“The absurdity of that search tells us something about [what it means to be] human—thrashing around in the dark to find meaning and a solution to something very existential.”
2021/05/09
2021/05/08
World Donkey Day
Today is World Donkey Day, and what better way to celebrate them than to share a few of the things that make these intelligent, curious animals who they are?
2021/05/06
Julião Sarmento (1948 - 2021)
Sarmento studied painting and architecture at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. He began exhibiting film, video, sound, painting, sculpture, installation and multimedia in the early seventies, but also developed several site-specific projects. He has exhibited his work extensively around the world in solo and group shows. Sarmento represented Portugal at the Venice Biennial in 1997. His work is represented in several museums and private collections, including an artist room showing at London's Tate Modern in 2010.
Protecting UK fishing waters is one of the Royal Navy's oldest tasks
Protecting UK fishing waters is one of the Royal Navy's oldest tasks, but Downing Street's decision to send two warships to the Channel Islands is a deliberate posture after France's initial threat to cut off electricity to the islands
2021/05/04
The Book of Charlatans provides an unusual glimpse into the street life of medieval Islamic societies
In the medieval city of Tinnis, on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, a prophet was legendary for his ability to cure lepers and resurrect the dead. His sanctity was so great that even creatures of the sea would pay him homage. When he strolled along the shore, the fish leapt from the waters to kiss his feet. But the creatures were drawn to something besides his spiritual purity: he had coated his toes with a potion—one part human feces, one part basil, and one part Persian gum resin, all mixed with jasmine oil—that worked like catnip on fish. The Artuqid emir Rukn al-Din Mawdud, whose kingdom spanned the region of the Tigris River in what is now southeastern Turkey, was fascinated by such schemes. Perhaps he sensed that his own power, too, was only a fleeting illusion
2021/05/03
Today, World Press Freedom Day, is a reminder that the struggle for freedom in Tibet is also a struggle for information
Tibetans who blog, share information or contact Tibetans in exile about their experiences of CCP rule are inevitably imprisoned. Meanwhile, independent journalists are blocked from accessing Tibet. Information that makes its way out of Tibet does so rarely and at great risk.
2021/05/02
2021/04/30
Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Spatial–temporal dynamics of aboveground biomass (AGB) and forest area affect the carbon cycle, climate and biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. Here we investigate interannual changes in AGB and forest area by analysing satellite-based annual AGB and forest area datasets. We found that the gross forest area loss was larger in 2019 than in 2015, possibly due to recent loosening of forest protection policies. However, the net AGB loss was three times smaller in 2019 than in 2015. During 2010–2019, the Brazilian Amazon had a cumulative gross loss of 4.45 Pg C against a gross gain of 3.78 Pg C, resulting in a net AGB loss of 0.67 Pg C. Forest degradation (73%) contributed three times more to the gross AGB loss than deforestation (27%), given that the areal extent of degradation exceeds that of deforestation. This indicates that forest degradation has become the largest process driving carbon loss and should become a higher policy priority.
2021/04/28
International Dance Day
ITI Centres and Cooperating Members, prominent figures of the global dance communities and dance companies contributed more than three-hour’s beautiful dance performances videos to this online celebration. These performances, from different continents of the world, can be dances of classic and contemporary, in solo, pas de deux and group, on a stage or on any space, happening in a real venue or online. All of them combined together, are an excellent expression of the cultural diversity and the resilience of human being when facing difficulties. Just as the slogans in the International Dance Day introduction videos, let us dance together in all corners of the world to create light in the dark.
2021/04/26
How the Spiraling Installations in Yayoi Kusama’s New Berlin Retrospective Hold Up a Mirror to Our Anxious and Repetitive Modern Lives
The indexical approach sheds light on the enduring complexities that hide in plain sight in Kusama’s obsessively painted and warping world. Though pleasurable for all the senses, a plunge into Kusama’s work offers little reprieve from the anxieties and shifting realities outside. Each decade of her oeuvre is packed with frantic energy and emotion. Boundaries are crossed, one’s psychological stamina is tested. There is a sort of endlessness to each installation that creates a frenzy of seeing as chaotic and constant as a TikTok feed.
