Tibetan Buddhist monks have created sand mandalas for over 2,500 years, as it remains one of the religion’s most beautiful and symbolic traditions. Each mandala has a center point that is surrounded by a circle, a perfectly symmetrical design of specific meaning, and an accompaniment of various religious deities and symbols. They are created as […]
While the medium is galloping towards infinite possibilities, an introspective study of its past is becoming more and more necessary. One significant way in which cinema triumphs as a truly global experience is in upholding its universal character over the ages, and sustaining an all-encompassing intimate fraternity, despite attaining the proportions of a more and […]
The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different environments. Language is a universal hallmark of humanity, but it sounds different in different parts of the world. On most Pacific islands and throughout Southeast Asia, words use more vowel sounds than consonants, and they’re spoken in simple syllables, […]
Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna, Austria in 1889. As a young man he studied engineering, but his mathematical work in this area led him to developing an interest in the philosophy of mathematics and then philosophy in general. Wittgenstein read and admired the philosopher Bertrand Russell’s book, The Principles of Mathematics. In 1911, he […]
Avant-garde composer John Cage started out as a disciple of Arnold Schoenberg. He greatly looked up to the exiled Austrian as a model of how a true artist ought to live. Cage, in turn, inspired generations of artists and composers both through his work – which incorporated elements of chance into his music – and […]
Not only in his time but in present day, Michelangelo Antonioni’s style of narration is considered unique and inimitable. There is something about his films that make all the different narrative spaces of his stories recognizable, regardless the language the characters are speaking or the landscapes they are roaming. Whoever the actor, whether it’s Jack […]
Bertrand Russell saw the history of civilization as being shaped by an unfortunate oscillation between two opposing evils: tyranny and anarchy, each of which contain the seed of the other. The best course for steering clear of either one, Russell maintained, is liberalism. “The doctrine of liberalism is an attempt to escape from this endless […]
Released in 1985 to critical acclaim, Elem Klimov’s “Come and See” is not an underrated film – those who see it are quick to recognize its excellence. It is, however, a criminally underseen one, most likely because of where and when it was made (more on that later). Additionally, it has no big stars or […]