IF I WERE A CARBURETOR AND YOU WERE KEY QUERY

PICKING PARTS ONE BY ONE (LET ME INDRODUCE MYSELF) Since my dear friend Peter recently suggested me to present one author at the time I decide to start with myself. This is copy/paste screenshot from the Cine Club Split web Page with my short bio (in English):

And here is the You Tube link for my recent interview for the "PVH Film Production" project lead by Matt Helme (given to Sylvia Toy st. Louis):

Peppe Pig:

Some of my photos:

And the link for my brand new experimental movie:

More from Matt Helme and the "PVH Film Production" in my next post... Happy New Year...

Love will tear us apart again... Greetings from Split, Croatia... Darko Duilo ...

Something new from something old...

 

Ivory Carvings

  

 Two tiny carved heads from Europe, dated approx. 25,000 years ago

On Sunday I had lunch with friends in the Botanic Gardens, Kyneton. It was a lovely day for a picnic and we all had a good time. Something most important for me arose from discussions of a general nature.

I raised an item which has interested me for many years: a tiny carving of a woman’s head from 25,000 years ago, found in modern day France. I mentioned it for a number of reasons, including the unusual carving of the “hair”’ or “snood” which had been carved in considerable detail on a tiny pierce of mammoth ivory. I also mentioned the unusual facial features which seemed to represent a particular person rather than a generic image of a woman’s face, detailed as to eyes, brows, nose, a strangely prognathous chin, but no mouth.

One of the ladies at our picnic, Fiona, knew of this little figurine and called up some special info from her mobile. She kindly put me onto a youtube piece by Sally Pointer which addresses this statuette and the unusual “hair style” or cap, net, or whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmNLhkHhWYM&ab_channel=SallyPointer

I was in awe of Sally Pointer’s approach to this conundrum and her special way of exploring how a cordage cap could have been created from nettle fibres. I knew nothing about “cordage", but Fiona who happened to be tatting as we discussed these things was very knowledgeable about it.

There are two rare and extremely old carvings from the deep past of the European caves which depict the faces of women. Many of the figurines from ancient caves which we call “Venus” carvings do not show facial details. However these two are different and they are often referred to as “portraits”. Both are extraordinary, each carved from an extremely small piece of mammoth ivory and they differ greatly from each other in terms of style.

The first head from Brassempouy in France is tiny. It was apparently broken off from a larger figure at some time unknown.

     

    

The head is 3.65 cm high, 2.2 cm deep and 1.9 cm wide.

Let’s compare this to an average adult finger or thumb: my thumb from the last joint to tip is the same length as that carving above but my thumb is slightly wider and deeper.

So the ivory carving is slightly smaller than my top thumb joint. But I have large hands so it would probably be a bit larger than that of a woman’s thumb.

From all the information I've gathered in reading and searching the net it is most likely that it was carved using a small sliver of extremely sharp flint, probably not easy to grasp between the carver’s finger and thumb. It would be like carving with the blade of a scalpel which has no handle.

However these practicalities are not the most important thing in this discussion. I think the most important things to consider are: 

Why does this highly expressive and detailed carving from Brassempouy not display the mouth of the subject when so much else is presented?

As the head was broken off from a larger piece of carving at some time in the past, what was the size of the original carving?

What was its purpose? Was it ornamental or was it totemic?

Was it meant to portray a particular woman, as in a portrait, or was it meant to be more generic?

I’m sure there are many other questions which can be asked!

Let us leave that for a while, we’ll come back to it later.

Here is a map showing where it was found in modern day France at Brassempouy:

Now let us shift our attention to another place in Europe where a carved head of similar age was discovered at a large archaeological site in modern day Czechoslovakia. This head known as Dolni Vestonice XV was also carved from mammoth ivory.

It too is extremely small. It's only 4.8 cm high, 2.4 cm wide and 2.2 cm thick. It's slightly longer and slightly thicker than the one from Brassempouy.

Each portrait is about the size of the top joint of an adult thumb. They’ve both been dated at approximately 25,000 BP!

