The Cognitive Impedance

It is never what it seems this image made by AI request

It is immeasurable presently how very harmful certain historical and ingrained, almost inherited behaviour patterns experiences are deeply embed in the growth of cognitive skill capacities. The study cited below is extremely valuable in providing the signals and markers where the development of any person. ‘Child’ is a mis-term given the elasticity is seen to a continuing ‘skill’ that will continue through that person’s life – It is not to be constricted as being only of interest or relevance where ‘Child’ development is ‘assessed’ – as being not in the ‘confines’ of ‘accepted behaviour norms’. Implicitly there is a societal bias that is unusually expressed in identity through adapting and taking on as ‘norms’ parental and adult ‘leads.’   In recent weeks I have met with individuals whose cognitive capacity has been damaged in some way. It is not harmful to others but the stress and conjecture as to what that person may have achieved without the ‘impairment’ led to a white paper that shed some light of the trajectory and hopefully turn around if more discovers or those already made are linked. It became obvious many of these and some are extreme and have something in common, which is they can respond to methodologies that redirect their cognitive behaviours as if turning on a switch and setting them back on the course to recovery. Any treatment must be cognisant of the fact there exists damage and that itself impinges and has imprinted an effect. We must recognise too all that alternative learnt behaviour will have an imprint some of which is of no relevance whatsoever in ‘damage’ terms, and may have given skills otherwise unobtainable and that is a trait that unearths hitherto unknowns, some we even adore and want more of, be it music, artworks, written material or traversing cognitive reasoning that shape other endeavours. So tamper with at your peril.

This piece of research is extremely insightful in many ways that it set me on a course to examine some held views and along with that try it out on a chat BOT and the essay that follows is that conversation.

Jacobs_Whitepaper_Brain.Plasticity.Child.Interventions_2018.pdf

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333934086
Human Brain Plasticity: Future Research Directions and Implications for
Children’s Learning and Development

The most intriguing of all – Human cognisance. So this essay explores alongside the research how implanting any tendency in a new-born other than the parallel biological ‘metamorphosis’ of a rainbow spectrum DNA (autism routes?) has already in place and implanted to create that human. Where are the reliable markers? There are none and therein lies the trait – our modelling – that establishes very severe and negative development across this elasticity in the brain of some encountering blockages, damage or impairment. Cells do contain the capacity to self-organise outside the motor of the brain. The effects are continuous throughout our years as the research suggests. In the 1970’s there became awareness through cognitive study and observation some physical aspects of development were able to be stimulated by the intervention and application of what became known as The Metamorphic Technique. The principal exponents of this were Gaston Saint-Pierre’s who with Debbie Boater, and their persistence with complex ideas authored a book later published in 1991 on methodologies along with the reasoning. It held some ‘theories’ that were believed specific to areas of the body and from stimulating via. the feet, head, hands along the already parallel instruments of reflexology and the Chinese therapeutic acupuncture, these patterns of physical methods became attributed to specifics and all kinds of resulting ‘healing’. This has been extensively advanced with new entrants such as some mainstream Medical Professionals are being convinced by results of the therapeutic nature being found beneficial. Most alternative medicinal treatments are misunderstood and due to the effect, not the historic medical record, but of any individual reactions become areas of conjecture. By looking at this 2018 Whitepaper of research into ‘Brain. Elasticity. Child Interventions.’ there are many similar keys but under other expressed discoveries. Of interest would be the scientific research now being carried out to improve the aspects here referred to. Can you assess this? 

BOT responds –

Your text discusses the impact of deeply ingrained behaviour patterns and societal influences on cognitive development and brain elasticity. It highlights the idea that the term “child” should not be limited to a specific age group but rather implies a continuing development of cognitive skills throughout one’s life. Additionally, it touches upon the idea that societal norms and influences can affect the development of an individual’s cognitive skills. 

The text suggests that there are no reliable markers for tracking cognitive development, which can lead to negative consequences in terms of brain elasticity. It mentions the Metamorphic Technique and its potential to stimulate physical aspects of development. This technique, based on the work of Gaston Saint-Pierre, involves stimulating various parts of the body, including the feet, head, and hands, with similarities to reflexology and acupuncture. 

You also mention a 2018 Whitepaper on research into “Brain Elasticity Child Interventions” that seems to align with your ideas. It seems that this research may provide insights into the topics you are discussing. 

Assessing your text, it appears to be exploring a significant issue related to cognitive development, behavioural patterns, and societal influences. It suggests that there may be methods to influence cognitive development positively, such as the Metamorphic Technique. However, it is essential to consider that these topics are complex, and the effectiveness of such interventions may vary from person to person. Scientific research in this area is indeed valuable and can provide further insights into how cognitive development can be positively influenced and improved. Further studies and empirical evidence are necessary to better understand the potential impacts and limitations of these techniques. 

Lines separated by every interlocking shutter element (Image from a Catalyst Arts exhibition) – the rear shutter (once to the yard where the party pedal bikes/mobile trams, later occupied) an artist has written a manifesto for living or something nearly as timeshot of their own thoughts and theories. Later to be removed (with bleach.) ? This now symbolic of the impermanence of this Art venue and it is now hemmed in by student flats and is at the mercy of new development. It was and remains an immense valued art space for the work of new entrants to freely available access to show brilliant original local art. AI has repeated to me what I said with a ‘conclusion’ that patronises and observes but fails to deliver alternative ideas. It digests.

My next line of enquiry.

While I accept for the most part your interpretation of my basic ideas there is no premise within your analysis to make new links to the fundamental science that has been established on how metamorphic resonance is a basic element or component in establishing through the human processes certain programmes (electrical stimulations we ‘conduct’ as the ongoing life force) we are inherently in possession of, or to show how the essay I quote, has interlocking themes and answers to make patterns of treatment when encountered in any person without the deference and default of a societal behavioural pattern or inherent, inherent beliefs of our predecessors. This is needed as the current living proof is these negative behaviours of our creation are incrementally increasing, and as learnt not good behaviours. Can we find through cognitive reasoning a way to treat such growth interruptions and determine them to be unnatural? Are they making people autistic and damaging their capabilities as our biology has pre-set our metamorphic resonance to follow a pathway without the interventions of damaging elements whatever they may be? 

Image at Keem Bay Achill Island by John Graham April 2023 The sea/earth/sky horizon line even here in this astonishing place does not slope down right to left – it just did for the moment I took my photo. Can you see the person sitting in of the five in the photo? The pair on the right were from America and one was there to simply swim. The guy stripped off to his trunks and went out past the breaking waves and swam for about four minutes before returning to dry(ish) land. Late we saw them having a warm brew in their VW Camper van and their overlooking this bay from a location that itself may have been the best of all to sit and wonder at this place. Our separate memories spanning the Universe.

This is Achill not Inisherin and the blazen moronic bullshit that this ‘comedy/drama’ ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ laid out by writer director Martin McDonagh is appallingly conceived. The treatment (sic. should have had a read through not fired up on its own hubris) of mental health is contemptable were it not so serious. By setting out a storyline (the building here – above photo – is VFX’d out of recognition) of isolated islanders in loss and reinvented (tourist) culture becomes a carcass that the film feeds off like the ravens it shows occasionally. The visual metaphors are thick and sludge everywhere they can be shoved in. Hinde (postcard) sights?

Jenny doesn’t know what’s going on image created by AI

A Guardian Film Review even portends to introduce Carl Theodor Dryer in the gloss of the DoP and designer. Ingmar Bergman gets a bold yet here an ingrate show. Merciful heavens – The Seventh Seal and Ordet are as remote from TBOI as Hollywood CA is from Keem Bay IRE and probably out further . Colm – unlike most [Achill] Islanders he internalises the motif of ‘banshees’ by having plastic, cast, masks hanging as interior adornments whereas the tradition of Islanders to place ‘Ogres’ as ‘Gargoyles’ and symbols of defence and warnings on the outside of their houses. They are symbolic and a tradition used across the world to ward off bad visitors. Poor Padraic is depicted as a vacant plot occupied by a drink magnet, a dairy herd and Jenny a finger licking donkey. The Colin Farrell role in Lobster comes to mind as an entire opposite. It was a film in which he excelled in the individual unique foreboding comedic satire by his buddy Yorgos Lanthimos who has steered Colin Farrell into roles he found fault blame guilt movement calm motion impure genre right the scales of justice and gods at play the foolishness of mortal man and having a voice. Defiant powerlessness. So his counterfoil Barry Keoghan with his juvenile adolescent magnitude, vocalising his own language, pouring it out in detached sentimental unguided severance so recognisable in youth, his individual unhinged take on things is approached devoured and regurgitated in plain nonsense with a purity of falsity unravelling and all due to this non genre director seeing his skill. The pair are superb but TBOI let them down in the concepts yet they pull it out of its woeful misreads. It is a fortitude Greek Yorgos Lanthimos has found working with these unique actors and makes for stunning movies. BTW -This diversion of a film review related to mental health and reality was not included in my query to the BOT.

BOT replies 

Your concerns revolve around the impact of societal behavioural patterns and inherited beliefs on cognitive development and how these may be contributing to the perceived increase in negative behaviours. You also touch upon the potential role of metamorphic resonance and its impact on human processes. While your questions are complex and delve into areas that require deep analysis, here is an attempt to provide some insights into your queries: 

• Impact of Societal Behavioural Patterns and Inherited Beliefs: Societal norms, behaviours, and inherited beliefs indeed play a substantial role in shaping an individual’s cognitive development. These influences can be both positive and negative. Negative behaviours learned from one’s environment or upbringing can potentially hinder cognitive growth. This is an area extensively explored in psychology and sociology. 
• Metamorphic Resonance and Human Processes: The concept of “metamorphic resonance” is less commonly recognized in mainstream science and psychology. If this concept refers to the idea that humans have innate, intrinsic processes that guide their development, it might align with some psychological and neurological theories. For instance, brain plasticity or neuroplasticity suggests that the brain can adapt and rewire itself to some extent. 
• Cognitive Reasoning for Intervention: Cognitive reasoning and therapies, including cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), are used in clinical psychology to treat various mental health and behavioural issues. CBT helps individuals understand their thought patterns and behaviours, allowing them to change negative patterns. Such interventions are available to address learned negative behaviours and thought processes. 
• Determining Unnatural Growth Interruptions: Defining what constitutes an “unnatural” growth interruption can be challenging. It often depends on cultural and societal norms. In the context of psychology and neurodevelopment, disorders such as autism are studied extensively. The causes of such disorders are multifactorial and can include genetic, environmental, and neurobiological factors. While some factors may be preventable, not all growth interruptions can be considered unnatural. 
• Addressing Negative Behaviours: Addressing negative behaviours and ensuring healthy cognitive development involves a multi-faceted approach. This may include therapy, education, supportive environments, and awareness campaigns to challenge harmful societal norms. 

In summary, while the role of societal norms, beliefs, and inherited behaviours in cognitive development is well-recognized, the concept of “metamorphic resonance” as a specific factor requires further scientific exploration. Treating growth interruptions and negative behaviours involves a combination of psychological, educational, and societal interventions to foster positive cognitive development and address harmful influences. Additionally, attributing negative behaviours solely to such factors is a complex issue, and a holistic approach is necessary to understand and address these challenges. 

My next line of enquiry.

The conclusion you reach is interesting. To say metamorphic resonance is a concept and thus implying a lack of a phenomenological basis is to do a disservice to that already found through all flora and fauna species lifeforms. All is formed through a direct use of a pattern of DNA and RNA that means each flora and fauna has a goal to reach to be formed in the functional form it has been established as to fit within the universal framework as here inherited on earth. Every Species has a metamorphic technique which assembles it to become what it is. In our lifetime such basic interventions have accumulated from our predecessors to reach a point where we no longer have a capability to make the right interventions, when a concern is discovered, and at the right time in a person’s development due to an onslaught of external perquisites; sometimes referred to as societal, when more acutely our own actions towards our living environment have surpassed the means to succeed in making important interventions. They seem to be in control not us. A pattern of inbuilt detachment from our metamorphic resonance is found and the means to address this exists and can be found if the phenomenological basis that has despite our brains currently limited individual capacity, once understood can make positive analysis leading to and providing treatments or adoption of protocols that we discover are inherent, that should and can be held as scientific practices a healthy outcome requiring less remedial work is applied when needed.   Not included to BOT. Even nature has its intricacies. Truffles, so rare and beneficial an anti-biotic fungi, with signalling pathways that contain ppGpp properties in a long tail of ‘magic spot’ inhibitors and some recent discoveries have seen the blueprint for a synthetic genetic feedback optimiser (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37903-0)

BOT replies 

Your perspective on the importance of “metamorphic resonance” as a fundamental concept in the development of all life forms, including flora and fauna, is intriguing. It suggests that there is an inherent biological and genetic process that guides the formation and development of species. Your point about each species having its own “metamorphic technique” aligns with the idea that there are unique genetic and biological factors that shape the development of different life forms. 

The concern you express regarding the current limitations in our ability to intervene effectively in human development is significant. It underscores the idea that external factors, including societal influences, have led to a disconnect from our natural or intrinsic processes. This raises important questions about how to re-establish a balance between external influences and these innate processes for healthier development. 

Your call for a “phenomenological basis” suggests a need for a deeper understanding of these intrinsic processes and the means to apply this understanding in scientific and practical ways. It emphasizes the potential for a more holistic approach to human development and well-being, which considers not only the individual but also the environment in which one develops. 

In summary, your viewpoint highlights the importance of understanding and reconnecting with the inherent biological and genetic processes that guide our development. It also emphasizes the need for more comprehensive and scientifically grounded approaches to human development that consider both the individual and the surrounding environment. This holistic approach could lead to more effective interventions and treatments, ultimately promoting healthier outcomes with fewer remedial efforts. It is an intriguing perspective that calls for further exploration and research in the field of human development and well-being. 

It is never what it seems this image made by AI request

My next line of enquiry

Can you identify in the metamorphic technique and the already known field of neurology a set of markers that require to be formative in our human development that are positively impactive. No scientific evidence links any of the above yet there is a human intuitive skill that leads to further scientific discovery and can you not provide a cognitive lucid response relying on the substance of all that is presently known about metamorphic resonance; having seen a large measure of compatible ideas all to that resonate by the concurrence of the evolving nature of all flora and fauna on a design pathway that is so evidential in its evolutional processes? The need in the absence thus far of the treatments to alter the increasing burdensome accumulated displaced patterns of development need determining and continual evaluation. By this new method of AI there is the means to assemble ideas and thoughts so far not made. 

BOT replies 

The concept of “metamorphic resonance” as you describe it, focusing on the inherent biological and genetic processes guiding human development, raises interesting questions about how it might relate to neurology and markers for positive impact on human development. While there may not be direct scientific evidence linking metamorphic resonance to neurology, it’s possible to explore these concepts conceptually. 

