The International Space Station above the Temple Mount in Jerusalem |
The International Space Station above the Temple Mount in Jerusalem |
The International Space Station above the Temple Mount in Jerusalem |
The International Space Station above the Temple Mount in Jerusalem |
Tel Aviv Museum of Art present the first-ever retrospective in Israel of renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Ranked one of the ten biggest and best art exhibitions opening in 2021 around the world, an extensive retrospective of Kusama's work started in November.
Myths are a universal and interesting cultural phenomenon. They have existed since the dawn of civilizations, and probably have the greatest perseverance, similar to the important of religions. Every culture has created mythical images, which suggests that myth is a fundamental component of human expression. Although Western culture is generally defined as scientific and secular, it also includes many active mythical contents. There are many archetypal symbols, which believers believe to have a divine origin. For example, a bird may be the "forerunner", a high place may be the "place of revelation", and a giant tree "the tree of life".
Mythological origins are central to semiotics, which is the professional field of sign language practice - the basis for brand design. In mythological legends anything is possible. This is also the feeling that a marketer of almost any product tries to instill. Marketing is a mix of products, services and ideas. The marketer seeks measurable results, as an answer to every consumer's search for meaning in modern life.
For the semiotician, any simple object may have a symbolic meaning. Such symbols are, for example, Sigmund Freud's cigar, Charlie Chaplin's walking stick, and Michael Jackson's glove. The symbols can be exchanged in the free market. Despite this, they are endowed with a multiplicity of meaning, and what for one person is in the nature of "reality", for the other is in the nature of "imagination". Barter is conducted according to clear rules of the game. The domain of symbols is never higher than the domain of products, and there is always a product attached to the symbol, otherwise the symbol is not valid. The airplane became by the propaganda artists an object of symbolic significance of the highest degree.
Humans live by the stories they hear and experience throughout their lives. These stories are steeped in common symbols and myths, and involve riddles and answers. They showcase the human ethos, and so do the commercials. The cinematic plot is an expression of this. The cinematic or advertising story is multidimensional, and is integrated into a system of matching symbols, resulting from behavior, myth, tradition, and the like, in the lives of viewers and consumers. The purpose is of creating an integrated narrative in all popular culture.
Because the myths express central cultural values, they appear in all media and cultural channels, both mass and elitist. Myths exist in the world of advertising, propaganda and also in the world of films. Cinema is a place where the use of myths is gaining ground, and incorporating myths into feature films is a major phenomenon. The Hollywood studio film is a product that many people share in the production process. Hence, similar to the myth, it turns to as broad a common denominator as possible.
In the twentieth century, as human society became more modern, technological, and complex, so did the need to use myths in popular culture to define the role of each person in the masses. Cinema is a connection between reality and imagination, and offers a space for transition between them. It is a total art, combining many fields of art, and many movie stars have also become role models. Movie heroes belong to the "superhero" category, which is one of the most important archetypes in human culture. They are at the top along with the archetype of the "family" in its extended definition, as a group of people with close ties.
The seismic change in the political structures of post-World War I Europe spawned the fascist movements and regimes, built on the principles of mythical modernity. Mythical modernity was based on an aspiration for advanced technology, using belief and archetypal conditioning for its application, rather than the enlightened mind. The desire for a mythical fascist order developed during the war. The events of the war, the fall of the dynasties and the political upheavals were the most visible result of a rupture in the old order, and gave rise to fascism.
An influential German thinker was Ernest Junger. Junger, the decorated combat soldier who became an influential philosopher of the Nazi movement, clearly recognized the shocks around him, and preached a new civilian reality, taking an example from the war. Junger described the war in hygienic terms: war is an end in itself, it is the ideal existential situation. The war created a new kind of human being, a new race of warriors who adopted an ethos of military masculinity, discipline, power and heroism, and a fusion of man and machine. Civilian life is a continuation of the war in other ways. Technological and political warfare continues in them and with it human forging intensifies.
The clear symbol of mythical totalitarian modernism in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was the airplane. The linguistic symbols and metaphors associated with aviation discourse, its perception and interpretation, are many, and the sources that can be relied on in this context are very numerous. They include important cultural events, artwork, books, magazines, propaganda products and more. It was not the aviation itself, but its connections, not the pilot himself, but the concepts involved, that were the focus of attention. They served as a means of revolutionary liberation from the burden of the past.