Does it matter which came first?

This brings us to problems of “dating” objects from antiquity. In this case I don’t think it matters much if one is a few hundred years older than the other, especially as they were found in locations so far distant from each other and current dating methods have a margin of error such as “plus or minus 300 years”.

Radio-carbon dating of ancient ivory or antler can rarely be 100% correct, dates are usually given stating a certain margin of error. Some radio-carbon dates are given as +/- 3% but they could also be given in years: e.g., +/- 300 years! The margin of error becomes larger as the years go further back in time. The most we can say is that these objects were carved in a common period of antiquity, within a few hundred years of each other. 

What is more important right now is that these two ancient ivory heads of women are delicately carved, they are both extremely expressive. Why they’ve been called “portraits” is because they seem to represent two specific human beings, detailed as to appearance and character.

That fact alone makes them extremely rare.

At this point of my wanderings I’ve found no others quite like them from that period of European cave art.

So let me show you some other more typical figurines representing women from other caves of Europe:

You can see that what they have in common is that they lack facial detail.

I don’t want to dwell upon that except to say the carvings from this ancient time with detailed facial features are rare, and those without are more common.

Now I would like to talk about the carving from Dolni, Vestonice.

1. Dolni Vestonice XV

2. Another photo of the same item, different angle and lighting:

3. Profile view

As you can see, Photo 2 is quite different from the others in colour, detail and texture.

I find this carving simply stunning, it’s very powerful. It is so expressive, it has such a representation of the mood of the person portrayed. There has been much discussion as to whether it is of a man or a woman, but most people assume that it is of a woman. 

I think it is more important to know whether this woman (or man) was just a normal person or rather, a special person such as an elder, a shaman, or a dignitary of the tribe or group. Things we can imagine but never know!

What I like about photos 1 and 3 is that they show numerous cut marks as well as the vertical “grain lines” of the ivory. But those marks are quite different from each other, some seem to mean something, show something, others are perhaps naturally occurring in the material.

The combination of the two sets of markings is astonishing and reminds me of the power we sense in totems from many parts of the world. Yet at the same time I think it is a true portrait. I think it represents a particular person, that it’s not generic.

Going back to the carving from Brassempouy:

Once again we can see clearly that there are many marks upon the face which seem to be intentional, but some like the one on the near side of the nose and middle of the cheek might be flaws in the material. The absence of a distinctive mouth haunts me… it may be that the shallow depression of the left cheek and bulbous chin represent an effect of disease or illness?

The brows are accentuated, not symmetrical, and the eyes sunken. Like the head from Vestonice, it is powerful, haunting, but I think more challenging. 

These next 2 images from Don’s Maps shed different light upon what I have said:

I must take this opportunity to mention the site Don’s Maps which has been a great source information for me over the past 12 years. Also a source of wonder.

I must also thank Sally Pointer for her wonderful video on the creation of the cap or net from nettles which has made it much easier for me to understand something about the head from Brassempouy, although I don't think other aspects of the mystery of that enigmatic face will ever leave me.

And many thanks to Fiona for introducing me to the work of Sally Pointer!

pt

"Paintings" by Janet...

 Today I'm posting a short film I made some years ago about the artist 

                                                 Janet Cumbrae Stewart

I discovered the work of this remarkable woman whom I had never heard of before I saw one of her works at an exhibition in Bendigo. That work is not included in my video because I could not find a representation of it on the net.

But it was a stunner, it really bowled me over. And although I call it a "painting" it was not an oil or a watercolour, it was created in pastel on card.

That is also the case for most if not all of the works in my video. But the day I saw it, it stood between a very fine Streeton and a wonderful Dobell where it took my breath away.

 All the qualities I saw in that image that day are also present in this particular "painting" copied from the net.

Early Morning 

Janet Cumbrae Stewart, 1924, 

National Gallery of Australia, 

Kamberri/Canberra, 

Purchased 1975.

I've always been astonished by the lack of attention given to our women artists despite the exceptional quality of their work.