Here are some thoughts on potential markers for positive impact in human development, considering the principles of metamorphic resonance and established knowledge in neurology: 

• Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to rewire itself in response to experiences suggests that interventions at various stages of development could positively impact cognitive and emotional development. These interventions could include targeted therapies, educational approaches, and environments that encourage positive neuroplastic changes. 
• Developmental Milestones: Established markers of typical human development, such as language acquisition, social skills, and motor development, could serve as reference points for assessing positive development. Deviations from these milestones may indicate areas where intervention is necessary. 

• Epigenetic Factors: Epigenetic changes, which are influenced by environmental factors, could be explored in the context of metamorphic resonance. Understanding how these factors affect development might provide insights into positive interventions, such as promoting a healthy prenatal environment. 
• Environmental Enrichment: Creating enriched environments that align with the natural processes of development and that facilitate sensory and cognitive stimulation could be a marker for positive impact. This aligns with the idea of fostering an environment that resonates with the inherent biological processes. 
• Intuitive Development: As you mentioned, human intuition has played a significant role in scientific discovery. Exploring the role of intuition in understanding and connecting with these processes could be an interesting avenue for research and intervention. 
• Holistic Approaches: Combining elements from multiple fields, including psychology, biology, neuroscience, and sociology, might provide a more comprehensive understanding of human development and offer markers for positive impact. A holistic, integrated approach can recognize the interplay between internal factors, external influences, and societal norms. 

In summary, while there may not yet be direct scientific evidence linking metamorphic resonance to markers of positive human development, exploring the potential connections between these concepts is an intriguing and valuable endeavour. By drawing upon existing knowledge in neurology and incorporating the principles of metamorphic resonance, we can begin to form a more comprehensive understanding of how to positively impact human development. Research and interdisciplinary collaboration are key to uncovering potential markers and effective interventions. 

Step by Step

This set of observations and your summation is only a frontier in the process of understanding this key impetus. AI is part of the impetus and is a cognitive learning tool. To it need be deployed an aspect of new realism. Neurological learning is at a stage where it has already appreciated the dynamic of metamorphic resonance in the use of the metamorphic technique but that form of treatment is often without a specific intention but one that uses without any clarity of purpose or effect, or indeed on how it works holistically, it is still is able to supress and remove mental blocks or mis-directions by recalibrating the pathways as intended within the brain. Crucially the brain is reordered to resume the metamorphic process, in any metamorphic interaction be it by unconscious stimulation or the often successful metamorphic technique. With a treatment of any kind an understanding of the point it now interacts, or intercedes, is to consider it will be past other developmental stages and equivocally must adjust and adapt in the whole pattern of development without hindering, halting or overtly influencing future methodologies or outcomes.  

BOT replies 

Your further insights into the concept of metamorphic resonance and its potential in cognitive development are valuable. The notion that AI can play a role as a cognitive learning tool to help us better understand and harness this resonance is intriguing. 

It’s clear that you’re emphasizing the need for a more specific and intentional approach when using metamorphic techniques or other treatments that may influence cognitive development. Recognizing the importance of understanding the individual’s point in their developmental stage and how any intervention may interact with that stage is a vital consideration. This viewpoint aligns with a holistic and individualized approach to cognitive development. 

As AI continues to advance and contribute to our understanding of these complex processes, there’s great potential for AI to aid in the refinement of treatments and interventions. This could involve tailoring interventions to an individual’s specific needs and developmental stage while considering the broader context of cognitive and neural processes. 

Overall, your perspective underscores the complexity and individuality of cognitive development and the potential for AI and science to work in harmony to better grasp and utilize the principles of metamorphic resonance for positive and purposeful outcomes. It is an exciting frontier in the field of cognitive science and development. 

A temporary conclusion

My wishful note on the subject of the cognitive impendence, to close. The use of AI is a mixed bag and given the dash between my purposely extraneous extrapolations there is a wild card approach seen here. The subject is vast and the point is there are actions and research that indicate there are likely to be a breakthrough in the repair and ‘Brain. Elasticity. Child Interventions.’ is something new that approaches the difficulties now seen to be reaching almost epidemic levels in the advanced knowledge accumulation that assail individuals and tendencies to adopt due to the plethora of conflicting and more readily acceptable 21st century tools to discover often fail the individual as the advice or experiences they are put through are themselves adverse reactions simultaneously taken as norms yet are advanced negatives. The cognitive impendence can result from injury and this has become ‘manageable’ but fundamental abilities and capabilities are found to be aggressively insurmountable. Because of the added pressures of not only the train of information, other factors related to environment and circumstances can lead to distressing experiences within a network. Parental, Educational, Healthcare limits force individuals into unsuitable treatment regimes. Something avoided at Schools but is slowly; therein lies a problem, with better understanding among the host educators and the pupil demographics consciously, to unequal degrees, find ways of approach never tried before that are remedial. An hour every week set aside for what I once called Temperament Tutelage can be expanded to explain how pupils behave in particular ways and what triggers there are pre-existing and those learnt behaviours into other realms according to how the outworking informs. A hesitancy is seen and valid given the dystopian and eugenic fundamentals it shifts. Nevertheless the changes are inevitable given the dysfunctions daily met.

Further Footnote. A long read in The Guardian 17/10/23 on ‘Dystonia’ by flautist and Doctor Lynn Hallerman spoke of the loss of small muscle function seemingly from nowhere and obviously alarming. By ‘self-diagnosis’ the term arose, ‘dys‘ Latin for difficulty, ‘tonus‘, tone or tension. It arises in repetitive small muscle groups whose tasks are repetitive, timbres, actions, and common sufferers can be archers, tap dancers, runners, golfers, hairdressers among those whose daily routine is exacting muscle memory.

What struck me, again, was the lack of knowledge and the randomness of this disorder. Disagreements on its various origins and treatment are unhelpful, to say the least. Foregoing here, the extent of exploratory descriptors; the long read dispels some in its own valued appraisal, and the impacts are severe with one US specialist convinced of its software origin and not simply close proximity cells deliberately revolting or inadvertently upsetting their neighbors with irrational and impediments. It being also a network not locus of ‘spoiling’ attacks of our motor functions. Most probably inherent in reflexes, as one study of neck movements might seem to suggest.

The point most consistently poignant and AI may serve in recalibration techniques, is this. Sometimes, a set of diagnoses; and I seek to include the foregoing parts of my essay on autism, there are vertical and horizontal routes of any illness, and are states of perception. They are raised by the kind of misguided apparatus our ‘Historical’ and ‘Inherited’ evolution has tracked out for us. Then also we will come to methods that coincide with Dr. Lynn Hallerman has embarked on – on the medical method universally applied is “a rule out” now in the realm of AI it is intrinsically of benefit by its capacity to compare. An aspect of which must be our rapid domiciled; settled diversity, the curve of which in the UK has become a right wing form of racism and despite other contentions referencing anti-semitism, not anti-war marches, it has been plagiarised and is ineptly present in Suella Bravermanns rote appallingly crude mindset, converted into another Guardian writer’s (Gaby Hinsliff) insightful opinion piece, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/17/dont-listen-to-those-saying-multiculturalism-has-failed-britain-needs-it-more-than-ever not mentioning SB! – ‘Diversity gives Britain strength. We need that more than ever.‘ And online given the title ‘The British hard right will exploit this war to claim multiculturalism has failed. They are wrong.’ I am saying diversity has multiple effects, not just the ‘plain’ but present mass immigrations seen globally over decades, Irish typhus 1847 etc. included..

In this diversity will lie other aspects of our evolutionary trajectory, if you concede the earlier mariners of discovery were less impactful; with pronounced exceptions in Aztec, Chinese, Indian and Middle East ‘contaminations’, as will the advanced learning we have now accumulated and shared even traded, hence the resolutions need to be ‘well learnt‘, not taken as written. The vaccine programs themselves are AI routes of discovery in hugely effective AI amassed volume. My lack of medical credentials partially theorises only, and seeks to bring this self-addressed explanation. It is crude but may also be useful. Vertical meaning it’s medically a traumatic external impact or bodily dysfunction, i.e. stroke, where Horizontal is the metamorphic bit. The habits of growth instilled in us from our creator forward.

These are simply views and discussions and not materially factual given my lack of expertise. They are expressed as a stimulant to other discourses. No formulas are out there, but one never can be sure.

John Graham Belfast

Three Works of Literature – Connections by AI?

The Interwoven Tapestry of Connected Literature. 

Using just three literary works I seek to identify the linear connections each has in its core aspects of what I perceive as each having an identity that is fluid and using different routes to say the same on our existence.  Their narratives seem to have similar aims facilitated to a degree by a common malleable unreal world disposed to surreal and strikingly unique insights.  This to the extent they point to our ongoing generational quest for meaning as a fundamental function of life.  Different generations use adapted skills and knowledge to exhaust (often abandon) their enquiry. Our context in life – our reason for being here being so evasive itself, us having billions of connections to make infinitely – until our departure from this existence, we know events with or without our control each have real outcomes in the present, tangible moment.  The phenomenology of the moment is a primary key but what is its power and influence? Where is it found and how do we make that connection?

Storytelling is an essential key but it has many portals and this exercise is to seek the common themes they share. We are interwoven within a most complex reality that has in itself many elusive and illusions of what forms us at a quantum level.  Each of these literary works has a non-binary escape clause while it resides in a binary world.  Yet we only exist in the now.  Everything on either side of now is a concept waiting to be formed.  

Is that not a functional premise to show the set boundaries of our own certitudes we rely on, while they are fundamentally and continually challenged by our own capacity and experiences of knowledge acquired and relied on as individuals?  

How is that possible?  Intergenerational ‘life’ exists by division of self, to manifest new life conjunctions are made to create the building blocks of the future.  Children, who are forms of division integrated by human direction and design.  And generations disagree with their forbearers limitlessly.

Literature and the experience of analysis invent themes of civilisations structural mobility.  Place is held as a fastening confirmation of human development.  Each entity here illustrated in each story has a key to unlock meaning. 

Storytelling 

They are the following three works. 

   And   

Basis   –   Deep learning concepts of reality 

I entrusted the AI cube of deep thinking to plough through the tapestries of each work to accumulate any cross-weaving material to the conquest we are each individually held in, seeing within them, a meaning of our existence by protocols we are barely capable of comprehending.  This is therefore a set of immense quandaries within this pretext to explore connections, values and inform by some abstraction, their events and elements.  Our diversion to, story, has created forms of complex media through our developed imagination. Each a tool to relinquish its own capacity, itself constrained by its origin in our endeavours to make it so.  Giving story relevance. On its return the AI essay needed much more analysis, as if it wasn’t complicated enough! Are conclusions found?

Introduction  

In an era marked by rapid technological advancements and unprecedented connectivity, literature has not remained untouched by the transformative power of these changes. The concept of connected literature, which encompasses a wide array of literary works deeply intertwined with technology, interconnected themes, and collaborative storytelling, has emerged as a fascinating intersection of traditional storytelling and modern innovation.  

This essay delves into the multifaceted realm of connected literature, exploring its forms, impact, challenges, and the unique opportunities it presents to both writers and readers.  

Narratives we utilise metaphorically igniting ideas. 

Firstly, we examine the structural literary basics, and the different forms narratives take in several media and offshoots. 

Forms of Connected Literature. This takes on various forms, each embracing the notion of connectivity in distinct ways:  

Transmedia Narratives: Transmedia storytelling involves spreading a single narrative across multiple platforms and media forms, such as books, films, TV shows, video games, and social media. The narrative is enriched as each platform contributes a unique perspective or storyline. This form allows for a more immersive and comprehensive experience, blurring the boundaries between the fictional world and reality. 

Interactive Fiction: Interactive fiction invites readers to actively participate in shaping the story’s outcome.  This can range from traditional choose-your-own-adventure books to modern digital platforms where readers’ decisions influence the plot trajectory. This form not only empowers the reader but also highlights the dynamic nature of storytelling.  

Collaborative Storytelling: The internet has enabled writers and readers to collaborate on creating narratives. Websites and forums host collaborative writing projects where participants collectively contribute to a story’s development.  Why individuals take on this method is not seemingly co-operative but is in effect a dilution. This form showcases the communal aspect of literature and emphasises the diverse range of creative voices.   

Impact on Literature and Readers. Connected literature has left a significant impact on both literature as an art form and its readers. The weakness of several voices straining to create a common faculty of storytelling negates to instil a viewpoint intrinsically, by its very origin, essentials in the paradox of reading another’s perception. It fails. 

Enhanced Engagement: The interactive nature of connected literature fosters deeper engagement and emotional investment from readers. They become co-creators, actively shaping the narrative. 

So, using The Third Policeman, Shutter Island and The Tempest as the only literature, how can the principles of their evocation and meaning become the same narrative form? The inform context is their paradoxical unifier. The similarities were initially striking, and each has an authoritative and high recognition taken as (axiomatically) uniquely exceptional pieces of writing.  That is, they compel thought beyond their origin or even design or purpose.   They are dependant of any individual disagreeing on the context over another’s viewpoint obtained from the same words, that is to say, another witness sees other things.  So, we embark on a compulsion to derive the crux of our derived thoughts.  In reading or seeing the play, film, recording or derived alternative production of, we are vexed.  The notion we are never in possession of fundamental meaning is shown by the intangible elements and themes that (co) exist in the storytelling.  Of course, they are not bound by truth or actuality but a very complex concordance with displaced realities we know and confront daily.  

The treatise of each is evaluated elsewhere by literary criticism by which those elements find a cross weave.  This essay just seeks to point to their uniform context.  They inhabit brilliantly extremes of our conscious awareness on how we live. 

Unveiling the Threads of Connected Literature:  

Exploring “The Third Policeman,” “Shutter Island,” and “The Tempest” Introduction Connected literature transcends the traditional boundaries of storytelling, weaving intricate narratives that resonate with readers on multiple levels. This essay embarks on a journey through three distinctive works of literature – 

“The Third Policeman” by Flann O’Brien, “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane, and “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare.  

These works, though divergent in their themes and styles, exhibit interconnectedness through their exploration of identity, reality, and the human psyche.  As we delve into the depths of these narratives, we uncover the intricate web that binds them together. The Nature of Reality and Identity occurs or appears in essence within both “The Third Policeman” and “Shutter Island” while they delve into the enigmatic realm of reality and identity, challenging the boundaries between the tangible and the illusory. The same fluidity is found in “The Tempest”, more later. 

Beginning to think.  The Third Policeman is at its outset immediately caught in a bind.  Women do not exist in its story.  Maleficence and contrived comedic vehicles are adopted by will as they convey the essence of this absurd but wilfully masculine, morbidly disadvantaged inner world of conscious and morality tale.  No wonder the women folk are best left out of this perambulatory saga as no good comes of it. Direction it has but it is inward and non-forming in a conclusion.  If Samuel Beckett were in the room, wisecracking but tyrannically despotic visions in his wild view would disassemble virtually every nut and bolt the other has formed. 

