Veijo Rönkkönen’s Sculpture Garden in Parikkala, Finland

 

 

The following article is taken from the site, Books From Finland. There you can find a book by Veli Granö (born 1960), a photographer, writer and producer of video works and televised documentaries. The © Copywrite of the text below is owned by Veli Granö.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veijo Rönkkönen (born 1944) has lived all his life on an isolated, small farm in eastern Finland, Parikkala, less than a kilometre from the Russian border, where he has quietly built a garden inhabited by nearly five hundred human figures made of concrete. Entrance is free.

Even if Veijo has always been keen to know the audience’s reactions, he has never talked to visitors voluntarily or asked their opinion on his work. Yet he meets people almost daily when working in his garden and never refuses to speak to them. His answers to any questions concerning the sculptures are, however, very curt so that the inquirer immediately understands his reluctance to continue the conversation.

Despite his withdrawn character, Veijo has always placed importance on the role of viewers. From indoors he observes those walking in the garden and looks for anything out of the ordinary. Should someone stray onto the flowerbeds, he will open the window and tell them to return to the path.

As a result of the break-up of the Soviet Union, life on the Finnish side of the border zone became a little easier. The first thing to go was the ban on stopping near the border, then the ban on using binoculars and cameras. Security cameras replaced the soldiers in the nearby watchtower. As the rules were loosened, the roadsides near the sculpture park filled with cars parked in dangerous positions. Thus for security reasons the road authority decided that a car park was required. A tourist information board and signs were erected. Since 1992, there has also been a little shop that sells refreshments and postcards of the sculpture park.

Veijo’s sculpture park is the most notable tourist attraction in Parikkala, and it is regularly advertised in various media. Numerous tourists visit the site every summer, and the busiest summer thus far saw some 26,000 visitors. Despite its status of an ‘official’ sight, Veijo has kept the park as his private garden and has nothing todo with the tourist business that surrounds him. He has no connection to the shopkeeper either, although he has paid the shop a visit at night.

His refusal to have any part in the business side arises from his overarching need to remain absolutely independent. ‘What if I decide, all of a sudden, to close up the park?’ goes his reasoning. Nevertheless, the local entrepreneurs and promoters of tourism need not be too worried. An audience is essential to Veijo, and there has never been an entrance fee, regardless of the season or the time of day. His reserved attitude towards publicity gives the sculpture park its extraordinary ambience, and the visitors can experience the dialogue between the public and the private space.

The line of statues, along with most of the other works, can be seen as Veijo’s private carnival. By turning everyday values upside down, the carnival serves as a form of therapy. The motley crew of the un-Finnish- looking figures brings medieval carnival processions to mind. It is interesting to try to figure out the origins of these strange characters. The artist himself says he simply tried to fit as many different sculptures as possible into the group.

Veijo’s sculpture park can be seen as a reflection of his own life. The various parts and works express the stages of his life, from growing up with the dreams and fears that he experienced, to some signs of ageing and mature giving up. In many parts, one can sense tones of a persuasive dialogue. Some of the sculptures are provocative, even aggressive, whereas others produce a sensation of thorough consideration and an aspiration to achieve spiritual harmony. The park is like a portrayal of a personality, with all its doubtful and conflicting characteristics.

In 2007 Veijo Rönkkönen, the artist of a self-made life, was awarded a state award, the Finland Prize, worth €30,000. John Maizels, the British author and editor of the art magazine Raw Vision, considers Veijo Rönkkönen as one of the masters of outsider art.

Other references: http://accidentalmysteries.blogspot.com/2009/07/veijo-ronkkonens-sculpture-garden.html

The Mountain Eagle (1926) Alfred Hitchcock's Lost Film

Cast:
Nita Naldi as Beatrice
Malcolm Keen as John 'Fear o' God' Fulton
John F. Hamilton as Edward Pettigrew
Bernhard Goetzke as Mr. Pettigrew
Ferdinand Martini (unknown role)

This is Hitchcock's second feature film and the only one that is considered a lost film, which means that no prints of the film are known to exist. Hitchcock himself considered it a mundane melodrama best forgotten, though fans naturally remain curious. In François Truffaut's book, Hitchcock / Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock himself described the film as "awful" and said he was "not sorry there are no known prints". Film historian J. Lary Kuhns, however, states in the book Hitchcock's Notebooks by Dan Auiler that one contemporary writer called The Mountain Eagle far superior to The Lodger.

Exteriors were filmed in Obergurgl, Austria. The Austrian Tyrol stood in for the mountains and hollows of Kentucky. Bad weather during the shooting was a constant source of trouble.

Although it was Hitchcock's second completed film, due to the runaway success of The Lodger, it was released three months after it.

