STUDY PACKET #2

WORLD SCHOLAR’S CUP 2024 CURRICULUM

“Reimagining the Present”

Section 3 - The Stuff that Dreams Are Remade Of

***
● Artists sometimes rethink what materials can even be used to make art.
Consider the butter sculptures [1] of Caroline Brooks, or the cassette
tape sculptures [2] of Erika Iris Simmons, in which the artist crafted
portraits of famous musicians out of their own recordings. Discuss with
your team: should more portraits be made of materials related to their
subjects? Do works such as Dominique Blain’s Missa [3]—an
assemblage of one hundred army boots—force us to reconsider old
topics in new ways, or do they rely too much on novelty instead of skill?
***

[1] Butter sculptures of Caroline Brooks

Butter as a sculpting medium can be traced back to "banquet art", a tradition most
associated with the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In the same vein as sugar
art, it was a way of bringing entertainment to the table and usually signified a
special occasion or part of the meal. The earliest reference to the practice dates
from 1536 and details the creations of Pope Pius V's cook Bartolomeo Scappi,
among which could be found an elephant and a tableau of Hercules engaged in
combat with a lion. Although these sculptures were only placed on the table long
enough to impress the guests, the American sculptor Caroline Shawk Brooks
(1840-1913) managed to exhibit her butter sculptures in galleries and exhibitions
by using ice to keep them from melting.

Brooks had always had an interest in art and, after marrying a farmer, she made
her first butter sculpture in 1867 as a way to promote the product. Not using
moulds, she was admired for utilizing traditional tools including a butter paddle,
broom straw, and a "camel's-hair pencil". In 1873, she made a sculpture of the
blind princess Iolanthe from Danish poet and playwright Henrik Hertz's verse
drama King René's Daughter. Dreaming Iolanthe, as it was known, was exhibited at
a Cincinnati gallery in 1874 for two weeks and attracted more than two thousand
people keen to catch a glimpse of the sleeping princess rendered in dairy product.
Continuing on the same subject, Brooks made a bas-relief bust of Iolanthe for the
Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876 and a full-sized sculpture which
was shipped to France and exhibited at the third Paris World's Fair in 1878. She
went on to study art in Paris and Florence, and although she later tended to forgo
dairy for the more traditional medium of marble, she always continued to use
butter as a material. Other notable sculptors to use butter as a medium include the
Norwegian-American sculptor John Karl Daniels, whose creations were featured in
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, in 1904, and the Minnesota State
Fair, 1910.

Caroline S. Brooks with a butter sculpture bas-relief of Columbus for the 1893
Columbian Exposition in Chicago

[2] Cassette tape sculptures of Erika Iris Simmons

Amazing art made with old audio cassette tapes

I’ve got 2 large boxes completely full of old cassette tapes (remember those?) in
my closet. There are probably over 400 tapes sitting there, degrading, losing their
magnetic information, slowly dissolving into silence, or perhaps more correctly,
white noise.

Will I ever listen to any of these again? Probably not. Heck, I don’t even own a tape
player. Even if I did want to listen to any of them one day, I’m sure I’d be
considerably disappointed in the sound quality (if there was any music still on
them at all), after having been spoiled with CD’s for so long.

I have no idea why I still keep them. Perhaps it’s one part nostalgia mixed with one
part being a bit of a pack rat and one part denial. Or maybe it’s just the fond
memories of seeing cassettes completely unraveled on the side of the road – their
former owners apparently hanging them out the window to see how far they would
stretch behind the car.

Cassette Tape Art

Well, artist Erika Iris Simmons has definitely done something useful with her tapes.

She is an artist who specializes in using non-traditional media such as old books,
audio cassettes, playing cards, magazines, credit cards, basically whatever he can
find. She says:
“It feels great to work with strange, older materials. Things that have a mind of
their own. Most everything I use has been thrown away or donated at some point.
Past its prime, like some of the finest things in the world.”

What she’s created with some old cassette tapes and reel tapes is simply
remarkable. Using these old tapes, she has turned them into works of art in a
series that she calls “Ghost in the Machine.” The series portrays celebrities and
musicians such as Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Robert DiNero, Jimi Hendrix, Ian
Curtis, and Jim Morrison.

Jim Morrison:
[3] Dominique Blain’s Missa

MISSA, 1992-2012
100 pairs of army boots, mono-filament, metal grid, 700 x 700 cm
Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal collection.

A nearly deafening silence immediately strikes the viewer of Blain’s remarkably

spartan installation. This soundlessness continues to resonate – and change – as
one walks around her three-dimensionnal grid of strings and shoes, filling in its
absences with haunting narratives and dark associations. Ominous connections
between facelessness and force, blind obedience and inhuman strenght, a sense
of belonging and one of being utterly lost gain clarity as one contemplates her
austere memorial to war and its – often abstract – if all-too-real consequences. –
David Pagel, Dominique Blain, Art Forum, 1993

***
● A scholar from New Zealand once revealed that her artistic talent also
involved an unusual medium: she painted on pizza dough—with tomato
sauce. (This approach works less well on existing paintings.) If she had
been born 40,000 years ago—and to an egalitarian society with access to
foreign fruits—she might have painted on cave walls instead. While
tomato-based pigment wouldn’t have survived to the modern era, some
ancient cave art has. Consider recent efforts [4] to reconstruct the
earliest cave art, including this 35,000 year-old illustration of a
babirusa [5] deep in the Maros-Pangkep caves of Indonesia. Then,
discuss with your team: were these early cave dwellers artists? Is there a
difference between painting and documentation—or between drawing
and doodling? Are Charles Darwin’s surviving sketches of finches [6] in
the Galapagos fit to be called works of art?
***

[4] Recent efforts to reconstruct the earliest cave art

Ancient cave art: How new hi-tech archaeology is revealing the ghosts of
human history
New details of our past are coming to light, hiding in the nooks and crannies of the
world, as we refine our techniques to go looking for them. Most lauded is the
reconstruction of the evolution of humanity since our African origins around
300,000 years ago, by analyzing our living and fossil DNA. Replete with the ghosts
of African and Eurasian populations of the deep past, these have been resurrected
only through the ability of science to reach into the world of the minuscule by
studying biomolecules.

Now, digital analysis of rock surfaces reveals how other ghosts of the deep past—
this time from almost 2,000 years ago in North America—have been coaxed into
the light. Writing in the journal Antiquity, Professor Jan Simek of the University of
Tennessee and colleagues have published images of giant glyphs carved into the
mud surface of the low ceiling of a cave in Alabama.

The motifs, which depict human forms and animals, are some of the largest known
cave images found in North America and may represent spirits of the underworld.
In the first image above, a drawing of a diamondback rattlesnake, an animal sacred
to indigenous people in the south-eastern U.S., stretches almost 3 meters long.
The image below shows a human figure just over 1.8m in length.

Human figure (1.81m tall). Credit: S. Alvarez; illustration by J. Simek/ Antiquity

In terms of dating the findings, ancient people rejuvenated a light in the cave (a
flaming torch of American bamboo) by stubbing it against the cave's wall. This left
a residue that the researchers were able to date with radiocarbon to 133–433 AD.
This was also in accord with the age of pottery fragments ancient artists left in the
cave.

The problem is seeing the paintings. The cave ceiling is only 60cm high, which
makes stepping back to view the large images impossible. They were revealed
only through a technique called photogrammetry, in which thousands of
overlapping photographs of an object or place are taken from different angles and
digitally combined in 3D. Photogrammetry is a cheap technique increasingly used
in archaeology to record artifacts, buildings, landscapes and caves. It allowed
Professor Simek's team to "lower" the cave floor up to 4 meters, enough for the
complete motifs to come into view for the first time.

Ancient art in other places

Rock art is found on almost every continent, and the earliest is at least 64,000
years old. It is likely that we know of only a tiny percentage of the rock art created
in the past. Pigments can dull and disappear; thin engravings can erode to
nothing; and cave walls can crumble or be covered over by crusts of carbonate
deposits or mud. Assuming more art does survive, the chances are we may never
see it unless we invest in research and new technologies.

Rock art in the dark zone of caves beyond the natural light in cave mouths was
only discovered in North America in 1979, more than a century after its discovery
in Europe (at Altamira in northern Spain). Some 500 European caves are known to
contain rock art from the Pleistocene era between 2.6 million and 11,700 years
ago.

One example critical to our own research only came to light through digital
manipulation of images that we took of it. Below is a hand stencil in the cave of
Maltravieso (Estremadura, western Spain) which was not immediately apparent
when we were searching the cave for suitable samples to date its art.

The stencil had been obscured by the build-up of calcium carbonate deposits. We
photographed the area and then used digital image enhancement software which
revealed the hand stencil very clearly. Until it re-emerged on our computer screen,
this 64,000 year old hand stencil remained undiscovered despite 70 years of
intensive study in the cave.

Light engravings—a very common Pleistocene technique—are notoriously difficult

to see. Parts of them may come to light using light shone at an oblique angle,
which we refer to as raking light. But with a technique known as reflectance
transformation imaging (RTI), which is similar to photogrammetry, 3D models can
be illuminated from any angle. These can reveal far more complete and complex
images.

Future archaeological searches for rock art will probably benefit from recent
developments in airport security. Full body scanners use far infra-red frequency
light that safely penetrates clothing to reveal concealed weapons or contraband,
and similar techniques have been used to "see through" layers of prehistoric wall
plaster to paintings underneath. When these scanners become small and cheap
enough to take into caves, who knows what further ghosts will come to light?

[5] 35,000 year-old illustration of a babirusa (pig deer) deep in the Maros-
Pangkep caves of Indonesia

Sulawesi Cave Art (37,900 BCE)

Leang Timpuseng Cave, Maros-Pangkep, Indonesia

Hand Stencil found at Leang Timpuseng Cave at

Maros Pangkep, Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Dating to 37,900 BCE. The oldest
hand painting in the world

Fragmented painting of a pig-deer

or babirusa, at Leang Timpuseng Cave.
Dating to 33,400 BCE. Second oldest
figurative painting ever found and the
oldest Asian art of the Paleolithic.
Leang Timpuseng Cave, Sulawesi.

Leang Timpuseng Cave

Cave painting in the Maros-Pangkep caves near Maros, on the Indonesian island of
Sulawesi, is among the oldest Stone Age art on the planet, according to a team of
scientists led by Dr Anthony Dosseto of the University of Wollongong, Australia, as
reported in Nature (Autumn 2014). The earliest art - discovered inside Leang
Timpuseng cave - consists of a hand stencil dating to at least 37,900 BCE. This
makes it the second oldest painting in the world. Only the El Castillo Cave
paintings, which date to 39,000 BCE in Spain are older. Also at Leang Timpuseng
cave is a painting of a "babirusa" (a type of SE Asian "pig-deer") dating to at least
33,400 BCE. All images were dated using Uranium/Thorium (U/Th) dating
techniques applied to overlying coralloid speleothem calcite deposits. The
discovery of the Sulawesi cave paintings proves that prehistoric art from the first
phase of the Upper Paleolithic was being created at opposite sides of the world.
This - together with recent discoveries of Paleolithic art at Blombos Cave and
Diepkloof Shelter in South Africa - supports the argument that modern humans
developed a common cultural and cognitive capability before leaving their home in
Africa, rather than after their arrival in Europe or SE Asia. If this is true, we can look
forward to more discoveries of rock art along the main stopping points of the route
taken by these African migrants to their new destinations.

Location

Sulawesi itself (previously called Celebes), the world's eleventh-largest island, is

situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands on the main migratory route from
the Asian continent to Australia. Maros Pangkep is a limestone hill, the second
biggest karst area in Asia, situated in the Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park
on the southwestern peninsula of Sulawesi, near the provincial capital of Makassar.
Leang Timpuseng cave is one of about ninety prehistoric caves at Maros Pangkep
containing Stone Age art - mostly murals and handprints - and since there is no
archeological evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi, all the cave art
was done by anatomically modern man - almost certainly Aborigine migrants on
their way to Australia. [Note: Further north, there is another set of caves at Bone,
which contain paintings that are stylistically identical to those found at Leang
Timpuseng. However, these murals cannot be directly dated since they are not
encrusted with calcite - the substance used to fix the age of the underlying art at
Maros.

Discovery

The caves were first visited by the British explorer and naturalist Alfred Wallace in
July 1857, during his trip to the East Indies. He later published the results of his
trip in his book "The Malay Archipelago", although he made no mention of any
cave paintings. In 1905-6, the Swiss naturalists Fritz and Paul Sarasin led a
scientific expedition to Indonesia and returned with vivid accounts of ancient rock
paintings, but offered few specifics. In fact there was no written account of Maros
Pangkep cave art until 1950, when the Dutch archeologist H.R. van Heereken first
reported the presence of hundreds of hand stencils and images of animals. Since
then, Indonesian researchers have conducted a number of excavations in the
caves, but few detailed reports have been published, not least because the art was
assumed to be no more than 12,000 years old. Then in 1993, The XI International
Speleology Congress recommended that Maros Pangkep be adopted by UNESCO
as a World Heritage site. In 2009, the Indonesian government submitted Maros
Pangkep for inclusion on the UNESCO tentative list of World Heritage Sites.

Dating

Recently, an Australian-Indonesian team of archeologists and researchers -

including Maxime Aubert and Adam Brumm, research fellows at Griffith University
in Queensland - examined 12 images of human hands and two animal pictures in
seven limestone caves at Maros Pangkep, and reported their results in Nature.

In order to date the 14 paintings, the team used a "uranium decay technique".
They collected 19 samples taken from thin layers of calcite (less than 10
millimetres or 0.4 inches thick) deposited on top of the painted surfaces over
thousands of years, by mineral-rich water, dripping down the cave walls. The
calcite contains traces of the chemical element uranium which decays into thorium
at a specific rate. Thus, by analysing levels of the two elements in the calcite,
Aubert and his colleagues were able to fix the minimum age of the painting which
lay underneath.

The results showed that most of the artwork is around 25,000 years old, which
ranks it alongside the oldest scientifically dated works of art in Southeast Asia,
notably the Nawarla Gabarnmang Charcoal Drawing (c. 26,000 BCE), found at a
cave in Arnhem Land, in Australia.

However, the oldest art - a negative handprint, found on a 4-metre high ceiling in
Leang Timpuseng Cave - was dated to at least 37,900 BCE, making it the oldest
hand stencil in the world and the oldest piece of archeological evidence of a
human presence on Sulawesi.

In the same cave, researchers found a picture of a female pig-deer (babirusa)

dating to at least 33,400 BCE, which ranks it alongside the world's oldest
figurative art - the Fumane Cave paintings, found near Verona in Italy - which date
to 35,000 BCE. The next oldest figurative art from Europe is an image of a
rhinoceros among the Chauvet Cave paintings from the Ardeche Gorge in France,
dated to approximately 30,000 BCE, although some (non-French) archeologists
continue to question this estimate.

The Cave Art

As in the oldest sites of Franco-Cantabrian cave art - including Altamira Cave, El

Castillo, Cosquer Cave and Pech Merle Cave - as well as the Karawari rock shelters
of Papua New Guinea, and the Kalimantan Caves in Borneo, the Sulawesi caves
contain both handprints and animal paintings. As to the prehistoric animals
depicted, the vast majority are large, sometimes fearsome, mammal species that
no doubt loomed large in the lives and belief systems of the cave painters
involved. Most of the creatures in the murals are identifiable, although certain
physiological features are exaggerated in some pictures, perhaps for spiritual,
shamanistic or aesthetic reasons. The most commonly painted animals at Maros
Pangkep are pig-deer known as babirusas, Indonesian warty pigs and small
buffalos known as anoas.

The oldest cave art in the Maros Pangkep caves tends to be handprints and other
abstract signs, followed by the animal pictures, the latest of which is dated to
15,400 BCE. In other words, Sulawesi's art was created during all four of the main
European cultures of the Upper Paleolithic: the Aurignacian (40,000-25,000 BCE),
the Gravettian (25,000-20,000), the Solutrean (20,000-15,000) and the
Magdalenian (c.15,000-10,000).

The uranium/thorium dates obtained for the hand stencil (37,900 BCE) and pig-
deer painting (33,400 BCE) at Leang Timpuseng Cave are minimum dates, but
nevertheless they establish the following. The island of Sulawesi is now home to
the oldest prehistoric art in SE Asia; its caves contain the oldest hand stencil ever
found and the second oldest figurative painting ever found.

Significance
Up until recently, it was believed that "modern humans" - who began migrating
from Africa across the globe, about 80,000 BCE - lacked the cultural and cognitive
capacity to create parietal or mobiliary art of any significance. It was only much
later (from about 15,000 BCE) that they developed any real artistic ability. Except
for moderns who migrated to Europe. Unlike most other migrants, those arriving in
Europe (from about 40,000 BCE) met and clashed with the indigenous species of
Neanderthal man. This clash, it was believed, precipitated a major "cultural and
cognitive advance" which enabled the European moderns to create art. Alas, this
argument has become weaker and weaker, as it became obvious that these
moderns were creating art from the moment of their arrival - that is, well before
such a "cultural and cognitive advance" could have occurred.

So where had the artists at Altamira, El Castillo, Hohlenstein and Chauvet cave
acquired the mental capacity needed to create their pictographs and venus
figurines?

The answer, most archeologists began to suspect, was - in Africa. Except there
was very little evidence. Hardly any prehistoric art had been found in East Asia, SE
Asia, Australia or the Americas, that was contemporaneous with that of Europe,
and most known works were much younger.

But the discoveries in the caves of Sulawesi have changed everything. Because we
now know that very similar parietal art was being created at opposite ends of the
world. Which is either an incredible coincidence, or else it shows that modern man
shared a common creative ability - which, if true, means that he must have
developed this ability BEFORE leaving Africa. This possibility is supported by
recent discoveries of the Blombos Cave Engravings, not far from Cape Town, and
the Diepkloof Eggshell Engravings in Western Cape, in South Africa.

We should certainly expect new discoveries of Aboriginal rock art in Australia.

After all, if prehistoric artists were creating cave art at Sulawesi - less than 500
miles away from Australia's northern coastline - in 37,900 BCE, they must have
reached Australia within a relatively short time thereafter. Yet despite the
profusion of prehistoric petroglyphs among the Burrup Peninsula Rock Art from
the Pilbara, the Kimberley rock art from the northern fringe of Western Australia,
and the Ubirr rock art from Kakadu National Park, Arnhem Land, the oldest artwork
in Australia is carbon-dated to as late as 26,000 BCE.

[6] Are Charles Darwin’s surviving sketches of finches in the Galapagos fit to
be called works of art?
Charles Darwin's Finches

Charles Darwin is known as the father of evolution. When he was a young man,
Darwin set out on a voyage on the HMS Beagle. The ship sailed from England in
late December of 1831 with Charles Darwin aboard as the crew's naturalist. The
voyage was to take the ship around South America with many stops along the way.
It was Darwin's job to study the local flora and fauna, collecting samples and
making observations he could take back to Europe with him of such a diverse and
tropical location.

The crew made it to South America in a few short months, after a brief stop in the
Canary Islands. Darwin spent most of his time on land collecting data. They stayed
for more than three years on the continent of South America before venturing on
to other locations. The next celebrated stop for the HMS Beagle was the
Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.

Galapagos Islands

Charles Darwin and the rest of the HMS Beagle crew spent only five weeks in the
Galapagos Islands, but the research performed there and the species Darwin
brought back to England were instrumental in the formation of a core part of the
original theory of evolution and Darwin's ideas on natural selection which he
published in his first book . Darwin studied the geology of the region along with
giant tortoises that were indigenous to the area.

Perhaps the best known of Darwin's species he collected while on the Galapagos
Islands were what are now called "Darwin's Finches". In reality, these birds are not
really part of the finch family and are thought to probably actually be some sort of
blackbird or mockingbird. However, Darwin was not very familiar with birds, so he
killed and preserved the specimens to take back to England with him where he
could collaborate with an ornithologist.

Finches and Evolution

The HMS Beagle continued to sail on to as far away lands as New Zealand before
returning to England in 1836. It was back in Europe when he enlisted in the help of
John Gould, a celebrated ornithologist in England. Gould was surprised to see the
differences in the beaks of the birds and identified the 14 different specimens as
actual different species - 12 of which were brand new species. He had not seen
these species anywhere else before and concluded they were unique to the
Galapagos Islands. The other, similar, birds Darwin had brought back from the
South American mainland were much more common but different than the new
Galapagos species.

Charles Darwin did not come up with the Theory of Evolution on this voyage. As a
matter of fact, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin had already instilled the idea that
species change through time in Charles. However, the Galapagos finches helped
Darwin solidify his idea of natural selection. The favorable adaptations of Darwin's
Finches' beaks were selected for over generations until they all branched out to
make new species.

These birds, although nearly identical in all other ways to mainland finches, had
different beaks. Their beaks had adapted to the type of food they ate in order to
fill different niches on the Galapagos Islands. Their isolation on the islands over
long periods of time made them undergo speciation. Charles Darwin then began to
disregard the previous thoughts on evolution put forth by Jean Baptiste Lamarck
who claimed species spontaneously generated from nothingness.

Darwin wrote about his travels in the book The Voyage of the Beagle and fully
explored the information he gained from the Galapagos Finches in his most
famous book On the Origin of Species. It was in that publication that he first
discussed how species changed over time, including divergent evolution, or
adaptive radiation, of the Galapagos finches.

***
 ● If it were a Starbucks, they’d just build another one across the street. It’s
harder to know what to do when a historical site is overcrowded. Some
governments impose quotas, as Peru did in 2019 on visitors to the Incan
city of Machu Picchu. Facing a similar situation when tourists swamped
its Lascaux Caves to see the art on their walls, France—built another
one [7] across the street. Is it misleading to present such recreations to
tourists as worthwhile destinations? Does it matter whether the
duplicates were made by human hands or a 3D printer, or how far they
are from the original?
***

[7] France built another Lascaux Cave

Next To The Original, France Replicates Prehistoric Cave Paintings

The French government has built an exact replica of the prehistoric paintings in
Lascaux, next to the originals. This photo was taken in the replicated cave. The
originals were painted some 20,000 years ago, but are closed to the public to
protect the artwork.