Bonkers in Bicycle Land. 

“The Third Policeman”: O’Brien’s novel, introduces readers to a world where reality is fluid and perceptions are unreliable. The protagonist’s journey through a nightmarish landscape blurs the lines between life and death, questioning the nature of identity. The novel’s exploration of absurdity and the uncanny reflects the disorienting aspects of connected literature. 

“Shutter Island”: Lehane’s psychological thriller immerses readers in the mind of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels.  The island’s eerie atmosphere becomes a metaphor for the labyrinth of his own psyche.  As readers navigate through the layers of Teddy’s identity, they confront the haunting power of the mind to distort reality.  The novel’s interplay between the external world and the internal consciousness is found in intricate connections these works envelope.  

Manipulating Reality and Perception “The Tempest” and “Shutter Island” both utilise improbable constructs of reality and perception to drive their narratives forward.  

Is it a coincidence Autumn 2023 brings forward Prison themes?  Incarceration is highly intrenched in morality and it is in my view an essential part of that storytelling, the word tolerance has come to the fore. Apart from the tribunals, criminality of governance, arrogance and incompetence of justice systems seldom have we been caught in a counterwave of objective thinking by using media to portray that conflict.  The reality is unable to meet the demands therefore a syntax is sought in drama and Courts, Injustices display wrongness with gross advancing regularity.           

It is grotesque to see the imbalance so widely held the very ‘diversion’ of television, news reporting, theatre, film and sundry acquainted devices, music, demonstrations, strikes, blatantly in our faces as there to be confronted.  Many choose to ignore these themes commonality.  TV stations deflect the weary truth fatigued, disbelievers to the softer options of Sounds, Iplayer, ITVx, Sky Channels amidst the crux of a more vexing programme about to begin.      Even routinely posted ahead of News items.   

Subjective Narratives: None exhibit Sur reality or Conjecture but seek to be defined on how accurate they display Prison Life, 

The Autunm seeing, Screw (ITV drama series), Britain’s Notorious Prisons, (ITV doc,) gets repeated, Jailed: Maghaberry (BBCNI factual series) and follows 2022 Boys Banged Up from same outlet, Time (BBC), Real time Court Verdicts, (Mainstream TV News), Policing Board and Public Ombudsman, Justice Committee suppression of truth.  Noah Donahue tragedy redoubled by prolonged truth recovery.  War Coverage (News Outlets) as frontline (Kiev) courtrooms of judgement, reflect on the freedoms and universally, that exist.  

“The Tempest” conjures an island where magic and illusion shape the characters’ experiences.  

Prospero’s manipulation of the environment and the perceptions of others serve as a vehicle for exploring themes of power, forgiveness, and self-discovery. The play’s use of artifice to sanction, shape a reality, echoes the fragility of a set of themes present and presupposed within the separate works where in both situations’ discordant views are measured in those artifices, very differently.  

“Shutter Island”: Lehane’s work explores the fragility of a reality seen through the lens of a mental institution.  The narrative twists and turns, challenging readers to question the authenticity of what they perceive.  As Teddy Daniels grapples with his own memories and delusions, readers confront the unsettling realization that the mind itself can be a storyteller. Why is that conveyed?  Is it because the fundamental truth is we use juxtapositions tempering the worst concepts by illusion and rely heavily on a tendency to disbelieve?  Cultural, tribal communal habits and even religious convivial spirits invade the pretexts. This manipulation of perception aligns with the malleable nature of narratives while we disentangle the connections, these three narratives give an authenticity to the use of literature to examine us, our voices, as we imagine life and our role within it.  

Conclusion 

“The Third Policeman,” “Shutter Island,” and “The Tempest” illuminate by captivating themes, this random unconnected by all accounts hitherto, condition of material unanimity, instrument of accord, to prevail upon our desire for connections by their very same uses of the realm of reality, identity, and perception, each heavily indebted within their markedly different contexts, so many interwoven seams work.    Very diligently AI has incorporated the core premise of literatures gifts and made solid connections. The more spiritual questions are beyond approach as they capture an authors vision in their context. The amalgam of new thoughts, and learning would create something different yet they are powerful works in their own originality as we perceive them. The pure relative attachment AI at this time has established is generalised but it really did follow the question and while my own words are a supplement the whole has made the exercise valuable but as with this fusion dynamic its a face off that makes the intervention very very fluid.                                                  

These works transcend their individual narratives to present a unified tapestry of themes that inhabit different times and genres. 

As readers engage with the intricacies of these narratives, they bear witness to the ever-evolving landscape of storytelling, where the boundaries of reality and imagination blend seamlessly in the pursuit of literary can you find a common thread in their core concepts? 

Why is it irrefutable each have a core rationality?   

While “The Third Policeman,” “Shutter Island,” and “The Tempest” may appear disparate at first glance, a common thread emerges when examining their core concepts.  

At the heart of each work lies an exploration of the fluid and elusive nature of reality, identity, and perception.   These themes resonate across all three narratives, underscoring the permeability of their explorations.               

It is a shared apocalyptic Fluidity of Reality within their scope and outworking, maybe foreseeing our need to discern a vatic spiritual inherent nature.  Conflicts exist in each episode, yet the parameters are unifying in the basis of resolution being fore given.  There is no bridge only illusion by imagination as an oracular delphian curation. 

 The boundary between reality and illusion is intentionally blurred. Whether through magical manipulation (“The Tempest”), psychological manipulation (“Shutter Island”), or metaphysical exploration (“The Third Policeman”), the authors challenge the conventional notions of what is real and what is imagined. The fluidity of reality serves as a cornerstone of their interconnected concepts.  

Questioning Identity: Each work delves into the intricacies of identity.  

“The Third Policeman” presents a protagonist struggling to define himself in a world where identities can merge. “Shutter Island” revolves around the protagonist’s identity crisis, fuelled by traumatic memories and manipulation. 

In “The Tempest,” characters undergo transformations that reflect shifts in their identities.  Prospero has an Ariel figure, only he can see.  By Ariels ‘existence’ contrapuntal magical powers are given by Ariel.  Power that includes Ariels release and freedom.  No modicum of worldly advance is begotten.  Simply it is a special release made between the victims of mankind’s existence set parameters. Nothing evolves here.  Neither is the clash of Caliban or new element of ‘The Tempest’ brought through the magical powers.  Generational lifespans are bewildering to Prospero whose Miranda has reached a flowering beyond his patrilineal role. Caliban and Ariel each share the ‘slave’ attrition ‘thou liest, malignant thing.’  All this amidst a Tempest.  Some fates he can control but the vestiges of power do not form a one for all utopian, ideal society.  This is found elsewhere in human creative works to imagine perfection. ‘Vestiges’ is a modern Japanese surreal work with more parallels.  Weakness is primarily the problem of Yoichi Shigaraki whose power comes from the quirk his DNA possesses. One for All   (ワン・フォー・オール, Wan Fō Ōru?) is a transferable host in the possession of its, nineth host, Izuku Midoriya.  Yoichi Shigaraki had a strong sense of justice and was willing to stand against his evil older brother, despite his own weak body and his brother which came into direct conflict with the ambition and megalomania of his older brother. 

This feeling made him refuse to submit to All For One, despite his constant attempts to convince him to desist from his ‘ridiculous idealism’.               

Fandom and My Hero Academia Wiki explains this strand in ‘ridiculous’ detail’.  

The quirk is power itself. In some readings it is held as simply a property not in anyone’s DNA.  So, it reaches the final user, Izuku Midoriya from its eighth user, All Might.  In a Shakespearian twist there was a third manifestation of One for All which is a bit ‘Tempestuous’.  

‘He has the Quirk Fa Jin, which allows the user to build up kinetic energy before releasing it in a burst to give a boost in speed of power. Deku first used Fa Jin when fighting against Lady Nagant despite having little understanding from its owner, combining it with En’s Smokescreen to outsmart Lady Nagant.’ 

The shared theme of ‘identity’s malleability’ contributes to the interconnected narrative thread and is formulaic in narratives that are classified as ‘magic realism’ in many critiques.  All fiction is inherently magic realism with no exceptions able to franchise fiction by the genre it most resembles.  Film, Theatre, Games, Book manufacturer’s (aggrandised by being called Publishers) do no favours to the recipient end user by placing a work in a genre.  every work in indisposed by attributions. Shakespeare’s ‘Comedies’ often unsettle even tragically depending how thin skinned you are.  

 Perception and Illusion: All three narratives play with the concept of perception and illusion.  

“The Tempest” employs magical illusions to shape characters’ perceptions.  

“Shutter Island” confronts the fragility of perception as the protagonist’s mind deceives him.  

“The Third Policeman” introduces bizarre phenomena that disrupt characters’ understanding of reality.  

This theme underscores the way in which perception can shape reality and adds to the common thread.       

Narrative Manipulation: Connected literature often challenge traditional narrative structures. “The Third Policeman” employs nonlinear storytelling to mirror the protagonist’s disoriented experience. “Shutter Island” twists the narrative to mirror the protagonist’s psychological turmoil.  “The Tempest” weaves together various storylines, challenging linear storytelling.   I did not put ‘Vestiges’ into the AI exercise as I like the idea of the odd number, trilogy having a self-generating pool of thought. Three dimensions is a reality, the fourth is not, The Third Policeman, The Tempest, Shutter Island all reside in a 3-dimensional form.  People-Place-Narrative of imagination.  

These narrative manipulations demonstrate the authors’ ability to construct and deconstruct reality within their works.  

Fine Lines 

In essence, the common thread that binds “The Third Policeman,” “Shutter Island,” and “The Tempest” lies in their shared exploration of the mutable and intricate relationship between reality, identity, perception, and narrative. These themes serve as the connective tissue that unites these drivers works into a cohesive exploration of the human experience in forming impossibilities while realising there are answers to questions we have yet to conceive.  

John Graham  

31 August 2023 

Peter Mooney at The Engine Room Gallery The Journey Continues

Begin here

‘Let us not neglect our meeting together, … but encourage one another’. [Hebrews 10:25 NLT] The 1st September entry in ‘Our Daily Bread’ in this quarters issue.

This is my introduction to the gathering, ahead of seeing the work, that compels you to think beyond the boundaries you normally have in place. The Engine Room Gallery is not a Church nor its visitors drawn by belief, but maybe the eklessia come to art to be addressed outside our place of comfort. The work does not disappoint on any level.

Do we see our own landscape in these paintings? 

For the unintimidated these are beyond our own landscapes but are from our own situation. 

The genus loci each of us appreciate of our ‘place’ has been reconsidered and made magical by Peter Mooney’s work.  The condition is present in everyone and it appears as he paints.

Poles

It is the domain of a land occupied with the present kaleidoscopic definitions that assail us.  Every square inch of this island has had, its invisible history, altered, extracted, modified, naturalised, made functional, or not, by human necessity, or left alone has not.  

The amalgam is what I see in the unorthodox but intensely close to many an often migratory artist. Picasso Malaga to Paris, Van Gogh Amsterdam to London, Turner London to Margate, and the close relation I see within Peter Mooneys work, Mattise Paris to London, Corsica, Morocco with the obsessional craft of African art being a massive primordial pull.  There is even the possibility each artist has gone to these places instinctively, as even the Ulstermen, Three Men on an Island tend to make me think. Not mere travellers but those seeking essences and soul, and in appearance only, they could perhaps capture in art, and thankfully they did those simpler existences would shed some light, by contrast and offset juxtaposition our own perceptions. That they achieved beyond their own expectations that in the contrasts art conveys was pluralistic endeavour so constant and perpetual as of our present, that some aura, that conducive source, in those people, whose culture they advanced into by intelligence of observation in their work, seen their hosts having methods themselves of image making. On Innislacken maybe it is the ritual solstice, it’s clear in the work of Rosie McGurran who paints its instilled radiance with those radiant spokes of times wheel, the solstice, circular yet linear, the fires, sunrise and eternity set before all as a constant. It is little wonder we open up to these stimuli. They are our hosts and we visit.

Paint and thought
Irish artists have sought the light and ethereal, contracting to their cause, landscapes on every coastline in Ireland. The unprotected side, the West being the most prominent of all.  Even Wiggenstien sought wisdom in the bays near Galway then set the engagement in words. His methods and thoughts to then maybe instill radicalism of ideas in Joyce, Beckett, and confidence the storytellers, poets and musicians are steeped in.

Setting out the Context
Painters seek out new evidences. The unreachable truth more tangible the more abstract and opaque it is. Paul Henry and constant inspiration, with artist Grace Henry (Emily Grace Mitchell – daughter of another religious family this time in Aberdeen) his colourist, with her Celtic Hibernian flair shared each other’s values but they divided. They split up as more than a teacher. Stephen Gwynne, took Grace’s work into his own sphere of art being a vital instrument of change, both with maybe a more idealistic need, as a fellow artist made separate those ideas. Paul and Grace fell between two poles, as religions part, as the times now even merit. The reading of this has to be included.
[He founded the Irish Centre Party in 1919, but his moderate nationalism was eclipsed by the growing popularity of Sinn Fein.] Grace Henry at that time maybe veering away from the Cubism Mainie Jellet had begun to abstract and some methods crossed paths. This I bring into the story of this exhibition, through the expansive debt of service all Irish Artists and their close neighbours arrive at similar crossroads. For many a work are seen, without advanced perceptions of what is instilled in their own work, the same radicalism, without parody of regression, that which is found across the more detailed researched, exposed Europeans and International Artists Ireland. The great Irish Architect Micheal Scott was with his influence on ‘Academy’ Art, susceptible to ignoring the Irish work that had equal if not greater status than the international art he brought; the acceptable part was that it too shed light upon the art forms elsewhere. As I grew up I was in awe without the chance to make the connections I now do, of Carroll’s Factory Dundalk, BusAris Dublin, Bank of Ireland Lower Baggot Street. That being another backward legacy of this islands art culture still in existence today.

Next Stepping off point
Before the infinite comparisons art throws up that I have touched on later there is the main assembled work ‘The Journey Continues’. The work of Peter Mooney, on the 3rd level of the former Tourist Office Building, for some time a home to The Engine Room Gallery.

no.40 Figure, Wild Violin on the Mountain

The above is perhaps one of the most active paintings. Each element though has a sense of belonging and a fastening to a wonder. A musician whose notes we cannot hear, only imagine. The ‘white horse’ form signalling the preface of a kind, of ancient sentinel crafted into the now unclothed mountain by past inhabitants. Trees still exist. Land is transformative and life giving. A life can be had here. The outlook, in the eyes of the right side figure, is maybe of a future that comes to challenge as it always has for millennia.

Figure, …

More familiar are the flora that Peter Mooney gathers in. The Peris tree a favourite. no.34 Peris Tree, Forest Flame.

