Archive for the 'Art' Category
Arthur C. Clarke, the U.K. science- fiction writer and futurist visionary best known for the novel adapted for the film ``2001: A Space Odyssey,’’ has died. He was 90.
Clarke died in his adopted home country of Sri Lanka early today from respiratory complications, according to a statement from his office there. He had suffered from post-polio syndrome for the last two decades of his life and was confined to a wheelchair. Clarke had lived in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, since 1956 and held citizenship there.
The author, scientist, space expert and underwater diver was one of the most prolific and renowned science-fiction writers, publishing more than 30 novels, at least 13 short-story collections and 28 works of non-fiction. He was honored with a British knighthood in 2000, and his work inspired the names of some spacecraft, an asteroid and even a species of dinosaur. ``2001: A Space Odyssey’’ was adapted in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film of the same name.
Clarke’s visions of the future took form in geostationary satellites, which some credit as a blueprint for modern-day communication methods. In 1945, he set out his ideas in an article, ``Extra-Terrestrial Relays,’’ published in the Wireless World magazine.
A geneticist was sentenced to one year of unsupervised release (no jail time) and a $500 fine for supplying bacteria to an artist, according to the Buffalo News, bringing to an end a well-publicized case that began more than three years ago.
Robert Ferrell, based at the University of Pittsburgh, pled guilty in October to a misdemeanor, after he supplied Steven Kurtz with bacteria for use in biotechnology art projects.
The men were originally charged with mail and wire fraud in connection with Ferrell’s purchase of samples of two common bacteria, Serratia marcescens and Bacillus atrophaeus, for Kurtz.
Ferrell and Kurtz were indicted in June, 2004.
Gizmodo via Patrick
oil on photo printed canvas, 40×60 inches
Photographs in “China in Colors” series.
What is Magick? Several definitions float into my mind, but none of them do it full justice. The world is magical; we might get a sense of this after climbing a mountain and looking down upon the landscape below, or in the quiet satisfaction at the end of one of ‘those days’ when everything has gone right for us. Magick is a doorway through which we step into mystery, wildness, and immanence.
We live in a world subject to extensive and seemingly, all-embracing systems of social & personal control that continually feed us the lie that we are each alone, helpless, and powerless to effect change. Magick is about change. Changing your 
circumstances so that you strive to live according to a developing sense of personal responsibility; that you can effect change around you if you choose; that we are not helpless cogs in some clockwork universe. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magical acts. Magick leads us into exhiliration and ecstacy; into insight and understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in which we participate. Through magick we may come to explore the possibilities of freedom.
Surely this is simple enough? But no, magick has become obsfucated under a weight of words, a welter of technical terms which exclude the uninitiated and serve those who are eager for a ‘scientific’ jargon with which to legitimise their enterprise into something self-important and pompous. Abstract spiritual spaces have been created in the midst of which tower the Babel-like lego constructions of ‘inner planes’, spiritual hierarchies and ‘occult truths’ which forget that the world around us is magical. The mysterious has been misplaced. We search through dead languages and tombs for ‘secret knowledge’, ignoring the mystery of life that is all around us. So for the moment, forget what you’ve read about spiritual enlightenment, becoming a 99th level Magus and impressing your friends with high-falutin’ gobbledygook. Magick is surprisingly simple.
Read the rest of this introduction to Chaos Magick in PDF form here.
A machine with a doll face mimics images on television screen in search of a satisfactory visage. Doll Face presents a visual account of desires misplaced and identities fractured by our technological extension into the future.
Oil on Linen 30×40
The Japanese TV show PythagoraSwitch makes strange devices to aid learning. <3Yen provides a translation of the shows mission statement:
Within our daily lives, which we go about without thinking much about the many mysteries, archetypes, themes and more varied ways of thought. For example, have you ever thought why waffles are always the same shape? Behind it all is concept of “having a shape.†There all sorts of these archetypes/shapes: in print, in mass-produced goods and whatnot. Understanding these these “shapes†let’s you grasp how these things work. “Pythagoras Switch†wants to help kids have that moment of A-HA! We want to raise thinking about thinking, to flip that epiphany switch in every child.
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