Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, St Vitus Cathedral and Hradcany: top things to do in Prague for four days.

Me at Charles Bridge. 

I have just returned from my 5 day trip to Prague - the capital of the Chech Republic and the head of the region of Bohemia. Exploring Prague on my own was a truly magical, almost spiritual experience. It does not surprise me that no other Chech city has been written and talked about as much as Prague. Prague is steeped in literary tradition and fascinating legends. Small wonder, given its rich and somewhat turbulent history (the Hussite revolution, Nazi occupation, Communist rule, the Velvet Revolution, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia). Plus there is the absurdly beautiful architecture. Mix that with a strong tradition in the arts and you have got a great place to immerse yourself in history and culture. It is a city full of winding, steep streets and charming squares. It was here that according to the legend,  Rabbi Loew brought clay Golem to life, Arcimboldo created his rich portraits, alchemists flocked to Rudolph II court and sought to discover philosopher's stone. It was here that the the early Christian reformer John Huss preached and Franz Kafka wrote his dark and oppressive works. Strolling around Prague today means immersing oneself in the magic and mysteries of the past. 

Prague, known as the City of a Hundred Spires, is a UNESCO monument and one of the most beautiful and atmospheric cities in the world. I believe that everyone should get to know it in person!

Few cities have as much to offer as Prague, so it can be difficult to decide how best to spend your time. The Old Town is joy in itself, and you can ramble around here admiring its old houses for days. Yet, with some planning you can see much more of what makes this historic city special!

Charles Bridge

 

Charles Bridge is one of the most beautiful stone bridges in the world.  Strolling across Charles Bridge is everybody’s favourite Prague activity. However, by 9am the bridge turns into a 500m-long fairground, with a never-ending hordes of tourists squeezing beneath the stone gaze of the baroque statues that line the balustrades. If you want to experience the bridge at its most atmospheric,try to visit it at dawn. I visited the bridge at 07:30 (I really wanted to come earlier but getting up early is a torture for me) - the sun was giving glorious greeting to the bridge and its majestic statues and catching the fog rising from Vlatva river. The image of Prague shrouded in the morning fog is so mysterious and unforgettable. 

 

 

The bridge is 621 metres (2,037 ft) long and nearly 10 metres (33 ft) wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. As the only means of crossing the river Vltava (Moldau) until 1841, the Charles Bridge was the most important connection between Prague Castle and the city's Old Town and adjacent areas. This "solid-land" connection made Prague important as a trade route between Eastern and Western Europe. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them baroque-style, originally erected around 1700 but now all replaced by replicas (Wikipedia).

The avenue of 30 mostly baroque statues and statuaries situated on the balustrade forms a unique connection of artistic styles with the underlying gothic bridge. Most sculptures were erected between 1683 and 1714. They depict various saints and patron saints venerated at that time. The most prominent Bohemian sculptors of the time took part in decorating the bridge, such as Matthias Braun, Jan Brokoff, and his sons Michael Joseph and Ferdinand Maxmilian.
Among the most notable sculptures, one can find the statuaries of St. Luthgard, the Holy Crucifix and Calvary, and John of Nepomuk. Well known also is the statue of the knight Bruncvík, although it was erected some 200 years later and does not belong to the main avenue.In beginning of 1965, all of the statues have been systematically replaced by replicas, and the originals have been exhibited in the lapidarium of the National Museum (Wikipedia).

 

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Prague Castle and Hradcany

(Prazsky Hrad A Hradcany) 

The history of Prague begins with the Castle founded in the 9th century by Prince Borivoj. The largest castle in the world, this vast complex requires considerable time to tour. Within the castle walls are number of Prague's most popular tourist sites, including St. Vitus Cathedral, the Powder Tower, the Old Royal Palace and the Golden Lane. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Prague Castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world, with an area of almost 70,000 m². A UNESCO World Heritage site, it consists of a large-scale composition of palaces and ecclesiastical buildings of various architectural styles, from the remains of Romanesque-style buildings from the 10th century through Gothic modifications of the 14th century. The famous Slovenian architect Josip Plečnik was responsible for extensive renovations in the time of the First Republic (1918-1938). Since the Velvet Revolution, Prague Castle has undergone significant and ongoing repairs and reconstructions.

