Month: September 2023

Austin Osman Spare – occultist, avant-gardist and ‘Britain’s first pop artist’

The London painter’s works have become spookily popular of late

Austin Osman Spare – occultist, avant-gardist and ‘Britain’s first pop artist’
Austin Osman Spare at work in his Brixton studio in November 1947 © Chris Ware/Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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https://www.ft.com/content/f8ecb986-f1b5-4df0-9c59-0f2aa2b5fd9e

Collectors of the work of early 20th-century English artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare have, up until now, been of a type. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin has a notable number of paintings, as did the late Genesis P-Orridge – founder of industrial sound provocateurs Throbbing Gristle. In his memoir, Orridge describes an acquaintance shaking and shouting: “Those paintings, cover them, they’re alive!” One particular work, The Ides, depicting two aggressive-looking self-portraits of Spare flanked by Romanian prostitutes, was turned to face the wall. Months later, after touring overseas, Orridge returned to discover house-sitters had turned the painting around and vanished, leaving rooms splattered with red paint. Spooked, Orridge sold the painting to Chris Stein of Blondie.

LINK: https://www.ft.com/content/f8ecb986-f1b5-4df0-9c59-0f2aa2b5fd9e

Living in the Time of Dying – Watch Full Documentary

Living in The Time of Dying is an unflinching look at what it means to be living in the midst of climate catastrophe and finding purpose and meaning within it. Recognising the magnitude of the climate crisis we are facing, independent filmmaker Michael Shaw, sells his house to travel around the world looking for answers. Pretty soon we begin to see how deep the predicament goes along with the systems and ways of thinking that brought us here.

Think this summer was bad? It might be the best one you and I will ever see

The calamitous summer of 2023 was an oasis of tranquility, compared to what’s coming

A Greek flag flutters in the wind during a wildfire in Chasia in the outskirts of Athens on August 22, 2023. (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)
A Greek flag flutters in the wind during a wildfire in Chasia in the outskirts of Athens on August 22, 2023. (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

This year we saw the hottest July ever recorded, and the same was true again in August. In fact, 2023 is on track to be the hottest year so far recorded, breaking the record set by 2020 and 2016. Over the past few months, more than 6,500 daily heat records have been broken in the U.S. alone, and in some places the roads became so hot that people suffered serious burns from falling on them. Terrible floods have ripped through China, Spain, Greece and elsewhere. Wildfires raged in Canada, the Canary Islands, Maui and parts of Europe. A tropical storm hit Los Angeles, the first in living memory. Wind speeds of Hurricane Lee, in the Atlantic Ocean, increased from 80 mph to 165 mph in roughly 24 hours.

The climate catastrophe is already here. We’ve been watching it unfold in real time on the news and over social media. Some have witnessed it first-hand, losing their homes, being forced to evacuate under emergency conditions and even losing their lives or the lives of friends and family. For those sensitive to human suffering and the grave injustices driving the climate crisis, this summer has been difficult to deal with. It’s been one extreme weather event, one shattered record, one shocking tragedy after another — and though the summer is now officially over, there’s more to come.

LINK: https://www.salon.com/2023/09/23/think-this-summer-was-bad-it-might-be-the-best-one-you-and-i-will-ever-see/

“Biological Annihilation” – Stanford Scientists Discover Human-Driven Mass Extinction Is “Mutilating” the Tree of Life

Human actions have precipitated a significant acceleration in the extinction of vertebrate animal species, causing not only species but entire genera to vanish, dramatically affecting the planet’s biodiversity. This rapid loss, dubbed “biological annihilation” by scientists, has severe repercussions for human life, ecosystems, and potential medical insights, urging an urgent and large-scale response.
Human actions have precipitated a significant acceleration in the extinction of vertebrate animal species, causing not only species but entire genera to vanish, dramatically affecting the planet’s biodiversity. This rapid loss, dubbed “biological annihilation” by scientists, has severe repercussions for human life, ecosystems, and potential medical insights, urging an urgent and large-scale response.

