Baudrillard died today (for those of you who don't know, french post-modernist theorists, very interesting political work, highly recommend) at the age of 77. But, all is not gloomy, because we can always go to Cheers, I mean Jihad?
"Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can, troubles are the same. You want to be where everyone knows your name."
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
Planet of the Arabs
I came across this piece by Jackie Salloum. It's pretty amazing. I think it speaks for itself so I'll just say that it's a great critique of Hollywood and the West in general. Check out her site, the toys are amazing, "Caterrorpillar."
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Snowman Sent to the Camps & Other Stories...
This snowman is being held at an unknown location. He has not been formerly charged with any crimes against the United States or it's allies. Free Mr. Snow before the C.I.A. melt him. So, does this feel like an elevated construction of imminent danger and martyrdom? Sounds like it to me. We recently had a guest speaker here at I.T.P. names Hasan Elahi. He's an artist who was detained by the F.B.I. while reentering the country via Detroit's Airport. Elahi now ongoing project is basically tracking every aspect of his location and what he does and makes this information freely available to the public. He also informs "his F.B.I. agent" of all his travel plans and reasons for travel directly via email or phone. He says he does this to one, flood the system with amounts of information that may seem useful in tracking him but in turn just create a bottleneck within the system and therefore using surveillance to attack them who surveill him. Essentially a D.o.S. attack or Denial of Service. However his reasons for doing this are merely pertinent to himself to "keep himself out of Guantanamo." However, this work is essentially filled with many holes. First off, if the government had any intent on sending him to a place such as Guantanamo he would have ended up there with no questions asked and evidence and documentation at that point serves no purpose since it is utterly disregarded. Therefore his documentation is ineffectual, null, and void. His reasons therefore are also null and void and instead are large constructs to manufacture a heightened sense of danger and in turn transform himself into a martyr or sorts. He does not attempt to reach a broader audience or help any of the disenfranchised or future disenfranchised with his project and knowledge and instead it is a merely an endeavor of a narcissistic self serving nature. He also has imprisoned himself with in the ideal model created for the state to control its citizens, the Panopticon. Elahi seems to be a mere prime rate example and convert of the Panopticon where he himself has begun to police his own activities and the state itself no longer has to pay him no mind since he has become an extension thereof.
Sorry, all to start off with something so heavy. Much of what I have been learning and thinking about has been extremely weighty. Been reading a lot of Baudrillard, specifically “Simulacra and Simulations” and his book “The Spirit of Terrorism.” I have become very engrossed in both regardless of the fact they can be at times be very abstract and obtuse in nature at times. I have to do a presentation this coming week along with a paper on this book and another writing by the Critical Art Ensemble, all which pertain to the ideas of fear and terrorism.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about post-colonialism, neo-colonialism, simulations of power, power itself, economics, and subversion. This has very much applied to some of the films I watched this week but specifically “In the Year of the Pig” which all of you should go out and watch. It’s great and it’s about the Vietnam War.
I also have been applying this to creating my own sort of fiction for a midterm project for my class talking about massively multiplayer games. I’m doing a project roughly called “Crate & Barrel.” No I’m not selling overly priced kitchenware in games. I am basically going to be making a talking crate and barrel with a FPS aesthetic that will talk to each other and possibly players. They will discuss their role with in the FPS as they have been commodified by the game designers to be architecture to obstruct and complicate the game space as well as sacrifices to the players, hence become a sort of game designer initiated genocide with the player as the one who pulls the trigger. They will also talk about how they have been essentially relocated from their homelands and placed within the FPS game space. Since they’re going to be now located with Second Life, they will be a sort of refugee. It all makes me laugh.
I just sort of finished a short for my experimental documentary class. It’s very strobey and after-imagey. However, it’s something I started on last summer with very complicated editing that had to be deconstructed in order to finish the piece, which were a pain and a half. Why do I have to construct such complicated things?
This past week we had a visiting artist come to one of my classes. Very cool person. She graduated from the M.I.T. media lab. Basically she brought in what she’s currently working on and has worked on in the past, cell phone and WiFi jammers. It was awesome. They’re basically small enough to fit in a pack of cigs and have an effective radius of about 20-30 feet or so. Only one application can I think of the Apple Store on a weekend. Take that MySpace children, email surfers, and the most evil of all the EasyPay! May the attack be readied, haha.
I’ve been playing a lot of og Advanced Wars on my DS. Gosh that game is addicting and I love it. Strategy games are so fulfilling. Also, in gaming news my warlock in WoW now has some festive Chinese New Year’s clothing. It’s pretty tight; I’ll post pictures of me in it.
