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‘As it stands, the city of Seuthopolis, Bulgaria is literally underwater. The ruins of the culture that once thrived there were discovered in the midst of a reservoir construction project, and the water won the first battle. But a Bulgarian architect named Zheko Tilev is working to uncover the ruins and preserve it with a dam wall surrounding the city, protecting the burgeoning tourist location from the waters that would loom 20 meters above the city’s ground level.’ — kazanlak.bg
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Leonid Kharitonov & The Red Army Choir “Song of the Volga Boatmen” (1965)
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Hassan Meer Under the Water, 2004
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In a dishpan the soap powder dissolves under a turned on faucet
and makes foam, like the waves that crash ashore at the foot
Of the street. A restless surface. Chewing, and spitting sand and
Small white pebbles, clam shells with a sheen or chalky white.
A horseshoe crab: primeval. And all this without thought, this
Churning energy. Energy! The sun sucks up the dew; the day is
Clear; a bird shits on window ledge. Rain will wash it off
Or a storm will chip it loose. Life, I do not understand.
— James Schuyler
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Fred Jordan, farm worker, sings ‘The Watery Grave’
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‘One of the most difficult things today to simulate is water, for the main reason that water consists of so many different things: You first have the actual body of water, so to say, the water mass. Then, when water hits anything, it literally splits up into different arms and tendrils, and from that it forms the foamy whitewater, that also is all over the surface of the water and reacting to each other. And then from the whitewater comes the soft mist that is hardly visible. So you’re literally dealing with three different types of elements and simulations that are extremely difficult to do on the computer. And the larger scale you go, the worse it gets.
‘You can do computer-animated water or someone pouring a glass of wine, that’s not a huge deal anymore, you can do it in a few days. But, if you get to a wave that’s one mile high, that’s a totally different issue suddenly, to get that scale. So what they’ve developed is a software that can … you know, there’s always two steps involved in that: You first have to do a physics-based simulation of particles, so you basically throw out a bunch of dots, and make those react to the environment, and that’s called a physics-based fluid simulation, that simulates how a fluid with a certain viscosity reacts to an environment when you throw it out, of a bucket, or in this case a bucket that’s a mile wide. That’s the first part. So first you have to simulate that.
‘You also have to simulate all the other parts separately: the whitewater, the water foam, the mist. So the physics-based simulation is number one. Then you have to mesh it out, so you don’t have a bunch of dots on the screen, but you actually have the water as one big body that’s moving fluidly. Then it has to be textured, or in this case shaded, so it actually looks like water. And you know, water’s half see-through, in certain areas. Not always. If you look at a major body of water, you don’t see anything through it, but as soon as the water comes becomes very thin and goes along the mountains or something like that, it’ll become see-through. So it’s a lot of different things: the way it reacts to the sunlight and so on. Then, once all that is done, you have to render it frame by frame, to actually output it as an element that can be used to composite into live-action, or whatever you need.’ — Marc Weigert, visual effects supervisor
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I hate you, Ocean! — Charles Baudelaire
I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man. — Henry David Thoreau
Filthy water cannot be washed. — African Proverb
The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness. — Joseph Conrad
The sound of water says what I think. — Chuang Tzu
With an ocean between you and your European friends, you have to keep them in your heart. — Sammy Davis, Jr.
The truth is, I can never die. For I will be in everything and see you in everything and watch over you. I am your reaction in the water of a mountain lake. — Klaus Kinski
In water one sees one’s own face; But in wine, one beholds the heart of another. — French proverb
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. — James Russell Lowell
Every drop in the ocean counts. — Yoko Ono
At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect. — Herman Melville
Scalded cats fear even cold water. — Thomas Fuller
A man who drinks only water has a secret to hide from his fellow men. — Charles Baudelaire
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Robert Wyatt “Sea Song”
1975
2006
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‘Japanese artist Yasuhiro Suzuki has created a motorboat designed to look like a giant version of a zipper tab, with the wake it leaves behind in the water meant to represent its teeth. Suzuki made a scale model of his design back in 2004 but has only now unveiled the full-sized vessel. Describing his creation, the artist said: ‘As the vessel glides through the water, the wake looks like a zipper coming undone, suggesting the image of the sea opening up. The Zipper Ship will travel to and fro between Takamatsu and Megijima [in Japan] and will also carry passengers.’ Suzuki first showed off his unique vessel at the recent Setouchi International Art Festival in Japan. The boat is now undergoing sea trials to evaluate its rollover risk and until it’s approved by the authorities the ambitious artist will have to wait before he can take passengers for a ride.’ — wateen.net
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‘During last week’s Lunar New Year festival, Chinese state television aired a widely watched controversial segment in which magician Yu Fandong showed off six goldfish swimming perfectly in sync with each other. But how did this trick work? Some say that Fandong must have cruelly manipulated the fish to swim in formation, either by implanting magnets in their stomachs or controlling them via an electric current. The magician insists that the goldfish are “living happily.” Still, Chinese television canceled a scheduled encore performance. “I’ve been buying and selling magic since 1948,” says British magic-shop proprietor Betty Davenport, “and no magic that I know of could produce that effect.”‘ — The Week
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Eyes, lakes of my simple passion to be reborn
Other than as the actor who gestures with his hand
As with a pen, and evokes the foul soot of the lamps,
Here’s a window in the walls of cloth I’ve torn.
