posted

a small discovery

finding some interesting material from Leslie White, an anthropologist who wrote on cultural evolution and based his views on the idea that cultural systems are ultimately technological systems and that these systems can be ranked by their level of energy use and their capacity to access and utilize adequate energy resources. he had a troubled later life between his wife of 30 years dying and his slide into alcoholism. hmmmm

and then Fred Cottrell, a sociologist writing in his book Energy and Society (1955) about a social systems need for a net energy return. not sure if I can find a copy of this in the Australia uni library system, but hope to.

The evidence for Lotka’s position is not yet sufficient to make it clear that it should be formulated into a law. But the tendency it expresses … fits other evidence that ability to control energy conversion is one factor involved in the persistence of patterns that require energy for their replication. Certainly the patterns of observable human behavior fall into that category. Man cannot escape thermodynamics … his effectiveness in controlling energy conversion so that is serves his needs and satisfies his values is one measure of his probable survival in a habitat. — W. Fred Cottrell

posted
  • place: Sydney, NSW, Australia

structural organization

Structural organization. Weaving this space of inquiry, exposé, or a web of deceit. A fabric of cloaking, or a dust cover for an old arm chair.

Van Leeuwen’s overview (in Multimodal Discourse) of an expressive situation that he labels semiotic production frames first a (situated) discourse which is then subject to design (to shape the delivery mechanism) which is materially formed in the production process followed by distribution (one-to-many propagation). These conceptual and actual stages are closely bound to a semiotics-based view which is rooted in the abstracted space of language and representation. This, despite the fact that the expressive action is indeed a real, tangible movement of energies from the producer to the receiver/consumer — it is not abstract. It is in this space between the models built in the abstracted semiotic space and the real executions that Dialogue, in the extended definition that I propose, occurs. It does not preclude any (most) semiotic models, but is sets the limits of their applicability that arise from the abstraction process that is inherent in language. The Dialogue model looks at these processes, steps in semiotic production as a continua of socially applied protocols which guide (provide a pathway for) energized expression from the Self to the Other — so that semiotic production is clearly not the thing itself, but an abstraction of it. (Van Leeuwen notes this when reflecting on the separation from embodiment that written language imposed on this abstraction process).
more “structural organization”

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

and so on

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. — John Stuart Mill

Viva idiosyncrasy!

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thesis proposal :: Background

Background for Research

While individual human presence in this world has fundamental repercussions on be-ing, it is the ever-present and synergistic exchange between humans — forming what I call a “continuum of relation” — that governs much of life. This energetic field of human relation is sometimes fraught with difficulties and complications in spite of the rich and necessary dynamic it brings to life. Technology, as a ubiquitous factor in mediating human relation, often dominates while presented as providing the only opportunity for mediated connection and interaction between humans.

Presence, as apprehended by the Other, circumscribes a range of sensory inputs that require energy (from the Self) to stimulate and drive. The efficacy and sustainability of human connection builds on the very real and tangible transmissions and receptions of energy between the Self and the Other. An interconnected plurality of dialectic human relation may be described as a network. These networks, made up of a web of Self-Other connections form the base fabric of the continuum of relation. Technology appears in these networks as the mediating pathway that is the carrier of energy from node to node, person to person. Technological systems also appear to apply absolute restraints on and attenuation of the idiosyncratic flows inherent in that continuum of relation. The discrete objects that populate the (technological) landscape of the continuum of relation and that modulate the character of communications are literally artifacts of a materialist point of view. A primary assumption in my research is that a materialist or mechanistic view of the world no longer suffices to adequately circumscribe the phenomena occurring within the continuum of relation. more “thesis proposal :: Background”

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thesis proposal :: Methodologies, Background, Timeline, Contexts

Concerning Particular Methodologies

Dialogues, Networks, and Collaboration — Much of my creative practice, research, and indeed, presence is built on the activation of robust and sustained dialogues with a wide range of Others both remote and local. These dialogues form a network. The most powerful situation I can imagine for creative research and production is an open human network. I am keen to engage on the ground with the Australian, Sydney-based, and UTS creative community. I am familiar with the milieu, having been in Sydney for six weeks in 2006 as a visiting artist at COFA, and I very much look forward to being there again. I have an extensive personal/professional network of Antipodal creatives which dates back to the early 1990s that I will be pleased to activate on a more face-to-face basis.

Distributed Performance — My own applied international research in distributed performance and tactical media over the last fifteen years is centered around synchronous live network-based social activities. Engaging a wide range of technical solutions, my work is a direct utilization of amplified digital networks as the locus for creative action. These areas of research experience include a variety of performance-based activities in theater, dance, sonic, and other expressive arts occurring in or augmented by collaborative networked situations. As a self-proclaimed networker, an area of core awareness in my research is the concept of presence — and how that human presence is directly and indirectly affected by any/all technologies that filter and attenuate that presence: how human expression across a network system is precisely formed and informed by the impression of the technologies used.
more “thesis proposal :: Methodologies, Background, Timeline, Contexts”

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

mega-equinox

Late monsoon storm rolls by Granite Mountain, seen from the deck.

Equinox spent in a mega-church, The Heights Church or a church aspiring to be one. dot.com. Which suggests the necessity for threading through the complex layering of cultural, social, and political detritus. A guy walks in ahead of us with an NRA tee-shirt on and a giant insulated travel-mug of coffee in hand.

Al always sits in the front and center of the large industrial sanctuary space. One row back from the front row. His eyesight is pretty bad, macular degeneration, and likewise, his hearing is attenuated to whatever narrow frequency band that his hearing aids provide.

I have my shit-kickers on, the dressiest items available for church at this point. Can’t find my Colorado School of Mines belt-buckle with the hand-tooled leather belt. The bronze buckle in the form of the school seal cast in a metallurgy class with an ancient prof, forgotten his name. Proof of Western citizenship.

There on the stage — one of those portable raised prefab affairs for concerts and political spectacles — is a miked drum-set, a bass and amp, a Rhodes with vocalists mike, a set of congas (not timbales!), and a guitar on a stand. No podium, dais, but plenty of microphones. On either side, two very large video projection screens.

Club scene? Will there be a concert? The Rhodes is the most prominent object, at the front edge near the center of the stage. later the preacher uses it to as a place for his notes and Bible.

It’s the eight o’clock service. Al tells me that there are usually around three hundred people at this, this first of four services. The 300? We are early.

As the service starts out, it’s clear that I should have brought earplugs to attenuate the 100 db blast from the sound system.

Somehow I can imagine doing a visual-sonic performance here. good sound and video system, focused audience, yeah, a good venue overall. More notes on this later.

posted
  • place: Glen Ridge, New Jersey

The International Frisbee Tournament

with my Discraft freestyle disc. another event fifty years ago this year… ah, for a nice freestyle workout…

Another important event occurred in 1958. Bob and Jake Healy organized a frisbee game at their family’s Fourth of July celebration in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Ball Yard at Eagle Harbor. This family’s frisbee get-together became an annual event that grew in size and popularity each year. It became known as the IFT (International Frisbee Tournament). During the mid-sixties, the event’s enthusiasm attracted the attention of Wham-O. The synergy that developed between Wham-O and the IFT started the modern era of disc sports. The formation of the IFA (International Frisbee Association) newsletter in 1968 was a direct result. The IFA newsletter spread information to frisbee enthusiasts in Canada and the USA. Frisbee players started to travel to the IFT in huge numbers. By 1970, the tournament became the Mecca for frisbee enthusiasts from all over the world. The event fostered the free exchanges of ideas on all types of frisbee play. This is where the idea of freestyle as a distinct type of disc play got disseminated to the frisbee community at large.

