their anti-war and anti-art cry. In 1917 Tzara founded Galerie Dada where further dada evenings were held alongside their art exhibitions. Tzara became the leader of the movement and began an unrelenting campaign to spread Dada ideas, showering French and Italian writers and artists with letters.

Once the war ended in 1918 this lead to many of the artist returning to their home countries which spread the movement further and made it more recognisable. In 1919 Dada in Zurich followed the Dada 4-5 event in April 1919 that by design turned into a riot, something that Tzara thought furthered the aims of Dada by undermining conventional art practices through audience involvement in art production.  Dada has succeeded in establishing the circuit of absolute unconsciousness in the audience which forgot the frontiers of education of prejudices, experienced the commotion of the New. This riot which occurred was Tzara’s idea of getting audiences involvement which were not just onlookers of art, but ended up getting involved within its own production.

Max Ernst Dada ‘The Chinese Nightingale’ 1920

Im now going to look at and visual analyse pieces of work which was created by artists who were involved in the Dada Movement. The first artist I am looking at is Max Ernst who was a German artist who explored collage, paintings and prints. Although military service interrupted his studies, his academic background in literature, philosophy, and psychology was well beyond most artists of his day. Ernst invented the technique of frottage, making drawings by placing paper over such materials as floorboards, wickerwork, dried bread, string, cherry stems, seashells, leaves, and bark, and rubbing soft graphite over the paper.

The piece I chose to visual analyse was called ‘The Chinese Nightmare’ which was created using a collage technique which involves the human form working alongside ancient artefacts. The first visual quality which really stood out to me was the use of layering; Ernst uses this in a very affective way by combining the elements in the image which creates new shapes but also new art which was the main aim for the Dada movement. However this technique also enables another visual quality to rise to the surface which is texture; I think this piece contains many different textures which give the collage a setting of a grass field which is used a background for the mashup. These textures also add to the abstract theme which the Dada movement stick to throughout their pieces; this allows them to create new art which is taken from everyday objects which aren't classed as pieces of art which is another aim of theirs. Also the colour scheme they limit their selfs to creates tension in the collage; the monochromatic style keeps the age within the sources used but also adds to the abstract theme behind the piece which is something I want to explore.

Feminist Artist Hannah Hoch

The second artist I am going to be looking at is Hannah Hoch who was a German artist involved within the Dada movement. She was best know for her work during the weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage. She created these pieces by using newspaper clippings and found objects and her work was usually engaged with the 20th century ‘ideal’ of the ‘New Woman’; and this was someone who challenged the role of a female. Hannah Hoch mostly worked within photomontage and this was a system the artist believed resulted in the failure of the Weimar Republic and the increasing militarisation in post world-war in Germany.

The piece I am looking at is called ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic’ and this was created in 1919 by a collage of used pasted newspapers. I instantly engaged towards the busy and distorted theme she carries out throughout this collage which involves a pathway through the events which were carried out during the reign of the Weimar Republic. Another visual quality which is used in this piece is the technique of layering which brings exciting textures to the collage; this heavily links to the works of Max Ernst who uses many similar techniques to fit the style within Dada. I also really like the incorporation of colour in this piece which develops upon the work of Max Ernst who works in monochrome; I think the use of colour gives the collage more of an established theme which connects more to the message being perceived in relation to the Dada movement. I really like the use of text in her collage swell which gives the audience hints the the theme and meaning which Hannah Hoch is trying to establish. The text is taken from the primary sources she is working from which makes it relevant to the imagery surrounding it.

My response to this initial research behind the Dada movement involved me experimenting with different abstract compositions; the theme of my compositions were heavily linked to my project concept behind recent and iconic events but specifically the political scene I am focusing on involving president Trump. I wanted to show a range of approaches linking to the artist I have talked about above such as Hannah Hoch and Max Ernst; these two artists show the same meaning but through different techniques which I think would be exciting to explore within my own sketchbook.

First Development Inspired By Max Ernst

In this development piece I feel as I have represented the style of Max Erst well through the shapes I have used and abstract forms I have formed through the combination of these shapes. I think my collage shows resemblance to power and strength which is shown through the spartan helmet but corresponds to the  stature Trump is in at the moment. I wanted to use a texture as background for my composition as this was because Max Ernst uses this style within most of his pieces; this brings forward the abstract composition and creates a more engaging piece towards the audience. Why I chose to use the eye was because I wanted to resemble the leader looking towards the future and seeing a potential pathway to greatness which can influence the target audience in a drastic way.

How I think I could improve this development would be by adding a monochromatic colour pallet to my piece; this is because Max Ernst limits his colours which adds age and tone to his pieces. Also creating my outcomes in a larger scale which will add more impact and influence towards the viewer. I think the larger scale would show me pushing Max Ernst’s work further through my own style and interpretation; this can later be pushed further through a digital or traditional process such as print or photomontage which connects to the artist Hannah Hoch.