Several surviving stills are reproduced in François Truffaut's book. More stills have recently been found to exist, many of which are reproduced in Dan Auiler's book. A lobby card (illustrated above right) for the film was found at a flea market in Rowley, Massachusetts. It was found in a box of broken frames and was being used as backing for the picture of another dog. The dog's significance in the film remains a mystery. It may have been used to assist Edward in fleeing the village or to help film's hero, John Fulton, during his escape from prison or return to the village seeking a doctor.

Although the film was reportedly released in the United States as Fear o' God, the title on the surviving U.S. lobby card seems to contradict this. Film historian J. Larry Kuhns claims the film was never released under that title.

The film is set in Kentucky. J. P. Pettigrew's (Bernhard Goetzke) wife died giving birth to his son Edward (John F. Hamilton) who was born a cripple. Pettigrew hates John ("Fear o' God") Fulton (Malcolm Keen) who also loved Pettigrew's wife. Pettigrew sees his now grown son making love to schoolteacher Beatrice (Nita Naldi) and seeks her out. During a discussion of her relationship to his son he attempts to take her in his arms but Beatrice rejects his advances. Pettigrew's son Edward sees this and flees the village.

Pettigrew is incensed at both Beatrice's rejection and the loss of his son. He attempts to have Beatrice arrested as a wanton harlot. John forestalls Pettigrew's plan by marrying Beatrice and taking her to his cabin where they fall in love. Beatrice becomes pregnant. Pettigrew seeks revenge by having John thrown in prison for murdering his (missing) son.

A year later John breaks out of prison and attempts to flee with Beatrice and their child but Beatrice falls ill and John must return to the village for a doctor. There he finds Edward has reappeared. His affairs are now cleared up and he is legally free from the charge of murder. Pettigrew is subsequently accidentally shot and no longer a threat to John and his family.

Peter Campus, video artist

Peter Campus, (born 1937)), is one of the early American video artists, pioneering the field in the 1970s and maintaining a practice today. His early experimentation with studio shooting and high technology (of the time) video equipment opened up a vast new set tools for art-making, as well as pushed the conceptual envelope of video art and its potential.

One of his most important single-channel works is titled "Three Transitions" in which he uses chromakey processors and video mixers to create videos in the studio. Part of the great potential in video art is that the artist receives instant feedback while shooting, being able to watch oneself in the monitor while recording is a major perceptual shift from long delay in viewing film. "Three Transitions" engages this new method of perceiving oneself, Campus is watching himself live as he goes through the motions for the camera. His live video installation works from the early 1970s at Bykert Gallery and in 1974 in his first major exhibition at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY.

Campus studied experimental psychology before his early work as a filmmaker. All of his early work engaged his interest in the psychology and the physiology of perception, and was informed by the Minimalist aesthetic of the late sixties and early seventies.

Campus abandoned video art for nearly twenty years, making digital photographs until returning to video work in the 1990s. Currently Campus is represented by Albion Gallery in London and New York. Peter Campus works have been featured in the Whitney Biennial in 1973, 1993, and 2002. His works are held in collections around the world, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, SFMOMA, and the Museum of Modern Art.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Campus

Three Transitions by Peter Campus (1973)

From the laserdisk "Persistence of Vision". Seminal video artist Peter Campus.

Mandelbulb Explorations by Krzysztof Marczak

This is flight through z^8+c Mandelbulb
© Copyright by Krzysztof Marczak



This animation shows interior of Tglad's Mandelbox fractal (scale = -2).
Animation was rendered by Krzysztof Marczak using his program
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mande...

© Copyright by Krzysztof Marczak



Key-frame animation test in Mandelbulber
Animation was rendered using Mandelbulber 0.80
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mande...
© Copyright by Krzysztof Marczak
topic on Fractal Forums: http://www.fractalforums.com/movies-s...



Mandelbox fractal rendered with Depth of Field effect
Animation was made with Mandelbulber 0.43
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mande...
© Copyright by Krzysztof Marczak

100 Years of Movie Title Stills (1902-2009)

An excellent archival collection of film stills from 1902-2009 can be found here...
http://designinformer.com/100-years-movie-title-stills/

Kodak Kodachrome Film Test (1922) by the Eastman Kodak Company

This is a collection of very early color film tests by Kodak. To provide context, the first full length color feature film did not appear until 13-years later (Becky Sharp).
Music (added): Killer Tracks CD entitled: KT223 (Inspire). First track used is called "Breath," the second is called "Kindle." "

