À rebours chord. On music and “spiritual intelligence” in Christopher Nolan’s movie Interstellar

The essay aims to reveal the role of music in the movie Interstellar by Christopher Nolan and its significance in creating an artistic message that relates to the love myths characteristic of European culture and art. The orientation point is the Tristanic myth and the project of musical dramaturgy by Richard Wagner, the founder of the concept of music being the significant layer in a Gesamtkunstwerk, a synthesis of the arts, which strongly inspires i.a. cinema. The article ponders possible messages to be decoded from the music in Nolan’s movie: as a “form of a lover’s discourse” (R. Barthes), “significant form” (Suzanne K. Langer), “symbolic form” (E. Cassirer), responsible for shaping the ambience that constitutes an inherent structural part of the movie in the metaphysical cinema genre. The musical solutions applied by Hans Zimmer in the soundtrack to Nolan’s movie do more than merely imply inspiration from Wagner. They also allow for recognition of the polyphonic way of constructing formal and thematic relations between musical themes and the verbal-visual layer of the movie. This refined artistic project aims at a subtly directed confrontation with the nihilistic picture of love that is representative of melancholic-pessimistic images of the condition of human relationships in the modern culture. The analysed main musical theme, called the “à rebours chord” (i.e. anti-Tristan chord), turns out to be an overt musical manifestation of such a counterpunch and becomes a starting point to telling a story that refers to the concept of love which assumes taking action and fighting for the good of your loved ones, as well as the concept of Caritas and unconditional love. The way that the music and sound of the movie are orchestrated is therefore tightly coupled with its semantic and symbolic message, which allows for perceiving the music as a specific “libration point” of the movie structure. Its function might also be interpreted as a semantic attribute of “a spiritual intelligence”, referring to that which is binding and crucial for the axiological and metaphysical message of the movie.The essay aims to reveal the role of music in the movie Interstellar by Christopher Nolan and its significance in creating an artistic message that relates to the love myths characteristic of European culture and art. The orientation point is the Tristanic myth and the project of musical dramaturgy by Richard Wagner, the founder of the concept of music being the significant layer in a Gesamtkunstwerk, a synthesis of the arts, which strongly inspires i.a. cinema. The article ponders possible messages to be decoded from the music in Nolan’s movie: as a “form of a lover’s discourse” (R. Barthes), “significant form” (Suzanne K. Langer), “symbolic form” (E. Cassirer), responsible for shaping the ambience that constitutes an inherent structural part of the movie in the metaphysical cinema genre. The musical solutions applied by Hans Zimmer in the soundtrack to Nolan’s movie do more than merely imply inspiration from Wagner. They also allow for recognition of the polyphonic way of constructing formal and thematic relations between musical themes and the verbal-visual layer of the movie. This refined artistic project aims at a subtly directed confrontation with the nihilistic picture of love that is representative of melancholic-pessimistic images of the condition of human relationships in the modern culture. The analysed main musical theme, called the “à rebours chord” (i.e. anti-Tristan chord), turns out to be an overt musical manifestation of such a counterpunch and becomes a starting point to telling a story that refers to the concept of love which assumes taking action and fighting for the good of your loved ones, as well as the concept of Caritas and unconditional love. The way that the music and sound of the movie are orchestrated is therefore tightly coupled with its semantic and symbolic message, which allows for perceiving the music as a specific “libration point” of the movie structure. Its function might also be interpreted as a semantic attribute of “a spiritual intelligence”, referring to that which is binding and crucial for the axiological and metaphysical message of the movie

National comparison of methods for determination of radon in water

The article describes three interlaboratory experiments concerning 222Rn determination in water samples. The fi rst two experiments were carried out with the use of artifi cial radon waters prepared by the Laboratory of Radiometric Expertise (LER), Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków in 2014 and 2018. The third experiment was performed using natural environment waters collected in the vicinity of the former uranium mine in Kowary in 2016. Most of the institutions performing radon in water measurements in Poland were gathered in the Polish Radon Centre Network, and they participated in the experiments. The goal of these exercises was to evaluate different measurement techniques used routinely in Polish laboratories and the laboratories’ profi ciency of radon in water measurements. In the experiment performed in 2018, the reference values of 222Rn concentration in water were calculated based on the method developed at LER. The participants’ results appeared to be worse for low radon concentration than for high radon concentrations. The conclusions drawn on that base indicated the weaknesses of the used methods and probably the sampling. The interlaboratory experiments, in term, can help to improve the participants’ skills and reliability of their results

