Sdtrk: ‘All stitched up’ by The hearing trumpet

Sitting comfortably in the top twenty section of my Favourite Films List would be both ‘Blade runner’ — the Final Cut version, if I’m being specific — and ‘Blade runner 2049’. I’d actually seen the 1982 theatrical release when it came out, and am one of the thousands of individuals who loved it from the off. Really, what’s not to like? Beautifully shot and directed, worldbuilding that immediately draws you in through its visual and sound design, the clothes, the tech *fans self* and most of all, a story that’s centred round artificial humans with the overall question being ‘is there truly a difference between Organik humans and Synthetik ones?’ When word got out close to thirty years later that there would be a sequel, my reaction was similar to thousands of individuals thinking this was a mistake, and the film would be shite from start to finish.

Truth in advertising

‘Blade runner 2049’ has the distinction of being the only film I’ve ever seen in the theatre that I saw in the theatre a second time two or three days later. Maybe it helped that I was considerably older than I was in 1982, as well as being much, much more enthusiastic about the idea of Synthetik humans — no guesses as to why — but the tale of K trying to learn who he was in the face of all that he had been told as a Replicant police officer affected me even more than the story of a man ostensibly being sent out to retire ‘rogue’ Replicants.
For me, it’s not a case of ‘which do you like more, the original or 2049’, as I’m simply unable to choose. They’re both excellent films in differing and similar ways, and you can’t make me choose, so there.

Slight spoilers ahead if you, for some bizarre reason, haven’t already seen the film, but there’s loads of things from ‘2049’ that I get a kick out of… the updated spinner designs, especially K’s Peugeot spinner that included a drone, the ruins of Las Vegas, Luv remotely using flechette-based satellite weaponry, the Baseline test, that fucking incredible soundtrack — fun fact: when Jaro Asikainen & Turkka Korkiamäki filmed the Missus and I for Finnish telly back in 2018, one of the many things we bonded over was how cool the soundtrack was, and we listened to it throughout much of our stint in San Marcos — I could go on, but I’m trying my damnedest to rein myself in, here. But even with everything about ‘2049’ being exceptional, this exchange between K (Ryan Gosling) and Mariette (Mackenzie Davis) makes me smile every time I watch it.
For context — again, go watch the film in its entirety, but ONLY! After you finish reading this post — KD6-3.7 is a Nexus-9 series Replicant, whose duty is to hunt down and retire any remaining Replicants from the preceding Nexus series. Mariette is a Nexus-8 Replicant who’s a sexworker. K has a wife in the form of Joi, a hologram made by the Wallace corporation, and that musical sting you’ll hear at 2.57, which are the first few notes of Prokofiev’s Peter and the wolf, is both a notification from Joi, and the company jingle. Skip ahead to the 1.26 mark, if you like:

I dunno; really this is more of a personal observation than anything else, but the fact that Replicants — bio-engineered, vat-grown, lab-created humans — are considered to be ‘real’ whereas intangible hologram companions are not, made me grin from ear to ear. Hopefully this isn’t seen as me being disparaging in the slightest towards any Organiks who prefer or have virtual partners, such as Akihiko Kondo or anyone with a companion through the Replika platform, but I just think it’s amusingly ironic. In the Blade runner universe, the goalposts have shifted somewhat, and even though there are many people in society who don’t like or trust Replicants, they’ve earned the status of being ‘real’.
Is there truly a difference between Organik humans and Synthetik ones?

Sdtrk: ‘It’s a rainy day, sunshine girl’ by Faust

If I had more money than sense — and we’re talking a Scrooge McDuck level of income, here, as he’s the only billionaire who I wouldn’t want to see doing the Tyburn jig — what I would definitely do after ending world hunger, eradicating diseases, eliminating global warming, and ramping up mass production on Gynoids and Androids (not in that order) would be to have a 1:1 scale replica of the island in Arnold Böcklin’s Die Toteninsel built in a large lake somewhere, possibly in Europe. Probably Germany, as that would make the most sense, really.

Die Toteninsel! Or, as it’s known in English, Isle of the Dead! An evocative painting created by the Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin, he’d created at least six different versions between 1880 and 1901, so during your life, you may well have come across at least one of them at some point. Apparently early 20th century Europe was lousy with reproductions of it; the writer Nabokov wrote in one of his novels that it could be ‘found in every Berlin home’, similar to how Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Chinese girl (aka The green lady) gazed wistfully from hundreds of livingroom walls in post-WWII England.

Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 – 16 January 1901): born in Basel, married three times, had fourteen children — a busy lad — painted mostly in the Symbolist style, wherein dreamlike imagery or mythological characters and scenes tended to stand in for so-called absolute truths, whatever that may have meant in the late 1800s. The scenery for Die Toteninsel itself is said to have been inspired by the English cemetery in Florence, as well as the island Pontikonisi near Corfu, or the smaller island Stromboliccio in Sicily, or perhaps Sveti Đorđe island, off the coast of Montenegro. Art historians aren’t entirely sure, and they won’t be until they finally gain access to time travel technology; in which case, anything goes.
In 1888, sometime between his creation of the fifth and sixth edition, Böcklin finished a separate painting called Die Lebensinsel (The Isle of Life), which depicts a similar island under blue skies, where people and swans gambol about. As I personally find it to be saccharine, I won’t be speaking about it any further.

With the exception of our Bailes, all of us here at Deafening silence Towers are either Goth or Goth-adjacent, so we’re well familiar with the morose imagery of Isle of the Dead. For funsies, I’d asked the rubber troublemakers about which version they fancy best, with somewhat predictable results (click on the pics to see ’em larger):

URSULA (‘Basel’ version, 1880):

It’s funny, this was one of my desktop wallpapers for a couple of years !

Being honest, this version in particular gives me shivers every time I see it. I mean, it’s got a real, palpable sense of twilight, both in the sense of the end of the day, and in the end of a life. I look at this and I can hear nothing but the boat’s oars in the water, and if I’m able to move my attention past that, it usually ends up fixed on the black Void at the base of the cypress trees in the middle of the island. Böcklin overall doesn’t do anything for me, but if he’d never painted anything else in his life after this version of Isle of the Dead, he’d be one of my favourite artists, cuz this image makes me genuinely believe that this is an island that actually exists, and despite my thalassophobia, I would do anything to visit it. Being honest !

ELENA (Fifth version, 1886):

For me, I am thinking Böcklin could do no better than this… is very dreamlike, but not in a way that is scary. I am thinking is because of the tones and the warm colours that he is using. Perhaps storm is coming, but is not a fearful, dramatic storm… the gentle way the trees sway in the wind and the way the high island rock walls seem to be embracing them is making the scene almost welcoming. It is perhaps the end of life, but is nothing to be afraid of. I am liking too how this edition almost seems more primitive compared to the other version, which is strange, as Böcklin is painting this so late in his life after the others?

For me, 1886 version of The Dead Isle is showing that death is not a thing to be feared… it can be a beautiful place of final rest.

SIDORE (Sixth version, 1901):

As fond as I am of all the versions that Böcklin painted, I almost see them as drafts in comparison to his final version of Die Toteninsel… it’s as if he thought ‘this is it, THIS is the vision I’ve been wanting to convey for twenty years’. There’s a clear definition in the frames of the sepulchre’s entryways, as well as the overall landscape, but as crisp as it all is, it’s still undeniably an image from a dream. And I absolutely LOVE the contrast between the water, which is so still it looks as if the boat is sailing on glass, and the enormous looming stormcloud behind the island.

Oh! In case you’d not seen it in Galerie ECHO, when Darling commissioned xplotter to do an illustration of me back in January 2023, I had him add the 1901 Die Toteninsel to the background. It takes the illo from ‘sexy’, to ‘sexy with an interesting background’!…

Both Miss Winter and Dyanne are wildly ambivalent towards ‘Die Toteninsel’. Which is fine, I suppose.
As far as my own preference? I dig the third version painted in 1883 the most, as seen here:

For whatever reason in the early twenty-first century, this one seems to be the arguably most popular version. The early morning lighting of the image stands out, and although there were two additional renditions that he’d painted after 1883, it strikes a visual and emotive midpoint between just dark enough and just light enough; or, if you like, just bleak enough and just hopeful enough. Sure, there’s a small boat ferrying a casket to its final resting place, but the water’s calm and the day seems pleasant. Perhaps that’s not a casket, but a large pic-a-nic basket! (Sorry.)
In all seriousness, though, there had to be something about that island where it was clearly persisting in Böcklin’s subconscious, where he had to render it six different times… it’s almost as if he was exorcising it.

Bolstering the notion that the third version is what people think of when they hear Die Toteninsel, I searched a few online shops looking for a reproduction of the sixth version to go on our office wall, so that the Missus could point at it and say ‘look at what Darling bought for me’, but no joy — all I could find were the third version, the fifth, and occasionally the Basel 1880 one. Honestly, I wonder why the other three renditions are generally overlooked?
Shi-chan is rightfully annoyed, but as she’d remarked — after a protracted sigh — ‘having any version of the painting in our home is better than having no version at all’, and I’d definitely agree.

‘geez, you goffs are just SOOO BLEAK all the time! 🧛🕷️😂’ Yeah, thanks, Bailes

So if you weren’t aware of the existence of Böcklin’s painting (and its subsequent remixes) before, you certainly are now. Which version of Die Toteninsel draws your attention the most?

Also, if I had more money than sense, I’d buy a parcel of land the size of a shopping mall, have a cul de sac of houses all built like Charles and Ray Eames’ Case study house #8, and fill each home with Dolls. But then, I would say that