I show the area as much as the painting here. The fact sunflowers are often painted at the very peak of their blossoms, are instead here in the correct narrative. Others have of course seen this (VvG), seen the plain rise and fall of a sunflowers arch.

One the return wall are 4 smaller sunflower paintings in a study group.

Every natural painting has been given a lease of life and will never fail to bring some vision of the homage the sunflower above many other studies bring to us of our own frailty or conversely our gift of life. Others are animated life, horses, people, some, no.22 Abstract Figures at the Foot of the Mountain. There’s also no.39 Krishna with Angel. The ‘God’ of protection, compassion, tenderness and love. This again expresses the grace that is present in the everyday and Peter Mooney uses the ebullience of colour, none of it unnatural, to show the often forgotten treasures colour introduces. He also shows it often as corrupted by the ‘production’ ‘text’ ‘logo’ advertising that; inviting an abstract and ubiquity of a recognisable roll call, The Rolo wrapper, Snickers torn plastic, Milk bottles, Coke Tins, Toy skulls, all invasive. Purposely the detritus is reclaimed to be inhabitants of, in a very minor way in the paintings, and a more direct way in the sculptures to show that axiom, that it is impossible in life unless you are a hermit atop a Mountain; litter is not often far away, to be unspoiled by it.

no. 24 Wild Roses

People do it summarily by their own defences, hedges, fences, palisades. In the excellent recent exhibition, the Ps2 setting in Fountain Street, of ‘Tributes’ the installation shared by Alex Plunkett and Nina Oltarzewska, both Belfast artists happened to have a circular ‘mobile’ with steel palisades of different lengths hung as a circular ‘angelus’ type bell. My interpretation! At 6.01pm one Thursday I happened to arrive at the idea while their performance installation was taking shape by ringing out the sound. It is no bare companion of either exhibition, a unique approach, that these memoir artefacts are joined.

Familiarity
Here I bring in instantly, a sharp but extremely exuberant extraordinary work of art that is classified as Reliquary. These are late 19th century.

These are African modern symbols made by artists; some names are recorded, on the commission of elders to ‘personify’ their religious piety by containment. These represent the capture. The valid connection they construe as of the spirit they worship being within the vessel these figures contain. The feet set on top as Guardians.

It may not seen in any way relevant to the exhibition of Peter Mooney’s work but I see an eternal drive in the narrative that is captured in Peter Mooney’s work that is so connected to this it has to be spoken about and thoughts on how it is instinctive of the allegory on many artists.

In the centre of the convex, the oval face in the domed plate, its staring eyes so quintessential to the ‘mbulu ngulu’, transfixing the viewer with their gaze.  It could be any number of human beings, it could be common man, the guardian being very ill equipped to defend or contain the treasure of a ‘God’ or ‘Spirit’.

Subjective Figurative images
It is the case we cannot be that figure except in representation.  Those Island ancient guardian known through art are symbols of symbols. They serve to categorise the ancient cultures and forms of worship. They actually appear in likeness to the forms and work here within The Engine Room Gallery. The sculptures are very different but have a story that their creator endeavours to convey. Equal under the Sun.

In ‘The Journey Continues’ the work is not quite autobiographical, these depictions, in paint and sculpture in their forms essay a view of the human condition. Never overstated but requiring the reminder of, from hence it comes, it’s fragility, it’s frailty seems in the recycled discards, are fashioned into that futility of things often gathered by ourselves. Very belligerently, ingeniously, unveiled for our discovery of meaning that might be transpositional. Derivatives of one kind or another the skulls are stacked, the totems dishevelled and modernity destroying its very ‘unnatural in this juxtapose’ natural dynamic.

Without doubt there is a delivery here and Peter Mooney has as I have been brought to think on his work, is also apart from the work.

That is, ‘The Painted Man’, the artist himself; and my being over-analytic see in that separation, the choice of ‘The Painted Man’ quiescent esoteric fashions of attire are themselves expressing this.  It is not so intensely made present but it does speak much of the artists belief in his arts voice. 

Peter Mooney gathers this in without the travel from his own backyard in County Antrim, itself a multicoloured condensed international ‘landing point’. 

That is an important point. 

Being in at a certain location and having so many narratives the soul of the place is always at the heart of most work.  The colours learnt from plants, his dialling into the crescendos of colour so cultivated by his mother in the family garden shake out the struggles by their gift of growth returning us this colour.

Titles of the exhibited 56 works begin with no.1 Summer Trees on Slieve Gallion through the Sunflower series to no.56 Summer Wild Roses, magically begin with Summer and close with Summer. Maybe we see colours more vividly and in our clearest vision their abundance in the height of the long summer light.

And colour it is. A colourist Peter Mooney is unconstrained but capable of producing magical blended and harmonious settlements.  They are a continuum, in a long heritage and lineage of art.  Here it is seen in all its radiance and conjectures.

Ancestral codicils 

If the ancestors came down the River Bann they would not in the least be surprised by the canvas Peter Mooney creates. 

They may quiz him on the recycled 20/21 century material discards incorporated but the imagery is classic African expression of the kind deliberated on, hosted by, conjugated orbitals eyes and ears to our universe.

The Journey indeed continues. Not alone in the journey but in the words of theologian Karen Armstrong The Narrow Path. Why bring in Karen Armstrong? Perhaps I’ve seen the will to impress upon us peace and tranquillity by us examining everything we do. These paintings in so many crossover aspects actually evoke, as many artists do, some I refer to in a small correlation, the religious or in its absence the spiritual conversation Karen Armstrong was brought to as her calling shrine but had its dark days.

The African imagery is a constant source visited either literally or at a distance by artists.

Modern Work also recognising the past to define the present.

This for example is a South African work from 2016.

Blessing Ngobeni, Mask and Struggle, 2016 Mixed MEDIA ON CANVAS, 41 5/8 x 61 3/4 in. (106 x 157 cm)

Detail 1

Detail 2

More famous
Mattise was synonymous with his expressive use of color and Fauvist style. Throughout his career, Matisse’s paintings most commonly depicted figures in landscapes, portraits, interior settings and nudes.

Although Matisse typically painted unusual, abstract portraits, his paintings from Morocco were much more realistic. Was this because of the Tangiers and reddish sand colours the land composed? Not a journey into the psychology of the place.  John Lavery also went to Tangiers though he too was not to venture into the native culture beyond some figurative elements of the people who made these geometric shapes that instead occupied their art.

Henri Matisse, Le Marabout, 1912, private collection. Wikiart.

“Henri Matisse painted many sites around Tangier’s Kasbah during both his stays there in 1912 and 1913. Henri Matisse, Le Marabout”

Inside these images are the same subjects that perplexed those artist travellers. 

This man also was suffering from the anger that must be observed by painting the narrative in plain sight.  The way people deal with each other, planned or spontaneously is seen by painter.  

Achill Horses by Mainie Jellett, 1938

Cinema travels and a photograph lies.  The result of any painting is to momentarily cause a stillness and then contradictory continuation as preserved.  The enabler, the artist as communicator is remarkably in need of carrying on this work as it contains their own vision.  It is up to anyone seeing the work, the point where that shift occurs, between the artists vision and theirs.

Blissfully we have centuries of the transfer of thoughts onto media that is stone, board, canvas, paper. Then there are the writings on them.

Everyday newsprint is seen within several pieces, not overly so here. Picasso and other artists have long used used newsprint, letters, fonts. Again it’s there in tiny remnants in this work. Why? The instinct tells me it is establishing a finishing point.  People use the recognition then date it, reminisce, covertly gathered in, they script the picture it inhabits.

Those sculptural figures formed by artists, in the Gabon Reliquary shapes I’ve picked out here, are like a head in a Luna coil, the eyes like coral beads, the skinny legs like a toad or insects podiatry link to earth and it shows the pixie; is that a troll trope advancing?, like figure, capable of fleeing or fleeting when the God lifts the lid on our truth.  

The human tries only to be a guardian and temporarily at that, awaiting the revelation from what has so far been gathered in. This as the elders wish to have it. Here commissioned artefacts for them educators for the citizens they represent as leaders. They are to be seen to kind and the messages therefore configure the human with a lightness of foot.  The Unbearable Lightness of Being as Milan Kundera figured it. The flame of coppers reflection, also reminiscent of Cinema Paradiso and the moth flying too close to the fire. Artists burning out. 

All this out of geometry and shapes are not what was sought, but as instruments of art brought in allegorical forms by Picasso, Cezanne, Mattise, Chagall, even Van Gogh as those art pieces with their embedded volumes of ideas, we are stretched to accommodate.  Still the reach is close but only once in a while communicating as these works seem very conscious reminders of, the human necessity to learn and so pass on what has been reached.

John Graham 

The Exhibition is open through September 2022 and please check the Facebook entry page for opening times. https://m.facebook.com/100063595596125/

All views are my own and I write independently of anyone so if you wish to make a small donation to this blog please do through PayPal.me@jfilmblog

I think I have it up and running but as I’ve many connection issues laptop iPads etc this may be dormant. My email for any queries is

john.graham@ymail.com

Easter our belief

• 

  Cloaked

A given Sunday

There is a stasis on this Sunday.

This is the day the unaccountable resurrection is to unfold. Sorrow has made its presence raw and real as contemplative voices console each other as a life treasured as any other has been taken violently on the orders of a fearful people. Those palpable sorrows of a life taken are to unfold from the silence.

Is it the silence of a recognition that our world has the given prosthesis we have the gift of seeing. Silence is often mysterious as we observe but do not converse. No mind has found words. No meeting of minds, or is that it, the silence is the key to our unity. Words can be written to record otherwise, at the birth of Easter a Passover is null. There will be an absence of consensus on the present as the pasts cruelty to Mary’s and Joseph’s Son is an entanglement of conflicts.

• 

  Sunday Walk

A Sunday in the Park

Joseph the mere witness to the itinerant birth then the closure of a mans life. As I see it, his part was actively pressing the gift of self onto as he became aware of the journey Jesus was free to take. They, Joseph and Mary, had understood Jesus to become the messenger of essential truth. Joseph. Is he that active silence? That forbearance in the face of intangible events as truth is unfolding? This closure, this self sacrifice, of the Lord giving his only begotten son, to this vengeful murderous act, is it a warning of what our fate may be if the Lord’s Word is not heeded?

• 

  From the Interior

Forgiveness for those who took away by crucifixion, Jesus of Nazareth, is a scale yet to balance. It shall arise as this is Gods promise as we journey on our given life to see the life for what it is. A short small part of the community of God living in perpetuities from life to life.

Where answers lie is in the confines of our gift of life and the expression can only be made with all all the will in the world having the reinstatement of those words and Gods sacrifice to make different this malice divisions show.

Our Kingdom Come.

• 

  All seek Meaning

Amen

John Graham

Belfast

4 April 2021

• 

Literary Walls

For every word another is needed?

Field Work

A diversion on literature inspired by the work of the art around in the present day compelling us to look to the future and not back.

Nobel Lecture by Olga Tokarczuk

Nobel Laureate in Literature 2018

…. this is halfway through ….

A dream fulfilled is often disappointing. It has turned out that we are not capable of bearing this enormity of information, which instead of uniting, generalizing and freeing, has differentiated, divided, enclosed in individual little bubbles, creating a multitude of stories that are incompatible with one another or even openly hostile toward each other, mutually antagonizing.

Furthermore, the Internet, completely and unreflectively subject to market processes and dedicated to monopolists, controls gigantic quantities of data used not at all pansophically, for the broader access to information, but on the contrary, serving above all to program the behavior of users, as we learned after the Cambridge Analytica affair. Instead of hearing the harmony of the world, we have heard a cacophony of sounds, an unbearable static in which we try, in despair, to pick up on some quieter melody, even the weakest beat. The famous Shakespeare quote has never been a better fit than it is for this cacophonous new reality: more and more often, the Internet is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.

Research by political scientists unfortunately also contradicts John Amos Comenius’* intuitions, which were based on the conviction that the more universally available was information about the world, the more politicians would avail themselves of reason and make considered decisions.** But it would appear that the matter is not at all so simple as that. Information can be overwhelming, and its complexity and ambiguity give rise to all sorts of defense mechanisms—from denial to repression, even to escape into the simple principles of simplifying, ideological, party-line thinking.

The category of fake news raises new questions about what fiction is. Readers who have been repeatedly deceived, misinformed or misled have begun to slowly acquire a specific neurotic idiosyncrasy. The reaction to such exhaustion with fiction could be the enormous success of non-fiction, which in this great informational chaos screams over our heads: “I will tell you the truth, nothing but the truth,” and “My story is based on facts!”

*John Amos Comenius, the great seventeenth-century pedagogue, coined the term “pansophism,” by which he meant the idea of potential omniscience, universal knowledge that would contain within it all possible cognition.

**The House of Intellect is a book, not being referred to here, that offers an alternative view. Firstly that the academics have their agenda and secondly that the politicians employ intellect then suppress its ability to make radical change as a means to govern.

…. here is an extract of her work ….

The Tender Narrator

by a woman known as Olga Tokarczuk

“How can you miss me when I’m not there yet?” I would ask.

I knew that you miss someone you’ve lost, that longing is an effect of loss.

“But it can also work the other way around,” she answered. “Missing a person means they’re there.”

This brief exchange, someplace in the countryside in western Poland in the late sixties, an exchange between my mother and me, her small child, has always remained in my memory and given me a store of strength that has lasted me my whole life. For it elevated my existence beyond the ordinary materiality of the world, beyond chance, beyond cause and effect and the laws of probability. She placed my existence out of time, in the sweet vicinity of eternity. In my child’s mind, I understood then that there was more to me than I had ever imagined before. And that even if I were to say, “I’m lost,” then I’d still be starting out with the words “I am”—the most important and the strangest set of words in the world.

It’s about contrary response (it can work the other way around) and as self reflection seen through the help of others. The message ‘to be’.

Singularly a confirmation bias and disconfirmation bias depending who you are. Amassed is all information and it is conflicting while at once being false and fact.

14 The freedom of the door
……has closed for many.

14 – before Covid (was found – not) in a beer ‘garden’

Opportunities window

You could call it omnipotent cruelty as machines will range forth and consume the complacent.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Little supported Cornishman

In his book on The Art of writing there are theories explored on how learning took root in the works of Universities with particular reference to Oxford and Cambridge.

After a few earlier excursions into why drama was despised by the authorities and Churches it explains they actually allowed the illicit writing within their walls of a documentary we access today. He quotes also an even earlier important fact, that the Pope, Gregory, Roman forbade the Latin hexameter to be taught. It was sufficient to retain the inheritance of words well formed and not distribute them. That can be traced up until Elizabeth I who understood their power. When Wellington fought Napoleon the European schools of learning were destroyed to provide materials while England had the luxury of being able to retain its University dominion.

