The Third Culture: Artistic science and scientific art
In the 1920s, the physicist Neils Bohr was redefining the atom. The classical model depicted the atom’s inner space as a nanoscale solar system, with electrons orbiting the nucleus. Yet this metaphor could not explain all the data. Puzzled by his results, Bohr found inspiration in an unlikely plac
“I’ll Show You What a Woman Can Do”: The rise, fall and revival of an ‘Old Master’
In January 2014, an important self-portrait by the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi came up for sale at Christie’s New York. The canvas was the star lot of the auction, with an estimated price of three to five million dollars. Gentileschi was one of the leading artists of the Italian Baroque.
Art on the Seam: Jerusalem’s street art movement
“Art has a very significant role in changing the reality in Israel. We need a much more creative atmosphere to find a creative solution for the problems here”. Matan Israeli, a 35-year-old Jerusalemite is the founder and artistic director of the Muslala project, which was set up in Jerusalem, in
The (Under)Use of Scent in Theatre
Seeing The Woman in Black in theatre is par for the course for anyone studying GCSE or A-level drama, but it wasn’t just my wimpish nature that made me so terrified the first time I saw it. There’s something affecting about being in the same room as the actors, however far removed, especially if
People power in people towers: Castells in Tarragona
Castell: n. (“Cah-stay”) A tower made of people When the music starts, there’s no going down. Standing in a packed stadium filled with cigarette smoke, you watch as the seconds, thirds and fourths amunt, mounting to the refrain of the reed pipes, and the drumbeat which marks the progress
Never Look Back: Free jazz and why it matters
One evening in Vienna, I was part of a thin, bewildered crowd, listening to the Peter Evans Quintet. The shrill whirrs of a laptop synthesiser jarred with Evans’ buzzing trumpet, the double bass and the drums had very little to do with each other, and the keyboard hopelessly attempted to punctua
Screening the Unscreenable: Atrocity on Film
Tracking shots, noted the French director Jean-Luc Godard, are a matter of morality. Jacques Rivette, one of Godard’s contemporaries, used this ruling to dismiss Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1960 film, Kapo. The story of a young girl attempting to escape the concentration camp, it was one of the earliest
Death Café
Death Café began in 2011, in a living room in Hackney. Since then over 800 Death Cafés have cropped up worldwide. ‘At a Death Café people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death,’ their website declares. A waitress led the way to a dingy upper room at Bill’s Café
Acid House: The Bolshoi Ballet
Until recently, Pavel Dmitrichenko was a top dancer in the Bolshoi ballet, Moscow’s most prestigious company. He has now confessed to ordering a man to throw sulphuric acid in the face of the ballet’s artistic director, Sergei Filin, in January 2013. Even more shockingly, 35% of Russians polled