Modern Art Was Used As a Torture Technique in Prison Cells During the Spanish Civil War

ModernModern Art Was Used As a Torture Technique in Prison Cells During the Spanish Civil War

By Colin Marshall

Don't Forget I Come from the Tropics

Even long after my death

Long after your death

I want to torture you.

I want the thought of me

To coil around your body like a serpent of fire

Without burning you.

I want to see you lost, asphyxiated, wander

In the murky haze

Woven by my desires.

For you, I want long sleepless nights

Filled by the roaring tom-tom of storms

Far away, invisible, unknown.

Then, I want the nostalgia of my presence

To paralyze you.

María Martins (to Marcel Duchamp) c.1945

Olmega Serpiente

Olmega Serpiente, Veracruz,1800-100 A.C.

Upside down — the Netherlands

It is often said that simple things that we may not be even aware of can have significant consequences. Arrows on highway signs, for example. Research shows that when they point up instead of down they give drivers a feeling of being more informed and having more time to react. Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch ministry of infrastructure and the environment, has been studying this issue since as far back as 2008. A trial conducted on the highway at the Velperbroek junction near Arnhem indicated that using upward-pointing arrows can improve traffic flow by up to 10 kilometres per hour and reduce traffic delays by up to 30 minutes. Since then, the Netherlands have changed most of their signs to use upward-pointing arrows, and so have Sweden and Germany. Neighbouring Belgium is currently in the process of studying the effects of reversing the arrows, while most other countries, including the US, UK, Canada, France and Spain still use downward-pointing arrows.

by Peter Biľak

 https://worksthatwork.com/artefacts/upside-down 

A Psalm of Life

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 

   Life is but an empty dream! 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

   And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 

   And the grave is not its goal; 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

   Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

   Is our destined end or way; 

But to act, that each to-morrow 

   Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 

   And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

Still, like muffled drums, are beating 

   Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world’s broad field of battle, 

   In the bivouac of Life, 

Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 

   Be a hero in the strife! 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! 

   Let the dead Past bury its dead! 

Act,— act in the living Present! 

   Heart within, and God o’erhead! 

Lives of great men all remind us 

   We can make our lives sublime, 

And, departing, leave behind us 

   Footprints on the sands of time; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, 

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

   Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 

   With a heart for any fate; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 

   Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1847.

Triste Tropicalia

Marcelo Cidade, “Triste Tropicalia”, 2004, concrete pipes and fems.