The conceptual project of Performance Center Alexanderhoehe is developed by experts from the US architectural studio «B+U Architecture» for Iserlohn (Germany). The new futuristic architectural art structure should become ultra-modern continuation of an existing building of Parktheater theater.
The conceptual center combined with an art architecture will construct on a North side of the city special for view of the new visual reference point.
Orientation of a new building will promote creation of a uniform point of access for visitors of Parktheater and the new cultural center. To avoid block of Parktheater by walls of new art building and to reach extremely effective visually-spatial communications have been created generous multilevel foyers with glass facades from which the kind on Parktheater and a city landscape opens. The modern art scene in new futuristic structure is located so that to create effect of soaring.
![Night Club MUSEE [Madrid]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnyQCTGQ8gRaFrZ8pK4wTLKFtdeDcdi2buQI2EAAqdJsqt-BuSLFBnD-TrydaKSdR9y53a0Xsj_UBaO8jZHfsncyQgLz4NuNMMLptpvtjEjJ3rO2QNV5klK9YgDNow6UsRQWEKOW40mgQ/s640/Night-Club.jpg)
The extravagant Night Club «MUSEE» located in Madrid (Spain), is creative symbiosis of gallery of the modern art and the fashionable center of night life of a megacity.
The visual concept of club is concentrated round black color, glasses and mirrors which are a fine collective background for expressive design furniture, the three-meter light-emitting diode screen, pictures of known modern artists, and also various products of video arts and other objects which are of interest, from the point of view of art and creative style of club atmosphere.
The apartments interior of the night club does not carry constant character. Now institution walls decorate works of German photographer Robert Bartholot, the Madrid pictorialist Paco Peregrin and the illustrator from New York Glenn Hilario.
The visual holiday is accompanied by musical mixes from hot Madrid DJs, and the unique conceptual status gives to an institution the exclusively elite status.
There's one thing that's pretty consistent across all of the examples featured on this site — they're all as contemporary as it gets. There are no awkward features, everything is smooth, seamless and damn right modern.
Over the years the construction industry has seen technologies come and go, arguably at a faster rate than in other fields. It would be fair to say that one technology which has grabbed building experts by the scruff of the neck is solar. It's something which is being applied in practically every imaginable use and when it comes to contemporary homes it's no surprise why.
Solar is something that removes any aesthetic fears from architects. Once upon a time those famous panels may have been classed as intrusive, but nowadays they can be blended into any modern building. Similarly, smaller solar products (which we'll get into later), just don't hinder a home's appearance in the slightest and this is the reason it's here to say.
Of course, a lot of these products also happen to save a considerable amount of money - something which is surely required when you see some of the extravagant featured properties! Nevertheless, the point we're trying to make is that solar energy is here to stay and this is something that a lot of rival technologies haven't been able to say over the past few years. Here, we highlight how solar is growing, how you can use it on your home - and why it suits the contemporary, dream homes down to a tee.
We may as well start with the thing that everyone associates solar technology with; those panels which seem to be affixed to a growing proportion of UK estates. Initially, they were targeted at local authority housing, but private homeowners have now caught on and they are especially popular with modern properties.
The nature of solar panels means that they are never going to be suited to a rustic dwelling. Shiny panels just don’t work on a converted barn, but when they are integrated to a potential Dwell award candidate, things start to change. They can actually look like a positive addition to such properties, while it’s now possible to purchase the panels in varying styles which make them highly compatible with different types of roofs.
This is one use of the technology which doesn’t necessarily have to be implemented in a luxury home. The reason it’s been included in this article is because of the simplicity and it doesn’t matter where you live, gone are the days when you have to source an electrician to fit a complicated set of security lights.
Naturally, these lights arrive in various solar contemporary styles, but the big selling point is that they’re plug and play. Some security lights which are solar powered can be installed in a matter of minutes and this means that they’re certainly here to stay, and possibly overtake the standard security fittings that we have come so accustomed to over the last few years.
Take a look at the latest featured house on this blog and it will almost certainly be exquisitely landscaped, with a water feature to boot. The introduction of solar technology to these features has transformed the way in which gardens can be put together and again there’s no need to source a qualified electrician – a lot of these features are powered entirely by the sun.
Considering the fact that it’s also possible to obtain solar fairy lights to compliment the landscape, it goes without saying that water features are evolving and have become even more exuberant because of solar.
We should probably have added another component to the title of this subheading, “for the ultimate property owner”. We’ll again refer to the houses that are featured across Art Architect and the vast majority have a pool in their back garden.
For a lot of years, the main problem with swimming pools hasn’t been the upfront cost (although these will still set you back tens of thousands of pounds, or more depending on your requirements), but the running costs. Again, solar has come to the rescue and through the use of solar thermal technology, it’s now possible to heat the water through the sun’s rays. Additionally, excess energy can be used for outside towel rails or even the water for showers – again elements that will accompany the contemporary plot down to a tee.
VIA «Solar: the Perfect Technology for the Contemporary Dwelling»
When the first ones were discovered 100 years ago, archaeologists marvelled at the ancient relics, some of them foetuses, their little bodies amazingly intact.
But now the mummies, which are believed to be the oldest on earth, are melting. Mariela Santos, curator at the University of Tarapaca museum, noticed a few years ago that the desiccated skins of a dozen of the mummies were decomposing and turning into a mysterious black ooze.
"I knew the situation was critical and that we'd have to ask specialists for help," said Santos, whose museum stores and displays the so-called Chinchorro mummies, which date back as far as 5000 BC and are among archaeology's most enigmatic objects.
Within weeks, university staff members had contacted Harvard scientist Ralph Mitchell, an Ireland native who specialises in finding out why relics are falling apart. A bacteria sleuth of sorts, Mitchell has taken on assignments that included identifying a mysterious microflora breaking down Apollo spacesuits at Washington's National Air and Space Museum, analysing dark spots on the walls of King Tut's tomb and studying the deterioration of the Lascaux cave paintings in France.