Here's information about Janet's life from Wikipedia for those who want some background notes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Cumbrae_Stewart

I think my keen interest in her work is two-fold: first I feel her female nudes are very different in nature from nude females I saw drawn or painted by men as I grew up. There is quite a different quality of celebration or enjoyment of the female form.

The second part is in the texture which is created by the use of pastels on board which has an exquisite delicacy, very different from oils. Also that the flesh of each sitter is contrasted with the material such as a scarf or curtain nearby. Both express delicacy, fragility and impermanence.

I know from some searching that Janet did not only paint female nudes, and I had the good luck to see one of her streetscapes at Duneira in Mt. Macedon a few years ago.

I've shared this video with a couple of people lately and then I thought, "Why not put it out on the blog!" 

I hope you are all as drawn to Janet's work as I am.

pt

"News" from Uganda

 Last night I viewed this short clip courtesy SBS TV NEWS

The guts of this "news item" was about chimpanzees being squeezed out of their forest habitat by their close relatives: humans! It also mentions how sad the humans are that the chimps have killed some of their children, and that this terrible behaviour has caused people to give up farming "their land" and flee to the big cities.

It is really a complex set of ideas presented here which includes the "disappearance" of the Ugandan forest, home to the chimps. Like the rainforests of Brazil, this reserve provides oxygen which is important for the lives of both chimps and humans. 

We are a terrible species. When I see clips like this I am convinced that we are beyond hope. All the species which we have displaced from their habitat and all the species which are facing extinction have been well documented and yet it just keeps rolling along. As a species, despite being able to achieve wonderful things, we are so primitive, so merciless. 

We are killers.

We are very good killers. We have shown that throughout our history on the planet, it is something we do well. We have taken over this planet at the cost of a wide range of other living species, at the same time reducing the gifts of the planet for our own children and grandchildren.

Is there any hope that we may turn this around? 

Maybe the clip you see here is just another bit of fake news designed to make us feel guilty and hopeless. 

I think the chimps are entitled to defend their habitat from the incursions of humans, to force them to abandon their farms in the diminishing forest.  

The problem is that they just have not developed a good range of sophisticated weapons to get rid of the invaders so they go around killing children... something we humans would never do.

 pt

The other day....

 A few days ago I received an email from my friend Tom Cowan, he was clearly in a state of frustration, possibly more like fury!

 As you can see from the photo, Tom is a mild mannered reflective sort of chap and it was a surprise to see him so stirred up. An item on the "news" had stirred him up and I responded to him about it.

Then he sent me a clipping of an article written by wonderful Barry Jones, famous quiz king and great parliamentarian from the Whitlam- Hawke-Keating era when we had some wonderful people in Canberra.

Barry's piece was about our relationship to the Monarchy and "King Charles" being lauded by our Governor General. It gave a lot of information about the historical steps which lead to today and the ongoing relevance of the Monarchy to us in Australia:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2022/12/10/the-monarchy-and-the-constitution#hrd

I've also added the JPG copy Tom sent me as a footnote at the bottom of this blog page. It's a very good read and extremely informative especially for any who have not gone deeply into the history of our connection with English royalty as "head of state", please forgive me for not using caps!

SO...

I invited Tom to write a few thoughts to get us started on a new blog which might encourage other friends to put in their two bobs' worth.

Then Tom sent me this short par:

Beyond infuriating. Here are some far flung thoughts. A girl in NSW is flung into jail for protesting. Putin bombs Ukraine. Scomo tries to accumulate power. A mob tries to overturn democracy in America. To me these all come within the human tendency to control and suppress free speech. A battle within ourselves too, to want to be controlled and protected. Australia is still seeking a father, to control and protect. That was Britain and is now USA. And now we have a father we didn't know we had: Charlie! 

We are infantile. I wonder if we will be forced to grow up and choose democracy (meaning taking individual responsibility to speak truth to power) by China just as Ukraine has been forced to become a full-fledged democracy by being attacked by a despotic father figure.