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

more brainstorms

sotto voce (to brainstorms on the XO laptop deployment): And there is the entirely OTHER issue — that of autonomy. The techno-social system (in this example, the entire combined system that is providing the XO) deploys a device, it is not a simple movement of material items or even socio-cultural values (although that is the lever of most of the critique IMHO). It is also the tying in of that distant Other into that larger techno-social system — as soon as they begin using that device. The tying-in has a complex range of affects on the individual using the device. (Alluding to the attention issue, Howard) When that remote other begins to pay attention to the device (spending life-time which equals life-energy) they are removing that attention from a more local framework, and giving that attention/energy to the larger techno-social system. One consequence is that they become dependent on that system, another is that the system consumes that life energy in order to maintain itself (by the nature of a techno-social system). The distant Other is more-or-less bound into this relationship simply by using the device (independent of ideology or purpose!). The dependency expresses itself in an incremental loss in personal autonomy. If the device, now incorporated in the Other’s life, does not function, the Other is in immediate and critical dependency on that larger system. This fact alone is directly counter to the idea, for example, of locally relevant use of the device and goes a long way to suppress the construction of locally relevant learning ‘solutions’ as this deep nature of the device is very ‘corrupting’ (brings in all the values of that larger techno-social system)…

Prior to the introduction of such a device, there are greater possibilities (not necessarily happening, though, I will admit) of locally/individually relevant knowledge-building.

I am probably way too cynical at this point in life, based on experiential observation, though, to think that anything can ‘stop’ this globalized spread of the techno-social system. No political agenda has much power, no national government, no special-interest groups… it seems to be a bulldozer of humanity rolling ahead.

So, what to do? The only solution that I see is the reminding that all this system is built on the fundamental of granular f-2-f encounters of humans and we have to pay deep attention to the local Other first and foremost and definitely BEFORE engaging in the highly mediated techno-social dance of engaging the distant Other.

I apologize, I am sitting alone in a small flat in Berlin typing to you. I do not know my neighbors. I do not, in the moment, practice what I preach. We are already far down the road, soon (I see this in my students) we will forget where we came from. I will continue to remind them and myself. I’ll go meet a friend in a cafe in a couple hours…

that’ll be Brandon.

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

another TAZ?

tmp.deluxe. call for interest. huh? a large empty space inside a renovated neoclassic building with high ceilings and big windows. controlled on the U1 line by two smiling-but-thuggish youngsters merely flashing their KVB identity cards. as a performance or so. fortuitous to have the right ticket. €2.10 normal tariff. not so cheap. I’m committed to a single round-trip maximum per day. how to do this when a typical day might require getting to four destinations or so. anyway, make it to the tmp.space. they are asking for proposals. slowly the space fills. black clothes, I’m no exception other than wearing faded jeans. there are two of us sitting at a raw chip-board table. call for interest. two large stacks of bluish-white A4 paper, two glass ash trays, one with a few pens cradled in it, one empty. the ubiquitous stench of cigarettes. why is that smell the quintessence of stale? somebody changes the music — electronica for death-metal or so. conversations trip along and don’t seem to get through the aesthetic miasma that is anchored in the stacks of paper and the ashtrays. following the reasoning, following the line. and attempting to insert energy into the situation. having seen and been seen. and a child in a pink t-shirt wanders around. Papa! Papa! making space-testing sounds. to locate herself in the space. doing this, she locates all other receivers in themselves. placing them in the stiff reserve of their aesthetic opinions which they trade in measures, lubricated by wine. locative media while Rome Burns. or is this an exaggeration? more “another TAZ?”

posted
  • place: Düsternbrooke, Kiel, Germany

Der geomorphologie von bombardiert Krater

perambulate with snoozing Fritz through the Düsternbrooke Schutzgebiet nearby while Christian & Steffi get ready to go to Zurich for the weekend. acorns (tall oaks from tiny acorns grow!) and chestnuts crunch and pop underfoot. wander past a moldy granite marker with the word Königsbuche (Royal Beech Tree) engraved on it. often when in Germany in larger towns, and in the parks on those towns, I look for the inevitable craters that are sprinkled through the underbrush and between trees. sometimes when the forest floor is clear of brush, it is possible to see rows of craters. filled with water and rotting branches. other places, hills in city parks are merely the wooded remains of debris piles made from clearing destroyed buildings from city streets.

whump whump whump. high-explosives falling in sandy soil. splintering trees into smoking piles of largish toothpicks, sending plumes of shattered glass, brick, ornamental plaster work, and wooden beams into the air and down on the neighbors.

past the tennis club, girls with dogs smiling brightly at me. is it the pram that throws them off? or the combination of my black leather jacket and bright red hoodie sticking out. black and red is not a forgettable color constellation in this country.

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

ubicomp

Inane story on NPR, dancing around the hype of ubiquitous computing (still?) — With the installation of a network of sensors on house plants that will send wifi info to their owner about their condition.

Who sets up this network? Who maintains it? Who interacts with it? When and why is it interacted with? Under what conditions is it necessary to interact with it? Or is it ever necessary to interact with it? Those people who are so interested in spreading digital networks somehow forget the necessity of manufacturing, deployment, installation, configuration, and, especially, maintenance. Not to mention the actual (life-)time necessary to interact with the data being gathered, tweaking it if necessary (or even possible) into a form that is understandable and usable to the idiosyncratic self, NOT the generic Everyman (who is the Grail of the data collectors).

These questions point back to the cultural (d)evolution which mandates a rolling over of systems from localized individual control to a centralized social command-and-control. Now, a big argument used by the ubicomp community is that the existence of these networks liberates the localized Everyman from the drudgery of some localized chore or another. Watering house plants, in this case. But there is a hidden factor — the subsequent reliance of the individual on the centralized system of production and (standardized control) — which creates and deploys these devices. It costs money to have these devices. And the greater the deployment, the larger the social infrastructure necessary to produce and deploy these devices and systems. Think, for example, of the mining and basic industry that provides the raw materials that go into the construction of the machines used to make and deliver the devices. The individual consequently must be participating in this larger system in order to receive the device. To participate in that system requires a payment of (life-)time (converted in the grind of social production to cash). So the (life-)time freed-up by the device is more than consumed by the (life-)time drawn from the individual in this general participatory process. Think of working at a long-term job so that you have the long-term income to pay for the apartment where you have the house plants. Stability is a core value here to consider here as well — without long-term stability (a stable environment), exotic house plants are imperiled. To have house plants assumes this long-term stability (which the social system relies on!). So not only is this further reliance on the deployed ubicomp system NOT about liberation — it is the opposite — it is about a subtle enslavement to a greater social system for which instability is anathema. The drawing-off of the lifetime (and life energy) of the individual into that social system is the primary source of power for the centralized social system.

