by Salman Hameed

Our Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies (SSiMS) is hosting a lunch talk this coming Wednesday, March 27th, by Yael Rice. The talk will be in the lobby of Adele Simmons Hall (ASH) at Noon and the topic looks fascinating. Join us, if you are in the area. Here are the details:

Sound and Vision/Word and Image: Islamic Portraiture and its Many Forms

by Yael Rice

Five College Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Art at Amherst College

Abstract: It is a widespread misconception that the medieval and early-modern arts of the Islamic lands lacked a tradition of figural depiction. In fact, illustrated manuscripts from Mosul (Iraq) to Agra (India) provide clear evidence of a rich practice of figuration, including painted portraits of authors, patrons, and other important figures. With several notable exceptions, manuscripts of histories, poetic works, biographies, and other texts nevertheless evidence a pronounced reliance upon verbal, rather than pictorial, representations of likeness. This talk will address the complex relationship between textual and pictorial portrait imagery in the book arts of Greater Iran and South Asia from the 13th through the 17th centuries, focusing in particular on the Mughal court of northern India, which saw a marked shift towards a practice of mimetic portraiture rooted in optical, sensate experiences.

Speaker Bio: Yael Rice (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) specializes in the art and architecture of Greater Iran and South Asia, with a particular focus on manuscripts and other portable arts of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. Currently the Five College Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Art at Amherst College, she previously held the position of Assistant Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 2009 till 2012. Her publications include studies of European engravings and Persian calligraphic specimens in Mughal royal albums, the 1598–99 MughalRazmnama (Book of war), and an early fifteenth-century Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami copied and illustrated in the region of Fars, Iran.

Rice's current research concerns physiognomic analysis as a courtly and artistic practice, Mughal depictions of imperial dreams, paintings made for the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707), and the cultural and material history of jade in early modern Central and South Asia.

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In the Adele Simmons Hall (ASH) Lobby at Hampshire College.        
A light lunch will be available at noon.

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by Salman Hameed

At a time of tension (and war) in the Middle East, it is great to be reminded of individual efforts that elevate dialogues between faiths. Here is an article by Jalees Rehman that finds the music of The Epichorus as an enthralling example of inter-faith dialogue:

I recently came across what is a beautiful form of true interfaith dialogue: the music of the band the Epichorus. Rabbinical student Zach Fredman and Muslim singer Alsarah co-founded the band and their musical love-child is the wonderful album One Bead. In this album, Zach, Alsarah and the other members of the band combine Jewish and Sudanese-Arab musical traditions to create music that transcends the boundaries of culture or religion. The lyrics of the songs are mostly drawn from the Jewish tradition, such as the "Song of Songs" (Song of Solomon) from the Old Testament, but the album also includes the traditional Sudanese love song "Nanaa Al Genina" (The Mint Garden). 

The common theme of the One Bead songs is love, the emotion that is at the core of our human existence and spirituality. Listening to the music, one feels a profound sense of harmony that exists between the various cultural and religious traditions that are part of the Epichorus. The lyrics for two of the songs are taken from the "Song of Songs" and this reminded me of something that the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote. He composed a cycle of poems called "West-östlicher Diwan" (or "West-Eastern Divan" in English). Goethe wrote these poems to represent a fusion between Eastern and Western traditions. He also wrote essays in which he elaborated on his poems and one of his comments specifically refers to the Old Testament "Song of Songs", of which he says, "...als dem Zartesten und Unnachahmlichsten, was uns von Ausdruck leidenschaftlicher, anmutiger Liebe zugekommen," which translates into English as: "...it is the most tender and unique expression of passionate and graceful love that has been given to us." 

I asked Zach how he chose the name the Epichorus for their band and he said that it was a reference to Epikoros (or Apikoros), which is a term used in the Jewish tradition to describe outsiders or heretics. The members of the Epichorus are indeed outsiders in the sense that they have the courage to look beyond the boundaries of their religious traditions and have sought out a creative dialogue with people outside of their faith traditions. They are also "heretics" in the original Greek sense of the word, describing people who "make choices." They chose to embark on a creative adventure and found that they could engage in an authentic dialogue by creating beautiful songs together.

