Zao Jiao Ci

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fractal

Zao Jia Shu

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the tree i saw the first time on this side

Stapelis Impaleo Rustica

Remnants of past information disseminated, surviving in a door near the student union building, Baltimore Street, Liverpool.

parasitism or not

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Gleditsia sinensis Lam

Boli Kindergarten/Bo Hanging Coffin

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Boli Kingdergarten in the middle

the survival matrix on the rock

Luo Yuting, Luo Qingyang, He Zejiang,

He Hai, Zheng Menglin, Zheng Wanjiang

faced hat

a 'contemporary' art

the hanging coffins II

embedded myself

the hanging coffins

how many generations away

Reader on a roadside verge, amidst heavy traffic

Peter Hagerty / 16 August / St George's Place, Liverpool / 195 seconds / BBP f.606

This is one of the 16 pinhole portraits I made on the streets of Liverpool, during the Summer and Autumn of 2006. The portraits, which explored individuals' responses to their feelings of citizenship and place, were made in response to a Mercy organisation commission 'Going Native' and were exhibited at The Arena Gallery, Duke Street, as part of the Liverpool Independents Biennial of 2006.

The text provided by Peter to accompany this image reads:

'When Sean proposed photographing me with St George’s Hall as a backdrop, the inclusion of this neo-classical building made me think of the book I was then reading; Virgil’s Aeneid. This book, the bane of public school boys’ Latin lessons, is in fact an exciting tale of the fall of Troy and the subsequent events leading to the founding of Rome. What a perfect metaphor I thought, for the contemporary invasion of Liverpool! As others who endured the scrutiny of Sean’s long pinhole exposures will know, the three to five minutes seemed to pass quite quickly and such a lengthy exposure usually excludes the recording of moving traffic and passers-by. However, on the day of the sitting, heavy traffic resulted in a white van dominating the middle ground in front of the hall. Sean was a little dismayed by the inclusion of this artefact, but I reassured him that; to me this spoke of the triumph of ‘white van man’ and his cultural dominance over the city’s classical past. What may have been a portrait pastiche; a momento mori of a nineteenth century grand tour, is instead located in a contemporary milieu, where the van bearing the legend “Enterprise” is at least as large, and seemingly important as our classical heritage'.

Sean

Reader at the top of a mountain

This post is inspired by Sean's post a while back with a sequence of his photos that begins with a view of a tower on a hill, and ends with a reader at the foot of the tower.

The medieval myth in Rome about Virgil's power as a magician includes the idea of a tower with mirrors for surveying all the events taking place in the far flung provinces of empire. Apparently the great epic poem by Virgil, the Aeneid, was itself used as an oracle:

The Sortes Virgilianae or Sortes Vergilianae (Latin - Virgilian lots; singular - sors Vergiliana) is a form of divination by bibliomancy in which advice or predictions of the future are sought by randomly selecting a passage from Virgil's Aeneid. It was most widely practiced in the later Roman Empire and in medieval times.

Bibliomancy is the use of books in divination. The method of employing sacred books (especially specific words and verses) for 'magical medicine', for removing negative entities, or for divination is widespread in many religions of the world:

There are several types of divination that can be categorized under the term "aeromancy": Austromancy, divination by observing the wind. austromancy is Anemoscopy in which the wind direction and intensity is interpreted, whereas nephomancy is divination by the interpretation of the movement of clouds. Ceraunoscopy, divination by the interpretation of thunder and lightning. Chaomancy, divination by aerial visions, is nearly synonymous with aeromancy, but most often refers to nephomancy or cometomancy, divination by the appearance of comet tails. Meteormancy, divination by meteors and shooting stars.

It also reminds me of a story that Petrarch writes about in a letter. Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often popularly called the "Father of Humanism".

Today I ascended the highest mountain in this region, which, not without cause, they call the Windy Peak. Nothing but the desire to see its conspicuous height was the reason for this undertaking. . . . For many years I have been intending to make this expedition. . . . I was at last seized by the impulse to accomplish what i had always wanted to do. It happened while I was reading Roman history again in Livy that I hit upon the passage where Philip, King of the Macedon - the Philip who waged war against the Roman people - "ascends Mount Haemus in Thessaly, since he believed the rumor that you can see two seas from its top: the Adriatic and the Black Sea'. . . . Livy supposes the rumor to be false. I would not leave it long in doubt if that mountain were as easy to explore as the one here. . . . one could see most distinctly the mountains of the province of Lyons to the right and, to the left, the sea near Marseilles as well as the waves that break against Aigues Mortes, although it takes several days to travel to this city. The Rhone River was directly under our eyes. . . .

