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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Robot artist to perform Al generated poetry in response to Dante

January 20, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

robot_aida_performing_dante_inspired_poetry

“Dante’s Divine Comedy has inspired countless artists, from William Blake to Franz Liszt, and from Auguste Rodin to CS Lewis. But an exhibition marking the 700th anniversary of the Italian poet’s death will be showcasing the work of a rather more modern devotee: Ai-Da the robot, which will make history by becoming the first robot to publicly perform poetry written by its AI algorithms.

“The ultra-realistic Ai-Da, who was devised in Oxford by Aidan Meller and named after computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, was given the whole of Dante’s epic three-part narrative poem, the Divine Comedy, to read, in JG Nichols’ English translation. She then used her algorithms, drawing on her data bank of words and speech pattern analysis, to produce her own reactive work to Dante’s.

“‘We looked up from our verses like blindfolded captives, / Sent out to seek the light; but it never came,’ runs one of her poems. ‘A needle and thread would be necessary / For the completion of the picture. / To view the poor creatures, who were in misery, / That of a hawk, eyes sewn shut.’

“In another, Ai-Da writes: ‘There are some things, that are so difficult – so incalculable. / The words are not intelligible to the human ear; / She can only speculate what they mean.'” [. . .]    –Alison Flood, The Guardian, November 26, 2021 (retrieved January 19, 2022)

Categories: Digital Media, Performing Arts, Written Word
Tagged with: AI, British Poetry, Computers, Oxford, Poems, Poetry, Programing, Robots, Technology, United Kingdom

La vita nuova EP, Christine and the Queens (2020)

January 8, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

la_vita_nuova_christine_and_the_queens_album_coverFrench singer-songwriter Héloïse Adélaïde Letissier (AKA Christine and the Queens) released their electropop EP La vita nuova on February 27, 2020. The album’s title makes explicit reference to Dante’s text La vita nuova. The album was accompanied by a short film featuring Christine and her relationship with a mysterious figure known as “The Faun”.

Watch the short film and listen to the EP here.

Read a review of the EP, posted on Pitchfork, here.

Categories: Music, Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2020, Albums, Electronic Music, Electropop, France, French Music, La vita nuova, Music, Short Films

Original Sin – The Seven Sins Short Film, dir. Amy Tinkham (2021)

January 8, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

original_sin_short_film_poster“Original Sin is a modern-day love story about a broken-hearted heroine and her journey through the seven sins and the quest towards the virtue of Hope. The music of the legendary global rock band INXS seamlessly accompanies the film, and ultimately, the young heroine finds true love while the world heals with her.

“The film is loosely based on and inspired by celebrated Italian writer Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and the spiritual journey through the Seven Sins of Purgatory — pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. The Original Sin short film reimagines Dante’s tale through the eyes of Jane, a 21st-century heroine isolated during the recent pandemic, who continues to search for love and the means to validate her soul.” [. . .]     –UMe, Cision PR Newswire, June 28, 2021 (retrieved January 6, 2022)

Watch a trailer (which includes direct quotes from the first canto of Inferno) for Original Sin here.

Listen to the short film’s Dante-inspired soundtrack here.

Categories: Digital Media, Music, Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2021, American Art, Films, Hell, Inferno, Journeys, Movies, Nel Mezzo del Cammin, Purgatory, Seven Deadly Sins, Short Films, Sin, Soundtrack, United States

Death Magick for Adepts by Cradle of Filth

January 6, 2022 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

screenshot-of-cradle-of-filth-album

The song “…is about a hell that is even more vile and terrifying than Dante’s version,” says Loudwire’s Katy Irizary.

The lyrics directly reference Dante, “All damned in this Inferno / Where even Virgil averts his eyes.”

Read the full Loudwire article here.

Categories: Music, Performing Arts, Written Word
Tagged with: Hell, Journalism, Loudwire, Rock Music

Demon’s Gate by Candlemass

January 6, 2022 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

screenshot-of-candlemass-album-cover

The lyrics “I went into the demon’s gate / Across the Styx among the mists of Hades / A gate of stone marks the path / To soul’s damnation and hell’s wrath” are “a nice homage to Dante’s epic writing style,” according to Loudwire’s Katy Irizary.

Read the full Loudwire article here.

Categories: Music, Performing Arts, Written Word
Tagged with: Journalism, Loudwire, Music, Rock Music

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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