Despite periodic fires and invasions, Prague Castle has retained churches, chapels, halls and towers from every period of its history, from the Gothic splendour of St Vitus' Cathedral to the Renaissance additions of Rudolph II, the last Habsburg to use the Castle as his principal residence. The courtyards date from 1753-75 when the whole area was rebuilt in Late Baroque and Neo-Classical styles. The Castle became the seat of the Czechosloviak president in 1918, and the current president of the Chech Republic has an office here.

  

St. Vitus Cathedral

The Czech Republic's largest Christian building, the Roman Catholic St. Vitus Cathedral (Katedrala St Vita) is the seat of the Archbishop of Prague and contains the tombs of important saints and Bohemian kings. Founded on the site of a Romanesque rotunda built in 925 AD, construction of St. Vitus started in 1344, but due to interruptions by wars and plagues, took more than 525 years to complete. As a result, its architecture is an eclectic mix of styles including elements of modern Neo-Gothic and 14th-century Gothic elements, with a sprinkling of Baroque and Renaissance influences. Among its most interesting features are the stunning stained glass windows depicting the Holy Trinity, and The Last Judgment, a splendid mosaic from 1370 above the Golden Portal. Another highlight is the exquisite St. Wenceslas Chapel (Svatováclavská kaple) with its jewel-encrusted altar, as well as numerous paintings dating from the 14th to 16th centuries. Also worth visiting is the Treasury, one of the richest such collections in Europe with many priceless artifacts dating back as far as the Middle Ages, and the lookout gallery in the South Tower with its superb views over the city and castle grounds.

 

 

St. Vitus Cathedral

Golden Portal

Until the 19th century Golden Portal was the main cathedral entrance. In the picture above you can see The Last Judgement mosaic. The mosaic is 14th-century Venetian art masterpiece, polished with gold.

St. Vitus Cathedral at sunrise

The cathedral contains the Czech crown jewels, tombs of various royals including the Holy Roman Emperor Karel IV, after whom the Charles Bridge is named, as well as a holy relic in the form of the arm of St Vitus himself.   St Vitus was a martyr who died during a period of persecution in the pagan Roman empire, supposedly from being thrown into a pot of boiling oil.   He is now the patron saint of actors, comedians, dancers and epileptics  (the neurological condition called "St Vitus dance" is named after him).

 Tomb of St John Nepomuk

Crafted from solid silver in 1736, this elaborate tomb honours St John who became the focus of Counter-Reformation. Roman Emperor (and Bohemian King) Wenceslaus had St. John thrown into the Vltva River from the Charles Bridge in 1383 after St. John refused to confess Weceslaus' wive's infidelity - holding true to the Catholic principles of the Seal of Confession. This certainly made St. John of Nepomuk a martyr for carrying out his faithful duties. Three and half centuries after his drowning, in 1719, St. John's body was pulled from the river and he was canonized in 1729. His tomb - found within St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague - is a tribute fitting of a saint drowned as a martyr and was created out of two tons of silver by Fischer von Erlach in 1736. The tomb is majestic and impressive. It encapsultes Baroque fascination with splendour, opulence and richness of details and decorations. 

Old Roayal Palace (Vladislav Hall)

Golden Lane

Golden Lane (Zlatá ulička) is an ancient street within the Prague Castle complex.Golden Lane dates from the 15th Century and has a beautiful, olden world quaintness about it. It comprises 11 historic houses, inside which period scenes have been created to show the life of the artisans who once worked, ate, drank and slept in them.In the upper level of the houses are medieval armoury and textile displays. Visitors can also try shooting a crossbow.

Golden Lane was created when a new outer wall was added to the existing Romanesque castle complex. It was originally known as Zlatnická ulička (Goldsmith's Lane), due to the many goldsmiths residing in the houses.In its early years Golden Lane consisted of even smaller dwellings. Eventually, as each fell into disrepair they were replaced by the houses we see today.

The entrance to Golden Lane is payable, but visitors cannot buy a ticket for this alone. You need one of the Prague Castle self-guided visitor tickets, which cost 250czk (short visit ticket) or 350czk (long visit ticket), and include admission to other parts of the castle too. (Source: visit Prague)

The castle area is bustling with folk music...

                     

.... and the old town is full of quirks such as levitating street performers

If you have had the opportunity to travel around the world, then at some point you may have encountered “levitating” street performers.  The “floating man illusion” is usually set up with one or two people.  In both cases, it’s made to look like the performer is floating in mid-air, supporting his or her entire body weight with strength of their hand… I encountered levitating street performerms for the first time in Prague. I bet you are trying to work out now how on earth do they do it?

