Pandorum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandorum

Pandorum is a German-British 2009 science fiction horror film, with elements of Lovecraftian horror, and survival adventure. The film was directed by Christian Alvart and produced by Robert Kulzer, Jeremy Bolt and Paul W.S. Anderson. Travis Milloy wrote the screenplay from a story by Milloy and Alvart. It stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster. Filming began in Berlin in August 2008. Pandorum was released on 25 September 2009 in the United States,^[3] and on 2 October 2009 in the UK.

The film's title is a nickname of a fictional psychosis called "Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome" (ODS for short) caused by deep space and triggered by emotional stress leading to severe paranoia, delirium, and nosebleeding. The film received mixed to negative reviews, but has gained a cult following over time.

After watching this film I felt it was a greatly underappreciated movie with an intriguing view on the future and nature of the human condition. The human race has had to abandon earth due to excessive overpopulation, therefore a huge transport ship called Elysium transports 60,000 humans 500 million miles from earth on a 124 year journey to the only planet with an appropriate atmosphere, and water to sustain humans. On board the Elysium are embryos for every organism on earth; thus the Elysium is an interesting twist on Noah’s ark.

However the film gets interesting towards the end after the plot twist and explanation (SPOILERS) which reveals that the vast horde of monstrous, cannibalistic humanoid hunters which have been the films primary antagonist, are in fact the descendants of humans. It is revealed that the ship arrived at Tanis (the new world) 900 years ago at which point the first rotation crew awoke to run the ship. Finding that the ship was in deep space a place with no stars just black (later revealed to be the bottom of an ocean on Tanis) and a message from earth telling them that Earth has been destroyed, the CO goes insane kills the remaining skeleton crew. He then believes that this ship is the new home of the human race of which he is in control thus he believes himself to be the new god. He wants to ensure over population never threatens the new world. Therefore he realizes that he only way to keep population manageable the human race must revert to the primal uncanny, their origins. To return to a state of savage violence in which you are either the butcher or the meat. To do this he wakes several thousand humans from hyper sleep and locks them in the cargo section of the ship to play a horrifying game of cat and mouse forcing them to kill and eat each other to survive (survival of the fittest). An enzyme every human receives in hyper sleep to accelerate evolution so as to adapt to the climate of Tanis actual allows these cannibals to evolve to adapt to the ship and a new savage, violent lifestyle. After seeing his work take effect the new god Gallo goes back into hyper sleep waking as Payton 800 years later starting the events of the film. After 800 years the descendants of the humans have evolved into the monstrous hunters that are the antagonists.

However in the end the protagonist Bower and Nadia discover all of this and that the ship is below the sea, therefore after accidental shattering the bridge window they escape to the surface in a hyper sleep pod acting as an escape pod. All the remaining humans in hyper sleep are also ejected to the surface whilst the ship floods drowning the hunters and Payton revealed to be the main villain who created the new human race. Therefore as with Noah’s ark the water saves the pure and cleanses the evil.

There is a scene during Pandorum in which Bower meets a survivor called Cook, who resides in an exhaust outlet on the walls of which he has documented the evolution of the monstrous hunters revealing the secrets of the ship and revealing Gallo to be the villain. The history is documented as cave drawings, which is interesting as it clearly shows the de evolution of the human race to their new savage selves by using a primal style of art work.

Heath Ledger's, Joker Diary

British Big Cats: possible explaination of Black Shuck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_big_cats

http://www.britishbigcats.org/

As a means of trying to place the black shuck “Fictional legend”in to some factual context, the most logical explanation is the British big cat. Perhaps seeing a large four legged black creature in the woods (Panther or black jaguar) The onlooker could easily confuse the figure as a large black hound from legend.

British big cats, also referred to as ABCs (Alien, or Anomalous, Big Cats), phantom cats and mystery cats, are reports and incidents of Felidae not native to Britain but supposed to inhabit the British countryside. These sightings are often reported as "panthers", "pumas", or "black cats".

The existence of a population of true big cats in Britain, especially a breeding population, is believed to be highly implausible by experts owing to lack of convincing evidence. There have been some incidents of recovered individual animals, often medium-sized species such as the Eurasian lynx but in one 1980 case a puma, which was captured alive in Scotland. These are generally believed to have been escaped or released pets that had been held illegally, possibly released after the animals became too difficult to manage. Sightings at a distance may possibly be explicable as domestic cats seen near to a viewer being misinterpreted as larger animals seen further away. A fringe theory suggests that the animals may be surviving Ice Age fauna.

There have been 455 sightings logged by police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland between 2010 and 2015.

