Sophianotloren

Late at night in Great Britain’s National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, some of the world’s oldest computers awoke from mechanical slumber. Composer and sound artist Matt Parker made 126 recordings from seven decades of historical machines to preserve their endangered sounds and transform them into music.

“For preservation sake, often the objects of our past become confined to clear perspex boxes to keep prying hands off of them,” Parker told Hyperallergic. “It means that all we can do is look at these peculiar objects through a box and read the adjacent text.”

The Imitation Archive debuted as a composition earlier this month, with the full 34 minutes of music available as a pay-what-you-wish download on Bandcamp. All of the Birmingham, England-based artist’s recordings were also added to the British Library Sound and Vision Archive. As an artist-in-residence at the museum, he recorded heritage machines like a room-sized, rebuilt 1940s Colossus, the first digital computer in the world once housed in Block H that now hosts the museum. He also listened to the 1939 Bombe, an electromechanical cryptology device developed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, and the 1950s Harwell Dekatron (WITCH), the oldest functioning digital computer. Bletchley Park was the base of England’s World War II codebreaking, where Turing cracked the German Enigma machine (the name The Imitation Archive references the 2014 The Imitation Game film on Turing’s work there).

In his 2014 The Cloud is more than Air and Water, Parker focused his sound art on the sonorous hums of contemporary cloud computing. This project recalls a noisier era, the clamor of which could easily disappear. “The Colossus rebuild project is faithfully using techniques and equipment made with the original constructions,” Parker explained. “An engineer told me that there is maybe only ten more years left of the vacuum tubes used to program it. What will happen when it runs out of tubes?”

As much as possible, Parker recorded at night in the stillness of the closed museum, collaborating with volunteers and engineers who are essential to keeping the machines running. He described recording a giant Powas Samas punchcard reader: “The man was in his mid-80s and told me how he had to fully retire from the museum the next day. As we started to run the machine, it suddenly found a fault and broke mid-recording. I have about 10 seconds of the machine working on record. He was the only man at the museum able to fix it and he was leaving.”

An archive of sound can preserve elements of the functioning experience, but what makes The Imitation Archive especially valuable is how in music it captures the spirits of the machines. Parker stated: “I think the biggest challenge for me was to make something that I enjoyed listening to, that I felt carried some of the emotions of the history of certain objects, particularly that reflected the intensity and stifling conditions of working in Block H with Colossus or in a room where 20 Bombes were in constant operation by the women engineers (WRENS) who worked there.”

The heavy computing sounds of WITCH reverberate in his layered composition with deep, echoing sounds that crescendo with clicking rhythms. Throughout the soundscape is the pulsing cadence of relay switches and transformers, quicker as the decades go by, transitioning to huge 1970s mainframes and 1980s desktops. In the glitchy patterns there’s a feeling of constant movement, representing the durational use of the machines that often ran 24 hours a day, and the progress of technology. Our computers today are mostly silent, gently whirring devices, and The Imitation Archive recalls the cacophony that accompanied the birth of our modern machines.

h/t NPR

Matt Parker’s The Imitation Archive is available for download on Bandcamp.

On July 22, a long list of prohibitionists, working through the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, released an open letter to Amnesty International as part of their long-running fight to stop them from officially adopting a pro-decriminalization of sex work stance. The letter urged the organization to vote against a draft proposal supporting decriminalization at […]

 

05.

“It’s so cold,” the blond, pear-shaped girl said. She was dressed in a black tank top and yoga pants stretched so tight I could see through to her panties—white, patterned with little red skulls.

It was 5 a.m. and the first hint of daylight was blooming on the horizon. I’d been here since 7 the evening before, in response to an ad for a two-bedroom, and was, as far as I could tell, 83^rd in line.

The guy in front of me had set up a pup tent, which I was jealous of, not just because he’d had the forethought to make his wait comfortable, but because around midnight he’d sold it for eight hundred thousand to a kid in a beard and snow hat. He told the kid, “Listen, you know you’re just going to have to take this thing down in a day?” To which the kid shrugged and said, “It’s still a great deal. By then I’ll have sold my company.” So the transaction went down and the pup tent guy moved on.