Tom has since asked me to add the following:

I was outraged to learn about our fucked constitution from Barry Jones' article. For example: in the constitution, we are not a democracy, permission from the brits has to be had for any laws we might make and the king is the commander of our defence force. 

Please read Barry's article entitled THE CONSTITUTION OF A MOUSE.

This is how I responded to Tom's first email:

Tom, I would like to make this an open invitation for any of our friends/readers to feed into.

I really don't like making public political statements through the blog, I view it mainly as a vehicle for cultural exchange.

However there's also the culture of politics such as we saw in the activity of the Sydney filmmakers co-op through the last part of its history.

I think Barry's article is a fine starting point for a much more general discussion.

When it comes to a discussion of "true democracy" I am deeply fearful that such a state can exist... where in our world is there a properly functioning "true democracy"?

I think we have it far better here than 90% of the other nations.

But the form of democracy we do have is full of holes like a Swiss cheese. 

Look at the trouble we're having to get the states agreeing on energy pricing issues.

I agree that it's a far better form of government than what you find in China, Russia, Sri Lanka or Myanmar to name but a few.

I'm deeply concerned about the widespread ignorance which prevails in so many societies: profound ignorance fed by misinformation and lies.

We have that in full measure too, as we saw expressed in every part of our country during the Covid crisis.

I can't stand the monarchy, never could, even since my teenage years. Who wants this medieval circus to represent us with a "Head of State"?

Who could possibly want the antics of that pathetic family as a constitutional centrepiece for people to embrace, with their wealth and privilege? The continuing circus of their ridiculous escapades. The poms seem to love it, many of them, but we are not the same as them, we are far more anti-establishment.

The horrible charade was displayed in full during the extended period of mourning for the Queen, that medieval pageant which swamped us, headlining the daily "news" for more than two weeks!

But for me the discussion of whether we should have Charlie as head of state is far less important than how we make our three tiers of government work more efficiently to enact and enable crucial programmes without obfuscation. e.g., if we want to see a serious investment in pumped hydro going ahead more quickly, how do we do that without state or council laws getting in the road.

Then there's the matter of nuclear subs... you know my view on that, we are going to have them even though we don't know what they will cost or when they might ever arrive, and we really don't need them but we are gonna have them. But to many of us they are a complete waste of money. I don't say that about our frigates or our fighter aircraft, the "strike force" which are very expensive too, but they will not become white elephants, one day they may even be useful.

And that's not even raising the issue of the health crisis facing every state at the moment, at every level, from hospitals, getting doctors and keeping nurses, ambulance ramping, and clinics facing closure... a huge crisis. So for me Charlie as king of OZ is really a bit of a distraction.

Oh, and I forgot about the stockpiling of waste which can't be "treated" in Victoria, and possibly all around the country as well.

I better stop now.

PT

So dear friends, if you would like to have your say on any of these things, why not chuck in some thoughts to this blog? We can leave this page open for comment and it can be like a zoom room in print form!

Don't be shy!

I'm sure there are many other items which could be raised and debated here.

pt

*  Barry's article in full:

ZANZIBAR... from Tom and Lesley

 

                      Zanzibar 

Every face, every texture, every place is spicy: it's a spice island. 

Swahili, Arabic, Indian and a bit of British and Omani colonization. 

 

"Stone Town" 

STONE TOWN is so called as it was constructed 

of coral stone. The very narrow 'streets' were 

designed for coolness and also to confound invaders. 

This also confounds modern visitors... we kept getting 

lost and so discovered more interesting places.

Lesley prompted our visit. She is a sculptor and mosaic artist 

and is influenced by African art and I just took holiday pics. 

We loved Zanzibar on our first visit in March 2013 so we 

returned in May 2015. I shot the video on our second trip. 

By then I knew a bit more about the mix of cultures.

For several hundred years the Sultans of Oman lived in their 

palace on Zanzibar. They also had a palace a thousand miles away 

but they found Zanzibar was more congenial than Oman in the gulf.

The profit from the slave trade passing through Zanzibar was huge.

