Lascaux

jamie: 4th Mar 2005 - 09:20 GMT

i love stuff like this, hidden away far from the beaten track. seen by only the select few who take an initiative to hunt such treasures.

Dinglebert: 4th Mar 2005 - 17:35 GMT

funny. very funny. it is this kind of hooliganism that denegrates the christian morals out society is clinging to for faith. i personally think george bush should punish these cave-vandals. we need to keep our subway tunnels and underpasses beautiful, for all to enjoy.

Dinglebert: 4th Mar 2005 - 17:44 GMT

and another thing: everyone knows that homo sapien of 60,000-25,000 years ago (of whom these forms are typical) didn't have written language! Its obviously some communist-academia plot.

Hasslehoff: 4th Mar 2005 - 18:56 GMT

They swim through the mists of time, cutting a swathe through the filth of temporal particulates thick as quagmire as it simultaneously invigorates and permeates this common epidermis we hold so dear. They sully our whitewashed facades with they onslaught. A torrent of reason and accountability unleashed toward this timid beast we call society. It's a cruel realisation in a moment when your eyeballs explode due to lack of celebrity gossip and u suddenly see that in fact you can't see a thing and for the first time in your worthless life you can see everything the way it was supposed to be. The way it was before they raped it in both ends facilitated by the hasty and painfull removal of its angry teeth. And all this for just few lucid fantasies layered onto a barren surface for no one but the few to admire for eternity

Neimon: 5th Mar 2005 - 18:43 GMT

Considering the track is obviously in occasional use (based on the wear on the rail), I'm guessing grieving Star Trek fan, risking a charge of OBMUI (operating a big marker under the influence).

hasslehoff: 7th Mar 2005 - 10:18 GMT

The original caves of Lascaux, in France, discovered in 1940 by a dog named Robot, contain some of the earliest known art, dating back to between 13,000 and 15,000 BC.

A replica of two of the cave halls - the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery - was opened in 1983. Reproductions of other Lascaux artwork can be seen at the Centre of Prehistoric Art at Le Thot, France.

bokane: 22nd Mar 2005 - 08:41 GMT

Where was this? I've been kind of toying with the idea of exploring trolley tunnels, once I get a pair of heavy boots.

vz: 29th Mar 2005 - 04:38 GMT

The 36th/Ludlow St. portal, about 100 feet in, south side.

I too have been toying with that idea-- and from there maybe the El tunnel, who knows?

Jamie: 17th May 2005 - 11:17 GMT

I watched a BBC documentary last night about the origins of human art. It focused on Lascaux and other cave paintings both abstract and of animals. It rubbished the general hypothesis that the paintings are merely representations of the artists' world. Indeed the abstract examples bear no resemblance to anything that would have existed in the artsits' world. Patterns of dots and grids and such.

It went on to explain that one cannot decipher the meaning of a series of lines shapes and colours; a 2 dimensional picture if one has never before seen a picture. As such, the first artists could not have been painting what they saw in the world around them. It just didn't add up. It has been generally believed that early people; hunters; painted their quarry as a form of ritual to ensure a fruitful hunt. Recent evidence has suggested quite the contrary. Bone fragments suggest that in fact these people exclusively hunted one type of animal yet painted another.

During sensory depravation (such as being in a very dark cave) the visual cortex of the human brain becomes overstimulated and produces patterns of grids, nets, dots and checkerboard patterns. If lasting for long enough this sensory deprivation creates vivid dream-like halucinations. This new understanding of the concept of pictures lead early man to want to nail down the that existed solely in his own mind. This was the birth of creativity that would eventually lead to written language and everything we now take for granted.

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 13:01 GMT

re representation of things and ideas, and thinking about images and communicationg about them, it iw worth reviewing available text on plato's cave. there is loads on the interweb. i think plato's cave is a good anchor for any theoretical look at media in all it's forms, and it also tells us something essential about what it is to be human

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 14:04 GMT

wow jamie, thats a pretty interesting hypothesis. i can dig it. thanks for passing along an explanation...

elaine: also plato's cave. thanks for the reminder on that classic...

JAKOB DIAMOND: 9th Oct 2005 - 21:53 GMT

NO THATS JUST SOME SQUATTER OR SEPTA WORKER THAT MAY HAVE COME FROM SEPTA S FUTURE BUT I HAVE A PICTURE OF A AGUA TAG AND IN THE PICTURE YOU CAN SEE THE KARMA AND FUB TAG BUT NO CAVEMAN HISTORY MAYBE IF YOU GO DEEPER...

Mrs. T: 18th Oct 2006 - 01:09 GMT

this is hillarious!!! who would have known something like this would be found in a subway??:)