Read the full article here.

Here is a chat with the members of the band, where they talk about how they got together and sing a song from their upcoming album

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by Salman Hameed

Now this is really cool! A Turkish artist, Murat Palta, has created movie posters of famous films in the genre of Turkish miniature paintings (tip from Tabsir). And this was done as part of his graduation thesis. You can see more posters and details of individual panels on his website: Classic Movies in Miniature Style. Here are couple of examples:

Star Wars (easily the favorite!):

The Godfather (love the horse in there...):

The Shining:

Go visit his website here and check out the other movie posters as well as details in each scene. 

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by Salman Hameed

Silicon Arabic is a new art project of Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad. In case you don't know him, he also runs the fantastic website, Islam and Science Fiction and is the editor of Islam and China blog (and website). In his spare time, he also got a PhD in computer science and now works at a company in Minneapolis, building models of human behavior.

Here is how he describes Silicon Arabic (and all his interests seem to merge into this art):

Silicon Arabic combines the aesthetics of the traditional and ancient Islamic Art of Calligraphy with a modern medium – Silicon circuit boards.I have been practicing Arabic Calligraphy for more than a decade now and Chinese calligraphy for the last three years and I have had the idea of Silicon Arabic for the last three years at least but it is only now that I have had the chance to execute this idea. I also work as a Scientist and so this was a perfect opportunity for me to combine two different area of my interest. The art of calligraphy has been an endemic part of Islamicate cultures for more than a thousand years. Although it was primarily developed by Muslims it is not limited to people of Muslim background with people of the Christian faith and other local religions practicing this art form. The idea of using circuit boards to create Arabic calligraphy is thus a new way to express this ancient art form.

Here is one example. This is called Creation:

And here is a close-up:

Here is how he describes Creation:

The word Kun (كن) in Arabic means Be and in this context it refers to the Islamic story of creation where God said Be and the universe came into existence (Fayakun). Thus the word Kun is tied to creativity. The compound (Kun Fayakun) is a constant motif in my work in general even in other forms of calligraphy.

And here is another one titled, The Celestial Cube:

Here is his description of The Celestial Globe:

In the Sino-Islamic tradition the word Tianfan was used to refer to the religion of Islam which means heavenly square or celestial square. The term has a translocative meaning as it locates the religion of Islam in both semantic and geographical terms viz-a-viz the country of China. The term Tianfan directly refers to the Ka’aba (which means Square in the Arabic language). It is the square structure in Mecca to whose direction Muslims through out the world pray towards. Here is my interpretation of the Ka’aba made with circuit boards. The centrality of the Ka’aba is grounded in this art piece where the mundane and the sacred meet in the digital, where the past, present and the future meet.

You can get to his Silicon Arabic website here.

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by Salman Hameed

Here is a short clip about M.C. Escher's fascination with mathematics (tip Open Culture). If some of his art reminds you of Islamic tile patterns - there is a reason. He was inspired by a visit to the Alhambra (also see this earlier post: Islamic tiles and modern mathematics). But his topology work is also fascinating.

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by Salman Hameed

While growing up in Pakistan, it was hard to appreciate the elaborate artwork on each and every truck and bus that was on the road. It was ubiquitous. That was the norm. But, of course, now there is a new appreciation. And several books have now addressed the topic of Pakistan's art of wheels. The newest book is On the Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity, and Culture in Pakistan by Jamal Elias. He used to be at Amherst College but is now is a faculty member at UPenn. His book uses this truck art to find the story of contemporary Pakistan. He provides a nice background on Pakistan's history, education structure, religious varieties, and then takes on the role of trucks in Pakistan, those who drive them, and those who decorate them. The strongest part of book, apart from the spectacular pictures, deals with the analysis of the images - from religious symbols (Shi'a truck, tablighi truck, etc) to political signifiers (Saddam Hussein, AQ Khan, etc) on the back of the trucks. In fact, Jamal also discusses why this very truck art is now a celebrated topic amongst the educated-elites of Pakistan. Check it out - it is a fantastic interdisciplinary book.