Mitchell launched an investigation of the mummies' deterioration and this year issued a startling declaration: The objects are the victims of climate change. He concluded that the germs doing the damage are common microorganisms that, thanks to higher humidity in northern Chile over the last 10 years, have morphed into voracious consumers of collagen, the main component of mummified skin.
Mitchell believes that the case of the disintegrating Chinchorro mummies should sound a warning to museums everywhere.
"How broad a phenomenon this is, we don't really know. The Arica case is the first example I know of deterioration caused by climate change," Mitchell said. "But there is no reason to think it is not damaging heritage materials everywhere. It's affecting everything else."
Conservation of the fragile mummies has been a constant concern of researchers and curators since German researcher Max Uhle's archaeological expedition to Arica ended in 1919. Named after the nearby beach district where Uhle uncovered them, the Chinchorro mummies - about 120 of which are at the museum - are considered special for many reasons in addition to their age.
The community that made them was at the early hunter-gatherer stage of social evolution, compared with more advanced mummy-making civilisations such as the Egyptians, who had progressed to agriculture and trade, said Bernardo Arriaza, a professor at the University of Tarapaca's Institute of Advanced Research.
"Chinchorro mummies were not restricted to the dead of the top classes. This community was very democratic," said Arriaza, who for 30 years has led archaeological digs on the 500-mile stretch of Chilean coastline where most of the mummies have been found.
Arriaza spends some of his days at a dig on a cliff overlooking Arica. A score of partially unearthed mummies, possibly of the same family, cover a sloping area about 50 feet across. It's one of many sites that construction has revealed, in this case digging for a pipeline.
Vivien Standen, an anthropology professor at Tarapaca and co-author with Arriaza of dozens of papers on the Chinchorro mummies, said they are also unusual in that they include human foetuses.
"That's a very special facet, the empathy that it demonstrates, especially compared with modern times where foetuses are simply abandoned," Standen said.
Volcanic pollution of drinking water evident in the presence of arsenic in the mummies' tissue may hold the key to why the community began mummifying its dead.
"Arsenic poisoning can lead to a high rate of miscarriages, and infant mortality and the sorrow over these deaths may have led this community to start preserving the little bodies," Arriaza said. "Mummification could have started with the foetuses and grown to include adults. The oldest mummies we have found are of children."
Chinchorro mummies have survived into modern times only because of the arid conditions of the Atacama Desert, said Marcela Sepulveda, the university archaeologist who made the initial contact with Harvard's Mitchell.
Sepulveda said it was possible that other groups in Latin America were doing the same thing, "but what is unusual here is that thanks to the climate, the mummies have been conserved."
Arriaza and Sepulveda both direct laboratories with high-powered electron microscopes dedicated to the analysis of materials found on and around the mummies. Continued decomposition of the mummies jeopardises their research, they said.
"Just raising them from the ground introduces the challenge of not breaking them," said Santos, the museum curator. "But over the last several years, the higher humidity - and how to deal with it - has presented a whole new challenge."
After months of growing cultures of microorganisms collected from the skins of the decomposing Chinchorro mummies and comparing their DNA with known bacteria, Mitchell identified the transgressors as everyday germs "probably present in all of us" that suddenly became opportunistic.
"It was a two-year project to identify and grow them and then putting them back on the skin to show what was breaking down," said Mitchell, a professor emeritus who donated his time to the Chileans.
Mitchell had used the same painstaking process to identify the bug causing stains on the walls of King Tut's tomb in Egypt, and to conclude that the germs weren't introduced after the tomb was discovered in 1922 but probably were on the walls of the crypt when the boy king was entombed about 1300 BC.
Similarly, Mitchell used microbial analysis to investigate the erosion of Maya monuments at Chichen Itza at the request of the Mexican government. He found that the application of a polymer coating, far from protecting the ancient carvings and buildings as intended, was actually abetting the destructive microorganisms that were causing the stone work to crumble.
He also has an ongoing project at the USS Arizona monument at Pearl Harbor, where bacteria that thrive in the oil leaking from the battleship's fuel tanks are accelerating the disintegration of the sunken World War II vessel.
Mitchell began specializing in microbial damage to cultural relics in the mid-1990s, when the Italian government invited him to look at widespread damage to centuries-old frescoes at churches and palaces.
He identified Italy's main problem as industrial pollution, and thus came to the sad conclusion he has arrived at several times since: Isolating the problem doesn't always lead to a practical solution.
Mitchell seems more optimistic in his work with the Chilean mummies. Over the next two years, he and the faculty at the University of Tarapaca will be working on possible solutions to the deterioration. He thinks humidity and temperature control offer the best chance of stabilizing the relics.
Mitchell and the archaeologists feel a sense of urgency: The Chilean government has budgeted $56 million for a new museum scheduled to open in 2020 to house the mummies, and everyone wants the right climate controls built in to the new structure to safeguard the relics.
"The next phase of the project is to look at how you protect the mummies and at possible physical and chemical solutions to the problem, which we don't have yet," Mitchell said. He and the Chileans will experiment with different combinations of humidity and temperature to determine an optimal ambience.
Optimally, each mummy will be encased in its own glass cubicle in the new museum and have its own "microclimate," Arriaza said. But the irony is not lost on him and his fellow archaeologists that mummies that survived millenniums in the ground are proving fragile in the face of changing conditions of modern times.
"I'm not optimistic we can save them," said Standen, the anthropology professor. "From the moment they are taken out of the ground, they start deteriorating."