Hannah Hoch Dada Mashup

I think my development also has a heavy relation to the artist I have also talked about who is Hannah Hoch; Hannah takes a very abstract approach which is very similar to Max Ernst but uses colour to warm her pieces and attract the audience to a spiel setting through the subtle but affective colours. I think my pie shows a similar layout to Hannah Hoch because of how my work is very centred and has a simple backdrop which brings out the original image.

Overall I feel as these developments were a success because of the simple approach I made which made me produce quick but affective outcomes which are relevant to this specific research. What I wish to do next is begin to explore collage thorough larger scales but to start this I will need to look at artists such as Hannah Hoch and Jaimie Reid in much more detail to produce a set of principles to follow for my practical experiments. I want to show a range of colour schemes which can affect my practical outcomes in a good way.

Actions:

> Research Hannah Hoch and Jaimie Reid in detail showing a set of principles to follow to stem towards developments

> Begin to explore size and scale 

> Find the book ‘Design Of Dissent’ and find relevant sources to work from to push my research further and broader

Sources:

Dada Movement http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm Accessed on the 2 June 2018

Hannah Hoch http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hoch-hannah.htm Accessed on the 2nd of June 2018

Max Ernst http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/max-ernst-1065 Accessed on 2nd of June 2018

[philippagoranson]

Revitalising Michel de Montaigne in the d- & e-patient movements

If one starts to roam the Internet for answers on why Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) began writing what were to become his essays, one will find insinuations saying that his good friend La Boétie died. This has been understood to have made him melancholic. Some sources say his essays are written in his friend La Boétie’s memory. The idea of the horrors of war in his time is also an attempt to try to understand why he turned to the Stoic philosophers and then turned his life into philosophy and writing as a way of life. It has also been interpreted that Montaigne started to write these essays primarily to the King of France as a job application due to his previous failures in his political career. The King of France at the time was less fond of literature than a man who could represent him and France. Usually, in the humanities, no one says they know why he started writing and like to support the idea of turning it into a mystery. It is as if Michel de Montaigne was struck by magic and for no particular reason decided to retire to his library tower with the movements of his mind. Is there a secret to why he started writing? Not to me as a reader of Michel de Montaigne’s essays. To me, it has always been obvious from the first reading why he abdicated from the slavery of public service (on his own birthday, February 28th, 1571).

Michel de Montaigne starts his essays by telling his reader that it is a private book mostly written as something to himself and his close family and begs the reader to leave straight away.

“Reader, thou hast here an honest book: it doth at the outset forewarn thee that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other than domestic and private end. /---/ Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore farewell.” (1)

If the idea of privacy really was his intention why did he have his essays published while he was still alive? Michel de Montaigne has been perceived as having political motives with his essays. A recent biographer and historian, Philippe Desdain, says that the essays of Michel de Montaigne are applicable to significant events of his time. Philippe Desdain attempts to interpret Montaigne’s motives of writing to show off as a nobleman and that Montaigne’s essays are written for their immediate rela­tionship with the market. The essays correspond to particular expectations at the time and are at the same time also novelties that allow Montaigne to distinguish himself from others and to innovate with respect to codified social practices. Montaigne is interesting due to his predictability. He thinks and acts as others. These essays are social objects.

The essays of Michel de Montaigne can be interpreted as a form of autoethnography; that is to say a form of qualitative research in which an author uses self-reflection to explore their personal experience and connect this autobiographical story to wider, cultural, political and social meanings and understandings. Would Michel de Montaigne have liked the definition? He would prefer to be without it since his approach is to not let himself be defined.

“What I chiefly portray is my cogitations, a shapeless subject that does not lend itself to expression in actions. It is all I can do to couch my thoughts in this airy medium of words.” (2)

What kind of an event is a book?

This, in turn, leads to the question of what a book actually is. The author is the voice, but the meaning of a book involves a choir of interpretative factors that enable readers to decipher and enrich the authors’ meanings. Each interpreter continues to add his or her voice to the historical harmonisation in reshaping a book into an event. An event is the sum of their dominant interpretations. Is this really what Michel de Montaigne would have wanted us to do with his essays?

“I know not what to say to it; but experience makes it manifest, that so many interpretations dissipate truth and break it.” (3)

Michel de Montaigne is both reader and writer at the same time. In his way of writing, he does something untried – he transforms the reader and the writer into synonyms in a personal account. It is the beginning of what can be understood as a “Bildung” process long before the term was invented – this meaning education as the idea of personal freedom and development (the term Bildung emerged in the 19th century). His way of writing is to try. This is the name and concept of his brand new genre from the French word essayer: the essay (also derived from the French: assay from the word “apprantissage” in English: learning or apprenticeship).

