Tag: art
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What’s on Spotify this week
This playlist features: Songlines by Nyoongi and Rüdiger Oppermann Australia meets Europe in Songlines, a piece that combines plucked strings with didgeridoo. Songlines are the walking music that Aboriginal people memorise to travel safely and to pass on ancestral routes. In a Landscape by John Cage, performed by Alexei Lubimov American composer, John Cage, is…
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Baboon
Baboons, those Bad Boys of the Old World, have a reputation… Wily, cunning, vicious… these are all words that are used to describe our primate cousins. Baboons are seen as pests because they plunder houses, and farms, and take food right out of tourists’ hands. They roam freely, seemingly wherever they want. After all who…
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The Spotify playlist
Each week a playlist of audio is created to go along with the blog. The playlist, on the Spotify platform, is made up of songs and sounds that have some relevance to the blog. For those with a paid subscription to Spotify the music will play uninterrupted, either on the player above or in the…
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Iconic Australian design
In the 1980s and ’90s, jumpers in Australia became startling. Beginning with Coogi, a fashion label first established in Melbourne under the name Cuggi, the bright colours and bold patterning of these sweaters took the entertainment world by storm with The Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls) name-checking them in his lyrics and sporting the look. Coogi style…
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Zimbabwe’s ancient musical instruments
A recent study has been looking at identifying musical instruments depicted in Zimbabwean rock art. Rock art is found on almost every continent, Antarctica being the exception for obvious reasons. These enigmatic images have been painted, scratched, etched, outlined, sketched and drawn for thousands of years. Zimbabwean rock art is exceptional and the Matobo Hills…
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AI and image generation
In researching this week’s blog entries Artificial Intelligence (AI) was a tool. Harnessing the power of data to create new images is powerful but it currently has limitations. The images on this page were created using AI. By typing prompts into the AI platform new images were created to illustrate the articles on the blog.…
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Technology
This week’s blog entries are all to do with technology. From the rise of the computer to AI, we are surrounded by technology. Some of it is useful, some is harmful. Some helps us to be more, and some has the potential to disrupt our lives and lessen them. So this week I have decided…
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The tracks on Spotify
The audio this week on the playlist features these tracks. The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček This well-loved opera in Czech started out as a newspaper comic strip before becoming a staple of the operatic stage. The allegorical story follows Vixen Sharp Ears as she loves and lures her way through life in the…
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The Spotify playlist
Each week a playlist is curated on the Spotify platform for readers to listen to while browsing the blog. The tracks on the playlist have something to do with the blog entries, sometimes obviously and sometimes less so. To listen, click on the player above or head over to Spotify where you can search for…
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Iceland and the poetry of weaving
The Nordic nation of Iceland sits on the Mid Atlantic Ridge, midway between Europe and North America. Wild, windswept, beautiful, bleak and filled with fire and ice, the country is a romantic’s dream, an island of Vikings and sagas,… and art. While the music of Iceland is well-known, and it boasts a fine pedigree in…