We visited a dark cave which was used to hold slaves as 

prisoners before they were exported to other countries.

The slave market building in Stone Town remains clowe to 

the daily market. Prices were bid and slaves were exchanged 

there. When slavery became 'illegal', slaves were held in 

that cave by the remote beach and secretly transferred out to 

dhows at night. This continued well after the 'end' of slavery elsewhere.

Nowadays the main trade of Zanzibar is cloves and other spices. 

But it is controlled by the Government and although they 

successfully revolted and got their independence from 

the Omanis, unfortunately they later agreed to become 

part of Tanganyika, much to their regret.

So now the merged economies are called Tanzania.

Their culture remains both polyglot and distinctive.

The Dhow Music Academy in Zanzibar 

is the premier preserver and promoter of 

the music of East African coastal countries. 

Recently it is becoming more famous. 

We were lucky to go there before tourism took off.

Cheers,

TOM and LESLEY

 

JAMES BROUGHTON`S PACKINGS UP FOR "PARADISE" AND TWO MORE CONCEPTUAL TRAVELING STORIES

 ANTHROPOLOGICAL ROOTS OF SOCIAL PATHOLOGY, PERSONAL PSYCHONAUTICAL HEALTH JOURNEYS AND THE RETURN OF IT ALL BACK HOME SYNDROME

(“All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.” -Benjamin Franklin)

Before I elaborate on the basic features of the work of three very important experimental filmmakers to me, I would like to mention once again that during the next three days (European time), from December 3th to December 5th, you can watch (highly recommended) the second part of this season's "Eclectic Visions" recent experimental cinema presentation program (through Dutch web television), curated by David King, award-winning Australian director and one of the maintainers of this blog.

So put aside an hour over 03 – 04 December and get blown away by some of the world’s finest risk-taking filmmakers, streaming internationally from The Screening Room:

www.salto.nl/programma/the-screening-room/

Ok, thanks David for one more great experience, and now I would like to make some reminiscences on my (February 2013.) three Friday terms curating of the legendary "screening roomer" Robert Gardner (1925-2014), master of  modern experimental ethnographic cinema  and and host of a Boston television series during the 1970s-early 1980s on an ABC affiliate showcasing works by independent filmmakers ranging from animation (Caroline Leaf, John and Faith Hubley), experimental (Hollis Frampton, Standish Lawder) and documentary film (Les Blank, Hilary Harris).  

Despite all my efforts to get in touch with Mr. Gardner in order to personally inform him about the screenings of his films in Split, I was unable to achieve my intention. I was indirectly informed that the famous director was in very bad health. The following year I received the news of his death.

Robert Gardner

Within Gardner's cine cycle shown in the split, I have presented the following films:

01.02.2013. Robert Gardner – Dead Birds (1965.)

08.02.2013. Robert Gardner – Forest of Bliss (1986.)

15.02.2013. Robert Gardner – Rivers of Sand (1974.)

Robert Gardner - Dead Birds (1965)

Robert Gardner - Forest of Bliss (1986)

Robert Gardner - Rivers of Sand (1974)

You can watch this one online for free (in two parts) thanks to the "Internet Archive", a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Robert Gardner - Rivers of Sand (1974)

During some of our earlier internet conversations Peter Tammer and I discussed ethnographic and ethno-fiction documentaries and Peter introduced me to the works of some of the main Australian authors on that cinema field, while Gardner`s work was the main digression agenda for our chatting and  exchanging emails.  Thanks Peter, I have enjoyed the newfound cinema sensations from the history of Australian documentary films. 