1  The Beast of Cumbria Is reported to be a black cat like a panther.
2  The Hull Hell Cat  A huge puma ‘spotted hiding in a field near Hull’.
3  The Bury Beast  A black panther spotted in the suburbs of Manchester.
4  The Wildcat of Wakefield  A black panther like cat spotted in Yorkshire field.
5  The Pershore Panther  A huge black cat beside the road in Worcestershire.
6  The Wildcat of Warwickshire. A possible lynx spotted wandering Warwickshire.
7  The Bedfordshire Big Cat. A ‘panther-like’ cat stalking the county.
8  The Beast of Silsoe A ‘cat as big as Labrador’ seen roaming small parish.
9  The Beast of Bucks a puma which attacked a dog in High Wycombe.
10 The Beast of Broomfield A huge cat spotted in Essex.
11 The Dartmoor Lynx Several sightings in recent months on the moors.
12 The Dartmoor Devil A leopard believed to behind cattle attacks.
13 The Creature of Cornwall is reportedly a stalking lion.
14 The Beast of Bodmin   several sightings of Puma like creature wandering the moors
15 The Suffolk Panther A huge black cat spotted on the Norfolk/Suffolk border

But many members of the public do not tell police when they see a suspected big cat in the wild.

It is estimated 2,000 of the beasts are seen each year, with most of the sightings not officially logged.

Repeated sightings of the big beasts long after it became illegal in 1977 to keep them as pets without a licence proves that they must be thriving, and breeding, in rural Britain.

Why are there big cats roaming our countryside?

Wild animal expert Jonathan Downes , the head of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, said: “Many big cat sightings are of animals that were kept as pets and released. Or they may be ones that escaped from zoos or were purposely let out into the wild.

“I am certain that big cats such as leopards and pumas must be breeding, as they do not live 40 years in the wild.

“Also, there have been occasional sightings of females with cubs.”

Evidence put forward as Big Cat evidence - but isn't!

Hoaxes are few, genuine mistakes are many. Here are some instances of both.

Cwmbran (Wales) a large cuddly toy (Summer 2005) fooled 2 National Newspapers!

Gytrash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gytrash

The Gytrash /ɡaɪˈtræʃ/[citation needed], a legendary black dog known in northern England, was said to haunt lonely roads awaiting travelers. Appearing in the shape of horses, mules, or dogs, the Gytrash haunt solitary ways and lead people astray but they can also be benevolent, guiding lost travelers to the right road. They are usually feared.

This provides further evidence to support my theory that in legend and tales within our culture large beasts and large hounds have become less a simple antagonistic presence but rather a philosophical judge of character. Judging human victims waying the darkness of their nature. Resultantly they choose to curse or guide the subject.

In some parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, the Gytrash was known as the Shagfoal and took the form of a spectral mule or donkey with eyes that glowed like burning coals. In this form, the beast was believed to be purely malevolent.

As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travelers, as this horse was now coming upon me. It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash -- a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head [...], with strange pretercanine eyes [...]. The horse followed, -- a tall steed [...]. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone [...].

— Excerpt from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, chapter xii

The Gytrash's emergence as Rochester's innocuous dog Pilot has been interpreted as a subtle mockery of the mysteriousness and romanticism that surrounds his character and which clouds Jane's perception. Brontë's reference in 1847 is probably the earliest reference to the beast and forms the basis for subsequent citations.

http://www.xtremescreampark.co.uk/index.php/10-creepy-english-monster-legends/

Gytrash – 10 Creepy English Monster Legends

Gytrash is a huge monstrous black dog who appears before lonely travelers. They haunt the remote roads and pathways all across England, where people rarely pass by. But when they do, the Gytrash will appear as a friendly figure – maybe a dog or a horse. They convince the traveler to follow them, and them lead the traveler away from the road. When deeply in the wilderness, the Gytrash will disappear, leaving the traveler lost and alone. They were believed to be absolutely evil beasts with eyes that glow red like burning coal fires. Gytrash were, and still are in some parts, deeply feared.

Black Shuck

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12685/10-legendary-monsters-europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Shuck

Black Shuck is the name of a ghost dog that roams Norfolk, Suffolk, and other parts of England. It is a large, black canine with flaming red or green eyes, or sometimes just one eye in the middle of its head. If those eyes catch your gaze directly, you are doomed to death within a year. There are various origin stories for the dog, which was first reported seen in 1577. Black Shuck may have been the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles.

In my opinion large hounds throughout legend prey upon human victims for a reason, perhaps hounds, a creature which is physically superior to humans, can attack and fatally wound humans if they deem it necessary; thus could the hound be a philosophical judge of the human condition.