I laughed at the absurdity of it all and the pear-shaped girl behind me scoffed. I turned to see her sneering into her phone. “Just this idiot in front of me,” she was saying. “When are people going to learn that history hates haters?”

Now it was dawn and the girl was complaining that someone should design an app to stop San Francisco summers from being cold, and the pup tent guy was back. He walked up to the bearded kid and began counting out a stack of hundreds. “3300 a minute rent, right?” And the beard nodded. Then the original owner climbed back into the tent he’d sold just five hours earlier.

“Oh great,” the girl behind me said. “Now look. The fog is blowing in.” And I turned to see a dark mass moving across the sky.

“That’s not fog,” someone called out. And sure enough, as it got closer, I realized the cloud wasn’t the cool mist San Francisco was famous for, but a swarm of digital code. It fell upon the crowd and someone screamed, “It’s a swarm of investment capital from China!” Another voice cried out, “No, it’s Canadian!” And suddenly everyone’s clothes began disintegrating, as if we hadn’t been wearing actual fabric but body paint that was now washing off in the rain. Completely naked, people began running in all directions.

“Sweet,” I said. “Now I can move to the head of the line.”

“Line?” The pup tent guy said. “Did you think you were here waiting to see an apartment?” And before I could reply he pulled out a sharpie and drew an outline around my bare feet. “This spot here,” he said, holding out his hand. “A hundred bucks a second.”

***

GO HERE to view all the pieces in this series in chronological order.

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This year I haven’t been writing so much in this blog. I’ve been busy with a new project — one that might interest, and benefit, far more people. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever attempted. I’ve just publicly launched it, and I’d like your feedback and support.

Ever since I started this blog, the hands-down most popular post here doesn’t have to do with solo polyamory (or even polyamory), per se. It’s about traditional intimate relationships and how they typically work, according to social norms.

I published Riding the Relationship Escalator (or not) on Nov. 29, 2012. Immediately, people all over the internet began linking to it and discussing it. Not just people who are interested or involved in polyamory or other kinds of unconventional relationships; plenty of monogamous people were interested in this concept as well.

For many people, their reaction to learning that the Relationship Escalator is simply one of many ways to do relationships (and not an universal requirement) seemed akin to a fish saying, “Whoa, there’s this stuff called water, we’re swimming in it, maybe we should think about this a little bit?”

So in January 2013 I launched a project to write a book examining the Relationship Escalator and the various ways that people step off it.

Being a journalist, I wanted to base this on interviews. So I posted an online survey to gather people’s experiences in unconventional relationships. I hoped to get a hundred or so responses, and from that find a couple dozen people to interview.

…WHAM! I had 300 responses in the first week alone. Over 18 months, with almost no outreach beyond a few forum posts and occasional mentions on this blog, I collected nearly 1500 responses. Many respondents wrote the equivalent of 1500-word essays.

This. Was. Huge.

I spent over two years building a database and learning how to input and process qualitative data. A friend dubbed me an “accidental social scientist.” I kept shifting my vision for this project, not sure how to do justice to the many, many people who contributed their stories. One paltry book seemed insufficient.

But you’ve gotta start somewhere. Or at least, I do.

So in June and early July this year, I finally knuckled down and pounded out the first draft of my first book, Off the Relationship Escalator: Stories of unconventional loving relationships.

I intend to self publish the first edition in Fall 2015. Right now, 50 alpha readers are giving me comments on my draft — and I’m in the process of hiring a developmental editor to help me get the content in great shape.

Who is this book for? This first book is intended for a general audience of anyone interested in how intimate relationships work. Whether you’re monogamous or open; whether you’re a layperson or a therapist, whether you have tons of relationship experience or very little, you should find value here.

The goal of this book is to help people think clearly about the Relationship Escalator — and to realize that, while this popular model works well for many people, it definitely is not the only game in town.

This book also discusses five common ways that people step off the Escalator:

1. Consensual nonmonogamy (polyamory, swinging, don’t ask don’t tell and more).
2. Not merging your life or identity with partners (such as choosing to not live with intimate partners, or by not “going we we.”
3. Asexual or aromantic relationships. Intimate bonds where sex and/or romance plays little or no role.
4. Not practicing hierarchy, even by simply treating your friends like they are no less valuable to you than lovers or an Escalator partner.
5. Fluid, discontinuous or finite relationships, which may pause and resume, plateau short of the top of the Escalator, de-escalate or shift roles. Or not discounting relationships that are more casual, short-term, or defined by context (such as kink “scene” partners).

