Sunday, 5 June 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Crosby and the Bronze Army
I went to Crosby today and saw the 100 sculptures by Antony Gormley on the beach. It was cold and windy, and the ride was out leaving the sculptures exposed. I would have liked some to have been semi-submerged by an encroaching tide. Still they look impressive and it just works.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
The Budget Gamer: Alan Wake
Alan Wake is, to get this out of the way and to be clear, absolutely amazing. It combines the "Survival Action" genre pioneered by Resident Evil 4 with a psychological story straight out of Stephen King. It is structured as a TV series with 6 'episodes' on the game disc, and two DLC episodes are available (one of which was included in the retail game as a code) and they are about 90 minutes in length.
I got it for £8.99 from Amazon with free delivery. So, by my rough calculations, that works out at about a pound for each hour of gameplay. This does not include the DLC mission provided as a code in the box, or the other DLC pack which is download only. This game has no multiplayer aspect, but it does have several layers of replayability. There are a lot collectibles and hidden treasures which the obsessives out there will enjoy collecting. To fully complete the game you need to collect all manuscripts on Nightmare mode which something of a challenge.
Alan Wake is concerned with fiction, narrative and reality. Wake is a successful writer and a minor celebrity holidaying in the American pacific north west with his with Alice. The area is full of deep coniferous forests and wilderness in contrasts to the urban life Wake leads. He becomes involved in a dark and twisted nightmare filled with possessed axe wielding maniacs and malevolently animated everyday objects. Wake finds pages of a manuscript through the game which explain, foretell and expand on the story in which you are playing. This dual structure provides a richness which makes Alan Wake feel like "an art game" in the sense that it feels creative, adds to gameplay and is something which only videogames could do.
This multi-faceted narrative wouldn't mean any thing if the story wasn't up to scratch. Luckily Alan Wake has a deep storyline, one of the interesting I have ever encountered in a video game. It was 5 years in the making, by Finnish developers Remedy, and it shows. The story could easily be a Hollywood thriller, in the vein of Shutter Island, and be a high calibre one at that. Wake, the protagonist, is layered as the game progresses so that you're not sure which is the real Wake and which is the fictional. It is rare for such sophistication in plot in a videogame. Epics in the space opera mould such as the stellar Mass Effect series or in JRPGs like Final Fantasy have grandiose stories but they are largely linear and the expectation of lenghty play time allows them to flesh things out in a grand arc. Alan Wake is, in contrast, fast paced and episodic. The story and game are linear but it never feels restrictive.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Soviet and Nazi Art
“Both the Soviet and Nazi regimes were dedicated to breaking with the past and so could be expected to embrace the avant-garde in art” Why did this not happen and what were the consequences?
In answering this question we must look at the several differing socio-cultural reasons for this retrograde attitude to the arts unique to both the USSR and the Third Reich but also there are also linked systemic and ideological reasons that help explain it.
At first both states seem diametrically opposed and different yet both states were totalitarian, highly ideologically driven, led by mediocre, violent, delusion demagogues. Yet their ideologies were vastly dissimilar, and the goals and aims of the states were as different as the two societies in those states were. In analysing the content and cultural basis of the art of the USSR and the Third Reich the political context must remain in the foreground, particularly given the overt political nature of both regimes.
Art in Tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century underwent radical change as it began to move away from the conventions held influenced by the art of the icon and that of European High art imported by the French and European inclined aristocracy1. The primary institution through which these styles were promulgated in Russia was the Imperial Academy created by Peter the Great2.
The nascent nationalism of the Russians and their Slavic providence began to influence the visual arts and the peasant and the rural soul of Russia became themes and subjects of Artists, like the Wanderers. They rejected the proscribed tests at the Imperial Academy of Arts and opted to “depict the lives of ordinary Russians, especially the oppressed”3 in contrast to the culturally rigid tastes of the academy.
This trend continued and in 20th Century Tsarist Russia4, and it carried through into the USSR (in the early 20s) where the Arts were free initially to be creative and embrace and be the Avant Garde. This was the result of the revolutionary tide against authority and the release from the Orthodox (both religious and cultural) influence and that of the Imperial Academy of Arts. The old dependence on bourgeois patrons vanished, creating new dynamics regarding the commissioning of art with the Bolshevik state emerging as a principal patron. Various artistic movements of great influence developing in this time such as Constructivism and Suprematism.
These movements in some ways symbolise the promise of freedom the revolution seemed to bring. Suprematism was based around the purity of geometric shapes, a dramatic step away from the figurative art that dominated Russia. It can be seen as a reflection of the intellectual idealism of the revolution. Constructivism was an artistic effort to connect art with the people, rather than representing the reality of the proletarian masses, emphasising practicality and physicality, representing the new role of proletariat as the dominant class.
Lenin himself spoke in a 1920 against radical experimentation and called for the continuation of the trends of conventional bourgeois art5. We can see some of the roots of the later Socialist Realism in the conventional attitudes to art brought from the collectivist attitude of the Bolsheviks and even in the more progressive movements like the Proletkult the disdain of the individualism of the avant-garde so vital to it.