On a September day in 1940 while much of Europe was engulfed in war, four
teenagers were walking through a forest in southern France when their dog fell
down a hole. As they called for it they heard an echo. Crawling in to rescue the
dog, the boys discovered a cave with hundreds of prehistoric animals painted
across its walls and ceiling. It turned out to be one of the world's best examples of
prehistoric art.

The Lascaux cave became a popular tourist site after World War II. But it had to be
sealed off to the public in 1963 because the breath and sweat of visitors created
carbon dioxide and humidity that would damage the paintings.

Now the French government has spent $64 million building a near perfect replica
to recreate the original cave — and the emotions of that first discovery. To see the
replica, which is next to the actual cave, you begin outside, at the top of the
adjoining museum. Visitors walk slowly down toward the cave entrance. All the
while, sounds of the surrounding forest on a summer day are played on speakers.
This specific order to the visit, referred to as the museum's sequencing, is
important to recreating an authentic experience, says Dina Casson, who was part
of the team that worked on the museum's design.

"When you visit the original cave, you're actually walking through the forest with
these sounds," says Casson. Casson says recreating the impression of going
underground and coming out again – from light to darkness to light again is also
important. One member of her team was allowed into the original cave. "That was
one of the things that he said was so powerful," says Casson. "This sense of being
outside, then inside, then outside."

Once inside the replica, the temperature is cool and constant, just like the real
cave. As eyes adjust to the darkness there are suddenly animals everywhere. The
more than 600 paintings and a thousand engravings in the actual cave were done
20,000 years ago. Using a laser light to point out details, archeologist Jean-Pierre
Chadelle says these early human artists used very advanced techniques. "You can
see how they used a magnesium pencil for the black horns of this bull," he says.
"And for the softness of the muzzle they used another technique. They blow dried
paint made from natural ochre colors through a tool crafted from hollow bird
bones."

Chadelle used to give tours in the original cave, which he says eventually became
a victim of its own success. "There were so many visitors that people were passing
out inside the cave from all the carbon dioxide." Chadelle says in the 1950s the
hole the boys climbed through was opened up so a giant fan could be installed to
help circulate the air. "That's why this replica is almost more real than the real
cave," says Chadelle. "Because it has that original hole the boys climbed through."

Guillaume Colombo is the director of the new cave and museum complex at
Lascaux. He says the art was so well preserved for so long because the cave was
sealed tight — like a cork in a champagne bottle. "So the cave wasn't affected by
sudden temperature changes," says Colombo. "And another reason it was
protected is there's a layer of clay in the soil that waterproofs the cave. That's why
Lascaux has no stalactites or stalagmites. It's a dry cave."

Standing in the first big room of the cave replica, known as The Hall of Bulls,
prehistorian Jean Clottes says the animals don't really represent what these Cro
Magnon humans would have hunted and eaten at the time. "That would have been
mammoth or reindeer," he says. Clottes says the many bulls and horses were likely
animals that played a role in the beliefs and spiritual life of these early humans.

There are many mysteries surrounding the Lascaux cave paintings. For example,
experts don't really know how long it took to complete them. "There was a code
and a certain style they all follow, so we are pretty sure they were done by a small
group, and in just a few years," says museum director Colombo. "But we don't
know if it was a few years within a hundred years or a thousand years." Colombo
says the paintings were most likely done by a couple generations of painters who
passed down the knowledge.

Such questions can be explored in interactive exhibits in the museum. Each visitor
is offered a personalized tablet available in 10 languages. The glass museum looks
as if it was slipped into a fault line on the hillside.

Norwegian Thorsen Kjetilis is one of the architects. He calls the museum a link
between past and present. "It is a very contemporary building cut into the
landscape and out of the landscape," says Kjetilis. "It's just at the borderline
between the vertical forest where the original cave lies behind us, and the
horizontally of the farmlands in front."

The whole complex, known as Lascaux IV, is the third and most ambitious attempt
to replicate the famous cave. It is precise down to three millimeters thanks to 3D
digital scanning of the actual cave. Every nook and cranny is recreated using
polysterine and resin, and the latest fiberglass techniques.

Francis Ringenbach led the team of 34 artists who reconstructed the cave walls
and ceilings and then copied the paintings onto them. He calls the three-year job
"colossal." Ringenbach says to reproduce the art, high-definition images of the
paintings were projected onto the walls and copied pixel by pixel. The painstaking
work gave them a real appreciation for the skills of the prehistoric artists.
Ringenbach says they had a real level of mastery, and used the surface of the
cave. "These animals are not positioned by chance," he says. "For example, the
eye of this bison is not engraved, it's a natural cavity they exploited to make the
eye."

Ringenbach says the more his team worked, the more astonished they were.
"Putting ourselves in the context made us realize how difficult the conditions were.
They were working in darkness and working from memory to do these
compositions." Ringenbach said the prehistoric painters would also have had
scaffolding that was fairly comfortable. "They certainly weren't working on a
branch." At times, he says the copy job became emotional. "There were moments
when I realized that I must be doing the exact gestures and movements of the
prehistoric artist. And that's when a little shiver would go down my spine," he says.

***
● Consider this proposal to build another Egyptian pyramid [8] in Detroit
or this second Eiffel Tower [9], named Eiffela by creator Phillipe
Maindron. The world is full of such efforts: learn more about these other
Eiffel tower replicas [10], including those in Texas, Pakistan, and China,
then discuss with your team: what other historical landmark would you
want to duplicate? Where would you put it, and would you make it exactly
like the original or would you reimagine it in some way?
***

[8] Proposal to build another Egyptian pyramid in Detroit

TWO PYRAMIDS ARE TWICE AS GOOD AS ONE

An interesting article about Detroit surfaced during D3’s hours laboring through
old academic texts. In 1908, an engineer mused about the requirements to build a
complete, full-scale replica of the Giza’s Great Pyramid in Detroit. The idea was
proposed by E.S. Wheeler of the Association of Engineering Societies, who gave
the following as the justification behind his presentation:

Now when any of you prepare a paper for this society it is informed with the best
theories, latest results, numberless experiments, crucial tests, exact weights and
measures, and your own final conclusions. To listen to and grasp such a paper
require alert faculties and close attention. Sometimes it makes me dizzy, and I get
behind and am dissatisfies because my wits are not nimble enough to keep up with
the theme and its logic and my memory is not comprehensive enough to retain the
results. I remember that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”; there that
we may have some play mixed with our busy days, I have prepared a whimsical
paper that will not require close attention or logical analysis, but rather the free
use of fancy and imagination, and while it may bore you to listen to it, it will not
tire you to understand it. – E.S. Wheeler, “Plans, Specifications, and Estimates of
the Cost of Building in Detroit an Exact Duplicate of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh”

In the spirit of completely impractical analysis, here are the details for Mr.
Wheeler’s plan.
The twelve-acre site was to be built on Fort Street between Griswold and Cass,
home to Cadillac’s village in 1702 and site of the fort attacked by Pontiac in 1763.
Today, this would be sitting atop the Levin courthouse, the Penobscot building,
and a chain sandwich restaurant. The cost in 1908 of the pyramid, which would
have been 485 feet tall and 706 feet on a side, was $36,000,000. (Wheeler
mentions for comparison that it cost $8,000,000 at the time to build the Detroit-
Windsor tunnel.) Adjusting for inflation for today, the cost of the pyramid would be
$926.5 million. But while the distinguished E.S. was aware of the vast cost, he was
very optimistic on the speed in which we could build them with the vastness of the
country’s resources:

Finally, if a day’s work is worth a dollar and a half, it would require 24,000,000
days’ work to build a pyramid. The population of the United States is about
80,000,000. It is reckoned that one in five is able to do a day’s work; therefore
there is available 16,000,000 days’ work each day; it would take a day and a half to
build a pyramid. If the United States should stop all other work and devote itself
entirely to building pyramids, as was probably the case in Egypt, it would, after it
got fairly running, be able to turn out two every three days. – E.S. Wheeler, Id.

Extrapolating this equation for the current national population of 312 million would
give us the ability to produce 2.6 pyramids a day, advancements in construction
techniques notwithstanding. Get to work, Detroit!

[9] Second Eiffel Tower, named Eiffela by creator Phillipe Maindron

Eiffel Tower: Iconic Paris landmark gets a mini-twin

There are now two Eiffel Towers in Paris, thanks to an artist who has decided
to install a mini one.

● Phillipe Maindron built an Eiffel Tower that is around a tenth of the size of
the original.
● He said he wanted create something "carefree" - and named his baby
Tower the Eiffela.
● The Eiffel Tower is one of the most iconic landmarks in Europe, and it
stands at 330 metres high.
"Eifella" - This is what the artist decided to call his mini-tribute to the Eiffel
Tower.
Despite being a lot smaller than the original - it's still a decent size - standing at
just over 32 metres tall. Phillipe Maindron said he wanted to pay tribute to the
famous landmark, that millions of tourists visit every year. Many people thought it
might have been an April Fools' joke - but the mini-tower is staying up until 10
April. The Eiffel Tower did have one prank to play on April Fools' Day this year -
with a post going out on social media saying that it would be turned into a giant
slide. Sounds like a pretty good idea to us, actually!

The Eiffel Tower's history - The famous tower started construction in 1887 and
was completed in March 1889. It stands currently at about 330 metres and, before
antennas were added to the top, it stood at about 312 metres high! It took a team
of between 150-300 people to build it.
The Eiffel Tower is made up of 18,038 iron parts, 2,500,000 rivets and four pillars
to make up the 410 square-foot monument.

Live from the Eiffel Tower - From 1903, the tower was used as a military radio
post, and more recently it's been used to broadcast TV. The Eiffel Tower was only
supposed to be a temporary structure - but it's still standing today. It's repainted
every seven years, and will get a new coat in the next year before the 2024 Paris
Olympics.

[10] Learn more about these other Eiffel tower replicas

Top 10 Eiffel Tower replicas in the world

Every year, more than 7 million visitors come from all over the world to see the
Eiffel Tower, but maybe they needn’t have bothered… Did you know there are over
80 replicas of the famous monument spread across the globe? As well as a few in
France these replicas appear in Texas, Tennessee, Tianducheng, Las Vegas, Tokyo
and Blackpool, to name a few! Here are some of our favourites.

1. Lyon, France - Lyon’s version of the Eiffel Tower, The Metallic Tower of
Fourvière, was actually built three years before Gustave Eiffel’s creation. Who’s to
say it wasn’t the original source of inspiration for the famous monument?

2. Paris, Texas, USA - There are several cities named Paris in the world, including
one in Texas and one in Tennessee. In keeping with the original Paris, both cities
have constructed their own Eiffel Tower replicas, with Texas adding a cowboy hat
on top of their tower to make sure that it was taller than Tennessee’s.
3. Blackpool, England - The Blackpool Tower in Blackpool, England, is the oldest
known Eiffel Tower replica. Built in 1894, it has become the coastal town’s best
known attraction. Measuring 158 metres tall, it dominates the Blackpool skyline.

4. Las Vegas, USA - At half the size of the original, this Eiffel Tower replica in Las
Vegas is located alongside a 2:3 scale model of the Arc de Triomphe and a replica
of the Louvre! All of these models are part of the Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino.

5. Tokyo, Japan - Tokyo’s replica Eiffel Tower is the tallest on the list: taller, even,
than the original Parisian version! At 333 metres, it’s the second tallest structure in
Japan. That, plus its red and white frame mean it certainly stands out in the city’s
skyline.
6. Tianducheng, China - In 2007, China built Tianducheng, an entire town that
was supposed to look like Paris. It came complete with a Champs-Elysées,
Haussmannien architecture and of course, an Eiffel Tower. Despite the town having
a capacity of approximately 10,000 people, it is said that fewer than 2000
currently live there – reportedly, it feels like a bit of a ghost town. On the plus side,
it is a very realistic Eiffel Tower replica.
7. Slobozia, Romania - In stark contrast to the original Eiffel Tower, this replica is
located in the middle of a field in Romania rather than the bustling city of Paris. It
was commissioned and paid for by a Romanian billionaire, and although it might be
less than 60 metres tall, it certainly stands out amongst the surrounding
countryside.
8. Sydney, Australia - Sydney’s answer to the Eiffel Tower is located on top of the
AWA – broadcaster and maker of radios – headquarters, and is actually a radio
transmission tower. When it was first built, it included a viewing platform, but this
was left out of the rebuild in 1994.

9. Lahore, Pakistan - One of the most realistic Eiffel Tower replicas on the list is
this one located in Pakistan. You can go up this tower just like the Parisian one for
a view over a very different city.

10. Filiatra, Greece - This town in Greece is often known as ‘Little Paris’ thanks to
the model Eiffel Tower replica built at its entrance. In fact, it is often seen as the
main tourist attraction in a place that is otherwise quiet and unknown.
***
● Even if these sites weren’t overcrowded—more Baku than Kuala Lumpur—
they would still require us to travel to them. Not everyone has the means.
But, at least in theory, far more people could visit reconstructions of
them in virtual reality, or VR. (VR was the last trendy two-letter acronym
before AI.) Explore the offerings of the Australian company Lithodomos,
then discuss with your team: would you support this technology being
used in classrooms [11]? Should more real-world tourism be replaced
with VR visits? Check out the following VR implementations at museums,
then discuss with your team: are these VR interpretations of past works
themselves new works of art?
○ The Ochre Atelier [12] | London Tate Museum
○ The Opening of the Diet 1863 [13] | National Museum of Finland

***

[11] Would you support this technology being used in classrooms?

Virtual Pompeii: GU students time traveling in class using Lithodomos VR

technology

Thanks to virtual reality, history students can tour Pompeii much like they’re
passing through it before Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
Gonzaga University history professor Andrew Goldman, an archeologist, is testing
new tools in a class on Pompeii, an ancient Roman city buried by thick volcanic
ash. For an Oct. 4 study, students used their smartphones, $5 cardboard viewers
and VR technology tied to archeological evidence. Up popped colorful, 360-
degree images of a prominent resident’s atrium room in the House of the Faun –
so named for a statue. About 20 students also viewed a Pompeii bakery and then
ventured into the city’s forum where the Temple of Jupiter sat.

“Hello, sacks of flour,” said student Will Georges while looking around the ancient
bakery. Georges worked with the class of 20 students to answer Goldman’s
questions about life in Pompeii, such as the layout of living spaces and sources of
water, before the volcano’s destructive eruption. “They’ve re-created a long-
destroyed city and let you walk through it and see what it was like to live there,”
Georges said. “The forum was the biggest shock. We always thought of Pompeii as
a little town, well-preserved, then we saw a massive forum.”

This year, Goldman is trying out classroom applications for new technology being
developed by Lithodomos VR, an Australian company. Lithodomos has created
nearly 400 virtual-reality “experiences” of ancient cities, mainly for tourists, but
also for educational uses. Goldman said he hopes to use Lithodomos’ VR in other
history classes as an educational tool.

Goldman first heard about the VR archeological company about two years ago
when he was in Turkey doing a project on the Black Sea. He was visited by his
friend Simon Young, Lithodomos’ founder and also an Australian archeologist. “I
was pretty wowed by the technology of Lithodomos VR,” Goldman said. “I asked
him if we could be one of the trial runs of actually building this into a classroom.
He loved the idea, so he and I collaborated.” “This company has professional
archeologists, so they go through a very rigorous process of looking at the
archeological evidence, ancient paintings or carvings of the buildings and literary
sources. These reconstructions are about as accurate as they can be.” “It’s
completely immersive, and you can see 360 degrees.”

GU’s College of Arts and Sciences provided a grant toward the project for
educational use in its classes. Goldman said he wants to take students beyond
“the wow factor” by asking them questions based on the viewpoints about how
people lived in ancient times and what shaped the civilizations. The GU professor
first used Lithodomos VR in an ancient city course taught last spring. In the past,
virtual-reality technology and equipment were bulky and expensive, Goldman said,
but that’s changing. Today, many students own a smartphone, and a number of
them are familiar with VR because of gaming.

In the near future, Goldman said he hopes GU history students can download an
app for about $20, comparable to an inexpensive textbook, to view the VR images
for course questions. “One of the reasons why we felt we could do this is the
technology has advanced to the stage where you’re downloading an app, then you
put your phone into these phone-ready cardboard lenses that are very
inexpensive,” he said. “What it has meant is we can try using virtual reality in the
classroom at a low cost to the students.”

Based on feedback from this past spring, Goldman said Lithodomos has refined
certain aspects such as the use of QR codes to scan for a VR playlist. Meanwhile,
Goldman has worked on how best to bring the tool into classes. “I’ve designed all
kinds of assignment using different VR viewpoints,” Goldman added. “My favorite
is in the ancient Colosseum of Rome. “There are about a dozen different
viewpoints from individual places across the Colosseum. You can see it from the
position of a wealthy person, from the nosebleed seats and underneath where the
animals were caged. “So you can explore it not as tourist today in the ruins, but
how it would have looked in antiquity.” It stimulates questions about the workings
of ancient cities and how different classes of people experienced them.
“Oftentimes, we have accounts of the wealthy,” Goldman said. “This lets us stretch
into the corners a bit more.”

Other questions can explore how structures were built, what historical sources
were used for viewpoints and about facts known or still unknown. Ancient Rome
had sophistication such as culture, running water and well-planned public spaces,
he said. “We use these experiences as a way to think about how accurate are
these, how real, what do we know about an ancient cityscape?” he said. “For the
students, it also opens up their eyes to the colors and fabrics of the ancient
world.” Some 3D models of ancient civilizations now can be viewed on computers,
but many university history classes are still using textbooks, he said.

Unlike looking at a flat image in a book, the students gazed up, down and all
around at the House of the Faun. They talked with Goldman about the vast living
spaces, rich building materials and artwork that included a mosaic of Alexander
the Great. The students learned that the atrium’s small rectangular pool was a
water source from collected rain descending from an open roof space above.

Damian Aranda, a student from Oregon, thought the images were more realistic
than looking at pictures in a book. “Pictures only can show you so much as far as
details,” he said. “I thought the experience was amazing because in VR, it’s like
you’re the person at the time seeing it with their eyes walking through Pompeii.
Although it’s not identical, it’s very close.”

[12] The Ochre Atelier | London Tate Museum

Modigliani VR - The Ochre Atelier

Go behind-the-scenes and discover how we recreated the artist's final Parisian
studio in virtual reality.

The Modigliani VR: The Ochre Atelier can be experienced as part of the Modigliani
exhibition at Tate Modern 23 November 2017 – 2 April 2018. A limited number of
visitors will be able to view the VR experience on a first-come, first-served basis
by joining the queue outside room 10 of the exhibition. Average wait is 25 minutes.

In 1919, painter Modigliani returned to Paris from the south of France. The war was
over; his health had improved. His art dealer, Léopold Zborowski found a studio
and living space for Modigliani and his partner, Jeanne Hébuterne on the rue de la
Grand Chaumière, near the cafés and meeting places of Montparnasse.
Modigliani’s friend Lunia Czechowska recalled

This was a very modest kingdom, but it was his. I’ll never forget the day when he
took possession of his new domain. His happiness was enough to move us all.

Modigliani’s final studio still exists, but almost 100 years after the artist's death, its
appearance has changed significantly. Through study of documentary material and
of Modigliani’s works themselves, the environment in which the artist made his last
works is reimagined. In this VR experience you can immerse yourself in a virtual
reality recreation of Modigliani’s final studio, which uses the actual studio space as
a template.

What is the VR about?

The Modigliani VR: The Ochre Atelier reimagines Modigliani's final Parisian studio,
where he lived and worked in the final months of his life in 1919 and 1920. A
previously undocumented space, the artist's studio has been brought back to life
through more than 60 objects, artworks and materials.

Almost 100 years since the artist's death, hear the words of those who knew
Modigliani best and explore the studio where he is likely to have painted Self-
Portrait 1919.

How did we recreate Modigliani's studio?

There are no photographs of the studio from the 1910s. Using the actual space as
a template, as well as first-hand accounts, historical and technical research, we
reconstructed the studio to accurately reflect the artist's living environment. Each
object included in the experience has been carefully researched, validated by art
historians and modeled authentically by the team at Preloaded. This includes the
cans of sardines, the cigarette packet and even the way the windows would have
opened to let the light in.

It took more than five months of rigorous research to meticulously recreate the
studio, its interiors, objects and the artworks shown. The experience was brought
to life by multiple teams at Tate including AV, Conservation, Curatorial and Digital.
This involved a research trip to the Parisian studio as well as collaborative work
with artists, designers, developers and producers at Preloaded.

How did we recreate Modigliani's artworks?

As part of a Tate-led Technical Research project, we collaborated with colleagues

at Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil and The
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their analysis provided new insights into the
materials and methods behind two of Modigliani's most important paintings; Self-
Portrait 1919 and Jeanne Hébuterne 1919.

Together with new technical imaging, this research allowed us to portray these
artworks with painstaking accuracy, from the surface texture of the canvas, to the
types of paint and brushes the artist may have used, to the type of stretcher the
self-portrait may have originally been painted on.
Self Portrait, 1919, by Amedeo Modigliani
Jeanne Hébuterne 1919, by Amedeo Modigliani, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York

[13] The Opening of the Diet 1863 | National Museum of Finland

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINLAND OFFERS VIRTUAL TIME TRAVEL

With the opening of the new VR exhibit, visitors to the museum will be able to step
back in time to the year 1863 by donning a VR headset and walking inside R. W.
Ekman’s painting ‘The Opening of he Diet 1863 by Alexander II’.

Original painting:
The exhibit lets visitors get a unique view of the Diet of Finland, the legislative
body that existed from 1809 to 1906. They will be able to speak with the emperor
and representatives of the different social classes, or visit the Hall of Mirrors in
what was formerly the Imperial Palace, now known as the Presidential Palace.

The VR experience forms part of a wider exhibition formed around 1860s Finland
as an autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia. The aim of the exhibition is to blend
historical artifacts with a digital world to give visitors the feeling of walking into
history.

The VR experience was built by Zoan Oy, who are the largest VR studio in Finland.
The company have made it their mission to make Finland into the most virtual
society in the world.