Montaigne is part of the new order of the Renaissance and this period created a new way of quoting when writing by referring to the traditions of the ancient philosophers. His quotation technique and thought process consists of the reawakening of the philosophers, authors and rhetorical traditions from the old Greek and Latin antique cultures. All in all, his essays have 388 quotations in Latin, 18 quotes by antique Roman authors, 815 Latin quotations from 34 different antique Roman poets, 6 quotes by 6 new Latin poets, 8 quotes from antique Greek authors, 20 quotations from contemporary Italian authors and 12 quotes by 6 contemporary French authors of his time. These choices are very deliberate for a Renaissance reader. The Renaissance revitalised secular thought. The divine is deliberately left out. (4)

“Heaven is jealous of the extent that we attribute to the right of human prudence above its own, and cuts it all the shorter by how much the more we amplify it.” (5)

His way of writing is down to earth and reaches out to the ordinary reader as in a dialogue form of argumentation. Montaigne was part of the vanguard of the Renaissance movement and did what the Renaissance humanist movement was about – turning the thoughts of an elite culture into plain language to make it possible for anyone to criticise authoritarian thought and dogma. Montaigne admits to flickering around in his books, not really reading them thoroughly. He is not interested in who has said what. He is more concerned about finding good sense and thoughtfulness to inspire him to use to create his wisdom and to bounce his fun, irony, critical sense, free thought and expressions from and “knocking the arrogance of intellectuals”. (6) In his day his “free ranging essays were almost scandalous”. (7)

Michel de Montaigne is the patron of personal judgment through experience. Simplicity is his modus vivendi. His own conclusions on reading are that books only strengthen his rhetorical mannerisms – not his personality or personal growth. His essays are a fragmentary intellectual self-portrait in constant motion creating the idea of its own text universe. Any Montaigne reader will get the impression he is sitting somewhere in the same room and he is discussing openly and vividly.

The idea Montaigne had of begging the reader to get lost intrigued the physician and professor of literature and sciences Jean Starobinsky. In his book, Montaigne en mouvement, Starobinsky tries to grasp what kind of character Montaigne is throughout the whole writing process of the three volumes of his essays. Starobinsky seeks to unmask Montaigne as a hermeneutical process. Tries to discover and unveil how the writing process itself is a means of taming Montaigne. I am not convinced in the idea of taming Montaigne as in of understanding how his writing process set him free. Still, I have to credit to Starobinsky for showing how eligible Montaigne was concerning matters of medicine of his time. Jean Starobinsky praises Montaigne for elaborating on how to interpret the signs and symptoms of a disease and having an adequate value system to evaluate the options of a correct or incorrect diagnosis. Jean Starobinsky points out that Montaigne declares he has never even met three doctors who could reach the same conclusions on his medical condition. Jean Starobinsky points out that Montaigne realises it is better for him to find it out by himself. (8) Jean Starobinsky also reflects upon the authorities Montaigne deals with in meeting reason (law, theology, philosophy and medicine). How Montaigne never gives up on disputing authorities in favour of experiences of the self.

Heterotopia

There is no mystery to why Montaigne embarked into his own intellectual self-portrait.Properly understood, it is as an intellectual side effect of his human condition. Two physicians, psychiatrist Jean Sarobinsky and nephrologist Alan Wasserstein, whom both have taken an interest in Michel de Montaigne’s essays have confirmed my own comprehension of why he left his public duty. The cores of Montaigne’s essays are inactivity and the sensation of awkwardness due to kidney disease, kidney stones (renal colic). His body is slowly deteriorating. This painful encounter forces him to isolation and gives him the point of view he needs to use writing to ease himself:

“Whoever has a mind to isolate his spirit, when the body is ill at ease. /…/ let him, by all means, do so if he can.” (9)

Physician, Alan Wasserstein is attentive toward Michel de Montaigne in his article on Montaigne as a kidney stone patient and reflects upon the importance of reading his essays to understand the patient experience through patient narrative. Montaigne as a medical humanities example is helpful in understanding why patients oppose medical tradition. Alan Wasserstein appreciates Montaigne for his warm humanism because it makes it easier to alienate from the medical abstract sense of modern biomedical jargon: “Medical humanism has taken on the general humanist sense of being grounded in everyday human experience – interpersonal communication, emotional engagement – in contrast not to the divine, but to science”. (10)

Richard Lehman, who reported the Alan Wasserstein essay in the British Medical Journal, has commented Alan Wasserstein interpretation of Michel de Montaigne. Richard Lehman comes to the conclusion that the fact that he was rendered ill transformed Montaigne in the course of his writing: “Montaigne’s constant bouts of renal colic mellowed his earlier, elitist Stoicism, making him into a broader and more compassionate humanist”. (11)

Alan Wasserstein tries to figure out what kind of patient Montaigne could have been if he were alive today:

“It is instructive to look back at an individual case, that of a man we might call the first modern humanist and, perhaps the greatest of humanists. His case is especially relevant because chronic illness may have played a decisive role in shaping his outlook. /---/ Montaigne was eminently a practical man, and were he alive today /…/ I can imagine his humanist attitudes persisting in the teeth of scientific medicine. I cannot see him submitting to a restrictive diet without a fight. I cannot see him, for that matter, submitting to ‘domineering’ physicians. He would take some or all of his care into his own hands.” (12)

Dr Rita Charon who propagates for the use of narrative medicine in clinical practice has portrayed some of the difficulties and if one thinks back at what Michel de Montaigne is so angry about – many patients are still struggling with the same problems today. See the following on the problem between current evidence based medicine (EBM) and narrative medicine:

“EBM proponents answer that clinician’s considerations of patient’s circumstances and values are not ignored by the model and that hierarchy of evidence is a scientific tool aimed at assisting physicians and not dictating to them. Nonetheless, even proponents agree that they have a poorer handle on how to factor clinical judgment and patient’s circumstances than they do how to judge the hierarchy of evidence.” (13)

The problems Michel de Montaigne encounters in his time are still the same many patients encounter today: hard to get the correct diagnosis or treatment, doctors do not always seem to be able to evaluate medical knowledge properly, a doctor does not know what the lived experience of disease is, the medical knowledge system is incomplete, as a patient one has to be critical to every piece of medical information, skeptical to how this information or knowledge is scientifically created, interpreted, applied and conducted.

