Put aside my “finding my voice / be yourself” bent I’ve been on lately.
I want to write like Baudrillard.
Read his article on Global Debt and Parallel Universes.
More importantly, I think I need to observe like Baudrillard.
Baudrillard, walking through Time Square observed an electronic billboard displaying a skyrocketing public debt counter for the US, rising $20,000/sec.
He then connected ....
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He then connected this to the idea of a ghostly superstructure that lived in a parallel universe that we created. This rising counter represented an inflating largesse that had detached itself from the real world. Almost like a satellite ejected from the world, orbiting the Earth without a fixed location.
And that this largesse, like the largesse of nuclear stockpiles, is what’s keeping us alive. American public debt has been the foundation of our country since Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury made it policy. Likewise, the 50,000 nukes lying around the world keep us safe in this mutual deterrence.
But how did he connect these ideas? How did he see this billboard and imagine the phantom he would so eloquently describe?
He must have looked at it, and felt, “this is fucked up” and then asked himself, “why is this fucked up” and inflated his curiosity with a series of questions. Is that what he does? Bring a magnifying glass to every nuance that trips him up?
Or is it the result of the wideness of his knowledge base. He has understanding in so many fields that associations just magically arise out of nowhere?
Or does he make a profession of generating novel ideas, and just try everyday. After iterating enough attempts, he gets a good hit?
Or a combination of all of the above?
Either way, this guy’s got talent. He creates images and metaphors that stick. But not just fancy metaphors. I’m guilty of committing fancy metaphor, just saying things like, needle-thin super-summaries, or that the social hierarchy is a pyramid. Baudrillard doesn’t use many metaphors, just a couple good ones plus some alien, novel analysis.
Check out his analysis of American joggers. He compares joggers to horses frothing in the mouth, except that horses have bits in their mouths while as joggers need them. And then he connects the medieval instruments of torture to the mechanical slavery in the factory to our “voluntary” submission to fancy exercise equipment.
How did he do that? Where did he get off on that? He was lying on the beach and he just saw a jogger and go, “what the hell is this?” He must’ve then investigated his nuanced pheeling, and saw a jillion connections.
Either way, I want to see like Baudrillard sees. I’m sure it’s a great cure for boredom. Every minor observation is a window into secret hiding spots for curious phenomenon. Combined with a talent for imagery, his written paintings are gems in the sea of information glut out there.
But alas, I must find my own voice. Sure. Hopefully it will be as good as Baudrillard.
K-Street, by Soderbergh and Clooney, is a reality show on HBO about the life of political consultants.
Very engrossing series, I highly recommend it. It really brings you there. The most notable feature is all the noise and stress induced by following the show, which in a way, keeps you glued.
Read my Excel Blog on K-Street, it elaborates my thought process on why I enjoy it so much.
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She sits there, empty gazing beyond this man, calculating the trajectories of various words. Bowling balls to sack the pins of genetic probability... the question is asked: does this man carry good genetic fitness? Silence,,,, the machine cannot see its own gears lest it lose its bearings.
Still, he has not budged. The empty gazes don't shiver his still desire, his solid desire for the wet.
The empty cannot be slippery for there is nothing, no substance to become slick.
But the void has its allure of silence: a lack of weakness (and strength), a lack of criticism (and genuine praise), a lack of lacks ad infinitum.
I was just reading some Baudrillard, this is why I'm talking weird like this, nonetheless, it feels like the wick of the candle of my passion, hence its posted.
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idealismo.... it is a pickle no doubt about it. 3GB in the hand is better than 3GB tomorrow. After your hard drive is formatted, don't forget to take a shower. And by the way, your 2nd favorite band stinks, your 1st favorite band is my downloads folder, and everything else sounds like noise. By the way, when you find Thoreau, let me know and I'll show you a pond of chocolate. Don't choke, you might need to stretch before you make out. And speaking of making out, pucker up.
The red lights mean anxiety, the green lights mean think about tomorrow. After time has had her way about you, you may find a choice. Not talking about the choice between Pepsi or Coke, but more between Blond v. Brunette. I personally like Chrome, and your electric barbarella might like it too. Don't forget to change her gyros, just like you shouldn't forget to change your mind.
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Some art for the kids today...
PHILOSOPHISTRY SUPPORTS ANY ENDEAVOR THAT INCREASES THE QUANTITY, QUALITY AND VELOCITY OF INFORMATION EXCHANGED IN THE UNIVERSE.
hence... check out Photoshop Tennis, an orgy of pixelated fandango.
AND AS WELL, WE SUPPORT PROGRAMMERS BECAUSE PROGRAMMERS CREATE THE MEDIUM THAT SPEEDS UP INFORMATION EXCHANGE. EMIN!
and likewise thenceforward, check out ColorMatch Remix... you know I'll be using this to generate some fruity blog fabric coloursz
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Some awesome art for the new media age. I hope the Singularity will be as colorful as this.