***
● Artists have been experimenting with integrating VR directly into their
work. Consider the pieces below, then discuss with your team: would
they still have as much artistic value without the VR elements? How soon
do you think AI will be integrated into art in the same way, or is this
integration already happening?
○ I Came and Went as a Ghost Hand [14] | Rachel Rossin (2016)
○ La Camera Insabbiata [15] | Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang
 ○

(2017)
***

[14] I Came and Went as a Ghost Hand | Rachel Rossin (2016)

A portrait of the artist’s studio – in virtual reality

I Came And Went As A Ghost Hand (Cycle 2) (2015), Rachel Rossin

The building that houses the Zabludowicz Collection in north London is a local
heritage landmark: a Grade II-listed 19th-century Methodist chapel in the
neoclassical style, its façade complete with Corinthian columns, carved wreath-
adorned pediment, tall round-arched entrance and stained glass windows. Inside,
however, the focus is very much on the present – and the future. This January, the
centre for contemporary art opened the first dedicated space in the UK for
exhibiting works made using virtual reality (VR) technology.

Located at the back of the building, on its upper level, the 360: VR Room is just
that – a tiny room. The only object inside is a VR headset, its cord dangling from
the ceiling. The room’s other notable feature is a mosaic of triangular prisms,
made out of black foam, that lines its four walls: the vestiges of an installation by
Haroon Mirza for his recent exhibition, designed to create an ‘anechoic chamber’
that shuts out all sound and light (and potentially triggers a hallucinatory state for
the sensory-deprived visitor). It’s a fitting environment for an experience intended
to transport its users somewhere else entirely, to a different – virtual – reality.
The artwork chosen to inaugurate the space is a piece from the Zabludowicz
Collection (there are, at the most recent count, seven VR works in the collection)
by American artist Rachel Rossin. The work, titled I Came and Went as a Ghost
Hand (Cycle 2), was made in 2015 during Rossin’s fellowship in virtual reality
research and development at the New Museum in New York. Donning the VR
headset, viewers find themselves in a strange world that is impossible to mistake
for the real.

A pale yellow background, stretching in all directions, provides the depthless

surface for a constantly moving arrangement of multi-coloured forms, ranging
from the clearly identifiable (a staircase, a doorway, a female figure sitting cross-
legged, a crawling outline of a hand) to pixellated abstractions. Turning their head
or taking a step forward, the viewer can explore the space – but, like a ghost, will
find it impossible to make any contact with their surroundings: effortlessly
penetrating brick walls; unidentified flying objects soaring as if right through them.
(Until, that is, they step a little too far and end up gently colliding with the
thankfully soft edges of the foam-lined chamber.) Over time, a clearer sense of
location emerges in this VR world. Rossin has created a modern-day portrait of the
artist’s studio. A work table, stacked canvases, the artist at her easel (and laptop):
these are all objects and scenes captured using 3D scans in her own studio space
in New York, where Rossin makes both her digital works and oil paintings on
canvas.

The fragmented, at times abstract, nature of the VR rendering is no accident:

Rossin has purposefully taken the scans of her studio and altered them, pulled
them apart. This is because, as is perhaps the case for any good artist, Rossin’s
use of VR technology is driven by a fascination with and desire to explore the
medium itself – to test its limits and potentials, to find its capacities for
communicating ideas and experiences through its specific mode of representation.
For Rossin, ‘inevitably it’s a metaphor for entropy’, the process by which digital
data is compressed, distorted or lost over time holding up a mirror to the very
nature of representation as loss, as the death of the real.

There are, of course, fundamental differences between the immaterial, insulated

nature of VR experiences and the way we encounter physical objects, whether
paintings, sculptures, or moving-image works viewed on a monitor or projected
onto a wall. But some of these differences, such as the fact that currently no more
than one user can occupy and interact with the VR world at a time, may not exist
for much longer. This is just one example of the rapid pace of technological
advances in the field of VR, in which a work from 2015 could soon be considered
archaic. And it’s why the Zabludowicz Collection’s current plans, not just to exhibit
VR works from their collection but also to collaborate with other institutions such
as the New Museum on conferences and the commissioning of new works, are to
be welcomed. As artists continue to find interesting ways to make, break and
expand the possibilities of virtual reality worlds, so too should institutions remain
engaged with the collection, conservation and display of the technology.

[15] La Camera Insabbiata | Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang (2017)

Laurie Anderson + Hsin-Chien Huang: La Camera Insabbiata (English: the

“Inhabited Room”)
Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang, La Camera Inssabiata: The Tree Room.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) presents La Camera Insabbiata at its outdoor
plaza. This virtual reality work, collaborated by American multi-media artist and
musician Laurie Anderson and Taiwanese new media artist Hsin-Chien Huang, was
evolved and expanded from previous piece Chalkroom exhibited at Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art. The edition on view at TFAM is the first time La
Camera Insabbiata is shown after awarded Best VR Experience at the 74th Venice
International Film Festival.

Unlike the usual mission-based VR interactive structure, La Camera Insabbiata

creates exclusive worlds based on personal experiences and memories. For the
exhibition, Laurie Anderson recreated an site-specific painting inside the
installation. Anderson states “I make art so I can feel free and understand who I
am.” Co-creator Huang mentions in his statement that “VR offers possibilities for
full liberation. ‘Imagination is the only limitation’”. La Camera Insabbiata will bring
intimate, exclusive and tranquil experiences in abstract and unconventional ways.

La Camera Insabbiata offers a virtual thinking space that surpasses thoughts,

deconstructs words and overturns dreams for the audience. The exhibition space
stands at TFAM’s outdoor plaza like a dark container. It includes a VR space for
four participants. For the virtual journey, participants can travel through eight
rooms, including The Cloud Room, The Anagram Room, The Dog Room, The Water
Room, The Sound Room, The Dance Room, The Writing Room, and The Tree Room.
Surrounded by murmurs by Laurie Anderson in the background, viewers can
wander through story clusters, leap across otherworldly and dreamy rooms, as
well as fall through layers of signs and numbers. VR goggles are hanged in the
space, with control handles on handrail, enabling the participants an experience
that gives in all of their senses to technology facilitation. For fifteen minutes,
viewers can navigate with their handles in panoramic corridors, halls, and the eight
rooms, made of blackboards, chalks, handwritten signals and numbers.
Landscapes in panoramic space breaks through reasonable, gravitational, and
spatial logics, and separates from reality. Everyone can sculpture personal,
intimate and unique works with voices and sounds, or quietly observe lines and
colors to sprawl and extend.

***
● Sometimes, a work isn’t copied as much as it is reinterpreted. In the
1980s, two Soviet artists-in-exile, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid,
painted the head of Josef Stalin perched on a woman's hand. Judith on
the Red Square [16] was just one of many takes on a historical moment
that may never even have happened. Compare their version with those
below, then discuss with your team: how do their styles and meanings
vary? If, as critics argue [17], they celebrate “female rage”, should we
still be studying any of them? Pay special attention to the Mannerist style
of Giorgio Vasari, in which artists abandon the pursuit of realism in favor
of imagined ideals. When is it better to make something less realistic?
○ Judith with the Head of Holofernes [18] | Michael Wolgemut &

Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (1493)

○ Judith and Holofernes [19] | Giorgio Vasari (1554)
○ Judith Slaying Holofernes [20] | Artemisia Gentileschi (1612-13)
○ Judith and Holofernes [21] | Pedro Americo (1880)
○ Judith and Holofernes [22] | Kehinde Wiley (2012)

***

[16] Judith on the Red Square

"Judith on the Red Square" (from the "Nostalgic Socialist Realism" series)

In 1997, Russian artists Vitaliy Komar and Alexander Melamed painted a Judith on
the Red Square that "casts Joseph Stalin in the Holofernes role, conquered by a
young Russian girl who contemplates his severed head with a mixture of curiosity
and satisfaction".

Title: “Judith on the Red Square"

Creator: Komar and Melamid
Date: 1981-1983
Description: Vitaly Komar and Alexander Malamid are the exemplary
representatives of sots art, which parodies the ideology of Soviet iconography.

[17] If, as critics argue, they celebrate “female rage”, should we still be studying
any of them?

How Judith Beheading Holofernes Became Art History’s Favorite Icon of

Female Rage
Not only a tale of the Israelites’ heroism against their oppressors, the biblical Book
of Judith also contains one of the most beloved subjects in art history: the titular
heroine choreographically decapitating the Assyrian general Holofernes.

As the ancient story relates, Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar sent his general
Holofernes to besiege the Jewish city of Bethulia. Judith, described as a beautiful
young widow, resolves to save her people by slaying Holofernes herself. After
reciting a long prayer to God, she dons her finest clothes in order to seduce him.
After Holofernes has drank enough wine to become intoxicated, Judith decapitates
him with his own sword, winning a decisive victory for the Israelites.

Judith is not the only biblical heroine to commit such bloody acts for the sake of
her tribe. In the Book of Judges, Jael similarly kills the Canaanite general Sisera by
first inviting him to her tent, serving him milk, and then driving a tent peg through
his temple. In a reversal of roles, the New Testamenttells of Salome asking for the
head of John the Baptist to be delivered to her on a silver platter.

Female saviors like Judith and Jael indicate a biblical trope that sees the underdog
—in this case the Israelites—able to vanquish the oppressor. However, unlike the
other heroines who obtain what they want in a clear-cut or “domesticated”
manner, Judith’s character combines piety, so-called “womanly” virtues, and
strength. Those three distinctive components have made the episode of Judith
beheading Holofernes a fundamental narrative for artists exploring power
dynamics and gender identity.

In particular, the story provides the ideal template for the exploration of the power
of female virtue, beauty, and power. Consequently, there is a rich array of artworks
depicting Judith, which mainly fall into two categories: the femme forte (the strong
and/or virtuous woman) and the femme fatale (the sexually dangerous woman).

Judith was an especially popular figure in the Middle Ages. Her virtuous
disposition—especially evidenced in a passage that describes Judith’s celibacy
following the death of her husband—aligned her with the Virgin Mary. During this
time, Judith frequently featured in medieval manuscripts, often with the attributes
of a saint or goddess. In the Speculum Virginum, a manuscript from 1140 intended
for women entering the convent to become “A Virgin of Christ,” Judith is shown
standing victorious over the vanquished Holofernes. Judith is described as
possessing a “fear of the Lord,” a quality closely associated with humility. Here,
Judith and Holofernes flank the personification of Humility lording overPride, with
Judith looking statuesque, a virtuous warrior fighting on God’s behalf.

With the onset of the Renaissance, interpretations of Judith became more

politicized. She came to symbolize a small but strong population able to overpower
a tyrant. Donatello’s bronze statue of Judith and Holofernes (late 1450s–early
1460s) was originally placed in the garden of the Medici palace, where it was
juxtaposed with the artist’s famed statue of David: The two parallel biblical figures
alluded to the power of the small principality of Florence, which was constantly
fighting off larger city-states. The Medici family, the de facto rulers of Florence,
certainly had reason to align themselves with such figures.

To underscore the political allegory, Donatello portrayed Judith in a warrior’s

stance, her sword raised, poised to strike at Holofernes’s exposed neck. Her head
is modestly covered, like depictions of the Virgin Mary, but her face has Classical
features, also aligning her with virginal Greek goddesses such as Artemis or
Athena (the ornament on her neckline is reminiscent of Athena Parthenos’s
breastplate). When the influential preacher and mystic Girolamo Savonarola
ousted the powerful banking family in 1494, the statue of Judith was placed
outside the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall, as an admonishment against
tyranny.
Donatello, Judith, 1457–64.

Given her allegorical connotations as a symbol of Florence’s resilience and the

victory of virtue over vice, it’s almost predictable that early Renaissance
depictions of Judith by Florentine artists nearly always appear virginally beautiful.
Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of Judith returning to Bethulia with the head of
Holofernes (ca. 1469–70) similarly presents her like a goddess; in the painting, she
dons a chaste, yet richly draped, dress.

Botticelli, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1470.

By the late Renaissance, depictions of Judith had become more seductive and
aggressive. Starting in the early 1500s, artists transformed her from a relatively
simply dressed goddess figure into an elaborately adorned noblewoman.

One can see the first signs of this shift in Giorgione’s 1504 portrayal, in which a
triumphant Judith steps on Holofernes’s severed head. She is fully clothed in a
simple dress, but Judith’s bare leg—the very same leg with which she steps on
Holofernes’s head—emerges from a long slit in the garment, and jewels adorn her
neckline and her head. In 1554, Giorgio Vasari dressed his quite-muscular Judith,
shown in the act of lowering her sword onto Holofernes’s neck, in a pale pink
cuirass paired with a multi-tiered, green skirt clasped with a gilded girdle. These
unusual garments suggest both martial strength and feminine seduction.

By contrast, during the Renaissance in Northern Europe—far from the seat of

Christianity in Rome—Judith became the ideal subject for nudes. Hans Baldung
Grien showed a naked Judith looking more like a nymph than a biblical heroine, her
gaze slightly coy as Holofernes’s head dangles from her left hand. In a late 16th-
century version attributed to Vincent Sellaer, Judith, both of her breasts exposed,
gives a sideways glance to the severed head she is holding by the hair.

In 1540, Jan Sanders van Hemessen painted a nude Judith in a twisted pose that is
both a tribute to classical sculpture and a nod to her seductive wiles. On a similar
note, the Judith portrayed by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1530 wears a lavish,
court-appropriate outfit that shows her, as the Metropolitan Museum of Arthas
written, “dressed to kill.” Although she is clothed in this iteration, her facial
expression conveys a self-assured sense of power and seduction that departs
from previous Judiths, whose faces are usually unperturbed or simply coy.
Jans Sanders van Hemessen, Judith with the Head of Holophernes, ca. 1540.
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1530.

During the Baroque era, Judith beheading Holofernes became an opportunity for
painters to indulge in gore; in works from this period, Judith appears as more of a
violent assassin than a virtuous woman or seductress. In 1599, Caravaggio, for
instance, painted an explicit depiction of the very moment Judith cuts
Holofernes’s throat, his face looking up in disbelief as his body still struggles.
Caravaggio’s Judith, who is young and blonde, looks almost awkward as she
decapitates the Assyrian general.

Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, ca. 1599

Artemisia Gentileschi—the first woman to enter Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del
Disegno—favored Judith, as well, and her treatment of the character (there are
two known versions of the beheading of Holofernes, both with similar
compositions, from 1612 and 1620) has been interpreted by historians to convey
the artist’s female rage, both as a rape victim and as a woman in a male-
dominated field. In both paintings, Judith, richly dressed, is aided by her maid in
pinning Holofernes down as she decapitates him. The paintings convey the
physical exertion experienced by the three characters, and, in contrast to
Caravaggio’s, shows Judith unafraid of the task at hand.

It wasn’t until the Belle Époque that Judith fully morphed into a desirable—but
markedly depraved—femme fatale. While this archetype has always existed in art
and literature (popular femmes fatales include Medusa, Cleopatra, Salome, and
Delilah), it became a particularly popular subject for artists during the Romantic
period and flourished in the late 19th century, when female figures were shown
with an equal combination of beauty and turpitude.
Author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, for example, referenced the narrative of
Judith as an appealing example of sadomasochism in his 1870 novel Venus in Furs.
What’s more, several artists conflated Judith with Salome—a New Testament
figure who was also gaining traction at the time—in order to reexamine both
figures’ motivations and sexuality in a rapidly modernizing world. Gustav Klimt’s
1901 version of Judith (which was mischaracterized as Salome for years, even
though the frame distinctly bears the title Judith und Holofernes) ignores the
once-prevailing heroic narrative to picture her mostly exposed, cradling
Holofernes’s head in an expression of post-coital bliss. Here, Holofernes, whose
head is cut out of the frame, is not the victim of a female warrior, but of a sheer
seductress.
Judith and the Head of Holofernes, 1901, by Gustav Klimt

Similar in style is Franz von Stuck’s 1928 version of Judith. A purveyor of

mythology and female nudes, the German artist painted her full-frontal, wielding
the sword with two hands, an expression of spite and triumph on her face. German
author Eva Schumann-Bacia described this take on Judith as “the epitome of
depraved seduction.”

Franz Stuck, Judith, 1928.

While Judith’s popularity waned throughout the 20th century, toward the end of
the millennium, she became—much like the early Renaissance depictions—imbued
again with political connotations of the oppressed overpowering the oppressor,
this time in regards to totalitarian regimes and racial inequality. From 1981 to 1983,
Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamid painted Judith on the Red Square,with Stalin’s
severed head in the role of Holofernes, and a little girl whose face is concealed by
a shadow as Judith. In 2012, American artist Kehinde Wiley realized a more
contemporary interpretation of the tale, depicting Judith as a black woman in a
Givenchy gown. Holofernes’s severed head is here a white woman, a symbol of the
need to vanquish white supremacy.

Based on these examples, one can see that Judith acquired relevance during
periods of cultural upheaval. A straightforwardly virtuous characterization in the
Middle Ages, Judith became a warrior-goddess in the service of political allegory
in the Renaissance; the embodiment of female rage in the Baroque era; and the
textbook definition of a femme fatale in the late 19th century. It’s not surprising,
then, that even in the 21st century, Judith still has something to say to modern
audiences. Hers is the story of a woman who overpowers a much stronger enemy:
Whether read through a feminist or political lens, the parable of the victorious
underdog holds an undying appeal.

[18] Judith with the Head of Holofernes | Michael Wolgemut & Wilhelm
Pleydenwurff (1493)
[19] Judith and Holofernes | Giorgio Vasari (1554)
[20] Judith Slaying Holofernes | Artemisia Gentileschi (1612-13)
[21] Judith and Holofernes | Pedro Americo (1880)
[22] Judith and Holofernes | Kehinde Wiley (2012)
***
● In 2023, when the Mauritshuis Museum in the Hague lent out one of its
most famous works—Johannes Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring
(1665)—it launched a competition, titled My Girl with a Pearl, for
something to hang in its place. Over 3500 artists submitted their
 reimaginings [23] of the original Vermeer. The winner was a lovely work
titled A Girl with Glowing Earrings—which turned out to have been made
using AI. The museum was criticized [24], even as the German-based
artist Julian van Dieken behind it pointed out that he had been upfront
about his methods. Discuss with your team: should museums be allowed
to display art generated using AI tools?
***

[23] Over 3500 artists submitted their reimaginings of the original Vermeer

Thousands of Artists Reimagine Vermeer’s ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’

A Dutch museum selected winning works by five artists—and one A.I. image
generator
1665 Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum loaned out its crown jewel, Girl With a Pearl
Earring, for a blockbuster Johannes Vermeer exhibition currently on view at the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. But in the meantime, it hasn’t stopped celebrating the
famous painting.

Last month, the museum launched “My Girl With a Pearl,” asking any interested
artists to reimagine the 1665 piece. Out of nearly 3,500 submissions, the contest’s
judges narrowed the field to 170 finalists, and then 5 winners. The finalists can be
seen on a loop in a digital frame, while the winners hang on the museum’s walls.

Of the five winners, one stands out: The piece, called A Girl With Glowing Earrings,
was created with the A.I. program Midjourney. Submitted by German A.I. artist
Julian van Dieken, the portrait forgoes the soft lines of the original artwork, opting
instead for a sharp, photorealistic look.

Julian van Dieken, A Girl With Glowing Earrings.

“One of the most famous paintings in history is literally being replaced by one of
my A.I. images,” van Dieken wrote on Instagram. He says the experience is “crazy”
and “completely surreal.”

But the Mauritshuis’ decision to select it has been controversial, to say the least:
Some artists and commenters on the museum’s social media posts announcing the
winners have been less than thrilled. Critiques have run the gamut, with some
decrying the use of any A.I.-generated art, while others condemn the choice to
elevate machine-created images over the handiwork of real human artists.

“Such a shameful decision for a museum of all things to feature A.I.-generated

images,” writes one user, per Artnet’s Taylor Dafoe. “Are you unfamiliar with the
legal and ethical issues with the technology as well, or is it a case of pure
disregard for actual artists all around? You have shown you can’t be trusted with
taking care of and upholding human cultural heritage.”

Since the technology became widely available, the practice of using A.I. image
generators to make art has been controversial, and debates over the tools’ role in
creativity have proliferated.

As Hyperallergic’s Taylor Michael writes, one common concern is whether these

tools violate copyright laws.

“Some artists have heavily condemned [Midjourney] and other similar tools like
Stable Diffusion for scraping potentially copyrighted works to create datasets,
allegedly without seeking artists’ permission,” she writes.

In response to the criticism, Mauritshuis officials noted that the judges were
impressed by van Dieken’s piece, and that how it was made didn’t affect their
decision. “Basically the only criterium was that a creative process had been at the
basis of the work that was sent to the Mauritshuis,” a museum spokesperson tells
Hyperallergic. “It was definitely not a contest … The youngest ‘artist’ was 3, the
oldest 94. Drawings, paintings, creations with textile, wood, paper, photoshop—
anything was possible.”

“We purely looked at what we liked,” says a museum spokesperson to the Dutch
newspaper de Volkskrant, per Google Translate. “Is this creative? That’s a tough
question.”

Eva Toorenent is an artist and the Netherlands adviser for the European Guild for
Artificial Intelligence Regulation, which has issued guidance on using and
regulating A.I. She tells Hyperallergic that the museum “did not understand the
technology.” “The museum’s uninformed response to the criticism was the most
disheartening,” says Toorenent. “I explained in a detailed email why A.I.-generated
art in its current form is highly unethical and has no place to be highlighted and
celebrated in a museum. They sent me a copy-paste response, doubling down on
their decision.”

For his part, van Dieken notes that he was upfront about his work being A.I.-
generated: “The method was transparent, because in my submission … I reflect on
how these new A.I. tools might change creative processes,” he says in an
Instagram post.

Over in Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum’s exhibition, “Vermeer,” brings together far-

flung works by the celebrated Dutch artist that are on loan from museums around
the world, including the Mauritshuis. Vermeer only made about 35 works, and the
exhibition—the largest Vermeer show ever staged—has about 28 on display.
For those who can’t make it to the Netherlands, a virtual version of the
Rijksmuseum’s show can be found on the museum’s website. Similarly, the
Mauritshuis is posting artists’ reimaginings of Girl With a Pearl Earring on
Instagram. Both exhibitions will be on view through June 4.

