(Thanks, snarky!)
February 27, 2010
February 26, 2010
More Happy Weekend
To replace Georgia State Rep. Glenn Richardson, a family-values Republican who stepped down after he was accused of having an affair with a lobbyist while he was married, voters elected another family-values conservative, Rep. Daniel Stout, who admitted to an affair with his first wife's mother while his first wife was pregnant with their daughter.
So when he yelled, "Who's your daddy?" did she say, "Your wife's mother's father"?
Healthcare: You Want Ideas?
Why not make a rule that says, each insurance co. must offer the same plans, for the same premiums, to everyone?
Why should your access to healthcare depend on, e.g., whether you happen to work for a large corporation? How does it benefit society to allow insurance companies to just screw all the people who don't have the smarts or the leverage or the whatever to negotiate a better deal – e.g., free-lancers, or people working three part-time jobs to make ends meet, or children?
Do we really think healthcare should be a perq, like a company car, that people get only if they land the right job?
There are lots of reasons why an insurance company might want to charge one person more than another; and as a society, we might or might not decide to legitimate some of those reasons (e.g., whether or not you smoke). But why shouldn't we have more say as to which bases for charging higher premiums are appropriate?
What if Congress Actually Had to Congregate . . .
. . . with each other?
Today got an email soliciting me to sign a petition calling for an end to the filibuster. It may be that that's what must be done; but history, including the "Healthcare Summit" convened by Pres. Obama yesterday, suggests that something both more and less drastic might suffice.
What if we simply forced Congressmembers to actually be present, not just in the building but in the same room, whenever they're in session? So that yes, if they wanted to filibuster, they'd have to actually be there and do it; and yes, while any discussion or other business were going on, they'd have to actually be there and conduct it, or possibly even listen to it?
If nothing else, they'd have less time for lobbyists and preaching to their respective choirs.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart |
February 25, 2010
Temporary Services, Art and Language, Etc.
I've been working on organizing some programs/events in Dallas relating to Temporary Services' Art Work issue. I'm excited about developments and hope to be able to let you know more soon.
Meanwhile, been trying to educate myself a bit about the aesthetic and other contexts for Temporary Services' project, and am amazed at how many trails I've been following for a long time, some through non-"art" contexts, seem to be coming together.
I won't inflict it all on you here, but I can't resist sharing, I've been looking for info online re- what the "Art and Language" movement (or whatever you call it) – at first not finding much; e.g. Wikipedia's entry contains little more than a string of names – and just found this great resource published by that splendid repository of aesthetic booty, Germany's ZKM. It's a text the Art and Language group produced called Blurting in A&L. Was ist das? Quoting ZKM's intro,
Blurting in A & L is a printed booklet whose content is a dictionary with blurts or »annotations«. The annotations were written by american members of Art & Language Ian Burn, Michael Corris, Preston Heller, Joseph Kosuth, Andrew Menard, Mel Ramsden and Terry Smith between january and july 1973. Michael Corris and Mel Ramsden chose terms as headlines for the annotations. The first letters of the headlines were used for an alphabetical ordering. In this order the annotations were numbered.Anyway, what appears to be the complete, online version, is here, in a great, interactive format (the original was apparently similar in format to the image at right {which you can enlarge by clicking on it}, except I added the stripes in honor of Michael Corris's recent contro to Modern Ruin).
As John Hodgeman says, you're welcome.
"Jasmine, Dawn, and Aaliyah"
are three vogue performers:
I understand the artist Rashaad Newsome edited their performances together to choreograph a new dance, which he then had them perform without music while he filmed.
His work is in the current Whitney Biennial curated by Francesco Bonami, which includes just 55 artists, over half of which are women (hallelujah).
February 23, 2010
Curating the Net
Great article at Wired re- how Google works:
Google’s engineers have discovered that some of the most important signals [re- potential improvements to Google's search algorhithm] can come from . . . [t]he data people generate when they search – what results they click on, what words they replace in the query when they’re unsatisfied, how their queries match with their physical locations . . . . The most direct example of this process is what Google calls personalized search — an opt-in feature that uses someone’s [personal] search history and location as signals to determine what kind of results they’ll find useful. . . .