With legs and arms a limpid treacherous swimmer
With endless leaps, disowning the sickness
Hamlet! It’s as if I began to build in the ocean depths
A thousand tombs: to vanish still virgin there.
Mirthful gold of a cymbal beaten with fists,
The sun all at once strikes the pure nakedness
That breathed itself out of my coolness of nacre,
Rancid night of the skin, when you swept over me,
Not knowing, ungrateful one, that it was, this make-up,
My whole anointing, drowned in ice-water perfidy.
— Stéphane Mallarmé
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Tobin Sprout ‘Water on the Boaters Back’
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‘”The Silent Evolution,” by British artist Jason de Caires Taylor, lies between Cancun and Isla Mujeres off the coast of Mexico. Taylor used over 400 ‘life casts’ made from materials that encourage coral growth to build the installation on the sea bed, forming a new home for aquatic creatures.’ — Reuters
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10 artists’ wooden boats
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov The Boat of My Life (1993)
‘A large, wooden, virtually ‘real’ boat 17.4 meters in length, 5.5 meters in width and 2.6 m in height (bow and stern) is erected in the exhibition hall. Its deck is horizontal, level. Two ‘shelves’ are raised on its bow and stern. Two sets of stairs lead from the floor to the deck, one for getting on the boat, the other for disembarking. There are special holes cut thorough the sides of the boat for this.
‘Twenty four cardboard crates, its ‘cargo,’ are arranged inside the boat in a disorderly fashion on the deck. Each crate is open, the packaging is unwrapped, and the viewer can look into the contents of each crate. All kinds of residential junk is heaped there, like what you might see in the case of any move or of sending things somewhere: children’s clothing, toys, dishes, books, more clothing, boots … In the middle of all this, like a list of the contents, there are pieces of cardboard inside the crates with all kinds of junk glued to them: pins, buttons, pencil stubs, newspaper clippings, photographs … Under each object is an inscription in Russian and a translation.
‘It becomes clear by reading what’s written, that before us is the story of a life represented day after day, year after year, by this collection of objects and inscription-memories under them.’
Cai Guo-Qiang Reflection (2004)
‘The site-specific installation entitled Reflection consists of a 50-foot-long skeleton of a sunken Japanese fishing boat resting upon an imaginary beach of gleaming broken white blanc de chine porcelain fragments of deities from Dehua, China.’
Subodh Gupta, What does the vessel contain, that the river does not (2012)
‘The artist filled the vessel, a traditional fishing boat from Kerala, with common objects that he found in Kochi and Delhi, carefully piling them into the vessel. Chairs, beds, a bicycle, window frames, fishing nets and cooking pots are among the objects Gupta has used. The fact that the boat is displayed with one end raised up from the floor gives the impression that it is floating, and transmits positive energies. At the same time, however, walking underneath the raised boat generates feelings of anxiety and discomfort.’
Julien Berthier Love-Love (2007)
‘Love-Love is the permanent and mobile image of a wrecked ship that has become a functional and safe leisure object.’
Matthew Day Jackson Sepulcher (Viking Burial Ship) (2004)
‘Sepulcher is a life-sized sculpture of a boat that sits atop a funeral pyre. The boat’s sail is a patchwork of old canvases, faded band T-shirts, and those promo T-shirts you get from restaurants and end up wearing as pajamas.
‘Inside the burial ship, a set of clothing is spread out like a corpse. The outfit, which draws from hippie and punk styles, is comprised of Birkenstock sandals studded with metal spikes, leather shin guards, a matador’s jacket, and jean shorts covered in anti-war patches. Above the outfit, on the reverse of the boat’s sail, an illustration is printed of a grassy field that meets with outer space. The picture creates the impression that the boat sails through space and into oblivion.
‘The ship’s sail, sewn from T-shirts for bands like Black Flag, as well as scraps of the artist’s paintings, allows the viewer to piece together their own story about the artist. As one imagines the young man’s experiences – perhaps pumping his fist at a concert under a downpour of Henry Rollins’s sweat – there is something strangely intimate about seeing the artist’s old, yellow fleece sewn into the patchwork of his creation.’