All of this is on a sliding scale. But assuming that condition, there likely is a certain tipping point where one might go too far and not have the possibility of retrieving individual autonomy. Where is this point? Have we reached it? Clearly it is different in different social systems, despite the healthy state of global systems which draw their energy from widely-dispersed humans. Tolerance for autonomy is different in different socio-cultural systems. Intolerance for instability is generally higher in more organized systems (which came first, the need for organization or the intolerance for instability and dis-order?)

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

stories

I break down and have (huh?) to buy Loki a copy of the Harry Potter book (uff, even writing the name here is annoying). Why? Because each summer for the past however many that have been a target for the marketing of Rowling’s tale, someone — me on several occasions — has gotten him the latest installment for an early birthday present for the first of his usual two or three birthday parties. He always has one party in Amurika, sometimes with cousin Lexie, though she’s not here now; used to be that Amma Lillian would make him a nice cake, too. Then, when he gets back to Iceland there is one party for his friends and then another one for the adults in his family. more “stories”

posted
  • place: Ukiah, California

OHV

Ready to vacate the camp ground: the omens and portents are not good.

Bbbbbrrrrrrrraaaaaaapapapapapapapapa, brapppapapapapapaaaaaaa.

Nothing like the amplified throb of hydrocarbon explosion to go to sleep by and to wake up by. Camping in a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) area. The premise is simple, the social system has generated devices, machines, both two-wheeled and four that allow a single driver to mount somewhat like a horse, and to ride at speed on rugged and steep terrain. For entertainment. (Note: three-wheeled machines were banned from production 25 years ago because of the vast toll of injuries and deaths which ensued as a fault of the basic design). The word entertainment is key. It is absolutely true, straddling one of these machines, with hydro-carbon explosions vibrating the body, landscape rushing by a high speed. The body transforms itself into the body of a god (or goddess). Speed and flight, and the power to conquer the land makes one a lesser though very carnal deity. It’s great fun. The wider world is narrowed down to a small slice of the road ahead and some limited peripheral vision that is otherwise masked with the (state-mandated) helmet. The system narrows to the challenge of moving forward along a pathway (state-defined, in this case, with designations for beginner, intermediate, and expert, like a ski area), maintaining forward motion and lateral balance while negotiating the shifts in speed and orientation. Essentially an immersive video-game experience. Back to the virtual. Hearing is both muted in the helmet, but also assaulted by the viciously loud hydrocarbon explosions happening with minimal attenuation between the legs, touch is overwhelmed by the vibrations of hands, holding onto the handlebars (feeling reduced by gloves) and actions reduced to wrist rotations for accelerating, and gripping for braking. Sight, limited by the helmet. Smell coming through a nose filter, and otherwise, smell and taste dominated by the grit of dust that chokes everything. This is circumscribed by my definition of virtual as that which entails an attenuation of sensual input to the body-system.

It’s a holiday weekend, one for remembering the dead, fallen heroes, and the reasons that nation-states exist. The right to bear arms under any circumstances.

A radio blasts into the night as soon as the working folks arrive late on the Friday evening for the three-day weekend. Motors are tuned, beer is drunk, laughter and shouting echoes around the local space. The local space is a mis-en-scene, a tableau. The trees are decorations to be cut for fire, nails inserted into and chopped with hatchets because they are there, extruding from what is taken simply for painted or projected backdrops.

The camp ground is, as darkness falls, a backdrop for yet another kind of entertainment to take place. The BLM has posted a regulations sign-board, but it is the victim of target shooting with large-gauge shot-guns. Most of the regulations are unreadable, peppered with holes leaving letters, words, whole sentences unreadable. No shooting so far this weekend yet, but it’s sure to happen. Our campsite has a mound of big red 12-gauge shotguns shells, spent, under one tree, and several hands full of high-power rifle shells of a variety of calibers scattered around. And every once in a while one sees side-arm shells. Spent ammunition. Broken glass, beer bottle tops. Past remembrance-of-the-dead weekends. Celebrated by shooting into the air, shooting the trees, shooting anything that looks non-human. Most of the time.

The ambient audio mix also contains material from the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas compound.

(stereo audio, 12.4 mb)

There is nothing that does not flow forth from the Dharma Realm, and nothing that does not return to the Dharma Realm.

bbbbbrrrrrrrraaaaaaapapapapapapapapa, brapppapapapapapaaaaaaa.

posted
  • place: Sydney, NSW, Australia

salvage

hmmm, combinations of local circumstances impede encounters. structural deficiencies route possible crossings into different spaces. turtle-like, looking out onto a complex and unknown landscape and socio-cultural milieu.

find any openings for contact, sussing-out, phishing, checking in, checking out. finding where there is a break in the construct, gaps. small TAZ’s crouched and ready. intervene, connect.

and on another note entirely. sadly, transcendentally. hearing on the underside of the planet. or the reverse top. as shadows point to Antarctica. another giant come to an end in this world. how to expect that another world is? or that there is some way of standing in both for more than a while.

So it goes. — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five style=

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

memories of fire

aren’t disco balls just enhanced simulators for dancing around a fire? what’s the dif? why not dance around a fire more often? gyrate under washes of starLight with limb warming fire to back and front as oscillations permit. in a crowd of like-smelling co-habitants, oscillating to rhythms of necessary presence.

what of having fun while living?

Modern man is insecure and repressed — isolated from his fellows yet desperately clinging to the collectivity which he trusts to protect him from the might of other collectivities. Divided within himself into instincts and spirit, repressions and sublimations, he finds himself incapable of direct relation with his fellows either as individuals in the body-politic or as fellow members of a community. The tremendous collective power with which he allies himself gives him neither relationship nor freedom from fear but makes his life a sterile alternation between universal war and armed peace. The modern crisis is thus a crisis both of the individual and of society at large. — Maurice Freidman (1976, p. 245)

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

node relations

Back to the iDC list — consistently marvel how the topics on the list draw me out, especially when I am so overwhelmed with the local in-ma-face reality. The following in response to Josh Levy’s comment (which one in a series of comments under the subject — undermining open source: iTunesU):

> i think Apple has been let off the hook for a long time especially by cultural
> activists. Bill Gates and Microsoft have been an easy bugbear, but Apple are
> monopolists too and have been since they first started making an OS that works
> only with their own hardware.

sotto voce: every social institution seeks to guide (a polite term) the relational expressions and impressions of participating nodes (humans) in discrete reductive pathways which may or may not suit each individual node: adopt or become a non-participating node in that social structure.

Acquiesce to that dominating worldview and participate.

Resist (or simply turn ones back on that whole system) and create new pathways: be prepared for those who are heavily invested in the dominating social institutions to ‘not get it.’ Only those who have the ‘bandwidth’ to leave personal input channels open for other than the dominant pathways will be able to receive alternate expressions and impressions.

Every social structure of any scale greater than two nodes will be reductive because of the need to correlate three or more distinct view-points (points-of-view) — that requires a system of observational/experiential interpolation (protocols) to identify fundamental likenesses between the points-of-view. This correlation process — the development of a mediative ”technology’ to carry (shared) impressions and expressions between nodes — is a fundamental (and necessary) process of social development. It leads to the exemplary structures as are mentioned above. The two examples differ only in scale, though the organizing principles and goals of each are similar (the same!). That is to induce the greatest number of nodes to acquiesce to their protocol-of-relation.

