+ all of the above

Emily Howell is a program written by David Cope to create original, modern music. Hit play below to listen to a couple of examples, or click here to read the article.

An adult fairy tale by Josh Tierney with four illustrations by Sarah Ferrick

‘Who’s this girl, Ace?’ she asked as she danced towards him. She was barefoot and dug her toes into the earth wherever she stood, sending up worms and clumps of dirt.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen her before.’

She was now standing beside him with her arms wrapped around his body and he knew that she was squeezing as hard as she could even though he could not feel it. ‘She looks like she’s sleeping,’ she said, her innocent blue eyes drinking in every detail of the mysterious girl in front of them.

‘No,’ the man said, shaking his head. ‘She’s had her heart stolen. Look, I’ll show you.’

He then took out a pair of scissors and cut a section of the girl’s dress. He pulled down the flap to reveal a heart-shaped hole near her left breast.

The cavity was completely empty; inside was darkness blacker than even the deepest depths of the forest.

‘Golly, Ace, who would do such an awful thing?’ the girl asked, her eyes wide with fright. He pulled the flap back up.

Click to read on.

videos.antville.org have posted the top user voted 101 music videos of the decade. Now before I start to argue or get angry, I’ll just stop and agree that this is certainly a great collection of music videos.

“There’s a tension that comes from not directing a person, that tension makes for good pictures.”

- Todd Hido (on portraiture)

Americansuburb X has an excellent interview with Todd Hido.

American Suburb X has a great interview with Lewis Baltz

Q. Nowadays most photographers seem to regard photography as the best way of recording a ‘real present’ – of course, this is part of the history of the photography. Do you think we need photographs to give us real information about our present today?

A. No, I don’t think we need that at all, any more; we already know, to the point of ennui, what the world looks like in photographs. Other than in very specialized circumstances, photography has been left behind as a descriptive medium. Of course this loss of utility renders it more available to an aesthetic reading. Since the beginning photography has insisted on its place among the fine arts, now it has arrived, though in ways and for reasons unsuspected by most of its partisans.

In becoming inutile – no longer content-driven – photography became self-reflexive, much as painting did from the time of Manet. Photographs no longer provoke a meditation upon external phenomena, but on the conditions of their own existence. Photography became Modernist at precisely the moment when Modernism faltered, and became commodified at the moment when the intellectual prestige of the commodity is at its lowest ebb. Poor photography. On the other hand, given the recent applications of technology photographs are now quite acceptable objects for the market.

Tom Waits: The whole town is kind of like a folk song. It’s like public domain. You do have a hand in the building of it. It didn’t get built by one guy. This is what I envisioned, we all work together. Even in your house, the things you do to your house, well, someone will be living in it, and its what you did to it. And someone after them will be living in it. I get bothered by all the people you see every day that I’ll never see again. We’re surrounded by strangers. Millions and millions of people you see every day that are just like fish. They’re just extras in the movie starring you and you’re an extra in the movie starring them. It’s just peculiar. Then you’re really aware of it in a city ’cause there’s so many people and you’re just pushing through. You’re just like a sperm flipping your flagellum around, you know, trying to make your way through the city.

Beck: Who you know and whatever situations you find yourself in with whatever people—it’s all sort of arbitrary. There are an infinite amount of doors you could’ve opened.

Tom Waits: And walk right out and walk right into another door and start another life six blocks away.

 

The Onist has an excellent write up of Hugh Ferriss. His work is sublime.

Discover Magazine has a fantastic article arguing the seemingly unpopular point that the internet is making us smarter.

Results like these, Clark argues, reveal a mind that is constantly seeking to extend itself, to grab on to new tools it has never experienced before and merge with them. Some people may be horrified by how passionately people are taking to their laptops and GPS trackers. But to Clark it would be surprising if we didn’t. We are, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs.”

I’ve often thought that Scott Adams was America’s answer to Douglas Adams (same last name, coincidence?) and I think that this proves it. Click to read the full blog post.

Suppose we transfer a dying guy’s brain into a computer, and that computer passes the Turing Test, thus demonstrating genuine intelligence. For all practical purposes it might have the same personality as the human brain that went into it. If you had a conversation with it, I can imagine it expressing a desire to live and even procreate.

This is interesting:

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”

Pink Tentacle has more, or you can go directly to the results of the experiment published in the December issue of the science journal Neuron. Unfortunately to read the article online costs $35, so maybe try your local University.

An excerpt from a Harvard Gazette article on Antanas Mockus, the former mayor of Bogotá, Columbia.

Mockus, the only son of a Lithuanian artist, burst onto the Colombian political scene in 1993 when, faced with a rowdy auditorium of the school of arts’ students, he dropped his pants and mooned them to gain quiet. The gesture, he said at the time, should be understood “as a part of the resources which an artist can use.” He resigned as rector, the top job of Colombian National University, and soon decided to run for mayor.

The fact that he was seen as an unusual leader gave the new mayor the opportunity to try extraordinary things, such as hiring 420 mimes to control traffic in Bogotá’s chaotic and dangerous streets. He launched a “Night for Women” and asked the city’s men to stay home in the evening and care for the children; 700,000 women went out on the first of three nights that Mockus dedicated to them.