[24] The museum was criticized

Museum Under Fire for Showing AI Version of Vermeer Masterpiece

One artist said the Mauritshuis Museum’s decision to display “A Girl With a Pearl
Earring” made using Midjourney “highly unethical.”

While Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (1665) is on loan to the
Rijksmuseum for the massive Vermeer retrospective, the Mauritshuis Museum in
the Hague opened a special installation of work inspired by Vermeer’s famous
painting. On view online and in person through June 4, My Girl with a Pearl
displays fans’ recreations of the 17th-century masterpiece, including versions
featuring self-portraits, miniature art, and a glamorous dinosaur. But out of all the
wacky interpretations shown at the Mauritshuis, one artwork produced using
artificial intelligence has proved especially provocative.

Julian van Dieken, a Berlin-based digital creator, used the AI image generation tool
Midjourney and the editing software Adobe Photoshop to create “A Girl with
Glowing Earrings.” According to his statement on the work, in the fall of 2022, van
Dieken began experimenting with text-to-image generators and documenting the
process on his Instagram page. When he saw the Mauritshuis’s open call, he
submitted his own take on Vermeer’s renowned painting. “In my submission, I
reflect on how these new tools are likely to change creative processes,” van
Dieken explained.

“A Girl with Glowing Earrings” was one of 3,482 entries sent for the open call.
Vermeer fans and artists worldwide used mediums such as ceramics, produce, and
Legos to interpret the iconic painting. According to the Dutch newspaper de
Volkskrant, a jury narrowed down submissions to 170 works the museum displayed
digitally and five prints hung in the gallery where visitors can typically find “Girl
with a Pearl Earring.” Van Dieken’s painting is one of the pieces the museum hung
on the wall.

But critics of AI technology found the museum’s decision to show Midjourney-

generated art concerning. Artist Iris Compiet commented on the My Girl with a
Pearl Instagram post that she found the amount of AI images entered an
“incredible insult,” and others agreed. Some artists have heavily condemned the
platform and other similar tools like Stable Diffusion for scraping potentially
copyrighted works to create datasets, allegedly without seeking artists’
permission. Midjourney and DeviantArt are part of a class-action lawsuit recently
filed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
accusing the platforms of copyright infringement.

When de Volkskrant asked for comment on whether AI-generated art is ethical or

creative, the museum hesitated. “We purely looked at what we liked. Is this
creative? That’s a tough question,” a spokesperson told the Dutch newspaper.

In response to Hyperallergic‘s request for comment, a Mauritshuis spokesperson

said, “We knew that [van] Dieken’s work was created with AI but we liked his
image and for us, that was enough.” “Basically the only criterium was that a
creative process had been at the basis of the work that was sent to the
Mauritshuis,” the spokesperson added. “It was definitely not a contest … The
youngest ‘artist’ was 3, the oldest 94. Drawings, paintings, creations with textile,
wood, paper, photoshop — anything was possible.”

But Eva Toorenent, an artist and Netherlands advisor for the organization
European Guild for Artificial Intelligence Regulation (EGAIR), told Hyperallergic that
she feels the museum “did not understand the technology.” “The museum’s
uninformed response to the criticism was the most disheartening,” Toorenent said.
“I explained in a detailed e-mail why AI-generated art in its current form is highly
unethical and has no place to be highlighted and celebrated in a museum. They
sent me a copy-paste response, doubling down on their decision.”

Despite the controversy, the museum hopes to engage visitors with the many
creative responses to their Girl with the in-person installation and accompanying
Instagram account. One recreation by Nanan Kang is sure to make Tariq the Corn
Kid proud.

Corn with a Pearl Earring by Nanan Kang

***
● Sitting astride a gallant white steed in Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon
Crossing the Alps [25] (1801) is purportedly Napoleon, but Napoleon
 ●

didn’t want to pose for the work [26]—despite having given David very
specific instructions on what to paint. “Calme sur un cheval fougueux,”
he requested: “Calm on a fiery horse.” For a model, David resorted to his
own son—who stood calmly on a fiery ladder. To achieve more drama, he
replaced the mule from Napoleon’s actual journey (on a fair summer day)
with a stallion (battling a blistering storm). The most accurate thing about
the painting was the uniform. It had only been a year since the actual
event happened; surely some people knew how inaccurate the work was,
and his own face in it was bland and undetailed—but Napoleon reputably
loved the finished product. “Nobody knows if the portraits of the great
men resemble them [anyway],” the victorious general offered, by way of
justification. Discuss with your team: was Napoleon right in recognizing
that history would remember how David had portrayed him? You should
also take a look at this piece [27] by Paul Delaroche in 1853, which tried
to reconstruct the past more accurately than it had been reimagined in
the present—should an AI be used to transplant some of the details from
this version into the original piece?
***

[25] Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801)

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, painting by Jacques-Louis David

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, oil equestrian portrait by celebrated French artist
Jacques-Louis David that was completed in 1801. This idealized portrait is perhaps
the most powerful portrayal of Napoleon.

David was the ultimate political artist. He was a fervent advocate of the French
Revolution (1787–99), almost losing his life on the guillotine in the reaction to the
Reign of Terror. Then, in the next wave of political events, he became an equally
enthusiastic supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte, using his talent to glorify the new
emperor.
This painting commemorates Napoleon’s journey across the Alps in 1800, leading
his army on the invasion of northern Italy. The scene was chosen by Napoleon
himself, and he instructed the artist to show him “calm, mounted on a fiery steed.”
The emperor’s features are idealized, largely because he refused to attend any
sittings. As a result, David had to ask his son to sit at the top of a ladder in order to
capture the pose. The costume was more accurate, however, as the artist was able
to borrow the uniform that Napoleon had worn at the Battle of Marengo (1800).

First and foremost, David’s painting serves as an icon of imperial majesty. The
horse’s mane and the emperor’s cloak, billowing wildly in a howling gale, lend a
sense of grandeur to the composition. Carved on the rocks below, together with
Napoleon’s name, are the names of Hannibal and Charlemagne (Karolus Magnus)
—two other victorious generals who had led their armies across the Alps.

As with all the best propaganda, the truth was rather more prosaic. Napoleon had
in actuality made the journey in fine weather conditions. Similarly, although David
based the rearing horse on an equestrian statue of Peter the Great, in reality,
Napoleon had ridden across the Alps on a mule.

[26] Napoleon didn’t want to pose for the work

Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Some find it stiff and lifeless, proof of Jacques-Louis David’s ineptness at

capturing movement. Some see it not as art, but propaganda, pure and simple.
Some snigger at its overblown, action-packed, cliff-hanging momentousness, with
shades of “Hi ho Silver, away!” Some have it down as a sort of beginning of the
end moment in David’s career, before he officially became Napoleon’s artist-
lackey. Whatever one might say, though (and a lot has been said about Napoleon
Crossing the Alps), it is still arguably the most successful portrait of Napoleon
Bonaparte that was ever made. Personally, I love it.

Background: Completed in four months, from October 1800 to January 1801, it

signals the dawning of a new century. After a decade of terror and uncertainty
following the Revolution, France was emerging as a great power once more. At the
heart of this revival, of course, was General Napoleon Bonaparte who, in 1799, had
staged an uprising against the revolutionary government (a coup d’état), installed
himself as First Consul, and effectively become the most powerful man in France
(a few years later he would declare himself emperor).

In May 1800 he led his troops across the Alps in a military campaign against the
Austrians which ended in their defeat in June at the Battle of Marengo. It is this
achievement the painting commemorates. The portrait was commissioned by
Charles IV, then King of Spain, to be hung in a gallery of paintings of other great
military leaders housed in the Royal Palace in Madrid.

Napoleon and the portrait: Famously, Napoleon offered David little support in
executing the painting. Refusing to sit for it, he argued that: “Nobody knows if the
portraits of the great men resemble them, it is enough that their genius lives
there.” All David had to work from was an earlier portrait and the uniform Napoleon
had worn at Marengo. One of David’s sons stood in for him, dressed up in the
uniform and perched on top of a ladder. This probably accounts for the youthful
physique of the figure.

Napoleon, however, was not entirely divorced from the process. He was the one
who settled on the idea of an equestrian portrait: “calme sur un cheval fougueux”
(“calm on a fiery horse”), were his instructions to the artist. And David duly
obliged. What better way, after all, to demonstrate Napoleon’s ability to wield
power with sound judgment and composure? The fact that Napoleon did not
actually lead his troops over the Alps but followed a couple of days after them,
traveling on a narrow path on the back of a mule is not the point!

Description: Like many equestrian portraits, a genre favored by royalty, Napoleon

Crossing the Alps is a portrait of authority. Napoleon is pictured astride a rearing
Arabian stallion. Before him to his left we see a mountain, while in the background,
largely obscured by rocks, French troops haul along a large canon and further
down the line fly the tricolore (the national flag of France) .

Bonaparte’s gloveless right hand points up towards the invisible summit, more for
us to follow, one feels, than the soldiers in the distance. Raised arms are often
found in David’s work, though this one is physically connected with the setting,
echoing the slope of the mountain ridge. Together with the line of his cloak, these
create a series of diagonals that are counterbalanced by the clouds to the right.
The overall effect is to stabilize the figure of Napoleon.

The landscape is treated as a setting for the hero, not as a subject in itself. On the
rock to the bottom left, for instance, the name of Napoleon is carved beside the
names of Hannibal and Charlemagne—two other notable figures who led their
troops over the Alps. David uses the landscape then to reinforce what he wishes to
convey about his subject. In terms of scale alone, Napoleon and his horse
dominate the pictorial plane. Taking the point further, if with that outstretched arm
and billowing cloak, his body seems to echo the landscape, the reverse might
equally hold true, that it is the landscape that echoes him, and is ultimately
mastered by his will. David seems to suggest that this man, whose achievements
will be celebrated for centuries to come, can do just about anything.

Napoleon was obviously flattered. He ordered three more versions to be painted; a

fifth was also produced which stayed in David’s studio. Reflecting the breadth of
Napoleon’s European conquests, one was hung in Madrid, two in Paris, and one in
Milan.

Conclusion: In 1801 David was awarded the position of Premier Peintre (First
Painter) to Napoleon. One may wonder how he felt about this new role. Certainly
David idolized the man. “Voilà mon héros” (“here is my hero”), he said to his
students when the general first visited him in his studio. And perhaps it was a
source of pride for him to help secure Napoleon’s public image. Significantly, he
signs and dates Napoleon Crossing the Alps on the horse’s breastplate, a device
used to hold the saddle firmly in place. The breastplate also serves as a
constraint, though, and given his later huge commissions, such as The Coronation
of Napoleon, one wonders if David’s creative genius was inhibited as a result of his
hero’s patronage.

Jacques-Louis David, The Coronation of Napoleon, 1805–07

In Napoleon Crossing the Alps, however, the spark is still undeniably there. Very
much in accord with the direction his art was taking at the time, “a return to the
pure Greek” as he put it. In it he molds the image of an archetype, the sort one
finds on medals and coins, instantly recognizable and infinitely reproducible, a
hero for all time.

[27] Take a look at this piece by Paul Delaroche in 1853

Napoleon Bonaparte crossing the Alps (1853), by Paul Delaroche

It may seem strange for an English Queen to have purchased a picture of Napoleon
Bonaparte (1769-1821), but in this respect Queen Victoria was in touch with the
fashion in England and on the Continent during the middle years of the nineteenth
century for collecting Napoleonica. The Queen’s uncle, George IV, had likewise
acquired a number of memorabilia of his supposed arch-enemy. In the collection
of the 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800-1870), who had formed a close friendship
with Prince Louis Napoleon (later the Emperor Napoleon III) in London in the late
1830s, there were numerous paintings and watercolors on Napoleonic themes
(Ingamells 1986, p. 11). The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 revived Napoleon I’s
reputation, and he came to be seen more often as a symbol of enlightened
progress and military expertise than of dictatorship and defeat. His delayed state
funeral and the interment of his ashes at the Invalides in Paris had been
investigated by King Louis-Philippe in a spirit of reconciliation, and Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert visited the tomb during the State Visit to Paris in August 1855.
Queen Victoria wrote of the occasion, which was recorded in a canvas by E. M.
Ward (RCIN 402019), ‘I stood on the arm of Napoleon IIIrd before the coffin of his
Uncle, our bitterest foe. I, the granddaughter of that King, who hated Napoleon
most…& this very nephew, bearing his name now my nearest & dearest
ally!' (Journal, 24 August, 1855).

Delaroche’s painting, produced over thirty years after Napoleon’s death, depicts
the then First Consul as he crossed the St Bernard Pass, the shortest route across
the Alps, to surprise the Austrian army in Italy. Unlike David’s propaganda-laden
and dramatic painting of the same subject, in which Napoleon rides a rearing white
charger (Château de Malmaison), Delaroche instead based his picture on the
account by the historian Adolphe Thiers, published in 1845. The pensive Napoleon
rides on a blinkered and sure-footed mule, led by a local guide who walks to the
side while the military entourage follows.

***
● Napoleon rode his white “horse”; George Washington rode a raft.
Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) captures a
key moment in America's founding myth: the future first president
leading his men against on the British. As paintings go, it is iconic; it is
also inaccurate [28]. In 2011, Mort Kunstler [29] reimagined the scene
more realistically. Compare his take to Leutze's, then consider a version
that critiques the myth behind all of it: Robert Colescott's “George
Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American
History Textbook [30] (1975). If you could print only one of these three
works in a history textbook, which would you choose? Did Leutze’s
become the most iconic only because it was first?
***

[28] As paintings go, it is iconic; it is also inaccurate.

This Iconic American History Painting Gets the Facts Wrong

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851.

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) is one of the
most famous works of art ever made. The piece has been endlessly parodied, with
everyone from Richard Nixon to Darth Vader taking the pride of place of General
George Washington. Leutze’s painting—there are two existing versions, one at New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and one at the the Minnesota Marine Art
Museum—speaks to the heroic mythology that so many love to ascribe to
America’s founding. It is, no doubt, an iconic work of history painting, though while
it was masterfully executed, its historical accuracy leaves something to be desired.
So what exactly is wrong with the painting?

Leutze’s Historical Inaccuracies

Well, “wrong” is perhaps a poor choice of words. Paintings aren’t facts, they’re
works of art, capable of poetic embellishment. Still, there are a few things clearly
off in Washington Crossing the Delaware, with the deviations both a result of
Leutze’s physical distance from America—he painted the work in Germany—and
the need to ascribe high drama to the moment. And it was, by all accounts, an
important one. After being slapped silly by British forces in a series of skirmishes
across the Northeast, Washington devised his crossing of the Delaware on
December 25–26, 1776, as a way to surprise Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, New
Jersey, deal a decisive victory, and take back momentum. And though in
retrospect we know that that is indeed what happened, while he crossed the river,
triumph was uncertain.

Most obviously, if Washington had been perched on the boat’s edge as depicted,
he would have fallen into the icy water and could well have drowned. This is hardly
a new revelation. An NPR report from 2002 by Ina Jaffe goes through some of
Leutze’s historical flaws, and begins with this most glaring one. It’s not really the
fact that Washington is standing up that is incorrect—it’s most likely that everyone
would have been standing given that the boat would have been both flat and
soaked with frigid water. Rather, it’s his precarious pose that is at issue. Also,
while Washington appears as the aged, stately figure that many today imagine, at
the time of the battle he was a spry 44, not the elderly, greying man Leutze
captures.

Also wrong: the sunlight. Washington led some 5,400 troops across the Delaware
in an attempted surprise attack not at the break of dawn but in the middle of the
night. He devised two other crossings led by other commanders to occur
simultaneously, but those ultimately failed. But hey, the sun casts a beautiful
glimmer across the American flag clutched by the figure to Washington’s right,
James Monroe—America’s fifth president. Another small problem is that this
version of the flag wasn’t in use in 1776, when the crossing took place. It was only
adopted around a year later. And the long, wide expanse that the boats are
crossing is also off—the real crossing was only a few hundred meters.

The History of Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851)

We shouldn’t be unfairly critical of Leutze. It’s worth recognizing that he did make
some efforts at historical accuracy. The painting was born, not out of the American
revolution, but out of the European revolutions of 1848. Leutze, a liberal who
supported those struggles, looked back to Washington and the American
Revolution for inspiration. The moment the artist chose to depict was, despite the
ultimately powerful image, one of the lowest points for the continental army. As
the European revolutions that propelled Leutze to make the work began to fail, the
scene depicted eventually grew more subdued.

Today, a quick Google search tells you almost everything you could possibly want
to know about the crossing and then some. But in Leutze’s day, historical accuracy
was harder to come by. Leutze hired American tourists and art students to serve
as models and assistants (so all the figures are, in fact, Americans), and finished it
in 1850. That first painting was badly damaged due to a fire in his studio, and was
ultimately destroyed by British bombing during World War II.

Leutze recreated the damaged Washington Crossing the Delaware, and sent the
new copy to America in 1851, where it caused a frenzy. Some 50,000 people came
out to see it while on display in New York, including a young Henry James, who
was permanently changed by the painting (so he said, anyway). During the Civil
War, the painting was used to raise money for the Union cause and antislavery
movement. Leutze, a staunch abolitionist whose inclusion of an African American
in Washington’s boat was intentional, probably found this to be fitting. Though the
Washington he so heroically depicted owned slaves, as did Monroe.

[29] In 2011, Mort Kunstler reimagined the scene more realistically.

A More Accurate Depiction of Washington’s Crossing

Thankfully, we don’t have to imagine a more accurate version of Leutze’s

Washington Crossing the Delaware because it already exists. Painter Mort Künstler
—known for his rigorously accurate historical paintings—made Washington’s
crossing his subject in 2011, when he was commissioned to create the painting by
now-Democratic congressman and American history buff Tom Suozzi.

Künstler notes that he always researches his subjects before depicting them, and
when it came to the Delaware crossing he wasn’t aware of all the inaccuracies until
Suozzi told him about them. The pair went to the site of the original crossing, now
a pair of towns on either side of Delaware, both named, shockingly, Washington
Crossing. There Künstler said he spoke to local historians about what the crossing
would have looked like. The resulting painting that Künstler created rectifies many
of the inaccuracies of Leutze’s original.

Mort Künstler, Washington’s Crossing, 2011. Image courtesy of the artist.

“The general would not have gone across in a little rowboat standing up. It’s very
dramatic, but it wouldn’t have worked,” Künstler told me. So in his work you have
something closer to the truth. Gone are rowboats; instead you have flat boats
packed with standing troops, horses (look to the back), and the cannons they
would have dragged along with them. Künstler also captured the wires that would
have been strung from one side of the river to the other. The crossing boats were
affixed to these wires, which were arranged in such a way that the natural current
of the river carries the floating army to the opposite shore. Rather than oars, you
see some troops using a pole to navigate in Künstler’s work.

But opting for historical accuracy has its challenges. Künstler had to eliminate the
icebergs that make Leutze’s painting dramatic, in favor of the ice sheets that
would have actually filled the Delaware. Another issue was that the crossing was
made at night in the middle of a snowstorm. “It’s a difficult problem because it’s
dark, no one can see anything,” Künstler says. “I asked the local historian, ‘I’d love
to have light, is it okay to have a torch?’ And they said, ‘Oh, sure! They would have
undoubtedly had that.’” But, Künstler says, the greatest issue he faced was how to
make Washington stand out. To that end, he placed Washington in the most secure
spot he could think of, figuring that’s where a general would be. This is why, in
Künstler’s depiction, Washington is at the front of the boat, but also balancing
himself on the securely fastened cannon.

Even as Künstler created his own more historically accurate version of Leutze’s
Washington Crossing the Delaware, he cut the original artist some much deserved
slack. “Leutze’s painting is maybe the most famous picture in America,” Kunster
said. “It’s done in Germany in 1851—how do you expect the guy to know the things
we do today? With a computer you can find out what the buttons on Washington’s
coat were made of!” But interestingly, Leutze managed to nearly accomplish this
feat sans-Google. Given that he had access to a perfect copy of Washington’s
uniform, one of the most accurate aspects of Leutze’s painting is what the future
President was wearing.

[30] Robert Colescott's “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware:

Page from an American History Textbook (1975)

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Acquires Robert Colescott’s Landmark

Painting “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware”
Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an
American History Textbook, 1975

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art today confirmed that it purchased Robert
Colescott’s 1975 painting George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page
from an American History Textbook at auction at Sotheby’s New York on May 12
2021.

The monumental painting, measuring 78 ½ x 98 ¼ inches, has been exhibited and

published many times since it was first shown in a museum, in the Whitney’s 1978
traveling exhibition Art About Art. Over the years, it has come to be seen as the
apex work in the career of Robert Colescott (1925–2009) and a stunning
breakthrough in late 20th-century American art, emboldening many other artists
with its outspoken Blackness, outraged and outrageous political content, high-
handed appropriation of art history, and scabrous, satirical use of cartoon imagery.

Writing about the painting in 1984 for Artforum, Lowery Stokes Sims called George
Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware “a veritable masterpiece of unparalleled
formal rigor and graphic grandeur,” which “radically rewrites the American national
self-mythology, parodying the grandeur of historical genre painting while exposing
the structural racial divides of the United States.”

Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Lucas

Museum, said, “The acquisition of this significant painting brings into our
collection a dynamic vehicle for exploring the many dimensions of narrative art. It
is at once a contemporary and historical work of art. Visitors to the Lucas Museum
will be able to explore and unpack racially, socially and historically charged and
significant figures, such as George Washington Carver, Aunt Jemima and Uncle
Ben, that Colescott intrudes into the patriotic narrative known from popular culture
and Emmanuel Leutze’s iconic, 1851 Washington Crossing the Delaware. Our hope
is that they will consider how a visual artist can charge and change the story with
complex histories and emotions.”

George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware River was first exhibited in 1975
at John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. A private collector in Saint Louis
acquired the painting from the gallery in 1976, and the work has remained in that
collection until now.

