Demotivational Poster

It's kind of off-topic, but it made me laugh:

Found at: http://verydemotivational.memebase.com/

Artemis, aka Diana: Mad, Bad and Dangerous?

Just the other day, I posted to Flickr a cyanotype print (blueprint) that I'd made to test a fresh batch of chemicals. To make it I used a photocopy on acetate of a nineteenth-century engraving of a statue. It's the kind of hand-cut engraving that was used by printers before photographically-generated half-tone images were introduced in the 1880s.

I use it as a test image to see how much fine detail is recorded by the cyanotype. The quality of the engraving is superb. It captures both the modelling of the three-dimensional form and the tonal range of the wet collodion/albumen print from which it was undoubtedly copied.

However, one can't help but be interested in the subject of the print as well. It's a statue of an attractive young woman who is strikingly, but negligently, dressed. One of her breasts is uncovered and her hitched-up chiton blows in an unseen breeze that wraps it revealingly around her legs and  the other breast. It's an image that is as seductive as it is graceful.

The bow she carries and the dog by her side identify it as a generic representation of the goddess Artemis in her Roman form as Diana. To find out a little bit more about this  ancient super-woman, I looked her up in my paperback copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Hmmm, not a woman to be tampered with.

Poor Actaeon, a mere mortal, wandering through the woods one day while out hunting, stumbled upon her and her consort of adoring nymphs bathing in a stream. Ovid tells us she was so affronted at being caught without her kit on that she splashed water on him while uttering a terrible curse that turned him into a stag. The poor lad, distraught at his transformation, ran off to try and find his friends but met his own hunting dogs who, not recognising him, set upon him and tore him to pieces. The above painting by Titian shows the fateful moment he glimpses Diana au naturelle. The painting below, also by Titian, shows Diana even more vindictively sticking an arrow into the partially transformed Actaeon.

The Death of Actaeon          source: Wikipedia

This was not the only time Diana revealed the harsh side of her nature. Her favourite nymph, Callisto, came to a tragic end through no fault of her own. She was fancied by Jupiter, who seduced her by disguising himself as Diana. The pregnant Callisto was cruelly rejected by the real Diana and after having Jupiter's child, was turned into a bear by Jupiter's jealous wife Juno. When her child, Arcas, had grown, he met his mother while out hunting. Not recognising who she was, he was about to shoot her when the penitent Jupiter averted tragedy by lifting them together to heaven to form the constellation of the Great Bear, Ursa Major.

I won't go into the incident of the wild boar Diana let loose in a fit of temper, except to say it caused havoc, destruction and death before it was finally killed.

These ancient yarns are an extraordinarily heady mix of unrestrained sex and violence in all their different forms. They provide Queer Theory with a wonderfully fertile subject for study.

source: wikipedia

Myself, I merely wonder why, given Diana's objection to be seen unclothed, artists and sculptors have always delighted in depicting her at least semi-naked. What's the sub-text to this? I'd like to think there's an element of payback for the murderous spite she showed to poor old Actaeon.


Ovid: Metamorphoses, translated with an introduction by Mary Innes.
(Penguin Classics series, first published 1955)
Harmondsworth, UK. Penguin Books.

Captain Ska's 'Liar Liar'

It would be great to think it could become the Christmas Number One. There's a campaign to get it there, though there's still a long time to go and it lacks the usual warm and fuzzy feel-good factor. There's nothing I can say about the message of the song that the video doesn't say better:

It's great to hear ska music asserting once again its rightful role as an authentic musical voice of political activism. It's reminiscent of the days of Free Nelson Mandela, Ghost Town, etc.

Almost more than my horror at the coalition's destruction of the welfare state, I was appalled to learn of the Liberal Democrat leadership's cynical betrayal of young voters, revealed in the Guardian today:
'Lib Debs planned before election to abandon tuition fees pledge'.

Commenting on the article, redskyinthewest summed up my feelings for Clegg exactly:

Shame on him! I am a student and my politically apathetic student friends turned to me and said 'you know what, i'm going to vote for this guy', first timer voters really believed in him, I saw so many new youngsters becoming interested and even involved in politics because of the hope this man gave, and he's just gone and sh**ted all over them. Shame on him!

Clegg has done more than any previous politician to single-handedly destroy the public's faith and trust in the value of casting their votes. And this at a time when unprecedented public apathy and cynicism towards politics is rightly condemned. Thank God my vote didn't help put him in power, or I'd be really mad!

http://act.libdems.org.uk/group/reclaimyourvote

Zoe Keating: 'Into the Trees'

Delighted to see Zoe Keating has a new album – at least it was new when it came out in July. I get so out of touch sometimes.

As with her other two albums, it's going to be well worth splashing some cash on if the track 'Optimist' is anything to go by.  Listen here: http://www.zoekeating.com/projects.html.

I still find the video of her first appearance at Pop!Tech in 2007 mesmerising. It was the first time I'd come into contact with her work. One of my few regrets since then is that I've always missed her far-too-few appearances in the UK.