Culturally the Russian peasant had long-standing notions of the immorality of surplus wealth, of the religious value in being poor6. Being part of the 'mir' village collective system also imbued a collectivist sense of ownership in the majority of the Russian people. This attitude created further hostility to the individualism of avant garde art than would otherwise have been. So when the revolution came it was the old intelligentsia and aristocracy were firmly established at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
The initial outpouring of creativity gradually succumbed to state control and ideology with the rise of the Stalinism before being officially ended with the introduction of the Socialist Realism style in 1934, effectively proscribing any art deemed unsuitable. The various hostilities to the modernist tendency in Russian art came to be formalised in the state favoured doctrine of Socialist Realism. A conventional style recalling the Wanderers, emphasising the not only the glorious triumphs of Soviet civilization but it's intended destination7; works had to be realist and represent the ideal Soviet socialist society. For those artists that dared go against the will of the state and the doctrine of Socialist Realism the punishments could be extremely harsh, ranging from employment issues8, difficulty in practising the arts9, to being sent to a Siberian Gulag.
In answering this question we must look at the several differing socio-cultural reasons for this retrograde attitude to the arts unique to both the USSR and the Third Reich but also there are also linked systemic and ideological reasons that help explain it.
At first both states seem diametrically opposed and different yet both states were totalitarian, highly ideologically driven, led by mediocre, violent, delusion demagogues. Yet their ideologies were vastly dissimilar, and the goals and aims of the states were as different as the two societies in those states were. In analysing the content and cultural basis of the art of the USSR and the Third Reich the political context must remain in the foreground, particularly given the overt political nature of both regimes.
Art in Tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century underwent radical change as it began to move away from the conventions held influenced by the art of the icon and that of European High art imported by the French and European inclined aristocracy1. The primary institution through which these styles were promulgated in Russia was the Imperial Academy created by Peter the Great2.
The nascent nationalism of the Russians and their Slavic providence began to influence the visual arts and the peasant and the rural soul of Russia became themes and subjects of Artists, like the Wanderers. They rejected the proscribed tests at the Imperial Academy of Arts and opted to “depict the lives of ordinary Russians, especially the oppressed”3 in contrast to the culturally rigid tastes of the academy.
This trend continued and in 20th Century Tsarist Russia4, and it carried through into the USSR (in the early 20s) where the Arts were free initially to be creative and embrace and be the Avant Garde. This was the result of the revolutionary tide against authority and the release from the Orthodox (both religious and cultural) influence and that of the Imperial Academy of Arts. The old dependence on bourgeois patrons vanished, creating new dynamics regarding the commissioning of art with the Bolshevik state emerging as a principal patron. Various artistic movements of great influence developing in this time such as Constructivism and Suprematism.
These movements in some ways symbolise the promise of freedom the revolution seemed to bring. Suprematism was based around the purity of geometric shapes, a dramatic step away from the figurative art that dominated Russia. It can be seen as a reflection of the intellectual idealism of the revolution. Constructivism was an artistic effort to connect art with the people, rather than representing the reality of the proletarian masses, emphasising practicality and physicality, representing the new role of proletariat as the dominant class.
Lenin himself spoke in a 1920 against radical experimentation and called for the continuation of the trends of conventional bourgeois art5. We can see some of the roots of the later Socialist Realism in the conventional attitudes to art brought from the collectivist attitude of the Bolsheviks and even in the more progressive movements like the Proletkult the disdain of the individualism of the avant-garde so vital to it.
Culturally the Russian peasant had long-standing notions of the immorality of surplus wealth, of the religious value in being poor6. Being part of the 'mir' village collective system also imbued a collectivist sense of ownership in the majority of the Russian people. This attitude created further hostility to the individualism of avant garde art than would otherwise have been. So when the revolution came it was the old intelligentsia and aristocracy were firmly established at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
The initial outpouring of creativity gradually succumbed to state control and ideology with the rise of the Stalinism before being officially ended with the introduction of the Socialist Realism style in 1934, effectively proscribing any art deemed unsuitable. The various hostilities to the modernist tendency in Russian art came to be formalised in the state favoured doctrine of Socialist Realism. A conventional style recalling the Wanderers, emphasising the not only the glorious triumphs of Soviet civilization but it's intended destination7; works had to be realist and represent the ideal Soviet socialist society. For those artists that dared go against the will of the state and the doctrine of Socialist Realism the punishments could be extremely harsh, ranging from employment issues8, difficulty in practising the arts9, to being sent to a Siberian Gulag.
Art in the Soviet Union under Socialist Realism then was narrowly constrained in the doctrinal confines determined by the state. The fervour that accompanied the creativity of the revolutionary period transmuted in public acquiescence and conventional state approved expression. Yet this public face contrasted with the non-conformist art that Soviet citizens produced for their own private desires. This art was not displayed in galleries, exhibitions, the art magazines or other public media in the USSR, and as such remained strictly private10. Some of this art became available in the west and in this obtuse way the 'unofficial' art was freely available, albeit not in the country it was made.
In the revolutionary years of the USSR and those immediately following, a mass artistic organisation, the Proletkult (proletarskaya kultura – proletarian culture), arose in 1917, in the very last period of the Provisional Government. It incorporated the different pre-revolutionary organisations11 into one dedicated artistic wing of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat12. This organisation was dedicated to creating and reflecting the new 'proletarian culture'13.
Though nominal independent, such a position created hitherto unforeseen issues in the relationship of art and the state. Ideologically Proletkult was for collectivist and proletarian forms of expression as befitted such an organisation. The mass membership of Proletkult and its vanguardist stance on working class culture shows the progressive and avant garde at work in Soviet Russia, and contrasts completely with the elite bourgeois ethos of the Tsarist period.