The greater the personal acquiescence, the greater the general feeling of alienation.

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

development rant

The local controversy around widening Williamson Valley Road continues. It is a microcosm of the more general issue of development in the southwest of the US. Arizona has one of, if not the fastest growth rate of any state and the Prescott – Prescott Valley – Chino Valley “Tri-city” area is near the fastest in the state. When the folks moved here and built their retirement home (purely my father’s impetus — the clear-sky suitability for his astronomy), theirs was the second or third home on the street, and the view — a 200-degree panorama that reached 100 miles to the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff — was long and relatively free of any spurious Lighting at night. Williamson Valley was still populated by several large ranch spreads, and the road was narrow and twisting as it approached Iron Springs Road and the fringe of northern Prescott proper. more “development rant”

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

start: time:money:energy

lines of the hand, with the skin thinning, turning to trapezoidal textures that shimmer differently than they used to do. cool tonight, here at altitude, in the dry west, when the sun goes, warmth goes as well. remembering the nights in the desert, so many times. no matter the heat of the day, the night gives the heat back to the darkness of the sky. only in deep summer, is there more heat delivered than can be reflected away, so that only at the null hour, a time before dawn, does the air loosen itself of the burden of heat. but as soon as fall comes, with a couple days of cloud cover, the night air is an empty chill. more “start: time:money:energy”

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

techne rhetorike

Starting off the month with reading more from and about David Bohm, the quantum physicist and researcher into the nature of human relation (in the form of his defined term, dialogue). He maintained a suspicion about language, that it formed a mechanism which reified that-which-was-being-talked-about as it was (being) manifest in language. The idea that thought tends to impress a static order on the world outside. (And meanwhile, accepting the premise that all reality is a dynamic procession, thought included.) However, there is an inexorable process — as thought creates knowledge from reality (experience) — that seeks to lock in a fragmentary (incomplete) view excised from reality. This is one general characteristic of linguistic representation of dynamic reality. In a similar vein, Walter Ong (2002) maintained that the transition from aural to written to printed language defined deep shifts in the relation of the Self to the Other and to reality. He compiled a set of characteristics of expressed/expressive thought (=spoken word) that supports the necessary salience of aurally transmitted information (as there were no other ways to catch / statify information in aural cultures):

expression is additive rather than subordinate;
it is aggregate rather than analytic;
it tends to be redundant or “copious;”
the process tends to be conservative;
out of necessity, thought is conceptualized and then expressed with relatively close references to lived reality;
expression is agonistically toned;
it is empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced;
it is homeostatic;
it is situational rather than abstract

The key to most of these characteristics is that they directly relate to embodied presence versus the absence (and abstractedness!) of a (printed) text. So that here, in this blog, there is a long sequence of absences, separations — which together accumulate as disembodied virtuality. Ong elsewhere hints about the cumulative effect of this movement from embodied connection with language to the abstractions of mediation introduced by printed texts. And on into the further mediation in telephony (all ‘tele’ or attenuated/virtual realities I would suggest). Socialization is that process of abstraction and reification of what were once active and dynamic processes happening at a granular level of human-to-human. The process moving from dialogue to incontrovertible law (protocol) is a mapping of the ‘advance’ of a social system. Yet, social order is dependent on that dynamic of that granular ground state of the system — at least if a society wishes to retain a vital edge on evolutionary survival. It is precisely this reification process that spells the doom of a social system — though often not before that system has attained a temporary advantage over other systems (by being more efficient in a materialist way), and caused great suffering and alienation.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Ramson Lomatewama

After a short visit to the Courthouse Square Bluegrass Festival, we wander over to the Smoki Museum to hear a presentation by Ramson Lomatewama, a traditionalist Hopi artist and poet from the Eagle Clan. He referenced Martin Buber’s I and Thou philosophy which pleasantly surprised me, commenting that the Hopi language did not allow for the it of English, making all relation an I/Thou state. With an audience of mostly greyheads, white retirees, he commented on several misconceptions about the Hopi, including a strong critique of Water’s Book of the Hopi, and a short history of Navajo encroachment. He works in a variety of traditional and non-traditional media including stained glass, glass-blowing, cottonwood-root Katsina tithu carving, intaglio printing, and poetry, the following called:

After the Rains

Sandstone cliffs
reflect the red
of the setting sun.

My hoe is caked
with evidence
of my labor.

I see clouds
going to the east.
Dark clouds.

I look to the sky.
There!
A rainbow
is arched above me.

As I walk down
the dusty road
I look up.

Again!
The rainbow
dressed in beauty
walks with me.

There is no need
for us to speak.

Silence
will speak
for us.

It’s a bit of a question, the whole concept of the Smoki Museum — founded in the 1930’s by a passel of white business (fraudster-)men who wanted to dress up like Indians and do fake ‘traditional’ dances: there is a strong streak of paternal exoticism in the premise (even the name Smoki is made-up). God what fuck-wits. Maybe it’s because what the bahannas (whites) have created for themselves isn’t so great, and that the ways of the indian are somehow more romantically sustainable. Add a dose of good old fashioned guilt at the unacknowledged centuries of genocide and lies, and an obsession with Southwest Art, and there you have it. Faugh.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

western art

you might think that western art might include all the great traditions of … but it turns out that the western art fair this weekend on Courthouse Square in the old downtown of Prescott consists of bronze cowboys, landscapes with mesas and rivers with teepees and warriors, horses, wildlife in either whimsical or mysterious homogenic poses, chubby barefoot Indian babies, bronze Indian maidens, buffaloes in marble, and all the artists with few exceptions are very white and waspish. the distinctions from booth to booth come almost purely in technique – pastels on white paper, oils, pastels on black paper (in the tradition of Elvis on black velvet being sold in abandoned gas station parking lots somewhere), bronze casting, pencil, charcoal, a few acrylic works, very few traditional prints (litho, monotype, engraving, or mezzotint). depressing lack of originality. some excellent technical works, a few oddities, but otherwise a rather crass and predictable presentation of uninspired cultcha. hmmmm.

posted
  • place: en route Prague, Czech Republic - Rösrath, Germany

back in the West

Marcus gives me a paper about Bernard Noël.

What is it to be face to face?