If Michel de Montaigne were alive today, he would be in the forefront of the e-patient movement.

Physician and cancer patient Tom Ferguson and (1943 – 2006) coined the term e-patient in the 1980’s. The idea originated from the possibilities of the Internet as a source of information, communication and socialising.

The first generation e-patient Tom Ferguson created consists of a value system of concepts empowering patients:

Electronic

Educated

Empowered

Engaged

Enabled

Equipped

Expert

In 1992, Tom Ferguson conceptualised three different patient identities:

Passive Patients

Concerned Consumers

Health-active, health responsible consumers

Passive Patients do not do much. Concerned Consumers might ask questions and try for a second opinion, but will go for what their doctor recommends. There is no doubt that Michel de Montaigne is the third and most active category: Health-active, health responsible consumer. This health responsible personality is determined to play an active role in his/her health and will never hesitate to disagree with their health advisors. They will explore alternative methods and holistic therapies. Understand medical treatments can be as hazardous as beneficial. If they are not satisfied with their doctor, they will not fear to seek several new opinions. They frequently seek additional information and ask the advice of their more experienced friends. They can consider the time to wait and see. When they are attained by illness, they refuse to play the victim and regard their diagnosis as a provocative challenge and as an opportunity to examine their lives. They express their emotions freely, ask questions and never hesitate to question their physicians’ suggestions or to criticise their physicians’ actions. (14)

Michel de Montaigne is a patient in control of himself and the situation and would make sure you get into contact with the physician that best suits your f(l)avour:

“If your physician does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat such and such meats, never trouble yourself; I will find you another that shall not be of his opinion; the diversity of medical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts and forms.” (15)

One interpretation of Montaigne as part of mass media lets us know that: “Had he lived in the era of mass networked communication, he would have been astonished at the scale on which such sociability has become possible; not dozens or hundreds in a gallery, but millions of people seeing themselves bounced back from different angles” (16)

The digitalization of a Renaissance Man

Michel de Montaigne can be found on the digital Gutenberg Project on the Internet. He did not have the Internet, but the way he roams his private library can be seen as similar to anybody going out on the Internet for scientific knowledge and online self-diagnosis and then blog about it to help others. The principles are the same in his essay writing.

The idea of the Internet as a universal source of knowledge was coined for the first time in the 18th century by the German poet and philosopher Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg 1772-1801) as he imagined an unlimited book. Expressed metaphorically, the Internet is the foresight in his dream. (17) The term ‘book’ needs to be redefined as a kind of shorthand that stands for many forms of written textual communication. A book in the digital age is expansive in thought and action. In the digital age, everybody can be everything at the same time: producer, author and consumer. The philosophers Gilles Deleuze (1925 – 1995) & Félix Guattari (1930 – 1991) have initiated the idea of the book as a machine. In their terms, the book as a machine is only of interest when one writes and is plugged into other books (the line of thought is the interconnecting blog-culture, lists of links on web pages, social media and the idea can be extended to open data sharing digital platforms). In the Deleuze and Guattari sense of a book or text, literature is explained as being an assemblage: “We will ask what it functions with, in connection with what other things it does or does not transmit intensities, in which other multiplicities its own are inserted and metamorphosed.” (18)

The Gutenberg Project makes Montaigne part of a bigger current patient advocacy movement. Montaigne has the same kind of critique as many current day patients and patient advocates portray and argue vividly. He is just as sharp and critical to the circumstances he was witnessing as contemporary patient-bloggers are today. On reading the Chapters 12 “On Physionomy” and 13 “Of Experience” in the third volume of his essays I get the sensation of a highly health literate free thinker (some critics say he is not a freethinker – “as such people came to be known in the seventeenth century”, they say Montaigne is a practitioner of critical judgment). (19) Montaigne is not only on a high level of critical health literacy (seek out information and value the reliability, take responsibility for one’s own health and have a sense of one’s own health) he transcends into the higher position of political health literacy (health literacy is about social and political rights, access and transparency) since he unmasks the ideologies of scientific medical production of his time. His well-educated essay on his medical concerns and the inabilities of physicians are also a form of medical political debate and serious source criticism. Here again, Montaigne is a forerunner. The term health literacy was coined in American terms in 1974 to represent health education that can be understood by people at all grade levels. (20) highly health literate free thinker (some critics say he is not a freethinker – “as such people came to be known in the seventeenth century”, they say Montaigne is a practitioner of critical judgment). (19) Montaigne is not only on a high level of critical health literacy (seek out information and value the reliability, take responsibility for one’s own health and have a sense of one’s own health) he transcends into the higher position of political health literacy (health literacy is about social and political rights, access and transparency) since he unmasks the ideologies of scientific medical production of his time. His well-educated essay on his medical concerns and the inabilities of physicians are also a form of medical political debate and serious source criticism. Here again, Montaigne is a forerunner. The term health literacy was coined in American terms in 1974 to represent health education that can be understood by people at all grade levels. (20)