Take, for instance, the way Google’s engine learns which words are synonyms. “We discovered a nifty thing very early on,” Singhal says. “People change words in their queries. So someone would say, ‘pictures of dogs,’ and then they’d say, ‘pictures of puppies.’ So that told us that maybe ‘dogs’ and ‘puppies’ were interchangeable. We also learned that when you boil water, it’s hot water. We were relearning semantics from humans, and that was a great advance.”
But there were obstacles. Google’s synonym system understood that a dog was similar to a puppy and that boiling water was hot. But it also concluded that a hot dog was the same as a boiling puppy. The problem was fixed in late 2002 by a breakthrough based on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theories about how words are defined by context. As Google crawled and archived billions of documents and Web pages, it analyzed what words were close to each other. “Hot dog” would be found in searches that also contained “bread” and “mustard” and “baseball games” — not poached pooches. That helped the algorithm understand what “hot dog” — and millions of other terms — meant. “Today, if you type ‘Gandhi bio,’ we know that bio means biography,” Singhal says. “And if you type ‘bio warfare,’ it means biological.
One reason I'm thrilled with the internet is that through it, we're all helping Google and others create scientific models of human linguistic intelligence, among other things. I trust Google will eventually share the results of their and our efforts in this and other areas of knowledge, although I assume we'll have to pay for them..jpg)
But I'm posting mainly to try to make sure we all understand that the role played by search engines and other online intermediaries in selecting and ranking search results is absolutely critical in shaping not just our online lives, the importance of which will only continue to grow, but also our knowledge and beliefs about history, current events, etc., and thus our non-virtual realities.
(And never doubt that non-virtual realities – control over water, guns, infrastructure, energy – will continue to matter. Even the 'net needs servers and power.)
Per the OED, "curate" derives from the Latin word for "care." The primary meaning is "a member of the clergy engaged as assistant to a parish priest." The secondary definition, which I more or less mean to use here, is to "select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition)."
That's more or less what search engines do: select and organize (rank) info on the net. (Although they don't care for it, unless you count selecting it as "care." Sometimes info survives on the net precisely so long it is overlooked, as when the info proves embarrassing to the authority that put it there. More often, the expense of keeping info on the net means that if it's ignored, it eventually disappears.)
Not only are companies like Google curating our realities, but they're not telling us what their curatorial guidelines are. They keep close secret many of the factors that determine search results. They need to do this because they're commercially-driven entities competing with others.
Doubtless all or most of the criteria incorporated into their algorithms result in better service to their users. But this secrecy also means we can never be sure we're not missing out on info that commercial intermediaries consider unimportant or even disadvantageous to them for us to find.
Less ominously, it also simply deprives us of the opportunity to critically examine and debate not only how our world is being shaped, but also whether we might want to shape it differently. That is, even if all criteria used to determine search results and the like reflect solely the users' desires, when we become aware of our criteria and desires, sometimes we decide it's worth making a conscious effort change them.
But it's virtually impossible to do that without knowing what they are.
February 22, 2010
Report on "Modern Ruin"
I loved the concept and the works shown, which were especially impressive considering the artists had less than two weeks to conceive and create their contributions.
The show was organized by Christina Rees and Thomas Feulmer, and the artists included Frances Bagley, Tim Best, Michael Corris, Thomas Feulmer, Annette Lawrence, M, Margaret Meehan, Tom Orr, Richard Patterson, Cameron Schoepp, Noah Simblist, Christoph Trendel, Terri Thornton, Kevin Todora, and Jeff Zilm.
The piece shown here is Double Trouble by Noah Simblist (2010, paint on wall). Per the artist, the statistics are the amount of foreign aid the U.S. gives to Israel and the number of Palestinian houses that were destroyed anyway. (The ambiguity in relation to bank bailouts and home foreclosures in the U.S. was intentional.)