Author: Chris Kraul | Source: LA Times [May 08, 2015]
Today, the construction of the temple is almost over. But the new structure has taken over the place where the rare sculptures were kept. As a result, a broken shiva linga, a moss-covered Somaskanda panel and many more sculptures are scattered around the temple, covered by grass and almost lost. Heritage activists say the committee members of the temple shifted all the sculptures without informing the Archeological Survey of India or the state archaeology department.
"When I first visited the site six years ago, I could see all sculptures in proper form. But today they have been removed from their original place and lie scattered near the newly constructed temple. They are in ruins," said P Rajasekar, a heritage activist, who recently visited the place and photographed the ruined sculptures.
Aravind Venkatraman, who has so far photographed and documented 200 Chola temples, said the site with ancient Pallava sculptures was discovered in the 1990s. "I have seen the photograph of this ancient Pallava site taken in 2008 at the library of the French Institute of Pondicherry. Some other pictures also show the site with all the sculptures intact," he said.
A committee member of the temple said it was while constructing the temple they removed all the structures and housed them inside a shed. But as the work of the temple progressed, the shed was demolished. Apparently, no one was interested in taking care of the sculptures and they were thrown out. "When we asked the committee members said they would place the sculptures permanently inside a hall adjacent to the temple. But they are not sure when they are going to do this. They are not aware of the heritage value associated with the sculptures," said Venkatraman.
The ruined sculptures, according to Rajasekar, are special in many ways. "There is a beautiful panel of Somaskanda, a form of representation of Shiva with his consort Uma and Skanda on his left. In this panel, you can see Uma and Skanda seated on his right. It's a rare site. There are some inscriptions in 'Vatteluthu'. But the people in the village don't know the value of these sculptures," said Rajasekar.
Apparently, no one has informed the ASI or the state archeological department before shifting these heritage structures. "The sculptures are in bad shape. It's high time either the ASI or the state archaeology department took up the issue. Otherwise, we will lose these ancients pieces of art soon," he said.
Author: M. T. Saju | Source: The Times of India [April 30, 2015]
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Now there is a possibility to find uncountable set of the given subjects what it is figuratively possible to name post cases. On the Internet there are sites of mail boxes which acquaint the buyer with last novelties in this area. As post cases are mounted how to use mail boxes, where to buy a mailbox — this information is in detail displayed on the Internet on these sites.
Apartment houses or the big firms can conveniently receive the correspondence, using a mailbox posts. The given mail box is equipped by the big general door, and including has set of the numbered cells with cuts. Distinguish section, individual and street metal boxes the post horizontal. They can be made both in horizontal, and in vertical kinds.
Mes Aynak is a vast site in a mountainous area south of Kabul, near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan and adjacent to Taliban supply routes. The area is roughly the size of the city of Pompeii in Italy. Archaeologists say it is one of the richest sites in the country, with objects dating back 5,000 years. Excavations were conducted recently with the support of the French government and continue with urgency with a skeleton Afghan crew. Yet more than 90% of the site still remains unexamined.
It is almost sure to be under-examined. Mes Aynak is also the site of extensive copper deposits, which explains why it was a trading centre for centuries. The name Mes Anynak means “little source of copper,” although “little” understates the case. Those deposits are now under contract for extraction by China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a state-owned Chinese mining conglomerate that plans to begin mining the site this year. The copper underneath is said to be worth $100 billion, according to the Afghan government. That is an amount that might make the occasional Taliban attack seem tolerable.
The fight over Mes Aynak is the subject of this documentary film by Brent Huffman. The main narrator of the grim tale is the Afghan archaeologist Qadir Temori. With the help of French archaeologists, Temori and his team have unearthed temples, fortifications, objects and stupas (memorials) that reflect the Buddhist and Hellenistic styles common to the region. But China Metallurgical Group Corporation has built an extensive modern camp for workers and is poised to remove the hills and the ancient remains beneath with modern bulldozers.
We are also told by former government employees that the minister responsible for the deal— which involved a Chinese payment of some $3 billion to the minister—is living in a luxurious new house. (That official has since resigned and has accused his successor of corruption, Huffman says.)
International protests have not made much difference. Alarmed archaeologists and Buddhists around the world achieved a brief delay by raising their voices, yet the mining seems set to begin.
Saving Mes Aynak does not fit the usual contours of films about art. There are exquisite objects on screen that came fr om recent excavations, although most of them are too recently unearthed to be conserved and exhibited in a delicately-lit jewel-box museum context. They are hardly the proven treasures that might induce politicians to fight for preservation.
A chilling parallel to this film came in another documentary at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Overburden by Chad Stevens examines the practice of mountaintop removal to extract coal quickly and cheaply over a vast area, with a fraction of the workers required in the conventional deep mining process. Citizens in West Virginia who feared the destruction of their homes and water sources locked horns with a huge coal company, Massey Energy (which has since been sold to Alpha Natural Resources), and coalminers who were fighting for their jobs.
Saving Mes Aynak involves a hauntingly similar standoff. Overburden is the mining term that refers to rock and dirt between the surface and mineral deposits. In Mes Aynak, 5,000 years of culture are the overburden.
Huffman shows grim video of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2002, yet at a time when the destruction of ancient cultures is a stated policy of the Islamic State, Saving Mes Aynak presents us with a different crisis: the horror of business as usual. Under governments wh ere conservation doesn’t count for much, the race for resources runs faster than rescue archaeology.
Author: David D'Arcy | Source: The Art Newspaper [May 30, 2015]
This week i finished Avery's prairie bonnet....for our previously mentioned prairie days. And Mary, that title was for you! I thought of it as soon as i saw your comment on her pinafore.
The grotto at Vallon-Pont d'Arc in the Ardeche region of southern France, is a reproduction of the closely guarded Grotte Chauvet, which was granted World Heritage status last year.
The French president had already officially inaugurated the museum earlier this month and it officially opened to the public on Saturday.
