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

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 (12)
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  • Jacqui says:

    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.

  • J says:

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

  • Nigâr Alemdar says:

    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…

  • Lucy Janet says:

    I’m excit­ed to write about Hen­ry Hack­er, he is a great and bril­liant hack­er who pen­e­trat­ed my spouse’s phone with­out a phys­i­cal instal­la­tion app. And I was able to access my spouse’s phone, SMS, What­sapp, Insta­gram, Face­book, Wechat, Snapchat, Call Logs, Kik, Twit­ter and all social media. The most amaz­ing thing there is that he restores all phone delet­ed text mes­sages. And I also have access to every­thing includ­ing the phone gallery with­out touch­ing the phone.I can see the whole secret of my spouse. Con­tact him for any hack­ing ser­vice. He is also a genius in repair­ing Cred­it Score, increas­ing school grade, Clear Crim­i­nal Record etc. His ser­vice is fast. Con­tact:, Henryclarkethicalhacker@gmail.com.

  • Dianne says:

    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

  • LINDA says:

    I strong­ly rec­om­mend to any­one that might need the help of real, hon­est, eth­i­cal hack­er (hack4wise @gmail com) whom I came in con­tact with on an online forum just about a week ago and i employed this skilled cyber geek to help me spy on my part­ners phone along­side oth­er activ­i­ties. I had sus­pi­cions and to clear my curios­i­ty to know if my part­ner was cheat­ing on me with anoth­er, I employed the ser­vices of (hack4wise @gmail com) who served as a per­son­al inves­ti­ga­tor and pro­vid­ed me with evi­dences of my part­ner’s dai­ly activ­i­ties along­side phone con­ver­sa­tions like face­book, email, what­sapp, calls, skype, Snapchat, Insta­gram, Hang­out, Tin­der, GPS loca­tion, retriev­ing old delet­ed mas­sages along­side oth­ers. I am sure some­one out there is look­ing for how to solve their rela­tion­ship prob­lems, dont hes­i­tate to con­tact the only real hack­er writ­ing your com­plains and am sure you will get all the help you need at a cheap cost.

  • PRISCA BENNIE says:

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  • Eugene says:

    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 hack4techspy@gmail.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.

  • Indonesia Mermaid says:

    Mar­riage is sweet, Love is also sweet but i don’t see why after get­ting mar­ried to my dream man he still cheat­ed on me with his EX girl­friend though i had try break­ing into his IPHONE since last year but still not get­ting access to his phone since then i just try to swal­low all my hus­band had been doing but i can’t take it any more so i came in con­tact with this hack­er by name (( hackerone975 at Gmil co m ))with his help I had access to my hus­band’s phone with­out touch­ing his phone. I had full infor­ma­tion of his chats with his ex-girl­friend last year. With all I saw, I don’t think I can move on with the mar­riage. He went as far as telling the girl­friend that I have been his wrong & i beat her up almost every­day. I was so dis­ap­point­ed & I called off the mar­riag
    e

  • carl frances says:

    I Care­ful­ly read a review about Hackerone975 at gmail c0m that has been endorsed by sev­er­al peo­ple, there­fore I am not the first to do so, but I still want to express my hap­pi­ness at hav­ing made the right deci­sion in trust­ing my gut and Hackerone975 at Gmail C0m pos­i­tive eval­u­a­tions. I would have still been deeply in debt if not for the deci­sion I made, but Hackerone975 has now elim­i­nat­ed all of that debt. Every­one, includ­ing you, is enti­tled to be delight­ed, thus in order to obtain it, I advise you to get in touch with the top play­ers. Any­one who has suf­fered a loss in cryp­tocur­ren­cy trad­ing can get help from Hackerone975 at gmail com trust your mind for that.

  • Watson says:

    Well I have always used Kalfjohnson424 @gmail com for any Pri­vate online inves­ti­ga­tions. Have you ever need­ed an expert when it comes to hack­ing? Have you ever want­ed to hack someone’s email account? Recov­er lost accounts, school grades, boost cred­it score? Do you need to find a person’s sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion? Do you want to invade a person’s Pay­Pal, Skrill, Ama­zon, Face­book, or any oth­er site account? Upgrade of Uni­ver­si­ty Grades, Pass­word, and email Retrieval, phone Lines mon­i­tor­ing, Skype Accounts, Hack Social Net­work, Trace calls on real-time con­ver­sa­tions, Remove Crim­i­nal Records, Cred­it Fix­ing, cyber-crime inves­ti­ga­tion., Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Cheat­ing Part­ner or employ­ee, Search no more because the­hack­er­spro foren­sic team is your go to con­tact Kalfjohnson424 @gmail com.

  • Nelisha Vellani says:

    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.

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