Black Shuck, Old Shuck, Old Shock or simply Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog which is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia. Accounts of the animal form part of the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshire fens and Essex.

I was interested to find a case study of a legendary canine beast with local relevance to my studies, in doing so I came across the Black Shuck, supposedly sighted around East Anglia.

The name Shuck may derive from the Old English word scucca meaning "demon", or possibly from the local dialect word shuck meaning "shaggy" or "hairy".

Black Shuck is one of many ghostly black dogs recorded across the British Isles. Sometimes recorded as an omen of death, sometimes a more companionable animal, it is classified as a cryptid, and there are varying accounts of the animal's appearance. Writing in 1877, Walter Rye stated that Shuck was "the most curious of our local apparitions, as they are no doubt varieties of the same animal.

Its alleged appearance in 1577 at Bungay and Blythburgh is a particularly famous account of the beast, and images of black sinister dogs have become part of the iconography of the area and have appeared in popular culture.

Folklore

For centuries, inhabitants of England have told tales of a large black dog with malevolent flaming eyes (or in some variants of the legend a single eye) that are red or alternatively green. They are described as being 'like saucers'. According to reports, the beast varies in size and stature from that of simply a large dog to being the size of a calf or even a horse. Sometimes Black Shuck is recorded as having appeared headless, and at other times as floating on a carpet of mist.

According to folklore, the spectre haunts the landscapes of East Anglia, primarily coastline, graveyards, sideroads, crossroads, bodies of water and dark forests. W. A. Dutt, in his 1901 Highways & Byways in East Anglia describes the creature thus:

He takes the form of a huge black dog, and prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths, where, although his howling makes the hearer's blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound. You may know him at once, should you see him, by his fiery eye; he has but one, and that, like the Cyclops', is in the middle of his head. But such an encounter might bring you the worst of luck: it is even said that to meet him is to be warned that your death will occur before the end of the year. So you will do well to shut your eyes if you hear him howling; shut them even if you are uncertain whether it is the dog fiend or the voice of the wind you hear. Should you never set eyes on our Norfolk Snarleyow you may perhaps doubt his existence, and, like other learned folks, tell us that his story is nothing but the old Scandinavian myth of the black hound of Odin, brought to us by the Vikings who long ago settled down on the Norfolk coast.

It is Dutt's description which gave rise to one misnomer for Black Shuck as "Old Snarleyow"; in the context of his description it is a comparative to Frederick Marryat's 1837 novel Snarleyyow, or the Dog Fiend, which tells the tale of a troublesome ship's dog.

According to some legends, the dog's appearance bodes ill to the beholder - for example in the Maldon and Dengie area of Essex, the most southerly point of sightings, where seeing Black Shuck means the observer's almost immediate death. However, more often than not, stories tell of Black Shuck terrifying his victims, but leaving them alone to continue living normal lives; in some cases it has supposedly happened before close relatives to the observer die or become ill.

By contrast, in other tales the animal is regarded as relatively benign and said to accompany women on their way home in the role of protector rather than a portent of ill omen. Some black dogs have been said to help lost travellers find their way home and are more often helpful than threatening; Sherwood notes that benign accounts of the dog become more regular towards the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th centuries.

Below , title page of Rev. Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of the ghostly black dog "Black Shuck" at the church of Bungay, Suffolk: "A straunge, and terrible wunder wrought very late in the parish church of Bongay: a town of no great distance from the citie of Norwich, namely the fourth of this August, in ye yeere of our Lord 1577".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2629353/Is-skeleton-legendary-devil-dog-Black-Shuck-terrorised-16th-century-East-Anglia.html

Is this the skeleton of legendary devil dog Black Shuck who terrorised 16th century East Anglia? Folklore tells of SEVEN FOOT hell hound with flaming eyes

• According to folklore, Black Shuck terrorised East Anglia in 16th century
• He towered at seven feet tall, with flaming red eyes and shaggy black hair
• Now, remains of legendary hound may have been unearthed during a dig
• Bones found by archeologists among ruins at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk
• They belong to 'male dog', standing at seven feet tall and weighing 200lbs
• Experts are currently carrying out radio carbon dating tests on remains

By Paul Harris for the Daily Mail

Published: 16:30, 15 May 2014 | Updated: 01:28, 16 May 2014

These remains of a giant dog were found during a dig among the ruins of Leiston Abbey in Suffolk

Yesterday, 500 years after Black Shuck first went on the prowl, archaeologists were examining the skeleton of a 7ft long dog unearthed in the remains of an ancient abbey.

It was discovered a few miles from two churches where Black Shuck is said to have killed worshippers during an almighty thunderstorm in August 1577.