Next to come are some contemporary examples that would suit the mindset of Michel de Montaigne. In return and I hope he will suit these people and innovations as well. Enjoy!

e-patient Dave de Bronkart, sceptical to medical authority as Michel de Montaigne

“What should we do with those people who admit of no evidence that is not in print, who believe not men if they are not in a book, nor truth if it be not of competent age? we dignify our fopperies when we commit them to the press: ‘tis of a great deal more weight to say, “I have read such a thing,” than if you only say, “I have heard such a thing.” But I, who no more disbelieve a man’s mouth than his pen, and who know that men write as indiscreetly as they speak, and who look upon this age as one that is past, as soon quote a friend as Aulus Gelliusor Macrobius; and what I have seen, as what they have written. And, as ‘tis held of virtue, that it is not greater for having continued longer, so do I hold of truth, that for being older it is none the wiser. I often say, that it is mere folly that makes us run after foreign and scholastic examples; their fertility is the same now that it was in the time of Homer and Plato. But is it not that we seek more honour from the quotation, than from the truth of the matter in hand?” (21)

If you one reads this Montaigne quote properly and studies what Dave de Bronkart is saying in his TED presentation, “Let patients help” on Youtube one can find similarities. Dave de Brokart starts by presenting the concept Patients Rising (patients taking control of their own cases, go look for more information, define what the terms of one’s own success in healthcare is).

Dave de Broker is diagnosed with cancer and starts to roam the Internet. Quickly he realises the official WebMD information is seriously misleading. He knows from the Internet that if he finds any information he is not happy about he makes sure to go look for more. Just as Montaigne knows, personal judgment is better than medical authority; Dave de Bronkart learns that the best recommendations for him are found from people with personal experience of disease and the healthcare system. Dave de Bronkart gets relevant information on how to proceed and why by people living with disease. Other patients from online patient groups explain what the correct orders of treatments are and what treatments to never even attempt. No doctors had ever explained themselves in this manner. In addition, and most surprisingly of all – the correct information is not even found on official medical WebPages on the Internet.

If Dave de Broker just had done as he had been told in healthcare, to start with he would not have been alive today. Patient groups and the Internet saved his life. Today he is a very active participant on the Society for Participatory Medicine (former e-patients.net).

PatientsLikeMe Lithium study on why one cannot trust science just as Montaigne has been aware of all the time

“Most of the instructions of science to encourage us herein have in them more of show than of force, and more of ornament than of effect.” (22)

Vice President of Innovation at PatientsLikeMe, Paul Wicks, tells the story of the Lithium study that was conducted by engaged ALS patients on the PatientsLikeMe open data sharing facility for patient reported outcomes (PROM). In 2008, an Italian clinical study claimed to have used Lithium to stop the progression of ALS symptoms. The problem with this study is that it contained only 16 positive results regarding Lithium for ALS patients. A number of ALS patients asked their doctors to prescribe the drug based on this study off the record. Many patients started reporting their dosage, side effects and outcomes on the PatientsLikeMe platform to see if this was really working. Anybody who could get hold of the drug for ALS could participate, thus completely turning the usual culture of medical trial around. All the data was available for free on the Internet as the study continued. The PatientsLikeMe study found that the Italian clinical study from 2008 was false. Many died, but their data lives on. This PatientsLikeMe trial has been published in Nature Biotechnology. (23) This PatientsLikeMe Lithium study has also been granted a Wikipedia entry. (24)

This PatientsLikeMe example is a symptom of the politics in science and this critique can easily be found on the Internet. That is to say, drug companies and academic clinical research (25) selectively choose to publish studies that seem positive where the numbers of patients in these studies are too low. (26) It is essential for patients to know what is going on and what is working or not and why so. A few years ago I went to an evening lecture at Filosoficirkeln (open lectures of philosophical inquiry) in Lund and there a Professor of practical ethics at Lund University, Dan Egonsson, explained the drug companies only have to show 30 % positive result on a drug before it can be released on the market. I do not know if this has changed since of what is going on, or if any patient advocates are arguing for a higher percentage (but I might find something one day if I go roaming on the Internet). The policy of informed consent is at stake and patients should really know when to decline treatment beforehand. This kind of information is usually not offered in the medical setting. The e-patient movement will hopefully help change the culture of healthcare where more demanding patients are just as natural as any patient safety measure. Michel de Montaigne would be first to approve.