In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray appears almost translucent, her flesh a pale white that is reminiscent of perfectly sculpted marble, enhanced with touches of color to her lips, eyes, and hair. She is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear. George Eastman House is the repository for many of the early tests made by the Eastman Kodak Company of their various motion picture film stocks and color processes. The Two-Color Kodachrome Process was an attempt to bring natural lifelike colors to the screen through the photochemical method in a subtractive color system. First tests on the Two-Color Kodachrome Process were begun in late 1914. Shot with a dual-lens camera, the process recorded filtered images on black/white negative stock, then made black/white separation positives. The final prints were actually produced by bleaching and tanning a double-coated duplicate negative (made from the positive separations), then dyeing the emulsion green/blue on one side and red on the other. Combined they created a rather ethereal palette of hues." Of Note: This footage is from the George Eastman House collections. Preservation was completed by the museum's Motion Picture Department, a project of Sabrina Negri, a student in Eastman House's L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and a recipient of the Haghefilm Foundation Fellowship.

References: http://1000words.kodak.com/post/?ID=2982503

So without further adieu, here from 1922, a full 7 years before the first Academy Award ceremony, is some of the earliest color motion pictures that you will ever see.

I Have a Dream (speech) by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (August 28, 1963)

This entry is being posted on 43rd anniversary of King's historic speech in Washington.

"I Have a Dream" is the famous name given to the ten minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in human history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."

At the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme of "I have a dream", possibly prompted by Mahalia Jackson's cry, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" He had delivered a speech incorporating some of the same sections in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Reverend C. L. Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts.

Widely hailed as a masterpiece of rhetoric, King's speech resembles the style of a Baptist sermon (King himself was a Baptist minister). It appeals to such iconic and widely respected sources as the Bible and invokes the United States Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the United States Constitution. Early in his speech King alludes to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by saying "Five score years ago..." Biblical allusions are also prevalent. For example, King alludes to Psalm 30:5 in the second stanza of the speech. He says in reference to the abolition of slavery articulated in the Emancipation Proclamation, "It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity." Another Biblical allusion is found in King's tenth stanza: "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." This is an allusion to Amos 5:24. King also quotes from Isaiah 40:4-5—"I have a dream that every valley shall be exalted..."Additionally, King alludes to the opening lines of Shakespeare's "Richard III" when he remarks, "this sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn..."

Anaphora, the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of sentences, is a rhetorical tool employed throughout the speech. An example of anaphora is found early as King urges his audience to seize the moment: "Now is the time..." is repeated four times in the sixth paragraph. The most widely cited example of anaphora is found in the often quoted phrase "I have a dream..." which is repeated eight times as King paints a picture of an integrated and unified America for his audience. Other occasions when King used anaphora include "One hundred years later," "We can never be satisfied," "With this faith," "Let freedom ring," and "free at last."

The speech, known as "I Have a Dream Speech", has been shown to have had several versions, written at several different times. It has no single version draft, but is an amalgamation of several drafts, and was originally called "Normalcy, Never Again." Little of this, and another "Normalcy Speech," ends up in the final draft. A draft of "Normalcy, Never Again" is housed in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection of Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center and Morehouse College. Our focus on "I have a dream," comes through the speech's delivery. Toward the end of its delivery noted African American gospel songstress Mahalia Jackson shouted to Dr. King from the crowd, "Tell them about the dream, Martin."Dr. King stopped delivering his prepared speech and started "preaching", punctuating his points with "I have a dream." Key Excerpts:

• "In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"
• "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual."
• "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers as evidenced by their presence here today have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."
• "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"
• "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
• "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."
• "This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."
• "Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
• "Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Legacy: The March on Washington put much more pressure on the Kennedy administration to advance civil rights legislation in Congress. The diaries of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published posthumously in 2007, suggest that President Kennedy was concerned that if the march failed to attract large numbers of demonstrators, it might undermine his civil rights efforts.

In the wake of the speech and march, King was named Man of the Year by TIME magazine for 1963, and in 1964, he was the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2003, the National Park Service dedicated an inscribed marble pedestal to commemorate the location of King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

In 2004, the Library of Congress honored the speech by adding it to the United States National Recording Registry.

In Popular Culture: On the day King delivered his speech, two women, Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert, were murdered in their Manhattan apartment. The case became known as the Career Girls Murders and included a young black man named George Whitmore, Jr being unjustly accused of this and other crimes. The case became the basis for the 1973 TV movie, The Marcus-Nelson Murders, starring Telly Savalas as police Lt. Theo Kojak, and was the pilot for the popular Kojak crime drama. The "I Have a Dream" speech is shown being broadcast on a TV set in the opening scenes of the movie; a young black man is beaten by the police in order to get him to confess to the crime; and this leads to the passing of the Miranda rights by the Supreme Court.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_have_a_dream

Peter Gabriel- Digging in the Dirt (1992) music video by John Downer

"Digging in the Dirt" is a 1992 song by British musician Peter Gabriel. It was the first single taken from his sixth studio album, Us. The song was only a minor hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, but it topped both the Billboard Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts. The song was moderately successful on the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at #24.