Art in Nazi Germany was set upon a different path than the USSR. Culturally Germany was a world away from Orthodox Russia. Religious heterogeneity meant that there was no overarching theological framework like the Orthodox Church to formalise religious iconography. The earlier development of Capitalism contrasted with Russia’s tardy entrance into the world economy, and meant there was a longer tradition of bourgeois patronage.
Yet Germany too experienced a period of creativity following the collapse of it’s own Empire which paralleled that of Revolutionary Russia. It was in the years of the Weimar Republic the arts embraced the avant-garde. Famous movements like Bauhaus emerged14, symbolising the permissiveness of the Weimar years. Even before this groups, such as ‘Die Brücke’ and ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ had been founding influences of Expressionism.
In the revolutionary years of the USSR and those immediately following, a mass artistic organisation, the Proletkult (proletarskaya kultura – proletarian culture), arose in 1917, in the very last period of the Provisional Government. It incorporated the different pre-revolutionary organisations11 into one dedicated artistic wing of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat12. This organisation was dedicated to creating and reflecting the new 'proletarian culture'13.
Though nominal independent, such a position created hitherto unforeseen issues in the relationship of art and the state. Ideologically Proletkult was for collectivist and proletarian forms of expression as befitted such an organisation. The mass membership of Proletkult and its vanguardist stance on working class culture shows the progressive and avant garde at work in Soviet Russia, and contrasts completely with the elite bourgeois ethos of the Tsarist period.
Art in Nazi Germany was set upon a different path than the USSR. Culturally Germany was a world away from Orthodox Russia. Religious heterogeneity meant that there was no overarching theological framework like the Orthodox Church to formalise religious iconography. The earlier development of Capitalism contrasted with Russia’s tardy entrance into the world economy, and meant there was a longer tradition of bourgeois patronage.
Yet Germany too experienced a period of creativity following the collapse of it’s own Empire which paralleled that of Revolutionary Russia. It was in the years of the Weimar Republic the arts embraced the avant-garde. Famous movements like Bauhaus emerged14, symbolising the permissiveness of the Weimar years. Even before this groups, such as ‘Die Brücke’ and ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ had been founding influences of Expressionism.
The rise of the Nazis spelled the end of this freedom in the arts for they saw Bolshevik and Jewish influence and subversion in modernist art15. Although apparently embracing the modern the Nazi's held a highly racist world-view, with themselves at the top, towering over the inferior untermenschen, such as Jews, Blacks and Slavs; any prominent Jews in the arts, sciences etc were severely discriminated against. This discrimination provided a scape goat for the ills of German society and enabled the Nazis to distract the majority of society from their totalitarian dictatorship.
Soon after gaining power Bauhaus was closed by order of Göring as a “bastion of subversives16”. In contrast to the experimentalism of modern art and design typified by the Bauhaus, the Nazis encouraged realist depictions of the Aryan race in line with their political ideology emphasising the vigour, martial prowess, and the rural idyll of the Fatherland17. This attitude is evident even in ‘Mein Kampf’, where to Hitler, modern art is “the product of diseased minds, themselves the product of a degenerate race18”.
The doctrine became known as Heroic Realism, the name has strong echoes of Socialist Realism and was indeed comparable in limiting art to a physical manifestation of government ideology whether Nazi or Soviet. A defining feature of Nazi art was its pre-occupation with the Aryan form, art full of strong muscular men, and curvaceous blond maidens.
This Heroic Realism naturally precluded any art that did not adhere to their strict definitions, and artists deemed unsuitable, including communists, socialists and Jews as well as those whose work did not conform to their ideals, were often simply arrested, others fired from their academic positions19. This was similar to events in the Soviet Union with the Gulags replaced with Concentration Camps.
More than simply arrest or impoverish disagreeable artists the Third Reich created a exhibition of ‘degenerate art’ intended to discredit and besmirch Modern Art. The exhibition included the works of more than 100 ‘degenerate’ artists and toured several German cities starting in Munich on July 19, 1937.
The Degenerate Art exhibition contrasted greatly with the ‘Great German Art Exhibition’ also opening in Munich that same July. The art for the exhibition was confiscated from the various museums and galleries of the Third Reich under order of Hitler and Göebbels20. The pieces were arranged in a haphazard fashion and adorned with negative and undermining comments21. More than two million visited the exhibition22, significantly more than visited the exhibition of Germanic art, indicating a level of popularity with the German public the Nazis would be loath to admit. Against the backdrop of the removal of artists not agreeable to the Nazis, the exhibitions actually removed the art itself, not just physically but in the context of public display. Both the art and artists who made it, were removed from the ‘volksgemeinschaft23’ the Nazis tried to create. This public shaming was another tool the Nazi's used against their cultural opponents.
We can see that the Nazis and Soviets embrace of realism in art, overlaid with their ideological beliefs held complex roots. In the USSR the revolution created an outburst of artistic creativity, at the crest of the world's avant garde. This wave was smashed on the rocks of Stalinist control and domination of society. The individualism and freedom in the arts prevalent in the revolutionary years was fundamentally compatible with this desire to control. The Socialist Realist doctrine enshrined a rigid monotonous art style devoid of the new intellectual ideas, only displaying not representing new buildings, new machinery etc. The relentless modernisation of industry under Stalin was accompanied by retrograde moves in the Arts.
