Imaging Evil in the First Chapters of Genesis: Texts behind the Images in Eastern Orthodox Art

Satan’s interference in the events described in the first chapters of the book of Genesis and in the life of the protoplasts is not mentioned at all in the biblical text. This happens, however, in pseudo-canonical texts. The article is a short survey on the apocryphal accounts that mention Satan and their influence on art. The main focus is put on the inclusion of the image of Satan behind Cain’s figure in a number of depictions of the scene The Murder of Abel in the Russian art of the 16th and 17th centuries. The possible links between this visual motif with several literary sources is examined, among them the Short and the Explanatory Palaea, the Tale of Bygone Years (Povest’ vremennykh let or Primary Chronicle), Russian recensions of the apocryphon The Sea of Tiberias, and of The Revelation of Pseudo-Methodius of Patara. In addition, some instances of the same visual decision in Balkan art are pointed out and their connection to Russian models is underlined

Towards a digital money structure for illiterate users

In developing countries, although money is becoming digital in the form of mobile money, it is not easily used by millions of illiterate users in their everyday transactions. Digitization of material money thus poses a challenge to many users. Existing mobile money systems and platforms represent money in terms of simple numbers, like 13, 50, 0.78, 23.64, 80 etc. This way of money representation is almost unusable by illiterate users, unless they depend on others' help. The literature has overlooked the different metadata inscribed on material money (like icons or images, colour, security means, and serial numbers etc). However, these metadata enable illiterate users to identify different currency notes. The material properties of money bills also enable illiterates do simple maths like addition, subtraction, division, and counting. However, current mobile money solutions have not considered money bill's metadata. Such absence of metadata made money bill identification and transactions difficult for illiterates. The work described in this paper uses the theory of digital objects and theory of non-material technological objects and presents a theoretical presentation for the structure of digital money, to be used in digital ecosystem

The documentary evidence for Templar religion

The Templar Rule and statutes are also only of limited help when it comes to establishing what went on within the walls of Templar churches. The documentary evidence that captures the patchwork nature of Templar religion best is found in the Templar inventories drawn up, for the most part, shortly after the Templars’ arrests in 1307–1311. Historians working on the Templars’ Spanish inventories – especially Maria Vilar Bonet and, more recently, Sebastian Salvado – have already pointed out that Mass in Templar chapels and churches could be a colourful affair. An alb and amice made of golden velvet and embroidered with birds was found in the Templar church of Mary Magdalene in Bologna. To speak of a South-North or even Spanish-French divide in the material presentation of Templar religion may be a gross simplification of what was in any case a very complex religious and liturgical landscape

A „Divine Sanction” on the Revolt: The Cult of St. Demetrios of Thessalonike and the Uprising of Peter and Asen (1185–1186)

The paper examines the role of the cult of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica as a tool of maintaining legitimacy of the anti-Byzantine revolt in Tărnovo, 1185–1186, led by brothers Theodore- Peter and Asen-Belgun, which is viewed in the modern scholarship as a starting point of the history of the so-called Second Bulgarian Empire. Apart from the peculiarities of the official and popular veneration of St. Demetrius in Byzantium by the end of the 12th C., the main emphasis is made on the celebration, arranged in Tărnovo on St. Demetrius’ day, 1185, by Peter and Asen. The fact of the construction there of a special house of prayer in the name of the all-praised martyr Demetrius (Nicetas Choniates) and the presence of a certain icon of the saint as well as, probably, that of his relic, shedding the holy ointment, can be interpreted in terms of the concept of “hierotopy”, introduced recently by A. Lidov. At any rate, one can speak of attempting to replicate in Tărnovo the sacred space of the Thessalonican shrine of St. Demetrius in order to convince the Bulgarian rebels of the “true” presence of St. Demetrius among them. The parallel is drawn between the celebration in Tărnovo and another well-known “hierotopic project” of the late 12th cent., performed by prince Vsevolod III in Vladimir-on-Kljaz’ma, Russia, which also encompassed the construction of the church in the name of St. Demetrius, where his miracle- working relics from Thessalonica were housed. The similarity between the two “projects“ is obvious, but they must have been inspired by clearly different causes: if Vsevolod III tried only to raise the authority of his power to that of the grand princedom, being an absolutely legitimate ruler, then Peter and Asen had to justify the legitimacy of their own, questioning that of the Byzantine Empire

Medvedkine

Chris Marker’s portrait of Alexandre Medvedkine in the 1993 film Le tombeau d’Alexandre/The Last Bolshevik is highly instructive of his own relationship to Soviet cinema. Most especially, this difficult or troubled rapport with the antecedents to cinéma vérité in the West (and its protean formal properties, in terms of structure and often satirical-critical commentary) comes forth in the figures he assembles to comment upon Medvedkine’s life work. When Medvedkine’s Scast’e (Le Bonheur/Happiness) (1934) leaked to the West (c.1967), sent like an “SOS” in multiple bottles to various film archives (one by one from deep within the Soviet film world), Marker and SLON received a copy by way of Jacques Ledoux (curator of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, in Belgium). The film opened the floodgates of a retrospective survey of Soviet filmmaking repressed and forgotten other than by remote and distant figures (partisans) who somehow survived the Stalinist purges of the 1930s

Hagiography

Jon Boorstin proposes three purposes for film production – voyeuristic, vicarious, and visceral (Boorstin). Scrutinized in light of Boorstin’s proposal, hagiographical films are most likely to have three purposes imbedded in three generic types: investigation, verification, and veneration. In most cases, hagiographical films make biblical references, either textually or visually, in order to maximize each type’s purpose

Cities of culture and the regeneration game

Capital of Culture (ECoC) programme exactly a year on from its inauguration. This event also saw the transition from Liverpool's "Year of Culture 08‟ to "Year of Environment 09" and a simultaneous event in the Austrian city of Linz to which the Capital of Culture mantle passed, along with Vilnius, Lithuania. An estimated 60,000 people congregated at the Pier Head as well as at the Albert Dock and Wirral bank, for a celebration that included sing-a-longs, firework displays, street artists on illuminated bikes and light projections onto a famous refurbished new museum building making up this World Heritage city. This "Light Night" celebration also kick-started similar events held in cities in England and Scotland, with extended opening of venues. The Light Night theme chosen for Liverpool 08's swansong emulates the Nuit Blanche festival celebrated in dozens of cities such as Paris, Rome, Montreal and Toronto - the largest of which attract 1 to 3 million participants over "late night" weekend extravaganzas (Jiwa et al., 2009). These "eventful cities" (Richards and Palmer 2010) reflect a global trend and network that spreads virtually and geographically (Evans, 2011)

Play it again, Duke: jazz performance, improvisation, and the construction of spontaneity

No abstract available