The replica cave, which took a team of scientists two and a half years to create, will enable tourists from around the world to continue to see the frescos of painted animals without damaging the original cave.
Unique in the world for being such an identical and precise reproduction, the grotto has been built in the shape of a bear's paw, and stands just one kilometre away from the original site.
Inside the new grotto, which came a cost of €55 million visitors will be able to see more than a thousand drawings, including 425 animal figures of 14 different species, which have been meticulously reproduced.
The smell, humidity and even stalactites of the Grotte Chauvet have also been recreated to make the new site as authentic as can be.
The visitor walks down a long ramp to get into the building housing the replica, entering a darkened, cool and humid place that mirrors conditions in the grotto.
Then just like in the real cave, people stick to a walkway that takes them past replica bones and the skull of an Alpine ibex, a species of wild goat.
The drawings reveal themselves as the visitors walk further into the fake cave, a total of 1,000 paintings including 425 animals -- including bears, rhinos, big cats, owls.
These have been reproduced using charcoal, just like our Aurignacian ancestors did some 36,000 years ago.
Using ultra-modern techniques such as 3D imaging, engineers, sculptors, painters and visual artists faithfully reproduced the paintings.
A team of 10 people in Paris also worked for four years to reproduce stalactites, stalagmites and other formations present in the Grotte Chauvet itself.
Authorities hope that the giant replica will attract some 350,000 visitors a year.
The original Chauvet grotto was preserved for more than 20,000 years thanks to the fallen rocks, which blocked its entrance.
The grotto was discovered on the 18th December 1994 by amateur potholers: Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel et Christian Hillaire.
"I had the chance, I should say the privilege, to visit the cave... and I was literally stunned by what I saw, which revolutionizes our views of our origins," said Lalliot after the UNESCO vote last year.
A French lawmaker for the Ardeche, Pascal Terrasse, also described the cave as "a first cultural act".
"This artist has now been recognized," Terrasse said. "May he forgive us for waiting 36,000 years to recognize his work."
Author: Chloé Farand | Source: The Local [April 26, 2015]
Prepare for an epic post fellow movie lovers, as I finally finished the full transcript of my interview with Tom Andersen and Mark Redford about their up and coming 3D horror film The Dark Things. For those who have been living under a rock and have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t be lazy, scroll down the page and read the full story a few posts below. Anywho, as I eluded to last week, the interview is extremely interesting and Farmer in particular shared some awesome insights on Hollywood, modern horror films and 3D technology. Enjoy and stay tuned for more The Dark Things updates.
Jane Storm: So now that you’re here, what have you guys been doing so far? Have you been busy scouting locations?
Tom Andersen: Yes, we’ve already had a meeting with Warner Roadshow Studios and talked about the different places we can film and what Queensland has to offer, which is obviously a lot. We’ve been very happy with that.
Jane Storm: So you’re definitely coming to shoot here?
Tom Andersen: Yes, definitely.
Jane Storm: Cool!
Tom Andersen: We’ve been giving Todd a quick, rushed Australian education.
Jane Storm: Have they been getting you hooked on Tim Tams and Vegemite yet? Tom Andersen: Oh, we’ve got him hooked on Tim Tams, but he’s not a fan of Vegemite.
Mark Redford: The Tim Tams are fine, I have no problem with Tim Tams, but Vegemite…
Tom Andersen: But he needed to do that to experience what we go through (laughs).
Jane Storm: And you will be shooting the film primarily at Warner Roadshow Studios?
Tom Andersen: Yes and on locations throughout the coast.
Jane Storm: When are you planning to start filming?
Tom Andersen: The start of the year, definitely next year.
Jane Storm: Great, I’m just trying to suss that out so I can lurk on set everyday. So, the storyline, it’s about Aboriginal legends that come to life? Have you started writing the script already?
Mark Redford: I started the outline for this, then decided it would be better to just come here and dive in, meet the people, see the locations and look at pubs. I can write pretending to be an Aussie, but I need to come here to experience it. We have consultants that we’re going to meet with. It’s been quite fun.
Jane Storm: What kind of research have you had to do so far?
Mark Redford: Just researching…even film is different. Watching your films compared to our films, they’re different. So, watching films and what I like to do the most is just people watch. While that sounds boring, it’s actually fascinating because everything is different, everyone is different; the way you drive, the way you think. It's really quite fun because I've never done anything like this. At the end of the day it will all come down to the story, it will all come down to the characters. I grew up reading Stephen King and he was great at taking ordinary people and dropping them into extraordinary situations and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
Jane Storm: Right. As far as Aboriginal legends and Aboriginal culture goes, have you got some experts and consultants who are helping with the projects?
Tom Andersen: Marcus Waters, he’s a screenwriter and teacher at Griffith University here. We’re actually meeting him today and tomorrow and going over a bunch of stuff.
Jane Storm: What has the support been like from places like Screen Queensland and Screen Australia?
Tom Andersen: Everyone has been great and very supportive. You know, film’s not so hot here right now, so they’re excited to be getting a film over here. Everyone has been great, which is a lot different from the states.
Jane Storm: Why do you think that is?
Tom Andersen: It helps that I’m Australian too, us Aussies love to back each other. Another thing is I’m bringing home a good story with top Hollywood people. And it’s different, with all the remakes and sequels, it’s different. Everyone is excited to have a breath of fresh air.
Jane Storm: What made you decide to shoot the film specifically here?
Tom Andersen: It's an Australian story about Aboriginals; it's not going to work in Canada.
Jane Storm: No, I meant why on the Gold Coast, out of the whole of Australia?
Tom Andersen: Because I'm from here, I love it here. And the town that the story is set, it’s on the beach and I love Queensland. I want it here.