In Nazi Germany the racist fascist ideology of the Nazis was doomed to clash with modernity in art, representing freedom and intellectualism rather than the wholesome 'Blut und Boden24', rural Aryan life and Germanic military might the National Socialists demanded of their art. Cultural policy was a way for the Nazis to legitimise their ideology just as much as the employment figures or tank production.
It was the individualism and freedom of avant garde art that prompted the USSR and the Third Reich to oppose and persecute modern art, by repressing art and creating state sanctioned forms tied to ideological purity.
Bibliography
Golomshtok, Igor and Glezer, Alexander
Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union
Publisher Martin Secker and Warburg Limited 1977
ISBN 0-394-41664-9
Mally, Lynn.
Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1990 1990. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6m3nb4b2/
Berger, John
Art and Revolution Ernst Neizvestny and the Role of the artist in the USSR
Publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969
Hosking, Geoffrey
Russia and the Russians, From Earliest times to 2001
Publisher Penguin Books, 2002
Figes, Orlando
Natasha's Dance A cultural history of Russia
Publisher Penguin Books, 2002
ISBN 0-713-99517-3
Hinz, Berthold
Art in the Third Reich
Publisher Basil Blackwell Publisher, 1980
ISBN 0-631-12501-9
Adam, Peter
The Art of the Third Reich
Publisher Thames and Hudson, 1992
Petropoulos, Jonathan.
Art as politics in the Third Reich
Publisher Chapel Hill, N.C. ; London : University of North Carolina Press, c1996.
ISBN 080782240X
Grunberger, Richard
A Social History of the Third Reich
Publisher Phoenix Books, 2005
c 1971
0-75381-938-4
1Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 24
2John Berger – Art and Revolution pg 22
3Geoffrey Hosking – Russia and the Russians pg 348
4John Berger – Art and Revolution pg 27
5http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/08.htm
6Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 437
7Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 474
8Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 480
9John Berger – Art and Revolution pg 64
10Igor Golomshtok and Alexander Gleazer - Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union pg VIII
11Lynn Mally - Culture of the Future The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia pg 26
12 Lynn Mally - Culture of the Future The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia pg xviii
13Lynn Mally - Culture of the Future The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia pg 26/78
14Richard Grunberger – A Social History of the Third Reich pg 530
15Richard Grunberger – A Social History of the Third Reich pg 531
16Jonathan Petropoulos – Art as Politics in the Third Reich pg 20
17Berthold Hinz – Art in the Third Reich pg 17
18 Peter Adam – The Art of the Third Reich pg 10
19 Berthold Hinz – Art in the Third Reich pg 30
20 Peter Adam – The Art of the Third Reich pg 121
21 Berthold Hinz – Art in the Third Reich pg 40
22 Peter Adam – The Art of the Third Reich pg 124/125
23 National Community
24 Blood and Soil
Soon after gaining power Bauhaus was closed by order of Göring as a “bastion of subversives16”. In contrast to the experimentalism of modern art and design typified by the Bauhaus, the Nazis encouraged realist depictions of the Aryan race in line with their political ideology emphasising the vigour, martial prowess, and the rural idyll of the Fatherland17. This attitude is evident even in ‘Mein Kampf’, where to Hitler, modern art is “the product of diseased minds, themselves the product of a degenerate race18”.
The doctrine became known as Heroic Realism, the name has strong echoes of Socialist Realism and was indeed comparable in limiting art to a physical manifestation of government ideology whether Nazi or Soviet. A defining feature of Nazi art was its pre-occupation with the Aryan form, art full of strong muscular men, and curvaceous blond maidens.
This Heroic Realism naturally precluded any art that did not adhere to their strict definitions, and artists deemed unsuitable, including communists, socialists and Jews as well as those whose work did not conform to their ideals, were often simply arrested, others fired from their academic positions19. This was similar to events in the Soviet Union with the Gulags replaced with Concentration Camps.
More than simply arrest or impoverish disagreeable artists the Third Reich created a exhibition of ‘degenerate art’ intended to discredit and besmirch Modern Art. The exhibition included the works of more than 100 ‘degenerate’ artists and toured several German cities starting in Munich on July 19, 1937.
The Degenerate Art exhibition contrasted greatly with the ‘Great German Art Exhibition’ also opening in Munich that same July. The art for the exhibition was confiscated from the various museums and galleries of the Third Reich under order of Hitler and Göebbels20. The pieces were arranged in a haphazard fashion and adorned with negative and undermining comments21. More than two million visited the exhibition22, significantly more than visited the exhibition of Germanic art, indicating a level of popularity with the German public the Nazis would be loath to admit. Against the backdrop of the removal of artists not agreeable to the Nazis, the exhibitions actually removed the art itself, not just physically but in the context of public display. Both the art and artists who made it, were removed from the ‘volksgemeinschaft23’ the Nazis tried to create. This public shaming was another tool the Nazi's used against their cultural opponents.
We can see that the Nazis and Soviets embrace of realism in art, overlaid with their ideological beliefs held complex roots. In the USSR the revolution created an outburst of artistic creativity, at the crest of the world's avant garde. This wave was smashed on the rocks of Stalinist control and domination of society. The individualism and freedom in the arts prevalent in the revolutionary years was fundamentally compatible with this desire to control. The Socialist Realist doctrine enshrined a rigid monotonous art style devoid of the new intellectual ideas, only displaying not representing new buildings, new machinery etc. The relentless modernisation of industry under Stalin was accompanied by retrograde moves in the Arts.