More photos and details here, and I'll add more info there if I get it.
UPDATE: NPR's Marketplace will air an interview re- the show TONIGHT ca. 6:30 PM (I presume that's CST.) In Dallas, that'll be on 90.1 FM.
The Psychogeography of Art Museums
Per Wikipedia, psychogeography was defined by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals" (referncing Debord's Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography, 1955).
More about the project shown in the video above at eMotion.
February 21, 2010
Isn't it Ironic.
Per HuffPo, Tripp Palin Johnston has socialized health care through Indian Health Services and the Alaska Native Medical Center.
UPDATE: Per the Globe and Mail, during a recent appearance, Palin quipped, “We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn't that ironic?”
February 20, 2010
Are You Better Off Today Than . . . .
According to the IRS (as reported by The Wall Street Journal), between 1992 and 2007,
. . . the average income for the top-earning 400 families, denominated in 1990 dollars, grew from $17 million to $87 million, representing a five-fold increase in real terms. . . .
The data shows that these families saw their incomes increase by 31 percent between 2006 and 2007 alone, while the average income of each family reached $345 million.
The amount of money earned by the group more than doubled from 2001, when its members earned on average $131.1 million. In 1993, the top 400 tax return filings amounted on average to $46 million. This means that there was an eight-fold nominal increase in the average earnings for this group between 1993 and 2007.
Meanwhile, the effective tax rate on this group—the amount actually paid in taxes—fell to 16.6 percent, the lowest figure on IRS records dating to 1992.
Miss Vaginal Davis
"Vaginal Davis is the key proponent of the disruptive performance aesthetic known as terrorist drag." More on YouTube.
February 19, 2010
Dallas County Primaries
We can't elect the officials we need if we don't get them on the ticket to begin with. We need to inform ourselves about party candidates and vote in the primaries (I admit I've been remiss in this dept.; but no more).
In Dallas County, the next primary is March 2. Early voting has already begun and continues through Feb. 26. Find your early voting locations here.
For what it's worth, among the Dems, I strongly endorse Ronnie Earle for lieutenant governor. Please contact me if you'd like recs re- the other offices.
Home Computer of the Future
The caption reads,
Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.(Thanks, Thor!) Love the monitor. And as U N Gaitonde asks (see comments below), the double steering wheel was for what?
Keep your eye on that RAND corporation.
February 18, 2010
Seeing ≠ Believing
Pretty amazing:
(Thanks, Ben!) The "news" segment startng 30 secs. in was for a movie . . . I think.
The Evisceration of the Middle Class
Great article, with supporting references, at Alternet. E.g.,
Paul Buchheit, from DePaul University, revealed, "From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1% of America tripled their after-tax percentage of our nation's total income, while the bottom 90% have seen their share drop over 20%." Robert Freeman added, "Between 2002 and 2006, it was even worse: an astounding three-quarters of all the economy's growth was captured by the top 1%."More at the first link above. See also Elizabeth Warren.
. . . [T]he United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the average worker much harder than CEOs, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all time record.
As mentioned before, just look at the first full year of the crisis when workers lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans increased by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion, which is more than the combined net worth of 50% of the US population. Just to make this point clear, 400 people have more wealth than 155 million people combined.
* * * * *
[Meanwhile, although US workers are working more hours and have become dramatically more productive, their inflation-adjusted income has declined.] If our income had kept pace with compensation distribution rates established in the early 1970s, we would all be making at least three times as much as we are currently making.
February 17, 2010
Janitors Crash Bankers' Meeting
"At 10 am today, about one hundred janitors and supporters of SEIU Local 26 crashed the National Bankers Association meeting at the Saint Paul City Center. They executed a carefully planned action designed to barge into the bankers’ conference and demand fair treatment of Local 26 workers. Union members quickly surged from their bus parked outside into the atrium of the Hilton, past the conference check in desk and into the ballroom where speakers were addressing hundreds of Minnesota bankers. Security stopped the vast majority of the protesters, but a few made their way into the bankers’ gathering.