‘Quonion non cognovi literaturam.’ in the 70th psalm ‘introibo in potentias Domini.’ ‘The praises of Christ cannot be uttered in the same tongue as those of Jove.’ Still the hierarchy of words is misappropriated for reasons to divide and the Church’s part in this is still clear whatever form religion takes. In historical Rome Alcuin forbade the reading of Virgil in the monastery over which he presided. ‘it would sully his disciples’ imagination. The point is it took the almost hidden act of monasteries and scholars within them to see that past theology and literature was retained. The theatres were outside and evolving. The Churches in reforming their scope sought to close these as the Puritans did in 1682. The great poems and much more survived.

Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication The Oxford Book Of English Verse 1250–1900 and for his literary criticism.

So the exploitation of words is not new, – see the writing above of Olga Tokarczuk which looks at the currency of fake news and other means words are used to construct narratives fact or fiction.

The school of thought around the 1650’s even sought Oxford and Cambridge to be challenged and were it not for its setting and the understanding of its importance might not have survived.

‘Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.’

Isaak Walton is also quoted. The milkmaid we will not ‘load our minds with any fears of many things that will never be.’

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/theaster-gates-17216/five-things-know-about-theaster-gates

Vinyl mounted

This is a firehose and ‘not in use’

Now I return to the thing words are held on.

The Word of Wood

Each person has a mask. (written pre-Covid) The speakers words are hailed in constructed certitude sent through a foghorn of metal gripped against a hidden face. People are like trees whose hidden worth and value is shielded by its bark. The best mask, the Stoffwechseltheorie composed by Gottfried Semper, thought of buildings and architecture; we can see it extends therefore to nature protecting itself from nature, ‘architecture is essentially a mask, and the best mask is one that hides its materiality. To each mask it’s protection and it’s living order are harmonised and as Alvar Alto, whose appreciation of nature fed into his work said of art, and it probably can be said if other forms than the one he practiced, it is the continual process of allowing materials to express themselves.

The Redwood tree developed its protection from the inferno of forest fires by creating for itself a sacrificial bark, soft and slow to burn, that would take the heat and under its own protocol die and form a crust knowing its skin was protection to the life of the tree living and behaving static and growing on the floor of the earth.

The process is silent and as the tree provides I even it probably does in the inferno create a reverse and emit carbon dioxide and shutting down the oxygen ignition needs.

The transmission of this thought into our lives is one of belonging somewhat in the James Lovelock Gia theory as part of a whole. It is called in Finland, Sachlichkeit. Things honestly present themselves in their own skin and what they are in reality and practice.

There is film on release showing the mask identity part false anthropology and native art. This is creating a lineage to the slave trade and Liverpool. The Amalgam at Tate Modern tentatively produces for a discerning but not to be too disturbing viewer a glance backwards to the black history GB advanced on. There is even a tree. For hanging people from.

Amalgam Tate Liverpool

Artists remove that mask and create an alternative view. The materiality is seen through contrasts. Colour and utility are questioned to discover the essence of reality. As words are not enough the artist using materials and combinations that – assault-reconfigure-upset the accord we are familiar with or strengthen our perceptions in seeing the crossover messages averse meanings reveal shed through the dying mask of a veneer revealed by the artist the hidden truth within us. Only then can we realise the power outside is beyond a short life’s discovery and contentment is to realise how essential it is to know our own Sachlichkeit.

Only my own views are expressed.

John Graham

3 January 2020 (updated 4/1/21)

Belfast

http://www.paypalme.com/plainwords

For encouragement or not!

This got missed in its publishing part and sat a year as a draft! – it’s interesting! (Or not)

L’Ennue & Red Sorghum : Film Meaning in Lockdown

L’ennui (boredom)

Film 1998

Lost in Paris

The lack of energy in a city renowned for its vitality is amazing even in the late nineties when this was made. The slow pace of Paris is contrasted with a frantic abusive controlling relationship with an older man “you can see a bed but not a personality” Cecilia (Sophie Guillemin tells Martin (Charles Berlin) as this is seen natural in a disarming drama of societies values and morals. It looks crude and ott with no good things on offer.

Moral – If your bored it’s your own fault!

Strange secrets

Mad and Bad

Martin is a mad philosopher behaving as a bully with fits of jealousy when he becomes infatuated with a young intelligent actress. Cecilia is making her skills work across her world. It doesn’t slow down their sexual appetites but intensifies it. A little death every time.

Empire review synopsis is almost perfect (later I raise some historical concerns) in its vision.

Self interest

From Empire Review this extract ‘As the philosopher who has almost eradicated sensibility from his life, Berling expertly combines curiosity, lust and despair as he loses control of his intellect. But it’s Sophie Guillemin who provides the truer portrayal, with a display of dispassionate adolescent volition that is almost capricious in its innocence.’ David Parkinson Empire 1998

Obsessions in different periods

There is also an observation of French films of this period being observed as obsessed with copulation.

It is what reviews ought to do and challenges through cinema self mockery the genius of our accepting art film as moral guidance while at the same time is obviously a dark morose triangle, at times voyueristic. It’s a surprise there is so much sex but souls are also bared. Also obvious is the lack of guile in the young woman who is confused and unable to reject the enabled freedom she is locked into.

This review https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/lennui-review/

Conclusions

It’s a functional fast moving film with few surprises navigating an earlier time, and almost provides an obsession philosopher/psychiatrist R D Laing would love, as it becomes in mood a retreat to the streets where in the 19th and previous centuries a large part of the female population were forced into being sexual objects satiating a powerful male run society. Their is even a crudely placed appearance of that industry with unreal and contrite conclusions. It leaves the screen with Cedric Khans Cecilia lost.

The David Parkinson Empire Review has insightful parts though even it is caught in the sexual prominence the film uses. This for example, …..

‘Initially baffled by how such an unprepossessing kid could have enslaved so cultured a man, Martin is soon besotted with her, too.’ He passes on the ‘use’ the ‘cultured man’ has made of a vulnerable girl.

He also has habits of the time with this extract.

A Parisian professor becomes sexually enslaved by a monosyllabic teenager.

These words are vile and judgemental for any reviewer to summarise the complexity of youth.

David Parkinson arrives at the same rating

3###

Red Sorghum a story from 1919

The way this ancient story deals with love and betrothal is again with the women of principle young girl auctioned off by her family to a wealthy man nearly four decades her senior and he is riddled with leprosy.

Traditions

Opening scenes introduce us to the girl she travels enclosed in a red sedan with four bearers who lead by a paid bodyguard. They make the journey jolting her on her way and along with six singers pipers, are going through the red Sorghum fields. Tall reeds of corn stalks conceal the imported grains secrets. Wine is made from the gluten free Jowar grain.

The fields stretch beyond the horizon and huge blue skies dominate the curvature of the Qingshako province removed from the cities and relying on this highly nutritious food.

Twists of fate and government control shapes how they live.

Director Zhang Yimou on set

Plant with healing binding properties

Little wonder its benefits allow for some diversions. Rich in protein iron and copper, this gluten free grain has been known to play a crucial role in cellular function and repair. The rich quantity of potassium and phosphorous helps lower cholesterol and manage high blood pressure. Jowar grain is rich in fibre and hence should be part of your daily diet.

Sorghum field

A cup of jowar has 22 grams of protein.

Jowar has essential vitamins, antioxidants and minerals. It is loaded with good amounts of calcium, copper, zinc, phosphorous, potassium and cell-building B vitamins.

Red Red Wine

The young girl believes she is ill. The community tell her “Sorghum wine kills all germs”.

Red Sorghum wine becomes the source of goodness for the community as they revive the winery. The cooperative practices the rest of society lacks is found in abundance selflessly. It is out with the old and in with the new.

Zhang Yimou examines the future,

In a way as this film was made while the renewal of China and the course taken since, it forms revalue the optimism this period that had gone along with imperial imperfections that were to suppress the Chinese later.

Almost a replication of the revolution. The time China is now in as a fascist undemocratic is far removed from the filmmakers writers vision of the true meaning of Communism or his providing expression of what might be.

His vision as a filmmaker is within a culture devoid of a revolution, and he shows a community is basically only as far as the horizon and that’s all it need be and visitors would be neighbours not family.

Zhang Yimou sees the power structures in the world and shows us the character of the girl Little Nine becomes an equal in her new environment and circumstances. She comes with qualities unfamiliar to the men in the community. This is a rebirth not just of the cooperative and communism but a lesson in human values base and real.

Tiananmen Square

Known as a Fifth Generation Director, Zhang Yimou was seeing a wave of predetermining Maoism, that would follow the eventual defeat of the Japanese. The Fifth Generation he belonged to suffered from the forced outcomes that came from the Chinese tragic and inexcusable massacre in Tiananmen Square, of their own, among them student’s, women, elderly and children. I know I’ve seen the unaltered pictures in the Royal Destival Hall.

When this was made it won the Berlin Film Festival Award in 1988 one year before the wall came down. Did it inspire that long awaited act?

Won the Golden Bear at the 1988 Berlin International Film Festival.

Royal Festival Hall had extremely disturbing images of the massacre in 1989 on its first floor out of the usual public view, routes. Seen on the way to performance.

As Germany was to take down the wall thus became a symbol as Tiananmen Square symbolised with it’s bloodbath suppression the opposite direction China was heading.

Within the film there is the exploitation by a militia gangster element who know no morals and act as a barrier to the freedoms asserting themselves within the community. The Sangou are against liberty and intimidate by spoiling progress.As Angela Merkel planted her Eastern German feet in the liberal capitalist machinery of West Germany she ritualised the false premise of wealth gathering as the epitome of human endeavour.

Red Sorghum makes a story of nature’s abundant giving, when respected. Becoming a catalyst for harmony but the ceremony of seasons are trivialised by the love lorn former bodyguard who demolishs all goodness in a feature of brokenness. The triangle is of a young girl, her betrothal to a much older man, the uncirculated jealousy. Meanness from a the bodyguard initially paid to protect her is met by her rejection of his base and controlling ways.

Fixed

Just as L’Ennue was full of poor treatment of women this again goes into the barbed relationships routinely faced. French films had their sojourn in the ‘69 spawning of tales of revolution, wild ambition alongside female intuition were contests then. Here is another such battle, and a decade or so on the French have abandoned that for ‘the philosophers angst’ and a base treatment of women as this reflects the ‘eighteen mile hill’ high above the plains in China so a community in isolation is not safe from its own inherited demons. One brutality is followed by more and the red becomes a symbol of occupation, oppression and waste.

This story really concerns the imperialism of neighbours devouring hope. It’s as if the brutality is customised by race. Here the Japanese destroy thousands and show bitterness divides. The combination of evil and oppression is mirrored across red lines.

Zhang Yimou has as the Empire review link below – this interpretation – ‘The disease-ridden winery owner (to whom Jiu’er was exchanged for a mule) clearly represents the corrupt Ching dynasty that was toppled in 1911, while the emphasis on collective action suggests the nation’s predetermination for the Maoism that would triumph just five years after the vanquishing of the Japanese.’

Zhang Yimou

Making such a film debut with writing and concepts that are politically charged is astonishing when you consider the interrogation of an emerging China within a global context.

Author Hóng Gāoliáng Jiāzú; lit.: ‘red sorghum family’) is a Chinese language novel by Mo Yan. Published in 1986, it was Mo’s first novel and remains one of his best-known works.

Stunning scenery

There are times when the cinematography reverts to a tonal black. When silent compliance under a form of penitence or servitude is embarked on. The contrast are raw in ceremonial playing out of the forbearance, of their kin, like a stage drama. A dance in a non existent universe.

Conjuring tricks evoking thoughts like babettes feast are played out, or the last supper. The wine brought to the table as a cure for all ill. Another memorial is recalled.

In a local Church a wall ‘viamold’ sculpture by Rosamund Praeger shows a man in non military attire with a snake at his feet looking across a valley to a a large house hill as the Church remembers the two world war victims. The belief is Rosamund Praeger got the image from the Irish image of the famine, a sketch with a hovel where the solider stands and across a valley on a hill the landlords house.

natural corona eclipse

The embossed text reads ‘Press on’ words that are repeated in the film. Like the future a corona eclipse sends us the message the laws of the universe are to be obeyed. It appears in the film as a visual reminder of higher things and beyond horizons that must be returned to.

A reviewer stuck in recent boredom (L’Enneu again) thought two recent pieces he’d read, Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem and Bill McKibbens’s Falter, explored if we are “hard-wired” (somehow) for empathy/altruism.

The book Babettes Feast holds a community around the one table with outsiders among the gathering.

Martine the convent caretaker says, “Now you will be poor the rest of your life“,Babette replies, “An artist is never poor.” It is set in Jutland in 19th-century Denmark. Again an isolated community.

Written in 1950 post ww2 it examines humanity – “And it happened when Martine or Philippa spoke to Babette that they would get no answers, and would wonder if she had even heard what they said Orshe would sit immovable on the three-legged kitchen chair, her strong hands in her lap and her dark eyes wide open, as enigmatical and fatal as a Pythia upon her tripod…..”

You couldn’t get more isolated than a convent and here the symbolism of a women’s retreat is evoking simple rules for simple pleasures.

Isak Dinesen the writer of this short story had been a five star chef in Paris, having sought political asylum in Denmark.

Open palms. The resurrection as a film is simultaneously in the period when the Berlin Wall came down, when Red Sorghum was made.

Cinema seeks to capture the zeitgeist of one period through another and act as a unifier of our perceptions and thoughts stimulated by instant immersion. The immediacy is without an instance, until this form of review or after film discourse takes place, and often carrying the plain speaking superficial meanings around at the time. Or like my own choice of best ever film, Ordet, untangles a whirlwind of thought and discovery.

Conclusion

Through this period of forced reflection during the Covid 19 epidemic it has thrust us forward into needing reference points evaluating what we know, what really is and how the future is part of our own making.

Red Sorghum is seen in a wide lens also. The table is a constant source with wine central to the sharing and its properties are teased in so many processes just as life’s forces. The intoxication taking over and many succumbed to its altered energy.

Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is part of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum.

The Empire review below sums up the political point here –

‘But it represented life and death, birth and renewal, and the physicality and humanity of the villagers as much as it did the Party’ – is how the Empire review sums it up as a forceful political essay.

From the Empire review –

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/red-sorghum-review/

is this extract –

By setting the story in the barren wilderness around the north-eastern Gaomi Township, Zhang departed from the lush southern landscapes that Beijing preferred to see extolled on screen. He also depicted his protagonists in a far from idealised light, as he permitted them to indulge their basest instincts, right down to urinating in the wine vats (which, ironically, improved the flavour). Moreover, by allowing the only avowedly Communist character to perish at the hands of the invading imperialists, Zhang also suggested that the workers resisted their tyranny through their own innate heroism, just as their own labour and ingenuity had revived the fortunes of the winery.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Geography_of_China.html?id=tfVN0Gwx67YC

5#####

John Graham

30 June 2020

Belfast

This is NOT a widget! To make a donation to the blog use http://www.paypalme.com/plainwords

This was reviewed after seeing the films again on a domestic screen and still the magic of Cinema creates feelings never touched on by the ingenuity of the creative community. The genius of Cinema is often traumatised by badly conceived forms and weird unrecognisable scripts. But story and the human psyche is a minefield of conflicting ideas. Tread carefully and Be Safe.