In Nazi Germany the racist fascist ideology of the Nazis was doomed to clash with modernity in art, representing freedom and intellectualism rather than the wholesome 'Blut und Boden24', rural Aryan life and Germanic military might the National Socialists demanded of their art. Cultural policy was a way for the Nazis to legitimise their ideology just as much as the employment figures or tank production.
It was the individualism and freedom of avant garde art that prompted the USSR and the Third Reich to oppose and persecute modern art, by repressing art and creating state sanctioned forms tied to ideological purity.
Bibliography
Golomshtok, Igor and Glezer, Alexander
Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union
Publisher Martin Secker and Warburg Limited 1977
ISBN 0-394-41664-9
Mally, Lynn.
Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1990 1990. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6m3nb4b2/
Berger, John
Art and Revolution Ernst Neizvestny and the Role of the artist in the USSR
Publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969
Hosking, Geoffrey
Russia and the Russians, From Earliest times to 2001
Publisher Penguin Books, 2002
Figes, Orlando
Natasha's Dance A cultural history of Russia
Publisher Penguin Books, 2002
ISBN 0-713-99517-3
Hinz, Berthold
Art in the Third Reich
Publisher Basil Blackwell Publisher, 1980
ISBN 0-631-12501-9
Adam, Peter
The Art of the Third Reich
Publisher Thames and Hudson, 1992
Petropoulos, Jonathan.
Art as politics in the Third Reich
Publisher Chapel Hill, N.C. ; London : University of North Carolina Press, c1996.
ISBN 080782240X
Grunberger, Richard
A Social History of the Third Reich
Publisher Phoenix Books, 2005
c 1971
0-75381-938-4
1Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 24
2John Berger – Art and Revolution pg 22
3Geoffrey Hosking – Russia and the Russians pg 348
4John Berger – Art and Revolution pg 27
5http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/08.htm
6Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 437
7Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 474
8Orlando Figes – Natasha's Dance pg 480
9John Berger – Art and Revolution pg 64
10Igor Golomshtok and Alexander Gleazer - Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union pg VIII
11Lynn Mally - Culture of the Future The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia pg 26
12 Lynn Mally - Culture of the Future The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia pg xviii
13Lynn Mally - Culture of the Future The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia pg 26/78
14Richard Grunberger – A Social History of the Third Reich pg 530
15Richard Grunberger – A Social History of the Third Reich pg 531
16Jonathan Petropoulos – Art as Politics in the Third Reich pg 20
17Berthold Hinz – Art in the Third Reich pg 17
18 Peter Adam – The Art of the Third Reich pg 10
19 Berthold Hinz – Art in the Third Reich pg 30
20 Peter Adam – The Art of the Third Reich pg 121
21 Berthold Hinz – Art in the Third Reich pg 40
22 Peter Adam – The Art of the Third Reich pg 124/125
23 National Community
24 Blood and Soil
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Saturn Flyby
This is an incredible film pieced together from the images made by Cassini–Huygens probe to Saturn.
1960s Dancing Insanity
Yet more 1960s craziness. Who are the crazy silver clad dancers? Where did they learn to bust such bad ass moves? Why do Space-Women wear silver bikinis? WHY?
Tears of the Rising Sun
This is a tribute and record of the Sendai Earthquake. A tragic event in which thousands have died, many more are homeless and the whole world saddened by the devastation.
Monday, 14 March 2011
1960s Drumming Insanity
Why are is there a prison for drummers? Who are the security guards? What is the commander of the prison smoking? On a more general note WHAT THE FUCK? This is a scene from Gonks Go Beat, a crazy and crap 1960s film.
Telesales
I'm looking for a new job at the moment. My current job is fine I suppose, but it is deadly boring and I would like to be paid more. So I boot up the laptop and look for jobs online. Everything is online, and jobs are no exception. Except that the only jobs online I have found in two hours of searching are TELESALES. No thanks.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Bacon Barm
The Police out in force at the Manchester demo.
A phalanx of state power, all jack boots, riot gear
and desperate to arrest someone, anyone.
The horses were out, like some fascist knights,
with shield and club standing above us ready to charge.
The cameras were watching, taking our faces,
inscribing our names and all the while pretending we’re free.
The Arab Revolution
The recent response to the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions by the Western Powers has been breathtakingly hypocritical. The muted and conservative response underlines the approach of the "west" to democracy. When the Soviet, Chinese and Eastern European people came onto the streets in the late 1980s they were all for it, for the end of their major political, economic and strategic foes.
Now in the Arab world people protest about the corrupt, repressive dictatorial regimes that have been supported and propped up by the west. The silence of the western leaders is deafening. These our *our* guys, our stooges....Yet there are oppressive and corrupt, keeping millions in poverty as they colluded with global capital in shifting to a neo-liberal economic policy.
In way the exploitation of the people by this international cartel of interests sowed the seeds of its own destruction in creating poverty and class consciousness. They should have read Marx though shouldn't they.
Continuity, Stability, these have been the watchwords of their response. Pussyfooting around the hundreds of thousands on the streets facing down the police state. Where were the calls for continuity regarding the Stasi, the KGB? This shows the bullshit of their belief in democracy. It's a fig leaf, a convenient lie. A lie drenched in blood for oil, the sweat of billions around the globe, in our utterly inane wealth lives. A prompt and moral response would be to explicitly state support for free election. It might be seen as meddling, but yet it is not as if the west doesn't already.