The union’s message was conveyed with chanting, air horn blasts and massive signs that exposed the multimillion dollar salaries of top Minnesota bank executives like Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who made over $18 million this year. Full-time janitors make as little as $20,200 a year, before taxes, and many face thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs due to poor coverage, or avoid doctor visits out of fear of incurring big bills."
February 15, 2010
Social Evolution
Speaking of monopolies (see previous post),
Some cell behaviors – especially those that give the cell group its ability to exploit environmental resources – are cooperative in nature . . . . When genetic relatives are clustered together, cooperative cell behaviors like extracellular enzyme secretion can evolve more easily. Secreted enzymes, in turn, may allow a pathogenic bacterial colony to become more virulent, or a nascent cancerous tumor to become malignant.
. . . . In the three images shown here, the red and blue cell types do not differ in any way other than their color, which is used to determine whether a cell group remains well-mixed, or whether related cells tend to cluster together.
From left to right, environmental nutrient concentration was decreased from ubiquitous, to moderate, to sparse. As nutrient concentration decreases, the tendency for different genetic lineages to spontaneously segregate increases, which favors the evolution of cooperation.
More here; from the Art of Science 2009 Online Gallery, where there are more cool images (thanks, Bob!)
Another Important Piece of the Puzzle: "The New Monopoly Capitalism"
Below is a talk by Harper's and Financial Times contributor, Barry C. Lynn, on how the evisceration of U.S. antitrust laws since Reagan has allowed a concentration of monopolistic power that far exceeds even that achieved during the Gilded Age. The facts laid out shocked even me.
Lynn's new book is titled, "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction." To skip most of the intro, which I found a bit long, start ca. 5 min. in.
Sounds like Lynn's work dovetails nicely with that of Adam Curtis (see Century of the Self; or click on "Adam Curtis" in the labels in the footer of this post for more info).
February 14, 2010
February 11, 2010
Feds Claim Right to Kill US Citizens on US Soil if Suspected of "Terrorism" -- Seriously
Per ABC News, "The director of national intelligence affirmed rather bluntly today that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target American citizens for assassination if they present a direct terrorist threat . . ." (emphasis supplied; full story at the foregoing link).
To repeat: The U.S. government has arrogated to itself the right to deprive you of your life (let alone liberty or property) without due process of law, if an unidentified authority says they think you "present" a "terrorist" threat.
They are not talking about a situation in which you are actually, presently threatening anyone – e.g., if you were actually pointing a weapon at someone, or holding someone hostage – because in that case, they would have the right to kill you anyway.
No, they are talking about assassinating you ahead of time, because someone says they think you're planning something like that.
So, the entirety of the U.S. is apparently now a Constitution-free zone.
February 10, 2010
"Trinity River Design District"
(Dallas), by Justin Terveen (click on the image for a somewhat larger version):
Much cooler, gigantic version of the same photo here. More on Justin Terveen's Flickr page. (Thanks, Julie!)
February 9, 2010
Modern Ruin
"On . . . September 25, 2008 the U.S. Government took over Washington Mutual, selling most of it to JPMorgan Chase.including Frances Bagley, Tim Best, Michael Corris, Thomas Feulmer, Annette Lawrence, M, Margaret Meehan, Tom Orr, Richard Patterson, Cam Schoepp, Noah Simblist, Christoph Trendel, Terri Thornton, Kevin Todora, Jeff Zilm. There's a "reception/intervention" Sat., Feb. 20, 8-11pm, and the exhibition will otherwise be open only Sat. and Sun. Feb. 20 and 21, 12-5pm.
"Roughly a year earlier, at the height of a frenzied economic bubble, Washington Mutual began building a new $1 million branch at 5030 Greenville Ave., just south of Lovers Lane [Dallas, TX]. Just after its completion, the government seized WaMu, and JPMorgan Chase decided not to occupy the building.
"The new building was never opened, never used, and has sat as an empty shell for more than a year.