I also cover some common benefits and tradeoffs of unconventional relationships, answers some common questions (such as “Don’t you get jealous?” or “What about all that hot sex you’re having?”), discusses stigma against unconventional relationships (which drives so many people into the closet), and how to make the world a friendlier place for unconventional relationships.

Lots of perspectives! Every part of this book is peppered with quotes from my diverse base of survey respondents, such as:

“Let’s face it: At least half the relationships that people think are ‘going somewhere’ are, in fact, not going anywhere good. (Nika, in a long distance open relationship)

“People accept married people having affairs more than married people swinging. Something seems off there.” (Arthur, married swinger)

“Ultimately, I want the old fashioned husband, wife, kids. But as a society, we need to start accepting that not everyone wants (or ends up with) the old-fashioned way of marriage.” (Betty, monogamous)

“I am a man in a committed partnership with a woman of one and a half years. We live in different apartments in the same neighborhood, and we have been seeing each other almost every day for the past year. We have both had sexual experiences outside of this primary relationship — though generally carefully and after much discussion. Right at this moment, I am actually waiting for her to come over so I can explain that I would like to step off of this Relationship Escalator we’ve been on. I’d like us to think about taking a few steps… sideways? ‘Back’ seems pejorative. Point is, I’d heard the term. In my search to find it so I could reference it as part of this discussion, I ended up here, at your survey. So…” (Jackson, polyamorous)

This will be just the first of several books about various aspects of unconventional approaches to intimate relationships, based on stories shared through surveys as well as additional interviews and research. When I see how people interact with and react to my intial book, I’ll be able to quickly produce new books based on my existing and new survey data.

So: If a lot of people want to know more about, say, nonhierarchical polyamory, or parenting and nonmonogamy, or negotiation skills, or accommodating differences — I’ll be able to share what my respondents have said about their experience.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

1. Go to my new website, Off the Escalator, and subscribe to receive e-mail updates about this project. I’ll let you know about book excerpts, special deals, what people are saying, and opportunities to support this project.
2. Tell your friends, family, readers and others about this project. Feel free to link to OffEscalator.com from your own blogs, social media, or simply e-mail or text it to people who might be interested. (A good place for people to start is to understand, what is the Relationship Escalator?)
3. What do you want to know about unconventional relationships or my book? Or: do you have an observation or experience to share — about the Relationship Escalator or unconventional relationships? Share your questions and comments.
4. Encouragement helps — a lot. This project has become my life’s work, and it’s daunting. I’m taking a huge gamble, with a lot of personal and professional risk. I’m equally thrilled, determined, and terrified by this. So, send me comments or notes of encouragement, if you like. I read them all, and they help keep me going.

…As I get this new project off the ground, I’ll probably be writing more at Off the Escalator than on this blog, for now. But solo polyamory remains near and dear to my heart, so I’ll still post here from time to time.

I greatly appreciate your support for this blog, and for my future projects. Thanks!

Yesterday the Gulf Labor Coalition, which is an official participant of the central exhibition of the 2015 Venice Biennale, and the G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction) group staged a variety of protest actions at the international exhibition. From the stenciling of “Handala” on Gulf Labor’s official banner hanging inside the Arsenale exhibition hall to the hourlong occupation of the second floor of the Israeli Pavilion, the two groups focused on migrant rights and Palestinian solidarity during the day’s activities.

Best known for its actions raising awareness about the Guggenheim’s labor practices at its Abu Dhabi outpost in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), G.U.L.F.—  which often collaborates with Gulf Labor — altered the official Gulf Labor Coalition banner that hangs in the All the World’s Futures exhibition in the Arsenale, curated by Okuwei Enwezor.

At 1:30pm CEST, the team of activists stenciled a one-meter-long (~39 inches) image of Handala, an image of a 10-year-old refugee boy that was first created by assassinated Palestinian cartoonist Naji Salim al-Ali as an icon of Palestinian defiance. The banner hangs in a prominent place in Enwezor’s central exhibition, and according to G.U.L.F. roughly 20 Biennale visitors watched the action.