2021/04/24
Secrets of a tree whisperer: ‘They get along, they listen – they’re attuned’
Suzanne Simard revolutionized the way we think about plants and fungi with the discovery of the woodwide web. The ecologist's new book shares the wisdom of a life of listening to the forest
2021/04/23
World Book and Copyright Day
reading and the celebration of World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April, we can open ourselves to others despite distance, and we can travel thanks to imagination
2021/04/22
Biden vows to slash US emissions by half to meet ‘existential crisis of our time’
Joe Biden has called upon the world to confront the climate crisis and “overcome the existential crisis of our time”, as he unveiled an ambitious new pledge to slash US planet-heating emissions in half by the end of the decade.
2021/04/21
Nomadland (directed by Chloé Zhao)
A woman in her sixties, after losing everything, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad
2021/04/20
World on the verge of climate ‘abyss’, as temperature rise continues
The six years since 2015, have been the warmest on record, and the decade beginning up to this year, was the warmest ever.
2021/04/19
Scientists suggest that trippy hallucinations and dreams influenced prehistoric cave art
Reduced oxygen resulting from the use of torches in narrow enclosed spaces likely triggered hypoxia, resulting in out-of-body experiences, researchers report
2021/04/16
The infiltration and undermining of Europe's economy and society by organised crime
The SOCTA 2021 provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on criminal networks and their operations based on data provided to Europol by Member States and partners and data collected specifically for the SOCTA 2021. In trying to overcome the established, and limiting, conceptualisation of organised crime groups, this assessment focuses on the roles of criminals within criminal processes and outlines how a better understanding of those roles allows for a more targeted operational approach in the fight against serious and organised crime.
2021/04/12
2021/04/09
Male brain blood vessels became denser, thinner and twisted
Male and female mouse brains, as they aged, became marked by distinct differences in the blood vessel and neural stem cell systems. Female brain blood vessels became thicker but they weren’t crowded.
2021/04/06
2021/03/30
Witness describes seeing George Floyd 'slowly fade away'
Williams, a former wrestler who said he was trained in mixed martial arts including chokeholds, testified Monday that he thought Derek Chauvin used a shimmying motion several times to increase the pressure on Floyd. He said he yelled to the officer that he was cutting off Floyd's blood supply.
Understanding Heidegger on Technology
The Nazis were opposed to the two dominant forms of government of the day that Heidegger associated with “global technology,” communism and democracy. In another of Heidegger’s infamous political remarks, made in that same 1935 lecture, he claimed that “Russia and America, seen metaphysically, are both the same: the same hopeless frenzy of enchained technology and of the rootless organization of the average man.” The Nazi’s rhetoric about “blood and soil” and the mythology of an ancient, wise, and virtuous German Volk might also have appealed to someone concerned with the homogenizing consequences of globalization and technology. More broadly, Heidegger’s thought always was and remained illiberal, tending to encompass all matters, philosophy and politics among them, in a single perspective, ignoring the freedom of most people to act independently. The ways in which liberal democracies promote excellence and useful competition were not among the political ideas to which Heidegger’s thought was open. His totalizing, illiberal thought made his joining the Nazis much more likely than his condemning them.
New Covid vaccines needed globally within a year
Survey of experts in relevant fields concludes that new variants could arise in countries with low vaccine coverage
2021/03/28
A petition in support of a suspended teacher who showed students a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed has passed more than 50,000 signatures
The school, in Batley, near Bradford, West Yorkshire, is facing calls to reinstate the teacher after a petition in support of him reached more than 50,000 signatures in two days
2021/03/27
2021/03/25
10 seconds more electricity than the entire studio over the past 2 years
French artist Joanie Lemercier spent the past few years working to lower the carbon footprint of his studio only to learn that his first “drop” of NFT artworks on Nifty Gateway “consumed in 10 seconds more electricity than the entire studio over the past 2 years.”
NFTs and the market places that sell them are touted as an alternative to a Wall Street-dominated financial system
If the hype is to be believed, it is a system ripe with democratic potential, will eke power from the art world’s elites and hierarchies, and will allow artists to create, sell, trade and be paid on their own terms
2021/03/22
What an artwork is? (what is no more than a fraud?)
It’s mildly interesting to see what Beeple’s early art influences were: punk drawer Zak Smith, cartoon painter Victor Castillo, and, interestingly, Martín Ramírez, the self-taught former janitor who made most of his work while institutionalized in a California mental hospital, and developed his own private, haunting lexicon of images. Beeple dedicates an entire series of “Everydays” to redoing themes from Ramírez, whom he refers to as a “tard.”