But yes, this post has become probably one of the longest I’ve ever written and alas it is time to go and do more homework. Sorry for the lack of posts lately but like I said I make no claims to keep this thing up regularly even though I sort of have. See you all laters.
Decryption My Own Encrypted Editing
So, this is my means to attempt to deconstruct this ridiculous editing idea I started working on over the summer. However, like an idiot I forgot how I was constructing it. Therefore, to try and complete it I had to retrace and try and decrypt my technique and method. I shoulda just finished it in the summer when I started it. Oi!
The Snowey Trenchs
It finally occurred to me what all the snow piled up on the sides of the roads looks like to me. It looks like trenches and battlements as if it were a war zone. Kind of scary.
Fiercest Animals
The squirrel. Ounce for ounce the fiercest animal in all the animal kingdom. It has no known natural predators.
Stuck in the Snow
This sucks for this guy if he wanted to back out. They just decided to pile up a mess of snow behind his car.
Another poor soul trying to remove their car.
Brawny Man
"Hey baby, do you need a paper towel to wipe that." Oh wait that would be the old Brawny man, the new one is sensitive and kind, not like the old guy who was a porn star (it's all in the mustache). So, anyways I thought this was the most novel way that once could carry a big ole thing of paper towels home from the market since it doesn't fit in a grocery bag. Genius!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Cheese Steaks Calling
So, this week has been quite nice, a lot more laid back than last week which is nice. Audrey is visiting, she's attending the C.A.A. conference here in New York. We've had some great food this week, BBQ, delivery sushi, sit down sushi, good burgers at a clandestine burger joint hidden behind a curtain in a big swanky hotel in midtown even. Been to two gallery openings this week was fun. Met a group of her friends, that were all pretty awesome, especially Wayne and Emily. Also, Jessica, a former NYU alumni who let me in on some of the things in the know, like the library has plastic bags to carry your books home in if you ask. I was like why the f would anyone not bring their backpack. Logic defies me sometimes.
It defies in other ways. Today, I got an email from this curator at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Apparently he saw Cal Arts' Experimental Animation Showcase from this past year, which I was in. So, he saw it and saw my piece and emailed me to ask me to be part of the Philadelphia Film Festival and that I would be screened along with Bill Plympton and Don Hertzfeldt which is like GAGh??? I still have to email him back since I got the email really late tonight. He also was like basically I'd like to see your other work and facilitate you as much as possible in the city of Philadelphia. So, bloody bizarre. I didn't even know our school sent out our reel to prospective people organizing film festivals. Anyhow, whatever the case, I will be emailing him back and finding out the details and if everything goes through "Death, Destruction, & The Weather Coming Up Next" will be heading to the land of cheese steaks and brotherly love.
It defies in other ways. Today, I got an email from this curator at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Apparently he saw Cal Arts' Experimental Animation Showcase from this past year, which I was in. So, he saw it and saw my piece and emailed me to ask me to be part of the Philadelphia Film Festival and that I would be screened along with Bill Plympton and Don Hertzfeldt which is like GAGh??? I still have to email him back since I got the email really late tonight. He also was like basically I'd like to see your other work and facilitate you as much as possible in the city of Philadelphia. So, bloody bizarre. I didn't even know our school sent out our reel to prospective people organizing film festivals. Anyhow, whatever the case, I will be emailing him back and finding out the details and if everything goes through "Death, Destruction, & The Weather Coming Up Next" will be heading to the land of cheese steaks and brotherly love.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Black & Green: Revisited
So, I finally got around to signing my java applet for my final project for one of my classes this semester, it's the one with the names of IED victims. Here's the link to Black & Green. Just a refresh of what it is and how it works. Basically it's using the iCasualties.org database on information all Coalition forces who have been killed during the Iraq War by I.E.D.'s. It then parses through the file that I have created from their database (this one currently isn't a live updating one, due to their change in formatting I hope to make it to be able to be live again). It then displays information about those who have died in text form and changes through the names on a semi-random timing each with their own accompanying explosion. This piece I'm going to end up sending to a show at Bethel University that is looking at how to memorialize the Iraq War. So, yeah I just figure I'd put it up so you all can see it and hear it, you do have to turn your volume up a bit though to really hear it, it's a tad quiet at low volume levels, but don't crank it.
The State of the Lt.
It's been awhile since I've actually had something substantial to write about or so it seems I think. This week had been rather busy with kind of culminating in the middle with two of my classes with big projects due. The first was for my experimental documentary class, where I had two short documentaries due on the same topic but done in two different fashions, direct/observational and reflexive/participatory. I decided to do this assignment around my friend Matt's character, Healbotmachl in World of Warcraft. Work flow was a bit of a pain but I succeeded in making them I may post them up later this weekend or sometime in the near future they're not that great as they were done in a weekend, but It's like segway to another project I want to pursue within World of Warcraft which can only be described really as, John Baldessari meets World of Warcraft meets LEEEEEEEEROOOOY JENKKKKKKINNNS!
