Wikimedia Commons: Lakeview #1 oil gusher, Kern County, California, USA, after the well had partially subsided, the derrick removed, and the well surrounded by a sandbag berm. Photo by W.C. Mendenhall, US Geological Survey, 1910
The Lakeview Gusher Number One was an immense out-of-control pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, resulting in what is regarded as the largest oil spill in history, lasting 18 months and releasing 9 million barrels (1.4×106 m3) of crude oil. In what was one of the largest oil reserves in America, pressure built to an extreme due to the quantity of crude oil in the area. (wikipedia)
• Oct 29, 2010 link notes tagged: technology photograph vintage BW oil oil spill history disaster nature machine man catastrophe natural catastrophe
 | There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm. |
Here’s a French translation:
Il existe un tableau de Klee qui s’intitule Angelus Novus. Il représente un ange qui semble avoir dessein de s’éloigner de ce à quoi son regard semble rivé. Ses yeux sont écarquillés, sa bouche ouverte, ses ailes déployées. Tel est l’aspect que doit avoir nécessairement l’ange de l’histoire. Il a le visage tourné vers le passé. Où paraît devant nous une suite d’événements, il ne voit qu’une seule et unique catastrophe, qui ne cesse d’amonceler ruines sur ruines et les jette à ses pieds. Il voudrait bien s’attarder, réveiller les morts et rassembler les vaincus. Mais du paradis souffle une tempête qui s’est prise dans ses ailes, si forte que l’ange ne peut plus les refermer. Cette tempête le pousse incessamment vers l’avenir auquel il tourne le dos, cependant que jusqu’au ciel devant lui s’accumulent les ruines. Cette tempête est ce que nous appelons le progrès. (Source)
• Jul 23, 2010 link notes reblogged from chrbutler [via] tagged: art progress philosophy Benjamin history man angel past present future destruction catastrophe order chaos tempest
I first found this photo over at Washington’s Blog. The post where it appears makes a (short) argument about the ban of media coverage apparently imposed by BP and US officials and the alleged suspension of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution it represents. At the very end of the post, the author seems to put forward a legal argument supporting the publication of such pictures as the one shown above:
In addition, use of such images is also protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, reproduction is protected under the “Mai Lai/Zapruder line of cases”, since:
(1) The images are of historical significance;
(2) They show facts which cannot be conveyed effectively in any other manner, and
(3) Therefore the Constitution trumps copyright law. (more)
Now, what exactly are those “Mai Lai/Zapruder line of cases” ? It’s not a law, but a “line of cases” and it could plausibly be used to challenge the ban of some media access to the site of the catastrophe (see The New York Times: “BP and Officials Block Some Coverage of Golf Oil Spill”). More thoughts about this over at Aphelis.
• Jul 14, 2010 link notes tagged: communication technology catastrophe animal destruction death responsability shock image representation human oil BP British Petroleum disaster copyright fair use constitution media press freedom Zapruder
About Bob Staake:
Bob Staake (born September 26, 1957 in Los Angeles, California) is an American illustrator, cartoonist, children’s book author, and designer. He lives and works in Chatham, Massachusetts on the elbow of Cape Cod. (wikipedia)
I first came to know Bob Staake through this video, were he demonstrates how he uses a subtraction process in Photoshop 3.0 to create his illustration. Visit his official website (and discover a lot more about his art).
• Jul 01, 2010 link notes tagged: art technology BP disaster environment nature animal catastrophe oil petroleum illustration illustrator artist Escher
Previously on Skandalon : Barry Blitt, British Petroleum
• Jun 10, 2010 link notes tagged: art illustration humor critic animal human disaster ecology environment oil BP Catastrophe nature technology representation
| What DeLillo understood, long ago, is the end of the world would be experienced not as the end of the world but rather as a way of thinking and talking about the end of the world. What he understood is that the toxic cloud that has our name on it would be defined by its lack of definition; that we would never have as much information about it as we need to have or that someone else has; that it would turn into a free-floating void, exactly as withholding as it is encompassing; that it would become part of the landscape and that the landscape would become part of it; and that, of course, there would be footage, endlessly recycled but ultimately inconclusive. No, Don DeLillo has never written about what about BP, Transocean, the MMS, and our thirst for oil have wrought in the Gulf of Mexico. But 25 years ago he imagined the name for a disaster that would come with its own excruciating and tantalizing Zapruder, and that would allow us to talk it — and ourselves — to death: The underwater toxic event. |
Jacques Derrida developed a similar idea about the 9/11 attacks. See Philosophy in a Time of Terror
Tom Junod is an American journalist. He’s also the author of the excellent piece : “The Falling Man” (which is also the name of a great novel by Don DeLillo)
• Jun 02, 2010 link notes tagged: DeLillo Derrida art author catastrophe communication destruction disaster event language name nature novel reality representation technology BP
Thanks to Innovation Is Dead for the photo of the BP gas station.
• Jun 01, 2010 link notes tagged: art catastrophe communication death design disaster illustration image nature oil public relation technology BP