***
● In Puerto Rico, tourists can visit an old fort, the Castillo (Castle) San
Felipe del Morro [31], which is now a museum with grand views of the
sea. Those of us who grew up watching Disney might think of castles as
places from which princesses emerge to build snowmen, but in real life
they more often served as military bases and seats of regional power.
Explore some of the techniques used to reconstruct castles that have
lost the battle with time, such as LED lights [32], 3D models [33], and
VR [34] — then discuss with your team: should they be rebuilt in real life
instead?
***

[31] In Puerto Rico, tourists can visit an old fort, the Castillo (Castle) San Felipe
del Morro, which is now a museum with grand views of the sea.
Exploring Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Old San Juan

National Historic Site, Castillo San Felipe del Morro.

Visit this top attraction to learn the history behind one of Spain's major military
engineering marvels, from colonization to the Second World War.

Few landmarks are more representative of Puerto Rico's legacy within the
Caribbean and the Americas than Castillo San Felipe del Morro, better known as El
Morro. This fortification on the corner of the islet of Old San Juan now greets
cruise ships as they leisurely sail in and out of the bay. During most of its nearly
500-year history, it was an important military outpost for Spain and later the
United States.

When you walk through the narrow entrance and see the flags waving in the
Atlantic breeze, it's easy to be transported to another time in history and imagine
soldiers in antiquated uniforms marching along the edge of the wall where
cannons fit snuggly into the embrasures.

When you visit, you will learn about El Morro and the Island's history itself – why
Puerto Rico's strategic location in the Caribbean made it an important port for
those trying to expand their reach in the New World, and how the United States
used the fort during both World Wars.
Each section has re-creations of barracks, kitchens, and other facilities used by
the soldiers. Informative presentations paint a vivid picture of the importance of
Puerto Rico as a strategic entry point to the Americas and the evolution of El
Morro and its artillery over the last five centuries.

A Brief History of El Morro: Old San Juan was founded in 1521 by Spanish
settlers. The first fortification, La Fortaleza (The Fortress), began construction in
1533 and currently serves as the governor's mansion. The Castillo San Felipe del
Morro, or El Morro, was the second fort built on the islet of what is now Old San
Juan and Puerta de Tierra. El Morro's construction commenced in 1539 and
finished in 1790; during those 250 years, El Morro went from a promontory
mounted with a cannon to a six-level fortress designed to unnerve attackers
approaching from the sea.

A half-mile across the mouth of the Bay of San Juan is another, smaller fort called
Fortín San Juan de la Cruz, known as El Cañuelo. When enemy ships would try to
enter the bay, the two forts created a crossfire that effectively closed the bay
entrance and the rest of San Juan. Thanks to El Morro (and El Cañuelo), the
Spaniards were able to defend Puerto Rico from invasions by the British, Dutch,
and pirates.

In 1898, due to the Spanish-American War, the Island changed hands from Spain
to the United States. El Morro was designated as part of Fort Brooke and actively
used as a military installation during the First and Second World Wars. In 1961, the
US Army retired El Morro, passing it on to the National Park Service to establish a
museum. In 1983, El Morro and the walled city of Old San Juan were declared
UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

[32] LED lights

Funai Castle is a 16th-century castle, located in Japan. It was built in 1562. The
castle was originally built with several turrets (yagura), all of which were burnt
down with the three-story donjon in 1743. The ruins of Funai Castle in Oita has
now been reimagined with holographic technology. With over 70,000 LED Lights,
the former glory of the Funai Castle now stands tall and proud, just like it did back
in 1743

Site of the ruins of the Funai Castle (see metallic structure in the back for night
show):
Reconstruction of the original Funai Castle with LED lights:
[33] 3D models

Watch Medieval Castles’ Digital Reconstruction

Architects and designers restored royal ruins across Europe to their former glory.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put millions of people’s travel plans on hold, but
thanks to digital technology, anyone with an internet connection can virtually
traverse continents, cultures and even time periods. London-based creative
agency NeoMam Studios recently released animated images of seven medieval-
era castle ruins digitally restored to their prime. Working on behalf of Australian
insurance company Budget Direct, the design team created the images with input
from architects who studied old blueprints, paintings and other miscellaneous
documents, reports Isaac Schultz for Atlas Obscura.
[34] VR

Guildford Castle VR
Actual ruins of the Guildford Castle (built in 1066, located in England)

Guildford Castle VR is an entertaining and educational historical experience which

enables the user to virtually travel through space and time to explore one of
England’s earliest castles.

VR view of current castle interior

Same room with VR reconstruction

How did you get the idea to create this VR project? The idea for the project
came from experiencing many VR cultural titles and realising the vast potential of
this new medium to experience history and culture in an entirely new and
immersive way. Whilst we found many excellent experiences, we were always left
feeling that we wanted more, both in the level of immersion and the richness of the
historical information. Our sole focus was to create a more comprehensive and
engaging experience than before, combining a high level of virtual environment
realism, meticulously researched historical reconstructions and a rich audio-visual
narrative. We set ourselves the task of creating a virtual experience which would
rival – and in some respects exceed – a real life visit to the site.

Project Workflow - Our first focus was on capturing and recreating the modern-
day environment. We used a Faro Focus S350 LiDAR scanner to scan the overall
site and then processed a model in RealityCapture, providing us with an instant
“white box” of millimetre accuracy. Throughout the creation of the modern-day
environment, this served as an exact placement and shape reference for all assets:
large structures, props and even the foliage.

We set out with an uncompromising approach to the data capture. Inevitably,

current hardware limitations prohibit us from getting anywhere near the source
quality, however we were keen to see how far we could push the quality of the
models whilst still being optimised for VR. This meant taking a large number of
high-resolution photographs: over 16,000 photographs in total for the castle keep,
other structural assets and environment props, as well as over 100 LiDAR scans
across the entire site.

For the Keep (both inside and out), we relied on combining LiDAR with the
photogrammetry data, having first registered the LiDAR scans in Faro’s SCENE
software before processing combined data sets in RealityCapture. Being able to
combine LiDAR and Photogrammetry is important as the models become bigger
and more complex and so this is an essential feature for us.

Photogrammetry Process in detail - We are specifically focused on using

photogrammetry to create extremely realistic, highly optimised assets which can
be placed in dynamic game engine environments using a full range of lighting
scenarios. This brings with it many technical challenges and often makes the
pipelines complex.

The foundation is high quality, clean data capture. Because we are ultimately
looking for “delit” assets, we always seek to capture photogrammetry data in flat,
even lighting conditions. When dealing with very large outdoor objects in variable
lighting and under time constraints, data is rarely perfect, so there is often
postprocessing work involved.

Workflow following data capture:

● Raw photos colour corrected and pre-processed in Lightroom and output
as either TIFFs or JPEGs (depending upon the asset)
● Processed photos imported to Reality Capture where they are aligned,
meshed and textured. (For very large-scale assets, we always use a
component workflow).
● Models cleaned in RealityCapture before exporting
 ● Further geometry cleanup in Zbrush
● Retopology and UV remapping
● Texture delighting
● Texture clean-up
● Optimisation using a custom-built pipeline

Creation of props and other environment assets

Photogrammetry is such an incredible tool for creating photorealistic assets that it
creates a problem – it makes everything else look bad! We had originally set out to
follow more traditional game workflows for the props and other assets, but quickly
found that the amount of time, effort and skill it takes to bring them to a
comparable quality level as the main photogrammetry elements was infeasible. We
therefore used the same capture methods for all other elements, but using a more
optimised workflow:
● Mesh cleaned up in ZBrush, followed by creation of a low poly version in
either 3ds Max or ZBrush
● For hard surface props, such as the gate in the pictures, we tend to use
3ds Max to create very low poly count geometry from scratch
● UVs created & optimized for getting the highest quality textures
● Texture reprojection in RealityCapture from the master model
● Texture processing in Substance Painter and hand painted roughness &
metallic maps
● This process was used for the creation of all the garden props.

Foliage - One of the greatest challenges of the project was recreating the foliage
in the modern-day gardens, which are very densely planted and renowned for their
elaborate flower displays. As with the props and other assets, we had to reach a
quality level which was in harmony with the photorealistic hard-surface assets, yet
which was still within the stringent VR performance limits. This turned into a
monumental task: it was almost impossible to find high enough quality source data
for most of the foliage, so we bit the bullet and captured the data for over 60
species ourselves, including over 20 unique flowers. For many of the key trees, we
used a combination of photogrammetry, LiDAR data and our own leaf source
images to get as close as possible to the actual trees in the gardens.

Can you tell us more about the entire medieval town rebuilt in 3D? The
recreation of the medieval town started with the castle and palace complex, of
which there is a physical model on the ground floor of the castle. When we were
scanning this room, we realised how useful this could be and so took the
opportunity to do a quickfire capture (using a spare Sony compact camera we had
to hand). As we progressed the creation of the historic level, we amended this
model based on updated archaeological reports and advice from our historian,
however as a first basis, it proved extremely useful.
To ensure that our 3D models conformed to the real world, we used the LiDAR
data of the surviving structures to accurately map the palace complex, including
the Castle Arch built in 1256 (which still stands perfectly intact today) and a
number of original outer wall sections.

The landscape was created by using an airborne LiDAR data with elements
resculpted to fit the medieval period based on historical research (for example
moving the course of the river and removing modern urban features).

The creation of the wider town was a huge task, with all the architectural elements
– churches, town houses, mills, bridges – modelled from scratch based on
archaeological reports and other historical sources. Whilst we could have taken
many shortcuts and ended up with a very similar looking environment, we were
keen to be as historically accurate as possible, so our users can be confident that
what they experience is a faithful representation of the past, in parallel to the
realism of the modern level.

How did you manage to recreate 12th century interior and furniture?
To walk in the keep today, or any other castle or medieval building in England, you
will see only plain, unadorned stonework. This gives the completely opposite
picture of how these places would have originally looked: medieval interiors were
rich, intricate and extremely colourful. This was therefore one of the most
enjoyable parts of the project and demonstrates the central idea of the
experience: to see a radically different past appear before your eyes.

As with the recreation of the medieval town, this involved meticulous research. We
took inspiration from English Heritage’s excellent real-life restoration of Dover
Castle’s great tower of the same period, though were also careful to independently
research each and every element.

The items are all based on surviving contemporary or near contemporary

examples where possible.

Inspiration was also taken from period manuscripts, for example the Canterbury
and Eadwine Psalters:
What are your future plans for the project? Are you planning on adding more
VR interactions? Our goal with this first project was to get the basics right by
developing all of the environment art workflows, historical reconstructions and
basic functionality. Following on from the successful completion of Guildford
Castle VR, we’re currently looking to build on this core idea and to tackle much
larger-scale sites where we are now confident that we can deliver even higher
quality and more optimised environments for a broader range of headsets.

We certainly do intend to add more VR interactions, and this has been a major
internal development focus since the Steam launch. In subsequent launches we
plan to extend the richness of the passive narrative elements, but also to add new,
active VR interactions which further engage users. A big priority is to add
multilanguage functionality to bring the full historical experience to our global,
non-English speaking users.

***
● When rebuilding castles in real life, should we update them to reflect
modern values such as sustainability, inclusiveness, and indoor
plumbing? Consider the controversy in Japan over adding elevators
 ●

[35] to Nagoya Castle for guests experiencing limited mobility, then

discuss with your team: at what point does rebuilding something become
reimagining it? Attempts to restore the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
also raised similar questions [36]. Should these rebuilt structures still
be considered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites [37]?
***

[35] Consider the controversy in Japan over adding elevators to Nagoya Castle

Castle restoration plan with no elevators causing controversy

Nagoya Castle

A plan to restore an iconic castle in a central Japan city to attract more tourists
has faced criticism as the mayor is aiming to re-create the original structure in the
17th century and has refused to install elevators for the disabled.

Citing problems about quake resistance, the city of Nagoya will demolish the
concrete main tower of Nagoya Castle and rebuild it with woodwork in 2022, which
it says is more durable and similar to one built in 1612 by the Tokugawa shogunate.

As the current tower has elevators, Mayor Takashi Kawamura's fidelity to history
has triggered a backlash from the public, with civic groups saying the project goes
against promotion of a barrier-free society.

The city has said it plans to introduce an alternative to elevators using "new
technologies," without specifying them. Re-creating the original wooden structure
was among pledges by Kawamura when he won his fourth term in last year's
mayoral election. He says it is possible because historic documents such as
detailed survey maps of the castle buildings have remained.

The elevator problem emerged late last year. But the project had been already
plagued with other issues including its ballooning costs, estimated at 50 billion
yen ($450 million) in 2016, compared with an initial projection of up to 40 billion
yen. The city has also pushed back the schedule for completion from 2020 to
2022.

The main tower, or donjon, which Japanese call "tenshu", was designated as a
national treasure in 1930 along with affiliated buildings before being lost in U.S. air
raids in 1945 during World War II. The current tenshu was built as a seven-story
building with reinforced concrete in 1959. Nagoya Castle is known for the golden
statues of the imaginary half-tiger, half-fish creature adorning the roof of the
tenshu. Tourists queued up before the city closed the tower this month for the
renovation. A local group representing handicapped people criticized the city
government last week, saying its plan not to install elevators at the re-created
tenshu is contrary to the philosophy of laws banning discrimination against the
disabled.

The group, Aichi Disability Forum, has also requested the Cultural Affairs Agency
not to approve the city's plan, which the group says could violate human rights.
The agency has oversight on national historic sites. "I felt helpless before the
stairs many times," said a member of a wheelchair users' group. "Does he
(Kawamura) mean to give priority to accurate restoration over availability for all
people to have fun visiting the castle safely?" Kawamura says he is ready to talk
with opponents. But the member said, "It doesn't seem we are getting anywhere
even if we keep talking." Yoshihiro Senda, a castle archeologist and professor at
Nara University, said that even if the wooden tenshu is restored without elevators
there must be countless other features that the original structure did not have,
such as a concrete foundation to ensure quake resistance and electrical wiring. "If
you go fully historical, then you can't produce a wooden tenshu in the 21st
century," Senda said.

[36] Attempts to restore the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris also raised similar
questions.

How to restore Notre Dame — without falsifying history

Workers are seen on the northern side of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on
Thursday, three days after a fire devastated the landmark house of worship.

What has burned is now lost to the past and cannot be simply recovered or
replicated. Any attempt to restore the structure must acknowledge that.

After the devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday, French
President Emmanuel Macron promised to rebuild the church, a promise followed
by an outpouring of pledges of money from private individuals and companies, in
France and elsewhere. While long overdue and very welcome, it is also a reminder
that it too often takes a catastrophic accident like this to elicit the funding to
preserve artistic treasures like Notre Dame, a tendency that unfortunately makes
such tragedies seem necessary to save historic monuments. Equally troubling is
Macron’s intimation that we can just “rebuild” the church. Such simplistic bravado
speaks volumes about our own disposable culture, which apparently allows us to
dispose of, recycle, replace or, indeed, clone anything. But what has burned at
Notre Dame is now lost to history and cannot simply be recovered or replicated —
any attempt to restore the structure must acknowledge that.

So, after the debris is cleared and the damage assessed, what is next? First, work
must be done to arrest further degradation. The building was already undergoing
urgent conservation, because the interventions of 19th-century restorers Eugène-
Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus — including the spire they
rebuilt — were causing damage. The stones they had replaced in the walls and on
the flying buttresses were also eroding at a faster pace than the 12th-century
stones they had left in place, so the building’s structural integrity was
compromised. In the short term, Notre Dame must be stabilized against further
degradation, and a new roof will be required so that the stone vaults that cover the
nave of the church do not remain exposed to the elements and susceptible to
further degradation.

Only after this basic work is well underway should any consideration be given to
replacing the 19th-century spire, which dramatically collapsed Monday. The
restoration ahead raises questions about what history to preserve. The spire that
stood on Notre Dame on Monday dated to 1859 and replaced a 13th-century spire
that was dismantled in 1786. It was not a copy of the medieval spire, for which
there were no extant plans. Rather, this neo-Gothic fantasy’s artistic merit lay in its
conveyance of 19th-century values concerning the unified French nation based on
a rationalized form of medieval architecture. While that design could be
reproduced today, why should it? This line of thought quickly spirals into endless
possibilities for a Disney-like creative reconstruction of the past. Should the 19th-
century techniques that were employed to build it also be reproduced? If an earlier
spire is to be re-created, why not make a spire truer to the first spire at Notre
Dame? Which of its nearly nine centuries should be privileged? What should be
done about the fact that much of the original building was lost in the French
Revolution? Should its pre-revolutionary state be reconstituted, as well? Should we
also remove the electric lights in the building? Any of these fantastic possibilities
would constitute a false reproduction of history, for they would nevertheless be
done with contemporary techniques and bear the date of the year in which they
were made — presumably 2024, the time Macron has promised to complete the
reconstruction.

While some cultures and countries, such as Japan, do rebuild their historic
monuments anew in the style of the past, they prioritize the endurance of the craft
over the permanence of the material and have regulated the techniques for such
reconstructions. Western culture typically places greater value on the original
material, which is why people pay hundreds of millions of dollars for an authentic
da Vinci rather than a good copy of the Mona Lisa. Concerning Notre Dame, we
must preserve its past as it is to carry its value forward transparently to the future.

The 1964 “Venice Charter,” devised by the International Council on Monuments

and Sites, established guidelines for conservation and restoration, asserting, “The
intention in conserving and restoring monuments is to safeguard them no less as
works of art than as historical evidence. … Replacements of missing parts must
integrate harmoniously with the whole, but at the same time must be
distinguishable from the original so that restoration does not falsify the artistic or
historic evidence.” Thus, if the spire is to be replaced, it should be built in a
contemporary style that both harmonizes with the extant monument and also
clearly distinguishes itself as a product of our time. And so, yes, such a position
might translate into an architectural competition among the greatest architects of
today — why not Rem Koolhaas, Kengo Kuma or Jean Nouvel — to create a spire
that would at once acknowledge the past in respecting the proportions and style
of Notre Dame while also articulating our own way of doing things? This may
sound radical, but it would offer greater transparency and, therefore, greater
value, to every period of history that the monument embodies. Fortunately for the
nostalgic, there are many examples of the 19th-century Notre Dame — a model of
the building in 1843 is displayed in the Museum of French Monuments at the
Trocadero in Paris, millions of photographs exist in books and online, and it could
be re-created and experienced using augmented- and virtual-reality technology.
But there is no sense in rebuilding its earlier history in the 21st century, when what
we prize about Notre Dame’s history is that what is there really was made in a
different cultural milieu.

Complicating the forthcoming restoration, however, is the fact that Notre Dame is
a living, breathing, functioning monument that requires constant maintenance,
even under ordinary circumstances. Indeed, on a daily basis, Notre Dame receives
up to 50,000 visitors from all over the world, while also being an integral part of
the city of Paris and its inhabitants that holds daily services for Catholics. Before
the fire, the way the building was being used did not work well for anyone; an
unending stream of tourists was funneled through the outer aisles (in fact, I used
to call it the “discothèque” because of the close quarters, dark interior and all the
blinking lights from camera flashes), while the devout could sit in the nave near
the altar, although the services were largely overwhelmed by the crowds around
them. Surely the heat and humidity generated by the crowds in the building were
not good for the building’s structure, either. So this moment could be the
opportunity to reconcile the different needs of the devout and of the tourists in a
better way.

As Notre Dame now benefits from a surplus of new funding for its restoration,
those in charge must be careful not to change fundamental aspects of it. The
monument should remain a living part of the city and not become isolated from it
by a barrier and tickets that would turn it into a museum. Moreover, the restoration
of Notre Dame must under no circumstances become an opportunity to impose a
false history on the cathedral at the expense of what is extant. Something along
these lines recently played out at Chartres Cathedral, which sustained a decade of
restoration that imposed a 21st-century interpretation of its pre-modern interior, at
the loss of its many 13th- through 19th-century layers. The Venice Charter clearly
states that a unity of style is not the goal of a restoration — the past should not be
fabricated to align with people’s imaginations or expectations of it. This is what
some call “creative iconoclasm.” Whatever is done should be easily identifiable as
different from the older parts and clearly documented as such to allow future
generations to understand the past on their own terms.

Notre Dame was the first building constructed entirely in the Gothic style without
any significant interruptions, from 1160 to about 1340. It remains one of only a few
extant monuments in Paris that display architecture and architectural sculpture
from the 12th through the 14th centuries relatively unaltered and legible as such.
Its 19th-century restoration, limited mostly to the upper levels, parts of the
exterior and the treasury, should be preserved as examples of that period’s values
and practices. Because there are so few examples like Notre Dame left in the very
city that generated this architecture in the Middle Ages, this particularly important
and historic cultural and political capital, we must work to preserve its historical
integrity while maintaining its functionality as much as possible. Never simple, the
past is instead messy, complex, and difficult to understand and interpret. In our
drive to control an ever more unwieldy and unstable present, what will it take to
preserve our past for the future?

[37] Should these rebuilt structures still be considered as UNESCO World

Heritage Sites?

Shuri Castle and Controversial Heritage in Japan

In 2019, a massive fire tore through the UNESCO World Heritage site of Shuri
Castle in Okinawa, sparking a global reaction and comparisons with the
devastating fire at Notre Dame, another World Heritage site. The New York Times
and other outlets reported that Japanese officials had expressed alarm and
concern about the vulnerability of domestic sites like Shuri Castle after the fire in
Paris in April 2019. Over the past several years, threats to World Heritage sites
from conflict, development, and environmental changes have received widespread
coverage and immediate responses from around the world. These responses have
also been controversial, as in the case of Notre Dame, with the global media
attention and celebrity support for fundraising contrasted with a perceived lack of
coverage for humanitarian disasters occurring elsewhere. Another controversy has
concerned the site itself, as commentators have pointed out that much of the
appearance of Notre Dame was the result of modern additions from the architect
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc in the nineteenth century, rather than being
“medieval” heritage.
The Main Hall of Shuri Castle before the fire.

In Japan, the destruction of Shuri Castle throws up similar issues, but also sparks
much more complex debates. Fortunately, like Notre Dame, the fire at Shuri Castle
did not result in any casualties. Like Notre Dame, the immediate response was that
the site would be rebuilt. Furthermore, although international headlines focused on
the “500-year old world heritage site” and “600-year-old Shuri Castle complex,”
they also mentioned that the castle had essentially been rebuilt in 1992 before
being designated a World Heritage site in 2000. The focus of coverage has
generally been on the role of Shuri Castle as the symbol of the former Ryukyu
Kingdom, which conquered and ruled various parts of the Ryukyu Islands, from
about the fifteenth century. Shuri Castle is an important site for many Okinawans,
and more than ten million US dollars towards reconstruction were raised in the first
month after the fire.