Radon intercomparison tests – Katowice, 2016

At the beginning of the year 2016, the representatives of the Polish Radon Centre decided to organize profi ciency tests (PTs) for measurements of radon gas and radon decay products in the air, involving radon monitors and laboratory passive techniques. The Silesian Centre for Environmental Radioactivity of the Central Mining Institute (GIG), Katowice, became responsible for the organization of the PT exercises. The main reason to choose that location was the radon chamber in GIG with a volume of 17 m3, the biggest one in Poland. Accordingly, 13 participants from Poland plus one participant from Germany expressed their interest. The participants were invited to inform the organizers about what types of monitors and methods they would like to check during the tests. On this basis, the GIG team prepared the proposal for the schedule of exercises, such as the required level(s) of radon concentrations, the number and periods of tests, proposed potential alpha energy concentration (PAEC) levels and also the overall period of PT. The PT activity was performed between 6th and 17th June 2016. After assessment of the results, the agreement between radon monitors and other measurement methods was confi rmed. In the case of PAEC monitors and methods of measurements, the results of PT exercises were consistent and confi rmed the accuracy of the calibration procedures used by the participants. The results of the PAEC PTs will be published elsewhere; in this paper, only the results of radon intercomparison are described

Dramaturgia mitu i tragedii: „Król Roger” Karola Szymanowskiego w tyglu (pop)kultury

Studium dotyczy tragediowych aspektów dwudziestowiecznej opery Król Roger op. 46 Karola Szymanowskiego. Kluczowy wpływ na projekt dramaturgii dzieła miały wzorce antyczne (szczególnie Bachantki Eurypidesa) oraz koncepcja tragedii i dramatu muzycznego Friedricha Nietzschego. W pierwszej części artykułu teatralne aspekty tragizmu Króla Rogera zostały ukazane na przykładzie wybranych inscenizacji tej opery (Mariusza Trelińskiego, Krzysztofa Warlikowskiego i Kaspera Holtena), podejmujących problem rozpadu świata i kryzysu wartości. Ich główną osią dramaturgiczną okazały się odwołania do kryzysu kultury współczesnej oraz pytania o reakcje jednostki i wspólnoty na stan zagrożenia wywołany przez dionizyjski żywioł. Na podstawie analizy struktury dramatycznej libretta i wypowiedzi kompozytora o procesie twórczym uwypuklono znaczenie teatralnych aspektów opery. Podkreślono, jak istotny był według kompozytora odpowiedni kompromis w ramach fuzji sztuk i horyzontów, w tym między innymi dionizyjskich i apollińskich tendencji w programie ideowym dzieła

Angelologic treatise between the arts. On “The Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders

Angelologic treatise between the arts. On “The Wings of Desire” by Wim WendersThe study titled Angelologic treatise between the arts. On “The Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders undertakes to analyze aesthetic and cultural contexts which have impinged on the overall significance of the film. Commencing with the presentation of the angelic motifs and the relations they bear to the angelologic tradition of Western culture, the author identifies some thematic and formal elements which influenced the original concept of spiritual reality depicted in Wenders’s film. Due to its consistent fictional and artistic vision, the picture has been dubbed “the angelologic film treatise”. The second part of the article focuses on the analysis of the visual and musical aspects of the film. The most significant interpretative framework revolves around the concept of visual games and the topos of musical harmony (musica mundana, humana and instrumentalis). The issues under consideration demonstrate the great significance all the formal devices, both in terms of presented images and music, have in constructing deep layers of meaning. A particular importance should be assigned to these audio-visual elements that underscore the relevance of spiritual and existential aspects, constituting the substance of Wenders’s film.The study titled Angelologic treatise between the arts. On “The Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders undertakes to analyze aesthetic and cultural contexts which have impinged on the overall significance of the film. Commencing with the presentation of the angelic motifs and the relations they bear to the angelologic tradition of Western culture, the author identifies some thematic and formal elements which influenced the original concept of spiritual reality depicted in Wenders’s film. Due to its consistent fictional and artistic vision, the picture has been dubbed “the angelologic film treatise”. The second part of the article focuses on the analysis of the visual and musical aspects of the film. The most significant interpretative framework revolves around the concept of visual games and the topos of musical harmony (musica mundana, humana and instrumentalis). The issues under consideration demonstrate the great significance all the formal devices, both in terms of presented images and music, have in constructing deep layers of meaning. A particular importance should be assigned to these audio-visual elements that underscore the relevance of spiritual and existential aspects, constituting the substance of Wenders’s film

The Dramaturgy of Myth and Tragedy: Karol Szymanowski’s “King Roger” in the Pop-Cultural Melting Pot