From the depths of the window comes
the self that is not other

Through the eyes he casts
a cry of smoke

Then the knowing is
the torn off fingernail

Head and knife are cold
in the thought

and this excerpt from the powerful essay “The Delicate Oppression”:

Therefore, behind the appearance of a free and universal culture, is the attempt to seize entirely the cultural field and the mental space of cultural subjects, transforming them into simple consumers. The mechanism of this transformation is so simple in principle and practiced so regularly, that it becomes imperceptible as soon as it goes into action. It can be summarized in the following way: every cultural action always involves a certain effort of comprehension, learning and of listening, its movement leads to an exchange of pleasure. Cultural consumption, on the contrary, only requires a bit of passivity. A show serves as mental activity, an activity which is only agitation and ends by discouraging reflection, to the advantage of the voracious appetite of ones own nonsense. It is sufficient to sit in front of a television and watch, in a totally natural way, and what you are watching will drag you into its movement and become your thought.

this would apply to any form of re-produced, re-presented cultural manifestation, and in-authentic constellations of be-ing. so, again, a reaffirmation of the power of authentic be-ing in the world. not a retreat or return to some ‘primitive’ state of living, no Luddite protestation by refusal or opposition, but simply an awareness of the extreme psychic danger inherent in the collectivization of human expression.

noting the yet significant differences between Czech Republic and Germany. like the cost of rail travel. it will cost me more to get from Dortmund to Rösrath today than to fly from Prague. and if I was doing the same trip in the East, it would cost about a tenth of what it costs here in the West. no wonder people are making counter-migrations to the East. though there seemed to be fewer Amurikans evident in Prague these days, there were plenty from other places. not much to say. en route on an ICE train right now. deciding the connections to make. surely a ‘nicer’ system here, but not to a degree to justify the cost. the long-distance rail runs must be getting killed by the short-hop discount airlines. what does competition do to a previously nationalized system? it forces privatization. Frieder was mentioning that there are now private regional rail lines (actually they share the same rails), that was a surprise. it would be a pity if they move in the direction of the British Rail system which is a real mess. ach. whatever. doddering words here. full of nothing. noticing that International equity market funds are pegging a good upward stride this last month.

posted
  • place: Beroun, Czech Republic

coal drift

second day of the workshop. hard to read the situation. everyone is in an unfamiliar environment. the ambiance in the place is calm. but hard to decode. we are strangers. landing from one planet to another. it is unusual for me to be sharing the direction of the workshop, or at least trying to. there is an internal process of deference, but that clearly is not collaboration, I need to retune myself. it is hard for me to find a balance because of this. on my part. waiting for the students to make the 0900 morning start request to appear after losing most of the first day to stragglers who arrived late into the evening. there is a lack of awareness of the meta-structural social dynamics that would facilitate a greater intensity. but this is the normal condition. intuitive actualization is possible, but going through the gymnastics of cognitive understanding first seems the only way to bring back the operational authenticity of that intuition. either that or just get drunk with them all night, see who is the last standing.

I think what we need is critical consciousness. Critical consciousness towards the entire construct of technology. Technology is not neutral, it’s not God-given, it doesn’t come from the burning bush, it doesn’t emerge from the world of antimatter. It’s something that human society makes. So all of human society is inscribed in the machine in this sense – and then the machine becomes a force to reinscribe something on society. And you can have the negative aspect of this, and you can be truly creative – why not. I’m absolutely not denying anyone’s creativity. All I’m asking for, for myself, is critical consciousness about technology. — Hakim Bey

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Caesar

What is it about the insularity of the US population that makes it so hard to see relations and connections between actions and results? Take for example, the issue of Chinese economic advancement. Almost every object that one can buy in the cheap distribution points like WalMart, CostCo, K-Mart, and pretty much all other consumer institutions in the suburban consumer US is manufactured in China. The Amurikan consumer is able to consume at such a rate primarily by the subsidization of the Chinese worker by the Chinese government. Not through some kind of controllable mechanism related to the government in power: the relative hegemonic position guarantees a certain stability of markets, but it does not control the procession of wealth and movement of global capital.

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind … And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. — William Shakespeare

posted
  • place: Ukiah, California

what is this?

landscapes: social, cultural milieu shift in range of eye and ear. Amurika, what it is, what it should be, what it imagines of itself, how it synthesizes its face, how it acts, how it predicts, within the full depth of its deepening un-sustainability. to surface through the fragile impossibility of material wealth. it’s confusing. no critique, rational or irrational, will have any effect. teevee shows of crying parents and wives, reading last letters of soldiers gone in Iraq. what is this for? why this mediation of grief. what is this? presenting the lined faces, the tears, the quavering voices, and the simple expressions of life now gone, erased through some destined fate, whatever that is. sustainability is erased in the same way the youth is erased from the soldier’s face.

posted
  • place: Baldwin, Colorado

4th of July

a long day starting with a pancake breakfast. Mount Carbon looms over the cabin, 1000 meters vertical and about 3 km. away, a near-conical peak, at least viewed from the cabin. determining the right approach aside from a direct frontal attack was an exercise in reading topology and collaborative human map-reading, but we eventually got to the right starting point, on an old Denver South Park and Pacific railroad grade from mining times, herding the kids was relatively easy, but after a protracted obstacle-course through and around fallen trees on the forest floor of the main approach, a drainage couloir, combined with the mosquitoes, and word from returning hikers that we were just half-way with the steepest ascent ahead, we gave up and returned to the cabin. missing the peak is always a let-down for us strivers, but missing the view was the biggest disappointment for me — just to see the surrounding terrain, from that 360 point-of-view.

after dinner came the Gunnison fireworks, rumored to be quite elaborate. instead of attending the formal spectacle within the Western State College (small) stadium, we decided to just join the rabble situated in the empty lots, and other random locations in the surrounding neighborhood, staking out a stretch of grass near a playground. clearly there was a complex nationalistic happening in the stadium, given the pregnant pauses, cheers, and apparent choreography to the ground-level and aerial fireworks, but it was worth the wait for the big boomers that cut loose directly over us.

posted
  • place: Fort Myers, Florida

church

church and a Sunday dinner. eating far too rapidly, though, a family thing. recalling one Thanksgiving with about 20 people or so where from sit-down start of the meal to clearing the after-dinner coffee cups away took less that 40 minutes. not so much enjoyment of the food at the table, just stress about getting finished and eating enough to make it worth it. hmmm. but good food none-the-less. the church service includes a long-distance live phone patch to the minister’s son who was in France studying as a missionary soon to be going to Senegal. a surprise connection on Father’s Day facilitated by one of his assistants.

posted
  • place: Sanibel Island, Florida

Gulf conquistador

Sanibel Island, 20 kilometers of white shell sand beach, lined with mangrove, non-native tamarisk, and palm trees. early morning arrivals are best, before the few baked tourists who can’t afford to come here for a couple months to a palatial winter get-away estate. cheaper in summer. so they come, despite the high gas prices and the threat that the terror of life might happen to them. from the northern realms only recently liberated from the Midwestern chill. couple hours in the almost wave-less water, imagining that there might be a 3-footer lurking out there beyond immediate view, waiting to curl slowly up, 100 yards off-shore, breaking left and right, doing that special rolling break like at Huntington Beach. a curl to ride forever, all the way in. but this is the Gulf Coast, so, more like a warm bath-tub, with minimal slopping around, and nothing remotely ride-able. scoped out a free 25-yard pool halfway up the island. free, lanes open, pull-buoys, extra #45 sunblock, kickboards. open air swimming with the sun popping up between the legs on each kick-turn. direct overhead. burning a brilliant path.