 

 

Teledilonics, euthanasia coaster, cumspin....what scientists are up to?

This post is going to sligthly differ from my previous blog entries. It is not about art and artists per se but about some amazing scientific projects and proposals. It is not about artistic creativity but about products of scientific creativity. I am wondering why scientists do not usually have a reputation for being very creative. In my opinion scientific and technological inventors are creative thinkers. We rely heavily on creative science whether we realize it or not. Science is rapdily changing quality of our lives. If you think science does not matter much to you, think again. Science affects us all, every day of the year, from the moment we wake up, all day long, and through the night. Your digital alarm clock, the weather report, the asphalt you drive on, the bus you ride in, your decision to eat a baked potato instead of fries, your cell phone, the antibiotics that treat your sore throat, the clean water that comes from your faucet, and the light that you turn off at the end of the day have all been brought to you courtesy of science. The modern world would not be modern at all without the understandings and technology enabled by science.Just imagine what would happen if the Internet shut down today? Hmmm?? CHAOS. Total CHAOS.

With works by around fifty artists and pioneering proposals in research, exhibitions at the CCCB explore the possible future pathways for our species. From assisted reprodction techniques and incipient experiments in synthetic biology, to the possibility of perpetuating ourselves through the digital sphere, our lives are conditioned and defined by the implosion and convergence of new scientific and technological fields. 

All of these resources represent changes of major scope that raise ethical questions about the appropriation of life and the alteration of identity: Will virtual reality be the new reality? What will happen if a robot knows what we want before we do ourselves? How should we modify ourselves to adapt to an environment that we are drastically transorming? Longevity: is it a noble aspiration or a devastating threat to the planet? In the future, who will hold the ownership of genetic materials? CCCB exhibitions take an in-depth look at the scientific, ethical and legal boundaries of these possible transormations of the species. We should all have access to tools enabling us to influence the design of this new scenario. 

Emerging technologies are changing the ways we encounter others: family, friends, co-workers and even pets. Are the personalities we interact on our devices living, artificial or some combination of the two? While some humans yearn for a future of robotic lovers that can predict and respond to their every desire, other are simply hoping not to get run-over by a self-driving car or accidentally killed by unmanned aerial vehicle. The social technologies that are made can be creative, expressive and deepen our connection to others, but they can also replicate the inequality and violence present in our society. 


If you want to learn about new technologies and find out what the scientists are up to, book a trip to Barcelona and visit CCCB - Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona. CCCB is a great place that aims to explore the changing nature of human, technological and social relationships and what that says about our needs and desires as inherently social creatures. CCCB is one of the most eye-opening, awe-inspiring, mind-stimulating, thought-provoking and informative places I have ever been to.  CCCB will catapult you to the world of extraordinary ideas, unbelievable proposals, fantastic innovations and cool technologies. It will make you think about the future world, future society and future civilizations. It will fill your head with many futuristic questions e.g. Would you have an intimite relationship with a robot? Would you buy an orgams enhancing machine or furniture? If doctors and scientists enginneer  assisted suicide that could be a potently exciting and thrilling experience would you be willing to test it? And many, many more. I would like to share some of the most extraordinary proposals and inventions I came across at CCCB with you. Ready for a leap into the future? Fasten your seat belts, relax and off we go!

CUMSPIN, 2015


Cumspin is a proposal for an orgams enhancing funfair machine. Based on the principle of a centrifuge, it exposes the love riders to variable gravitational forces. Spinning in one of the eight spherical capsules, the lovers may control the centripetal force by changing the distance between the axis and the capsule. The farther from the axis, the greater the force that psuches them agains the wall. Coordinating movements with the forces could enable controlled blood flow, which could heighten sensation. Directing blood to the lower extremities would cause the sudden loss of oxygen in the brain accompanied by euphoria. The latter in tandem with orgasm creates a sensation beyond any definition of pleasure: Hypergravitational orgasm! I begin to envy future generations all luxuries and fantabulous equipment that we can only dream about!