What’s more, it appears to have been buried in a shallow grave at precisely the same time as Shuck is said to have been on the loose, primarily around Suffolk and the East Anglia region.

Experts will subject the bones and surrounding material to 21st century dating techniques.

But first, the legend. The beast’s most celebrated attack began at Holy Trinity church, Blythburgh. A clap of thunder burst open the church doors and a hairy black ‘devil dog’ came snarling in.

It ran through the congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church steeple to fall through the roof. Scorch marks still visible on the church doors are purported to have come from Shuck’s claws as it fled.

Local verse records the event thus: ‘All down the church in the midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew.’

Next stop was 12 miles away in Bungay, where two worshippers were killed at St Mary’s church. One was left shrivelled ‘like a drawn purse’ as he prayed.

The bones uncovered in the ruins of Leiston Abbey, Suffolk, were first found by archaeological group Dig Ventures in a project last year.

'The story of Black Shuck has to have originated from somewhere and, who knows, it could have originated from the dog which was buried here'

Brendon Wilkins

Painstaking work revealed the skeleton of an extremely large dog.

Estimates suggest it would have weighed more than 14 stone and stood 7ft tall on its hind legs.

The grave was less than 20 inches deep and unmarked. Pottery fragments found at the same level date from the height of Shuck’s alleged reign.

Radio carbon dating tests will now give an exact age for the bones, results that will serve either to enhance the shaggy dog stories – or perhaps to support the far less entertaining theory that here lies a 16th century abbot’s beloved old hunting dog.

DEATH STRANDING trailer 2- Hideo Kojima game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca56Xm0Bk10

The second trailer for the visionary new video game Death Stranding has recently dropped, in my opinion after watching the clip I have recognised a variety of similarities between my current themes and the plot of this trailer. I’m currently interested in the progress of society from the natural world to the urban world, its current development into the digital world, and its desire to transcend to a virtual world.

This trailer depicts a world in which such a timeline is traversed, with an opening scene showing the deceased and corrupt natural world, yet synthetic umbilical cords connect them to the urban world which is off screen at this moment showing that the connection and progression from one to the other.

Above is the shot at 0:42, in which we start to see the humans placement within this crumbled decrepit urban world, it is at this point that we see the human’s urban world has been abandoned as was the natural world before it; we see that society has progressed further hinting at a digital or even virtual world. A world inhabited by digital avatars which we see and understand deeper on the next still…

Above in stills from 1:57-2:26, we see the human desperately attempting to transcend from his physical link to the “inferior natural and urban worlds”, by implanting himself within an avatar shown as a synthetic infant within a digital womb. The human figure then tries to run and hide within the ruins of the urban world, a tunnel to be precise. Below is a shot showing the tunnel the human tries to hide inside. Above we see who he is fleeing from an army of potential androids/avatars (the military symbolism implies that the androids are waging war on humans removing the imperfections of their “superior world”.

Above I highlighted areas within the tunnel where we see aspects of the natural world perseveering within the ruins of the urban world, foreshadowing a potential natural revolution over the new order. Shown through primal cave paintings of hand prints within the tunnel.

However we are then reminded of the dominance of the virtual world portrayed by the hunter played by the actor Mads Mikelson. Shown below. We are clearly shown his digital nature as when he removes his nightvison mask the object eruots into a flame of digital shards.

We then see his superiority to others as his fellow soldiers are connected to himself by cables which he uses like chains on hounds.

So we therefore see ourselves the humans, caught between a conflict we have orchestrated between the beasts of myth the champions of the natural world and the android hunters of the champions of the virtual world.

Research Folder BA2b, Research surrounding my practice and thematic context.

For this unit it is very clear to me that I want the context of my research and 3000 word text to continue to inform the body of work which I produce through studio work. The simplest way I can describe the thematic context of my practice is as follows; society objectifies the non-human seeing it as inferior or a symbol of regression, whereas the individual sub consciously desires to return to the primal uncanny to the honesty and purity of the natural world. This theme is best embodied by the human/non-human hybrid from myth and legend e.g. the werewolf or lycanthrope. My studio practice pursues these themes primarily in a three dimensional sense, however I wish to continue to experiment with media and techniques so as to better inform my work. Furthermore I wish to truly immerse myself in the collaborative nature of this unit so as to learn from my peers. The simplest way I think I can describe my studio practice is as follows; I create a tableau of unsightly worlds and organisms embodying arrogance, violence, conflict and other disturbing aspects of the human condition.

This Blog will act as a large segment of my Research File for BA2b; in which I will collect all my research surrounding my practice as an artist and the thematic context in which my work resides.