"On February 20, 2010, Modern Ruin – an exhibition organized by Christina Rees and Thomas Feulmer – will open. The two-day exhibition will be the only use for the million-dollar building before the demolition process begins the following week.
* * * * *
"15 artists will create work inspired by and in dialogue with the building . . . ."
In a related story today, indianexpress.com reports, "JPMorgan Chase & Co said it is cutting up to 14,000 jobs, more than previously disclosed . . . . JPMorgan expects $2.75 billion of savings from Washington Mutual . . . . by the end of 2009, sooner than originally thought."February 8, 2010
February 5, 2010
Dallas Art Fair 2010
The second annual Fair opened today at the Fashion Industry Gallery (at 1807 Ross Ave.; see the Dallas Art Fair or my previous post for hours, etc.). It's like an Armory you can actually absorb, with more than 50 exhibitors from the US, UK, and Canada and lots of great contemporary work, much of it by big-name artists (Ed Ruscha, Richard Patterson, Yue Minjun, Henry Darger, Nic Nicosia, Erick Swenson, Vernon Fisher, Anish Kapoor, Judy Pfaff, Marilyn Minter, Kim Joon, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Robert Ryman, Chuck Close, etc.). Plan to spend a full day if you can.
The visuals within this post are of: Ed Ruscha, The Mighty Ones (1993), John Berggruen Gallery; Chris Doyle, Apocalypse Management Panorama (2009) (detail), Andrew Edlin Gallery; Susan Hauptman, Self Portrait (2009) (charcoal and 3D postcard on paper), Forum Gallery; Kim Joon, Bird Land-Breitling (2008) (detail), Sundaram Tagore Gallery; Graciela Iturbide, Mujer Ángel, Sonora Desert, Mexico (1979) (note the hair and the boombox), Peter Fetterman Gallery; Yue Minjun, Hat No. 2 (2004), Pan American Projects; and Fahamu Pecou, Role Model Citizen (2009), Conduit Gallery.
Many more photos here. (Caveats: pics of the artist, title, and gallery info appear after the the works to which they relate; no judgment should be inferred from whether or not I included a particular work {some were skipped merely 'cuz I couldn't get a clear shot or for some other random reason, while others were included merely 'cuz illustrative of some point I might some day make}; and apologies for the reflections, dim lighting, etc., which are difficult to eliminate in the art fair setting.)
February 2, 2010
Prize for Perseverance
"The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed . . . . [that] during a 17-day period, he received about 1,880 'access denials,' wherein the computer system blocked his attempts to view Web sites that were deemed pornographic."
More at The Washington Times.
January 27, 2010
Great Article on How Timmeh Blew It,
here. A few choice 'graphs (if you're not quite sure why it's the credit derivatives that mattered [and still matter] most [as opposed to, say, excessive bonuses or sub-prime mortgages], you might want to see my previous posts here and here):
It was mid-2008 and a little-noticed wrangle was taking place . . . . On one side . . . stood a group of banks that included Merrill Lynch of the US and France’s Société Générale. On the other: Security Capital Assurance (SCA), a Bermuda-based bond insurer that had run into difficulties as the US subprime mortgage market imploded. At stake was how much money the banks should receive on insurance contracts that SCA provided for complex pools of mortgage securities known as collateralised debt obligations, or CDOs.The whole piece is well worth reading; and there's another great, related article at HuffPo discussing "documents showing that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke covered up the fact that his staff recommended he not bail out AIG" (emphasis supplied).
Among other reasons, the banks had bought the insurance – called credit default swaps, or CDSs – to protect themselves against a panic just like the one sweeping the markets at that time. But SCA lacked sufficient capital to pay the claims in full and the banks feared that if the insurer went under, they would receive nothing.
Something had to give. After heated talks, Merrill agreed that July to cancel its CDS contracts for a pay-out of 14 cents on the dollar – a severe “haircut,” in market parlance. The other banks also reduced their original claims. At the conclusion of talks that dragged on until May 2009, not a single lender was paid in full.