Here is a slide show of the truck artwork and Jamal Elias provides background for his book:

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by Salman Hameed

Last Saturday I had a chance to visit Mass-MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). Every time you visit, there is at least one exhibit that blows your mind. This time it was Sanford Biggers' The Cartographer's Conundrum. In some ways it is hard to describe. There is interesting sound, broken mirrors in the shape of 5-pointed stars, a piano to welcome you, a cascading pew, an exploding pulpit containing musical instruments and an upside-down piano surrounded by pipes from a church organ, a floor with a design of platonic solids, some spectacular quilts. The pulpit is either exploding or coming together. Don't ask me about art, but according to the exhibit, it is a metaphor for the African experience in the Diaspora.

Here is a picture of part of the exhibit, but it really doesn't do justice to the installation.

This exhibit is a part of a sub-culture called Afrofuturism:

Afrofuturism was a phrase coined in 1995 by cultural critic Mark Dery in is essay Black to the Future, where he links the African American use of science and technology to an examination of space, time, race and culture. In this text Dery defines afrofuturism as: "Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of 20th century technoculture - and, more generally, African American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future…" The movement began in earnest in the mid-1950s with musician Sun-Ra, whose music blended science-fiction, mysticism, African culture (with a particular focus on Egypt) and jazz fusion, all of which coalesced in his 1972 film Space in the Place. In 1975 George Clinton formed his bands Parliament and Funkadelic, which took afrofuturism to new and often absurdist heights. Today the movement is still strong, encompassing contemporary musicians like Saul Williams, Janelle Monae, OutKast and DJ Spooky along with writers like Paul Beatty, films like the Matrix, Blade and Chronicles of Riddick and visual artists like Sanford Biggers.

Well, if you get a chance, go see it at Mass-MoCA (and you will also get a chance to see Sol LeWitt wall drawing retrospective. Some of it is quite amazing (and you can even see a timelapse video of how they did these wall drawings).

And as a bonus, here is an earlier installation of Sanford Biggers called Big Ass Bang!:

From the Brooklyn Museum description:

The title of this piece humorously plays on the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. Footprints outlined on the floor and walls of a corner in the gallery suggest exuberant dance steps that would animate the space. A spinning disco ball placed near the floor heightens the sense of dynamic movement as well as suggesting a celestial explosion. Calenda, a form of martial arts practiced in the Caribbean, had its origins in Africa. It is believed by some to have evolved into a dance performed by enslaved Africans in the antebellum South; the various movements might have been used to send coded messages between dancers without their owners’ knowledge. 

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by Salman Hameed

I have previously referred to an excellent website on Islam and Science Fiction maintained by M. Aurangzeb Ahmad. It has a recent interview with Craig Thompson, the author of a new graphic novel, Habibi. The novel is inspired by Islamic calligraphy and some of the fairy tale narratives from the Middle east. Here is a snippet of the interview:   

M Aurangzeb Ahmad: What inspired you to write Habibi?Craig Thompson: After BLANKETS, I was sick of drawing high school renditions of myself and mundane midwestern landscapes. I wanted to craft something outside of myself, something bigger than myself, and was considering two trajectories — the classic fantasy epic with dragons and elves and whatnot — or a nonfiction piece of political/social relevance like the comics journalism of Joe Sacco (FOOTNOTES IN GAZA). HABIBI ended up meeting in the middle. On a personal level, I’d always wanted to do a book about sexual trauma, and the characters of Dodola and Zam - two escaped child slaves - were the perfect roles to unravel this story. They arrived in my sketchbook almost fully realized - a gift - but I didn’t know what sort of world they inhabited. I found a home for them in the fantastical landscapes of A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. I became excited for the latter as a fantasy genre (much like super heroes or crime noir, etc.) and savored the stories for their adventure and bawdiness and humor, but questioned whether these elements were intact from the original arabic folk tales or imposed by a British colonialist Richard Burton. At which point, I sought a deeper reading of these tales in the Islamic arts.