After Shuri took over the surrounding islands, it was in turn conquered by
Japanese forces, who effectively controlled the Ryukyu Kingdom from the early
seventeenth century and formally incorporated it as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879.
Shuri therefore had a difficult and ambivalent relationship with Japan as well as
with various islands that made up the kingdom. The Okinawan identity now
symbolized by Shuri arguably formed from the late nineteenth century as a
response to Japan’s efforts to integrate the islands. Okinawans were often victims
of discrimination, a trend that culminated in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. Hundreds
of thousands of Okinawans were killed in the conflict, including at the hands of
of thousands of Okinawans were killed in the conflict, including at the hands of
Japanese troops enforcing a policy of “compulsory mass suicide”.

With Okinawa in ruins, Japan surrendered before the Allies advanced to the
Japanese main islands. After the war, Okinawa remained occupied by the United
States until 1971, leading to further resentment among Okinawans that they were
being sacrificed by Tokyo. Even after the reversion of Okinawa to Japan, the
United States has kept an outsize military presence in the islands. Although
Okinawa is less than 1 percent of Japan’s territory it hosts about half of the 54,000
US troops stationed in Japan. This has resulted in great tensions between
Okinawans and the US military, as soldiers and civilians live in close proximity.
Accidents, crime, and sexual assaults by Americans against Okinawans are
prominent issues, and contribute to a widespread sense of victimization in
Okinawa as they shoulder an excessive burden from the US military presence
relative to the rest of Japan.

In this complex situation, Shuri Castle is a highly significant site. For many
Okinawans, the reconstruction of the castle and its recognition by UNESCO were
great sources of pride in their heritage. At the same time, this process erased
much of the problematic history of Shuri Castle and Okinawa as a whole. In the
late nineteenth century, like dozens of other castles throughout Japan, Shuri
Castle became a military site. The castle was later turned into a shrine in the
1920s as part of an effort to preserve the decaying buildings. Just like castles on
the mainland, however, the Imperial Japanese Army repossessed Shuri Castle,
turning it into their headquarters bunker. As a result, Shuri became one of the main
sites of the Battle of Okinawa, and was almost completely destroyed in May 1945.

Like other castles, Shuri Castle was demilitarized after the war, and the transition
to a new age was symbolized by the establishment of Ryukyu University on the
castle ruins in 1950. Many other castles in Japan were similarly transformed from
military sites to sites of culture and education, hosting universities, museums,
parks, and sports facilities.

As elsewhere in Japan, the desire to erase of the modern military past and recover
pre-imperial heritage was strong in Okinawa, and in the 1980s it was agreed to
remove Ryukyu University to another site and to rebuild the original Shuri Castle
using traditional techniques and materials. The focus at Shuri Castle was placed
squarely on its older Ryukyuan heritage before the turmoil of the modern period.
The castle’s message was epitomized by the Shureimon – the gate of courtesy
that features on the 2000-Yen note. Ryukyuan heritage was presented as
peaceful, glossing over the long history of Shuri’s dominance over other Okinawan
islands (Shuri, after all, was a heavily fortified castle). The battle scars of the
Second World War were also largely erased along with the university.
The Shuri reconstruction was completed in 1992, the same year that Japan’s most
famous castle, Himeji Castle, became one of the nation’s first two UNESCO World
Heritage sites. Himeji Castle had also served as a major military base until 1945,
and this legacy has also been largely erased as the public history of the site
focuses almost entirely on the pre-modern period. Another former military base,
Hiroshima Castle, has similarly removed most traces of the modern military, and its
focus is a 1950s concrete reconstruction of the castle keep that was destroyed by
the atomic bomb.

The issues of authenticity discussed in the case of Notre Dame are also important
in the case of Japanese castles, but they are compounded by the fraught modern
history of these very prominent sites. The great keep of Nagoya Castle, the largest
in Japan before being destroyed by American bombs, was rebuilt out of concrete
in the late 1950s, and that structure is now being demolished to make way for an
“authentic” wooden reconstruction to be completed by 2022 at a cost of more
than 500 million US Dollars. At the same time, its modern history has been largely
erased, as Nagoya Castle also served as a major garrison until 1945. The same is
true of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, which was the central site of the imperial
succession ceremonies that marked the beginning of the Reiwa period in May
2019. The legacy of the site as the Imperial Castle and garrison of the Imperial
Guard through the Second World War is largely obscured. Osaka Castle, another
former military base, refurbished its popular concrete keep in the late 1990s, and
Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was roundly criticized for mocking the presence of
elevators in the castle during the G20 Summit in June 2019. This controversy
reflects tensions between authenticity and accessibility that are also erupting in
Nagoya.

The important symbolic role of castles can be seen in Kumamoto, another former
garrison site with a 1950s concrete keep and little evidence of its military past.
When the region was struck by major earthquakes in 2016, much of the public
focus was on the castle, with drone footage of the damaged keep broadcast
around the world. At least 50 people were killed and thousands injured, but the
castle became the most recognizable image of the disaster and its reconstruction
symbolizes Kumamoto’s efforts to recover. The recent burning of Shuri Castle
sparked reminders of Notre Dame abroad, but in Japan it also brought memories
of images of the wartime destruction of Shuri Castle, Nagoya Castle, and other
important heritage sites.

The cycles of destruction and reconstruction of Shuri Castle should be seen in the
context of broader developments concerning castles in modern Japan, which we
discuss in our recent book, Japan’s Castles: Citadels of Modernity in War and
Peace. As attention turns towards the reconstruction of the structures that were
lost in October 2019, old and new controversies over the site may well come to the
fore. Concerns over authenticity may be sidelined by larger debates concerning
the humanitarian, political, and symbolic issues surrounding Shuri Castle’s
turbulent and tragic modern history.

***
● The Queen King of England doesn’t live in a castle; Buckingham Palace
has neither a moat nor a drawbridge. Castles and palaces are often
confused [38]—unsurprising, as both are large structures with no real
purpose in the year 2024. Research the following castles and palaces
that have found ways to open their doors to modern visitors, then discuss
with your team: would their original residents have liked “what we’ve
done with the place”? While most renovated castles and palaces are
converted into hotels or museums, what else could be done with them?
Should they be converted into low-cost housing for those in need?
○ The Winter Palace (Russia)
○ Rambagh Palace (India)
○ Parador Alcaniz (Spain)
○ St Donats Castle (Wales)
○ Alnwick Castle (England)
○ Doune Castle (Scotland)

***

[38] Castles and palaces are often confused

What's the Difference Between a Castle and a Palace?

Windsor Castle (seen here) is an official residence of Queen Elizabeth II in the

English county of Berkshire. It, like most castles, was built primarily to protect the
monarch and his or her people.

● Castles were built for defensive purposes and often located in strategic
positions and equipped with fortifications to protect against attacks.
● Palaces serve no defensive purpose; instead, they are luxurious
residences designed to showcase wealth and power, featuring elaborate
architecture and decorations.
● Buckingham Palace is a prime example of a palace, situated in central
London not for defense but as a grand royal residence intended to
impress visitors and display the royal family's stature.

If you hear the word "castle" or the word "palace," you might picture the same
kind of building for both: large, made of cut stones, probably with a tower or
turret. And, of course, you're not entirely wrong, as those are features of both
palaces and castles.

So then why bother calling one royal building in the United Kingdom Buckingham
Palace and another in the same country Windsor Castle? It turns out there is a
difference, and you can see it pretty plainly in these two popular buildings.

The Case for Castles - Castles were built throughout Europe and the Middle East
primarily for protection of the king and his people. Some common features of
castles include:
● thick walls and heavy gates to keep invaders out
● high towers for keeping a lookout over the surrounding lands
● parapets or slits in the walls for archers to shoot with cover
● gatehouses for admitting allies instead of allowing enemies into the
castle
● moats for defensive purposes

Castles were (and sometimes still are, as in the case of Windsor Castle)
residences for royalty. But they were also intended as defensive seats. Say you're
a king who has taken a particular area over. Now you have to hold it. So you build a
castle and staff it with soldiers and ministers to defend your conquered territory
and ensure it remains part of your kingdom.

The Place for Palaces - Palaces, on the other hand, have no defensive purposes.
They're meant for showing off — big time. This is where the spoils of war might be
displayed, along with elaborate architecture, golden thrones, massive banquet
halls, gilded table settings and dozens — maybe even hundreds — of sumptuously
decorated rooms.

While kings and queens certainly took up residence in palaces as well as castles,
nonmilitary royals might also have lived in (or still live in) palaces. Bishops and
ministers could live in castles to showcase the power of their immense riches
rather than their nonexistent military power. The term comes from Palatine Hill in
Rome, where the first palaces were built to display wealth.

You can see this when you look at Buckingham Palace, which is in the middle of
London and built to impress visitors rather than to defend against any raiding
hordes that might make it past Trafalgar Square.

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of royal family and one of the
biggest houses in the world. It is a prime example of a royal residence not meant
for defense, but one meant more for, well, showing off.

Both the word "castle" and the word "palace" came into English the same way,
through Latin and French. Here's the basic lineage of the words: castellum in Latin
became chateau in French, which became castle in English. And Palatium (which is
what the Romans called the hill of fancy houses) became palais in French and
palace in English. Both words were in use in English by the Middle Ages.

Pictures of other castles and palaces:

● The Winter Palace (Russia)

● Rambagh Palace (India)

● Parador Alcaniz (Spain)

● Parador Alcaniz (Spain)

● St Donats Castle (Wales)

● Alnwick Castle (England)

 ● Doune Castle (Scotland)

***
● Castles aren’t the only instances of old infrastructure finding new life in
the modern world. In medieval times London Bridge was a living bridge
[39], serving not just as a river crossing but as the host of an entire
community of shops and houses. Now it’s just a song lyric and a
 thoroughfare. In New York, an old elevated rail line has been reborn as
the popular High Line park [40]; in Hong Kong [41] and Athens [42],
retired airports—with their massive footprints—are being redeveloped
into entire neighborhoods. On a smaller scale, many urban rooftops are
becoming organic farms [43] and suburban parking lots solar farms
[44]. Discuss with your team: what other aspects of older infrastructure
could be used in new ways with minimal changes?
***

[39] In medieval times London Bridge was a living bridge

OLD LONDON BRIDGE

A 17th-century Dutch masterpiece

Old London Bridge is one of the most popular paintings in the Iveagh Bequest at
Kenwood, north London. Painted in 1630, it is the work of the little-known Dutch
artist Claude de Jongh (c.1603–1663) and is considered his masterpiece.

Old London Bridge by Claude de Jongh (1630)

London Bridge was begun in 1176 and for centuries was the only stone crossing
over the river Thames. Spanning more than 900 feet, it was the longest inhabited
bridge in Europe and was considered a wonder of the world. De Jongh’s
masterpiece provides a unique record of both this remarkable structure and the
vernacular architecture of the city that would be engulfed in 1666 by the Great Fire
of London.

THE BRIDGE

A bridge has spanned the Thames between the City of London and Southwark
from the time of the Romans. The earliest bridges were constructed from wood
and had to be replaced frequently.

The well-known nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is falling down’ may have been
inspired by a legendary battle for control of the city, which resulted in the
destruction of the bridge. In 1014, London and Southwark were occupied by
Danes. The Saxon King Aethelred is said to have sailed up the Thames with his
ally, Olaf Haraldsson (later King of Norway), to recapture the city. According to a
Norse saga, on arriving at London Bridge Olaf and his army tied cables to the piles
supporting the bridge and rowed their ships back downstream, shaking the piles
until the bridge collapsed.

Between 1077 and 1136 London was ravaged by eight fires, and in 1091 the city
was struck by a tornado. Each incident damaged the bridge. Finally, in 1176, the
construction of a new stone bridge was begun by Peter the Bridge Master, a
member of the clergy and Master of the Brethren of the Bridge of London.

The new bridge took more than 30 years to complete. Its foundations were built by
driving wooden stakes into the riverbed and infilling with rubble. The bridge was
then erected on piers connected by 19 pointed arches spanning a total of 926 feet
(282 metres).

This incarnation of London Bridge was slightly downstream from its wooden
predecessors and from the site of the bridge which today bears the name. It
survived in that position for more than 600 years.

The longest inhabited bridge in Europe, its roadway was lined from the outset with
shops and houses. It served as the gateway to the city and was a place of religious
pilgrimage and royal pageantry.

Remarkably, London Bridge survived the Great Fire of London in 1666. A previous,
smaller fire had destroyed several houses on the north side of the bridge, which
provided a firebreak and saved most of the bridge from the flames.

However, by the beginning of the 18th century, the medieval London Bridge was
dilapidated and was considered old fashioned. The opening of Westminster Bridge
further upriver in 1749 highlighted the restrictions and limitations of the ancient
structure. Its narrow arches constrained the movement of river traffic and slowed
the flow of the water to such an extent that the Thames would often freeze over
during very cold winters. In a fast-growing metropolis, the narrow roadway across
the medieval bridge also caused congestion for carriages and pedestrians.
Samuel Scott’s painting shows Old London Bridge in 1757, shortly before the
houses were removed

In the mid 18th century, work began to remove the shops and houses from the
bridge in order to widen the road. But despite the improvements, which also
included replacing the two central arches with one larger arch, the changes proved
inadequate. In 1824, a new ‘London Bridge’ of five stone arches was finally begun.
It was opened seven years later by King William IV and the medieval bridge was at
last dismantled.
John Rennie’s new London Bridge, photographed in 1911. The bridge, completed in
1831, was sold in 1968 and moved to Arizona.

The 19th-century London Bridge (famously referred to in TS Eliot’s The Waste

Land) survived for little more than a century before it in turn was replaced, in the
1970s, by the present bridge. The 19th-century bridge was sold and re-erected in
Arizona.

[40] In New York, an old elevated rail line has been reborn as the popular High
Line park

HIGH LINE HISTORY

Believe it or not, the High Line was once destined for demolition. Luckily, the
community rallied together to repurpose it instead, creating the park you see
today, for everyone to enjoy. It has since become a global inspiration for cities to
transform unused industrial zones into dynamic public spaces.
Visitors stroll the first section of the High Line Park, over the 18th Street crossing.

Mid-1800s - Freight trains on street-level tracks, run by New York Central

Railroad, delivered food to lower Manhattan, but created dangerous conditions for
pedestrians; 10th Avenue became known as “Death Avenue.” By 1910, more than
540 people had been killed by trains.

1920s - In response to the mounting deaths, the railroad hired men on horses to
protect pedestrians: Until their final ride in 1941, the “West Side Cowboys”
patrolled 10th Avenue, waving red flags to warn of oncoming trains.

1924 - The West Side Improvement project first began when the city’s Transit
Commission ordered the removal of street-level crossings; this later led to a plan
to remove tracks from the streets and create an elevated rail line.

1933 - The first train ran on the High Line—which was then called the “West Side
Elevated Line.” The line was fully operational by 1934, transporting millions of tons
of meat, dairy, and produce. The lines cut directly through some buildings,
creating easy access for factories like the National Biscuit Company (aka Nabisco),
which is now the home of Chelsea Market.
1960s – 80s - Train use dwindled due to the rise in trucking. The southernmost
section of the High Line, from Spring to Bank streets, was demolished in the 60s.
The decline continued through the 70s, with all traffic stopped by the 80s. Calls
for total demolition of the structure soon followed.

1983 - With the structure unused, the first roots of the idea to use the High Line
for other purposes began to grow. Chelsea resident Peter Obletz formed The West
Side Rail Line Development Foundation, seeking to preserve the structure. In the
same year, Congress passed the Trail System Act, allowing people to circumvent
complicated land rights issues in order to transform old rail lines into recreational
areas.

1983 – 1999 - The High Line’s public prospects waxed and waned through the
decades. In 1991, the five blocks of the structure from Bank to Gansevoort streets
were demolished when a warehouse was converted into an apartment building. In
1999, the High Line owner CSX Transportation opened to proposals for the
structure’s reuse.

1999 - In the decades of disuse, many people were calling the High Line an ugly
eyesore (Mayor Giuliani signed a demolition order, one of his last acts in office).
But few of these critics saw what had secretly taken over the structure: a thriving
garden of wild plants. Inspired by the beauty of this hidden landscape, Joshua
David and Robert Hammond founded Friends of the High Line, a non-profit
conservancy, to advocate for its preservation and reuse as a public space. Friends
of the High Line remains the sole group responsible for maintenance and operation
of the High Line (and is funded by supporters just like you).

2003 - To provoke dialogue about the High Line, in a time when its transformation
into a park was not yet ensured, Friends of the High Line hosted an “ideas
competition,” receiving 720 ideas from over 36 countries for ways the park might
be used (including ideas that were neither realistic nor practical, like a
rollercoaster, or a mile-long lap pool). At the time, few people had heard of the
High Line; the competition helped drive both awareness and excitement.

2004 – 2006 - With strong support from then-Mayor Bloomberg and the City
Council, a special zoning area was proposed: The West Chelsea Special District
facilitated the use of the High Line as a public park. When the City Council passed
the rezoning, the front page of The New York Times read, “Frog of a Railroad to
Become Prince of a Park.” Landscape architecture firm James Corner Field
Operations; design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro; and planting designer Piet
Oudolf were selected as the team to transform the High Line.

2009 - Four years after CSX Transportation donated ownership of the structure to
the City of New York, and three years after first breaking ground (in April 2006),
the first section of the High Line opened to the public from Gansevoort to 20th
streets. High Line Art was founded in 2009, and continues every year to
commission and produce artworks on and around the High Line.

2012 – 2014 - With Section 2 of the High Line (20th to 30th streets) open to the
public, the New York City Planning Commission approved a zoning text
amendment, making possible the third segment, at the Rail Yards. The High Line at
the Rail Yards (between 30th and 34th streets and 10th and 12th avenues) opened
in 2014, including a temporary walkway.

2019 - On June 5, 2019, we opened the Spur at 30th Street and 10th Avenue. In
2008, we initiated an advocacy campaign (“Save the Spur”) to save this last
remaining section of the original rail structure. Over 10 years later, we opened the
protected, reimagined Spur. The Spur is public space made by people, for people.
We listened to what people wanted when choosing features for the Spur. That
means James Corner Field Operations (Project Lead), Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and
Planting Designer Piet Oudolf—the same design team behind the first three
sections of the park—created a space for more space for public programming,
restrooms, access points, food, art, and plants.

2023 - On June 22, 2023, the High Line – Moynihan Connector opened to the
public. This link with the High Line starts at the Spur and moves east along 30th
Street, turning 90 degrees north along Dyer Avenue into the public space at
Manhattan West, Brookfield Properties’ mixed-use development. Pedestrians are
able to move north from 31st Street and then west through Manhattan West and
into Moynihan Train Hall, which is directly across 9th Avenue. This new path allows
neighbors, commuters, and visitors access to transit amenities and the West Side
of Manhattan with only one street crossing.

Today - The High Line is now one, continuous, 1.45-mile-long greenway featuring
500+ species of plants and trees. The park is maintained, operated, and
programmed by Friends of the High Line in partnership with the NYC Department
of Parks & Recreation. On top of public space and gardens, the High Line is home
to a diverse suite of public programs, community and teen engagement, and
world-class artwork and performances, free and open to all.

[41] In Hong Kong, a retired airport is being redeveloped into an entire

neighborhood

Site of Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak Airport set for huge transformation
The site of the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport – famous for its notoriously
challenging runway in the middle of the busy city center – is set to welcome a new
sky-high landmark. Prior to the Kowloon-based airport’s closure in 1997 – it was
replaced by the current Hong Kong International Airport – buildings constructed in
the area had to adhere to strict height restrictions to ensure the safety of the
facility. hat’s what makes this new skyscraper all the more exciting. Standing at
200 meters above ground, when completed in 2022 Airside will become the tallest
landmark occupying the old airport land.

As well as breathing new life into a part of Hong Kong that has been largely
undeveloped since the airport’s closure, it will no doubt stir some nostalgia for the
days when gigantic airplanes would be photographed descending through the
city’s residential tower blocks. The 47-story mixed-used skyscraper is the first
Hong Kong project by Norwegian design studio Snøhetta, the creative mind behind
jaw-dropping designs including Norway’s otherworldly planetarium and
“constellation” lodges as well as Europe’s first underwater restaurant.

While a shiny new building isn’t likely to draw comparisons to the gray boxy
structure of Kai Tak’s terminal, the team behind it say they took note of the
airport’s vertiginous landing descent when considering their design and wanted to
pay homage to its dramatic aviation heritage. The project, with an investment of
$4.12 billion will comprise an office building and a retail complex under the
concept of “wholeness.”

“Whilst respecting the historical context of the site, our initial concepts for the
development took inspiration in the diversity of commercial, recreational and retail
functions and the opportunity this gave to generate a series of rich and interactive
public spaces throughout the development,” Robert Greenwood, Snøhetta’s
managing director in Asia, tells CNN Travel. “This approach led us to a hybrid
solution for the tower – no longer the traditional tower and podium but a
composition of elements combining to form a holistic urban structure, connecting
the ground to the sky.”

The complex features a balanced range of activities and infrastructure including

office space, a retail complex, art and dining offerings, along with plenty of
greenery and outdoor space. A cascading, green open-air rooftop and terraces will
take up about a third of the site area. The multi-story 700,000-square-feet
shopping mall will offer an experiential retail space and world-class restaurants,
says the developer.

Sustainability plays a major role in the design, too. There will be a sky farm, natural
ventilation, an automated smart waste sorting and storage system and a water-
saving and rainwater retention management plan. It’ll also be home to the city’s
first automatic bicycle parking bay.

A nod to Kai Tak Airport and Hong Kong’s past

The different design elements of the complex pay tribute to the site’s aviation
past. “During our research we were impressed by the images of the dramatic
landings that took place at the former Kai Tak airport,” says Greenwood. “In the
design process, it was important to us to be respectful of and contribute to the
preservation of the collective memory of many Hongkongers. The vast retail
arcade space at Airside draws parallels to the typology of the airport terminal
through its impressive scale and openness.”