Kathryn Pignatora Ship (2006)
‘Scandinavia mixed-media ship’
Chiharu Shiota Stop, Go, Linger (2015)
‘Two humble wooden boats float in the center of the room and the layers of string and suspended keys form a vortex of energy around each one. Keys dangle everywhere and spill onto the floor – 180,000 were collected in donation boxes placed in museums in Germany (the artist lives in Berlin) as well as the United States and Japan. Sometimes a lone key hangs from a single strand, sometimes a group of keys is clustered together. The keys are mostly antique in style and bear a dark patina of age.’
Olaf Breuning I’m Still Scared Of The Chinese (2007)
‘Anyone who thinks that Olaf Breuning’s Cat is a fictive creature, and perhaps a tad out of the ordinary, would change their mind after seeing Breuning’s 1999 film Woodworld, a lo-budget, hi-sci-fi extravaganza that makes Slava Tsukerman’s 1982 Liquid Sky look like a masterpiece.’
Cai Guo-Qiang The Ninth Wave (2004)
‘Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang has set sail to ‘The Ninth Wave’, a fishing boat from the artist’s hometown of Quanzhou carrying 99 fabricated animals. Sailing along the famous bund on the Huangpu River, tigers, pandas, camels and apes cling to the worn ship, looking weather‐beaten and sullen with their heads bowed in fatigue.’
Kcho R.E.C. (Rectifying the Course) (2006)
‘Before attending art school, Kcho (Alexis Leyva Machado) learned to work in wood and make toys from his carpenter father. Probably because he spent his childhood on Isla de la Juventud (Island of Youth) a few miles off the coast of Cuba, the thematic focus of his work centers on boats, propellers, fish, and fish nets. He is particularly attracted to the wood that finds its way into the water and eventually washes up on shore. Kcho’s work therefore reflects the salvaging and recycling in Cuba that serves to make up for the scarcity of basic items.’
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Where Babies Come From
Many are from the Maldives,
southwest of India, and must begin
collecting shells almost immediately.
The larger ones may prefer coconuts.
Survivors move from island to island
hopping over one another and never
looking back. After the typhoons
have had their pick, and the birds of prey
have finished with theirs, the remaining few
must build boats, and in this, of course,
they can have no experience, they build
their boats of palm leaves and vines.
Once the work is completed, they lie down,
thoroughly exhausted and confused,
and a huge wave washes them out to sea.
And that is the last they see of one another.
In their dreams Mama and Papa
are standing on the shore
for what seems like an eternity,
and it is almost always the wrong shore.
— James Tate
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10 water tower demolitions
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So much that happens happens in small ways
That someone was going to get around to tabulate, and then never did,
Yet it all bespeaks freshness, clarity and an even motor drive
To coax us out of sleep and start us wondering what the new round
Of impressions and salutations is going to leave in its wake
This time. And the form, the precepts, are yours to dispose of as you will,
As the ocean makes grasses, and in doing so refurbishes a lighthouse
On a distant hill, or else lets the whole picture slip into foam.
-– John Ashbery
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Aquarium Simulator Games
Creatura
corrupted judge
I hope you continue and make a spore like game yours is vary different but I like it can you make mantis shrimp ?
Therealblobfish
This is interesting, the fish that I made just looks really depressed
Alvinator Jehosephat
I’m gonna turn it into a murderous hellscape.
Fishery
Eugene Cho
I’mma get all these fish addicted to drugs
phantom paw
ye bro i tried to live 4 fishes in life. Yet 3 of them die. The only remaining fish is my angel fish named gublee the angel. Well typically he or she isnt an angel as if she or he will kill ANY LIVING ORGANISMS that enters its territory AND EAT IT. But she seems nice with me. She sometimes look at me and the pellet food i give her everyday i wake up. Then once when her or his tank or fish bowl is in low rate water i added some water to it then after she like looked at me. Is my fish allive and trying to communicate to me like a hooman!?!?!?!
Biotope Aquarium Simulator
Something___ Something
Why did it lagged so much when buying something. In 14:13 you read the description of another one when we still saw the old description (badly described lol)
spark for horses
I tried owning neon tetras but they died and I still don’t know why I’m 11 and got them for my 11th birthday so they did not last long at all
DinosaursSpaceGaming Everything
My house got on fire and my fish die because the heater has no power so my fish died because fire made it cold….
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Guided By Voices “Back To The Lake”
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‘The Flip Ship (Floating Instrument Platform) is a unique Research Ship created by the US Navy in collaboration with the Marine Physical Laboratory in the year 1962. It is designed like a spoon, stands at 355 ft and is unique in the sense that it has the flexibility to stand vertically from a routine ship’s position of being horizontal.