The true face of our support for these pseudo-client dictators is our collusion with Libya and the insane Gaddafi regime. Absolute Nutter. Look at him. We both sold out and did some trade deals and now he was in the fold, and now as his security apparatus lay waste the people in brutal suppression they are with British made, government mandated and supervised exports.
They, Ben Ali, Mubbarak, Gaddafi, sold themselves as anti-Islamist. We bought into that to support our own geo-political narrative of terrorism. It is clear thought that creating poverty and exploitation in cohorts with the west would create a society more open to the radical alternative model of political Islamism.
Now in the Arab world people protest about the corrupt, repressive dictatorial regimes that have been supported and propped up by the west. The silence of the western leaders is deafening. These our *our* guys, our stooges....Yet there are oppressive and corrupt, keeping millions in poverty as they colluded with global capital in shifting to a neo-liberal economic policy.
In way the exploitation of the people by this international cartel of interests sowed the seeds of its own destruction in creating poverty and class consciousness. They should have read Marx though shouldn't they.
Continuity, Stability, these have been the watchwords of their response. Pussyfooting around the hundreds of thousands on the streets facing down the police state. Where were the calls for continuity regarding the Stasi, the KGB? This shows the bullshit of their belief in democracy. It's a fig leaf, a convenient lie. A lie drenched in blood for oil, the sweat of billions around the globe, in our utterly inane wealth lives. A prompt and moral response would be to explicitly state support for free election. It might be seen as meddling, but yet it is not as if the west doesn't already.
The true face of our support for these pseudo-client dictators is our collusion with Libya and the insane Gaddafi regime. Absolute Nutter. Look at him. We both sold out and did some trade deals and now he was in the fold, and now as his security apparatus lay waste the people in brutal suppression they are with British made, government mandated and supervised exports.
 |
| The Mad Dog |
North Korean Cinema
A report on the North Korean Cinema 'Industry' by Al-Jazeera. Propaganda Central.
A crushing report on what is a clearly a Stalinist country of oppression and exploitation straight out of the 1930s.
A crushing report on what is a clearly a Stalinist country of oppression and exploitation straight out of the 1930s.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Project Merlin, a Wizards Sleeve
So the government has done a deal with the banks. It is hailed by the chancellor, but it is a sham. I work for a bank, an effectively state owned one at that. They are cutting jobs and work places as we speak. Yet the big boys are going to get the bonuses now. I'm not. Not a penny. So how does Project Merlin help me? How does it help my colleagues and me?
Project Merlin, the banking deal, is basically two groups of public school types thrashing out a rough deal of increased lending to SMEs and token bonus control and disclosure.
The increased lending of 15% at ono £10 billion sounds impressive, but the economy shows signs of recovery especially in manufacturing so as businesses begin to expand you would expect lending to increase. Further, it is the lack of lending by the banks in the first place that caused the crash so that they have agreed to return to their proper role is not in any way a development worthy of crowing about. That they had to have a big sit down to do it is even worse.
USELESS GOBSHITES.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Pasta Bake Incoming
I am making a pasta bake. You can too. This is heart attack food but so tasty. I don't do weights and measures and precise timings. It's done when its done.
Fry up an onion, a pepper, some mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. Use oil at first but then add water. This will evaporate, leaving behind concentrated flavour. After the veg has juicified a bit add peices of Chicken and Bacon. Also season and add herbs. Let this cook through for at least half a hour. Then add a tin of tomatoes to create the sauce. Finally add a small pot of double cream. Then turn down the heat a simmer some more.
Meanwhile cook some Penne pasta and make some bread crumbs. Grated cheese is also helpful. Put the pasta in the baking dish, then add the sauce and mix it up. Then layer the cheese and bread crumbs on the top and wap it in the oven till the cheese and bread crumbs are melted and crisped. Noms.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Top Gear Mexico Debacle
HAHAHAHA CLARKSON YOU ARE FUNNY SO FUNNY I'M GOING TO FORCE AN EMPTY CRISP PACKET THROUGH MY EYE SOCKET HAHAHAHA
Having got that out of my system I'm going to try to examine why it's OK to be casually racist, if you're an overweight, unfunny, overpaid, car-obsessed boring twat. They speak to the lowest common denominator of base humour. LETS PISS ABOUT IN CARS. RACIST STEREOTYPES. The following is a tour through the though
You know Germans, ruthless and efficient. Making things, gassing minorities and commies and invading everywhere. I mean there's no culture in Germany is there? Berlin in the artistic centre of contin
ental Europe? ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH? BEER SWILLING NAZIS THAT LOT. Good cars though. And football.
MEXICANS, There's a lazy shit bunch of cunts, eh? Always sleeping, eating sick....
SHUT UP YOU THICK FUCKS. YOU'RE SPREADING IGNORANCE LIKE A STD, SHOVING THE PHALLUS OF YOUR IDIOCY INTO THE DIM CREVICE OF DARKNESS OF BOY RACERS LIKE THE EDL. It was only a bit of fun was it? Harmless laughs? Was it funny when Hammond crashed? I mean twats do tend to crash their cars so what can be expected eh? HAHAHAHA I mean he's English so he probably can't read, have you seen their schools?
Oh God it makes me angry. I despise TOP GEAR. Clarkson the most. What a nob.