“Handala is an iconic symbol of Palestinian Resistance created in the 1970s by Naji al-Ali while he lived as a stateless migrant in the Gulf; it takes on profound dimensions on this banner,” G.U.L.F. said in an official statement. “As a universal symbol of solidarity, it speaks for the indifference of both the UAE authorities and museums like the Guggenheim and the Louvre, and universities like NYU in taking action on the issues of the migrant workers building the Saadiyat Island. The image of Handala: the ten year old boy who turned his back to a world that will not bring the occupation of his homeland to justice also brings Palestine into the picture; workers made stateless on their own land, compelled to cross checkpoints and work on building Israeli Settlements, homes, and military establishments.”

After the banner intervention, G.U.L.F. joined the scheduled Gulf Labor panel on migration labor in the Arena area of the central exhibition, and at the end of the discussion a statement by G.U.L.F. members who had recently returned from the West Bank was read (posted below in its entirety). Visitors were then invited to join the artists and activists for a joint occupation and “public meeting” in the official Israeli pavilion at the Biennale for a discussion of issues related to BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions), PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel), and their relationships with the art world.

The group’s official statement draws parallels between the plight of migrant labor in the Gulf nations today and the situation faced by Palestinian workers.

“We were struck by the overlap between the circumstances of Palestinian workers and the predicament of South Asian migrants in the Gulf,” the G.U.L.F. statement explained. “We invite you to join us as we proceed to the Israeli pavilion, where we will hold a community meeting to decide on next steps. Sharing our experiences and opinions will help us understand how and why BDS places direct obligations on artists and cultural institutions like the Biennale.”

“In our last trip to the West Bank we saw Palestinians being made migrant workers in their own land, underpaid and humiliated, always under threat, and bound and controlled by a regime of ‘permits’ to work in Israel,” G.U.L.F. member Amin Husain told Hyperallergic about yesterday’s action. “We see deep connections between the struggle to amplify the voices of workers in the Gulf and Palestinian day-to-day life under an Israeli occupation and its apartheid regime that made it difficult for us to be at Venice and not raise the issue. In that light, there is no better place than the Israeli pavilion, which is owned by the state of Israel, to have the conversation about the cultural boycott of Israel, and no more appropriate method than to occupy the pavilion to do so.”

Other participants in the occupation also drew parallels between the issues of migrant labor and Palestinian rights. “We decided to alter the official [Gulf Labor Coalition] banner hanging in the Arsenale as a sign that our presence in Venice is not bound by a curatorial logic, but rather that our horizon is always guided by movement solidarity which is a process that cannot be frozen or contained,” Noah Fischer told Hyperallergic. “The figure of Handala is the work of an artist Naja al-Ali whose art practice was inseparable from struggle and gave inspiration to struggles far beyond Palestine. In the context of an ultra-luxury economy that dominates the arts and drives the politics of the UAE, Israel, the US, and other nations, the 10-year-old boy Handala is the one who is poor and shut out of this economy and country, and refuses to participate in its lies.”

Hyperallergic has reached out to the curator and artist of the Israeli Pavilion for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

G.U.L.F.’s statement in full reads:

Political art is everywhere we look at this year’s Biennale, and the warm embrace of Africa and its diasporic struggles is a welcome corrective to decades of neglect. But Palestine does not appear significantly on anyone’s radar, nor is there is any evidence of the solidarity that has carried the BDS movement into many corners of the academic and cultural world. Earlier today, G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction) began its response to this situation by altering the Gulf Labor Coalition banner hanging in the Arsenale. In this statement, we explain our action.

Before coming to Venice, some of us shot a film about the challenges of daily life in the West Bank. We were struck by the overlap between the circumstances of Palestinian workers and the predicament of South Asian migrants in the Gulf. Under the Occupation, the Palestinian people have become migrant workers in their own land. Many suffer the same indignities and extreme precarity when they cross the notorious Israeli checkpoints to seek work. Behind the Green Line, they are pit against heavily indebted Chinese migrants. Within the West Bank, more and more are compelled to take jobs in Israeli settlement farms and factories on land stolen from Palestinians. Countless others must emigrate from economically ravaged villages and towns to seek a livelihood overseas. Indeed, before South Asians became a preferred workforce, Palestinians were a primary source of migrant labor for the Gulf states.