The social agenda, which has been the focus of attention in fascist regimes, is clarified through the narrative of aviation heroes, and through the vision of the new man that fascism has tried to make a reality through an anthropological revolution. The protagonists were models and prototypes that citizens were required to use in order to shape their lives. The norms and values that the media published as embodied in those heroes permeated the social reality and the world was understood according to their register.
The airplane and the pilot were totems, in the fullest sense of the word of icons with archetypal characteristics. They reflected the desire for order, and they were the epitome of modernity. The spiritual reciprocity between fascism and aviation was unequivocal. It has created mythical modernity, as opposed to liberal modernity.
This worldview fits into the formalist film style, in which directors are interested in expressive and subjective re-creation of their experiences of reality, rather than the way others perceive it. In formalist films one can find a high degree of manipulation, a re-design of reality. Formalist cinema tends to emphasize form, technique, and style of expression.
There is a parallel between marketing characters with the goal of becoming celebrities and states marketing, with the goal of making them more attractive in the international community. Specifically, the image of political leaders is the result of intense professional investment, measured by the field of consumer product marketing as brands. Hitler was an icon in the international community, as was Nazi Germany, which became a brand. The state as a brand exists for the purposes of domestic and foreign policy.
Roland Barth, one of the forefathers of semiotics, examined images through the analysis of the messages they contain, in order to know to what extent visual images create an ideological worldview. Key concepts in the analysis are the "signifier" and the "marked". The "signifier" is what we see, hear, feel. "Marked" is the meaning we derive from the signifier. For example, photography is perceived by us as a reality, but it has an ideological and cultural construction. A photograph of a polished soldier of local descent, against the backdrop of the flag of his country's colonial power, reflects his loyalty and identity which may not actually exist.
The German film industry, originally a small part of entertainment shows, grew at a dizzying pace, producing 353 films in 1913, more than 10 times that of 1910. During World War I, imperial Germany created the need to concentrate cinematic resources to produce regime-compliant films. The acting commander-in-chief, Ludendorff, issued a letter on the subject in 1917, creating the UFA company, which united virtually the entire German film industry.
Post-World War I economic crisis gave UFA excellent conditions to continue to head the local industry. But the company was put under economic supervision, which dictated the production of commercial films and a partnership with Hollywood studios. Another step was the privatization of the company. In 1927 it was taken over by the right-wing industrialist Hogenberg. The invention of the soundtrack at the time put many companies in crisis and allowed for a further strengthening of UFA.
The huge company continued to exist during the Weimar Republic and during the Nazi regime, until the end of World War II. The Nazis nationalized UFA immediately after coming to power, banning Jews from working there. It was part of a move to nationalize all the media firms in Germany, such as the press, radio and cultural institutions.
Joseph Goebbels closely monitored what was going on UFA and it was actually his private yard. He personally supervised the works, from the selection of the script to the final approval of the finished film. During the Nazi period, about a thousand films were made in UFA and its subsidiaries. There were quality films among them, in parallel with commercial films. The works were in a variety of genres, and reflected the artistic, economic, and political tension that prevailed in Germany.
Cinema, which originally created a cultural revolution, gradually became a major means of directing observation of reality. As a result, the fear that it would become a tool in the hands of subversive elements increased. These conflicting elements prevailed in the productions. It was a constant competition between artistic creativity, connected with radical social factors, versus the commitment to financial stability, bestowed by the upper classes and their conservative taste. What gave UFA its shape was its contradictory nature, as society was a force field composed of capital, politics, cinema and the public.
During World War I, UEFA military inspectors wanted to make a patriotic glow to the melodramatic tensions that cinema thrived on, and to allow viewers to enjoy visuality. The branding of the nation was the great ambition of the Nazis. Cinematic coverage has steadily corrected reality by allowing audiences to immerse themselves in larger collective destinies. Cinematic setting was powerful. Through its credit strong emotional power was imparted to nationalism. War and cinema renewed the meanings of the modern nation-state and cultivated fantasies about it.
Because the UFA was an economic business, as well as a propaganda arm and a place of artistic and technical experimentation, in which Social Democrats and Jews played key roles, UFA films could not be reduced to a single influence. Neither Ludendorf, nor Hogenberg, nor even Goebbels, achieved complete command. Their empire was difficult to cover and control by its very nature.