The passenger pigeon, the Tasmanian tiger, and the Baiji (Yangtze river dolphin) are among the most recognized casualties of what many experts refer to as the sixth mass extinction. This is a consequence of human activities leading to the vanishing of vertebrate animal species at rates hundreds of times faster than their natural pace of extinction.

However, a new study conducted by Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that the crisis may run even deeper. Each of the three species above was also the last member of its genus, the higher category into which taxonomists sort species. And they aren’t alone.

LINK: https://scitechdaily.com/biological-annihilation-stanford-scientists-discover-human-driven-mass-extinction-is-mutilating-the-tree-of-life/

Addicted to Cool

How the dream of air conditioning turned into the dark future of climate change

Addicted to Cool

In 2023, Jeep rolled out a new edition of its popular four-wheel-drive SUV. For the first time since the company introduced the car in 1986, air conditioning wasn’t an option, it was a must. This appears to be the end of an era: “The last car in the U.S. without standard air conditioning,” read the headline of an article in the automotive press, “finally gives up the fight against refrigerant.”

LINK: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/interactive/2023/air-conditioning-climate-change/

 

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda“Instrumental reason is at the core of the emerging bio-tech paradigm, which is rapidly increasing the social, ecological, and spiritual degradation produced by civilization as a model of dominance. To counter this apocalyptic scenario based on the domination of nature, I propose poetic reason as the foundational matrix to move away from the instrumentalization of life in order to reshape in a more harmonious way the coexistence of human beings with each other, the environment, the cosmological order, and the animal realm.”

LINK: https://badideapublishing.com/

‘The buildings were a sign of civic pride’: anger as art colleges around the UK close their doors

Colleges that once fostered talent – often from working-class backgrounds – have vanished at an alarming rate. Two beneficiaries of that system are documenting its demise

The Derby School of Art now stands empty. Many more across the UK are also vacant or have been razed to the ground. Photograph: © Matthew Cornford, The Art School Project
The Derby School of Art now stands empty. Many more across the UK are also vacant or have been razed to the ground. Photograph: © Matthew Cornford, The Art School Project

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/17/the-buildings-were-a-sign-of-civic-pride-anger-as-art-colleges-around-the-uk-close-their-doors

Earth is outside its ‘safe operating space for humanity’ on most key measurements, study says

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.

LINK: https://apnews.com/article/earth-climate-change-biodiversity-environment-pollution-c8582c3ae0344b5a88cc38cd8e725702

Antarctica warming much faster than models predicted in ‘deeply concerning’ sign for sea levels

Study finds ‘direct evidence’ of polar amplification on continent as scientists warn of implications of ice loss

An Adelie penguin in Antarctica. The icy continent is heating faster than climate models had predicted, a study has found. Photograph: Reuters/Alamy
An Adelie penguin in Antarctica. The icy continent is heating faster than climate models had predicted, a study has found. Photograph: Reuters/Alamy

Antarctica is likely warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate change models are predicting, with potentially far-reaching implications for global sea level rise, according to a scientific study.

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/08/antarctica-warming-much-faster-than-models-predicted-in-deeply-concerning-sign-for-sea-levels

Why the Coral Reef Crisis in Florida Is a Problem for All of Us

The Hottest Days in 100,000 Years. How Long Do We Have, and What Does “Collapse” Mean for a Civilization?

A marine heat wave is warming the waters off the coast of Florida, pushing temperature readings as high as 101 Fahrenheit and endangering a critical part of sea life: the coral reef.

Catrin Einhorn, who covers biodiversity, climate and the environment for The Times, discusses the urgent quest to save coral and what it might mean for the world if it disappears.

LINK: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS81NG5BR2NJbA/episode/YjZhYjdmNDktMzE2My00ZDM1LTliMWQtZDVhZWM4MmJiZWYx?ep=14