Amurikans have a sense of complicity and guilt for anything that happens in the world.

commentary on the state of things. or energies and their propensities. birds around. black turkey vultures on the side of the road — feasting on some unfortunate beast’s recently intersected bodily incarnation with the pent-up energies of hydrocarbon-driven monsters. at least they were happy.

development seems to be a substitute term for the large-scale redirection of concentrated social energies to alter the natural landscape. scale is an interesting issue, however. it is such that at the most obvious human metric, that of feet and meters, humans concentrate most their efforts. but at other scales, their ‘dominion’ is much more transitory and their hold less intense.

somehow the miasma of corporate food chains and globalized society that is centered around consumption of a tedious modicum of cheaply manufactured material goods. food no different from plastic deck chairs, disposable particle-board furniture, and ‘art’ reproductions. in perpetuity. with the end-point not just extrapolated, but reached, over-reached, and saturated.

(fabulous that Coppertone is made of a tan-coloring agent, saves the trouble.)

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

chess

reading IEEE Spectrum, NSPE, Science, and all that stuff. The old Encyclopedia Britannica, playing chess with Loki using the old Japanese ivory chess set. Finally he beats me. twice. I made him work for it, but he came through with not too much complaining. and ends up beating me all the time thereafter. monsoon season maybe did start up today. actually got wet, but it evaporated within an hour. the respite from sun was welcome, clouds are okay, too, nights warmer for the insulating effect, but highs are lowering. mountain biking today, and swimming, that’s good. necessary. gotta do a longer ride tomorrow.

the “P” on the side of the mountain south of town has been changed from all white(wash) to stripes of red, white, and blue. this area of Arizona has many veterans who started migrating to the area following World War 1, seeking a dry climate for health reasons. the Veterans Administration established a hospital in Prescott on the site of Fort Whipple, an early outpost for US military control of the native American ‘situation’ in the region. the Yavapai Indian Reservation abuts the Fort, and extends in a rhombohedral shape that sticks into the middle of the east side of town. between that and the “World’s Oldest Rodeo,” it’s cowboys and indians here.

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

Mohammed

possibly en route soon. nature steps in. dumps a couple meters of snow. the easy transit turns into a logistical gamble… the trees along the creek crack and groan under the weight of the wet spring snow, many fall. traversing the parking lot, there is a sedan trying very unsuccessfully to park. I approach the car and ask if I can help — the guy, Mohammed, turns out to be from Egypt, hardly knew snow, this was clear. nice to make that transcultural mapping, given this fuckin’ war looming.

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

now under the Flatirons

This time of the year, under the shadow of the Flatirons. Dreaming of honeysuckle in my mouth. Wine and roses, Goshen, and awakening powers. Finding a Lady Slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum) in the deep wood. Delicate soil-changer. Growing. (Like all rising, growing things, waxing, increase).

Why is this? Is a pivotal point happening sometime soon, has one already transpired? Or was one missed in the noise of the daily movements? No way to tell, except that I do feel inspired by the place. Not the socio-cultural, but the raw presence of place. Why not?

posted
  • place: Oslo, Norway

stopover

meet Atle in the afternoon, walk through the Høstutstilling, have a beer in the cafe there, letting the conversation travel through the space of shared experience. and the town is full of football fans from the two teams fighting for the national championship. in this cafe I have met Janine, Hilde, Kristin, Kenneth, and now Atle. strange how it is still such a cultural attractor for the Norwegians. obviously a profound and central expression of the cultural life of a nation-state. later I wander into a game shop and watch as a Dane instructs a passel of your Norwegians in the finer points of the LOTR battle game.

posted
  • place: Joensuu, Finland

kyykkä

the carefully tended dirt field, sitting between the Joensuu Technical center where the University Media Department is located, and the new track-and-field center is the scene of changing activities. when I first arrived in September, there was kids football (soccer) matches happening in the afternoon and Saturday mornings. then, one Saturday, there appeared a large group of 30-to-50-something men playing what I would term a Finnish variety of lawn bowling. suited to the available materials, the game pieces consisted of 12 or 14 solid wooden cylinders about 14 cm high and 7cm in diameter, painted orange-red, and two perfectly cylindrical bats (unlike a US baseball bat), each with a smaller diameter end for grasping, and the rest about 8-10 cm in diameter, and maybe 80 cm long. the small pieces were set up, stacked two-high in a line, spaced about 20 cm apart, at one end of the playing field. each player then took turns flinging the wooden bat at the line from a distance of about 20 meters. the object, like bowling, was to knock down as many of the pins as possible. I gave Sanna a call to see if she knew what it was. she didn’t, but called me back later after researching it. turns out the game is called kyykkä. it’s an old Carelian sport that is not commonly played or even known anymore. anyway, that game appeared only once (check out https://www.kyykka.com/ for the full scenario, Finnish only, sorry) and now half the field has been taken over by the installation of two hockey rinks. waiting for the chill. there is an outdoor rink not far away with refrigeration pipes, that was fired up two weeks ago, and there are daily hockey workouts and figure-skating classes held in the middle of a pine forest, near the indoor swimming pool.

public works are apparently locally organized, possibly with some EU support, as this is literally a fringe region. there is the Technology Center, also EU funded, the location of the Media College‘s facility along with tens of small technology companies, the local University Biology Department, and state-of-the-art media (digital teevee and audio) production studios, Cadimef.

yet over all this, repeated in medium-to-large towns across Finland, there doesn’t seem to be much creative output. but maybe this is an outside view — the system internally cranks onwards.

posted
  • place: Joensuu, Finland

lapping

talking to myself, fighting for space in the swimming pool. the last month, between jumps away to other locations, been pushing the physical envelope. up to 3000 meters a day in the pool. 2500 seemed very nice, 100 lengths, 50 minutes, roughly a meter per second. then, why not go for an even hour of exertion. somehow this seems to have put me in an entirely new mind-state. can’t quite tell, but seems to have made more aggressive? hmmmm. aside from the constant psy-ops of dealing with the scissor-kicking grammas and kamikaze grampas in the fast lane. there actually IS no fast lane. the pool, when not hosting the ubiquitous swim-teams, is roped with 2-lane-wide segments, where supposedly one should be doing slow counter-clockwise circles, down on the right, back on the left. there is no idea of segregating each of the three double-lanes for different speeds of swimmers, so I just choose the one with the fewest swimmers, and start off by going up and back in the center of the double-lane. this is only problematic if there are already swimmers of widely varying speeds, causing the need for two people passing at the same time. that and people who just aren’t aware of anybody else in the pool. if there are only three or four other people slowly doing breast-stroke laps, I force the situation by taking up half of the right lane, and swim up and back. my speed is anywhere from 2x to 5x the speed of the others with the rare exception of a real swimmer, in which case I can match anybody but the fastest young men swim-teamers. either way, I have to stay very alert for new swimmers coming into the lane who assume that everybody is going slowly, counter-clockwise, and the kids cannon-balling off the sprint-blocks. usually a few dramatic kick-turns lets folks know that I just want to have a quiet workout. a few times there have been aggressive men who join the lane and play chicken, sometimes I have actually swam under them head-on. mentally I rationalize the whole stance that the management COULD allocate lanes by speed. but I know this is an impossible concept for the leveled and overly-socialized culture to even consider the segmentation by physical ability. Nordic plain-ness. so, I just act like a foreigner. why not, I am one.