[Petrarch opens Augustine's Confessions at random] Where I fixed my eyes first, it was written: 'And men go to admire the high mountains, the vast floods of the sea, the huge streams of the rivers, the circumferance of the ocean, and the revolutions of the stars - and desert themselves.'
I was stunned, I confess. I bade my brother, who wanted to hear more, not to molest me, and closed the book, angry with myself that I still admired earthly things. Long since I ought to have learned, even from pagan philosophers, that 'nothing is admirable besides the mind; compared to its greatness nothing is great'.

PETRARCH


Steel towers with mirrors by Louise Bourgeois at Tate Modern

Posted by Philip Courtenay

tenon-and-mortise work

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sunmao-structure by Fu Zhongwang

Beneath the Oratory

St James Cemetery / 1990

Sean

Bo people

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Hanging coffins

僰

Victoria monument/ancient site

Pinhole photograph / f.225 / 210 seconds / Oriental Seagull photo paper

This monument, sited in Derby Square on the higher ground of the city centre, replaced the 18th century church of St George, which itself was preceded by Liverpool Castle (circa 1235).

Sean

Newspaper article: 03/12/08

Regarding the new show at FACT. This appeared in today's Liverpool Daily Post.

Sean

Climate for Change: at FACT, Liverpool

Publicity image received yesterday, for this evening's Climate for Change launch at FACT, Liverpool.

Credit reads: szczelkun_lores.jpg

Sean

Steel panels at bus stop

Queen Square, Liverpool / 2002

Sean

Shop window display

Liverpool / 1992

Sean

Foot soldiers - in progress

Manchester / 1983

Sean

Maintaining national stability

The floating representation of the UK, on which 'Fred the Weather Man' used to stroll around, informing Granada TV viewers of the weather they should expect. He once slipped, and fell into the Albert Dock when jumping from Wales to Ireland.

Sean

helmet

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beneath what is the brain

8½

the tongue of Changjiang

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Garden sculpture installation

This is an artwork of Amy May Caswell, which she installed in the Bluecoat garden in 1998. The huge translucent canopy construction was suspended ingeniously between three mature trees and when its central diaphanous core was raised and secured, the whole piece resembled some incredible sea creature/mushroom hybrid. Standing beneath it, in only the lightest of breezes, it was as if the creature above was 'breathing'.

Sean

Narrow gauge track

A section of the miniature railway track (narrow gauge) in Buxton's Pavilion Gardens, 1983.

Hat camera

This is just brilliant... and inspiring. Having discovered this, I know that any camera is only a short dream away...

Sean

Token heads seen through a display cabinet: 1986

During the interval of a Sunday afternoon concert in Birkenhead's Williamson Art Gallery, I could not resist this positioning.

Sean

Tree lined road in mid France: 1976

During a journey to Switzerland to obtain a large tablet of stone (a gift for the city of Liverpool) my attention was drawn to the missing tree on the horizon...

Sean

parasol and hat

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pinhole parasol

Feathery Moth Antennae

pheromone-biochemical signal

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An Antennae Parasol reminds me of Sean's Transpire Tower

an aquatic organism

from Pavilion to Hat

Where's the hat from, to where it goes?

Hat-Parasol-Pavilion

The Bonsai men of Cologne

This photograph has amused me since I made it over twenty years ago in Germany. The weather was very overcast, which merged the tonality of the table tennis table with that of the footpath... Aware of this strange illusion, I noticed these men who were deep in conversation as they strolled alongside the Rhine. I then took up a position where I might snap them as it were 'on the table'. This was long before I'd heard of Photoshop... 

Sean

silkworm

Bombyx mori's foreordination

silk butterflies of mulberry leaf

Pavilions as hats? Hats as pavilions?

I am inspired by this idea, that every person becomes capable of transforming their head into a world expo site that everyone else can explore in a conference of pavilions/hats!


This is the Liverpool Pavilion! A difficult hat to wear?


Posted by Philip Courtenay

A41 - Through Road

suburbia bonsai II

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Yingbin Dadao

Rollercoaster: Southport

Florid Canopy CV20

Bidston Hill: Miscellaneous

The digital compact camera came in handy and these are three of those twenty or so that I took thereabouts. There were what looked to me like 'post holes' (about 20 cm in diameter) filled with rainwater and/or mud that I couldn't recall from previous visits. Could these have held the signaling masts as depicted on the old illustration?

Sean

Bidston Observatory pinhole photo

I was up there yesterday afternoon (Sunday) primarily to make some pinhole photographs. I ended up making four such exposures before the dusk drew in, lengthening the exposure times from 5 minutes for the first, to 20 minutes for the final exposure of the old Observatory, which I present here. 

Sean

Tianma Quarry Sink

since 1950, Andesite

Green Hotel, Songjiang

Following on the quarry theme, I discovered this new development of a 'Green Hotel' in Songjiang, developed by Atkins architects (Shanghai and Bristol, UK). And then a new town! Thames Town, also by Atkins. 

Amazing.

Sean

Seagull 4-A

These are two pages from the original user's manual. Is that bridge near Shanghai?

Sean