Jane Storm: Did the facilities help drawing you here? I know the studios have quite amazing capabilities. James Cameron’s Sanctum just wrapped filming here and the Narnia entry.
Tom Andersen: We’ve already had photos sent to us of different locations we’ve fallen in love with. There are some cool areas along the beach and we had some photos sent to us this morning and we saw that and were like `holy hell, that’s perfect’.
Jane Storm: With the cast, have you got that picked out and underway?
Mark Redford: No, we just have a wish list.
Tom Andersen: We’re just going to wait on that right now. We would like to cast Australians, established Australians.
Mark Redford: I would like to do another nude scene but other than that…
Jane Storm: (Laughs) What’s the budget?
Tom Andersen: Around $25 million. This is mainly a research trip, give Todd an education, get our feelers down and meet our producer. We have Mike Lake on board so we’ll be having a chat with him. We’re just flying our soldiers in and getting them ready to go.
Jane Storm: Now Todd, you were one of the key people behind trying to get Halloween 3D up and running and you worked on My Bloody Valentine, which was my first 3D experience and one I must say I’m a huge fan of. What is it about 3D that lends itself so well to the horror genre?
Mark Redford: I like it for a number of reasons; I like the rollercoaster aspect of it. There's a couple of ways to do 3D; there's the gimmicky, in-your-face way, which we were not afraid of in My Bloody Valentine. There’s also the Avatar version, which is the more voyeuristic, immersion-type where you are sucked in. But the truth is, you’re going to get that anyway with today’s 3D and you saw it yourself with Valentine and other 3D movies that you see, you’re literally inside. But with a horror movie, you’re even closer to the scares and the action. So I like that, the risk is that because we had a lot of success with Valentine and there’s been a lot of success with other movies, because of that everyone jumped on the 3D bandwagon and the problem is a lot of 3D has been rushed with the conversion process and a lot of the stories. I think at the end of the day it still has to be about the story, it still has to be about telling that story and you have to shoot good 3D. We will be shooting everything in 3D, we won’t be converting. We will be doing everything we did with Valentine and Drive Angry. I think as a result of that, especially here with all the sweeping vistas and the land, it’s going to look quite remarkable.
Tom Andersen: It’s a tool to telling a good story. There are a lot of crappy stories that are hoping to get by on their 3D and it’s a marketing gimmick. And it is, it’s a good marketing ploy for sure, but we’re using it as another tool to tell a really cool story.
Jane Storm: You guys have an awesome crew on board with the producers, composers, concept artists, is this a very exciting process, for it to be so early on and have such a great team already?
Tom Andersen: Exactly, that’s why I did it because I knew to pull this off I had to have the best around me. And I’m in Hollywood with the best so it was just a matter of pull. Everyone realises it’s something unique and who doesn’t want to come to Australia and make a movie, right? `Come to paradise with really cool people, really beautiful beaches!’ That was my lure and then it was just about building a good team. I think it’s like building a house and my foundation is strong, so you’ve just got to keep moving up.
Jane Storm: Have you made any decisions about the director yet?
Tom Andersen: We want Patrick Lussier.
Jane Storm: Right, because you and Patrick have worked together quite a lot on My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry and Halloween III is it?
Mark Redford: Yeah. Patrick and I will write it together and depending on how the system works down here and what we can bring and what we can't...
Tom Andersen: -because we’re going after the 40% (producer) offset.
Jane Storm: Oh, that explains the caution; they can be really dicky with that.
Mark Redford: It will also depend on his schedule in the states because he is working on Drive Angry to the end of the year and then there’s another project we may end up working on which won’t affect me for this, but it might affect him.
Tom Andersen: A couple of things, he’s my first choice for a lot of reasons; he's an amazing editor, an amazing director and in 3D he’s very experienced. You want the best.
Jane Storm: With the general story idea, what was the appeal with…well, you haven’t gone for a standard slasher flick. Instead you’ve gone with the whole mythical and supernatural take?
Tom Andersen: Because it hasn’t been done before.
Jane Storm: It hasn’t?
Tom Andersen: It’s original. I’m very picky about movies and I’m very in tune with audiences and that’s why Paranormal Activity did well because everyone wants something different. It’s just the same stuff repetitive, sequels and presequels, and this is different. It hasn’t been done before. Then I looked at the 3D aspect of seeing Aboriginal culture in 3D and how amazing would that be? There’s a lot of people that say `oh wow, you’re from Australia, I would so love to go there’ and they’re never going to get here so now I’m brining Australia to them. In 3D. So, it will do well just for that appeal alone and then everyone loves to be scared.
Jane Storm: And it has so much potential too, the horror twist on Aboriginal legends hasn’t really been done. Well, I guess Prey but that was terrible. So, it hasn’t been done well yet.
Tom Andersen: Yeah, and we were saying Australian films have a very sort of independent feel and as far as Australian stories go, this is going to be very different. It’s going to be structured very different.
Jane Storm: Now this is more of a general question, but what is the key to writing a decent horror film?
Mark Redford: I think at the end of the day it’s about…I’m still scared of everything, which helps, and for me it’s always been about taking everyday life and throwing a twist into it. Certainly we did it with My Bloody Valentine. You take these ordinary people and you put them in a situation where the audience can relate to them and I think if you can do that…that’s another reason Paranormal Activity worked so well because you watch the movie and think `what if that was me?’ So, as long as the characters are first, as long as they’re relatable, they can be as unique on screen as they can in a person. I started in the horror genre because when I started, that’s what you did, that was how you broke into the business. So, back then it was just Miramax and New Line, those guys making horror movies and then Scream came out and that kind of blew the lid off everything and we were all a part of it. Now everybody has a genre department and what ended up happening is the same thing that I think will end up happening with 3D; a lot of people were making horror and some of them were horrible. I think as long as you put the characters first, as long as you put the story first, as long as you keep the momentum of the story, then the rest is about creating situations that scare you as a writer.
