Mount Etna
Mount Etna, also known as Muncibe??u in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian, a combination of Latin mons and Arabic gibel, both meaning mountain) is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. Its Arabic name was Jebel Utlamat (the Mountain of Fire). It is the second largest active volcano in Europe, currently standing 3,329 metres (10,922 ft) high, though this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21 m (69 ft) lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km? (460 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide in Tenerife surpasses it in the whole of the European region (though geographically Tenerife is an island of Africa).

Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of eruption. It is also believed to be the world’s oldest active volcano. The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south. Due to its history of recent activity and nearby population, Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations.

Geological history
Volcanic activity at Etna began about half a million years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the coastline of Sicily. 300,000 years ago, volcanism began occurring to the southwest of the present-day summit, before activity moved towards the present center 170,000 years ago. Eruptions at this time built up the first major volcanic edifice, forming a strato-volcano in alternating explosive and effusive eruptions. The growth of the mountain was occasionally interrupted by major eruptions leading to the collapse of the summit to form calderas.
Etna seen from Spot Satellite.

From about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago, Etna experienced some highly explosive eruptions, generating large pyroclastic flows which left extensive ignimbrite deposits. Ash from these eruptions has been found as far away as Rome, 800 km to the north.
A crater near the Torre del Filosofo, about 450 metres below Etna’s summit.

Thousands of years ago, the eastern flank of the mountain experienced a catastrophic collapse, generating an enormous landslide in an event similar to that seen in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The landslide left a large depression in the side of the volcano, known as ‘Valle del Bove’ (Valley of the Ox). Research published in 2006 suggests that this occurred around 6000 BC, and caused a huge tsunami which left its mark in several places in the eastern Mediterranean. It may have been the reason that the settlement of Atlit Yam (Israel), now below sea level, was suddenly abandoned around that time.

The steep walls of the Valley have suffered subsequent collapse on numerous occasions. The strata exposed in the valley walls provide an important and easily accessible record of Etna’s eruptive history.

The most recent collapse event at the summit of Etna is thought to have occurred about 2,000 years ago, forming what is known as the Piano Caldera. This caldera has been almost entirely filled by subsequent lava eruptions, but is still visible as a distinct break in the slope of the mountain near the base of the present-day summit cone.

Historical eruptions
Eruptions of Etna are not all the same. Some occur at the summit, where there are currently (as of 2008) four distinct craters – the Northeast Crater, the Voragine, the Bocca Nuova, and the Southeast Crater. Other eruptions occur on the flanks, where there are more than 300 vents, ranging in size from small holes in the ground to large craters hundreds of meters across. Summit eruptions can be highly explosive and are extremely spectacular, but are rarely threatening for the inhabited areas around the volcano. On the contrary, flank eruptions can occur down to a few hundred meters altitude, close to or even well within the populated areas. Numerous villages and small towns lie around or on cones of past flank eruptions. Since the year 1600 A.D., there have been at least 60 flank eruptions and countless summit eruptions; nearly half of these have occurred since the start of the 20th century, and the 3rd millennium has seen five flank eruptions of Etna so far, in 2001, 2002-2003, 2004-2005,2007 and 2008.

The first known record of an eruption at Etna is that of Diodorus Siculus.

The Roman poet Virgil gave what was probably a first-hand description of an eruption in the Aeneid:
“ Portus ab accessu ventorum immotus et ingens ipse; sed horrificis iuxta tonat Aetna ruinis; interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem, turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla, attollitque globos flammarum et sidera lambit; interdum scopulos avolsaque viscera mo

RETAIL ACTIVITY, a aerosol painting on canvas by CHU.

Fly Agaric Xpandjin’ the context, into alphabeta. Feedback loops.

2009/6002 upsidedown…

Some changed (REMI’T) terms: FREE MARKET - FREEDOM TO MARK IT’ WITH GRAFFITI - CAPITALISM - AEROSOL CAP’ USED TO DIFFUSE COLOUR - CONSPIRACY - COMING TOGETHER OF ONE OR MORE FORCES - ART - INSIDER TRADE.

Americana paint PAWD over Disneylyed

A new window into the reality of NOW. Fake simulations.