The structure is filled with natural daylight whereas the exterior plazas and public
rooftop gardens offer views over the city – “much like the visual impressions from
the famous takeoff and landing experiences of the original airport.”

Nan Fung Development Limited, the local developer of the project and one of the
largest privately-held conglomerates in Hong Kong, also loaned inspiration to the
design. Founded in the 1950s, it was the city’s largest yarn-spinning business. As
a nod to this history, Snøhetta has blended in designs that acknowledge the
company’s role in Hong Kong’s textile manufacturing as well as the city’s industrial
past. “[Some] examples of textile references are the weaved office lobby
chandelier wrapping around the office lobby stone pleats, the fluted glass façade,
whose panels in different radii are organized in a stylized drapery, or the stone
pavers of the public plazas whose different tones form a crest like pattern that
invites its users inside,” says Greenwood.

Spanning 1.9 million square feet, the skyscraper will be one of the latest landmarks
of the Kai Tak Redevelopment projects – a plan to transform the former airport site
into one of the biggest and the newest central business districts in Hong Kong.
Airside will be located next to the new Kai Tak MTR metro station – where the
former North Apron of the old airport was located. Other highlights in the area
include the Norman Foster-designed Kai Tak Cuisine Terminal and its rooftop park
(already opened and in use), public facilities, residential buildings and commercial
areas.

[42] In Athens, a retired airport is being redeveloped into an entire neighborhood

Revolutionizing Athens: The Ambitious Transformation of the Former Athens

Airport Site

In 2026 the former Athens airport will undergo an astonishing transformation,

rendering it unrecognizable. While the iconic Eero Saarinen-designed East
Terminal will remain, the obsolete hangars and runways will give way to a
groundbreaking mixed-use project, twice the size of New York's Central Park and
hailed as a smart city.

In 2026 the former Athens airport will undergo an astonishing transformation,

rendering it unrecognizable. While the iconic Eero Saarinen-designed East
Terminal will remain, the obsolete hangars and runways will give way to a
groundbreaking mixed-use project, twice the size of New York's Central Park and
hailed as a smart city.

Bloomberg pays homage to the vision of Hellinikon, revealing that within three
years, the 650-acre site on the southeast coast of Athens will encompass
approximately 10,000 luxury beachfront homes and apartments, a prestigious
Mandarin Oriental hotel, one of the largest shopping centres in Southern Europe, a
marina catering to large yachts, a Hard Rock-branded casino, an advanced sports
complex, a private school, cultural and entertainment hubs, an expansive beach,
and an awe-inspiring two million square meters green space that is poised to
become the largest coastal park in Europe. All of this will be graced with
panoramic views of the enchanting Saronic Gulf.

This privately funded endeavour is set to revolutionize the Greek capital, as

reported by Bloomberg.

During the project's launch event last October, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis
described Elliniko as "the prelude to a new era for the coast." It is anticipated to
generate over €14 billion in tax revenue over its 25-year development cycle,
serving as a symbol of Athens' renaissance as the country recovers from a
decade-long debt crisis.

While many regions worldwide face obstacles like escalating construction costs,
surging interest rates, and labour shortages that hinder major construction
projects, Greece finds itself in an unusually strong economic position. The country
benefits from a revival in tourism, robust sales of residential and commercial
properties, and investor optimism surrounding the pro-business leadership of
Prime Minister Mitsotakis, who recently secured re-election.

This resurgence has coincided with a wave of infrastructure and cultural ventures.
These include the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, which opened its
doors in 2017 and now houses the National Library of Greece and the National
Opera. The National Museum of Contemporary Art debuted in 2020, repurposing a
former beer factory. Notably, plans are underway for a significant renovation of the
National Archaeological Museum. Athens has also initiated the construction of a
fourth metro line, with the first section scheduled to open in 2029, connecting
densely populated neighbourhoods such as Kypseli and Galatsi to the city centre.

The energy of this transformation is palpable on the city streets. Athens' cafes and
taverns bustle with life every night of the week while tourists explore squares
where once clashes between rioters and the police occurred. This revitalization
has brought a new level of prosperity, with the city welcoming nine new 5-star
hotels between 2019 and 2022, raising the total count to 30. Conrad and Waldorf
Astoria are collaborating on a luxurious complex that combines hospitality services
with upscale residences.

Elliniko seizes the opportunity to capitalize on this flourishing market. To generate

early momentum, construction firm Lamda has commenced the sale of residences
in the 200-meter Riviera Tower, poised to become the country's tallest building.
These apartments carry an average price of €14,000 per square meter. While
significantly higher than the first-quarter averages of approximately €1,809 per
square meter in central Athens and €3,368 in the neighbouring southern suburbs
of Ellinikos, as reported by Greek property website Spitogratos, they still present
an enticing offer compared to luxury property prices elsewhere in Europe.

Thus far, all 170 apartments in the tower have been sold, with the majority finding
Greek buyers among the local residents and the Greek diaspora. Sales of leases
and properties in Elliniko have already reached €1.2 billion, causing residential
property prices in adjacent suburbs to also experience an upswing. Lamda intends
to expand marketing efforts beyond Greece starting next year.

As rising property prices remain a sensitive political issue in Athens, with residents
vying against affluent foreigners, Airbnb owners, and investors for limited housing,
concerns over unpredictable rent hikes and potential evictions arise.

In an effort to address this situation, the government introduced a scheme earlier

this year, offering low-interest or interest-free loans to individuals under the age of
39 aspiring to purchase their first property. Effective July 1, regulations will also be
enacted, raising the minimum property investment required for obtaining a golden
visa from €250,000 to €500,000 in various parts of the country, including sections
of Athens.

While Athens has only recently emerged as a weekend destination, Konstantinos

Zouzoulas, the managing director of Axia Ventures Group Ltd, specializing in
Cyprus, Greece, and Italy, anticipates that Helliniko will propel this trend forward
and potentially extend the tourist season throughout the entire year.
Lamda CEO Odysseas Athanasiou remarked in an interview that Elliniko is a
"landmark project that will be a game-changer for Athens, the greater Attica
region, and Greece as a whole." Mr Zouzoulas further added that this self-
contained city would attract new residents to the area.

Given its location within Athens' urban grid, merely 11 kilometres from the city
centre, the coastal project will reshape the ambience of the capital and its
adjacent municipalities. The vast park proposed for the area is a much-needed
addition to a city that lacks sufficient green space, according to Mr Zouzoulas.

Athens now faces the challenge of integrating Hellinikon while connecting the
city's existing services with the region. This necessitates the construction of new
roads and metro lines, demanding significant infrastructure investment, both
financially and temporally. Nevertheless, the positive impact on the city's overall
landscape and the quality of life for its residents will make the endeavour
worthwhile as Elliniko gradually becomes an integral part of Athens' daily fabric.

[43] On a smaller scale, many urban rooftops are becoming organic farms

Rooftop Farming Is Getting Off The Ground

Chicago Botanic Garden's 20,000-square-foot vegetable garden atop McCormick

Place West in Chicago

From vacant lots to vertical "pinkhouses," urban farmers are scouring cities for
spaces to grow food. But their options vary widely from place to place. While
farmers in post-industrial cities like Detroit and Cleveland are claiming unused
land for cultivation, in New York and Chicago, land comes at a high premium.
That's why farmers there are increasingly eyeing spaces that they might not have
to wrestle from developers: rooftops that are already green.

The green-roof movement has slowly been gaining momentum in recent years, and
some cities have made them central to their sustainability plans. The city of
Chicago, for instance, boasts that 359 roofs are now partially or fully covered with
vegetation, which provides all kinds of environmental benefits — from reducing the
buildings' energy costs to cleaning the air to mitigating the urban heat island
effect.

Late this summer, Chicago turned a green roof into its first major rooftop farm. At
20,000 square feet, it's the largest soil-based rooftop farm in the Midwest,
according to the Chicago Botanic Garden, which maintains the farm through its
Windy City Harvest program. "We took a space that was already a productive
green roof, and we said, 'Why not take that one step further and grow vegetables
on it?' " says Angie Mason, director of the Chicago Botanic Garden's urban
agriculture programs. That required adding lots of soil amendment, or nutrients, to
the rocky medium already up there.

The farm sits atop McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North
America, and the goal is for it to supply the center's food service company,
SAVOR... Chicago, with between 8,000 to 12,000 pounds of food a year — more
than 10,000 servings. It sounds like a lot, but SAVOR serves about 3 million people
a year at McCormick Place.

In the first season, Mason says the Windy City Harvest farmers, which include
underemployed ex-offenders, will be growing kale, collards, carrots, radishes,
peppers, beans, beets, cherry tomatoes and various herbs at the McCormick Place
farm. The project's coordinators chose these crops because they're well-suited to
a rooftop setting and they're fast-growing.

Over the next few years, Mason says, the plan is to expand the farm to other
sections of the McCormick Center roof for a total of 3 acres of cultivation. That
would make it the biggest rooftop farm in the U.S., bigger than Brooklyn Grange,
which operates a farm of 2.5 acres, or 108,000 square feet, on two roofs in New
York City.

Joe Nasr, with the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University in
Toronto, says projects like these are part of a larger trend toward expanding food
production in cities. "Rooftops will be part of the mix of urban spaces that will be
increasingly used to 'scale up' urban agriculture," Nasr told The Salt in an email.
And roof farms in particular can offer a wide array of perks to the building owners.
"When it is feasible to do so, you would be adding benefits to whatever the green
roof [already] provides: food, space for community gathering and teaching in
many cases, increased biodiversity (depending on the roof) and care for the roof
— many green roofs fail because they are out of sight, out of mind, thus
neglected," Nasr says.

So why don't we see more of these rooftop urban farms? According to Mason,
urban farmers are just beginning to figure out how to make them work. And they're
learning that not every green roof is well-suited for farming. "You're looking at
liability and insurance risk of having people on a rooftop, and then you've got to
make sure it's structurally sound enough to withstand the extra soil weight for
production," says Mason. "And you've got to make sure that you're training people
so that they aren't compromising the rooftop membrane" and damaging it.

Nasr agrees that there are many obstacles to transforming more green roofs into
farms: from permitting, to delivering soil and water to the roof, to dealing with
growing conditions that are typical of roofs (sun, wind, snow). But for urban
farmers who can find a roof and building owners who will get on board, the
potential benefits are worth pursuing, he says. And Mason says she sees plenty of
opportunity in Chicago to convert more green roofs into farms — and plenty of
building owners interested in burnishing their green credentials. Of course, you
don't have to go as big as a farm to take advantage of the space and sunlight on a
roof to grow food. People have been container-gardening on roofs for a long time,
and as we reported, this form of micro-gardening is taking off.

[44] On a smaller scale, many suburban parking lots are becoming solar farms

Why Not Cover Ugly Parking Lots With Solar Panels?

In France, a plan to cover swaths of asphalt with photovoltaics will bring
renewable energy even closer to urban areas where it’s needed.

A BACKLASH AGAINST industrial-size solar farms is brewing. At least 75 big solar

projects were vetoed across the United States last year, compared to 19 in 2021.
And between January 2021 and July 2022, planning permission for 23 new solar
farms was rejected across England, Wales, and Scotland, when only four projects
were refused between 2017 and 2020—representing the highest rejection rate in
five years. Decarbonization, to some extent, risks getting bogged down by
planning objections. People very often don’t want solar farms in their backyard.

France, though, appears to have a solution: transforming its parking lots into solar
farms nationwide. The French Senate has approved a bill requiring new and
existing lots with more than 80 spaces to be at least half covered with canopies of
solar panels that sit over the parking spaces. Assuming the bill comes into effect
later this year, parking lots with more than 400 spaces must be compliant by
2026; smaller ones with 80 to 400 spaces will be given until 2028.
Because they’re in abundance and cover large areas, parking lots are obvious
candidates for doubling up as solar arrays. But that’s only part of the potential
benefit. It makes sense aesthetically and logistically too—mass parking tends to be
right next to energy-hungry urban areas, and it’s hard to make a vast asphalt lot
any uglier. It’s a “no-brainer solution to providing clean electricity without wasting
space,” says Joshua Pearce, professor of electrical and computer engineering at
the University of Western Ontario.

Solar panels need a lot of space to generate meaningful electricity, so the popular
strategy up until now has been to spread vast quantities of photovoltaics across
sparsely populated, undeveloped regions. Land there is cheaper, there are fewer
locals nearby to object, and panels in such setups are easier to manage. There is a
cost though: Rural solar farms crowd out other land uses, including agriculture,
and can have deleterious impacts on local ecosystems. The 2,300-acre Aratina
Solar Project being built near Boron, California, for instance, will destroy 4,276
western Joshua trees during construction.

Transmitting rurally generated electricity to urban settings also requires cabling

infrastructure, which is expensive, ugly, and inefficient. Even in properly
maintained grids, energy is lost when transmitting electricity over long distances,
and these losses rise as temperatures increase. “With climate change, you’re
looking at wasting electricity,” Pearce says.

So there’s real appeal to installing photovoltaics closer to urban areas—if you can
do so without encountering resistance. And a promising strategy is to look for
spaces in urban spaces themselves. From rooftops and vacant lands to industrial
sites and airports, there are spaces in and around every town and city that could in
theory house solar panels. A 2015 study concluded that within California’s cities
and other developed areas, there’s sufficient solar development potential to power
the state three to five times over. Germany, meanwhile, has introduced tax breaks
for anyone using rooftop photovoltaics. “In order to address the climate crisis, we
need to install all the solar we can, and some of this needs to be multifunctional,
meaning not simply using the land for producing power,” says Alex Nathanson,
founder of Solar Power for Artists, a design studio and education platform for solar
power.

But it’s hard to think of an urban area better to use than the parking lot. Besides
being unpleasant on the eye, they’re normally pretty large, meaning they have
great energy-generating potential.

According to a 2021 study Pearce coauthored, installing solar panels over the
parking lots of the 3,751 Walmart supercenters spread across the US alone could
generate the same amount of electricity to that of around a dozen coal-fired power
plants. (Even if you account for the part-time nature of solar power, Pearce
believes you could permanently shut down two, maybe even three such plants in
sunnier regions if covering these Walmart lots.) In France, the government
believes solar canopies could generate up to 11 gigawatts of renewable energy, or
the equivalent power of 10 nuclear reactors. That’s around 8 percent of the
country’s entire electrical output.

Installing solar canopies could be helpful for drivers too. They’ll provide shade in
sunny, warm weather, potentially reducing the need for air conditioning when
people jump into their cars, while in winter they’ll provide shelter from rain and
snow. If the vehicles parked beneath them are electric, the energy generated
could also be directly delivered to these cars. At present, most commuters charge
their electric vehicles at home, outside of regular working hours. The freedom to
charge when shopping or at work could allow them to bypass peak prices.

Hooking up parked EVs to photovoltaic canopies could even help balance the grid.
Because the traditional grid doesn’t have energy storage capacity, the power fed
into it must match the power being consumed—too much power on the grid is a
problem. With solar, especially during peak sunshine hours, this can mean that
production has to be switched off. But if you could store excess energy in EV
batteries on site, you could maximize the potential of solar power during times of
peak generation.

“During the day they can store energy,” says Nathanson of parked EVs. “During
peak power consumption times, around early evening, they can feed power back
to the grid.” Using so many independent pieces of equipment in conjunction with
the grid—and making sure no one ends up short of energy—would require a fair
amount of smart automation. It would also need bidirectional charging equipment,
which at the moment isn’t widely used. But the potential to be smarter with solar is
there.

Not every parking lot can be transformed into a power plant, though. With some
there might be too much shade, perhaps because of tall buildings nearby. In
countries toward the north of the globe, where the sun sits lower on the horizon,
long shadows will be a bigger issue, particularly in winter. In other lots, panels
might reflect sunlight into nearby buildings or, worse, roads, warns Dylan Ryan,
lecturer in mechanical and energy engineering at Edinburgh Napier University in
Scotland. “Are we going to be throwing sunlight into the eyes of the people who
work across the street?”

The biggest concern, though, is cost: Installing a solar panel above a parking
space costs several times more than installing one on the ground or on a rooftop
because of the need to build the supporting structure. (These costs are likely to
be bigger in, say, the United Kingdom than southern Europe, because parking lots
there don’t already have sunshades.) One of the lingering questions over France’s
proposal is how parking lot operators will pay for these installations. Without
subsidies, Pearce says, it’s hard to envisage too many operators installing non-
mandatory solar canopies, because of the required investment.

Of course, parking lot operators could claw back their upfront investment by
charging customers to plug in their EVs, or they could use the electricity
themselves in whatever business their parking lot is serving. Or the electricity
could just be sold back to the grid. “Whether you’re just selling the electricity to
the grid, or you’re just using the electricity in your business, you are going to be
paying less for electricity overall,” says Pearce.

None of this is to say that solar farms belong only in urban areas. But there’s a
clear benefit to having more solar energy generated closer to where people are—
and a clear need to find a way to do this that doesn’t get tripped up by Nimbyism.
Using parking lots for solar farms gets around this problem, and on these grounds,
France’s legislation is a huge, though aggressive, step in the right direction.
“You’re taking advantage of what’s essentially free real estate,” says Ryan.

Section 4 - Form Follows Fiction

***
● “Write what you know,” is the first piece of advice given to most students
in writing workshops. Artists, too, tend to paint that which they’ve
experienced and observed; Monet spent a lot of time at his lily pond
[44]. But there have always been some artists who blend the real with
the imaginary. Consider the following works, then discuss with your team:
should we respond differently to art that tries to imagine what could be,
art that imagines what could never be, and art that shows us what we
didn’t realize already was?
○ A Reversible Anthropomorphic Portrait of a Man Composed of

Fruit [45] | Giuseppe Arcimboldo

○ Aerial Rotating House [46] | Albert Robida (1883)
○ Late Visitors to Pompeii [47] | Carel Wilink (1931)
○ Our Lady of the Iguanas [48] | Graciela Iturbide (1979)
○ The Strolling Saint [49] | Pedro Meyer (1991)
○ The Romantic Dollarscape [50] | Pedro Alvarez (2003)
○ Weirdos of Another Universe [51] | Avery Gibbs (2023)

***

[44] Monet spent a lot of time at his lily pond

Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist
painting. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific
practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of
nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term
"Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant
(Impression, rising sun).

Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting

the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing
of the seasons. Among the best-known examples are the paintings of water lilies
in his garden in Giverny that occupied him continuously for the last 20 years of
his life.

[45] A Reversible Anthropomorphic Portrait of a Man Composed of Fruit |

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593), was an Italian painter best known for

creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits,
vegetables, flowers, fish and books. He specialized in grotesque symbolical
compositions of fruits, animals, landscapes, or various inanimate objects arranged
into human forms.
[46] Aerial Rotating House | Albert Robida (1883)

Aerial Rotating House is a drawing by French science fiction writer Albert Robida
for his book Le Vingtième Siècle, a nineteenth-century conception of life in the
twentieth century, depicts a dwelling that can rotate on a post, with an airship in
the distance.
[47] Late Visitors to Pompeii | Carel Wilink (1931)

Carel Willink (1900-1983) was a Dutch painter who called his style of Magic
realism "imaginary realism".
Late Visitors to Pompeii is a 1931 painting by Carel Willink. It depicts four modern
men at the forum of Pompeii with Mount Vesuvius in the background. It has been
interpreted in correlation with the cultural philosophy of Oswald Spengler, who is
one of the men in the painting, and themes of civilizational crisis in the fiction of
Ferdinand Bordewijk. It shows a theme of life and death expressed through the
juxtaposition of two time periods, and expresses a belief that Western civilization
is in crisis.

[48] Our Lady of the Iguanas | Graciela Iturbide (1979)

Graciela Iturbide (born May 16, 1942) is a Mexican photographer. Her well-known
photograph, Our Lady of the Iguanas, became so popular that there is a statue of
this woman made in Juchitán, Mexico, as well as murals and graffiti.The image
serves as a reminder of the hardships and injustices that indigenous communities
in Mexico have suffered.
[49] The Strolling Saint | Pedro Meyer (1991)

Pedro Meyer (born in 1935) is a Spanish photographer based in Mexico. He is one

of the pioneers of the digital revolution in contemporary photography. Meyer
blends the magic realism of Latin America with computer-altered photography. A
photograph depicting a surreal street scene with an overcast sky. A saintly figure
in white floats above the pavement and casts a shadow on the wall running down
the street. A woman and child are walking up some steps whilst, on the right of the
image, a man is standing under some plastic sheeting.
[50] The Romantic Dollarscape | Pedro Alvarez (2003)

Pedro Alvarez’s “The Romantic Dollarscape Series” incorporates images of Cuban

peasants with images from American dollar bills, all in a green color reminiscent of
the color of dollars. In his Romantic Dollarscape series (2002-2003), executed
entirely in shades of dollar-bill green, Alvarez appropriates images of American
historical figures appearing on U.S. currency in the denominations of one, five, 10
and 20 dollars (okay, so I had to look up who appears on what). Abraham Lincoln,
Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson make cameo
appearances in tropical, palm-tree studded settings into which he has interjected
familiar American monuments, like the Lincoln Memorial and the White House. Co-
starring with these archetypal American symbols are stereotypically costumed,
hyper romanticized representatives of various ethnic groups who landed,
voluntarily or otherwise, in Cuba at various times -- Africans, Chinese, Arabs,
indigenous peoples, Spaniards and, yes, Americans -- all of whom look like lost
time travelers from other centuries. Dead center in each painting is parked a big-
finned American-made car from the '50s, cars predating the Cuban Revolution
which are still in operation in Cuba today, despite a woeful lack of component
parts thanks to el bloqueo.
[51] Weirdos of Another Universe | Avery Gibbs (2023)

There are many different "worlds" that exist within our perception. These worlds
exist physically, figuratively, conceptually and culturally, and our understanding of
them is constantly changing and evolving as we each gain new experiences and
learn more about the different worlds around us. It is inevitable at different points
in our lives that we'll be faced with entering worlds that are outside of what we
already know. This could mean beginning a new career path, moving to a new city,
adapting to a new culture, or experiencing a different way of living life. Upon
entering one of these new worlds, it’s common for us to feel disoriented, isolated,
or even lost for a period of time.

