Introducing Roland Quelven.

I first discovered Roland Quelven in 2019 when David King posted

this video on our Facebook page, "The Armchair Traveller":

“Angelfish/Decay”

After viewing "Angelfish/Decay" I was intrigued and then looked at many

items of Roland's works. I soon followed David's post with my choice of 

“La Chambre de William Seward B.”

 

 

David and I have explored many of Roland’s works on Vimeo and YouTube. I find

some quite challenging but I never find any less than intriguing. By this I mean to 

say, I often do not fully understand the vimeo entirely to my satisfaction, but I

welcome the many layers which are usually there, the wonderful sense of design,

and always a bit of a “game” no matter how serious the subject may be. 

Today I’ve selected this special piece to present to you:

"The Death of Charles Darwin"

T H E _ D E A T H _ O F _ C H A R L E S _ D A R W I N 

Non narrative loops of a naturalist in a transitional state: Continuing illness...

"Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from

the distractions of society and amusement". Charles Darwin. _____________________________________________________________ 

D A R W I N ' S _ I L L N E S S 

About the Death of Charles Darwin, there has been much speculation as to the nature of his illness and

many hypotheses were made, such as: Asperger's syndrome or other Pervasive developmental disorder,

Chagas disease, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Crohn's disease, Cyclic vomiting syndrome, Lactose

intolerance, Lupus erythematosus, Ménière's disease, Tick-borne disease, Panic disorder with

agoraphobia, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, Psychosomatic disease, Postural Orthostatic,

Tachycardia Syndrome, Orthostatic intolerance.

"Darwin's illness: a final diagnosis" by Fernando Orrego and Carlos Quintana published 18th december

2006 . Source / The Royal publishing  doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2006.0160

"We have re-examined many of the abundant publications on the illness that afflicted Charles Darwin

during most of his life, including some of the 416 health-related letters in his correspondence, as well as

his autobiographical writings. We have concluded that he suffered from Crohn's disease, located mainly

in his upper small intestine. This explains his upper abdominal pain, his flatulence and vomiting, as well

as his articular and neurological symptoms, his ‘extreme fatigue’, low fever and especially the chronic,

relapsing course of his illness that evolved in bouts, did not affect his life expectancy and decreased with

old age, and also the time of life at which it started. It apparently does not explain, however, many of his

cutaneous symptoms. We do not support other diagnoses such as Chagas' disease, lactose intolerance

or the many psychiatric conditions that have been postulated."

C H A G A S _ D I S E A S E 

During the Beagle expedition, Darwin was bitten by the insect vector of this disease in Argentina. He wrote

in his journal for 26 March 1835: "At night I experienced an attack, & it deserves no less a name, of the

Benchuca, the great black bug of the Pampas. It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an

inch long, crawling over one's body; before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards round & bloated

with blood, & in this state they are easily squashed. [Source: KEYNES 2001 p 315 ] 

_____________________________________________________________ \

T A B L E A U X _ D ' U N E _ D E C O M P O S I T I O N 

"The Death of Charles Darwin" belongs to a triptych project entitled "Tableaux d'une décomposition" related

to death, painting, art iconography. The two other videos are entitled "Tre studi per figure alla base di una

Crocifissione'' and "Anatomy of Waters". ___________________________________________________________ 

C R E D I T S Music / Sandra Chechik Website 

sandrachechik.wixsite.com/sandra-chechik/bio 

Ode to Peter Greenaway arranged by Kostas Kakouris Video / Roland Quelven 2019

Forward this email to your friends and family so that they can watch the video too.

___________________________________________________________________________________

As you can see this work includes many references other than events from the life of Charles Darwin. Like many of Roland’s video pieces it refers to other filmmakers, even from the earliest times of the cinema.

I hope that Roland may add some commentary about his own life but he

may not wish to give out such personal information. 

In the next few weeks I hope to introduce you to other members of the group

and to present samples of their work.

If you would like to contribute your own work, please don’t hold back, we are

happy to post your work on this blog site anytime.

pt