At its peak, UFA competed against the major Hollywood studios and the German film industry was the second largest in the world. Its film studios covered vast areas of the Bubblesberg neighborhood of Berlin. The thousands of films made by the company, in all genres, were watched by hundreds of millions of viewers, for whom it was a symbol of the good life.
During the Weimar Republic, in addition to entertainment films for the masses, experimental expressionist films were made in it. After the Nazis came to power, in 1933, they made it their main propaganda tool. Therefore the Allies eliminated it after World War II. Many of the professionals in Germany were Jews, and were banned from working for the company as soon as the Nazis came to power. They escaped, and some joined the rival Hollywood film industry. Enthusiastic Nazis took the place of the Jews.
The company became known for its designed productions. The rich scenery, and especially the lavish costumes, were a prominent hallmark of the films produced in it. As an added value to films, UFA studios have also dictated the entire popular culture, similar to the Hollywood film industry at its peak. UFA movie stars have shaped, through careful planning, the tastes, fashion and lifestyle in Germany. UFA has promoted itself, and the industry sectors close to it, through the intensive distribution of posters, advertisements, newsletters, magazines, movie diaries and of course a selection of the content in the movies.
UFA reflect the fate of the Nazi regime. The state-owned company initially created a production plant that ensured orderly productions, fixed salaries, and orderly film distribution. All the partners in the filmmaking, from Joseph Goebbels to the last crew members in the production, were dedicated film lovers. The productions were characterized by order and organization that were typical of the Nazi regime, compared to the relative disorder that was typical of the Weimar period productions. German order and discipline are immediately reflected to viewers in accurate scenes. Another value of the disciplined production was the ability to go out in cohesive outdoor filming teams in difficult conditions. Under crisis conditions, as during extensive military recruitment, manpower could be streamlined relatively easily. The production of any film was expensive, so it was important for the ability of the various studio managers to choose, through their centralized power, to create films according to artistic and national considerations, and not according to cheap commercial considerations.
The method has created a shortage of good scripts. The nationalized film industry has worked as a production line, and this is contrary to the original creative process, which does not succumb to the dictates of time. So when a pattern of success was identified, like aviation movies, it was repeated over and over again.
Important films made in UFA include:
During the Weimar Republic:
"Metropolis" (1927) - a film in the science fiction genre, with social significance, which was a prestigious production that almost brought UFA into bankruptcy. The plot of the film revolves around two groups of citizens in a futuristic society, the elite of the executives and the masses of workers, who live in two separate worlds, upper and lower. A robotic woman whips up a conflict between them, which ends in reconciliation.
films from the Nazi period:
"The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1943) - a fantastic, big budget and colorful comedy created by Goebbels, influenced by the Hollywood's "Wizard of Oz", about the Baron's imaginary stories known from children's books. The Baron has in the film the image of a superhero, who lives forever and possesses miraculous technologies. The festive premiere in Berlin took place during the announcement of the surrender in Stalingrad. The film thus reflects the illusion of victory through miracles and miracle weapons.
"Kohlberg" (1945) - a colorful, high-budget historical film, in the genre of Prussian war films, dozens of which were made at UFA studios. The film was made with the participation of tens of thousands of soldiers as extras. The plot of the film revolves around the resistance of the inhabitants of Kohlberg to the siege imposed on them by Napoleon's army. The protagonist of the film is a young officer, similar to Goebbels in appearance and speech, who shows decisiveness and leads the citizens to dig a defense system in preparation for the enemy attack, which crush the city by bombardment. The film is intended to prepare the German people for a long war on the home front.
