Image posted on CheckOutMyInk.com.
posted on March 24, 2017 by
Magnificent Century, Season 1 (2011)
In Season 1, Episode 14 of Magnificent Century, Concierge Ibrahim is seen to be reading the Divine Comedy in his office.
Contributed by David Francis
posted on July 19, 2016 by
Daily Dante Blog
“Welcome to Daily Dante, a blogging adventure that follows the pilgrim Dante through his journey to hell and back, as we savor the poet Dante’s masterpiece The Divine Comedy.
“Daily Dante is a collaborative blog, written by a motley band of Dantophiles living in the Princeton, NJ area. We began during Lent of 2010, when we adopted blogging as a Lenten discipline: a canto a day (excepting Sundays, which technically do not count as Lent), which conveniently allowed us to finish more or less just before Easter. We have completed Inferno, and Purgatorio, and finished blogging through Paradiso during Lent 2012.” — homepage of Daily Dante: Dante as Lenten Spiritual Discipline
posted on June 13, 2015 by
The Purgatory Home Companion, Mark Abramson and Rob K (2011)
“The Purgatory Home Companion is an album of music based on Dante’s Purgatorio by trash-blues artist Rob K, which I co-wrote and produced. [. . .]
“The Purgatory Home Companion was a collaborative project which worked as follows: Rob and I sent a request to all the musicians and some of the artists that we know to send us music, noise or spoken word recordings. Some of the contributions were from established artists, like Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders, and Jon Spencer of the Blues Explosion. Some were from our less well known but still talented friends. We received over 100 of these audio contributions. Rob and I organized them, built audio collages from them. I wrote the music around the collaged framework, and Rob wove in the lyrics which were based on his take on Purgatorio.” — Mark Abramson of Zen Jam Graphic Design and Art Direction Studios
Photo credit Mark Stalnaker.
posted on November 20, 2014 by
McSweeney’s: “The Nine Circles of Adjunct Hell.” (2011)
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is the daily humor website of McSweeney’s Publishing, a publishing house founded by David Eggers in San Francisco. Dan Moreau of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has written this satirical piece referencing the nine circles of Dante’s hell.
Among the circles are: Paper Grading, Classroom Observation, and Parking.
Click here to read the entire piece.
Contributed by Humberto González Chávez.
posted on March 31, 2014 by
Clifford Anderson, Score for “The Divine Comedy” exhibit at the Harvard School of Design (2011)
“I created the musical score for four short films about The Divine Comedy, an exhibition at the Harvard Graduate School of Design featuring new works by acclaimed international artists Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei, and Tomas Saraceno.
“Working with filmmaker Rob Meyer (who received an Honorable Mention at the Sundance Film Festival), I composed a musical accompaniment for videos of each of the three installations plus a curatorial overview.
“It was a wonderful experience collaborating with the filmmaker and The Divine Comedy team at the GSD. The exhibition website at thedivinecomedy.org contains the full videos and the official information. Below, I’ve included my personal thoughts on the individual works and my experiences composing for the films.” –Clifford Anderson, Armor-Plated Dove Productions
posted on January 21, 2014 by
Smetana, Sibelius, and the Dante Quartet
“Though both Jean Sibelius and Bedrich Smetana are well-known for their contributions to the nationalistic movements in their respective countries, the semi-autobiographical quartets of both composers (two for Smetana, one for Sibelius) instead focus on dark, tragic aspects of their own lives. Smetana’s quartets highlight some of the positive events in his life, but are more a representation of the gradual march toward deafness and the decline of his career. Sibelius, who struggled with depression and isolation, writes an equally revealing depiction of his more private inner turmoil. Performing these three emotionally charged works is the equally emotive, demonstrative Dante Quartet. Conceptually, its playing is ideal for showing listeners the very raw emotions present in these scores.” [. . .] –Mike D. Brownell, Allmusic
posted on January 20, 2014 by
Hypo Chrysos: Xth Sense Technology
“Hypo Chrysos (HC) is a work of action art for vexed body and biophysical media. During this twenty minutes action I pull two concrete blocks in a circle. My motion is oppressively constant. I have to force myself into accepting the pain until the action is ended. The increasing strain of my corporeal tissues produces continuous bioacoustic signals. The sound of the blood flow, muscle contraction bursts, and bone crackling are amplified, distorted, and played back through eight loudspeakers using the biophysical instrument Xth Sense, developed by the author. The same bioacoustic data stream excites an OpenGL-generated swarm of virtual entities, lights, and organic forms diffused by a video projector. The work brings together different media so a as to creatively explore the processes wherein self-perception, effort, and physicality collide. HC is freely inspired by the sixth Bolgia of Dante’s Inferno, located in one of the lowest of the circles of hell. Here, the poet encounters the hypocrites walking along wearing gilded cloaks filled with lead. It was Dante’s punishment for the falsity hidden behind their behaviour; a malicious use of reason which he considered unique to human beings.” [. . .] —Marco Donnarumma
posted on August 29, 2013 by
Niki Ulehla, The Inferno (2011, 2013)
During a 2011 residency at Recology SF, San Francisco puppeteer Niki Ulehla began a multiple-phase project to dramatize Dante’s Inferno with her handmade puppets. The first performance, featuring puppets crafted out of discarded materials from the Recology Public Disposal Area, staged the first seven cantos of the poem.
This performance was followed by a second, at the Sanchez Art Center (Pacifica) in February-March 2013, in which a new set of puppets embark on the second part of the journey, Cantos 8-17. Sanchez Art Center describes the second performance as follows: “[Ulehla] combines traditional carved wooden marionettes with found object based ‘toys’ to create the characters inhabiting the hell described by Dante. [. . .] The performance will begin with the two travelers, Dante and Virgil, crossing the river Styx. They will pass through the fifth circle of Anger, the sixth of the Heretics and the seventh of Violence. This portion of their journey will end riding away on Geryon, the beast of Fraud.” —Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, CA
Video of both performances can be seen here.
posted on June 13, 2013 by
9 Layers of Chocolate Heaven
“This is a recipe for a 9 layer cake – a play on the 9 circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. While that cake is representative of hell it tastes positively divine.” –Dan Lipkowitz
“As a teenager, I fell in love with Dante’s Inferno, it paired nicely with the nine levels of hell in my dark, twisty, 16 year old, angst filled little mind. Make that a dramatically romantic, angst filled little mind. I’m an over achiever.
“I’ve read it countless times since, each time finding comfort in the rhythm of the words, moments of beauty contrasted in an intricately woven dark world. Of course it’s a love story, and what’s not to love about love…food is love after all.” [. . .] –Jessica, Positively Ravenous, March 14, 2011
Contributed by Dan Lipkowitz (Bowdoin ’14)