Credit: Boing Boing
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Sometimes I get nervous watching the time.. to watch the seconds progress one step at a time.
Sometimes I imagine every action of the earth taking place simultaneously at that second, the earth rotating a few milidegrees, somebody picking up a glass of water, a couple kissing, somebody getting ready to shoot.
Like clockwork, everything on earth moves synchronously to the same clock of time. We all, all billions of us, take a step at the same time, every second.
7*10^9 people holding hands simultaneously taking one step forward into time. Every second the earth etches a gazillion bits of new information into the irrevocable timeline.
And my heart stops for a second, worried that this fleet of elephants will trip up and explode. But they don't. Like clockwork, every action has a reaction and it all balances out, one second at a time.
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Imagine every Playboy centerfold superimposed on each other. The result is an amazing merge that gives you a "wiff" of what it means to be a femme sex object...
Also interesting is this River of Blood photo
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Artist Jason Savalon created a suite of photographs which portray a mean average of every Playboy centerfold foldout for the past four decades, from 1960 through 1999. The series of composite Digital C-prints traces, meta-style, the evolution of sexually explicit popular portraiture.
Salavon "typically generates or reconfigures large collections of communal data to present new perspectives on familiar objects. Using software processes of his own design he produces compositions that are most often exhibited as art objects, such as photographic prints and video installations."
(from boingboing)
Art has reached an impasse for sure. Or rather, art that has ever been selected for a gallery or a museum has a natural ability to deliver nausea. Maybe it's because I'm such a carnivore of aesthetics, but there is such a thing as too much harmony. Nature provides the most visual symphonic harmony, and artists by the laws of color matching attempt to imitate. But with the Singularity coming up, it's time for humans to stop congratulating themselves for how well they can mirror, imitate, or represent the *.* experience.
Anyways, this all relates somehow to the design of Philosophistry. I feel like I'm at a passion-impasse. Everybody likes the current design for obvious reasons. This is making me nervous because I can also simultaneously feel that it's not doing too much for me as well.
So, in honor of Che and my newfound (sarcastic) interest in "Rage against the machine" there'll be a new, braver design for Philosophistry coming up that will risk being as ugly as possible. I might also make it an ode to .PNG and CSS. Cheers!
Maybe 2012 is not too optimistic
UPDATE: On second thought...
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When Jackson Pollock splattered his brush, he marked a shift in art: from determinism to non-determinism.
From structure to chaos.
Blogging is kind of an extension of that RE writing.
The question: is the shift from control to un-control a signal of the Singularity? When the primary modes of order have been wrested from the creative, magical minds of man and placed in the hands of codeified fomula, rules, and science, does that mean that the torch of progress is being handed to another species?
Of course it does! Thank you... good bye!
Maybe 2012 is not too optmistic
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Phil recommends OutKast's new album, Speakerboxxx/Love Below... go get GrabIt and then try alt.binaries.sound.mp3.complete_cd or alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.full_albums to get the album... I only found Love Below, but my guess is that Andre, the producer of that cd, is the better half.
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This acrylic is wonderful.
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Salvador Dali Art Gallery plus analysis...
The Molecular Expressions Photo Gallery
portfolio of galleries contains thousands of full color photomicrographs (photographs taken through a microscope) and digital images selected from our many image collections.
Phoenix Neblua. Wake up and smell the light!
Mitsi has consented to a simple experiment: We will play a career-spanning selection of Radiohead songs; the kids, equipped with Sharpies and blank sheets of paper, will simply draw whatever the music suggests to them. We don't even give them the name of the band. They don't know anything about Radiohead, the mountain of criticism, the mythology. Their thoughts and interpretations are pure, unsullied, literally unique.
Click on NATO Experience, very good flash. Guess what OTAN means.
Green Queen - GFXartist.com - Over 16,000 pages of digital expression
If you thought the guys @ pod collective were good, check out Kss. Buck found him on gfx artists where they have top notch graphic artists. Also sift through deviantart for other high quality stuff on the net.
"Contact" Film Review by Larry Klaes
Another good move was the sending back of the television broadcast of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany. Nazi leader Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) as one of our first representatives into the Milky Way galaxy? Unthinkable but true. I only wish I had not known this scene was coming (due to the novel) to feel the full impact of surprise that many theater audience members expressed when they and the film characters realized that the initially fuzzy black shape was a swastika grasped in an eagle's talons.
Wood That Works Kinetic Sculpture Portfolio
A very exhaustive collection of photoshopped old war propoganda posters to reflect teh new times.
Ah, this is awesome. Prodigy Sample Sources. An attempt to catalogue all the places where Prodigy samples its stuff from. More stuff to KaZaA...wheeee.
An amazing flash piece that takes advantage of the net medium to deliver a "deep" story on origins and technology. (Peterness)