Here`s a few more facts about Robert Gardner copied from Wikipedia: "After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1947, he became an assistant to the founder of the Byzantine Institute of America, Thomas Whittemore at Harvard's Fogg Museum. This led to travels to Anatolia, Fayum and London working with Coptic textiles and restoring Byzantine art Next, he started teaching medieval art and history at the College of Puget Sound in Washington state. Here, he took to writings of anthropologist Ruth Benedict and he ended up post doing MA in anthropology from Harvard. It was during his graduation period that he took part in an expedition on Kalahari Desert Bushmen, for which he took photographs, films and carried out elementary research work. Thereafter he founded The Film Study Center, a production and research unit at the Peabody Museum at Harvard in 1957 where it made documentary films till he left the center in 1997. He lived in Cambridge, MA with wife, Adele Pressman, a psychiatrist, and two children, Caleb and Noah Gardner. He has three other children from his first marriage to Ainslie Anderson: Stewart, Eve, and Luke. The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology now gives the Harvard University's 'Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography' worth $US50,000"

The second author I wish to present also was included in my correspondences with David and Peter. During the last few weeks I studied his literary and cinema opus again. It is James Broughton, (1913 - 1999), an American poet and poetic filmmaker. He was part of the San Francisco Renaissance, a precursor to the Beat poets. I was curating his short movies presentation at the Cine Club Split on the 29th of October 2010. Broughton spent a long part of his life in American Institutions for mental health because of his LGBT psychological conflicts, but at the same time lived his life as one "Big Joy" , the title of the biopic about him directed in 2012 by Stephen Silha, Eric Slade and Dawn Logson. While packing for the paradise (hi own term for psychiatric institution) he was writing farewell poems that sounded like oneiric tripping notes from the real globetrotter. 

James Braughtom

Recently I have used one of his poems for one of my latest experimental videos and here is another one collected with much more others in the collected works book "Packing up for Paradise":

The Bliss of With

You have come to me out of the antiquities

We have loved one another for generations

We have loved one another for centuries

You teach me to trust the voices of my voices

You teach me to believe my own believings

You touch the palpability of my possibles

Together we reflect what our mirrors conceal

Together we upgrade the sun in our meridians

We remain open night and day to transcendence

You are incompletely disguised as a mortal

You are the eternal stranger I have always known

I saw your wings this morning

I saw your wings 

And here are some links for his experimental movies. More of them you can find on the web address:

https://www.youtube.com/@JamesBroughtonCinema

James Broughton - Testament (1974)

 James Broughton - Together (1976)

James Broughton - High Kukus (1973)

Broughton had many creative love affairs during the San Francisco Beat Scene. He briefly lived with the film critic Pauline Kael and they had a daughter, Gina, who was born in 1948. Broughton put off marriage until age 49, when he married Suzanna Hart in a three-day ceremony on the Pacific coast, documented by his friend, the experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage. Hart and Broughton had two children, and built a counter-culture community along with friends including Alan Watts, Michael McClure, Anna Halprin, and Imogen Cunningham.

The third author I would like to present on this occasion to the "Friends of the Armchair Traveller" blog I have chosen Ahmed Zir, an independent Algerian director since 1979. He has directed more than 45 films in Super 8 and has received more than 35 national and international awards including in Tunisia, the USA, Belgium and France. Ahmed Zir is defined as an "independent filmmaker and cinephile."  Teacher since 1972, he wrote for the Tunisian film magazine 'The 7th Art' and participated in the Algerian radio show 'Cinerama.'. 

Ahmed Zir

Ahmed Zir shot most of his fascinating, original film work in his immediate surroundings, creating and applying skillful techniques of analog effects. He defined his cinema pieces as universal insights into the complexity of the human universe, even though they were realized inside minimal geographical dimensions with an intention that could be called " Bringing it all back home" syndrome.

Ahmed Zir - Illusion (1983)

Ahmed Zir - Qui suis-je ? (1996)

And for the end of this post I must admit that I am still in love. And I am "letting love to bleed"... So, exclusively for the "Friends of the Armchair Traveller" blog I have prepared my new experimental video after scrubbing my inconsolably bad teeth with a hardest toothbrush until they started to bleed...

Darko Duilo - Love Bleeds (2022)

Banquo:

                    

                    It will rain tonight.

First Murderer: 

                    Let it come down.

                                                                         William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Greetings from rainy Split, Croatia...

Darko Duilo

...