Risus Sardonicus Ex Animo

hmmm

Francesca Woodman (April 3, 1958 – January 19, 1981) was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured. Her work continues to be the subject of much critical acclaim and attention, years after she died by suicide at the age of 22, in 1981.

A poem by Richard Feynman in his address to the National Academy of Sciences: There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison Ages on ages before any eyes could see year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? On a dead planet with no life to entertain. Never at rest tortured by energy wasted prodigiously by the Sun poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity living things masses of atoms DNA, protein dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing: atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the Universe.