M Aurangzeb Ahmad: What kind of background research did you do in writing Habibi?Craig Thompson: The core of research around HABIBI was simply conversation. I must shamefully confess that before the book, I didn’t have any Muslim friends! Such is the limiting nature of social circles. But HABIBI motivated me to seek those connections/friendships and greatly enrich my life.  These meditation on Islam and the arabic language was born directly out of my new friendships, especially exploring the vivid connections with my Christian upbringing.  The visual fuel for HABIBI was from book reference - on calligraphy, ornamentation, geometric design, architecture - all these art forms that evolved so profoundly because of a supposed prohibition against representational imagery. Nothing in the book is specific to any geography or time period. Rather it borrows fast and loose from all over the world, Most of all with HABIBI, I trusted my imagination. The backdrop is a dreamscape. The story is a fairytale. The characters of Dodola and Zam are as I described, a gift, that arrived fully realized from outside of me, but that I felt a parental bond to - and a responsibility to explore their stories on paper.

M Aurangzeb Ahmad: Arabic Calligraphy also features prominently in Habibi, what was your inspiration behind that?Craig Thompson: Arabic calligraphy has been described as “music for the eyes” which sums it up perfectly. The cartoonist Chris Ware talks about comics as sheet music - because the reader needs to know how to interpret the symbols, like notation, to unlock the musicality of the page. Ware describes comics as “pictures you READ”. Whereas, calligraphy is words you LOOK at. You can savor arabic calligraphy for its surface aesthetics, as beautiful as any painting, and its fluidity. That fluidity is key. I have great envy of the arabic written language, because Romanized letters are so clunky and abstracted. The fluidity in a language must influence fluidity in culture and worldview. And this is the core thread in HABIBI - when the fluidity dries up or is blockaded - environmentally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually - how to you restore that flow?

Read the full interview here. Here is a review of Habibi from the Guardian and another one from NPR (you can also read an excerpt here). And just for the taste, here are couple of graphics from the novel:

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by Salman Hameed

The Procession to Cavalry by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1564)

Couple of weeks ago I had a chance to see this really creative film, The Mill and the Cross. It brings alive a 16th century painting The Procession to Cavalry by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Yes, religion and religious persecution are some of the key themes for the painting. But it is also about peasants and medieval life. The movie is not just about what is in the painting, but it also has the artist thinking about the subject(s) and sketching the very painting itself. You have to watch the trailer to get a feel for how the movie deals with this. Below the trailer is our Film Autopsy of The Mill and the Cross.

And here is the Film Autopsy:

Film Autopsy of The Mill and the Cross from kevin taylor anderson on Vimeo.

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I have to admit, after all of the emails I probably should not hold on to this post. I am starting to feel guilty that I have found these aprons and that people are running around trying to find stuff posted. And just like you I am starting to think of different ways to tell the family where I am going instead of saying Dollar Tree again. To make matters worse, nobody will endure this trip with me again.

If you are going to my Back to School Science training, I just hope you act like this is the best idea around and you have never in your life seen this post. And if a facilitator is in the room or walks by, just shout out what a brilliant idea this is and how affordable! I am planning on some messy things this year and I need smocks. Sure I could ask the children to bring in an old shirt but from my experience, that has not always been the best idea... You can figure that one out. Anyway, for a dollar I am using these. Yep, they are thin and I do not care because they will be covered in paint before you know it and that just might make the fibers a little stronger... Now if you get to Dollar Tree and these are gone this is what you do. You grab about five or six of your best teaching friends and you order a case and have it sent to the store for free! If they are on back order this is what you do... You save the messy stuff until they come in!

As far as what to tell your family? I am not sure. I am brainstorming different ways to tell my family that I am on my way to Dollar Tree again!

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by Salman Hameed

Well before Cosmos, there was Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. Since I just had a post about Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, here is a clip from the first episode of The Ascent of Man that talks about cave art from 30,000 years ago. The cave part starts about 3 minutes into this 10 minute clip. In case you are interested in watching the full episode, you can get it here. It is from the early 1970s, and yet it is fantastic! Good ideas never really get old. Enjoy.

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