Digital solution Montaigne would have appreciated since it puts a holistic patient experience at the centre of medical research

“What if knowledge trying to arm us with new defences against natural inconveniences, has more imprinted our fancies their weight and greatness, than her reason and subtleties to secure us from them?” (27)

The word nobism coincides with Montaigne’s interpretation of medical professionals: to excel in utter stupidity. This word has also been given a new identity by inviting the Latin word nobis (for us) to rest next to the letter m for medical in a new initiative to give patients, healthcare providers and medical research a better understanding of what the patient journey is like. The solution nobism also offers a holistic view of everything the patient is up to in the course of a disease and recovery.

Nobism is one example of the big variety of e-patient solutions available today. Nobism does more than just collect information for personal use. Nobism goes one step further. Nobism also makes sure the information on the whole picture of a patient journey is furthered to researchers who often never have the full picture of the patient outcomes from the time of not getting the correct diagnosis, to what diagnosis and treatments were wrongly tried to the next step in the correct diagnosis and which different treatment options worked out, how the disease developed over time and the changes for better or for worse, to matters of lifestyle, diet, supplements, vitamins, alternative treatment options. “The more a patient knows of their symptoms, medicine use and all they do to feel better, the better they can make decisions for future treatments”, because “most specialists have no detailed information about this”. (28) The idea is to get a better view on symptoms, medication use, vitamins or therapy. Researchers get better information about day-to-day remedies patients use to feel better to help create better long-term medical solutions.

dPatient Ulrika Sandén – Patient Voice - Not trusting doctors’ opinion, Montaigne wouldn’t either  

“The arts that promise to keep our bodies and souls in health promise a great deal; but, withal, there are none that less keep their promise. And, in our time, those who make profession of these arts amongst us, less manifest the effects than any other sort of men; one may say of them, at the most, that they sell medicinal drugs; but that they are physicians, a man cannot say.” (29)

If you took the time to read this Michel de Montaigne quote and read the following patient experience story you will see patients have to oppose to the same dysfunctional knowledge processes Montaigne accuses doctors of in his own time.

Cancer patient Ulrika Sandén gives the tale of her patient journey where the typical discrediting gender interpretations are applied at first (a woman is not considered a body – only a dysfunctional psyche). The first thought she had become schizophrenic due to some kind of explosions in her head. No such disease was found. Later on, symptoms progress and one of her arms starts jumping and moving strangely in ways she couldn’t control. She got to see a neurologist and at the time, nothing is found so the immediate conclusion is panic attacks. She tried several therapies for several years and nothing helps. Later on, her whole body is shaking. Her GP wants to send her back to the neurologist, but she opposes and thinks nothing can be done. The difference in the part of this story is that the GP knows the patient and does not look upon her as a stick figure as previous doctors had been doing. The GP had never noticed any of the psychological issues others were trying to pin on her. The GP sends the patient to get an MR and a benign cyst is found and she is given epileptic medication. The medicine seemed to work for a short time but she continued to worsen. The next attempt interprets her as having migraine and she is given other medication and recommendations on how to live her life. After a few weeks, nothing helped – as usual. She went to the Emergency Room but they said they could not help her said they could only send her to a neurologist but there was none on duty. She tries a new GP who could not understand what she had and made sure she was admitted to the Emergency Room. This GP put patient safety before organisation. While in the hospital, she was fragmentized again. She then demanded a second opinion. The second opinion responded that she has a low malignant in the brain and surgery was performed. The core line of her story is that as a patient one has to be able to dare to oppose medical authority to get the correct diagnosis. To a patient, the health care system can be compared to as going to war on the system itself. It is paramount to find medical professionals who can go against standardised ways of thinking and reasoning.

Ulrika Sandén explained herself in the regional newspaper for Scania, Sydsvenskan, in these terms: “I would not have been alive today if I only had done as I was told in healthcare. Unfortunately, this is what healthcare looks like today”. (30)

This coming trimester, she will be part of the first university course in Sweden on patient empowerment for cancer patients and their next-of-kin within the field of Design Sciences at Lunds Tekniska Högskola (LTH). Ulrika Sandén has also written the first Swedish dPatient research report on cancer patients from a patient’s perspective. Her report, “På okänt cancervatten” (31) (navigating the unknown sea of cancer) is currently only in Swedish.

Comments added after publication:

Just as Montaigne thought in his time words are fluid mediums, sort of, like clouds changing their formations as they float across the sky, and a blog entry is always open toward discussion.

dPatient stands for Designpatient and is currently the highest level in the patient movement. dPatients influence the design of medical trials and operate on both structural and process level on the healthcare system to redesign it to make it more functional toward patients. (There is a second generation to the e-patient concepts encourage change on similar levels and other topics concerning healthcare research and medical education. I can write about this in more Linkedin posts to come. At the present, there are a lot of different attempts going on in the world. Trying to interpret and understand them from all their different angels on similarities and differences is a very interesting task.)    

