Sam Dobin, who is reading economics at Trinity, has beaten the record for the now traditional ‘Chariots of Fire’ 367 metres race. Today the 19 year-old student completed the course in 42.77 seconds, 0.83 seconds faster than Lord Burghley, who first set the record in 1927. To succeed, competitors must run round Trinity College's Great Court in the 43.6 seconds it takes for the college's clock to strike 12.
Looking in the Cambridge University website to make the link, I found instead a more interesting and deeply moving report: the Recorded video message from Professor Stephen Hawking to mark the opening of the Stephen Hawking Building for Gonville and Caius College.
Whether you have been graced by legs faster than the wind or by a mathematical mind, the lesson is clear, one must do more than merely taking a waiting attitude!
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
Saturday 27 October 2007
Thursday 11 October 2007
Cristina Iglesias 'Pavilion'
Cristina Iglesias
Pavilion suspended in a room 1
2005
Tate Modern
This is a big format piece consisting of twenty-six rectangular panels suspended from the ceiling, twenty arranged vertically and six horizontally. Traces of literature, letters which may or may not form any word, can be found in the weaving that makes the structure of each panel. The arrangement in the space of these panels forms a pavilion where an ‘entrance’ and ‘exit’ invite the viewers to enter it. This otherwise static piece welcomes movement as the viewer walks through it.
Each panel is made of flat woven straps of copper wire, welded together in vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, which make its structure. These lines limit an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ depending on which side the viewer is looking from. The viewer can see through the geometric mesh that the lines form, the effect of which may be evocative of Islamic female reclusion, Catholic confessionary or Venetian blinds, bringing the inside out and vice versa and questioning how much shelter does a shelter need in order to be a shelter.
Shapes echo each other all throughout the piece, giving it the idea of units of construction.
The predominant colour in this piece is a tertiary mix of grey, copper and
brown which looks uniform from a distance. As one approaches it, a slight shininess becomes apparent, whereas the welding shows as a burnt grey. The basketry of the wire straps that this work is made of gives it a texture that disappears completely when one analyses the shadows that this pavilion casts. There are several spotlights on the ceiling shining down through the structure of the pavilion which flood the room’s floor and walls multiplying and echoing the lines and shapes of the panels. The twenty panels that make the front, side and back walls of the pavilion are all suspended 30 centimetres above the floor. This space provokes in the viewer the impression that the whole piece is levitating, allowing the shadows on the floor to be experienced by the viewer as a welcoming carpet.
A room, a house, a church, or as in this case, a pavilion, is constructed by people for people. Whether they are present or not is immaterial as human presence is implicit by the mere fact that the house or pavilion is there.
Cristina Iglesias has created this pavilion with reminiscence of intimacy, protection, sacred space. She has materialised in this work the proto-home that every human being has a longing for. The way Cristina braids the metal transforms something heavy and cold into something warm and inviting. Cristina speaks the spiritual language of sanctuaries fluently, which appeals to the mystical needs of the viewer rather than his need for a shelter. The call for the western alphabet as a code with which to engage in dialogue with the viewer radically contrasts with the eastern exotic atmosphere of the piece.
Cristina has succeeded in creating a three dimensional object that, with an artistic and intellectual pirouette, goes beyond sculpture and architecture.
Pavilion suspended in a room 1
2005
Tate Modern
This is a big format piece consisting of twenty-six rectangular panels suspended from the ceiling, twenty arranged vertically and six horizontally. Traces of literature, letters which may or may not form any word, can be found in the weaving that makes the structure of each panel. The arrangement in the space of these panels forms a pavilion where an ‘entrance’ and ‘exit’ invite the viewers to enter it. This otherwise static piece welcomes movement as the viewer walks through it.
Each panel is made of flat woven straps of copper wire, welded together in vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, which make its structure. These lines limit an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ depending on which side the viewer is looking from. The viewer can see through the geometric mesh that the lines form, the effect of which may be evocative of Islamic female reclusion, Catholic confessionary or Venetian blinds, bringing the inside out and vice versa and questioning how much shelter does a shelter need in order to be a shelter.
Shapes echo each other all throughout the piece, giving it the idea of units of construction.
The predominant colour in this piece is a tertiary mix of grey, copper and
brown which looks uniform from a distance. As one approaches it, a slight shininess becomes apparent, whereas the welding shows as a burnt grey. The basketry of the wire straps that this work is made of gives it a texture that disappears completely when one analyses the shadows that this pavilion casts. There are several spotlights on the ceiling shining down through the structure of the pavilion which flood the room’s floor and walls multiplying and echoing the lines and shapes of the panels. The twenty panels that make the front, side and back walls of the pavilion are all suspended 30 centimetres above the floor. This space provokes in the viewer the impression that the whole piece is levitating, allowing the shadows on the floor to be experienced by the viewer as a welcoming carpet.
A room, a house, a church, or as in this case, a pavilion, is constructed by people for people. Whether they are present or not is immaterial as human presence is implicit by the mere fact that the house or pavilion is there.
Cristina Iglesias has created this pavilion with reminiscence of intimacy, protection, sacred space. She has materialised in this work the proto-home that every human being has a longing for. The way Cristina braids the metal transforms something heavy and cold into something warm and inviting. Cristina speaks the spiritual language of sanctuaries fluently, which appeals to the mystical needs of the viewer rather than his need for a shelter. The call for the western alphabet as a code with which to engage in dialogue with the viewer radically contrasts with the eastern exotic atmosphere of the piece.
Cristina has succeeded in creating a three dimensional object that, with an artistic and intellectual pirouette, goes beyond sculpture and architecture.
Friday 5 October 2007
compassion
a week after political unrest in Burma which resulted in arrests by the thousand and death by the hundred, one must wonder what kind of dark forces have made people in power feel threatened by barefoot monks with no more weapons than their saffron tunics and their hard earned moral authority
this flame expresses my deepest thoughts:
may compassion and love prevail
this flame expresses my deepest thoughts:
may compassion and love prevail
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