Introducing new friend, Micaëla Henich

 Just the other day I responded to a notice from Vimeo that someone liked my short video "Lascaux-Weber".

So I looked at her Vimeo page to see what she has presented.

I always respond to such notices but very often fail to receive an answer from the people who have liked one of my short pieces.

Micaëla Henich did respond and we discussed presenting some of her work on this blog.

"Yes, do as you feel of course. I like the way you present the works. Just want to add that I am not a professional of videos. I am a painter in fact… Maybe you would like to see my site:

http://micaela-henich.com

Back to Micaëla's posts on Vimeo. 

I've selected three of Micaëla's video pieces to share with our friends... only these three, although there are many more:

Petit trafic de nuit around the village pond from micaela henich on Vimeo.

A very light summer day from micaela henich on Vimeo.

Paris-vertigo from micaela henich on Vimeo.

As you can see from what Micaëla wrote to me, she does not consider herself a pro video maker but that doesn't bother me at all. 

What I like is the way she has taken to the medium of moving images in an exploratory observational manner, not loading each item with any expectations, and not feeling as if these observations need to be connected with any others. They are vignettes, complete  within themselves. That appeals to me very much.

Also that these pieces express the joy of using the new technology which are now available to all, just for her own purposes... maybe towards something which will one day be converted into another form, such as a painting or another video. 

I hope Micaëla might add to this post.

pt

JUST DESSERTS!

 

AT LAST, HE'S GONE!

 

CRYING, ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK!

FROM THE GUARDIAN:

Qantas board urged to withhold bonuses of Alan Joyce and senior executives.

"Earlier on Monday, John Sharp, the deputy chair of Rex Airlines and rival of Qantas, said the Qantas board would now have reason for reworking the millions of dollars in shares and bonuses Alan Joyce is poised to receive – his final pay packet could total $24m when he exits the role in November."

We're soooo sad to see you go Alan.

 

We'll miss you sooo much! 

We sure hope you won't live in 

abject poverty when you get back 

to where you came from.

pt

An Earth Sculpted by Life and Death

The other day I sent around an essay from Aeon which spoke about the way our Earth was created and then modified by various inorganic and organic actions.

I had often thought about this twofold interactive process but I had never been able to really "nail" it. The superb essay by Olivia Judson really did it for me! She put it into a framework and perspective which allowed me to see the entire picture from a number of reference points.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-insight-of-darwins-work-on-corals-worms-and-co-evolution?

What she brought together was a series of thoughts which had started for me at secondary school, then advanced by my discoveries such as Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" as well as reading Darwin, Russell and others along the way. But of course I am an amateur and a pretty lazy one at that.

I've only read one entire book by Darwin, and bits and pieces by many others. Our friend Ian Gibbins who is well versed in all these matters will be following up soon with another blog related to this subject area.

In the meantime, coincidentally Aeon published a visual special on Saturday which I had previously posted in September last year:

It is about life and death, birth and decay, life out of death and the role of micro organisms.

It's not for the squeamish Yorick!

You may have seen it already, but I think it's well worth another look, especially in the light of the essay by Olivia Judson.

I have also asked Ian if he will do something in more detail about this entire area of natural history and he said that he would.

Now I'm going to open that new page with Ian's little piece "The Ferrovores" which may only be a short video, but it is about a very large subject... "creatures which eat iron"...

 

A planet formed from gases and rocks, full of minerals and water... which was moulded by gravity and incredible currents of molten rock, for millions of years until something occurred which we call "life". Microscopic life forms came into existence and together with the forces which were moulding the planet, they interacted to create different stages... AEONS, EPOCHS, before coming to an era which supports the sort of life we find around us today, a process of 4 BILLION YEARS or more.

And as you all know from existing volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis we experience in our time, the Earth is still FORMING.

It has never stopped forming from one entity to a different entity. Once it may have been "Snowball Earth", a globe wrapped in ice from Pole to Pole. But now the ice cover is shrinking every year, every month, every day. 

But there's still a lot of life out there, up there, down there around us. At the base of all this is the role played by microscopic organisms which have lived and died.  In their living and devouring, thriving and dying they have generated the world which we have inherited but which we are very busily destroying.

How long will it last? Some of my friends have suggested we might have 100 years , but I'm not so optimistic, the signs I see around us are so terrible that I think we are well past the tipping point.

I hope I'm wrong about that. 

While there is life there is hope, THEY say!

I hope THEY are right. 

pt