Tristan S. Rapp Profile picture
Jun 5 5 tweets 4 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
It seems an odd, and paradoxically strangely nativist, notion that something cannot be authentically local because it constitutes an innovation of some originally foreign import.

Little in life is invented whole-cloth - all creativity is inspired iteration. ImageImageImageImage
Take this Danish church as an example - there is, if analysed with a scalpel, little uniquely Danish about it. Dedicated to an imported religion using imported architectural techniques full of statues and art in imported styles.

And yet, this building is inimitably Danish. Image
Is the Aneid not an authentically "Roman" work because it centres on Trojan characters & was inspired by the style and matter of Homeric Greek poetry?

Well, without the Greeks, no Aneid, it is true - but all the same, it was not a Greek but a Latin poet who put pen to page. Image
Let's take an even starker example - the famous & characteristic Australian Aboriginal "dot" style of painting was invented by a white arts-teacher named Geoffrey Bardon.

Does that mean it isn't "really" an authentic expression of Aboriginal culture? No, that is absurd. ImageImageImageImage
What is wonderful & true is not "pure invention", as if that is even a thing. It is one person, or group of people, taking from another group an idea & improving, innovating, localising it, mirroring & integrating the work of one mind in another.

Let's have none of this tosh. Image

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More from @Hieraaetus

Jun 6
THREAD - the Origin and Survival of the Norse Longship

(1) Few symbols are as archetypically associated with the ancient Vikings as the longship - dragon-prowed galleys, spreading dread & fire across the shores of Europe. But where did they originate, & where end? Image
(2) First, about the longship. Norse vessels were clinker-hulled, a style also known as the lapstrake, wherein the planks of the hull were arranged such that they overlapped with each other, forming the characteristic "striped" appearance of the Viking-ship. Image
(3) This was distinct from the style employed in the south, which was a 'mortise and tenon' technique called the Phoenician joint, wherein interlocking joints formed the cohesive, water-tight hull.

Invented by the titular Phoenicians, it was later adopted by the Greeks & Romans Image
Read 28 tweets
Jun 6
About 3km from my childhood home. We had others like this on our street - extremely common in DK, usually owned by ppl from the city living in flats
Called "kolonihaver" - "colony gardens". Often very charming & sometimes used as a sort of inland summerhouse by ppl, though staying in them permanently isn't legal.

Never owned one myself tho, on account of having an actual garden. ImageImage
I wonder about the sommerhuse-phenomenon in Denmark - is this common elsewhere?

It is extremely normal in DK for middle-class & up families to own a sommerhouse elsewhere in the country, which always look like this ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Jun 2
Increasingly convinced the current state of cinema - its total malaise, bordering on an Eliadean eternal recurrence of existing IPs - is actually uncureable at this point.

Cinema is stuck in a vicious cycle of market-economics, stifling innovation whilst punishing repetition. ImageImageImageImage
Many of these endless remakes, re-imaginings & sequels have hit diminishing returns at this point, actively burning up the goodwill & reputation of the franchises they recycle, yet they STILL make more reliable money than new IPs, making innovation a "poor investment" ImageImageImage
Underlying it all - it's hard to tell chicken from egg here - is the sense that our general culture has simply lost the ability & frankly will to generate new stories & artistic ideas.

Seeking some escape from this rut, people escape into nostalgia for more creative periods. ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Jun 2
It is somewhat crazy to me that the Kenyan Swahili Coast has what may be some of the most beautiful architecture in the world, and yet the country has essentially done... nothing with it.

No attempt to utilise it for new, inland developments ImageImageImageImage
Kenya is a country of beautiful nature and people, but the built environment is frankly quite hideous. I do not believe this is due to limitations of funds - it seems more broadly a lack of skilled labour, proper utilisation of resources, and perhaps of vision ImageImage
I also have to wonder whether part of the reason for this architectural neglect is that the Swahili style of building is view by inland Kenyans (overwhelmingly Christian) as "intrinsically Islamic".

I know for a fact such notions have obstructed projects here in the past Image
Read 5 tweets
May 24
It's really quite remarkable how rapidly the Scandinavian world - especially Denmark & Norway - were transformed in the 11th century.

The first decades saw Sweyn's conquest of England, then Stiklestad, Stamford Bridge. Yet by the last decades, that whole world was ending. Image
Consider a man born in 1060, 6 years before Harald fell in England and William brought the Anglo-Saxon age crashing down. If this man lived to a century - unlikely, but not impossible - he would die in 1160, an utterly different society and culture. ImageImage
Harald Hårdråde is often considered the last "true" Viking-age king, but that title should probably be properly bestowed to Svend Estridsen ("Sweyn II"), who died exactly a decade later, in 1076.

His reign saw Denmark transform from a Norse to a quintessentially Medieval society Image
Read 11 tweets
May 23
Sometimes you (read: I) become aware of how *huge* dinosaurs really were, and it's a slightly odd and disconcerting experience
To which some will say "well duh, they're famous for being big", but I don't just mean animals like Tyrannosaurus or Brontosaurus.

Take Gallimimus - slightly funky-looking ostrich dinosaur. That's one of the small ones, right? Yes, relatively speaking, but look - Image
This is, by modern standards, a very large animal. It's taller than a moose. And yet this constitutes a mid-sized dinosaur at best, in a family not renowned for its size Image
Read 6 tweets

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