rotation № 17

Born this day in 1926 in Berlin (†1999), Robert Rotar was a painter, sculptor and photographer whose contemplative, meditative repertoire drew on symbolism, instructions—flow-charts from alchemy and astrology and was quietly prolific and accrued many patrons from all over the world. Receiving artistic training in Köln after the war—his studies at the Waldorfschule and Vitte in Hiddensee interrupted, Rotar became a member of the Deutsch Werkbund, collegial with Mies van der Rohe, Joseph Beuys, Florence Knoll, Alfred Schmela and other gallerists and artists, departing somewhat from the school’s usual output with a doctrinaire opus that conveyed a certain philosophic correspondence, indulging a trance-like state as he worked, especially with spirals, which embraced the motif of coincidentia oppositorum—out of the union of opposites wisdom is gained and cultivated close friendships with such contemporary thinkers as Werner Heisenberg, Niel Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli and Erwin Schrödinger.

midsommarafton

Roughly corresponding with the June solstice and supplanting age-old rituals marking the changing season and agricultural and husbandry chores by calling it the eve of the Feast of John the Baptist, who according to liturgical sources was six months before Jesus, the festivities of midsummer making when the days start to diminish again after waxing longer to turn again on midwinter and Christmas, a reflection of the doctrine that John was preparing the way for Jesus and had to yield the stage at the right time. Customs leading up to the celebration include the lighting of bonfires and leaping over them—especially on the beaches, and the gathering of medicinal plants as those collected including verbena, rosemary, fennel, foxglove and Saint John’s Wort on this day are imbued with special potency. Originally titled St John’s Night on the Bare Mountain, Modest Mussorgsky’s iconic composition was renamed and revised to include a final daybreak movement and the peal of church bells to hasten away the mischievous and malevolent.

breatharians

As Slashdot reports, a research team studying molecular plant physiology under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute and the University of Naples is demonstrating that making food from air, isolating carbon-dioxide with a spark of energy from a solar cell in a process that mimics photosynthesis, is poles more efficient than growing food crops, such as soy, corn, wheat or rice. Feeding microbes in a bioreactor produces as a nutritious by-product a protein powder suitable for consumption.

daylight robbery

Once again via Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this series of photographs from Andy Billman of bricked up windows from buildings across London that evoke the interesting and immediate aesthetic (see also) that falls into the category of being a Thomasson—that is, a preserved architectural relic without apparent purpose or historical significance—plus the contextualisation in the form of a window tax enacted the late seventeenth century, meant to be a progressive levy on the mansions of the wealthy but instead misapplied to tenement dwellings and prompted the restriction of light, view and ventilation, contributing to squalid conditions and spread of disease. Much more to explore at the links above.

sidereus nuncius

For the heretical cosmology espoused in his March 1610 booklet, the above-titled Starry Messenger and later works, that unseated the Earth as the centre of the Universe, on this day in 1633, Galileo Galilei was found guilty by the Roman Inquisition and “vehemently suspect of heresy”—sentenced to indefinite house arrest. Forbidden from publishing any new material, the astronomer was further required to publicly recant, repudiate and denounce his opinions, though according to popular accounts whilst delivering his abjuration, Galileo rebelliously muttered Eppur si muove—and yet it moves, under his breath.

zagato zele

Courtesy of the always interesting Things Magazine, we discover this delightful electric microcar (see also)—sold in US markets as the Elcar with Wagonette models available—from 1974 to 1976. Manufactured in Milan with a run totalling about five hundred, the cubic vehicles came in seven bold, harvest colours.

your daily demon: sallos

Governing the first degrees of Cancer—from this day until 26 June, the nineteenth spirit is an infernal duke ruling thirty legion of subordinates and presents as a soldier riding a crocodile, as can be seen in his sigil. Despite this fearsome appearance, Sallos is a peacemaker and helps to reconcile relationship strife and encourage fidelity between partners. Opposed by the angel Leuviah, Sallos is possibly a conflation of the iconography associated with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Taweret, a fertility deity often portrayed with Nile crocodile and hippopotamus attributes or the Hindu river gods often personified as carried by the reptile.

i have always valued my lifelessness

Along with many other anniversaries of great pith and circumstance, this day also shares its anniversary—according to our faithful chronicler, with the 1985 general release in US cinemas of Return to Oz, starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale on her continuing adventures over the rainbow, a loose amalgam of L. Frank Baum’s other books and not intended to be a sequel to the 1939 production. Committed as delusion by Aunt Em for her talk of Oz and confined in an institution about to undergo shock treatment, a mysterious inmate helps Dorothy escape by jumping from an embankment to a rushing, flooded river, washed away towards the Deadly Desert with her now talking chicken Bilina. Finding the Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City in ruins and all its people petrified (turned to stone), Dorothy is menaced by marauding packs of creatures with wheels for hands and feet. Cornered, escapes again and winds-up a mechanical sentry called Tik-Tok who relates to her how the kingdom has been overrun by the minions of the Nome King and Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North. Though initially panned by American critics for its dark nature and twisted portrayals, it was quite popular outside of domestic markets and has since gained cult status.