Studium dotyczy tragediowych aspektów dwudziestowiecznej opery Król Roger op. 46 Karola Szymanowskiego. Kluczowy wpływ na projekt dramaturgii dzieła miały wzorce antyczne (szczególnie Bachantki Eurypidesa) oraz koncepcja tragedii i dramatu muzycznego Friedricha Nietzschego. W pierwszej części artykułu teatralne aspekty tragizmu Króla Rogera zostały ukazane na przykładzie wybranych inscenizacji tej opery (Mariusza Trelińskiego, Krzysztofa Warlikowskiego i Kaspera Holtena), podejmujących problem rozpadu świata i kryzysu wartości. Ich główną osią dramaturgiczną okazały się odwołania do kryzysu kultury współczesnej oraz pytania o reakcje jednostki i wspólnoty na stan zagrożenia wywołany przez dionizyjski żywioł. Na podstawie analizy struktury dramatycznej libretta i wypowiedzi kompozytora o procesie twórczym uwypuklono znaczenie teatralnych aspektów opery. Podkreślono, jak istotny był według kompozytora odpowiedni kompromis w ramach fuzji sztuk i horyzontów, w tym między innymi dionizyjskich i apollińskich tendencji w programie ideowym dzieła.This article discusses the tragedic aspects of Karol Szymanowski’s 20th-century opera King Roger op. 46. The work’s dramaturgical design was crucially influenced by ancient models (especially Euripides’ The Bacchae) as well as Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of tragedy and music drama. The first part of the article presents theatrical aspects of King Roger’s tragedic character, drawing on selected stagings of this opera (by Mariusz Treliński, Krzysztof Warlikowski, and Kasper Holten), which addressed the problems of the disintegration of the world and the crisis of values. It is observed that their dramaturgy centers around the axis of references to the crisis of contemporary culture and questions about the individual’s and the community’s reactions to the threat caused by the Dionysian element. Based on an analysis of the dramatic structure of the libretto and the composer’s statements about his creative process, the author emphasizes the significance of the theatrical aspects of opera. She stresses how important it was for Szymanowski to achieve an adequate compromise within the fusion of arts and horizons, including the Dionysian and Apollonian tendencies in the work’s ideological program

Angelologiczny traktat filmowy pomiędzy sztukami. O "Niebie nad Berlinem" Wima Wendersa

The study titled Angelologic treatise between the arts. On “The Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders undertakes to analyze aesthetic and cultural contexts which have impinged on the overall significance of the film. Commencing with the presentation of the angelic motifs and the relations they bear to the angelologic tradition of Western culture, the author identifies some thematic and formal elements which influenced the original concept of spiritual reality depicted in Wenders’s film. Due to its consistent fictional and artistic vision, the picture has been dubbed “the angelologic film treatise”. The second part of the article focuses on the analysis of the visual and musical aspects of the film. The most significant interpretative framework revolves around the concept of visual games and the topos of musical harmony (musica mundana, humana and instrumentalis). The issues under consideration demonstrate the great significance all the formal devices, both in terms of presented images and music, have in constructing deep layers of meaning. A particular importance should be assigned to these audio-visual elements that underscore the relevance of spiritual and existential aspects, constituting the substance of Wenders’s film

W rokokowym blasku podróży na Cyterę… Dramaturgiczne antecedencje formowania koncepcji postaci w XVIII-wiecznej operze seria na przykładzie Alciny Georga Friedricha Händla

This study presents the effect of the principles of dramatic poetics with regard to the way the concept of a character in eighteenth-century opera seria was formed. Similarly to the rococo message of Antoine Watteau’s paintings, this genre of opera was characterised by melancholic sophistication, the rule of the artificiality of the presented world and an allegorical plan of reference that assumed an intellectualised strategy of reception of a work of art. The article presents the path to the formation of a model eighteenth-century-opera character, from the transformation of the principles of Aristotelian poetics due to the influence of the rhetorical and scholastic tradition and later due to that of the poetics of French classicism. Händel’s Alcina serves as an example of the superiority of ethos and pathos, i.e. of the presentation of the affects and internal states of the titular character, over other elements of the drama. It is also used to explain to what extent the project of the rococo opera, artificial and challenging the probability rule, practises the mimetic postulates of artistics presentation.This study presents the effect of the principles of dramatic poetics with regard to the way the concept of a character in eighteenth-century opera seria was formed. Similarly to the rococo message of Antoine Watteau’s paintings, this genre of opera was characterised by melancholic sophistication, the rule of the artificiality of the presented world and an allegorical plan of reference that assumed an intellectualised strategy of reception of a work of art. The article presents the path to the formation of a model eighteenth-century-opera character, from the transformation of the principles of Aristotelian poetics due to the influence of the rhetorical and scholastic tradition and later due to that of the poetics of French classicism. Händel’s Alcina serves as an example of the superiority of ethos and pathos, i.e. of the presentation of the affects and internal states of the titular character, over other elements of the drama. It is also used to explain to what extent the project of the rococo opera, artificial and challenging the probability rule, practises the mimetic postulates of artistics presentation