You'll never know what Saturday might bring, especially if you're just coming off a long week. Today, I'm taking you to London for the Freud Museum and from there we're flying virtually, with a first stop at an animation of the extraordinary Irish treasure The Book of Kells. Before you get back home, you'll have seen the uses of holy water, heard the sounds of the solar system, traveled with a man and his horse through an ink-washed landscape, and wished you'd been part of the virtual choir dreamed up by composer Eric Whitacre. When you travel with me, you'll never see a better part of cyberspace.
✭ Next time you're in London, be sure to go here for all things Freudian. The Freud Museum in Hampstead, the home of Freud's youngest daughter until 1982, displays the extraordinary collection of Freud's antiquities and that undoubtedly famous couch on which Freud's patients spun loose their innermost dreams.
✭ The Book of Kells is now The Secret of Kells.
✭ Use of water in religious ceremonies is the theme of photographer John Stanmeyer's exhibition, Sacred Waters, at National Geographic in Washington, D.C. A video presentation is here.
✭ The solar system is reimagined as a music box.
✭ Commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the multi-faceted artist Jennifer Wen Ma, who works in mediums as diverse as drawing, fashion design, and performance art, created Brain Storm (2009). Reminiscent of traditional Chinese landscape art, Wen Ma's 10-minute looping video of a man and his horse traveling silently through an ever-changing landscape uses live-action ink-painting to great effect. Still shots from the video can be seen here. Other projects (and there are many) are accessible here. Wen Ma was part of the creative team responsible for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. A recent ARTNews feature about Wen Ma is here.
✭ Musical collaboration is nothing new, except when it involves a virtual choir. Composer Eric Whitacre managed to get people from all over the world to record themselves singing an a capella choir piece he'd written, "Lux Aurumque". Whitacre's virtual choir included more than 125 people from 12 different countries. The result? See for yourself below. (I think it's marvelous.) Go here or to Whitacre's site for more background on how the composer developed his project and for additional videos.
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2 comments:
I'm laughing -- your post is filled with all things fascinating and creative and exciting -- and I just read my daughter's blog from The Neth -- a much cooler way of saying The Netherlands, she writes -- and nary a cultural morsel amidst the partying and dancing and drinking in Amsterdam on Queen's Day! Do they have museums and art galleries in Amsterdam? :)
Great finds. I watched the Virtual Choir on Thursday when I was at a TedX event. Amazing! And the man and his horse is stunning.
The horse and the man sure went through some storms and darkness - but kept on keeping on.
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