The Great Prehistoric Art Swindle: André Breton and Palaeolithic Cave Painting

At Pech Merle in 1952, André Breton provoked a controversial incident by damaging a Palaeolithic wall painting that he suspected to be a fake. This episode provides an insight into the contested status of prehistoric sites in post-war France and the theoretical and ideological implications of their cultural mobilization. Such sites allowed for a disavowal of wartime trauma and supported the reaffirmation of French national identity and its civilizing mission by locating the birthplace of human culture on French soil. Yet their extreme age also threw into relief the relative fragility of the recently invented nation-state. Breton's vandalism cast doubt on the models of cultural progress and pre-eminence that sought to instrumentalize prehistoric art but failed to appreciate the subversiveness of its ‘deep’ history. Ironically, however, Breton's scepticism ultimately enhanced the subversive dimension of archaeology by allowing it to demonstrate the authenticity and age of cave art.

Deciphering Cave Painting Code and Ancient Celestial Map in South East Asia Paleolithic Cultures Dated to 40000 Years Old

Currently it was theoritized that cave paintings have meaning more than human and animal interactions. Based on an example from Lascaux cave, a figure of a bull is believed representing Taurus constellation together with the Pleiades. In here this study aims to assess the connections of paleolithic art works in the forms of cave paintings and zoomorphic figures resemble to bovid with possible ancient astronomy and constellation depictions in South East Asia. The study caves were Jeriji Saleh in Kalimantan and Leang Leang and Sumpang Bita caves in Sulawesi where ancient cave paintings and zoomorphic figures date to 40000 years old have been found. The results show that cave paintings in Jeriji Saleh, Leang Leang and Sumpang Bita caves were comparable to the current findings. Those paintings were having bovid like figures with Leang Leang has figure identified as extant Bubalus depressicornis. In Sumpang Bita, this species was depicted in pregnant condition similar to pregnant horse figure in Lascaux cave. Depiction of pregnant figures in cave paintings indicates the use of ancient calendar to determine season based on the animal mating season. Bovid figure in Jeriji Saleh was illustrated in the same posture like auroch bovid in Lascaux cave and this indicates that cave paintings in Jeriji Saleh have been used to visualize Taurus constellation. The postures of bovid paintings in Leang Leang were different and it is interpreted to visualize Capricorn constellation. Another significant similarity between Lascaux and Leang Leang caves can be seen in paintings depicting a shaft scene with the presences of 3 similar figures include dying man, speared bovid and small zoomorphic figures. This concludes that the caves with their wall painting were not merely functioned as media for ancient art works, whereas it has functioned as paleolithic planetarium and this knowledge was globally widespread.

Paul Winkler: Migrating from analogue to digital practice

This article investigates the self-taught experimental animation practice of German-Australian moving image artist Paul Winkler. His practice embraces an array of image manipulation techniques, some of which he invented. This practice originated in 1964, spanning over 50 years, and has recently productively migrated from analogue to digital production. What happens to this practice when we move to digital production? Winkler’s trajectory offers a case study in the shifts and resilience of experimental animation practice through the lens of Vilém Flusser’s ‘technical image’. Flusser’s concept was developed in response to a pervasive digital culture but also reaches back into proto-cinema, maps and prehistoric cave painting.

The Superb and the Awesome: Animals in Muna-Madan

From the earliest cave painting to the most recent human expressions, both real and fantasized animals have continued to haunt our memory and imagination. Such animals have found their metaphoric, symbolic or metonymic equivalents in our ways of thinking about culture and have largely populated all genres of literature including fables and allegories. They are today invariably tied to our thoughts, motivations and feelings in ways that demand our concern. While we have hunted them or captured and domesticated them for our use, we have also distanced them as inferior beings or stopped to question our own moral superiority over them. However, we have not stopped marveling at the variety and beauty of the animal kingdom with an emotional entanglement which transmutes the wild and dangerous into superb and awesome creations that fill us with wonder and respect. I aim to dwell upon this emotional entanglement to study how Laxmi Prasad Devkota populates his long narrative poem, Muna-Madan, with animals and, in the process, show how these animals reflect the delightful and the tragic mood of the poem.

ZOOMORPHIC IMAGES IN PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTING OF KAIN HITAM CAVE (PAINTED CAVE) NIAH, SARAWAK

This article debates the zoomorphic images or images of animals that have been produced on prehistoric cave walls. Kain Hitam Cave or known as Painted Cave, located within the Niah Cave complex, is a cave that believed have been inhabited by Neolithic peoples. Inside the cave, there were a variety of artifacts including boat-shaped coffins, jewelry made of shells, bones, and ceramics. Inside the cave, there is also a cave painting that is produced on the wall using hematite material mixed with a mixture of plant material. The main focus of this article is to record all the animal images found inside the cave wall. This research also attempted to document images digitally. The researchers produced a re-image using Adobe Photoshop's digital software. The results of this research are to collect a more organized and detailed collection of images.

THUTOAH - The Holographic Universe Theory of Art History

This text is an edit of the audio transcript of interviews with scientists John Ellis, Alessandra Gnecchi and Wolfgang Lerche from my video, The Holographic Universe Theory of Art History (THUTOAH). THUTOAH investigates the holographic principle and the theory that our universe could be understood as a vast and complex hologram, and hypothesises that, beyond acknowledged art historical contexts and imperatives, artists may have also been unconsciously attempting to describe the holographic nature of the universe. Projecting over 25,000 chronological images from art history (from cave painting to global contemporary art, including outsider and psychedelic art), THUTOAH echoes conceptually the actions of CERN's particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), accelerating at 25 images per second in a looped sequence. Alongside this colossal library of images is a soundtrack of interviews with, and watercolours by, the scientists at CERN - illustrations and articulations of the holographic principle. THUTOAH hypothesises a reality that has perhaps been intuited over the ages, a reality beyond the already documented intentional depictions of spiritual, mystical or transcendent realities or altered states of consciousness; the reality of the holographic nature of the universe.