That is potentially awkward for Mr. Geithner, who before joining the administration of President Barack Obama, was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most important regional component of the US central banking system. . . . [D]id the government, though collusion or mistake . . . take billions of dollars from the taxpayers’ purse and put them into the coffers of some of the world’s largest banks without forcing them to accept much lower payments? Why, in other words, did the counterparties of AIG [who, thanks to Mr. Geithner, received 100 cents on the dollar for their CDS's] wind up with so much better a deal than those of SCA did – some of which were the same banks?
January 26, 2010
Coming Soon: Dallas Art Fair
Over 50 exhibitors from Texas, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Great Britain and elsewhere will present work in a variety of media by post-war artists including Carl Andre, Charles Burchfield, John Chamberlain, Stuart Davis, Tom Friedman, Adam Fuss, Philip Guston, Donald Moffet, Man Ray, Bruce Nauman, Cornelia Parker, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Cy Twombly, and George Widener. (At right, Partial Truth by Bruce Nauman, 1997, etching, ed. of 60, image courtesy of James Kelly Contemporary; click on the image for a larger version.)
When:
Fri., Feb. 5: 11 am - 7 pmWhere:
Sat., Feb. 6: 11 am - 7 pm
Sun., Feb. 7: 11 am - 5 pm
Fashion Industry Gallery ("F.I.G.") at 1807 Ross Avenue, Dallas, TX.In addition, there will be two symposia, on Sat. and Sun., 10 am - 12 pm, on the Noyola collection of Frida Kahlo material at the Montgomery Arts Theater at Booker T. Washington High School.
Admission:
Single Day Pass: $20For more info or to buy tix, go here.
3-Day Pass: $40
VIP Pass: $400 (a portion of the proceeds from these and the Gala tix will benefit the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts)
Gala: $200
(Discounts for students, seniors, and groups.)
And it appears DAF is big enough to attract a satellite fair, Art in the District, which will include work from various local galleries in space donated by The Fairmont. The satellite fair will be open 12 pm - 9 pm Fri. and Sat. and 11 am - 4 pm on Sun. Admission to Art in the District will be free with a DAF ticket stub, with a $5 donation to Big Thought suggested. There will also be a silent auction benefitting EASL. More info here.
UPDATE: That Nauman makes me want to read the rest of this page backward. But I also wanted to say: on Sat., Feb. 6, at 3 pm, the Goss-Michael Foundation will host an event at the Nasher Sculpture Center with Michael Craig-Martin in conversation with Jeremy Strick, Director of the Nasher; and an exhibition of Craig-Martin's works will open the same day at the Foundation. Per Wikipedia, "Michael Craig-Martin RA . . . is a contemporary conceptual artist and painter . . . noted for his influence over the Young British Artists [Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Steve McQueen, Richard Patterson, Marc Quinn, Yinka Shonibare, Rachel Whiteread, et al.], many of whom [Craig-Martin] taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree." The latter work "consists of a glass of water standing on a shelf attached to the gallery wall, next to which is a text using a semiotic argument to explain why it is in fact an oak tree."
Idiotarod SOLD
Background:
The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. The IDIOTAROD is pretty much the same thing, except instead of dogs, it's people; instead of sleds, it's shopping carts; and instead of Alaska, it's New York City. The sixth annual event happens January 31, 2009.
"What's the route?
"That's up to you. We will give racers a starting line, some checkpoints and a finish line. You choose the fastest path. You will be held at each checkpoint for the facing of trials and challenges that will build your character as you journey toward victory.
"Are there rules?
"Yes, so many you almost can't count them on your fingers.
"Does my team have to bring its own shopping cart?
"Yes.
"Can we modify our shopping cart?
"Please do."
The Story:
Danger Zone has announced that it has SOLD control of Idiotarod to "a private waste management firm," Corporation X. Danger Zone intends to "retire from combat service and open a private grocery-store, transport-vehicle consulting racing consulting firm.
More on the sale here. More on the Idiotarod here.
Ignorance . . .
