Art

April 1, 2002January 28, 2018

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa . [dead] . Now http://web.archive.org/web/20010222162001/http://studiolo.org:80/Mona/MONASV12.htm

“Most probably it was Sigmund Freud’s influential essay on Leonardo’s homosexuality and Freud’s consequential analysis of the Mona Lisa which was the direct or proximate impetus for Duchamp’s image. But, whereas Duchamp seems to imply that the picture fuses artist and sitter, male and female, Freud suggests that the Mona Lisa (specifically her smile) is a manifestation of Leonardo’s submerged memory of the birth mother from whom he was estranged at age four and who Freud theorizes expressed an unnatural affection toward her young son. In fact, Freud refutes the notion that there is a physiognomic similarity between the artist and the sitter, but goes on to suggest that the device of the smile was obviously so meaningful to the artist, using it frequently in his works of the time, it must have repressed significance. The person behind the Mona Lisa, Freud suggests, may have had such a smile, a smile that evoked long ago suppressed memories of his mother. Indeed, as Freud is quick to point out, this seems to have been a persistent theme: Vasari even noted that at the earliest age Leonardo was known for having created images of smiling women:

Let us leave the physiognomic riddle of Mona Lisa unsolved, and let us note the unequivocal fact that her smile fascinated the artist no less than all spectators for these 400 years. This captivating smile had thereafter returned in all of his pictures and in those of his pupils. As Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was a portrait, we cannot assume that he has added to her face a trait of his own, so difficult to express, which she herself did not possess. It seems, we cannot help but believe, that he found this smile in his model and became so charmed by it that from now on he endowed it on all the free creations of his phantasy.

“(Sigmund Freud, Leonardo da Vinci: A study in psychosexuality. tr. A.A. Brill. New York, Vintage Books, [1955] Originally published by Freud in 1910, p. 79.)”

December 5, 2000January 26, 2010

Books of the Month: December 2002

Books of the Month — Index

December 2000

Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet. MIT Press, 1999. Reviewed by Linda Baughman.

Peter Lunenfeld, Snap to Grid: A User’s Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures. MIT Press, 2000. Reviewed by Bryan Alexander.

Review Essay: Anthony Wilhelm, Democracy in a Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace (Routledge, 2000); Elaine Kamarck and Joseph Nye, Democracy.com? Governance in a Networked World (Hollis Publishing, 1999); and Richard Davis, The Web of Politics: The Internet’s Impact on the American Political System (Oxford University Press, 1999). Reviewed by Philip Howard.

Three reviews, as regular as clockwork. Well maintained site. I get notified every time – see the spyonit link on the left.

September 5, 2000

Tibor Kalman

tibor kalman :: june 1998

Find the cracks in the wall

Later: Saturday, 10 May, 2008

That link is dead

But here is Wikepedia so I can recall what the hell that was about.

tibor kalman

Salon Obituary

Kalman combined his desire to break new ground visually with a passionate commitment to social causes. From his days as an undergraduate at New York University, where he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (he left school to support the Communists in Cuba for a period), Kalman’s radical politics and his radical designs were inextricably linked. “I use contrary-ism in every part of my life. In design … I’m always trying to turn things upside down and see if they look any better,” he told Charlie Rose in a December 1998 interview.

Even in the last stages of his illness, Kalman continued to push his artist-as-agent-of-change agenda. Pearlman recalled visiting Kalman in the hospital and being subjected to a heartfelt tirade about how the American Institute of Graphic Artists should require members to do charitable work. “He had a huge sense of purpose with everything he did: It kept him alive and it’s also what drove people crazy about him,” Pearlman said.

This item looks good

Tibor Kalman: Provocateur

In the mid-1980s two names changed graphic design: Macintosh and Tibor. The former needs no introduction. Nor, with various books and articles by and about him, does the latter. Tibor Kalman, who died on May 2, 1999, after a long, courageous battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was one of the few graphic designers whose accomplishments were legend within the field and widely known outside as well. Tibor may not be as influential on the daily practice of graphic design as the Mac, but his sway over how designers think — indeed, how they define their roles in culture and society — is indisputable. For a decade he was the design profession’s moral compass and its most fervent provocateur.

What if

July 24, 1994July 24, 2021

About the Psybernet Motif

Below is a post first created in 1994 for my BBS.

http://psybernet.co.nz/motifdoc.htm

Psybernet Motif — Tree of Life fire shield created by William Morris

a rich circle crafted by the human hand.It is inspired by a tapestry on a fire screen (around the turn of the century) which was in turn inspired by William Morris. It was the motif for Psybernet Bulletin Board which operated from April 1993 until about 1995. This image appeals to me and is an inspiration and symbol for the sort of work I do, on and off line. I see fertility, solidity and the organic nature of the tree contained in a rich circle crafted by the human hand. The motif has colour, fine detail and a sense of completion. You will see, I am sure, more ways that the image symbolises all types of work with the soul.

Walter.