Ulrika Sandén after reading this piece would like to expand the conceptualization to tmdPatients (think more than doctors Patient)…

Patient-blogger Fabian Bolin on why blogging is an existential necessity just as Montaigne has known all along…

“We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care of life: the one torments, the other frights us. It is not against death that we prepare, that is too momentary a thing; a quarter of an hour’s suffering, without consequence and without damage, does not deserve especial precepts: to say the truth, we prepare ourselves against the preparations of death. Philosophy ordains that we should always have death before our eyes, to see and consider it before the time /…/‘The whole life of philosophers is the meditation of death.’ Cicero.” (32)

If you read the Montaigne quote and take the time to understand what cancer blogger Fabian Bolin says you will learn that any disease is a threat to human freedom that needs to be addressed. Philosophy – or reflecting on life and death cannot be avoided. The emotions and melancholy disease give that new kind of understanding of life must never be suppressed and still this how patients at times are addressed. Fabian Bolin starts his presentation by looking at us and explains the situation of when someone asks how things are and what would happen if he just said things are really bad. People do not want to respond verbally to it and it is not common in Sweden to express oneself openly about the idea of the backside of life – about wanting to die. Instead, the most common question he gets is if chemotherapy is painful and people try to tell him to stop blogging. People tell him to calm down and focus on rehabilitation instead. What people do not seem to understand is that his patient-blogging is his existential rehabilitation.

Fabian Bolin explains that thanks to his blogging, he has been able to live – not just survive - through this whole cancer experience. Cancer is a mental trauma to both patient and next-of-kin. This should be common knowledge in healthcare, but during his whole stay in the hospital no medical professional – doctor or nurse – even once asked him how he felt.

Fabian Bolin won the Swedish CancerRehabFund journalistic prize in 2015 for the best reporting of the year on cancer as experience and rehabilitation. (33) It is from his experience he and his best friend Sebastian Hermelin has initiated the digital platform WARONCANCER to gather as many cancer-patient narratives they can.

Patient-blogger Funkisfeministen on why Dr Google is a better option than healthcare professionals in the same critical stance as Montaigne  

“I had rather understand myself well in myself, than in Cicero. Of the experience I have of myself, I find enough to make me wise.” (34)

The Swedish patient-blogger with the nickname Funkisfeministen has explained why Googling is better than health care professionals. First of all, because the health care system is not updated. She was diagnosed with a rare disease and the people she meets in the health care setting aren’t even interested in trying to get updated on what she has. Even patient association home pages are not updated enough on the latest research. She has to find out by herself what she needs to know on her condition on the Internet. In her case, Googling is the best alternative: “As long as healthcare professionals are not able to contribute to better knowledge amongst themselves or towards patients, it is not at all encouraging to have to do with healthcare professionals who mock patients that go looking for information by themselves” (35)

Wrongly diagnosed Twitter microblogger @livetsbilder on why it is impossible to trust what a healthcare system is up to just as Montaigne has been arguing since the 16th century

“Science, indeed, does us one good office in instructing us exactly as to the dimensions of evils.” (36)

Microblogger LivetsBilder on Twitter added to the general disappointment of medical practice with a statement of fake news. Physical activity is recommended for patients who can’t even move. The discussion that follows on her Twitter account to her outburst is the usual critique of medical culture as inconsistent, non-attentive and with no concern for a person centred approach. The medical mind here is just a means of evil when care is proclaimed in general terms. The problem this patient has encountered is that she is wrongly diagnosed. The medical professionals closest to her deny the diagnosis she has even exists. Professionals who understand and can diagnose her properly are out of reach and she is too ill to even be able to take the trip to get her medical documentation in order (her description and documentation was sent by post there). On top of this distress, the Swedish government has passed legislation that makes one lose one’s job if one is not rehabilitated properly to return to work. The strangest things, in this case, are that her medical documentation is incorrect and she has been denied funding for sick leave. The paradox she is in is beyond surrealism: at the same time as her documents do not grant her public sick leave, she is rendered unemployed by the same incorrect medical documentation.

Michel de Montaigne as a reflection in the age of blogging

Should be Montaigne considered a voluntary, involuntary or just belated blogger on the digital Gutenberg Project? The Swedish author Bodil Malmsten (1944 – 2016) plays with the idea of Montaigne as a blogger in her own blogging. The idea of self-writing actually makes many autobiographical-like writers seem as one or other form of Montaigne. Bodil Malmsten at least thinks Montaigne would have come up with a new concept for the word blog Bodil Malmsten can’t stand. Why not just let Michel de Montaigne himself become a generic term: Montaignesque. And this is the problem. Montaigne would prefer to be left as an open free association. Whatever term one tries to apply to him “it is far too sterile a term for the mind of Michel de Montaigne running after itself, arguing against argument, reading his thoughts and his ageing body.” (37)

Montaigne refurnished his tower to suit his closest needs: reading, writing and sleeping: “When Montaigne moved his books to the third floor of the tower, he moved a bed to the floor below”. (38) Space for free ranging thought depends on a way of time off where one can let one’s thought progress at ease and leisure and for pleasure no matter the circumstances. On Twitter I have come across quite a few microbloggers who are so ill they cannot leave their beds. They spend some of their conscious time from their beds on the 140-character space on Twitter and they are just as angry as Michel de Montaigne in his time about the medical profession and their lack of knowledge and understanding. This at least helps them get in touch with other co-patients and the informed society… Twitterpatients are often heartwarmingly spontaneous, seriously concentrated thought or exclaim outraged criticism. There are no limits to say where an essay begins or ends. Tweets by @sosadtoday have been transformed into a published essay (example: So Sad Today by Melissa Broder) (39). There is no limit to what an essay can be and we just have to thank Montaigne for starting to write without an adequate literary term. The Internet and social media grant the similar freedom from rigidity Montaigne would approve of.