Teledilonics for long-distance relationships


Our social lives are increasingly meditated by technology, is it inevitable that our sexual activities will be as well? Kiiroo is a company that hopes to bring teledildonics to the mainstream  - enabling tactile sexual relations from separate locations via computers. Their interactive sex toys connect to tother users to create "a new kind of internet experience". Kirroo claims: "You'll be able to intimately connect to anyone, anywhere." The risk of contracting STDs and pregnancy are eliminated, but notions of a network enabled 'free love' movement might be tempered by a new suite of risks. Fears of being hacked and privacy concerns might spoil the mood for increasingly intimate online activities. As these networked intimacy proliferates, how will social codes be re-defined?
   

Euthanasia Coaster, 2010

We like andrenaline-pumping experiences, don't we? We like balloon flights, roller coaster rides, cable car trips, sky diving...andrenaline-pumping experiences make us feel so energized and so full of life. Euthanasia Coaster might sound like an oxymoron now. John Allen, former president of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, once said that "the ultimate roller coaster is built when you send out twenty-four people and they all come back dead. This could be done, you know". Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely take the life of a human being. The coaster is designed to to subject its passengers to a series of intensive physical motions that include a range of experiences from euphoria to thrill, tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and eventually death. Drawing on research in aerospace medicine, mechanical engineering, materials technology and of course, gravity, the fatal journey is made pleasing, elegant and meaningful.

 True Love, 2008

 A painting made by Harold Cohen’s computer program, AARON

If a computer composes a symphony, should the resulting musical piece be considered a work of art? And how does a computer-generated work affect our perception of human-made works? Can a computer write a book? Can an artificial author write a love story? Can a computer generated book become a bestseller? Would you read it? I think I would - out of sheer curiosity.

In 2008 headlines were made when Russian publishing house Astrel SPb claimed they were releasing a book written by a computer. The book is called True Love and is a variation of the classic novel Anna Karenina written in the style of Haruki Murakami. The publisher states that a group of developers and philologists collaborated to create a computer program that generated the manuscript. Once compiled, the text went through editorial corrections like any other novel. Can a computer accurately represent through language an expression of 'True Love'? The implications of cultural artifacts being authored by artificial inntelligence (AI) are wide ranging, and raise some fundamental questions about how we define ourselves as humans. 

Computers are incapable of empathy and sympathy. They may form sentences and write novels, but how much emotion are they capable of imbuing in the prose? The honest answer is none; no matter how much Artificial Intelligence we may load a hard drive with, it will always lack emotional intelligence. Wires and code are poor substitutions for heart and experience, for flesh and bone.

 

Misbehaving: media machines act out, 2002-2015 

What is expected of robots? How do they enact or defy expectation? Can a robot be polite or misbehave?

This project features two robotic, female performers who represent women and girls who disobey or resist expectations. Each intimate installation focuses on translating "unseen"  information (data from proximity sensors, sound data) into tangible activity such as erratic movement or "incorrect" behaviour. 
Unlike machines designed for perfect job performance, these machines declare their fallibility, impatience, approval, and disapproval through small gestural acts. In contrast to the precise technique and tireless efforts of a robot that plays chess or constructs automobiles, these robotic performers "act out" and misbehave. Fancy seeing a robot that is temperamental, emotional, irregular, throws tantrums and kicks out? Go to CCCB :-)

Eat the Sun

So-called "breatharianism" promotes the false belief that human beings are capable of living without eating any food and that necessary nutrients can be obtained from the sun. Synthetic biology offers the possibility of actively intervening in evolution. Could we, then, became breatharians in the future?
In the field of speculative fictiona, DiyBioBcn has founded Synthetic Biology Systems Inc (SBS) which is postulted as the first comapny to introduce into the market products capable of endowing human beings with photosynthetic capacities. Will SBS guarantee access to this technology for towns in areas with endemic hunger? Will photosynthesis allow the first ever explorers to go beyond the solar system?  

Foragers, 2009

The world is running out of food - we need to produce 70% more food in the next 40 years according to the UN. What if we could extract nutritional value from non-human foods using a combination of synthetic biology and new digestive devices inspired by digestive systems of other mammals, birds, fish and insects?
Foragers imagines a group of peoplte into their own hands and start buildying DIY devices. They yse synthetic biology to create "microbial stomach bacteria", along with electronic and mechanical devices, to maximise the nutritional value of the urban environment, making uo fir any shortcomings in the comercially available but increasingly limited diet, These people are going to be new urban foragers.