The other class assignment was a presentation I had to give for another class that's all about massively multi-user games. I of course did my presentation on WoW however I had trouble coming up with a topic and didn't come up with one until the night before the presentation. I decided to do it on naming policies, trends and conventions in WoW. It was a very funny presentation and most of the class was dying laughing including the teachers (one of whom looks like Ron Jeremy). I included real life names int the presentation, such highlights as Stabbymcstabs, Petmypussa (one of matt's characters), Trouserchilli, and Nuck Chorris (I did have a whole section devoted to Chuck Norris). It went over very well, so I was glad. I also was very burnt out having had only about 4hrs of sleep for like two or three days I forget. However, what is good, the bulk of presentation and junk for the whole semester are out of the way since I ended up doing them earlier rather later.
Classes have been very good thus far and engaging for the most part. However going back to my assignment for my documentary class I was about to go off on some of the classmates. The first one was these two students who I really can't stand actually. They used f'n iMovie lightning in their piece and a push wipe and a clock count down wipe. I'm sorry those sins are too grave to be forgiven for. They tried to pass off their bullsh!ttery as their intent to show that they indeed had a perspective and it was their point of view and they wanted it to be "over the top." To that I had to say something and could hold my contempt no longer. I was like I don't believe it worked then because it seems like it was rather haphazardly placed at the end and does not actually convey what you're saying. Had you had been consistent with it maybe, but this was definitely not the case. One person also had a question about one of their shots and was it on purpose that they composed that shot that way, with which it was obvious they hadn't. However, the teacher had a very knee jerk reaction to that and was like every shot has meaning. I feel this is ultimately flawed in it's reasoning and a lil too idealistic and utopian if not naive. Onto the second group of people who I have no bone to pick with however, they decided to do their piece about homeless people. What did they do? They made everything black and white. I had issues with this. I asked them why did they choose to use black and white when it seems that it may over-sentimentalize, marginalize, and aestheticize the subject matter, rather than use color to show the harsh reality. The teacher was like yeah, why did you use black and white? They had no good response to that.
In another class we have begun learning how to snoop on networks and crack them and map them. Very very fun homework I must say.
I'm preparing to send out my IED name piece out to a show about memorializing the Iraq War at Bethel University. I still have to write my proposal, I hope it gets in, I think it's got a good chance I think it's a strong piece.
The NYC recruiter for Apple called me up today to offer me a job actually as a full time Mac Genius, at my pick of stores, however I had to turn down this offer, since it was full time and I have no time to commit 40 hours to a job right now being in school. On another note, I potentially might have an internship with Laurie Anderson however, it's very tentative and I won't know until monday whether or not I got it.
It's cold, it's been bloody cold out here. Early this week I walked to school and it was 9. 9 bloody degrees. It was a lil warmer today which was nice. I'm just glad I'm not in upstate where it's snowing like mad. Unrelated I saw Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Awesome movie and probably one of the best performances I've ever seen by Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. Great movie, I felt like I was tripping. But ya, I'm tired and it's late. G'nite all.
The other class assignment was a presentation I had to give for another class that's all about massively multi-user games. I of course did my presentation on WoW however I had trouble coming up with a topic and didn't come up with one until the night before the presentation. I decided to do it on naming policies, trends and conventions in WoW. It was a very funny presentation and most of the class was dying laughing including the teachers (one of whom looks like Ron Jeremy). I included real life names int the presentation, such highlights as Stabbymcstabs, Petmypussa (one of matt's characters), Trouserchilli, and Nuck Chorris (I did have a whole section devoted to Chuck Norris). It went over very well, so I was glad. I also was very burnt out having had only about 4hrs of sleep for like two or three days I forget. However, what is good, the bulk of presentation and junk for the whole semester are out of the way since I ended up doing them earlier rather later.