The last words of encouragement from Michel de Montaigne

The last words and citation in Michel de Montaigne’s essay will also finish my essay on revitalising him in this current patient movement. He wishes happiness and good health to all:

“Let us recommend that to God (Apollon), the protector of health and wisdom, but let it be gay and sociable:

“Frui paratis et valido mihi/Latoe, dones, et precor, integra/Cum mente; nec turpem senectam/Degere, nec Cithara carentem.”

[“Grant it to me, Apollo, that I may enjoy my possessions in good health; let me be sound in mind; let me not lead a dishonourable old age, nor want the cittern.”—Horace, Od., i. 31, 17.]

[“Grant it to me, Apollo, that I may enjoy what I have in good health; let me be sound in body and mind; let me live in honour when old, nor let music be wanting.”]” (40)

©Philippa Göranson, Linkedin, Lund, Sweden, July 21, 2017

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FYI: in this reference list the media I have used are embedded so you can see for yourself - if they do not appear just Google and you will find...

Backwell, Sara, How to Live or A Life of Montaigne, Other Press, New York, 2010

Berkowitz, Joe, ”Why So Sad Today Is The Only Twitter Book That Might Save Lives”, The Fast Company, March 18, 2016

Bolin, Fabian, “Verkligheten ingen vågar prata om”, 3minTalk.com

The Book of Life, “Michel de Montaigne”, The School of Life

de Bronkart, Dave, “Let Patients Help”, TEDxMaastricht, Youtube.com, April 7, 2011

CancerRehabFonden, “CancerRehabFondensJournalistpris 2015”, Stockholm

Charon, Rita & Wyer, Peter, “Narrative evidence based medicine”, The Lancet, 26 January, 2008

Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix, a thousand plateaus/capitalism & schizophrenia, The Athlone Press, London, 1999

Desdain, Philippe, Montaigne: A Life, Princeton University Press, 2017

Engdahl, Horace, “Tredje sidan: Jaget går vilse bland monstruösa gestalter. Litteraturforskaren Jean Starobinski talar förnuft med Montaignes melankoliska essäer”,Kultur & Nöje, Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, 1995-01-19

Ferguson, Tom, ”Patients, Heal Thyself: Health in the Information Age”, The Futurist, January-February, 1992 (digital on Questa magazine or Google title)

Foglia, Mark, “Michel de Montaigne”, Oppy, Graham & Trakakis, N. N. (Ed.), Early Modern Philosophy of Religion, Volume 3, The History of Westerns Philosophy of Religion, Routledge, London & New York, 2009

Goldacre, Ben, “Why doctor’s don’t know about the drugs they prescribe”, TED Talks, Youtube, September 27, 2012

Funkisfeministen, “Den googlande patienten – har vi något val?”, August 23, 2016

Hyman, Mark, “Why Antidepressants Don’t Work for Treating Depression”, Huffpost,the blog, November 17, 2011

Kniivilä, Kalle, “Cancerdrabbade får egen universitetskurs”, Sydsvenskan, 14 April, 2017 (Sveriges Radio P1 about this course)

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Quizlet, Health Literacy

Footnotes:

(1) de Montaigne, Book 1, Ch. 1

(2) de Montaigne, Michel

(3) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13

(4) Nordin, Svante, 2001

(5) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 12

(6) The Book of Life, XXXX

(7) Sharp, Mattew, XXXX

(8) Starobinsky, Jean, 1994

(9) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13

(10) Wasserstein, Alan, 2007

(11) Lehman, Richard, 2007

(12) Wasserstein, Alan, 2007

(13) Charon, Rita & Wyer, Peter 2008

(14) Ferguson, Tom, 1992

(15) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13

(16) Backwell, Sara, 2010

(17) Persson, Magnus, 2012

(18) Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix 1999

(19) Foglia, Marc, 2009

(20) Quizlet; July 2017

(21) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13

(22) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 12

(23) Wicks, Paul, 2015

(24) Wikipedia, July 2017

(25) Goldacre, Ben, 2012

(26) Hyman, Mark, 2011

(27) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 12

(28) Nobism.com, July 2017

(29) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13

(30) Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 2017

(31)www.design.lth.se/fileadmin/designvetenskaper/Paa_okaent_cancervatten_slutversion.pdf

(32) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 12

(33) Cancerrehabfonden, 2015

(34) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13

(35) Funkisfeministen, 2016

(36) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 12

(37) Kramer, Jane, 2009

(38) Kramer, Jane, 2009

(39) Berkowitz, Joe, 2016

(40) de Montaigne, Michel Book 3, Ch. 13