The music video for the single was directed by John Downer and utilised stop-motion animation, a technique used in the videos for Gabriel's earlier hits "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time". The work was painstaking, especially for Gabriel himself who was required to lie still for hours at a time over the course of several days. The video won a Grammy award in 1993 in the Best Short-Form Video category.

The video is largely an exploration of the issues in his personal life at the time- the end of his relationship with Rosanna Arquette, his desire to reconnect with his daughter and even the self healing he was looking for in therapy.

In the video, Gabriel is displayed in a variety of disturbing imagery- including being buried alive, consumed by an overgrowth of foliage (thanks to a gruelling stop-motion process) and flying into a rage while trying to swat a fly. This time, Gabriel returned to stop motion and claymation- that had served him so well in the 1980s, forgoing (the then primitive and time-consuming) computer graphics used in "Steam".

From the onset, the word "help" forms in the grass while dark imagery plays. Gabriel eerily morphs into a skeleton while at the same time trying to excavate himself. Ultimately, the viewers are left with a gleam of hope as "help" morphs into "heal" after Gabriel symbolically rises from the soil, clad in white.

The Secret World Live version of the song is far more intense than the studio version. This is due to a chaotic blend of disturbingly high pitched distorted guitar (by guitarist David Rhodes), as well as occasional jarring synth bass stabs (Tony Levin) and an expansive performance by Manu Katché on the drums. The stage craft for the song is considered a highlight of the show. Gabriel wore a special "helmet" with a video camera attached in an antennae-like way, showing in great detail his facial expressions, while moving in time with the music. This is used to create a particularly grotesque image of Gabriel, most prominent during the "freak-out" sequence in which the camera is graphically pointed down Gabriel's throat.

Lyrics:
Something in me, dark and sticky
All the time it's getting strong
No way of dealing with this feeling
Can't go on like this too long

[Chorus:]
This time you've gone too far [x3]
I told you [x4]
This time you've gone too far [x3]
I told you [x4]

Don't talk back
Just drive the car
Shut your mouth
I know what you are
Don't say nothing
Keep your hands on the wheel
Don't turn around
This is for real
Digging in the dirt
Stay with me, I need support
I'm digging in the dirt
To find the places I got hurt
Open up the places I got hurt

The more I look, the more I find
As I close on in, I get so blind
I feel it in my head, I feel it in my toes
I feel it in my sex, that's the place it goes

[Chorus]

I'm digging in the dirt
Stay with me I need support
I'm digging in the dirt
To find the places I got hurt
To open up the places I got hurt

Digging in the dirt
To find the places we got hurt




Below is the Digging in the Dirt video, the live concert footage from the Secret World Live DVD, and The Making of Digging in the Dirt music video. Enjoy!

The Art of Mirrors (1973) by Derek Jarman

The Art of Mirrors is an abstract film made in 1973 by director, Derek Jarman. The film, shot in super 8 features figures moving in the foreground and background of an empty space holding mirrors which occasionally flash in the lens of the camera. The images portrayed in the film are reminiscent of Jarman's Abstract Landscape paintings of the same period. In his diary Jarman wrote of this film, 'this is only something that could only be done on a Super 8 camera, with it's built in meters and effects.' The film's title was reworked in the script for 'Dr Dee The Art Of Mirrors and The Summoning Of Angels' in 1975.


Derek Jarman - Art of Mirrors
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Love by Ernest Hemingway

Love is just another dirty lie. Love is ergoapiol pills to make me come around because you were afraid to have a baby. Love is quinine and quinine and quinine until I’m deaf with it. Love is that dirty aborting horror that you took me to. Love is my insides all messed up. It’s half catheters and half whirling douches. I know about love. Love always hangs up behind the bathroom door. It smells like lysol. To hell with love. Love is making me happy and then going off to sleep with your mouth open while I lie awake all night afraid to say my prayers even because I know I have no right to anymore. Love is all the dirty little tricks you taught me that you probably got out of some book. All right. I’m through with you and I’m through with love.

— Ernest Hemingway.

Images relating to the Walt Disney/Salvador Dali collaborative animated film project, Destino.

Image# 1: Walt Disney admires Dali's painting. Image# 2-3: Dali and Disney. Image# 4-5: Dali. Image# 6-17: Dali's conceptual art for Destino. Image# 18-19: Disney production art for the film. Image# 20-40: scenes from the film. Image # 41-42: Roy Disney