Friday 23 April 2021

you can’t stop us

Courtesy of Colossal, we were quite impressed with the precision, seamless editing behind this split-screen montage of athletes, which references the concatenated splicing work of Donato Sansone, whose juxtaposition speaks to the resilience and compelling camaraderie of sports. More at the links above.

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Friday 12 June 2020

triple-double

Splicing together hundreds of gymnastic sequences into one continuous leap, imaginative artist Donato Sansone (see previously) further explores the choreography of concatenation with this footage of athletes energetically bounding and diving through frame after frame.  Much more to explore at the links above.

Wednesday 22 January 2020

6x6

kรณrsafn: Bjรถrk collaborates with an technology company to produce background music that changes with the weather and seasons

de arte gymnastica: Ask the Past prescribes an exercise regimen from a 1560 volume

: a centenary celebration of filmmaker Federico Fellini

langmuir waves: a sonic sample of the solar winds

blogoversary: Boing Boing enters its third decade for the second time (see also about its earlier incarnation)

godunov, badenov: the Russian succession crisis and the curious case of the false Dmitris

how to teach your cat to do tricks: uncovering the art studio behind WikiHow‘s signature illustrations, via Super Punch

Saturday 16 March 2019

๐Ÿน๐Ÿšฃ๐Ÿคธ๐Ÿคฝ

The 2020 Tokyo Games pictogram family is in homage of that same venue’s 1964 designs to appeal to an increasingly international gathering of athletes and audiences as we’ve previously explored, and now Present /&/ Correct refers us to a document from the Centre of Olympic Studies that profiles all fourteen intervening sets (like this 1988 version for Seoul) and the artists who created them.


Wednesday 25 July 2018

philhellene

At the sole initiative—though the effort took a high personal toll—of the attested hellenophile couple Eva and Angelos Sikelianos the first Delphic Festival took place in May of 1927, as Messy Nessy Chic informs, with the aim of promoting universal respect and understanding, hoping that the amphictyonic nature of the site—that is, a cooperative oracle shared among the city states of Greece, could be a harmonising focal point for peace. Activities included tours of the archaeological site, traditional Greek music performed by locals, lectures, athletic games and stage plays. The elaborate affair was funded exclusively by the Sikelianos and they managed another iteration three years later with the backing of the Greek government with costs defrayed with a national lottery.
The Sikelianos however did not see festivals and tourism as an end in themselves and hoped that the attention garnered would transfer to support for the establishment of an education centre based on Delphic ideals. A victim of their own success, backing for anything other than the fรชtes was not forthcoming and deflated, Eva decided to return to America to try to renew her theatrical productions there, parting with Angelos on amiable terms. Invited to head the Federal Theatre Project in New York to help out unemployed actors, writers and directors during the Great Depression, Sikelianos produced many Greek tragedies and went on to form a dance company. Learn more and find a whole gallery of images from the Delphic Festivals at the links up top.

Sunday 8 April 2018

schwedische haus-gynastik

In an era before animation or interactive video, we found this German physical education manual’s use of double-exposure to capture motion and the steps of an exercise routine to be quite clever.
Looking a bit like an incarnation of Shiva, author Theodore Bergquist demonstrates various exercises through multiple super-positions based on a discipline developed by Pehr Henrik Ling, a medical doctor from Smรฅland, who recognising the role that physical activity and preventative measures played in overall health, Ling conceived of a studio equipped with parallel bars, wall beams and the vaulting horse for daily practise. Bergquist above was also the director (Hofrat) of the spa retreat at Bad Wรถrishofen, also known for popularising hydrotherapy and the Kneippbad was developed here. As innovative as the pioneering Ling was, his association with the invention of Swedish massage is somewhat of a misattribution, with the term only existing in a limited Sprachraum and going by classical massage everywhere else, the standardised practise (to include tapotement—the word used for when they vigourous beat you) first described by Johann Erst Mezger, though Ling was the first to incorporate elements of Asian massage (awakening the subtle body or the nervous system) techniques and importantly lent the ideas of massage and exercise scientific credence.

Friday 12 January 2018

mcmlxviii

On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, The Atlantic’s senior editor Alan Taylor regales his readers with the gift of retrospective covering the events and attitudes of the year of his birth.
If anything, a survey of 1968 lends perspective and insight on the times that we’re living through presently with violent protests erupting in France, Germany, Czecho- slovakia, Mexico and the United States, the Vietnam war, the absence of civil rights and social justice, disruptive technologies, assassinations and the Moon landing—all told in powerful images, in chronological order.

Tuesday 9 February 2016

6x6 link-roundup: after-school edition

puppet on a string: the laudable, laughable efforts of the FBI to steer youth away from being radicalized

mimir and vanir: some of the bizarre scenarios of Norse mythology

penmanship: three-dimensional calligraphy that rolls off the page

war on drugs: when defence-contractors try their hand at directing (anti-drugs) films

planned-parenthood: from Dangerous Minds’ extensive archives, Donald Duck lectures on contraception

gymnastique suรฉdoise: lovely illustrations from the 1920s for a domestic exercise routine