qualis artifex pereo

la-beaute—de-pandore: Gert Jochems Beglium, Dampremy,...

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:31:09 -0600

la-beaute—de-pandore:

Gert Jochems

Beglium, Dampremy, poor district of Charleroi

andmymouthisanhourglassofblood: © L’antiquario di Via dei...

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:30:08 -0600

andmymouthisanhourglassofblood:

© L’antiquario di Via dei Tribunali, Napoli

low-country: Wheel lock mechanism (1599) Arms and armour are...

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:55:27 -0600

low-country:

Wheel lock mechanism (1599)

Arms and armour are rarely associated with art. However, they were influenced by the same design sources as other art forms including architecture, sculpture, goldsmiths’ work, stained glass and ceramics. These sources had to be adapted to awkwardly shaped devices required to perform complicated technical functions.

(V&A)

low-country: A. Hameryckx - Machine made by Phoenix Gand...

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:49:45 -0600

low-country:

A. Hameryckx - Machine made by Phoenix Gand (~1950)

charger-recognizer: Section C by Lainmoon on Flickr.

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:18:19 -0600

charger-recognizer:

Section C by Lainmoon on Flickr.

peashooter85: Pair of nickel plated single shot needle fire...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:09:26 -0600

peashooter85:

Pair of nickel plated single shot needle fire pistols made by L. Joalland & Cie Bte. S. G. O. G., 19th century.

cinoh: “You and i are Earth 1661”. Tin-glazed earthenware plate...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:29:05 -0600

cinoh:

“You and i are Earth 1661”. Tin-glazed earthenware plate found in a London sewer, from the Wellcome Collection’s “Dirt” exhibition.

blankdiary: aubade

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:42:41 -0600

blankdiary:

aubade

"Ancient kynicism, at least in its Greek origins, is in principle cheeky. … The appearance of..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:35:43 -0600

“Ancient kynicism, at least in its Greek origins, is in principle cheeky. …
     The appearance of Diogenes marks the most dramatic moment in the process of truth of early European philosophy: Whereas ‘high theory’ from Plato on irrevocably cuts off the threads to material embodiment in order instead to draw the threads of argumentation all the more tightly together into a logical fabric, there emerges a subversive variant of low theory that pantomimically and grotesquely carries practical embodiment to an extreme. The process of truth splits into a discursive phalanx of grand theory and a satirical-literary troupe skirmishers. With Diogenes, the resistance against the rigged game of ‘discourse’ begins in European philosophy. Desperately funny, he resists the ‘linguistification’ of the cosmic universalism that called the philosopher to this occupation. Whether monologic or dialogic ‘theory,’ in both, Diogenes smells the swindle of idealistic abstractions and the schizoid staleness of a thinking limited to the head. Thus he creates, as the last archaic Sophist and the first in the tradition of satirical resistance, an uncivil enlightenment. He starts the non-Platonic dialogue. … ‘Low theory’ here for the first time seals a pact with poverty and satire.
     From this perspective, the significance of cheekiness is easily shown. Since philosophy can only hypocritically live out what it says, it takes cheek to say what is lived. In a culture in which hardened idealisms make lies into a form of living, the process of truth depends on whether people can be found who are aggressive and free (‘shameless’) enough to speak the truth. Those who rule lose their real self-confidence to the fools, clowns, and kynics; for this reason, an anecdote has Alexander the Great say that he would like to be Diogenes if he were not Alexander. If he were not the fool of his political ambition, he would have to play the fool in order to speak the truth to people, and to himself. …
     …
     Greek kynicism discovers the animal body in the human and its gestures as arguments; it develops a pantomimic materialism. Diogenes refutes the language of philosophers with that of the clown: ‘When Plato put forward the definition of the human as a featherless biped and was applauded for it, he tore the feathers from a rooster and brought it into Plato’s school saying, “That is Plato’s human”; as a result, the phrase was added: “with flattened nails” ’ (Diogenes Laertius vol. VI, p. 40). That—and not Aristotelianism—is the real-philosophical antithesis to Socrates and Plato. … Diogenes and his followers countered [Plato and Aristotle] with an essentially plebeian reflection. Only the theory of this cheekiness can open up access to a political history of combative reflections. This makes the history of philosophy possible as dialectical social history: It is the history of the embodiment and the splitting of consciousness.
     Since, however, kynicism has made speaking the truth dependent on the factors of courage, cheekiness, and risk, the process of truth gets caught in a previously unknown moral tension; I call it the dialectic of disinhibition. Those who take the liberty of confronting prevailing lies provoke a climate of satirical loosening up in which the powerful, together with their ideologists of domination, let go afectively—precisely under the onslaught of the critical affront by kynics. … An essential aspect of power is that it only likes to laugh at its own jokes.”

- Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason (1983), trans. Michael Eldred (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 101, 102, 103. (via erkjhnsn)

onlyartists: spanishbaroqueart: Composer: Matías Durango (1636...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:28:24 -0600

onlyartists:

spanishbaroqueart:

Composer: Matías Durango (1636 - 1698)

Music: ’En fiesta tan alegre’ (Jácara al Santísimo)

Performer: La Boz Galana

Spanish Baroque FIESTA!

thewww: The first known ‘noise music’ performance

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:41:22 -0600

thewww:

The first known ‘noise music’ performance

mythologyofblue: Saul Leiter, Shirt, 1948

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:22:57 -0600

mythologyofblue:

Saul Leiter, Shirt, 1948

weissesrauschen: unbenannt by )ezra( on Flickr.

Sun, 19 May 2013 09:52:54 -0600

weissesrauschen:

unbenannt by )ezra( on Flickr.

…was a day.

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:11:06 -0600

…was a day.

weissesrauschen: Cerith Wyn Evans

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:05:48 -0600

weissesrauschen:

Cerith Wyn Evans

survivaltips: Branching I digital print on aluminum dibond,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:43:11 -0600

survivaltips:

Branching I

digital print on aluminum dibond, cutout display

2013

www.katjanovi.net/

chikuwaq: Antonin Artaud dans la Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:39:01 -0600

chikuwaq:

Antonin Artaud dans la Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.

76945-costume-since-antiquity: Set of gold medallions,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:16:18 -0600

76945-costume-since-antiquity:

Set of gold medallions, consisting of two coins (solidus) of Justinian I (A.D. 527-565) and one coin (solidus) of Justinus II (A.D. 565-578)

6th century

Byzantine period

Gold

W: 4.1 cm

Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey

The Freer Sackler Museum

spectacular Chilean harvestman (Pachyloidellus or Pachylus...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:08:42 -0600

spectacular Chilean harvestman (Pachyloidellus or Pachylus sp…
by Arthur Anker

wildoute: Rectangular tubes series D, original 1967, sheet...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:03:54 -0600

wildoute:

Rectangular tubes series D, original 1967, sheet steel, traffic island Offenbach 1967 | Charlotte Posenenske