This is an absolutely fantastic find, its re-writing Australian history

In a find that has stunned archaeologists and anthropologists, a vast wall of about 1500 paintings chronicles the history of Aboriginal contact with outsiders, from Macassan prows and European sailing ships to 19th-century steamships and a World War II battleship.

photo by Rick Stevens

San Francisco to vote on naming sewer after George Bush

… However, Mr McConnell claimed to have only noticed two forms of opposition during his campaign so far. “First, we get people who say they just want to forget George Bush’s presidency,” he said. “Second, we hear from those who say that sewage plants perform a valuable public service and, as such, it does not make sense to name one after George Bush.”

USA Today writes about Tata and it’s recent acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover. Via Thomas P.M. Barnett’s blog who predicts Tata’s future place in the world economy:

Tata aims to produce for the bottom of the pyramid consumers, and all those sales will mean Tata becomes a global car kingpin. And global auto kingpins buy upscale brands to complete their offerings. This happens all the time in consumer goods industries, and it will happen here. It’s just that this time, it won’t be American companies in the lead, because car manufacturing tends to be driven by rising economic pillars, not mature ones.

The New Yorker’s Simon Rich has a great piece titled Animal Tales the best part of which is posted below.

FREE-RANGE CHICKENS

“Well, it’s another beautiful day in paradise.”

“How’d we get so lucky?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“I think I’ll go walk over there for a while. Then I’ll walk back over here.”

“That sounds like a good time. Maybe I’ll do the same.”

“Hey, someone refilled the grain bucket!”

“Is it the same stuff as yesterday?”

“I hope so.”

“Oh, man, it’s the same stuff, all right.”

“It’s so good.”

“I can’t stop eating it.”

“Hey, you know what would go perfectly with this grain? Water.”

“Dude. Look inside the other bucket.”

“This . . . is the greatest day of my life.”

“Drink up, pal.”

“Cheers!”

(Laughs.)

(Laughs.)

“Hey, look, the farmer’s coming.”

“Huh. Guess it’s my turn to go into the thing.”

“Cool. See you later, buddy.”

“See ya.”

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.

Sister Corita Kent via Hello Bauldoff

A map of relationships among scientific paradigms.

Go here for the explanation or here to buy the print, or just go here to jump straight in (always recommended).

Tom Waits puts out a press release where he interviews himself. A great read.

He mentions Terry Gilliam’s film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen which is a film I had forgotten about but adored as a kid.

Great interview over at Fecal Face with D*Face.

PEHDTSCKJMBA

Watch the Vid, visit his website and read the Pitchfork article.

Do I dare to dream that I might get to see Portishead and Tom Waits all in the one year? So this is what it’s like living in the northern hemisphere…

06-17 Phoenix, AZ – Orpheum
06-18 Phoenix, AZ – Orpheum
06-20 El Paso, TX – Plaza Theatre
06-22 Houston, TX – Jones Hall
06-23 Dallas, TX – Palladium
06-25 Tulsa, OK – Brady Theatre
06-26 St. Louis, MO – Fox Theatre
06-28 Columbus, OH – Ohio Theatre
06-29 Knoxville, TN – Civic Theatre
07-01 Jacksonville, FL – Moran Theatre
07-02 Mobile, AL – Saenger Theatre
07-03 Birmingham, AL – Alabama Theatre
07-05 Atlanta, GA – Fox Theatre

There’s a great little article over at Photobooth on Bill Henson. Although it was hard for me to read as all I could think of was how I didn’t buy his book Mnemosyne for $80 when I had the chance. Now you can’t get it for less than $600.

It’s still a bargain at that price however.

Interesting reading: Ask A Philosopher. Usually quite relevant to the topic of the.

Santogold’s ‘L.E.S. Artistes.’ Nixon and I caught this live a while back at the Fader 51 Release Party

I’ve no idea why this is addictive, But it is.

“The Brain is like Cookie Dough.” Seriously WTF.

The Carrotbox is a consistently impressive blog about all things jewelery. via somewhere else please

and a doco about the GRL. Which is about to be screened at the MoMA and is also able to be downloaded from the piratebay.org as GRL upped it shortly after it was completed.

I’ve been reading when I should be working, but I have found some interesting stuff. Particularly this article about the Sworn Virgins of Albania. There’s video as well, but I couldn’t get it to work.

The Sacrifices of Albania’s ‘Sworn Virgins’

And also:

Rove Resigns. The rats are abandoning the sinking ship?

Modern IQ ranges for various occupations Are you underemployed?

Pearl Jam Censored On the internet? AT&T is the devil!

The Word Um. Saying Um makes you appear more authentic, but doesn’t help your subject matter…

Advertising and Children Kids will eat anything out of a McDonalds bag. Even vegetables.

Letter From Iraq

The Beautiful People Earn More Too. I think I’ll ask for that pay rise after I get that hair-cut.

I was interviewed by Triple J’s ACT Arts reporter Marianne Mettes about my animation Interference You can hear it on Triple J, or you can read the article or listen to the interview at The Program

The Manifesto of Stencilism by Blek Le Rat which has some fantastic anecdotes, in particular the first time that he went before a judge after being arrested. His lawyer handed out copies of Blek’s work and after looking at it the judge then said “I can’t condemn it, it’s too beautiful.”
Graffiti in Iraq by Iraqis and by American soldiers belonging to gangs
Pictures of Walls Some of you Canberrans might recognise the photo that I contributed.
and finally, via Wooster:

irregular flow on Vimeo