This is my turn for a topic; if you are curious what I am talking about visit Bryan's blog to see where we started this. K.
Okay I just finished watching how Venice is sinking on NOVA. It's an interesting city how people ran to hide in the lagoon and then built a city at sea level. The other interesting part was how it is built basically on a sponge and then sea level is rising.
Well, there have been plans for floating gates that would rise during abnormal hide tides. This would help the flooding that already exists in Venice. In 1966 Venice had a major flooding of the city, and politicians have been talking since then to do something. After thirty-some governments come and gone since then, nothing has been done. I heard a really good quote from the show; politics gets in the way of science and technology.
I think it's funny how the Italians have been arguing since then beginning of their city, how to deal with the flooding and how in this past century it has come to a stop because of politics. Another issue I found interesting was that Venetians just kept raising the land level and their buildings, but this type of solution was put to an end b/c it would hurt preserving the great architecture. Which I understand preservation, but when it comes to the fact that if your city gets more than four foot flooding 90% of your city if flooded? And we ain't talking about the roads b/c hello! Their roads are canals. If their ancestors have been doing it for centuries to maintain their spot on international trade, shouldn't you now?
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Ok, I thought this was just a topical interest piece when I first read it, hence the delay in my response.
This obviously brings to mind the recent comment by the senator, whose name escapes me at the moment, that maybe we should just abandon the land and rebuild the spirit of New Orleans elsewhere. He got a lot of flak, but it's a sound idea. Why throw good money after bad, in a sense. And it's beyond financial considerations. The fact is the risks that Katrina illuminated are not goign to change, and while they can be mitigated with planning, it would be costly and never completely effective.
But I'm drifting off the topic at hand. With regards to Venice, it's my opinion that Europeans take a different approach to their history. Not only is it--well, more historical--I think a variety of cultural elements make it more difficult for them to let go. And while I think it's foolish, it's not my taxes in this case, so it's hard for me to care.
But I will say this--and it's actually something I'd made a note of to talk with you about when I got back. I think the extent we take preservation to is a little ridiculous, be it with art or architecture or anything else. The reason presented for preservation, which grows increasingly more expensive and difficult with the passage of time, is that we don't want to lose the irreplaceable. But I think with anything, even the icons like the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel, their transience accomplishes two things. One, it adds to their beauty by forcing us to appreciate it, and two, it prevents us from resting on our artistic laurels forever and drives us to create new masterpieces. In addition, preservation efforts eventually, no matter how much care is taken, change the work they preserve into something that is not the original.
But again, specifically with Venice--I'd make fun of them, but D.C. is also built on a swamp, is also sinking at a comparable rate, and is possibly the most historically significant city in the States. We won't be around to see it, but I wonder how our (American) reaction will compare to the Italians when it reaches the point Venice is headed towards.
Thanks for taking the time and rereading my blog. I know you would see a point in there somewhere.
Ok, I am with preservation of the arts, because there are many pieces of art done in different styles and it is important to study these styles in order to create new. Kind of like learning an instrument, you need to know how to do the scales and pieces of music before able to interpret your own style. So if we preserve music, shouldn't we save art? On a side note, we need the old pieces or else we will be left with pop-art. Yeah yeah Andy Warhol, but name another pop-artist. Trash to me is not art, and I feel these people don't understand the patience it took the greats to learn styles, mediums, and the history that goes with it.
Ok, going back to Venice. This isn't necessarily a preserve the old architecture argument, this is survival. And to continue living in this area then go with the gates. They don't want to use the gates b/c of landscape. Hmmm, you're drowning.
Besides D.C we have other cities that are built at or below sea level. Galveston is a great example (to tie into the whole Katrina thing). They were built at sea level and it was a thriving metropolis. A lot of money came to play on that island then the Hurricane of the 1900 came and wiped it clean, and yes the city moved to Houston. I wonder where New Orleans will move to?
Well, the point of Venice was survival, and I just feel they should continue that tradition
You use a word that immediately snatches my attention, 'survival.' And if this were a word association test, "of the fittest' would be the next thing out of my mouth. It's a belief system for me, as well as a scientific principle.
So if the people of Venice, and their elected gov't, choose to ignore the writing (and floodmarks) on the wall, then screw them. Same reason I am trouble dredging up sympathy for folks who get caught in the ANNUAL fires in San Bernadino Co., or folks who lose everything in a Floridian hurricane. You make a choice, and you suffer or succeed accordingly. Of course they should move. It's obvious. But maybe they won't, until it's too late. And I do think that the European reverence for their history is a factor in any refusal to abandon the city.
And, in what has become an apparently entire seperate conversation, re: your point:
"On a side note, we need the old pieces or else we will be left with pop-art."
I think the opposite is true. I think that because we've successfuly preserved these amazing pieces of work, there is no incentive for artists to create similar works. Instead, they are forced to create new venues in which to excel, venues which unfortunately (in my opinion) excellence is a foregone absence.
Yes! I am talking about survival, the whole city is based on survival and now they are letting it slip away. The sad part is, there is a way to save the city. Scientists have been working on it for years, but, yet, the governments don't want to touch it. It's not necessarily the people who don't want it, they have grown so used to the gates being a political agenda. Like all other political agendas, they fall by the waste side when it comes time for action.
Now, the whole preservation when involving art: Those who create pop-art, Dada, and Contemporary (and I am not speaking of photography or film, they are completely different realms) typically don't even know how to draw or paint using old mediums. Now, if they knew old and modern ways and can prove they are artists. Proving, I mean by actually producing old and new styles. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with changing an artist’s style, Picasso. I don't feel pop-artists have any talent so they wave their hands and scream (in your words) "Look at me, Look at me" and people fawn all over their work. Blah. Give me artists like Jacques-Lois David, those from Baroque into the Neo-Classicism. They knew how to paint as well as shove subjects in your face.
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