A guide to Iannis Xenakis's music
A Greek man in his early 20s fights for his homeland as part of the Communist resistance at the end of the second world war. Shrapnel from a blast from a British tank causes a horrendous facial injury that means the permanent loss of sight in one eye. He is sentenced to death after his exile to Paris (a sentence that was later commuted to a prison term, with his conviction finally quashed with the end of the junta in 1974). By the time he returns, he has become one of the leading creative figures of the century: an architect who trained, worked, and often transcended the inspiration of his mentor and boss, Le Corbusier; an intellectual whose physical and mathematical understanding of the way individual particles interact with each other and create a larger mass - atoms, birds, people, and musical notes
2021/03/21
A failure to eliminate racial discrimination will continue to force innocent people to flee and fear for their lives
Violent and deadly attacks against Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous people, toxic language, and daily and sustained racially charged acts have rightly forced painful - but necessary - conversations to re-examine prejudice, privilege, the way we view the world, and most importantly how we act. We must take this opportunity to work towards a world that is not just against racism, but is actively anti-racist.
Las Abejas (The Bees) is a Christian pacifist civil society group of Tzotzil Maya formed in Chenalho, Chiapas in 1992
As the Zapatista Army of National Liberation uprising took place in 1994, Las Abejas stood in solidarity with Zapatista ends and principles, but not their violent means. Las Abejas paid a high price for their support when the December 1997 massacre in Acteal killed 45 members praying in a church.
2021/03/20
The Threat of Cascading Extinctions on Earth Could Be Greater Than We Thought
In the delicately tangled web of an ecosystem, snapping certain anchor lines can bring the whole thing tumbling down faster than severing other threads
2021/03/16
Dark Matter
Sholette, a politically engaged artist, argues that imagination and creativity in the art world originate thrive in the non-commercial sector shut off from prestigious galleries and champagne receptions. This broader creative culture feeds the mainstream with new forms and styles that can be commodified and used to sustain the few artists admitted into the elite.
2021/03/15
Tibetan monasteries barred from organising religious festival
These days all the religious activities in Tibetan monasteries are directly controlled by Monastic Management Committees, which comprises a group of Chinese government officials who are permanently stationed in the monasteries. The committee replaces the centuries-old tradition of senior lamas overseeing the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism.
2021/03/12
Womanhood, as Seen by 12 Inspiring Female Photographers
To celebrate International Women’s Day, "we" invited 12 photographers – who have either contributed to or been featured on AnOthermag.com – to send us an image in response to the brief of ‘womanhood’. Here are their brilliant submissions
The Bride
a revealing, unfinished painting, titled The Bride and found in his studio after his death from pneumonia in February of 1918. On the right hand side is a scantily clad female figure, her legs akimbo, her pubic region portrayed in meticulous detail. Over the top of this, the artist has begun painting a patterned skirt, which presumably would have obscured the subject’s nether regions. Viewers have often wondered what is happening beneath the hefty drapery covering the protagonists of The Kiss and other such works, and if The Bride is anything to go by, the answer is a lot.
2021/03/09
Girlhood (It’s complicated)
commemorates the anniversary of woman suffrage by exploring the concept of girlhood in the United States, but also how girls changed history in five areas: politics, education, work, health, and fashion. We argue that girlhood has an unexpected and complicated history and that girls, like suffragists, used their voices to make a difference.
2021/03/05
How Nefertiti Became a Powerful Symbol in Contemporary Art
Since its discovery in the early 20th century, the bust of Nefertiti, a work of limestone and stucco crafted by the sculptor Thutmose around 1345 B.C.E., has cemented the ancient Egyptian queen’s relevance as a global pop-culture icon.
2021/03/04
Tibet ranked as the joint-worst place in the world for civil rights and political freedoms
summary of political rights and civil liberties in Tibet is expected to be released later this year. It is likely to include further restrictions on freedom of religion, the detention of Tibetans who criticise the Chinese government or carry out peaceful protests, torture and the ongoing “vocational training” programme, which last year saw at least 500,000 rural Tibetans encouraged or coerced to move from the land they have historically stewarded and into menial jobs.
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