‘The research instruments are designed sideways in such a way that when the ship turns from the horizontal to the vertical position, the instruments are switched into a usable position automatically. The interior and the decks of the crew of the Flip Ship are also designed keeping in mind the horizontal-to-vertical shift of the ship. There are two doors to every room on the ship to facilitate entrance when the ship is horizontal and when the ship is vertical.
‘Bed-bunks, gas-stoves and toilets are conceived in such a way that they swivel and can be used appropriately, in spite of the ship’s position. In order to maneuver the ship back to the horizontal resting position, compressed air is used in order to release the water in the ballast tanks and the ship is turned into its resting position.’ — Marine Insight
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A Boat
O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water.”
― Richard Brautigan
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‘Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings, including the local lifeguards’ centre, in a freak display of nature at Yamba in New South Wales. One minute a group of teenage surfers were waiting to catch a wave, the next they were swallowed up in a giant bubble bath. The foam was so light that they could puff it out of their hands and watch it float away. It stretched for 30 miles out into the Pacific in a phenomenon not seen at the beach for more than three decades. Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore. As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam. The foam “surfs” towards shore until the wave “crashes”, tossing the foam into the air.’ — Pagog!
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p.s. Hey. ** Armando, Okay, now you’re just shit-ranting about artists you know I like. That’s obnoxious. No interest in countering or coddling that. I’m glad you eventually acknowledged it, but that’s hardly the first time you’ve become an asshole here, and just stop it. ** Milk, Hi, Milk! You mean Willa Cather? That’s interesting. I haven’t thought about her in ages. Anyway, good question. There’s so little on Connie Converse out there, I doubt we’ll ever know. She’d make for a very good documentary film. Thanks! ** David Ehrenstein, She kind of is. ** Misanthrope, How did the call go? What’s the latest? How are you feeling and doing? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. My grandmother used to use odd, pretty turns of phrase too. They still burst into my speaking voice occasionally. ** Bill, Hi. Me too: hope he’s okay. I suspect he would be impossible to contact trace since I don’t think I ever knew his actual name. I know zip about that book. Huh. Yeah, very interesting. Thank you for the tip. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. I virtually never get scared by horror movies, but Jorg’s films are so out there and low budget that I think they’re more wacky and amusing and fright-filled. If it’s any consolation, my first drafts of novels and stories are a disheveled mess. I always count on the editing part, which is by far my favorite part of writing stuff. It’s quite hard to give editing tips when you don’t have the text in question at hand because every writer has their own weaknesses and strengths. I guess to just speak generally, and based on my own general rules for what I want to make, … I’m very into concision, tightness. So, maybe find everything that isn’t either crucial to what you intend or interesting enough in and of itself that it creates a kind of exciting sidestep and try removing it. I’m very into sentences, making every sentence possible have a kind of bump or unexpectedness in the rhythm or word use that makes it pop even just slightly. Inferring things is usually more compelling than explaining things. But, again, it depends on what the story is like. Like, is it more narrative/plot oriented or wandering/poetic? Maybe the main thing is to edit to excite yourself. Treating it not as drudge work but as a process as fascinating as the writing itself? I could go on. Is that any help at all? Obviously, feel free to ask more if it would help. You take care too. ** Steve Erickson, New track! Everyone, Here’s Steve: ‘I wrote a new song today, “Queer Alarm Clock”. It took a lot of work – the current drum track is the fifth one I programmed – but I’m quite happy with it. Yeah, no, I just can’t think of 15 potentially offensive things, ha ha. I saw the new Miranda July film ‘Kajillionaire’. I thought it was by far the weakest and most irritating of her films. It’s strange (to me) that she’s directed so many short and long films and yet she still doesn’t know how to pace and edit a film effectively, for one thing. ** Brian O’Connell, Hey, Brian. That sounds really grim. The trying to learn and be inspired in such a lonely, claustrophobic circumstances. This whole thing is so grim. Yeah, even minoring in films is probably enough if it comes to that, i.e. just keeping the area present and ongoing to some degree. Your own level of interest will take care of the rest, I think. I’m interested in this kind of ‘new horror’ auteur thing, although, I must say, more in concept and theory than based on the films I’ve seen. But I still haven’t seen some of the biggies like ‘Midsommar’ or ‘Us’, etc. and so on for no good reason. I hated ‘The Lighthouse’ with a passion. Maybe because I grew up in the late 60s and early 70s when ‘schlock’ horror was still being made and released at a good clip, I gravitate to them. I have a great fondness for films (and things) whose intentions are seemingly sincere and exceed their realisation. One of the reasons I love the home haunt kind of haunted attractions so much — the beauty of the home owners’ wish to scare within their limited means, and how that wish outweighs the intended effect. Anyway, … Some of the old Vincent Price films are great. Let me know what you find and like or don’t like. Big up to your health and safety and to your day ahead too. ** Right. I thought I would give you a kind of serene post today. See you tomorrow.
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