Having got that out of my system I'm going to try to examine why it's OK to be casually racist, if you're an overweight, unfunny, overpaid, car-obsessed boring twat. They speak to the lowest common denominator of base humour. LETS PISS ABOUT IN CARS. RACIST STEREOTYPES. The following is a tour through the though
You know Germans, ruthless and efficient. Making things, gassing minorities and commies and invading everywhere. I mean there's no culture in Germany is there? Berlin in the artistic centre of contin
ental Europe? ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH? BEER SWILLING NAZIS THAT LOT. Good cars though. And football.
MEXICANS, There's a lazy shit bunch of cunts, eh? Always sleeping, eating sick....
SHUT UP YOU THICK FUCKS. YOU'RE SPREADING IGNORANCE LIKE A STD, SHOVING THE PHALLUS OF YOUR IDIOCY INTO THE DIM CREVICE OF DARKNESS OF BOY RACERS LIKE THE EDL. It was only a bit of fun was it? Harmless laughs? Was it funny when Hammond crashed? I mean twats do tend to crash their cars so what can be expected eh? HAHAHAHA I mean he's English so he probably can't read, have you seen their schools?
The Madness of Library Closures
THE MADNESS MUST STOP!
The proposed library cuts will hit Bolton hard. According to the Bolton News: "libraries in Breightmet, Astley Bridge, Bromley Cross, Heaton, High Street in Daubhill, Castle Hill, Tonge Moor, Oxford Grove in Halliwell, The Orchards in Farnworth and Harwood could all face the axe." This is not only attack on literacy and access to education and culture, but an attack on ordinary people. A savage denial of the right to be entertained through civic effort, of the right to a quiet space of learning, to a repository of human culture. The "Big Society" so lauded by the Conservative led coalition is made so utterly bankrupt, so hollow and duplicitous as to totally invalidate any legitimacy and mandate the government has.
The Central Library in Bolton is an exceptional piece of the cultural framework of the town, housed in the beautiful Le Mans Crescent it is the centre of an excellent set of community libraries. The classical facade is a natural meeting place, a place to greet and cherish a freshly withdrawn book, to chat with friends and share a lingering cigarette as the clouds gather in another Lancashire town. It was fitting that as part of the resistance and opposition to the travesty of the Library closures policy a demonstration was held there on Saturday the 5th of February by community groups and library users. Sadly it was a day of torrential rainfall which somewhat dampened the turnout and staying power of the protest. Nonetheless there was vigour and conviction in the opposition to the cuts, shared across the generations.
Bolton Green Party was there, demonstrating the Green Party's commitment to an alternative to the harsh and destructive ConLib cuts. The lack of other visible political parties compounded this and spoke of the bankruptcy of the Labour Party, especially damaging in a working class mill town such a Bolton, right in the heart of the traditional Labour strongholds.
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Saturday, 5 February 2011
Romeo & Juliet: the hipster version
So last night I went to see Romeo & Juliet at the Octagon in Bolton. I love that theater, its one of the great things about the town.
This play however not so much. One of Shakespeare's most famous and quoted works, it is a very strong foundation on which to build a play.
The setting was unsure of itself, we see at the beginning two *ultras*, one in a Roma shirt, another in the pale blue of Lazio, rival clubs from Rome. So is it set in Rome? Or Verona? Clearly textual authenticity must be maintained in linguistic terms but this incongruity was just the start of a jumbled up confused staging of the play.
On the one hand the costume was raging hipster, daft glasses and Sharp suits, and the other Juliet was rocking a 60s look, and the maid glamour ready for a night up Deansgate Locks. It was confused and uncohesive.
The cast as a whole was too old and a bit too rotund, not the fountain of youth at which first love tosses the penny of passion and conflict. They should be supple and vigorous, not portly and meandering.
Tibalt was somewhat fey and camp, despite snarled teeth and jackboots, not a 'duelist' of the first order. A black vest with a minor belly compounded this image. Mercutio too was older and rounder than he should have been. He did play the role with full physicallity and innuendo, but with garbled voice serrating the dialogue now and then as a blunt saw on cheap wood.
Romeo himself was too old and too deliberated, his passion calculated and madness full of method. He also unleashed a torrent of saliva with each new sentence, over pronouncing.
The maid, played by Michelle Collins of Eastenders fame, was a travesty. Over dressed and too young in appearance she blurred the line between maid and mother, who are meant to be seperate, by years and by social class. Why then did she have Gucci bags? She attacked the words with the subtlety of a pickaxe to the head, with no flow or poetry at all. She started with a cockney accent, then after the interval became posh, and then reverted to cockney.
Amidst this travesty of errors, Juliet was a revelation. A thin whisp of a woman she had the requisite youth to play her part. The balcony scene was modern, was fresh and she gave it the nervous energy of young love.
All on all must do better.
Monday, 24 January 2011
Berlin, Germany and Everything
Berlin is in all senses of the word modern. It is a city going forward, a metropolis of the future despite its overpowering past. New construction work is everywhere and the city is replete with contemporary Steel and glass skyscrapers and renovated buildings and façades. Formerly dour areas in the old DDR sections of the city are now trendy cosmopolitan areas with fashionable bars and restaurants. The city is finally healing after 70 years of strife beginning in WW2, and throughout the Cold War.
The past, of course, lives on with the difference in 'Green Men' at traffic lights, streets with names like 'Karl Marx Allee' (formerly Stalinallee). The DDR's Fernsehturm is visible throughout the city, a stark reminder of the old regime's grand and flawed vision.