Classes have been very good thus far and engaging for the most part. However going back to my assignment for my documentary class I was about to go off on some of the classmates. The first one was these two students who I really can't stand actually. They used f'n iMovie lightning in their piece and a push wipe and a clock count down wipe. I'm sorry those sins are too grave to be forgiven for. They tried to pass off their bullsh!ttery as their intent to show that they indeed had a perspective and it was their point of view and they wanted it to be "over the top." To that I had to say something and could hold my contempt no longer. I was like I don't believe it worked then because it seems like it was rather haphazardly placed at the end and does not actually convey what you're saying. Had you had been consistent with it maybe, but this was definitely not the case. One person also had a question about one of their shots and was it on purpose that they composed that shot that way, with which it was obvious they hadn't. However, the teacher had a very knee jerk reaction to that and was like every shot has meaning. I feel this is ultimately flawed in it's reasoning and a lil too idealistic and utopian if not naive. Onto the second group of people who I have no bone to pick with however, they decided to do their piece about homeless people. What did they do? They made everything black and white. I had issues with this. I asked them why did they choose to use black and white when it seems that it may over-sentimentalize, marginalize, and aestheticize the subject matter, rather than use color to show the harsh reality. The teacher was like yeah, why did you use black and white? They had no good response to that.
In another class we have begun learning how to snoop on networks and crack them and map them. Very very fun homework I must say.
I'm preparing to send out my IED name piece out to a show about memorializing the Iraq War at Bethel University. I still have to write my proposal, I hope it gets in, I think it's got a good chance I think it's a strong piece.
The NYC recruiter for Apple called me up today to offer me a job actually as a full time Mac Genius, at my pick of stores, however I had to turn down this offer, since it was full time and I have no time to commit 40 hours to a job right now being in school. On another note, I potentially might have an internship with Laurie Anderson however, it's very tentative and I won't know until monday whether or not I got it.
It's cold, it's been bloody cold out here. Early this week I walked to school and it was 9. 9 bloody degrees. It was a lil warmer today which was nice. I'm just glad I'm not in upstate where it's snowing like mad. Unrelated I saw Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Awesome movie and probably one of the best performances I've ever seen by Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. Great movie, I felt like I was tripping. But ya, I'm tired and it's late. G'nite all.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Issues of Authenticity
So, funny that issues of "Authenticity" come up even with the Transformers, haha. To think one class I'm in right now doesn't want to even deal with the term authenticity. Also, concern with Aesthetic, haha, yes bloody great.
Busta a Serpent? "Whoo-Hah"
Ya, pretty awesome. Something I wanna do sometime have fun editing like this. I love the "Han Solo" part with Shipwreck and the weed part. So, funny.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
P-Meds, Uncut, the Bomb
So, you know pseudoephedrine, the thing that actually decongests you? The thing that was in NyQuil and the thing that allowed you make piles of meth in your home made chemistry lab with the directions your AP Chem teacher gave you in your class lecture? Well, not very readily available (My wallet is still wincing, damn, j/kin'). Anyhow, ABC has an article about is this withdrawl of pseudoephedrine to behind the counter and out of certain cold remedies really counterproductive? I say yes! I want the bloody cough medicine that knocks me out, that gets me so wasted that I actually feel better in a hurry ("I wanna be Sedated?"). But in all seriousness, I want my pseudoephedrine back, and it's not just cause I have a cold right now, which I do however it's not a congestion based cold so this doesn't really pertain right now. In the words of the wise intergalactic funk brothers known as the O'Jays.
"You've got to give the People. Give the People what they want. You've got to give the People what they want. Well I done been all over the world. And everybody feels the same. It's a unanimous decision. I say we're ready for a change. You've got to give the people pseudoephedrine! Give the people what they want... We want the truth, the truth and no more lies. We want freedom justice and equality. Meth for You and NyQuil for Me."
So, make my funky medicine. I want my medicine uncut. Who wants to get funked up? I want the bomb. I want the cold-meds. I want my meds uncut. Make my funky medicine. Who wants to get funked up?
Oh on a side note, my AP Chem teacher didn't teach us how to make Meth, we talked about it theory, however we went into gracious details about how to make coke and freebase =).
"You've got to give the People. Give the People what they want. You've got to give the People what they want. Well I done been all over the world. And everybody feels the same. It's a unanimous decision. I say we're ready for a change. You've got to give the people pseudoephedrine! Give the people what they want... We want the truth, the truth and no more lies. We want freedom justice and equality. Meth for You and NyQuil for Me."
So, make my funky medicine. I want my medicine uncut. Who wants to get funked up? I want the bomb. I want the cold-meds. I want my meds uncut. Make my funky medicine. Who wants to get funked up?
Oh on a side note, my AP Chem teacher didn't teach us how to make Meth, we talked about it theory, however we went into gracious details about how to make coke and freebase =).
Thursday, January 25, 2007
HOFF-TASTIC
That's right it's the Hoff in his latest music video with an atrociously bad song. But hey it's the Hoff. Kit's in there but he don't talk so that's lame. But hey it's the Hoff.
