Guido Van der Werve

Is speaking Thursday at the Hirshhorn in DC


Video still from Nummer Acht (2007)


http://www.roofvogel.org/

Some sketches for a piece I'm working on for accumulation and metaphor. The alphabet as a specimen, in three environments.

quickly

consensus after existential bubble bath

Botched Taxidermy

Zoo

have a nice day

Rock My Religion

amazing.

The video Rock My Religion (1984) explores rock music as an art form and relates it to the development of the Shaker religion in America. The low quality image of the video is said to enhance the ideas within it. The video relates Rock and Roll to contemporary culture and the Shaker religion. It finds a way to draw a parallel between a Shaker family and the off balance family of rock. He observes the changes in beliefs and superstitions in the Shaker religion since the 1700’s.

Good Morning

I didn't have time to photograph the huevos rancheros.

Sketches for a film.

mountain from a mole hill

Some notes on B. Whorf's idea of creating a new grammer, based on meaning of words as opposed to an existing structure. I am interested in the way his background in Relative Anthropology shaped his view of linguistics.

mirror maps

A society's maps allow for an interesting semiotic analysis

Mercator projection was developed in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator as a navigation tool. Like the Peters map, the grid is rectangular and lines of latitude and longitude are all parallel. The Mercator map was designed as an aid to navigators since straight lines on the Mercator projection are loxodromes or rhumb lines -- representing lines of constant compass bearing -- perfect for "true" direction. If a navigator wishes to sail from Spain to the West Indies, all they have to do is draw a line between the two points and the navigator knows which compass direction to continually sail to reach their destination.

The Mercator map has always been a poor projection for a world map yet due to its rectangular grid and shape, geographically illiterate publishers found it useful for wall maps, atlas maps, and maps in books and newspapers published by non-geographers. It became the standard map projection in the mental map of most westerners. The argument against the Mercator projection by the pro-Peters folks usually discusses its "advantage for colonial powers" by making Europe look a lot larger than it actually is on the globe.

German historian and journalist Arno Peters (his Ph.D. dissertation focused on political propaganda) called a press conference in 1973 to announce his "new" map projection that treated each country fairly by representing area accurately. The Peters projection map utilized a rectangular coordinate system that showed parallel lines of latitude and longitude. Skilled at marketing, Arno claimed that his map more fairly displayed third world countries than the "popular" Mercator projection map, which distorts and dramatically enlarges the size of Eurasian and North American countries. The media had a field day with this new map that supposedly made things right for the oppressed people of the world.

Maps are bias, as long as we know this it's OK.

Strange Loop

Constitution Day

Last evening I attended a discussion:
Angela Davis-http://histcon.ucsc.edu/faculty/davis.html, activist/organizer associated with the NAACP, SNCC and The Black Panther Party, now an instructor at the University of California in San Diego.
Helen Molesworth- Head of the department of modern and contemporary art at the Harvard Art Museum, and formers curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Amy Goodman-An investigative journalist and host/executive producer of Democracy Now!
Mediated by Sheilah Kast- Host of Maryland Morning, former Washington ABC news correspondent.

the subject matter included Women's Liberation/Racial Equality/questioning existing power structures/health care reform. The structure of the talk, dictated by the architectural/institutional environment as well the passive, unprepared promptings and input from the mediator Sheilah Kast was, in my opinion, weak. This is not to say I didn't glean much from the experience. It was interesting to see how brilliant individuals can be simplified by the easily digestible rhetoric of an overly embellished narrative format (thanks Amy Goodman) turning them into idols or iconic figures that go unengaged by a paralyzed, self-congratulatory audience.

There were moments of realness: Angela Davis mentioned the importance of the ability to "Separately analyze entities that have been considered inseparable by the structure that defines them as such, and to find commonalities in entities that are separated, to study why this is and question the basis of these classifications"

This topic was amazing, and terrifyingly open, this sort of talk doesn't hold up well in the Performer/Audience format that this particular talk took place in, so it was quickly glazed over with the usual rhetoric of criticizing the Obama Administration, health care reform ect... there were plenty of loaded words the incited standing ovations and raised fists, but it felt like no one was listening.