Paris Domes
We were born and raised in cities
in them we breathe and travel
there is nothing inhuman in the city
except for the two of us sometimes
In the heart of the city flows the river Seine
like a silver snake twist and plain
It is a pair in cities everywhere
the full circle and the line of fair
Dialectics takes place
between station and road as circle and line
the square or dome are for peace of mind
and a plot unfold in the alley and boulevard
This design is a key
for everything that exists in the city
a circle or line dominate the space
as in the letters of the alphabet
A central urban circle is the dome
built on top public and state buildings
an important question for the tourist is
which dome to first visit
By the river you can see glass domes
of a huge structure in metal frame
it host important exhibitions
of art, fashion, cars and fairs
The dome most striking of them all
is the cathedral in white color
at the top of Montmartre the mount of arts
where people for their portraits drawing lust
This dome seems to float in the sky
hovering over the greater city sphere
inside there is a huge fresco of Jesus
spreading his arms as an airplane
The decorated dome is reminiscent
of invention older then two centuries
which gave Paris premiere
and the hot air balloon is its name
The dome express a view
of the sky is a core
an inspiration for all mankind
regardless of religion or roots
Another magnificent and large dome
is that of the Opera Hall
decorated with soul paintings
of people for compassion longing
In Lafayette Gallery department store
there is a huge and colorful dome
it is like in a palace or church
and give inspiration to the place
Napoleon’s tomb dome
tower on top of all with pride
It became a symbol
for France in the first class
On the left bank of the River Seine
is the impressive Pantheon Hall
with abstract dome and decorations
a shrine for French spiritual giants
Chatelet is a huge metro station
with a transparent glass ceiling
the amount of people passing through
is enormous inconceivably
Paris like any metropolis
grow on major traffic arteries
the museums are designed the same
for tours along long hallways
The avenues are long and wide
the whole metropolis they glorify
champs Elysees sing in chord
between the Victory Gate and Concord
Near the historic Bastille Square
there is a long and ancient aqueduct
which has become a green promenade
symbol of how modern France revitalize
Arriving to Paris is through endless tunnel
starting at the airport
it includes many parts
of terminals and transportation passages
The building which symbolize this tunnel
is the municipal library with the tubes
in them you ascend in escalators
to the reading halls on all floors
Once you exit the tunnel
Paris unfold in all its glory
with occupants of coffee shops
all along every vacant sidewalk
The square is like macaroon cookie
complicated and difficult to prepare
the bread baguette is like the street
popular and simple to treat and eat
Many Africans live in Paris
who are looking for original content
a reality of a futuristic experiment
based on their digital orientation
Paris is in need for urban renewal
which will contain its suburban sprawl
without it its center is decaying
and the suburbs become negative
Like photography the modern city does not
reflect human reality correctly
visual appearance is a cheap attitude
insulting the magnitude of history
The colorful Pride Parade is an example
of how human spirit in the city prevail
a world of people participate in it
enriching presence of Paris
Paris preserve its uniqueness
with punctuation in every corner
people are striving to reach it
and it will stay in the peak
The art of local street paintings
is an excellent demonstration of creation
original expressions on the walls
are imaginary treasure maps for all
From its start the city has been personified
as expression of planning and medicine
created for a healthy environment
to embody sights and mind
Chief destination for the tourists
are the great museums
in which many walls are decorated
with Impressionist masterpieces
The modern city is a broad subject
foundation of society and creativity
but it is experienced as an image
and is hooked to its bright lights
Man lives in his spatial world
far more than in his time
and In-Out are like Yes-No
to define all that is alive
The HeartMath Experience is a 90-minute video program that is divided into 9-chapters. HeartMath Experts and Master Trainers teach you 5 time-relevant and scientifically validated techniques. The program combines stunning visuals with valuable lessons to help you gain new insights.
The character is a powerful mutant, one of a fictional subspecies of humanity born with superhuman abilities, who has the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. Magneto regards mutants as evolutionarily superior to humans and rejects the possibility of peaceful human-mutant coexistence; he initially aimed to conquer the world to enable mutants, whom he refers to as homo superior, to replace humans as the dominant species. Writers have since fleshed out his origins and motivations, revealing him to be a Holocaust survivor whose extreme methods and cynical philosophy derive from his determination to protect mutants from suffering a similar fate at the hands of a world that fears and persecutes mutants. He is a friend of Professor X, the leader of the X-Men, but their different philosophies cause a rift in their friendship at times. Magneto's role in comics has varied from supervillain to antihero to superhero, having served as an occasional ally and even a member of the X-Men at times.
His character's early history has been compared with the civil rights leader Malcolm X and Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane. Magneto opposes the pacifist attitude of Professor X and pushes for a more aggressive approach to achieving civil rights. Magneto was ranked by IGN as the Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.
Ian McKellen portrayed Magneto in a majority of the X-Men film series, while Michael Fassbender portrayed a younger version of the character.