wandering between school and the flat that is home. like so many of the other flats I have stayed in during the last years. cable teevee. which is a magnet. would much rather be listening to public raydeeoh, but I never did make a habit of carrying my Sony shortwave after starting out on this long road 6.5 years ago. rather find my network connection and tune into KCRW or something decent in the way of music. like the special ARS01 version of Ambient City radio — a comprehensive history of ambient music featuring my old favs like The Hafler Trio and Kraftwerk. no DJ, just CD after CD. for a month or so. that’s cool.

posted
  • place: Joensuu, Finland

it happens

it has begun. working after school. 1700 or so. Sanna sends me an SMS if you are not watching teevee, you should be. a bit strange message. I surf to BBC, but can’t raise the site. keep working and a bit later try CNN, can’t raise that one either. hmmmmm. odd. I leisurely pack up and make the 15 minute walk home and flip on BBC cable when I get to the flat. the rush of images, a bit incomprehensible at first, completely incomprehensible, mediated. half a world away. a place where I just was a few short weeks before. impossibly brilliantly horrible act.

posted
  • place: Joensuu, Finland

heart problems

pieces of a puzzle or perhaps an example of seeing what one wants to see: I have still only seen two instances of a woman driving a car with a man sitting in the passenger’s seat. and one of those was when the woman was driving up to pick a man up. then Harri mentions he is going to a funeral tomorrow, of a 46-year-old man who had a heart attack. he said this area of Finland specifically has a very high incidence of heart problems among men. hmmmmm. then later, I meet an elderly fellow in the sauna who tells me, among other things, he has had a triple bypass and a stroke, explaining why his English isn’t so good, the blood to that part of his brain dealing with language was interrupted — he had to re-learn Finnish as well. piecing together bits of a strange puzzle in this place that was on the front line of the Winter War.

unsatisfying swim (a workout in a public pool is a metaphor for life always: I like a lane to myself or with someone who is sensitive that they are sharing a lane!). I have opinions, I have points-of-view.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

PNEK

hang down your head Tom Dooley! Kingston Trio. vintage. Prescott is a desert for water and radio — public or otherwise.

and pondering this PNEK project in Norway, to see what it can be. will there be culture producers swarming and so tough, well. or will it be a complicated cross-cultural event (where I have been, in the minority for the last 12 years). gees. and trying to juggle Colorado into this equation. for the spring. a carapace to put on. but it could also be a lot of fun. working with a crew of hypersensitive networkers. why not!

dialogue and the re-presentation of being. contemplating my practice. how rooted it is in various levels of presence.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

liquid skies

Friday nite. after net.culture class, jam down a beer at Meteori. but detached as hell.

forced marches, liquid skies. tatters of language still sticking to carrion corpses. use what is available. upload, download. split, divide, conquer. don’t worry about spelling, look, or feel, except when feel is skin-to-skin, and when that happens, the only worry is about why. passing passing passing. no gossip here, all the “art” meetings I have experienced, all the academic meetings, confluences, and the institutional structures applied. well, what is it — institutions are codifications of the human will to survive. that is, survival comes best to those who can spare energy to feed into collective social structures. apparently a collective can be more efficient with energy than an individual. or perhaps it is just that we are of that species-type. social animals. is it only in the space of dynamic flows can there be diversity? or, wait, that wasn’t it, walking home from KIASMA, art consumption (but free with the art card), thinking about institutions and structures, and what to say in response to criticism.

posted
  • place: Riga, Latvia

Xavier’s image

hanging at the bus station for a bit, pick up the return ticket to Tallinn for Friday, then going on to the Occupation Museum this afternoon. end up spending several hours there, trying to understand the history of the Nazi and Soviet presence. borders shuffling around, people treated like so many animals. herded around from place to place. with an absolute minimum of care for their survival. pogrom, gulag, concentration camp, resettlement, and the barbarity of the regimes. a little bitterness towards the West, also, with the understanding that the three Baltic Republics weren’t big or important enough for the West to confront the Soviets over. now the issue is how the large Russian minority is to be dealt with. there is a language law coming on the books which declares Latvian as the national language, but I think this will come into something of a conflict with EU directives on minority rights within (potential) member states. the Welsh people, the Sami, and other groups have benefited from the EU mandate to support minority cultures already, so the precedence is not in favor of the Latvians who, by only 4 percentage points, are a majority in their own land. presumably, this will be a major issue, and treated specially within the EU framework. I am staying with friends of Rasa and Raitis, Karl and Kristin, in their roommate, Xavier’s, room. he just left for an extended visit to Mexico, his homeland, Vera Cruz. Karl is Swedish, Kristin is Latvian. on the wall next to the bed is a detailed map of Latvia which I can study abstractly while lying in bed, and hanging over it, obscuring half of it at least, is a big black sombrero with white and silver piping. opposite on the other wall is a big black and white silver print of a woman wearing a swimsuit standing on the sea shore, on a rocky beach, child next to her on hands and feet looking at the ground. the woman is facing the sea. about 10 meters offshore from her, lopsided and partially submerged, is a war bunker with gaping windows and a broken staircase leading down into the water. a man is looking out of the second floor window casing. the woman has her hands on her hips, something of a bouffant hair style from the 50’s and, from a distance, the tone of the swimsuit top makes her look topless. there is no horizon. she is day-dreaming, and that day-dream is my reality. every sensual impression that I have ever experienced she created in the fleeting fraction of a second when that image was made. even when I say to myself (preparing fragments for my public lecture on Thursday): I am a be-ing of energy. it is only because she dreamed it, the energy of her dream has become me. I am that energy. passing through a series of scenarios as disjointed and mute as some dreams can be. giving nothing, taking only the form of the present vessel of place, for the moments of occupation, then immediate, complete dissolution, moving on to the next phase condition. altered state, alter ego. much beyond all that, to the next condition of be-ing. energy-in-motion IS creativity. but how to peg that to the social and cultural conditions of the time. that gap, I cannot bridge with my own abilities at language and the primarily visual tools available to me. which begs the question, what tools would be optimal, what would allow me that full expression of embodied energy? would massive capital of digital power do it? would big photographic prints do it (I have always thought so, thinking that better this or that physical solution would be sufficient to put the whole effort over the edge into electric saturation). joke. making images in silver seemed to be a way of going, but that process, one which I was immersed in for 20 years seems difficult to access lately. it is hidden within the inner topology that has evolved in the last years. hibernating, forgotten. senseless?