. . . may or may not be evolutionarily adaptive, but it apparently seeks to propagate itself. Some California schools have banned dictionaries because they define "oral sex" (the definition reads, "oral stimulation of the genitals"). More at the UK Guardian.
January 25, 2010
Motion to Amend
Corporations have gone after our tax dollars, our jobs, our schools, our military, our voting machines, our infrastructure, our food, and our future. And
"[o]n January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government."The Supreme Court's ruling was simply stunning on many levels. Regardless of whether it was correct, however, it is urgent that we get our brains around the issues involved and act quickly to prevent the final destruction of our democracy otherwise heralded by this decision.
"Don’t just sit there and fume. . . . "
Sign a petition, for starters, and learn what else you can do here. Wikipedia has a rough summary of some of the issues here.
January 24, 2010
Fluxus Films on YouTube
Here's Fluxfilm #1; see "Related Videos" on the YouTube page for more:
Ben sent me Fluxfilm #16 under the heading, "Why I like Yoko more than John."
UPDATE: The Fluxfilm #16 video has been removed by YouTube "for sexual content." Fortunately, you can see it here.
Caleb Larsen's "A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter"
Acrylic, custom electronics, programming, internet connection, online auction (2009). The object continually pings to check whether it's being auctioned on ebay. If not, the object creates an auction. All sales are subject to the condition that the purchaser must "send [the object] to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet," so the process can begin again. You can see/join in the current auction here.
Per Larsen, the work is discussed in the catalogue for his 2009 exhibition, The Value of Nothing, which can be purchased or downloaded here. From Larsen via Make.
(So that's what the monolith in 2001 was.)
January 22, 2010
January 18, 2010
Re- Donations for Haiti
Please consider making your donations to the International Red Cross rather than the American Red Cross. I personally came across numerous reports of problems with the ARC while researching the Katrina disaster, and I'm not the only one; see Common Dreams; see also here and here.
January 17, 2010
Meanwhile . . . .
Trying to keep track of ongoing as well as more recent disasters, I found myself remembering these images, which some of you may have missed (click on the images for larger versions).
They were finally made available in 2005 after a series of F.O.I.A. requests and a lawsuit charging the Pentagon with failing to comply with the Act. When the Pentagon finally complied, the faces were blacked out (the Pentagon claimed it needed to "conceal identifiable personal information of military personnel involved in the homecoming ceremonies.")
The resulting images are eerily eloquent and complex, perhaps exemplifying what Matt McCormick has called "subconscious art."
More photos and info at the National Security Archive.
Artist Jill Magid's "Authority to Remove" Is Removed by Dutch Authorities
Magid specializes in exploring issues of surveillance, privacy, secrecy, and what's inside vs. outside.
E.g., for Evidence Locker (multimedia installation with video, "Reading Room," and other components, ca. 2007), she staged performances in front of London surveillance cameras. She then "submit[ed] 31 Subject Access Request Forms – the legal document necessary to outline to the police details of how and when an 'incident' occurred" – and used the resulting footage to create the video component of the installation.
When a recent exhibition of Magid's latest project, called "Authority to Remove," closed at Tate Modern, Dutch authorities removed and sealed much of the work included in the show – work the Dutch Secret Service had originally commissioned – thus consummating the work.
Dutch law requires that a small portion of the construction budgets for public buildings be devoted to commissioning new art. The Dutch Secret Service had commissioned Magid to make some, and had cooperated with her proposal to interview agents about their personal lives.
In the course of her commission, she produced her "first novel," a book based on her interviews of 18 agents. Although she masked their identities by calling all the men "Vincent" and all the women "Miranda," "[t]he agency found her work quite challenging and dangerous . . . ." The agency ultimately agreed to allow the text to be exhibited just once, and only with some 40% of the text whited out; it also required Magid to agree that upon the show's closing, the book and her notes would be sealed and archived in the same manner as the notes of a retiring agent.
Magid is publishing the prologue and epilogue of her original text under the title, Becoming Tarden (click on the pic below for a more legible image), the entirety of which can be found online here.