Jane Storm: Both of you seem like really big fans of the horror genre. What is it about it that you love so much?
Tom Andersen: I love the rollercoaster ride. You go to the movies and you want a thrill, you want to leave going `wow’ and that’s what I like about it. You know, I don’t like torture, gore, blood and guts, I don’t want to look at that. I want a rollercoaster ride where I’m scared and where you’re trying to solve it…like The Sixth Sense. I think that was perfect. I loved that twist and you think you have it figured out, but you can watch that movie three or four times and always see something different. There’s suspense, I love that about it. That’s what I want for this, rather than `oh look, someone’s dead and their guts is everywhere’. Obviously that will be in there, but there will be a reason, not just insanity. Mark Redford: I just like scaring people.
Jane Storm: (Laughs) Out of all your projects Todd, what would you say is a favourite of yours? Which is your baby?
Mark Redford: At this point, Drive Angry, which will come out 19th of February, we just wrapped it. The reason I like it so much is because what we wrote is what we were able to shoot. You know, Jason X changed a little, The Messengers changed a little, the others have changed, but Drive Angry didn’t. So we’re hoping for the same thing here, we write this and then we can go shoot.
Jane Storm: I saw the bloody car from Drive Angry that you posted on your blog, it looks awesome.
Mark Redford: Yeah, that was Gary (J. Tunnicliffe), the dude is just remarkable. He’s killed me more than anyone else and he’s really the only one I would want to.
Jane Storm: So what’s the rest of the schedule like for you guys? What’s the next step when you go back?
Mark Redford: I dive in and start making the magic.
*my phone starts ringing* Mark Redford: Nice ring tone.
Jane Storm: Thanks, nothing like a bit of Wu Tang Clan (Kill Bill Theme). Sorry about that. Okay, so the next question I have to ask you is, please don’t be offended, but a friend of mine wanted me to ask you what shrooms were you on when you put Jason in space? Mark Redford: The big ones, the big yellow ones with the hairs. (Laughs) Okay, it’s funny because Michael De Luca was running New Line at the time, the guy who green lit Jason X, and he read the script and loved the script. So, that’s what we went in and pitched; Alien and Aliens, a combination of the two movies so that you take those actors and the aliens and you pull those out and then you have Jason with a real crew, ghetto, raw, no slapstick in-your-face jokes. It was just a very dirty movie, dark and dirty. Then Scream came out and suddenly everyone wanted everything to be tongue-in-cheek, so things changed as a result. But it’s funny now because De Luca is producing Drive Angry and what we like about him is he was like `Jason X was a great script, what happened?’ Now a lot of people still love Jason X, a lot of people hate it, my excuse is, well, I wrote what I wanted and maybe that didn’t get made, but it bought me an Audi. But I loved Alien and I love Aliens, and I still think that someone will take another scary movie into space.
Jane Storm: When you say take another scary movie into space, do you mean the slasher genre?
Mark Redford: Yes, I don’t understand why a slasher can’t…I mean, I know slashers have gone into space and I know one can, why couldn’t it? It’s all about production value and it’s all about story, and so far those two have not made it into space from some sort of slashers point of view. It’s just a matter of time. If Kevin (Williamson) had written Scream in space it would have worked, that was fantastic. They better do a good job on Scream 4, I see him tweet about it all the time. You following him?
Jane Storm: Yeah, I was so pissed off last fortnight when he was doing a give away of signed posters and our work computers are so slow that even though I had the right answers, I would miss out because it wouldn’t update before all the crazy Americans who answered a second after. Mark Redford: I saw it way too late, otherwise I would have tried to.
Jane Storm: (Laughs) Oh come on, you would be able to get a poster from him, surely?
Mark Redford: No, he wouldn’t give me a free poster. He’s honestly a really nice guy though.
Jane Storm: Finally, this is a more general question, but what are some of your favourite films? Whether that’s horror or whatever?
Tom Andersen: The classic ones like Jaws, Alien, The Sixth Sense and all of the different elements in those. I like the hunt, the twists, you think you know what’s going on but you don’t. What I like is that people could know what’s going on, and they’re given the signs, but they see what they want to see.
Mark Redford: Oddly enough some of the same movies; Alien and Aliens, Jaws was the first movie that scared the crap out of me, The Exorcist I saw next and both of those movies influenced me, and Star Wars on a how to tell a story level, especially The Empire Strikes Back, those were, granted, big fantasy movies but as far as the mythology and linear story structure, those were pretty incredible. It was Quentin Tarantino that taught me to actually break the rules a little bit and go outside the Hollywood system, write outside the Hollywood system, and create characters that were interesting and didn’t fall into the norm. I don’t have a favourite movie, I get asked all the time, but it’s literally a lot of great movies.
Jane Storm: What else do you have to do before you can get back here and film?
Tom Andersen: We’ve learnt a lot on this trip. Now we’ve got to get the script down and tight, we want to make sure it’s good and not rush that because you only get one shot. Then just hit it.
Jane Storm: Fantastic, well that’s pretty much everything I have to ask you guys. If you don’t mind we’ll head out and get the pic taken soon?
Tom Andersen: Yeah sure.
Mark Redford: I sent you a really creepy tweet when you arrived.
Jane Storm: (Laughs) Oh really? Awesome.
Mark Redford: I wrote `I’m looking at you right now’.
Jane Storm: (Laughs) I love it!
Mark Redford: That’s creepy, it was when you were walking in right then.
Jane Storm: I love how you are so interactive with your fans online and getting content out there.
Mark Redford: Well, it has got me into trouble. Hollywood doesn’t want you to tell the things that I sometimes tell. They certainly didn’t want me telling the Halloween 3D story. It didn’t get me into trouble, they just didn’t like it. But there’s nothing they can do about it.
