@Phil New Directions - What If Metropolis
While I have been drawing, I have come to realise that there are two "categories" for Brancusi's sculptures. They are either rounded, grand merged shapes, or a number of shapes piled on top of each other. This began to get me thinking about how these shapes could have been formed when found in an environment; whether they were caused by the habitat they were in or whether it was a stylistic choice. Whilst doing research into how weather conditions can effect buildings, I came across two astonishing examples that have really caught my imagination, and are taking me on quite an interesting journey. The one with the most information is:
One of the statues discovered
Statue of a Queen Recovered
Recovering the Pharo's statue
A huge, engraved tablet discovered in the city's ruins.
What it is believed that the city looked like before it was lost.
It is really unknown what actually made the city disappear underneath the bay of Aboukir, but it is commonly believed that a combination of rising sea levels and a collapse in the sedimentary ground (possibly due to earthquake or tsunami), causing the city to drop about 12ft in the 7th century.
Heracleion is not just an important city due to its port and proximity to Alexandria, but it also has strong mythological links. It is the city that in the story of the Trojan war, Paris and Helen of Troy are said to have been stranded in when fleeing from Menelaus. This for me really reinforced that this is a good direction to be moving in as Brancusi has a strong interest in mythology and Folklore.
The sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt
One of the statues discovered
Statue of a Queen Recovered
Recovering the Pharo's statue
A huge, engraved tablet discovered in the city's ruins.
What it is believed that the city looked like before it was lost.
It is really unknown what actually made the city disappear underneath the bay of Aboukir, but it is commonly believed that a combination of rising sea levels and a collapse in the sedimentary ground (possibly due to earthquake or tsunami), causing the city to drop about 12ft in the 7th century.
Heracleion is not just an important city due to its port and proximity to Alexandria, but it also has strong mythological links. It is the city that in the story of the Trojan war, Paris and Helen of Troy are said to have been stranded in when fleeing from Menelaus. This for me really reinforced that this is a good direction to be moving in as Brancusi has a strong interest in mythology and Folklore.
Moving forward
I am interested in moving forward with the concept that my city for the WIM project being a submerged ancient city with strong influences from Egyptian, African and Romanian architecture and art, as well as using Brancusi's own, constructed style to create an interesting trading city.
Next thing is to write my Travelogue.
Okay, so a Brancusi-inspired 'ruin' ... that's interesting - so a once great city that is now underwater... but what to do about the fact that Brancusi associates most keenly with modernism and the 20th Century, so while his work has this quality of ancient stonework and statues, isn't it true that his work associates with the modern? What would Brancusi think about your idea of sort of 'reverse-engineering' his work and turning it into an Atlantean, classical ruin? The thing about his sculptures is that they were sort of shocking and 'new' for audiences (because they appropriated the style of other sorts of making) and were sort of 'MODERN ART' - I just wonder about the idea of creating a 'ruin' out of something that, at the time, represented 'the shock of the new'... what do you think?
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