In her epilogue, she quotes her agency "advisor": How far can they go to erase your experience? . . . Besides conducting surgery on your brain, how can they succeed? You cannot be the same person after this assignment; it has profoundly affected you and altered your perception of the world. How can they remove that?
How far, indeed – here's hoping Magid has, unlike Lombardi, placed copies with a reliable friend.
Magid's site is here.; she's represented by Yvon Lambert.
January 16, 2010
"Cyberlitter"
would, i.m.h.o., include posts that contain quotations or other materials created by others, or asserting facts, without info or links identifying the original creators/sources, or providing credible authority.
Yeah, I'm guilty; but less than most.
January 12, 2010
Inside FB
Fascinating interview with an anonymous employee, here (thanks, Ben!) As you know, they track everything you do and save it forever, regardless of any deletions you may think you've made.
I also note that, taking this employee's lowest estimate of the number of active users and her highest estimate of the number of servers, there are 27,500 users per server. She also says an in-progress re-coding of the site is expected to "reduce our CPU usage on our servers by 80%."
I realize FB has expenses other than the servers themselves, but I'm still not clear why a FB-like facility owned by users and accessed for a relatively small subscription fee should be expected to remain economically infeasible forever.
January 7, 2010
"While There May Be Complacency on Wall St., . . .
uptown . . . the only question is, when is the next crisis going to happen," says Nobel-winning Joseph Stiglitz.
(Thanks, girl gone mad! And to DeSwiss, who adds this quote:
America is run largely by and for about 5,000 people who are actively supported by 50,000 beavers eager to take their places. I arrive at this figure this way: maybe 2,500 megacorporation executives, 500 politicians, lobbyists and Congressional committee chairmen, 500 investment bankers, 500 partners in major accounting firms, 500 labor brokers. If you don't like my figures, make up your own.– Robert Townsend, former head of Avis)
January 6, 2010
January 5, 2010
C.A.R.T.E.L.
Feeling like your little artists' collective could use some "too-big-to-fail"?
Many years in the making, New York City-based 16 Beaver Group announced today the initiation of a complex multiyear process that will produce the largest global merger of arts and politics collectives known to date. Critics immediately attacked the move as being, “out of touch with recent developments in art and economics.” But the group argued at their press conference that the new mega-art collective, which will use the acronym C.A.R.T.E.L. (the group did not specify what each letter stands for), will soon be ready to compete within the current monopolistic anti-marketplace. C.A.R.T.E.L. plans to bring to a politicized cultural community a significant share of the benefits enjoyed by the recent slew of mega-mergers, also known as rescues, such as the few and well subsidized surviving banks that have risen from the ashes of the economic meltdown.How about "Conglomerated ARTists of Every Leaning"? At any rate, count me in.
More at Art Work (via Temporary Services; see previous post here). To join C.A.R.T.E.L., e-mail cartel@16beavergroup.org.
January 4, 2010
And b.t.w. . . .
Happy New Year, and thank you all for coming! Please feel free to send suggestions!
(In case you were dying to know, there have now been 829 purportedly high-quality posts.)
Privacy Compressed: "The New Normal" at Diverseworks
. . . in Houston, opening Fri., Jan. 5, includes some of my favorite artists, such as Eyebeam R & D, Jonah Peretti & Michael Frumin, Harrell Fletcher, Guthrie Lonergan, Jill Magid, and Trevor Paglen. Curated by Michael Connor; more at the-new-normal and at Diverseworks. Also, on YouTube, there's video of a panel discussion of the show here and of Connor discussing the show here.
January 3, 2010
Facebook Status of a Young Muslim:
"YOU TAKE MY WATER, BURN MY OLIVE TREES, DESTROY MY HOUSE, TAKE MY JOB, STEAL MY LAND, IMPRISON MY FATHER, KILL MY MOTHER, BOMB MY COUNTRY, STARVE US ALL, HUMILIATE US ALL . . . BUT I AM TO BLAME: I SHOT A ROCKET BACK!"
Note the 1st item (you take my water).
(Thanks, Mari333!)
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