The Ancient World Comes to Life in an Animation Featuring Istanbul’s Islamic, Ottoman, Greek & Byzantine Art

in Architecture, Art, Film | July 24th, 2023 6 Comments

Trav­el for travel’s sake can be won­der­ful but noth­ing beats trav­el­ing with a pur­pose.

Syr­i­an Ger­man film­mak­er Waref Abu Quba was so tak­en with Istanbul’s time­less beau­ty on his first vis­it in 2021 that he resolved to pho­to­graph as many exam­ples of it as pos­si­ble.

Hav­ing amassed some 2,900 pho­tos, he set about ani­mat­ing them using a flash cut tech­nique, rapid­ly tog­gling between sim­i­lar images to bring life and move­ment to fixed archi­tec­tur­al and dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments.

(Warn­ing: the result­ing con­tent could trig­ger seizures in view­ers with epilep­sy or pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty.)

Takrar –  Ara­bic for ‘rep­e­ti­tion’ — took two years to com­plete, con­dens­ing the sense of won­der Quba expe­ri­enced on his trav­els into four aston­ish­ing min­utes.

His col­lab­o­ra­tion with com­pos­er Alex Sto­ry and per­cus­sion­ist Robbe Kieck­ens brings added vital­i­ty to these ancient pat­terns on stone, wood, ceram­ic, and tile.

Among the forms Quba infus­es with life are 140 unique columns from Hagia Sophia, each carved with the emper­or’s mono­gram and their land of orig­in’s cap­i­tal.

The domed ceil­ings of Istanbul’s mag­nif­i­cent mosques achieve a kalei­do­scop­ic effect.

The three insti­tu­tions that com­prise the Istan­bul Archae­o­log­i­cal Muse­ums proved a rich source of mate­r­i­al, from Assyr­i­an sculp­tures and mosaics from Mesopotamia, to orna­ments dec­o­rat­ing the 4th cen­tu­ry BCE Alexan­der Sar­coph­a­gus, to the Hel­lenis­tic Sar­coph­a­gus of Cry­ing Women, whose tit­u­lar mourn­ers now shim­my in a rit­u­al­is­tic dance.

Even door­knobs man­age to cap­ti­vate, while a cobalt blue Iznik charg­er plate from the Muse­um Of Turk­ish and Islam­ic Arts pos­sess­es true star qual­i­ty.

Watch more of Waref Abu Quba’s films here.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Istan­bul Cap­tured in Beau­ti­ful Col­or Images from 1890: The Hagia Sophia, Top­ka­ki Palace’s Impe­r­i­al Gate & More

An Intro­duc­tion to Hagia Sophia: After 85 Years as a Muse­um, It’s Set to Become a Mosque Again

Hear the Sound of the Hagia Sophia Recre­at­ed in Authen­tic Byzan­tine Chant

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.


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Comments (6)
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  • Jacqui says:
    July 24, 2023 at 3:56 pm

    I just start­ed read­ing Jung’s Aion, and watch­ing this feels like some­thing atavis­tic, impor­tant but inex­press­ible truths in the geom­e­try, sym­me­try, and beau­ty of the forms.

    Reply
  • J says:
    July 25, 2023 at 12:00 pm

    I pre­ferred it as Con­stan­tio­ple….. 500 years of oppres­sion is unac­cept­able.

    Reply
  • Nigâr Alemdar says:
    August 2, 2023 at 11:53 am

    What about the Hun­dred-Year-Wars in Europe?
    What about the opres­sion Euro­peans brought to Africa?
    What about the opres­sion of the Amer­i­can Indi­ans?
    What about the mess the Us cre­at­ed in the present day Mid­dle East?
    Are’nt these “not accept­able”????
    You can­not judge his­to­ry with today’s val­ues…

    Reply
  • Dianne says:
    March 16, 2024 at 11:54 pm

    Being in 30 years of mar­riage, I thought I knew every­thing about my hus­band. But one day, every­thing changed when I dis­cov­ered a secret that shook me to my core. It all start­ed when I noticed some irreg­u­lar­i­ties in our finances—money miss­ing from our accounts, unex­plained expens­es, and strange with­drawals. I could­n’t shake the feel­ing that some­thing was off, but I could­n’t quite put my fin­ger on it. Then, one day, a friend told me about Crak­er cyber­dude Recov­ery, a ser­vice that helps uncov­er hid­den secrets online. Des­per­ate for answers, I decid­ed to give it a try. With their help, I was able to access my hus­band’s online activ­i­ties and uncov­er a shock­ing truth—he had anoth­er fam­i­ly that I knew noth­ing about. The evi­dence was undeniable—emails, mes­sages, and finan­cial trans­ac­tions reveal­ing that my hus­band had been send­ing mon­ey to anoth­er woman and their chil­dren for years. I felt like the ground had been pulled out from under me. How could he betray me like this after all we had been through? But the rev­e­la­tions did­n’t stop there. I also dis­cov­ered that my hus­band had been lying about his work trips. Instead of going on assign­ments for the sports com­pa­ny he worked for, he had been vis­it­ing his oth­er fam­i­ly under the guise of busi­ness trips. The betray­al was stag­ger­ing, and I strug­gled to come to terms with the mag­ni­tude of his decep­tion. With the truth laid bare, I con­front­ed my hus­band, demand­ing answers. At first, he tried to deny it, but faced with the over­whelm­ing evi­dence, he had no choice but to come clean. The man I had loved and trust­ed for three decades had been liv­ing a dou­ble life, and I was left to pick up the pieces of my shat­tered real­i­ty. In the after­math of the rev­e­la­tion, I leaned on the sup­port of friends and fam­i­ly to nav­i­gate the emo­tion­al tur­moil. with their encour­age­ment, I decid­ed to leave my hus­band and rebuild my life with­out him. It was­n’t easy, but with each pass­ing day, I grew stronger and more resilient. Thanks to http://www.crakercyberdude.space, I could uncov­er the truth and take con­trol of my life. While the betray­al was painful, it ulti­mate­ly freed me from a rela­tion­ship built on lies. Today, I’m grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to start anew and forge my path for­ward, leav­ing behind the deceit and heartache of the past.Telegram : +1 (425) 362‑7488
    Email:Craker (@) cyber­dude. Com
    What­sApp: +1 (314) 226‑3405

    Reply
  • Eugene says:
    June 21, 2024 at 4:23 am

    Most peo­ple are in rela­tion­ships that are rife with lies and cheat­ing, but they don’t know how to end them since they lack any sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion. I’ve been in that sce­nario before, so I under­stand how dif­fi­cult it is. I decid­ed to con­tact them after see­ing a post here men­tion­ing

    ha**********@gm***.com











     and they were able to give me com­plete access to my part­ner’s phone with­out leav­ing any traces. I want to give this team a sin­cere thank you and rec­om­mend them to any­one else who might require their assis­tance Per­fect.

    Reply
  • Nelisha Vellani says:
    July 24, 2024 at 8:17 pm

    I dont see a rea­son why peo­ple should painstak­ing­ly look about for apps and at the end it wont work the way it ought to. Hav­ing been in a sit­u­a­tion before where I felt I need­ed to get proof to show him that he had been cheat­ing before he would allow him­self to be removed from the house, basi­cal­ly i sus­pect­ed that he uses the what­sapp app more and has a face recog­ni­tion secu­ri­ty attached to it. I did what I had to do to save myself. If you are in that sit­u­a­tion, be con­fi­dent that it can be done. You may need to use a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor to be sure, if you have the funds to do so. you can con­tact via email: hack4techspy @gmail com.

    Reply

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