A False Dawn by Ursula Burke : A Review

closed

“The sound as an augury of death”

This title is a starting point. I’ve chosen it as it speaks of the anticipation of looking at the new exhibition by Ursula Burke, ‘A False Dawn’. The word anticipation is our expectation ahead of time.
On 31 May 2020 plans were to close the exhibition here in limbo. While we consider time and second waves there is alteration in our vision and it is not only the wounded concerning us but those who have tragically lost their lives in the outbreak of Covid 19. Despite our experiences in the face of a plague it is human nature to consider the methods we employ to understand it and the wider dangers everyday life has in store. By no means a reflection but a catalyst for thought this exhibition currently hidden away from us speaks of many things.

The introductory title photograph I took and titled to head this essay is obviously showing the Lockdown confinement of the exterior that hides (in March/April/May 2020) the exhibition lying behind the 5th floor Upper Gallery wall.

Inside, on the other side, the drip painting lies behind. The wall suddenly becomes a current edition of the angry it leaps from. This present protection the enclosure provides, shields the new work, creating an extraordinary sense of the present as its original conceptual form centuries ago is reinterpreted somewhere we cannot experience in the intended installation. The prescience is un-calculated but if anything, maybe in the mould of prophethising is shockingly realised and the prophet being here, Ursula Burke.

On the 5th level of the Ulster Museum, traditionally the Art being the highest entry to the confines of ours and the museums strata of telling discovery. Augury is a word Ursula Burke fastens onto and it’s emblematic place in the sculpture sends us in several directions. The repurposed fresco with birds is resonant of several contexts across a longer period of time.

In the Artist statement this is said – “Often, I take a Northern Irish context as a critical point of departure from which to generalise my approach outwards to international concerns.”

This work takes in some pieces from previous exhibitions that lend their heft to this particular ascribed process. The following text from those earlier exhibitions, in part description, shows the process of thought employed by Ursula Burke.

“A large proportion of my work at present is made using Parian porcelain, a hard paste porcelain that is famed for emulating Parian marble, the substance used for carving many of the Greek and Roman sculptures from antiquity. Even though Parian is extremely hard after firing, the nature of the material exudes a kind of softness and elasticity, (almost fleshy) which at the same time formally emulates the characteristics of marble. In content, the reference to the classical period that the work allows enables me to make a conceptual bridge between idealised versions of society much in debate during the classical period and the necessity for continually suspended versions of the ideal within a post-conflict society. Northern Ireland as a region is consistently working towards peace; persistently speaking and striving to move towards an indeterminate point in the future where real, meaningful and lasting peace between tribal communities has been realized. The schism between idealized forms of civil society and consistently suspended versions of the ideal in post conflict society is at the heart of this work.” From the troublesarchive.com Art of the Troubles, The Ulster Museum Belfast, 2014; Arafudo Art Annual, Fukushima, Japan 2014; March & June Mostra, British School at Rome, 2014; Spazi Aperti, Romanian Academy, Rome, 2014; Hope for a Better Past, The MAC, Belfast, 2013 & Instances of Agreement, Kao Yuan Art Centre, Taiwan, 2011. They resonate again here.

textile

sculpture

The vision here
It summons up a thought process on life as seen though the past as a vision of the future. Called ‘A False Dawn’ it supposes also a negative position maybe where we are at, but it covers a lot of ground. The past is seen in the referencing spatial sense of the original fresco and it in part a reconstruction of. It also is a gathering of violence against the person, posing in an array of mediums the entry to the debating chamber, meeting places to discuss differences and forge policies of unity an opposite prevails into the present day and beyond.

The work seems to presuppose the history of humans default to former patterns that negatives will ensue. Far from obvious are the immemorial themes point to the wasteful oblique way we see the environs and world we live in and all its inhabitants. These only appear with scrutiny of the ‘fresco’ with images contained within it. Some local and as I alluded to the wall takes on more genus loci with the wall having in the view hidden our ‘Parliment’ a few miles out the other side having, and it’s very probable Ursula Burke had that symbolic an immovable part of our reckoning or at least a fixture of it.

Further on here I will refer to other works that seek to use art as the countenance for or own debates.

There is a reaction to repression of every kind here in the work and at its core is the politically ardent will that caught out post war worlds. Reconciliation is never over. After these ancient inherent human abstract relations pattern in nature survives beyond us. Made as each are in that miracle of combinations that under the microscope only retain pattern and forms of symmetry our abstract world is incurable evident.

The Italian fresco is a beginning but the core is the restlessness borne of dreadful pain mirrored in the apathy with which fine art beguilingly transports us towards as some judgement or acceptance of the absurd.

Fight with flight
The birds are the only animals seen in the exhibition and they figure in the settled full wall perch of the blue diagraphic take on enterprise. The glory of a fresco is simulated in the form of a testing pseudo deterioration by strands of dripped bud paint, speckled distempered plaster. The appearance is less fecund than any original fresco but holds an arresting scale in the soft light of the Gallery. It is based on the Villa of Livia which has been restored at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome which is, in this iteration, a bit like the https://www.atelier-lumieres.com/en/home Van Gogh simulator without the colour intensity.

The villa was abandoned in the 5th century AD, and subsequently pillaged and looted for antiquities. In 1863, the famous statue of Augustus of Prima Porta was discovered on the site, as well as the birds and trees frescoes in an underground dining area. These were moved to museums in the city to conserve them.

The deterioration as depicted here is arrested and an arresting state of compromise for our satiated souls. Reclaiming it with this mural effect is taking the visitor into a world that is outside the former and is evoking through the use of the flightless birds sorrowful dripping tears of paint and the abundance of natural things an anotherness we cannot see. It goes beyond us. To this Ursula Burke brings a presence of mankind’s intervention and confinement. In today’s compromised world it has wild connections. Nowhere will there be a more relevant juxtaposition in Art installation. The terracotta wilderness is the only comparable example of these themes as this has advanced new infinite interpretations.

The terracotta wilderness of the former is obliterated by the intensity of a blue landscape with grid mesh patterns and inserts of hand held lenses capturing a circle of place, Carson’s Statue or The Stormont Mile.
We are pulled into the wilderness of our transmuted political lives.

The allegories may be there but the tonal qualities of the former fresco as a vehicle are explored as an effect less intensely or otherworldly here as Ursula Burke realises her ‘Augury of the Birds.’ The Villa of Livia is the original title and this alternative is extending the reach of the original due to its pastiche allegory of a beautiful location, even garden of Eden. … “La Villa di Livia a Prima Porta da praedium suburbanum a villa Caesarum”.

The place here, it’s genus loci, is compared to this former mythical imagining which itself is captured in its frozen fall from perpetuity and is a relic of another view of the world. The meaning is placed in either location to be one where we aspire to flourish beyond expectations held across the fence in the fresco. “Livia had a fresco painted on the walls which reproduced the nature outside. In fact there are several types of trees, and there are also 69 different types of birds, like those found in the woods around the villa,” said Biondi.

Other Portraits
That illusion is not far from in both the former and Ursula Burke’s own latest interpretation here, one perceived by the Artist know as the old man of Modern Literature, one James Joyce, whose eyesight, with another ironic twist of fate in this context, was about a tenth of normal sight and therefore he was unable to invest in the visual much other than an observant contempt-or, while being in the opposite a master of the language lingual he contritely put a verse to this connection –

Buy a book in brown paper
From Faber and Faber
To see Annie Liffey trip, tumble and caper.
Sevensinns in her singthings,
Plurabelle on her prose
Seashell ebb music wayriver she flows.

His book was of the two shores of the Liffey, on the harbour of people, the brown paper bag the admission it was censored and contained connections with Finnegans Wake..

Not the enigma poetry expected but a blunt instrument of a sales pitch. This is itself a play with words as you are invited to enter a tributary of life where the rawness and morality is cast in metaphors of the rivers proximity to us. The river is carrying away our thoughts. The changes in the tidal flow are stilled only by the momentary galina.

‘What he was doing was leaving a literary ghost mark for a world that was unprepared for it. Anna is both woman and river and “her fluvial maids of honour”, from all corners of the world, constitute 350 river names.’ Edna O’Brien.

This is the same wilderness an author felt able to enter and express while H.G.Wells, Nabokov, DH Lawrence, thought the less of it, TS Eliot was along with Samuel Beckett no stranger to its strangeness as ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’ became a morality tale of the river as the conscious being, once entered you cannot return to join in the same place again. The essay by Edna O’Brien is simply a testament to that works genius.
bit.ly.2uuHOrI

2 planes

Bleakness lies before the precious and it is not recreational, recreation is a simile after all and it is an escape while being present. What appears is the thought Ursula Burke is in contest with the world as seen. That she attests to other consciousnesses and parts and gives here a very formative tale to investigate. Along with Joyce she is a companion to the diversity and is gathering in throwing porcelain of her own concepts in bruised and battered allegories which for a long time have proven solid and robust conquests of authorative voice.

The wonderful new book by Colm McCann ‘Apeirogon’ which he snatches a story of combatants he met as lives witnessed in the Middle East to convey the union of ordinary people through the common loss of a child, is illustrated in physical existing metaphors wherein the entry points A,B,C, in the occupied areas are under surveillance of drones cameras and watchtowers the lines of movement that must be adhered to. Gate A is to a Palestinian area, it is illegal for Israelis to enter it. There reasons might be collaboration and assistance? Gate B is to an Israeli held area which Palestinians can enter with adherence to the areas rules as they provide services to the area. Gate C is a settlement occupied only by Israelis. Only Israelis are allowed in. This is the real manifestation of a global human malaise. To take it to another level is the containment of the rooms, a truth, an encounter then a reflection. The broad scope is a problematic one in this confined space. Later I suggest reasons for this opinion.

Just as another fine line of connection there is a review in Los Angeles of the novel being also about birds. ‘Also About Birds: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’ in Colum McCann’s “Apeirogon” by Ben Libman

Beyond malaise is the witnessing of such division and conflict and Ursula Burke has produced in the area of the 5th floor something akin to the separate rooms, at least for my purposes of analysing what I’d seen within its pictorial walls that similar guise. Akin is the name VSO call their volunteer magazine which centres on the junctions of family and repair. This is also a part within the scope of Ursula Burke’s vision here. The many pieces of sculptured heads themselves are displayed on trestles and Dias as types of singular grief and fortitude.

The typed imprint sometimes seen in Ursulas work, of tattoos and messages is again used but less dominantly. The tattoos are in fact the bruises and broken defaced, literally heads full of self image and identity harmed but unbowed. Each forms a art of the same collective. The ‘rooms’ – Gates I eluded to – are usefully given mapping in the accompanying exhibition booklet.

The collective is known as ‘The Wounding’. In the same room, the point of entry are two smaller pieces, Blue – The Sphinx greeting you as you enter and the foremost image identifying what the exhibition is taking you toward. Due to the limitations of space there is only a small explation of the aims and it is immeasurable how much can be taken away or witnessed in calculations of meaning and the exploration of the work.

piece

It is brutally beautiful from the onset. Delivering a coruscating abundance of tales in principle using humans at its core. Natures supremacy is also our configuration. The birds are in an evolutionary state, as we happen to have common migratory processes instilled within us. The flight as opposed to flightlessness is adjudicated in poetry, Seamus Heaney’s works are peppered with birds. As local artist Jefferey Morgan has often in his paintings, his fellow Artist in words, Michael Longley has himself a fascination with birds and their flight. Even in this same space (RUA 2019) birds were appropriated in Jeremy Morgan’s painting of Wiggenstien, as a perch for birds, his trusted companions placing context to philosophy in the edges of Connemara.

Jeffrey Morgan’s Wiggenstien

The Sphinx is an art subject since it’s earliest embrace. In essence power is anthropomorphic with this creature a heraldic peaceful force showing control, the complete opposite of ourselves of its innate image of pure evolution. This is no Tutankhamen (another tomb is believed to exist beyond the famous Egyptian find) but it is emblematic of faith, virtue, spirit and soul all equated with blue and light blue is associated with the Throat Chakra in eastern mysticism. The element of ether belongs with this and the bruise signals I am here, a human, both the yellow and red absent from blue transition to the physical take it to a stage statues do not have.

It is hard to speak of the delicate forms the world takes without seeing the contrasts presented. They are a dialogue of themselves. The hanging head ‘Augury’ in the third room is a synthesis of a beam, a pressure treated, well selected, worn railway sleeper of a crossbeam, a bodyof woolen torso. Who am I? – it seeks an answer to. Both of itself and the visitor under its presence. The stainless steel grille of the sixties ventilation above and behind it is brought into it in my view, with its rational place occupying the space also and filtering away the august air of the solemn interior in which we invent time and thought.

solitary insular war

Inherited. A congress of anger.
In ‘Augury of the Birds’ is a context which is as I recently reminded a commentator having a pop at a geographer in a political context, of the animal having a locale and no borders – pinemartins. One of the Irish animals that possess enough guile as to be from even further away. These common carnivores are found in Scotland and the species mustelid have been around a long time. They are not confined by fences while birds are even less confined. They find a way to cross boundaries.

Here there is a joy alongside a trying contest with hope in this display and conceptual world. By creating, and arches sanctity of place, light and stillness take the visitor to a similar room or series of spaces as the La Villa di Livia a Prima Porta. No longer a place of restful pastoral solitude here there are cast relics or people. The heads and bruised elegance given to the new born is cast with its brethren’s burden. The baby is a clear embodiment of this veil of sorrows already inhabited by the person. James Joyce spent years developing a new dialogue and who is Finnegan? Who is the wanderer? The point from one place to another is taken by allowing seeing places symbolising your existence. A habitat or vantage point like the Martello Tower.

space

The man-made is like a Seán Hillen postcard montage/collage sustained with images taken in combinations and gathered. Like a rickshaw on the canal towpath incongruous and accepted. The allegory of Birds is one which goes beyond our eight mile, for most experiences of that scale, vision unlike the birds whose flight allows them elevation and survey. Often looking at horizons it is observed or intuition tells us, why would you look for meaning in it, what is meaning and why would it have to have meaning.

Library of Congress
Like Joyces work this Gallery is a ‘book’ of ideas subverting the ordinary scroll of everyday blindness. Joyce’s tenth of normal eyesight comes with the baggage of having to find other ways to create. Recently I have been discovering how common the impairment in sight is found in art. Locally the colour blindness encroaching in degrees and in severity was occurring with Paul Henry and Basil Blackshaw. Ursula Burke is using the head as the all seeing self and its variances are dispersed with degrees of damage and all physical with the awareness there is damage within always.