Jane Storm: It probably got you a lot of respect from people as well.
Mark Redford: I think from the fan base perhaps.
Jane Storm: The Bloody Disgusting guys were on to it.
Mark Redford: Yeah, but they always shoot it straight anyway and that’s why I like them. That’s why I like Brad and those guys. I don’t like rude behaviour, even from a studio.
Jane Storm: Yeah, I’m a big fan of Bloody Disgusting because they cover everything. They don’t just look at the big, commercial horror films, but they give time to the independent, small-budget and foreign language stuff that you wouldn’t know about otherwise.
Mark Redford: I trust those guys because if I know they like something I know that it’s worth my time. Everybody’s opinion is different, but I trust their judgment.
VIA Tom Andersen talks about horror, 3D & pissing Hollywood off
On June 15, 1215, in fields by the banks of the River Thames at Runnymede to the west of London, England's King John agreed to the demands of his rebelling barons and accepted the Magna Carta, Latin for "Great Charter", which for the first time placed the monarch under the rule of law.
In the centuries since, it has taken on huge global significance, becoming the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Three of its 63 clauses still remain on Britain's statute book.
"What happened in these meadows eight centuries ago is as relevant today as it was then. And that relevance extends far beyond Britain," British Prime Minister David Cameron said.
He said the document had changed the world, inspiring people from the founding fathers of the United States and Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
"Its remaining copies may be faded, but its principles shine as brightly as ever," Cameron told the ceremony attended by the queen, other royals and global figures including U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Magna Carta came into being during a period of great political upheaval in England with conflict between King John, his nobles and the English church.
It was essentially a peace deal to address the problems of the day and was annulled by the pope shortly afterwards. But updated versions, which included two original clauses regarded as pivotal in establishing the rule of law, were re-released regularly by or on behalf of succeeding monarchs.
The clauses read: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.
"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice."
Originals Exist
Four original copies of the document, written on a single sheet of parchment about the size of A3 paper, still exist.
At Monday's ceremony, a new art installation was unveiled and the American Bar Association's Magna Carta Memorial, which was erected at the site in 1957, was re-dedicated.
U.S. Attorney General Lynch said the charter was a bedrock to free societies globally, while Cameron also used the anniversary as a political opportunity to underpin his plan to overhaul human rights laws and reduce the influence of Europe.
However, John Dyson, chairman of the Magna Carta Trust, said King John and the barons would have been bemused that the document would garner such interest hundreds of years later.
"They would surely have been astonished that over time Magna Carta came to be regarded as one of the most important constitutional documents in our history," he said.
"They would not have believed that barons' lists of demands would become a symbol of democracy, justice, human rights and perhaps above all, the rule of law for the whole world. But that is exactly what has happened."
Author: Stefan Wermuth | Source: Reuters [June 15, 2015]
In the modern world you are surprised — as architects of the past could build approximately in one style, according to the general mood of an epoch, and consider it as art?
In Competition on Originality there was a new applicant. Peking bureau MAD has offered the skyscraper project on which each floor gardens will blossom.
The basic feature of a design — not at height, and on horizontal saturation. The tower represents a heap of the floors, one on another where each layer will shift aside, thus creating open space for a patio and gardens. A 385-metre tower name Urban Forest.
By the end of 2009 year architects plan to finish work on the design concept. The tower becomes the third studio in a portfolio. The studio offers new directions for development of city architecture in China. Namely actualization of ecologically steady multiplane structures which would return the nature in cities. The city of Chongking became the fourth on size a city of China in 1997.
I was thrilled to open up the newspaper today and see an article about the new Mad Men-inspired collection that is going to be launching at Banana Republic on August 11th! My boyfriend got me into watching Mad Men this year, and I quickly caught up on everything I missed. I adore the show and I can't wait for the next season in 2014. I'm drawn to the show for so many reasons (cough-Don Draper-cough), but the main reason: the fashion! The 1960s style is fabulous. Whether you're a Betty, a Peggy, or a Joan - the clothes are drool-worthy.
This summer, Banana Republic has teamed up with Janie Bryant, the costume designer for the show, to offer fans classic pieces with modern-day twists. In the newspaper article I read, it was said that the collection wouldn't focus on classic sixties colors, like mustard yellow and bright green, but would work more with black, navy, and red for a sophisticated edge. The boyfriend and I are certainly excited to scope out the pieces when they hit stores.
I was lucky enough to win an amazing giveaway over at A Life in the Fashion Lane. This blog has become one of my favorite reads; the blogger, Alexa, has a great sense of style and writes really sweet posts. I was so excited to find out I had won this beautiful romper by Lucca Couture! This is the first romper I've ever owned, and I love the way it fits. I'd love to add a few more to my collection! Thanks for offering this great prize, Alexa! Everyone should go check out A Life in the Fashion Lane. You won't be disappointed!
Dear readers, I cannot believe that this is the first time I'm introducing my family's awesome little Puggle (pug/beagle mix) to you! This is Abby, and she's the funniest, sweetest, cutest dog you will ever meet. I promise you we normally do not dress her up, but she started nosing her way into a shirt I had left on my bed and... we couldn't resist. She actually didn't seem to mind too much about the scarf or hat that we put on her, once she was told that there was a cookie waiting for her. So here's my little fashionista, always playing it up for the camera!
From dancing penguins to sailing the high seas during the Napoleonic Wars, Australian-based screenwriter John Collee brings a young Charles Darwin to life in his latest project Creation. I had a chat to Collee a few weeks back about this, that and the other thing, and have put together a neat little yarn on his work with Creation here. However, Collee also told me some crazy stories about collaborations with Guillermo del Toro and Steven Spielberg, and forth coming projects, which I will tie together in another story over the next few days. Stay tuned baboons.