The Adventures of Lil' Bush
So I was online last night doing stuff and my friend Matt sends me this link. I was like gagh! It's funny, it's disturbing and what's up with Cheney, he's like Frankenstein attack dog or something? Oh yeah and Condi and the tambo, classic. But the Abu-Garib stuff, gosh. But yeah, worth the watch but totally disturbing.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
SNOW!
Jup, it snowed on Saturday morning like at 4 in the am. Of course I went out for novelty factor to enjoy it since I havne't seen snow in a very long time. It was fun. I of courses was the only one out and about wandering around in the snow. Figures.
Me and the snow.
Me writing my initials and my various pseudonyms in the snow.
Thus far classes have seemed like they will be rather good. Still haven't had my monday class yet, I'll have that really bloody early tomorrow, bloody 9am. ARGH! Went to the film library for the first time today, the monitors suck. Or maybe it was a combination 7-11 special, with the monitor and an old VHS tape. I hate VHS. But yeah, watched, Chronicles of Summer, french documentary from the 1960's. I'm not sure if it really is a documentary, however it frames itself very interesting. It starts off by basically saying we're making a documentary and all the people involved in it are well aware of it. They talk about the issue of having the camera watching them. At the end they have all the people in the film see the film about themselves and then get their responses. The directors end up talking about this discussion at the very end of the film. It was kind of odd how much the directors themselves were part of the film because they were very overtly within it. Interesting though. Oi, next weeks screening assignment is super long for my Experimental Documentary class.
Oh and one last thing, I swear one of the teacher's for Massively Multi-User (class looking at MMO games) looks like Ron Jeremy. Just add the mustache and you got Ron.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
19 DEGREES!!!
So, I'm back in New York. I have my first class a morning class, argh. Now of course like an idiot I flip the times for my two mornring classes and think today is my 9am class not my 9:30 class, so I ended up there a half hour early. However, this morning taking a shower was like Groundhog Day, the water was sooo cold and it wasn't warming up. It sucked so bad. That's not the worse though, the temp outside was 19. That is the coldest weather by far I've ever been in. It was bloody cold I could feel it on my nose and face.
The class though I had this morning is like an experimental documentary class. Seems like it will be a rather good class. She showed exerpts of Nanook (hate that film), Man with a Movie Camera (love that film), and Rain (never seen before). When we were discussing we saw at the end of class one person in class was singing praises for Nanook (he'd never seen it before). He thought it was so great, and realisitc, and felt like it could have been made like 10 years ago that it was so contemporary and ahead of it's time. Now me, I've always viewed Nanook as this non-doc doc, because the blasted thing for the most part was totally staged and from a Euro-centric viewpoint. So, I responded to his comment and said that it was constructed and that he clearly says that's what he's doing in the intertitles at the begining, basically I was just shy of saying that Nanook is not a documentary at all. Towards the end of class it was confirmed that, that was in fact the case. I was kinda surprised no one had seen Man with a Movie Camera. So, this week we're posed to go to a screening at MOMA. However, what is being screened I have already seen and well, wasn't very much impressed, Pine Flats by Sarah Lockhart. 150 minutes of 15 10 minutes shots that are mostly static, slightly racial, sexual, and pedophillic. So yeah, that's how things go from New York as of yet. Got class later tonite. Gotta start making dinner so off I go. Lates.
The class though I had this morning is like an experimental documentary class. Seems like it will be a rather good class. She showed exerpts of Nanook (hate that film), Man with a Movie Camera (love that film), and Rain (never seen before). When we were discussing we saw at the end of class one person in class was singing praises for Nanook (he'd never seen it before). He thought it was so great, and realisitc, and felt like it could have been made like 10 years ago that it was so contemporary and ahead of it's time. Now me, I've always viewed Nanook as this non-doc doc, because the blasted thing for the most part was totally staged and from a Euro-centric viewpoint. So, I responded to his comment and said that it was constructed and that he clearly says that's what he's doing in the intertitles at the begining, basically I was just shy of saying that Nanook is not a documentary at all. Towards the end of class it was confirmed that, that was in fact the case. I was kinda surprised no one had seen Man with a Movie Camera. So, this week we're posed to go to a screening at MOMA. However, what is being screened I have already seen and well, wasn't very much impressed, Pine Flats by Sarah Lockhart. 150 minutes of 15 10 minutes shots that are mostly static, slightly racial, sexual, and pedophillic. So yeah, that's how things go from New York as of yet. Got class later tonite. Gotta start making dinner so off I go. Lates.
Chévron Con Techron
Getting some Chévron con Techron in Salt Lake City (It's revolutionary jet fuel you know?). Then of course getting stuck on the ground, argh!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)