posted
  • place: Bergen, Norway

street talk

It’s not just on the sidewalks, but even on the streets, too. Because of special local environmental conditions, a particular phenomena that I have come to label chicorus nordicus. Local variations are especially intense here in Bergen. Because of the tempering action of the marine climate, there are not such extreme cold temperatures in the center of town. Two hundred meters up the sides of the fjord, there are heavy snow accumulations, but in the center, streets and sidewalks stay relatively clear, most of the time as a slushy mess. The local city street-keepers have made the decision to use salt as the primary street clearing device: it is effective and with the volume of rain that falls here, probably does not cause any undue environmental damage. Most towns in these northern climes — those to the north and east of Bergen, away from the balmy marine influence have totally different climates that require the use of crushed rock of one type or another to keep people and automobiles moving safely on icy and snowy ways. Abrasion from studded tires on the street reduces the surface to a double-tracked wagon-way by the time springtime comes and the law that dictates the end of the studded-tire season gives the street-keepers six months of respite to repair the seasonal damage. Here in Bergen, though, things are different. Without the wholesale use of abrasives on the sidewalks, another thrilling visceral and visual manifestation presents itself. Wandering around, even the most casual visitor will notice the ubiquitous distribution of one-to-three centimeter diameter circles in a variety of pale or pastel greens, vanilla, and off-white colors pressed into the sidewalk surface. The statistical distribution has nothing to do with the material matrix — cobble stone, asphalt, stone slab, concrete. And there are occasional concentrations to such a degree that every five centimeters there is one of these expectorated exclamation points. Chewing gum. Too cool and wet for it to stick to the sole, and never too warm in the summer to regain its tack. It stays and stays. No wonder that old wives tale — that if you swallow too many pieces over a time, they will get stuck in the appendix and you’ll end up in the hospital, doubled over and ripe for surgery. Hey, it’s tougher than asphalt!

posted
  • place: Tornio, Finland

Finnish Hallows

All Hallows Eve, as is told in the Midlands, and the Dia de los Muertos in the Sierra Madres. but here, here in Finnish Lapland, just nigh on the Arctic Circle, on the cafeteria tables are plastic Happy Halloween decorations, sheets cut like ghost costumes, and black-and-orange streamers hanging from the ceiling. this IS NOT a Finnish holiday, but it spreads, like Mother’s Day, on the wings of commerce. looking for money in the dead in the last days of fall, before winter comes. how the market overtakes all — it even tries to cheat death and make a profit on it. digitizing videos to send out on the internet. broadcast. streaming dreams.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

bed down

Sunday morning. affectation — (writing is an). foggy until after noon, then the sun comes out. maybe time to get out of bed. but it is warm and shared. Pancho Sanchez does the timbales from that box in the corner. portable stage, opera hall. head to Kiasma to catch Phil Hoffmann’s series of new films from the Toronto scene. good deal. cultcha. wonder if Tapio will be there? sneaking suspicion that some people look on my engagement in ART as a dance of ignorance — ignorance of the philosophical, ethical, and critical issues that are the maelstrom of contemporary cultcha. who cares? I decide to posit a position, make a stance, do the song and dance, and bed down for success. who cares? maybe just bed down and focus on that level of collaborative dialogue. the dialogue of bodies.

posted
  • place: Tornio, Finland

on a walk

In a painted corner, words fail me, in the class — this space that I have voluntarily entered with these other humans, who also entered voluntarily also — adjusting our collective visions and expectations so that they are in an eternal alignment, or internal alignment, or infernal inferno. In that painted corner the suggestions range from rescue to BREAK THROUGH THE WALL behind the back, to a basic “Let’s get outta here!” And so we do. A stroll through town to the bus station to get ice cream soaking up the brilliant sunshine that is here now. Fragment: approaching the bus station, an old man sits on a bench in the sun. At the corner of his mouth, as we approach, I see a sparkling diamond (this is a sign, but I do not know it, it penetrates my head like the summer sun Light on North Atlantic water. more “on a walk”

posted
  • place: Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland

Manifestations of Networking

self-portrait at Selatangar on the Summer Solstice, Árnessýsla, Iceland, June 1995
Published in Valokuva: Contemporary Imagery Review/Journal of Finnish Photography, vol. 46 number 5, Helsinki, Finland, October 1996

As a basic tenet of existence, I intentionally seek to inhabit all spaces that I encounter as personal spaces of genuine dialogue and interaction — humane intervention based in a mutual recognition and engagement of the Other.

I have always approached technology from a passively critical point-of-view. As the son of a technology analyst and forecaster, technology was introduced into my life from the very beginning of awareness. Machines were not only a means of control and extension of control but also of remote sensing — an extension of the sensual capabilities of the organic body. more “Manifestations of Networking”

posted
  • place: Stockholm, Sweden

spectacle/multiples

Today, a long day. I planned to meet Björn by the aquarium in front of the ticket bureau of the Stockholm Central rail station at 12:15. I got into town rather early and decided to catch some of the scheduled festivities around the Kings birthday, at the palace in the Gamla Stan (Old Town). So I rushed down and was able to make a rather good audio recording of the 21-gun salute and the fighter-jet flyover, as well as the Royal Army Band playing some marches at noon. I then ran back to the Central Station and met Björn a few minutes late. Our first stop was Galerie Nordenhake, one of the more prominent galleries in Stockholm where we met Bettina Pehrsson and the gallery owner, Claes Nordenhake. We then stopped at another gallery, trE, after checking out the situation with the 400-meter-long smorgasbord on Kungsgatan — which wasn’t to begin until 15:00, exactly the same time as the King was scheduled to make another appearance at the palace. We opted to head for the palace after I bolted down a huge salad bar lunch at a tacky French restaurant while Björn had coffee. (I did eat too much today!) Well, not much to be said for the continued spectacle for the King’s birthday. He made another appearance, first on the balcony of the palace, then on the veranda with his wife and kids. One wonders about the aristocracies/monarchies of Europe, their function (if indeed they still have one other than something of a clowning sedative for the over-stimulated masses as they approach the brink of the Millineum). Enough said. I did get a few more audio captures

that are sure to come in useful in later days of digital production… Bettina did tell me exactly where the Art Node offices are on Skeppsholmen, so after saying goodbye to Björn, I walked over just to see where they are for future reference (of course, nobody was around…). I then headed back to the ‘burbs. I got back to the house around 18:00 and helped get a barbecue started — the special day of celebration features big bonfires all around the country in the evening, fireworks, and family activities. We took the Winnebago over to the nearest bonfire where we met Cristel (and I did a portrait of her and four of her friends). We had coffee and cookies in the Winnebago. The USA vs Sweden hockey match was won by the US, and Canada beat Finland, so Scandinavia is out of the competition, much to Martin’s dismay. Strange to be mixing spectacles like this, first witnessing (rather than watching) the King’s party (well, part of it, at least, including a 21-gun salute, two big warships moored in front of the palace, multi-jet fly-over, hipp-hipp-hoorah three times, yellow flowers decking the palace railings, a men’s choir, a women’s choir, and a children’s choir, and loyal subjects singing to the 50-year-old benign monarch), and then seeing the hockey match, then seeing footage of the King and Queen in a receiving line shaking hands and kissing people ad infinitum, and then going to the bonfire, and then back to the teevee watching first a bad English police series (extremely violent and graphic), then a bad American police series. Pretty numbing, the combination of activities. The today of one of the most “civilized” countries of the world …

On a totally different note (production of spectacle rather than consumption. I just had work (the book of 1000 Buddhas, as a video installation) accepted for a show in Uppsala at Ekeby Qvarn. I called Luciano Escanillo, the organizer, just to check in and see if I should go to Uppsala, he thought it would be a good idea, but do I have the time? Maybe Saturday, but I will be going to Pori via Tampere and Turku on the Silja Line boat early on Sunday morning to see Kaisu Koivisto, so, I don’t think I’ll have time… Tomorrow the Swedish Stock Exchange will allow trading via the Web. Wonder how that will go? Seems to be a bit risky.