The Fifty-Ninth Swan

One day you are going to die, and one day after that, there will come a point where nobody remembers that you were ever even alive.

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maritova: Paige Bradley created one of the most striking sculptures I’ve seen in recent times. Her masterpiece, entitled Expansion, is a beautiful woman seeking inner piece but fractured and bleeding with light. “From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: a social security number, a gender, a race, a profession,” says Bradley. “I ponder if we are more defined by the container we are in than what we are inside. Would we recognize ourselves if we could expand beyond our bodies?”

maritova:

Paige Bradley created one of the most striking sculptures I’ve seen in recent times. Her masterpiece, entitled Expansion, is a beautiful woman seeking inner piece but fractured and bleeding with light.

“From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: a social security number, a gender, a race, a profession,” says Bradley. “I ponder if we are more defined by the container we are in than what we are inside. Would we recognize ourselves if we could expand beyond our bodies?”

(via in--wonderland)

easrettibeht: I found this photo between the pages of an old book- my second-hand copy of Susan Sontag’s On Photography. We read Barthes in class the other day and one of our assignments was to find a photo that had punctum for us.  Punctum is a capacity that hits you, and not anything that could be read out of the image as part of the studium. Barthes sees studium as “a kind of education… that allows discovery.” It’s the element that creates interest and shows the intention of the photographer. We experience this intention, this studium, in reverse as spectators. In other words, the photographer thinks of the idea (or intention) then shows us photographically, and then it’s up to the spectator to see the photograph and interpret it to see the photographer’s ideas and intentions. You might say that the punctum is the wounding, personally touching detail that establishes a direct current between us and the photo.  For the one I have here, you could say that the studium consists of the two figures, their physical relationship to each other, the unorthodox composition for a simple, boyfriend/girlfriend photobooth snapshot, the overall feel of the image and, not least perhaps, the fact that their hands are covering each other’s faces.  The punctum is less obvious. What does it for me is the dark little space between her pinky and ring finger. This detail is the accidental gift. It is the rope that pulls me in and ties me to the image. I am all at once drawn to the mystery of their relationship, and to the dark space between her fingers through which he must be looking at her. An understanding of punctum might work in anyone’s favor to produce stronger, more captivating images.  The thing is, punctum requires a sort of accidental quality about it to be most effective. The studium is ultimately coded, whereas the punctum doesn’t relate to how the interest in an image is often found in its deconstruction. With punctum, it’s all about the subtlety that could possibly have meaning but was not originally hiding within the image’s intentions.  The little space between the girl’s pinky and ring finger through which the boy must be able to see through and look at her is what disturbs the studium for me, complicates it, ties it up. It’s the beautiful aberration. That’s really all I can say about it. The inability to name must be a good symptom of disturbance, of punctum. Right? Barthes himself said, “What I can name cannot really prick me,” after all.

easrettibeht:

I found this photo between the pages of an old book- my second-hand copy of Susan Sontag’s On Photography.

We read Barthes in class the other day and one of our assignments was to find a photo that had punctum for us. 

Punctum is a capacity that hits you, and not anything that could be read out of the image as part of the studium. Barthes sees studium as “a kind of education… that allows discovery.” It’s the element that creates interest and shows the intention of the photographer. We experience this intention, this studium, in reverse as spectators. In other words, the photographer thinks of the idea (or intention) then shows us photographically, and then it’s up to the spectator to see the photograph and interpret it to see the photographer’s ideas and intentions.

You might say that the punctum is the wounding, personally touching detail that establishes a direct current between us and the photo.  For the one I have here, you could say that the studium consists of the two figures, their physical relationship to each other, the unorthodox composition for a simple, boyfriend/girlfriend photobooth snapshot, the overall feel of the image and, not least perhaps, the fact that their hands are covering each other’s faces. 

The punctum is less obvious. What does it for me is the dark little space between her pinky and ring finger. This detail is the accidental gift. It is the rope that pulls me in and ties me to the image. I am all at once drawn to the mystery of their relationship, and to the dark space between her fingers through which he must be looking at her.

An understanding of punctum might work in anyone’s favor to produce stronger, more captivating images.  The thing is, punctum requires a sort of accidental quality about it to be most effective. The studium is ultimately coded, whereas the punctum doesn’t relate to how the interest in an image is often found in its deconstruction. With punctum, it’s all about the subtlety that could possibly have meaning but was not originally hiding within the image’s intentions. 

The little space between the girl’s pinky and ring finger through which the boy must be able to see through and look at her is what disturbs the studium for me, complicates it, ties it up. It’s the beautiful aberration. That’s really all I can say about it. The inability to name must be a good symptom of disturbance, of punctum. Right? Barthes himself said, “What I can name cannot really prick me,” after all.

(via uminuscula)

Casualty.

The return of the repressed.

It’s inevitable bby.

I’m in a shit mood. I’d love beer and cigarettes right now. I’ve ran out of both, isn’t that awful? I’m terribly normal. Smaller sentences less commas smaller sentences less commas.

There’s a dead boy being beamed to me with the old cathode ray laser BEEM MACHINE. I’m not even sure if that makes sense. I’m not naive to the fact that all of this is perfectly expectable.

Angry youth. Broken cross. Rarrrrr. I want to be liked.

patient-zero asked: Not a question, but you just reminded me of when watching Marija as the interval act on Thursday, all I could think of was the time back when we were both in the Grange and you referred to her as the "lesbian Harry Potter"

Them were the days.

Also, party + BBQ in mine in Longford the first weekend of July or thereabouts. Everyone is going I think.

Anonymous asked: But Jedward suuuuuuuuck

For what they are they’re good, for Eurovision they’re perfect. I love the Harry Potter Serbian lesbian who won it a few years ago though.

Anonymous asked: miss you on twitter

Yeah I stopped using it and deleted the app from my phone because the only people I followed were post-bank hipsters or cliquey people who thought they were cool “being unsociable and hating everyone” and yeah I lost interest in that site. I got a good 20000 tweets in though.

Spangly dancing twins gettin’ wet.

I love being Irish.

There’s a lesbian in my head and she keeps saying, “I hear the opium there is faaabulous”, and it’s China, but what you think. Orientalism at its finest.

I got sunburnt, in Ireland. 

“The healing power of human relationships.” - Blurb from a book.

Nail-polish remover was faaabulous, and so was cycling around this park.

Frank Hinton is bringing out a novel that I have to read.

Wilde side.

They sit down alleys
drinking nail-polish remover
thinking about men.
They employ wit.
we think it’s fantastic.