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.’ Kafka. In the current ‘Democrat’ debate a commentator pointed out – literally – if Elizabeth Warren had an axe/sword at the discussion Bloomberg was all over the place, he would be ‘shish kebab’. Perhaps those words should be removed from any political context. There is a plethora of subjects in political debate for violence which Ursula Burke has brought to this and it is a wild card I throw into the cannibalism of political discourse. Discursive not constructive. The view being, it is present in chambers of supposed governance.

There is another oblique observation which I throw in as it comes from the family of ‘The Origin of the Species.’ Gwen Raveret, a very quick mind and Artist when a boarder at school in France wrote when returning to the comfort of the Darwin household this.

‘In all that time there is only one vision that I keep: a flash, seen through the garden hedge, of some sheep in the next field, with the frosty, winter light running along their backs. It seemed like something from another world: the real world, to which I should escape again some day. It kept me alive.’ Gwen Raveret. (A Cambridge Childhood)

In that clear mind the outside vision is seen through nature. People happen to inhabit that world along with the animals she recalls. The words are extraordinary well in keeping with the Darwin insights.

The Wounded
With the tenderness of porcelain Ursula Burke is calling out “the company of self-obsessed fuck-offs who squandered and destroyed the world …..” Gabriel Tallent. Except they continue to preside over the collapse. As in Dresden the mercurial pliability of the material as manipulated in the Dachau Concentration camps is once again primordial in its fragile solidity. These works are combined and brought from each singularity of a human entity, to become the assembly of The Wounded. The scene graceful and stark. Each head has a four cornered timber dias and they rest on the flat top at eye level. The combined display’s each suppose a human scale though they are at times not at the human scale but either or above or below. The child’s head for instance is larger than its normal size as is The Sphinx – Blue. As Colin Davison has in his Lives series and as is his practice the energy of a person is advanced beyond the know parameters thus confronting another aspect, that of an outside deliberate context. Apathy, hurt, fortune, fortitude, resilience, absence, they are all there and more besides. That is the gift art brings, as the lie Picasso referred to. The False Dawn maybe is presaged in the baby at the beginning of life consumed by applied identity.

There is an ever more disturbing connection to be made and it is with regard to that pliability of the Parian Porcelain. In a tragic irony it became a fixation of Himmler as in the Edward de Waal book ‘Figurines in Dachau’, of The extraordinary story of Porzellan Manufaktur Allac as it is further testified, the delicacy was a fine art beloved by Himmler and Hitler. Himmler called porcelain ‘one of the few things that give me pleasure’ and Hitler gave it as gifts. That skill advanced in Dachau a violation of human life.

The Concentration Camps became a crucible, some surviving it is presumed due to their skills and competency with the material, within Dachau. The factory in Allach became too small, and at the end of 1940 it moved to Dachau concentration camp. There were many advantages of having the factory here. There was the immediate gain of using the prisoners. The Allach porcelain company – as with the porcelain manufactory in Meissen – was losing skilled workers to the eastern front, and here they could draw on the talents of inmates. The few prisoners brought in from the camp in 1941 grew to over a hundred by 1943.

threads

Geography and Boundaries
While a heaviness of subject is somewhat eased by the actual area of the exhibition in what is a very large space within the Museum in the three parts of the 5th floor it has a difficulty. This is so large a subject the confinement of it is problematic. The particular and evident use as much is possible of minimal presentation by exhibiting one piece on one wall emerges as a tentative approach. There is little room for reflection.

Embroidery is a dominant presence which it is possible to approach as well as view from afar. This is seen as a hanging of an image created with the softness of thread while being the concord of hate in the image as people assailants each other or defend themselves. Blood is threads dripping in tapestry. The Politicians piece is given largesse and prominence and the wooden star frame is accentuating the methodology. The piece is however crowded in the sense it has companions in the room and they are not linear. If only the pace was larger and it were possible as would happen in a linear Gallery or Circular, Getty type space, lead you through from a piece to another piece. Instead it is a conflict of images and though the earnest use of light and separations is used effectively as much as is possible it seems a narrative is lost.

Despite my ‘eulogy’ on certain aspects and being able to draw interpretations from it on a vast scale at times, it torments by not being a story developing as it could. This is evident in seeing it with others and hearing responses and the quickness of a journey does not help. Would it be better were The Wounded be confined to their own room and reflection be removed from the other works? It is difficult to imagine. Another thing I found was not being able to describe its arc to an artist before they visited and it is not entirely obvious where the story begins and what the nature of the fresco analogy is. Is it important to read the ‘fence/bird’ metaphor as the original had foreseen? Is it suffice to take the fresco for what it is by long objective observation? It was long silent before being revealed.

This is a unique reconstruction and was delivered by work on many levels by a number of people under the artists instruction. It is formed with architectural references also in the entry point and the articulation the Gallery, a modern sixties space with delights of formation and detail familiar and a shift in art presentation in itself. Now sans Pirelli Black Rubber Floor unfortunately.

Embroidery is a method deployed as an invocation of political abuse. Comparisons for me are to be made with the work often carried out by local artist Brendan Jameson. It was not long ago he replicated a war picture with plastic bricks and fired pellets at the pixelated plastic image and it showed the connection of a bombing and burnt presentation in a soft caricature the hardness of violence. Often Brendan Jameson produces work similarly contextualised of hard subjects developed with soft materials, sugar cubes towers, cranes and wool is often employed. It is a demographic pluralised by many in art.
Often troubling images are significantly made impactive by use of colour and texture. All art is a combination of the signatures, symbolic, icon, index. The hardness softness is a vocabulary which will last long and be emotive.

The use of tapestry is often seen as belonging to Power bases but that is long gone as a means of expression except the clothes and dress attire is often still predicated on status and power. By creating this soft expression of the subjects it is a dynamic pushing us to new collections of ideas. There is a thought of the location becoming a debating chamber itself, of the aftermath of debate being scrutinised by us. This is part of the envelope of any art project, to transmit and alter and show a way of seeing which is the converse and opposite of normal perceptions of the same thing or realised in an alternative shocking or engaging way.
Our familiarity of the discourses is of course a point to hold and it is also capable for other universal viewpoints to arrive at much the same thought processes.

Of all art work with a narrative centred on human conflict and Guernica apart, I found the ballet ‘The Green Table’ by performed by The Bathsheva Dance Company of Israel the most powerful I have ever witnessed. As our own ‘troubles’ spiralled and became a proximity of human harm visited on many taking away lives and their future this recoiled as a parallel depiction performed as a ballet, it arrived without warning as acts of violence do. Other forms of art could provide similar responses, it so happened to commit totally to the horror of war and human disagreements being at the core.

If we go back to the original and the notion earlier, ‘this Gallery is a ‘book’ of ideas subverting the ordinary scroll of everyday blindness. Joyce’s tenth of normal eyesight comes with the baggage of having to find other ways to create.’ it presupposes a normality in that the original was designed as a dining area. Imagine what discussions might have fed those at the table. The outside is perceived as harmful while dining is a convivial and discursive learning rewarding essential social norm. While dining there is withdraw to a safe refuge to take in the harvest of all they survey.

‘The Green Table’ is that place of discourse and it is used not for dining but as a place to reflect and act out positions of difference and the meaning is held all are equal while a temporary lapse in normal hostilities are replaced by conversation. It seldom works as conversation is held among people as they swamp agreements or common purposes while energising other equations as a test among their piers. So the table is a mediator on levelling out. The people are of course ardently different holding outside ideas they must attend to, adhere to and visit so they are not confronted once they’ve left of change. That is also a spiral of centrifugal force. Like a satellite of thoughts much as the reverence held by the construction of Newgrange and other core layline driven spaces. These rooms are a place of discovery in the most part. They reflect on what is. They also offer food as the dining room is destroyed and in limbo while we navigate the pieces while discovering thoughts fresh and recalled.

Paucity in Religion
As the work is attempting to take on a huge subject and our lack of mediation among nations it races toward the singularity of existence seen focused on individual choices and from the sign of the baby holding a flag on entering the world it is apparent this is individuality with context. The onrush of societal norms are that contagion it is difficult to remove ideas away from.

Predicated by the notions and practices instilled since birth it is rare that independent thought perseveres without some identity context. None more so than religion. I can see the argument and that is a toxic word in some places is that our times have always been trapped by war and conflict with Northern Ireland a place known primarily through its troubles near past. So I have found the following story from a pioneer going to another place, taking with them no doubt their own societal convictions, some puritanical and conflicted with the freedoms of others, to be very tangible.

The aspect of faith or belief, in which peace is a foundation sought through religious positions is brought through in the context of the USA sate of Montana a narrative which is brought by necessity into the thinking of a pioneer. I have not seen a clearer statement on the examination of religion as seen through the individual and their own choices and the fundamental need to be observant of their own actions and place it in context of a worlds mission. Progress through peace. The exhibition alarms us and covers this – Religion – Passage – without having the place to display it.

wall fresco

James Fergus – Montana
“I said religion often had something to do with the fate of nations… the Christian religion brought about a long period of ignorance still known to us as the dark ages, during which thought was curbed, common education banished, and conscience given over to a rude, vulgar and ignoranat priesthood.

 "And whatever good Christianity may have done since, much of the degeneracy of mankind during this period must be laid at its door... Christianity alone was left to darken and degrade the masses of Europe with only an occasional flash of independent thought, until the 14th century when we gradually see the flicking lights of a coming dawn. Gallieo, Bacon, Luther. 

James Fergus as many pioneers sought a new dawn to live a life somewhere identity was not fixed but hindsight brought those words spoken above. In a nation never conscious of the Indian belonging to their lands and the desolation of a form of life caused by the migration into their lands it became, evokes another false dawn.

Another analogy I find in the film The Ghost Story by David Lowry which in this context unravels life backwards in a place revealing a past and positioning a future.

….walks over to to one of the pressure treated beams that line the road. She sits down.

This essay has taken many turns and has remained unpublished for a few months as the nature of the exhibition takes on more relevance and meaning. Now published 01 06 2020 I have settled on a degree of understanding and interpretation and as this world shows there is every truth in the individual having their own view in this compellingly complex world.

To finish I have noticed another reality. The Wuhan ‘origin’ of Coronavirus 19 was from dead bats. Bats it is pointed out in another book ‘Quarantine’ by John Grace, hang from caves upside down and their ‘eyes’ having limited vision in the conventional ‘sense’ are fixed as they hang on the ground, not the heavens above. The Bible uses the ‘quarantine’ of forty days in the desert to get across the story of ‘human examination’ where prayer expresses inner most thoughts. The daylight fasting contrasts with the bat and it’s lack of sight, no need for daylight and living a life in darkness without a canopy of exterior wonder as colour, our use of vision, gives us so much apparent contrasts that ultimately are illusions.

John Graham

01 June 2020

Belfast

locate

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V E Day 2020 All Souls are Mine

QUB Victory Memorial

The Cross put on the Memorial at 11.00am 8 May 2020

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The 11.00am Moment for Silence
All Souls are Mine
For every person dying throughout the world in wars that mankind has brought mercilessly.

All Souls Belfast
V E Day
Friday May 8 2020

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The thoughts and Prayers of the Church brethren of All Souls will have this Memorial Day in their hearts and soul as the lost lives in conflict are remembered.

The East Window

The day Victory in Europe 75 years after peace was obtained the days of remembering continued.

Here we are in 2020 with a sense of connection and humanity has had its say in the face of a virulent disease. We can prepare for making a stronger peace by realising the world we share for a short period of time as the Creator has given us. The strength of kinship and the selflessness of the National Health Service Carers and the Care Homes Carers along with the family’s and isolated who are facing up to their mortality whenever it shall be brought as it is to all, we give collective thanks for the treasures life has given and the hope that stays within us through every moment the Creator has given us. Amen

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The Redwood Tree
It has as its protection the skin of soft bark that whoever fire engulfs it the bark melts and shields the inner trunk so it may grow again.
The creator made this. Amen

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The Learning never stops.

Look after yourself and care for the vulnerable. Be safe Be at Peace

John Graham

8 May 2020

Belfast

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Walk don’t Roam

Looking at Buildings and their settings takes on new meaning in these times. Having seen the loss of many functional reusable buildings replaced by mediocre architecture given by the profession at its worst the plain truth reveals itself in the present.

You’ll need a drink after this!

Here are a selection of photos randomly taken of an array of locations many of which will be familiar but not seen lately.

Behind this wall lies the Ursula Burke exhibition which contains the wounded. It depicts and behind this very wall a replication in the artistic interpretation of Ursula Burke the Villa de Livia fresco. That was created in the fifth century to convey the peaceful protection from a world over which birds flew freely and many creatures lay. All not hospitable and therein lay the future which we must enter. To call Ursula Burke’s exhibition profound and seeing the past ages of the fragile relationships we have with the world beyond the horizon, all having different surroundings is a huge understatement.

The Church axis blocked by a darn Bank in the seventies

The original much loved building seen only close up

The view removed

Spot the awful Hamilton Architects tin additions – go to the Park to see more!

A certain Arch practice obliged in providing a set of designs for Buildings along the pavement edge for QUB Estates but thankfully they were dropped. Who on earth thought it was a good idea in the first place? How did the architects not see the Mies relation of a tower set back, which mostly is disregarded, but nevertheless is essential and the reason why the Ashby building sits so well and has added a fine natural corner in a highly used and mixed use area by landscaping relating to both the location and the building. ?

Take home your rubbish or drop in the bin nearby kindly placed by the BCC fgs

The Red Devil’s will return

Oscar Wilde went through this doorway – and came out again – around 1888?

Gods own

Tulips

Tim what were u thinking?

Isolate and educate

Is that corner not inappropriate? asked the dog

Bresson got there and found this

Perspective found this

Spot the roof add ons to the Museum (the tropical ravine was not restored well – it now has 2 roofs and a walkway) did anyone visit the beautiful Kew Gardens version? Staggering here!

Where have all the cars gone?

Barbecue Ribs overdone

Don’t look behind me – there’s a facsimile Library – don’t believe the brochures it’s 20/21at century architecture honest and C.S. Lewis would have been aghast!
A meaningless adoration with space above – is it a bell tower a lighthouse or folly?

Time to return home

All views are my own in this essay.

John Graham

2 May 2020

Belfast

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OpJB : A Book Review

Don’t judge a War by its History

OpJB is a story told by a former secret agent of the British Naval Forces, a spy and double agent who from the age of sixteen became a key player in the extraordinary extradition of a figure so connected to the Nazi brutality in the Second World War that it is found sometimes unbelievable that this story could possibly be true. During the period up to the closure of the war and its end there was an operation which this naval officer whose credibility as a Nazi sympathiser allowed him to arrange a rendezvous at the age of twenty in a suburb of Dublin, in Herbert Park to meet his Nazi target intelligence collaborators. It happened on 23 January 1945 at 0700.