"Weirdos of Another Universe" is a series of paintings where I've decided to

explore the “what ifs” of an imaginary situation where a small number of humans
suddenly exist within an alien world. This series is about the feeling of being an
outsider after entering a new world, and gradually figuring out how to find your
place within it. This narrative sits at the core of the series, and each painting
serves to further explore this narrative and to further build the world within which
it is taking place.
***
● Some artists choose to reimagine popular brands and fictional characters
in ways that shine a new light on them and on society. Consider the
following works, then discuss with your team: should these artists be
required to secure permission from—or even pay—the companies whose
brands or characters they are borrowing? Does it depend on how widely
the work is distributed, or whether the work is positive or negative?
○ Campbell’s Soup Cans [52] | Andy Warhol (1962)
○ Liberation of Aunt Jemima & Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail

[53] | Betye Saar (1973)

○ Kawsbob [54] | Kaws (2010)
○ Charlie Brown Firestarter [55] | Banksy (2010)
○ Life, Miracle Whip and Premium [56] | Brendan O'Connell (2013)

***

[52] Campbell’s Soup Cans | Andy Warhol (1962)

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962

When asked why he chose to paint Campbell’s soup cans, Warhol offered a
deadpan reply: “I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess,
the same thing over and over again.” That daily meal is the subject of this work
consisting of thirty-two canvases—one for each of the flavors then sold by
Campbell’s—using a combination of projection, tracing, painting, and stamping.
Repeating the nearly identical image, the canvases at once stress the uniformity
and ubiquity of the product’s packaging and subvert the idea of painting as a
medium of invention and originality.

[53] Liberation of Aunt Jemima & Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail | Betye
Saar (1973)

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima is an assemblage that repositions a derogatory

figurine, a product of America’s deep-seated history of racism, as an armed
warrior. It’s become both Saar’s most iconic piece and a symbol of black liberation
and radical feminist art—one which legendary Civil Rights activist Angela Davis
would later credit with launching the black women’s movement.

Since the The Liberation of Aunt Jemima’s outing in 1972, the artwork has been
shown around the world, carrying with it the power of Saar’s missive: that black
women will not be subject to demeaning stereotypes or systematic oppression;
that they will liberate themselves.

“I feel that The Liberation of Aunt Jemima is my iconic art piece. I had no idea she
would become so important to so many,” Saar explains. “The reason I created her
was to combat bigotry and racism and today she stills serves as my warrior
against those ills of our society.” Her call to action remains searingly relevant
today.

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, by Betye Saar (1973)

Actual product commercialized under the Aunt Jemima brand (considered racist):
The Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail, by Betye Saar (1973)

Betye Saar’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail combines the iconography
of the Black Power Movement, political violence, and aspirational middle-class
American culture. It uses them to critique the racist stereotypes of black femininity
and speak to the revolutionary aims of Black Liberation movements. Featuring a
handmade label with a “mammy” figure on the front and a Black Power fist on the
back, the ubiquitous California wine jug turned Molotov cocktail wryly comments
on the potential and promise of armed resistance to oppression.

[54] Kawsbob | Kaws (2010)

Brian Donnelly (born in 1974), known professionally as KAWS, is an American artist

and designer. His work includes repeated use of a cast of figurative characters
and motifs, some dating back to the beginning of his career in the 1990s. Some of
his characters are his own creations while others are reworked versions of existing
icons.

KAWS’ Kawsbob (2011) is a collection of three screen-prints, each in an edition of

100. They show close-up renditions of the universally recognised SpongeBob
Square Pants, capturing the character’s original goofy charm, but adding KAWS’
signature cross-eyes. The prints are available in three colourways: SpongeBob’s
original yellow, red, and black.

[55] Charlie Brown Firestarter | Banksy (2010)

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist and political activist whose

real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active
since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark
humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of
political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges
throughout the world.

Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built
physical prop pieces. His public "installations" are regularly resold, often even by
removing the wall on which they were painted.
Banksy Charlie Brown Firestarter, Los Angeles.

Charlie Brown Firestarter is a kerb-level image of the Peanuts character smoking a

cigarette and furtively emptying a red fuel can on to the pavement. Appearing in
February 2010 this image of an arsonist Charlie Brown appeared in the run up to
the Oscars on the side of a burnt out building in LA. Just a couple of days later it
had been cut out of the wall no doubt to turn up for sale somewhere else.

[56] Life, Miracle Whip and Premium | Brendan O'Connell (2013)

Brendan O'Connell (born in 1968) is a contemporary American artist known for his
paintings of Walmart interiors. He was nicknamed America's "Brand Name Painter"
by Time because of his impressionist paintings of America's most popular brands.
He gained the nickname the "Warhol of Walmart".

Brendan O’Connell is a painter who finds his muses in an unlikely place:

supermarkets. Though he’s best known for paintings scenes from inside Walmart
stores — a decade-spanning body of work that earned him a New Yorker profile
last year and a Colbert Report appearance — his latest series of paintings zooms
in on the everyday even further, focusing on one brand at a time. O’Connell tells
TIME that part of the reason for his interest in these subjects is consumer interest:
his work isn’t cheap — $1,000 is the very low end — but art buyers are willing to
splurge in order to be able to hang an un-ironic painting of their favorite steak
sauce, to take an example. (That’s partly why, starting Jan. 18, he’s launching an
online gallery from his website; demand has been so high that his old sales system
doesn’t cut it anymore.)

Life, Miracle Whip and Premium by Brendan O'Connell (acrylic on board, 2013)
Scene at Walmart, by Brendan O’Connell

***
● A smart fridge that could order more yogurt from the market for you
when your supply runs low: the Internet of things (IoT) devices promised
to revolutionize our daily live, from thermostats that learn when you’re
home to umbrellas that check the weather forecast before you leave
home. But we are now more than a decade into the IoT revolution, and it
has mostly filled our houses with useless gadgets [57] that are privacy
and security risks [58] and frequently turn into e-waste [59]. Discuss
with your team: what went wrong? Do people simply not want their
homes full of IoT devices, or is this a technology whose time has just not
yet come?
***

[57] The IoT revolution, and it has mostly filled our houses with useless gadgets

10 Absurdly Dumb 'Smart' Products Nobody Asked For

There are plenty of instances in which it makes total sense to elevate a so-called
"dumb" product to "smart" status. A security system that texts you if your fire
alarm or motion sensor is triggered? Absolutely. A thermostat that adapts to your
schedule to save energy? Sure. But I challenge the makers of the Bluetooth-
enabled rice cookers, tweeting refrigerators, and texting toilet paper holders to
give us one good reason why these are necessary improvements to society. Just
because we can connect our everyday items to the internet doesn't mean we
should.

Let us consider some of the other more ridiculous and downright absurd products
to emerge on the "internet of things" scene in the last few years.

A frying pan that detects what's in it

SmartyPans
Price: $209
If you require a special Bluetooth-enabled pan to keep track of what ingredients
you've put in it, then maybe cooking just ain't your thing? But hey, $209 could go a
long way on Seamless!

A toothbrush that "guides" you via app

Oral-B Pro 5000
Price: $130 and up
Don't get me wrong, I love an electric toothbrush, but unless you're crippled by
some debilitating short-term memory loss a la Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates
that prevents you from remembering how to brush your damn teeth every morning
and night, there is no good reason to own a Bluetooth-enabled mouth cleaner.

A fork that tracks how fast you're eating

HAPIfork
Price: $79
Trying to lose weight is tough, but is a judgmental $80 fork really the secret to
harnessing self-control? If it were up to me, sentient flatware would mind their
damn business and stay where they belong: dancing adorably in Disney movies.

A wearable that tells you when you're stressed

Spire
Price: $150
I don't know about you, but I generally have a pretty good sense of when I'm
feeling stressed out, and I'm pretty sure having some weird little dongle strapped
to my body telling me what I already know is only going to make it worse.

A plastic carton that tells you if you need more eggs

Egg Minder
Price: $10
I'm having a hard time understanding how this would save you any more than the
three to five seconds it takes to peek at how many eggs are left in your current
"dumb" carton and read the expiration date.

A bottle that tracks how much water you're drinking

Hidrate Spark
Price: $55
This so-called "water bottle of the future" could very well live up to such a status,
but only if all humans mysteriously evolved to forget what being thirsty feels like,
or that staying hydrated is a really big deal. Its makers have apparently hit a nerve,
though, because it's currently sold out.

A yoga mat that tells you when you're screwing up

SmartMat
Price: $347
I imagine it would be pretty tough to find your center mid-hatha while being
intermittently interrupted by some disembodied voice telling you to correct your
form, something this sensor-packed mat -- which pairs with your smartphone or
tablet -- is designed to do.

A monitor that tells you when your tampon is full

my.Flow
Price: TBD
From what I can tell, this is basically a tiny fob that clips to your pants and
constantly keeps your smartphone up to speed on how full your tampon is via
Bluetooth. Far be it from me as a dude to weigh in on the pros and cons of such a
smart tampon, so here are some reactions from some of my female colleagues:
"That is insane." "Yeah, that's an embarrassment." "OMG and on a keychain."

A LED-embedded jump rope that displays fitness data as you work out
Smart Rope
Price: $90
There's a reasons jumping rope is one of the most efficient ways to whip your
body into shape: it's hard as hell! But adding some chrome handles and an LED
calorie counter that looks like some novelty clock you bought at Spencer's is not
going to make it any easier.

A Wi-Fi-enabled wine bottle with interchangeable cartridges

Kuvée
Price: $199
In theory, I would very much be into any gadget that involves drinking wine, but
this whole system seems downright silly. Basically, it's a vessel that kinda looks
like a wine bottle, into which you load specially ordered cartridges of vino (and re-
order new ones right from the built-in LCD screen). The point? Each cartridge will
allegedly keep the wine fresh for up to 30 days, a claim some find dubious. And
honestly, how tough is it to finish an open bottle in a week?

[58]… that are privacy and security risks

Smart devices spy on you – 2 computer scientists explain how the Internet of
Things can violate your privacy
Have you ever felt a creeping sensation that someone’s watching you? Then you
turn around and you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Depending on where
you were, though, you might not have been completely imagining it. There are
billions of things sensing you every day. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight
– inside your TV, fridge, car and office. These things know more about you than
you might imagine, and many of them communicate that information over the
internet.

Back in 2007, it would have been hard to imagine the revolution of useful apps and
services that smartphones ushered in. But they came with a cost in terms of
intrusiveness and loss of privacy. As computer scientists who study data
management and privacy, we find that with internet connectivity extended to
devices in homes, offices and cities, privacy is in more danger than ever.

Internet of Things

Your appliances, car and home are designed to make your life easier and automate
tasks you perform daily: switch lights on and off when you enter and exit a room,
remind you that your tomatoes are about to go bad, personalize the temperature
of the house depending on the weather and preferences of each person in the
household.

To do their magic, they need the internet to reach out for help and correlate data.
Without internet access, your smart thermostat can collect data about you, but it
doesn’t know what the weather forecast is, and it isn’t powerful enough to process
all of the information to decide what to do.

But it’s not just the things in your home that are communicating over the internet.
Workplaces, malls and cities are also becoming smarter, and the smart devices in
those places have similar requirements. In fact, the Internet of Things (IoT) is
already widely used in transport and logistics, agriculture and farming, and
industry automation. There were around 22 billion internet-connected devices in
use around the world in 2018, and the number is projected to grow to over 50
billion by 2030.

What these things know about you

Smart devices collect a wide range of data about their users. Smart security
cameras and smart assistants are, in the end, cameras and microphones in your
home that collect video and audio information about your presence and activities.
On the less obvious end of the spectrum, things like smart TVs use cameras and
microphones to spy on users, smart lightbulbs track your sleep and heart rate, and
smart vacuum cleaners recognize objects in your home and map every inch of it.
Sometimes, this surveillance is marketed as a feature. For example, some Wi-Fi
routers can collect information about users’ whereabouts in the home and even
coordinate with other smart devices to sense motion.

Manufacturers typically promise that only automated decision-making systems

and not humans see your data. But this isn’t always the case. For example,
Amazon workers listen to some conversations with Alexa, transcribe them and
annotate them, before feeding them into automated decision-making systems.

But even limiting access to personal data to automated decision making systems
can have unwanted consequences. Any private data that is shared over the
internet could be vulnerable to hackers anywhere in the world, and few consumer
internet-connected devices are very secure.

Understand your vulnerabilities

With some devices, like smart speakers or cameras, users can occasionally turn
them off for privacy. However, even when this is an option, disconnecting the
devices from the internet can severely limit their usefulness. You also don’t have
that option when you’re in workspaces, malls or smart cities, so you could be
vulnerable even if you don’t own smart devices.

Therefore, as a user, it is important to make an informed decision by

understanding the trade-offs between privacy and comfort when buying, installing
and using an internet-connected device. This is not always easy. Studies have
shown that, for example, owners of smart home personal assistants have an
incomplete understanding of what data the devices collect, where the data is
stored and who can access it.

Governments all over the world have introduced laws to protect privacy and give
people more control over their data. Some examples are the European General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Thanks to this, for instance, you can submit a Data Subject Access Request
(DSAR) to the organization that collects your data from an internet-connected
device. The organizations are required to respond to requests within those
jurisdictions within a month explaining what data is collected, how it is used within
the organization and whether it is shared with any third parties.

Limit the privacy damage

Regulations are an important step; however, their enforcement is likely to take a

while to catch up with the ever-increasing population of internet-connected
devices. In the meantime, there are things you can do to take advantage of some
of the benefits of internet-connected without giving away an inordinate amount of
personal data.

If you own a smart device, you can take steps to secure it and minimize risks to
your privacy. The Federal Trade Commission offers suggestions on how to secure
your internet-connected devices. Two key steps are updating the device’s
firmware regularly and going through its settings and disabling any data collection
that is not related to what you want the device to do. The Online Trust Alliance
provides additional tips and a checklist for consumers to ensure safe and private
use of consumer internet-connected devices.

If you are on the fence about purchasing an internet-connected device, find out
what data it captures and what the manufacturer’s data management policies are
from independent sources such as Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included. By using this
information, you can opt for a version of the smart device you want from a
manufacturer that takes the privacy of its users seriously.

Last but not least, you can pause and reflect on whether you really need all your
devices to be smart. For example, are you willing to give away information about
yourself to be able to verbally command your coffee machine to make you a
coffee?

[59] … and frequently turn into e-waste

All your IoT devices are doomed

Until we look to emulate the open models of Wi-Fi and PCs, IoT will always be
a source of never-ending e-waste.

First, it was Aether's smart speaker, the Cone. Then, it was the Google Revolv
smart hub. Then NetGear's connected home wireless security cameras, VueZone
was killed off. And in March of 2019, it was the Jibo cloud-connected robot. And
while it's not rendering the products into e-waste, Google is cutting off Works
With Nest functionality.

I'm sure I've left out more than a few others that have slipped under the radar. It
seems like every month, an Internet of Things (IoT) device becomes abandonware
or less useful after its cloud service is discontinued.

Many of these devices, once disconnected from the cloud, become useless. They
can't be remotely managed, and some of them stop functioning as standalone (or
were never capable of it in the first place). Are these products going end-of-life
too soon? What are we to do about this endless pile of e-waste that seems to be
the inevitable casualty of the connected-device age?
The problem is not as simple as IoTs and the companies supporting them going
belly-up. It's more along the lines of the vendors themselves being willfully
negligent in providing a path to community support for these devices and
penalizing their early adopters.

It isn't just IoT either. It is anything that is dependent on cloud services -- which
provide an update mechanism.

This includes very mainstream products like Apple's older generation iOS devices
such as the iPhone 6, iPad Air, and the iPad Mini 3. All are popular models that
were released in 2014 that will be unable to upgrade to the latest iOS 13 due next
month.

Without the iOS 13 update, there is the risk that those older iPhones and iPads
might not be able to update third-party apps from the App Store at some point in
the future. Developers may be forced to drop legacy device compatibility in their
apps due to Apple's stringent OS version compatibility policies that have
presented similar issues in the past.

They won't become "unusable," but a lot of functionality is in jeopardy. And there
are a lot of these devices in existence.

As an industry, we need to step back and think about the realistic lifetimes of IoT
and smart devices, and what can be done to extend their lifetimes when they are
at risk of abandonment.

The expected lifetime of an IoT device should probably be based on the type of
device. I like to think of these devices as belonging to three, distinct groups:
endpoints, hubs, and clients.

An endpoint is a device managed by something else. These are devices that if

unmanaged, should still be able to function without a working cloud service.
Examples include light switches, light bulbs, lighting fixtures, alarm system and
sensors, smoke detectors, sockets, thermostats, fans, air conditioners, and video
cameras, as well as major home appliances like refrigerators.

For the most part, endpoints are single-purpose devices. Because of their
simplicity, there should be the expectation that they are also the longest-lived,
with service lives of 10 years at least.

For that service life to be a reality, the management protocols need to be open.
Many endpoints today use Wi-Fi as their communications mechanism, but others
on the market are starting to embrace Bluetooth Low Energy.
While the Wi-Fi (as well as the overlaying TCP/IP protocol stack) and Bluetooth
Low Energy specs are open in and of themselves, the management APIs and
profiles used by these endpoints are not. You also have manufacturer-specific
differences in the way they implement their management protocols over other
wireless communication standards, such as Zigbee and Z-Wave.

While it may not behoove the endpoint manufacturers to make their devices
interoperable with competing endpoints, as a consumer I would be extremely wary
about giving any endpoint manufacturer my continued business unless these
companies form a consortium and make a concerted effort to create a long-term
interoperability specification.

This specification needs to be open and extensible and should be easily

understood by the consumer from an industry-branding perspective, such as Wi-
Fi or Bluetooth. Samsung has the right idea with SmartThings, but I think it needs
to go much broader than that.

Any IoT communication and control standard has to be as accepted and

interoperable as Wi-Fi is today.

How pervasive and open is Wi-Fi as a standard? Extremely. Most Wi-Fi devices
over ten years old still function on modern networks even though security and
functionality changes have occurred over successive generations.

Sure, a lot of that WEP-only stuff became junk. But WPA and WPA2 stuff still work
fine. Even slower 802.11g and 802.11b equipment with WPA-TKIP again function
provided those modes are turned on in new access points.

Arguably, these devices are well outside their expected useful lifetimes, and from
a security standard, should be considered vulnerable and discarded. But this is an
excellent example of how interoperability should work from a long-term
perspective.

With the way things are now, you're not going to be able to say the same about
your IP-controlled light switch or Bluetooth/Zigbee/Z-Wave lightbulb in 10 years.
Probably even less time than that.

Hubs control endpoints. Typically, they act as the primary communication

mechanism to a cloud service, have converged functionality, and may coordinate
firmware upgrades. This includes things like Philips Hue, WeMo, and third-party
hubs like Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Homepod, and Smartthings.

Some endpoints are not hub-managed; they may be entirely cloud-service

dependent. This design weakness makes them especially vulnerable.

For simple endpoints, let us look into the need for an open-hub standard, and
potentially, an open-hub operating system that can communicate with plug-in
managing cloud services, which can be swapped out accordingly.

While I would not rule out Windows 10 for IoT, something based on Linux might be
a good contender, because it supports so much hardware and could be easily
virtualized or containerized inside many common computing infrastructure devices
used in the home, such as a set-top box (like a game console or cable device), Wi-
Fi router, residential gateway, or perhaps one of your PCs.

All you would need is a virtualization or container host and fire it up. Your host just
needs to be able to communicate over TCP/IP and Z-Wave/Zigbee/Bluetooth Low
Energy (and really -- why the hell do we need three standards for that?) for that
virtual hub to manage those devices.

And because it would be virtual, you could back it up and move it to alternative
hardware if needed, such as your smartphone, which has the benefit of being able
to talk directly to a mobile network.

Hubs implemented in a virtual fashion running on an open specification should be

able to live indefinitely. That means IoT abandonment along the lines of Revolv and
NetGear's VueZone would not happen nearly as often as they do now.

And clients?

We already know how long clients should live -- and the more open and flexible
they are, the better off we are as a whole.

I think we can say there's no hope of Apple opening its specifications on any iOS
hardware so that they can be re-used or have their lives extended, which is a
shame. Nobody should expect iOS devices to have a useful life of more than four
years.

In theory, devices that use Android are somewhat better off, as there is a large
community of open-source developers that can write alternative firmware and
obtain the kernel sources needed to support the specific device drivers for the
hardware.

But the reality is most Android devices become e-waste faster than iOS devices
do, because Android OEMs do not release Android updates in a timely fashion, and
in many cases, these devices live out their lives on a single Android version, never
to be upgraded.
And it's no easy process for end-users to "root" their devices to bring it to a
community-supported ROM like LineageOS.

The consolation is that Android devices are getting cheaper and cheaper due to
heavy industry commoditization, so the "pain" to the end-user of having to ditch
their devices more frequently than an iOS user is probably a wash.

That's fine when your only concern is how this affects your wallet, but if you have
any concern for the environment, this is alarming when you think about how much
e-waste is being generated from all of this.

Apple's policies that force obsolescence may be maddening, but unlike the
collective of competing Android OEMs, it does have a strategy in place to recycle
obsolete devices.

Now, I haven't seen any financial incentive for end-users to turn these things in so
that they can act responsibly, but I suspect (or at least hope) this is something
Apple is working on.

The only clients we know that have extended lifetimes are x86-based personal
computers.

They are long-lived because the architecture is well-known, and despite their
increasingly disposable nature, they have a rich third-party parts replacement
industry -- and they run Windows or Mac OS, which have historical commitments
of multiple generations of upgrades from their respective operating system
software vendors.

But PCs are also usable beyond vendor service life because they have an open-
source community not tied to those vendors at all. You have something your PC
hardware vendor doesn't want to support anymore? You can always install Linux
on it.

Sure, not everyone will go for this option. But at least you have a choice, which is
not something you can say for anything represented in the current generation of
IoT.

Until we look to emulate the open models of Wi-Fi and PCs, IoT will always be a
source of never-ending e-waste.

Will the IoT e-waste ever end? Or are we doomed to repeat forced obsolescence
endlessly with our smart devices?