Helen Molesworth was concise and extremely well spoken, guiding the other speakers into realms that were more conducive to relating to the students. She mentioned that young people are working for predecessors, not their ancestors.
Sadly the question/answer period (which consisted of older audience members rambling about how they heard about the "Women's Lib" movement) was cut short by MICA Events Coordinator Firmin DeBrabander announcing that there would be "Books For SALE upstairs!" instructing everyone to leave already. I was disappointed that the student voice was completely stifled by the format of the talk. I wanted to talk about my insecurities with being a feminist at an art school, how to include this discourse and knowledge into a studio practice, is it irresponsible to neglect this aspect of myself? Clearly I would not expect any of the members of the panel to answer these questions, but I think hearing these topics voiced would have been beneficial for the student body.

I assume that it is relatively clear that I may be losing my mind and/or still trying to digest all of this. I will post an audio file or video of the talk as soon as I can get a hold of one, accompanied with more analysis. It is the structure of the discussion responding, relating, and perhaps mirroring the very structures it set about to shed light on that I am interested in, and would like to further explore this.

Opening Tonight

An old friend from Traverse City by way of DC came to visit this weekend, and tested the facade of the Contemporary Museum.

FAX invites a multigenerational group of artists, as well as architects, designers, scientists and filmmakers, to conceive of the fax machine as a tool for thinking and drawing.
FAX is a traveling exhibition co-organized by The Drawing Center, New York, and iCI (Independent Curators International), New York, and circulated by iCI.

What Words Want

In relation to yesterday's post:

Gregory_Whitehead-What_Words_Want_1984.mp3

Found at: http://www.filestube.com

Gregory Whitehead's website

Thanks Joan

"Language is the first and last structure of madness."
-M. Foucault

Extensions/Shrinkage

When people accustomed to the signs and symbols in Western culture look at these two lines, they are typically tricked by this optical illusion, assuming the line AB is longer than CD.

To explain further, forms (in language, architecture, mathematics, ect) are recognized as legitimate meaning bearing signs and symbols when they fit structurally into respective codes, in this case in opposition to each other. A great deal of Western culture's structure is based on this comparative/oppositional practice of understanding.

"An infinitude of codes based on such oppositions undergrids (the idea of a grid itself is a good example) human cultures and knowledge systems, guiding how people tell stories and how they develop theories of the universe."
- Marcel Danesi

How many pieces does it take to make a whole?

Every person is trying to create an amalgamation of experiences sifted through themselves to build/add to a language. So in relation to myself: I am trying to create within a structure (pick one) and add to a network of ideas, while trying to add to the existing structure-attempting to become fluent in a multitude of languages while creating and translating to express in the clearest way possible.

"Language is to us (humans), as a shell is to a mollusk."
-Francis Ponge

Celebration, Florida

While talking about B.F. Skinner's parenting approach (the Skinner Box) of engineering personality (sheltering his daughter's exposure to experiences outside his mandated environment) I was thinking, where has this tactic been used on a larger scale? My first responses were prison and mental institutions. Someone mentioned the Walt Disney World's intentional community called Celebration:

"A road called World Drive connects Celebration directly to the WDW parks and resorts; the north end of World Drive begins near the Magic Kingdom and its south end connects to Celebration Boulevard, allowing Celebration residents and guests to drive to Disney property without having to use any busy thoroughfares."

Life by Disney

Google Maps view

Can't Stop Pax Nicholas

While in Hampden yesterday I spent about an hour in True Vine Record shop. http://www.thetruevinerecordshop.com/
I originally went in to find some South African Soweto LP, but found (with the help of Owner, Jason Willett) an amazing record by Pax Nicholas, a West African musician and a compilation of rare Australian post-punk from 1978-1982 featuring Primitive Calculators, Xero, The Moodists and Ash Wednesday.

Pax Nicholas: http://www.daptonerecords.com/pax_nicholas.html
Can't Stop It: http://www.corduroy.com.au/chapter/can'tstopit.html

first/last

Something I made on the first and last day of intro to wood

Mysticism

Ideas or "work" trying to pen in something vast and overarching.
Lots of stress, but hey, let's give it a try.

Late Tomatoes

A little recap of this summer's harvest at Duncan Street Community garden.

Names

for something that doesn't exist

yet