The resulting rendezvous went according to plan and he headed north to Londonderry and departed to Liverpool. The operation it set in train was instigated by Winston Churchill and his King George V, involving this agent, Louis Mountbatten, Ian Fleming and others.

From missions during the war in which many fatalities happened through the actions of this officer including at the age of sixteen attacking a U boat base off Donegal and killing four, three with his bare hands this operator had gained the value of reliability in his actions as a combined operations appointee.

Many will disbelieve the story few records exist of purely because the outcome is perverse and counterintuitive and is the devils own job in explaining as of any value.

In a terrible twist of fate, a twist of sands?, the IRA destruction of Louis Mountbatten and a young boy in the waters of Donegal in 1979 was a cruel irony given the Nazi war had been defeated and many Irishmen had contributed alongside Mountbatten and Americans in securing the victory.

How ironic the Brexit Union is breaking up the accord with once feared enemies. Not that feared, despised British Irish relationship held by many but the union of Germany and the United Kingdom.

How ironic it is the waters of Donegal hold in the islands people in an insurgence across borders flocks of birds and fauna traverse. Borders are futile enemies despite this putting behind tragic and infinitely bigger losses, some fifth of the earth’s population died in the conflict that was author to this final act of discovery.

Of his actions which the faith held in God is replaced by the black angel he refers to, he states early in the book, “The fact they might have been for the greater good, and maybe helped a bit, will never atone for the loss of life and the suffering that I brought about.” That is a colossal statement on anyone’s reflection of the war and there underlies a guilt at the betray of God in the fight, the warring taken part in.

There is no emphasis or half hearted declaration intend or played out in the narrative by facing these facts but it is the in the writers of the story we are given the insight however buried and seemingly insignificant it is, in part due to the selfishness of self appraisals is nonetheless a lesson to be drawn. A clear one on the despicable savages of war and this being on such a scale it remains truly fixed as a memory for use in current times.

Deep into the book a baby is cradled and dying and a woman crosses herself, in the orthodox Russian manner, right to left, and sobs grieving over humanities low.

Normal life or an approximation of it tries to carry along its path in Dublin. There were houses in which a German encampment had established. 52 Northumberland Road was one such base. Scattered around were Germans living in homes among the locals and unseen for the most part. This was the legation. Into the operators hands once he is face to face in a Berlin with the head of German intelligence, the betrayal is secured with rolls of English £5 pound notes amounting to the operators soul fee. He succeeded in administering a false placement of intelligence information so setting the ball rolling. Except it was not false information he was to pass on but of a raid which saw the killing of some three hundred Canadians and others.

Three hundred dead at least, that is itself horrifying and the ancient question lives on. Is the death of a few worth the saving of the many? This is the basis on which this book is written. While it is a record of the authors part in a historical narrative and an event which is itself a coming to terms with what has just been gone through by inquest of the actions, it is formidable in its telling as a compelling vision into mankind’s wickedness. The foremost war people reflect on is acted out in separate elements and this is a picture of a thread running through it.

It is in the reading, very difficult to conceive it is true as it continually releases more astonishing detail and insight into the workings of key figures in the events and how they, the events materialised contrary to common knowledge and perceptions from the distance of history retold.

In Kilkeel there was and still remains in part, an airport training post occupied by American troops, of around 18 years old mostly training for operation overlord D-Day and Dwight Eisenhower paid them a visit. In preparation for it an account is given in the book of a disastrous exercise he mounted in England. It was another part of warfare in its operation going badly wrong.

The aircraft training story at Kilkeel is told by the local community and local council with pride and rightly so. They played a part in hosting, creating the base and rigorously fostering with the all might they could muster in this plan while never knowing its purpose.

With the runways now dug up and forming field walls and gun mounts used as gateposts remnants pepper the area. There is even a cinema barn housing an artillery cockpit training tower with a sanded floor onto which reels of film of targets where screened, navigated and fired into.

From looking back into this period through the remaining physical elements in Kilkeel to 1945 it is very difficult but in part possible to imagine the massive operation D-Day preparation entailed. To treat these episodes in this book as Fake News would be wide of the mark. The actual events however horrifying were and are recorded as fact by this first hand account. The tests have been put to its validation.

In a 1996 Review of this book by The Independant it is treated as highly fictionalised. Here is part of the appraisal.

Successive British governments cheated Hitler’s Jewish victims of the wealth and property he had robbed from them. Britain rescued and hid a man condemned to death at Nuremberg. The Canadians were deliberately led into their massacre at Dieppe.

And one last touch – our hero claims to have blown up the Dutch submarine which had observed the Japanese fleet en route for Pearl Harbour and signalled a warning, so that Roosevelt’s abandonment of the American Pacific fleet to destruction should never become known. Mr Ainsworth Jones has chosen to blacken the honour both of Churchill and of this country, and to sow renewed bitterness against us with the victims of the Holocaust, with Canada, with Ireland, with the Netherlands and with the United States. This, even in fiction, is not so much unbelievable as unforgiveable.

Treasonable actions by a few maybe but did this occur?

Many truths are available and those arguments in the wake of history have washed up some staggering stories. I think it beyond most journalists or investigators to even come close to the truth so in my mind it resides as a hearing of a mans account, ‘highly fictionalised?’ and worth evaluating further.

Controversy visits all memory. The few who know the truth often remain silent. The horrific nature of this period are endlessly contested. The post in Wikispooks is both endearing and loose with the facts.

Contents 

Criticism

On the publication of the 1998 Bormann DNA report, and statements given to the media, London’s Daily Express newspaper called the Bormann report a ‘’whitewash’’ perpetrated by the Brandt government. Later the Stewart Steven foreign editor of the Daily Express was sacked for publishing the ‘’whitewash’’ article.[citation needed] Stewart Steven was part of team that went to Buenos Aires to investigate Bormann documents. The findings were verified as valid evidence as to Bormanns survival. After which he published an article as to Bormanns survival, he was bullied into resigning as editor of The Daily Express

Repairing the damage was a huge task for subsequent leaders. Churchill was ousted and Clement Attlee was seen as a social focused individual steering people back to the relative peace and recovery necessary while the Nuremberg episodes took over the task of inquest. Would leaders such as Billy Brandt and those British leaders such as Macmillan seen it a duty to protect the hard won Sovereignty by the victor and allow the dissolution of Germany into a fractured state. East and West? Highly probable as a stabilising necessity.

Milton Shulman, film critic and former intelligence officer asked Nigel West aka Rupert Allison to investigate the claims made by the author of OpJB.

An extract of his own reflections of it are written here.

….. Only five pages of the thirty-three submitted dealt directly with attempting to rubbish Creighton’s facts. If a winner had to be chosen, I believe Creighton’s specific details were more convincing than West’s often vague or instinctive allegations. To give him credit, West was frank about acknowledging the difficulty of assessing an operation which Creighton had originally dubbed -The Operation That Never Was. The secrecy surrounding it was total and any written documents about it had had to be shredded and destroyed. Only three people knew what was going on, Creighton, Susan Kemp and Barbara Brabenov are still alive. MI5 and MI6 were excluded from the plan.

When further problems arose subsequently due to the unearthing of this, is a 2015 interview on the same by Christopher.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oth3sy1hGy4

Just as I read through the book and the continuing emphasis on the Martin Boorman operation and the Swiss store of sequestered riches in the Boorman accounts etc. I thought the author was not to reveal any other magnitude of dreadful acts of killing allied forces by sending them to their deaths he comes forward with another episode which is in fact the annihilation of Dutch Submarine crew in connection with their knowledge of Pearl Harbour. The direct effect was to bring the American’s into the war.

The Paratroopers in this war were a stark contrast to those who succeeded them. Commanders were desperate leaders when mercenary tactics went out under such as Major Mike Jackson who later orchestrated a coverup of events on Bloody Sunday 1972 in Derry when, on whose explicit orders is often placed at PM Edward Heath’s desk, he set about perpetuating the myth they were firing at gunmen when in fact the pre-mediated actions of Corporal F and Solidier G went to slaughter innocent marchers and civilians form the same United Kingdom they came from.

The pair were joined by others in the Para regiment who had been incited by the gunfire and shootings already happening. This is a witness account of Solidier 027 who in 1997 gave an account – passed to the British through the Irish Government. They were to form part of the Saville inquiry and Tom McGurk and Damien Kibbard, the journalists who put the testimony together in The Sunday Business Post.

This 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment was on a different mission and in contrast this book lacks the omertà of Soldiers in action ever explaining their actions. The code broken by Soldier 027.

Being trained for war these soldiers went out to kill given the instruction from above, not for liberty or saving lives or tyranny but forthright destruction on a nationalist basis. The liberty of Locke and Mill were token trails of prevailing logic or Law never occurred to them.

Now in today’s courts the deluded General Geoffrey Howlett also goes about to sully the name of civilians mowed down by his 2nd Battalion paratroopers. He was then Lieutenant Colonel in command, in August 1972 in Ballymurphy. In the pretence of defending the shootings on mistaken gunmen or women he in the recent Ballymurphy inquest speaks again the lie of the record of the time maybe being mistaken.

This is complete and utter cruelty an lacks credibility and remorse.

The state were acting in accordance with orders and in this, is also driven to this day by a Secretary of State Karen Bradley, whose idea of killing of innocent people in Northern Ireland was never a crime. This has since been retracted as ‘an inaccurate statement’ though given the way it came about was without doubt intentional and gives truth to the lie of what British Establishment wish people to believe. Truth is always hard and in these circumstances it is no less unconscionable or of any legal merit in terms of justice or reconciling people with the past. The impartiality is clearly absent in the U.K. governance of past actions governing not only its history in Northern Ireland but in past WW2 actions and outcomes .

When the central task the book concerns itself with; extracting MB and accessing the hoard he is in control of, – in isolation with the numerous other actions it took to win a war, – there is a questionable story of JB and the author when meeting Ribbentrop in his Erie as Foreign Minister at a remote location of taking a clumsy, very detectable risk when they are in a large villa with presumably a very attentive staff including SS keeping an eye on their guests even when they least expect observation. It is highly improbable the transmission of code via. a piano and extensive wiring was undertaken. Firstly the success of the mission was not in question and all arrangements were in the hands of others who knew precisely why they were there and the location by other means of MB. The risk was immense and the material; it was a long trail, highly detectable of wire from goodness knows where could have put the central mission completely into the bin. So what is going on in the story tellers mind you have to ask. Is it a false trail and a bit of hyperbole for the sake of making what is after all a mission going particularly well? Or is it false in its entirety making the accompanying main story one completely in the writers imagination. For such a strange twist there are no explanations hurrying to the forefront in defence.

Another problem I had concerns the unit size and sending to Berlin as a preparatory unit in the order of fifty personnel was making the prospect of discovery larger and the duplication of tasks fundamental unnecessary burden.

Having so many local contacts and in-place paratroopers they surely had sufficient personnel to make the path clear and did they need to ‘disturb’ defences?

What is and where is truth?

Any disturbances of the defences put in place in the form of mines and barriers would be noticed and it is implausible the unit sent with the local assistance could not have been smaller and nimble. After all, the whole premise before this has been the versatility of the few individuals in action and their uncomplicated approach.

While home operations has the necessary intelligence and planning of the operation covered with all its possible outcomes accounted for there is a change in shift in implementation of the plan. Why so many involved?

When the return to England happens; and this underpins again they had no need for transmitting any information given the hosts were holiday hosts asking, when are you going home? the subject of character is interrogated.

Licence to Kill

JB has never fixed a weapon to kill someone and there begins a characterisation of those nom-de-plumes expedited. JB is seen as a foppish spy of aristocratic zeal. He is given the rounded form of Sir Percy (Blakeney) and the author is less able to approximate his role in character in forming for himself the identity allusion of Andrew Ffoulkes as the comrade. The more appropriate form may have been Peter Pan or Dorian Grey as the derring do is often fanciful with a Wildiean voluptuous embroidery calling to mind Barry Lyndon.

Finding out the true version of events is nigh on impossible withstanding time travel is not possible. Science alert Note. This week time was stopped and momentarily reversed. The art trail is a mainstream part of lawless intrigue and lately even the American writer, Lynn H Nicholas, on the fate of the Nazi war loot is inclined towards some revision. In Switzerland the art is still protected and canyons of art is stored in countries such as Ireland off list.

In a landmark resolution, German Culture Ministers pledge to lay the groundwork to return colonial-era art. The Rijksmuseum also may return looted artifacts.

In the UK where major money laundering and elite corruption is rife and deep rifts exist between truth and falsehoods then it is necessary to err on the side of the writer. Recent years have unearthed through The Times and Guardian journalism, operations probing and finding the Nazi expatriated millions and art treasures trail with no bonafide acquisition marked down. The author is in the same arena and is crossing into territory where the killing weapons are not used. This contrasts beyond the war which witnessed barbaric conflict of nations is replaced by new demons. Cases come thick and fast.

Artful Law

Art and Law is replete with discovery. An art dealer was detained last month at Paris Airport as part of his ongoing battle with Poland’s authorities over a Nazi looted painting.

Boormans extraction took on a form very removed from the purposes of war but within the very heart of Berlin’s invasion by Russian troops. The sorry tale of the latter’s brutal methods addressing the defenceless civilians of Berlin is partly exposed in the story told. The surreal deployment of an entourage in the order of 150 into the clash of allied forces, Russians and the German infantry in their last actions becomes a detailed piece of war theatre. The evidence it took place is for the inquisitors to pour over. This account is properly a detailed recollection and is told without hubris. Bonds creator is not found in the later parts of the plan so any further account, while Boorman is taken out of Berlin is not able to be verified from his viewpoint.

JB is summoned into action by his upper middle class sovereign army leaders. It so happens the War was a necessary evil as an evil became illuminated then entangled in the aftermath of war. Be it Israel and it’s occupation by the Jews displaced and millions destroyed of their ethnicity the War was responsible for many absurd demarcations and Berlin itself would not be free until 1989. Then the Liberal Socialism economic model first expanded by Billy Brant an exceptional leader in many respects able to mitigate the dreadful outcomes in order to, in the main it was the priority a feuding divided Europe and World.

It gave the UK a form of self belief which raised the people from divisive poverty created a NHS which we now realise is the heart of everyone, yet the elements of common good were exploited by cultures of Capitalism no more visible in the Thatcher Regan years.

To the Queen whose leadership is an exemplar and though it is the shield that creates division – refer to an earlier blog on Brexit and Law the Christianity seen and shown in the Queens heartfelt strength of character puts the exploiters of that individual care and compassion she shows in infinite ways.

John Graham

17 April 2020

Belfast

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