A symbol of the transcendence of this past in the dome of the Reichstag, a building familiar to any student of 20th century for its association with the 2nd & 3rd Reichs. A British architect was behind the transformation, moving the building beyond the 20th century not in architectural terms (though it is impressive) but in cultural and historic terms with the glass dome more striking and memorable than the buildings past, something that would have seemed impossible before 1990.
Berlin is the largest and capital city of Germany, so it is appropriate that it is a fast moving city. It's hustle and bustle is not rooted in big commerce & business, as in London, something that has stayed in the west in cities like Frankfurt, or through self importance like Paris. It is cultural, as something IS happening somewhere. Something very interesting. An exhibition, new sculptures, a gallery, new music, new squats.... It is something that has been in the city for some time, since at least the 1920s if not before. David Bowie's 3 best albums were a response to Berlin, "the Berlin trilogy" of Low, Heroes & Lodger. In the 1920s Berlin was the centre for European film and now the city hosts an eminent film festival.
This creativity is something that is not associated with Germany by the English as a whole. England is a country where Germany cannot escape association with the war, efficiency and the image of moustachioed men suffering from mullets drinking hearty glasses of bier. This attitude is unfair and outdated, but more to do with English insularity than anything else.
Berlin doesn't care and nor should it. It has something vital and passionate, something any English city should be jealous of, and many wish they had. Manchester thinks it is creative and interesting. Berlin is. Manchester reinvented itself once, in the late 1990s and lost whatever gave it soul, and gained a new shopping centre and over priced yuppie district. Berlin has reinvented itself 5 times in less than a 100 years, gaining each time a new dynamism and character.
The city has much to offer visitors. Berliners are friendly and many speak English, especially in "die Mitte". The museums are world class, cheap and extensive. The Jewish Museum is a wonder, almost worth a visit in and off itself such is its depth and breadth. Here in one building, Germany deals with its past in public, with sensitivity and grace, omitting nothing and creating a narrative stretching back to the 12th century. There is in fact a small island inthe River Spree, called "Museuminsel" (Museum Island) covered with museums. Onecould visit for a month and still have plenty to go round.
Berlin is blessed with numerous bars, serving fantastic beer at low prices. It really does make your average crappy English lager look like piss (there are many high quality English beers but they often aren't served in pubs/bars, at least not round our way). Germany seems to not have as much problems with booze, with revellers drinking happily on the street bothering no one. The one time on my visits to Germany that there has been trouble drinking was caused byan English squaddie in Paderbonn.
Traditional German food involves hearty chunks of meat, with lashings of potatoes and cabbage. This has not changed much, but this food does go well with large amounts of Pils. They have a natural affinity and this excellent combination can be had in Berlin all over town. As a major city there are many fine restaurants of many different cuisines, but to be fair Berlin is not a gastronomic destination unless you have a love affair with stodge. Culturally and historically it is a major destination. It is an amazingly interesting city.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
God of War
The God of War games are amazing. The PS2/3 trilogy is just action start to finish. Immense liberties are taken with ancient Greek mythology to stunning effect, with this being a fine example. Kratos, the main character, is somewhat limited in his emotions, with a range going from anger to rage. A whirlwind of destruction, once a Spartan general and later a fallen god Kratos despite his limited range and simple characterisation transcends his simplicity through the grandeur of the Ancient Greek settings. That and killing everything. Everything.
The first game was at the time the pinnacle of PS2 action adventure, and indeed one of the very best of that console generation. It was an immense technical achievement with limited loading times, immense scale and an immense audio score. Graphically it was gifted with great animation and detailed environments. Later ported to PS3 as part of the God of War Collection (seemingly starting a trend) it is still one of the best action games on Playstation.
Kratos's first adventure was not flawless, featuring some frustrating platforming sections and inane puzzles. It also had a charming B-movie feel, as if it were almost a Saturday morning cartoon expanded and digitized with buckets of gore. This was something changed in the inevitable sequel God of War 2.
This game was a blockbuster through and through. Its opening level was jaw dropping and set the ever increasing tone. Filled with better puzzles, mini-bosses and epic epic sections God of War 2 improved on it's prequel in almost every way. The scale can be jaw dropping still in the age of HD consoles.
God of War 2 expanded on the fictionalised version of the Greek mythology in the games and sets up the return of the Titans to fight the Gods of Olympus. This is a neat set up for the third game which essentially follows directly on from the second game.
The first game was at the time the pinnacle of PS2 action adventure, and indeed one of the very best of that console generation. It was an immense technical achievement with limited loading times, immense scale and an immense audio score. Graphically it was gifted with great animation and detailed environments. Later ported to PS3 as part of the God of War Collection (seemingly starting a trend) it is still one of the best action games on Playstation.
Kratos's first adventure was not flawless, featuring some frustrating platforming sections and inane puzzles. It also had a charming B-movie feel, as if it were almost a Saturday morning cartoon expanded and digitized with buckets of gore. This was something changed in the inevitable sequel God of War 2.
This game was a blockbuster through and through. Its opening level was jaw dropping and set the ever increasing tone. Filled with better puzzles, mini-bosses and epic epic sections God of War 2 improved on it's prequel in almost every way. The scale can be jaw dropping still in the age of HD consoles.
God of War 2 expanded on the fictionalised version of the Greek mythology in the games and sets up the return of the Titans to fight the Gods of Olympus. This is a neat set up for the third game which essentially follows directly on from the second game.
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