Your culture today? Virtual Cultural Jocking by the major crim’ syndacate

ARTIST buying time for the audience to buy themselves out. Degrading the consumer

By degrading the product.

“Will art have the right to a second, interminable existence, like the secret services that, as we know, haven’t had any secrets to steal or exchange for some time but who still continue to flourish in utter superstition of their usefulness, perpetuating their own myth. — Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art. 1996.

Turning the shopper into shop. Nouns into stone. Grey wall. Yes.

Retail Activity Infinite stupidity of consumer.

Insider grey shady trade wall.

Supermarket sweep-up.

CCTV, Banking, shopping, to infinity.

“The “stereo” effect of verse is not merely one of simultaneous stimulation of two different brain areas, but also the result of a necessary integrative collaboration and feedback between them. - Frederick Turner. Space and Time in Chinese Verse.

Admidst all this con.crete money and fuzzy sign and

symbol maze making, words of support are few and far between.

Artists illegalized, jailed, punished, fined, criminalized.

Meanwhile the .GOV hand and purse is busy snatching everything - the artists

and creatives have made, slithering off…

and retailing them…exchange for cultural credibility.

Grafitti remains ILLEGAL in most countries. 2009!

Remixing environmental scene into new semantic maps.

Accents and interpretations, reflections. Yes. Fresh and improvisational as jazz

Already spanning over 300 languages worldwide and growing.

Aerosol Graffiti ART: giant monster gas everywhere & nowhere. Like TAO.

The last child sitting at his art desk is still smiling.

“Greenburg had always argued that the Old Masters, the classic 3-D realists, had created “an illusion of space into which one could imagine oneself walking. –Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word. 1975. Black Swan. pg. 78.

“RETAIL ACTIVITY” ripples off the tongue, out through the corridoors

The passageways RETAIL ACTIVITY! Like a track title to a musical masterpiece, yes.

The words given to a painting deserve close study.

Fossilized poems and the doors to epiphany.

RETAIL ACTIVITY. The recycling of the market economy?

The impossible reality. Retail ART market.

The labrynth ambiguity that haunts every shop.

The virus of language munching down the gates of market.

Retail intersection point. Mauled perception.

More image and more simulation, the more illusion power. yes.

Whose Buying all the images. THINGNESS virus on the loose. “Isness is an Illness.”

New retail activity in new ways of seeing

New ways of percieving, tools and windows and glosses

To reflect, amplify, redirect energy. Yes.

And provide - transparancy - the great gift of reflection.

RETAIL ACTIVITY MAXIMUS.

“Art has become involved (not only from the financial point of view of the art market, but in the very management of aesthetic values) in the general process of insider trading. Art is not alone: Politics, economics, the news all benefit from the same complicity and ironic resignation from their consumers. –Jean Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art. 1996.”

“Retail Activity” Punning heavily on RELATIVITY.

Chu = mc esher squared.

Capturing (SNAP) the NULL state of the art.

Mediocrity squared.

RECYCLING of the empty promise - Clang

The Global market retail activity bubble, doors shut! sale’s over.

PO PART! without warning of the imminent BURST/BUST recurse of language.

ART, what, art. What deception game

ART MACHINE industry kickin’ over. Non-Riemann turnover.

Into a happy new gear.

Painter and the media journalist wrestle. word/image. TV/Internet.

The marketear from the EYE corp., plays ref.

Godel and Escher and Bach screw into retail activity. Restoration of culture.

“It’s a facet of my mathematical ways, it’s all based on your point-of-view. By continuing a line up a wall onto the ceiling you can delete corners and make the ceiling disappear, depending on where you’re standing.” -chu

WITHIN THE KERNAL OF THE OLD SOCIETY.

Building upon scaffolding of new perception.

Our surrounding archetecture is a partial reflection

of the economic infrastructure.

Boom and Bust. Insider trade in word and image.

As Joyce’s Wake and Escher’s hand in it.

Bloom and burst! Times of rapid growth and expansion for some,

Spaces of contraction and dismemberment for many

The Market Economy.

ARTISTS chose a different way. Every time. Gurrantea’d.

But not turning the cheek but returning the cheek. Balancing