When Scottish-born screenwriter John Collee, the writer behind Oscar-winning films such as Happy Feet and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, sat down to write a biopic of Charles Darwin, he hit a wall. He did not want to portray the English naturalist, who came up with the theories of evolution and natural selection, as just another `boring scientist'. So he turned to the writings of Darwin's great, great grandson Randal Keynes, who presented the scientist in a unique light.
``The Darwin you get on screen is always the guy with the beard and he has always been portrayed as this sober and rather boring intellectual,'' says Collee.
``Whereas the Darwin that comes out in the descriptions by Randal (Keynes) is of this charming, young dad.
``You get this really human perspective which is also taken from all of his kids who wrote stories about him.
``A guy you thought you knew through his science actually comes across as this fabulous family man.''
For Collee, who has lived in Sydney for over decade with his wife and children, this is someone to whom he could relate. He used Keynes biography of Darwin, Annie's Box, as the basis for the screenplay Creation, a new film directed by Jon Amiel. Starring Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife Emma, Creation follows Darwin in the lead up to publishing On The Origin Of Species, where he struggles to find a balance between his revolutionary theories and the relationship with his religious wife, whose faith contradicts his work. The couple are also battling to come to terms with the death of their 10-year-old daughter Annie, who had scarlet fever. Despite having seen and achieved many things, Collee says he choose to focus on this chapter of Darwin's life because it `represented something about the modern condition'.
``I like writing films about ideas and there are powerful ideas in this and they crystalise around a tragic event; the death of child,'' says Collee.
``They (Darwin and Emma) were very much in love, they had 10 kids, they were very inter-dependent on each other, but she was completely Christian and he was a scientist.
``The miraculous thing about their relationship was that it worked and that they were able to live so closely together.
``So it's about the resolution of science and religion, and how they find an alternative to the language of religion and of science, with love.''
Having worked with Bettany before on Master and Commander, Collee says although he tried not to write the role for him specifically, but he kept coming to mind due to his `uncanny resemblance' to a young Darwin.
``He came to mind more and more as I wrote the script but I try not to write with someone in mind because of the nature of the business,'' he says.
``But young Darwin looked very much like Paul Bettany and when we were writing Master and Commander Weir had a young Darwin as the model for `the Doctor' and I kept getting the memory of Paul as that character.
``There were lots of things that made me keep going back to him.
``And Paul gave Jennifer the script to read and she then wanted to play Emma.
``Because they're married in real life they bring that context to the roles too.''
According to an Egypt’s heritage Task Force report, looters have hacked out the tomb’s unique scenes and may have proceeded to smuggle them.
Deir el-Bersha, situated on the east bank of the Nile just north of Tell el-Amarna, was the necropolis (cemetery) of the First Intermediate Period (about 2160-2040 BC) and Middle Kingdom (about 2040-1750 BC) governors of the Fifteenth Upper Egyptian province (or nome).
Dating to the 12th Dynasty in the Middle Kingdom, the tomb was made for Djehutyhotep who served as the Nomarch (nome governor) of the Hare Nome (a prefecture within the Ancient Egyptian state) and is considered as Deir el Bersha’s most important funerary monument.
The tomb has been known to the modern world since 1817, when the first drawings of some of its scenes also appeared.
It is particularly renowned for the scene (now destroyed) of four teams of men dragging a huge statue of him. Having being repeatedly looted, it was published and restored by Egyptologist Percy Newberry at the end of the 19th century.
Recent work on the site has been done by the Catholic University of Louvain mission.
Several objects from the tomb are now in the Cairo, British and Metropolitan museums.
Source: Archaiologia Online [May 12, 2015]
If you wish to stylize a room interior in the Japanese stylistics — use own experience is priority, because only you know what you want. Don't use the global brain! It's possible to apply imagination and to decorate an interior with the several bright Japanese accessories designating certain Japan style. But in Japanese stylistics it's necessary to adhere to minimalism rules.
For zoning of the area of a room in Japanese style easy parting walls (glass, a tree, a bamboo) or painted screens are actively used. It gives a special glamor to an interior and allows to use the areas effectively.
Are excellently allocated the walls decorated by pictures on a rice paper with landscapes of the country of a rising sun, or portrait engravings of geisha.
For refinishing of walls, a ceiling, it's better to select colors neutral and light: white, gray, color of a tree. But if would be desirable brightness — experiment with saturated green (colors of a fresh grass). In refinishing pertinently to use bamboo: panels of wall, a track bed of parting walls, floor mats on a floor, bamboo regiments, armchairs, chairs, vases…
Furniture in Japanese style low enough, steady, correct geometrical forms. With such configuration of furniture always the modern technics well harmonizes.
The covers are pulled off Centre Court so that play can resume despite torrential rain outside - the first time it has ever happened
Rain stops play? Not for these boy who slide down Murray Mount enjoying the slippery surface
Spectators cover up to try and keep dry on one of the courts in the vain hope that play will eventually be resumed
Sitting it out: A couple shelter from the rain in Centre Court before the retractable roof kicks into action while others huddle under an umbrella and waterproof
Andy Murray's girlfriend, Kim Sears reacts as she sits alongside his mother Judy while he takes Centre Court against Spain's Gimeno-Traver
Making a dash: These spectators cover up as they leave the stadiums after heavy rain stopped play
I've got it covered: Andy Murray returns a shot in his match against Spain's Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain on Centre Court
Lovely weather for ducks... and flowers: This young spectator was totally absorbed by the tennis action - while it lasted
Full of anticipation: Crowds begin to assemble on 'Murray Mound' ahead of the British number one's first round match against Daniel Gimeno-Traver yesterday afternoon
VIA Elf 'n' safety shuts Murray Mount: Fans might slip on the grass, warn officials
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