Those who resist the Occupation are met with harsh forms of detention and worse, though the reality is that most Palestinians feel they are living in a prison. While filming at one village where resistance has become a way of life, we shared the villagers’ experience of being teargassed, strafed by rubber bullets, and hosed with the infamous “skunkwater.” We came to the Biennale with the foul stench of this Odortech chemical on our clothing and in our hair–it can linger for weeks. Compared to the daily stigma endured under the Occupation, ours is a small hardship, just as the UAE’s entry ban on Gulf Labor members is a minor privation when placed alongside the ordeal faced by the Saadiyat workforce. But, as artists and writers, who bear these as the legacies of state repression, we refuse the complacency that serves autocrats in both of these countries.

Scholars have taken the lead in responding to the call by PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) to boycott Israeli institutions, and other sectors (governments, communities of faith, trade unions, and organs of commerce) are joining in. The boycott is now spreading to the general population in countries all over the world. Yet, with some notable exceptions, the institutional artworld has held back.

Following the repudiation, by artist and curators, of Israeli state funding at last year’s Biennale de São Paulo, we feel compelled to bring the BDS spirit to Venice Biennale, where the stateless are obscured by the radiance cast by the national pavilions.

We invite you to join us as we proceed to the Israeli pavilion, where we will hold a community meeting to decide on next steps. Sharing our experiences and opinions will help us understand how and why BDS places direct obligations on artists and cultural institutions like the Biennale.

UPDATE, Tuesday, August 4, 11am ET: We received the following emails from the curator, Hadas Maor, and artist, Tsibi Geva, of the Israeli Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale:

Thank you for your email and update regarding the act by G.U.L.F. (Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction) at the Israeli Pavilion.

I respect G.U.L.F. (Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction) activity and find their decision to hold the discussion of BDS and PACBI inside the Israeli Pavilion worthwhile discussing.

Kind regards,

Hadas

and:

This statement is personal, as an artist living in Israel and resisting the occupation.

All my life I believed in dialogue and open discourse.

My artistic project has been, and is focused on these cultural- political issues for more than 30 years.

In my artistic ongoing project, I have dealt with recognizing and exposing the collective repressed unconscious of this place and time.

It was stated recently, that in all the Biennale, including the central exhibition, there is no mention of the Palestinian issue, therefore I am happy that they chose to hold a “public meeting” at the heart of my project, right under the work (maybe the only one in the Biennale) that relates and carries the word GAZA, which is right next to the ironic caged sign “WONDERLAND.”

They are more than welcome.

Tsibi Geva

Every state abuse needs its own junk scientist to defend it:

When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, Dr. Lewinski is often there to defend their actions. Among the most influential voices on the subject, he has testified in or consulted in nearly 200 cases over the last decade or so and has helped justify countless shootings around the country.

His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person. Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story.

He has appeared as an expert witness in criminal trials, civil cases and disciplinary hearings, and before grand juries, where such testimony is given in secret and goes unchallenged. In addition, his company, the Force Science Institute, has trained tens of thousands of police officers on how to think differently about police shootings that might appear excessive.

A string of deadly police encounters in Ferguson, Mo.; North Charleston, S.C.; and most recently in Cincinnati, have prompted a national reconsideration of how officers use force and provoked calls for them to slow down and defuse conflicts. But the debate has also left many police officers feeling unfairly maligned and suspicious of new policies that they say could put them at risk. Dr. Lewinski says his research clearly shows that officers often cannot wait to act.

“We’re telling officers, ‘Look for cover and then read the threat,’ ” he told a class of Los Angeles County deputy sheriffs recently. “Sorry, too damn late.”

It’s an art exhibition you can’t visit. Not yet, at least, until officials declare the Fukushima exclusion zone habitable again, which for certain areas could take decades. The zone, comprised of land within a 12-mile radius of the Tepco-owned Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, still contains high levels of radiation since the March 2011 tsunami resulted in meltdowns of half the station’s nuclear reactors, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes. This year, 12 artists have each installed site-specific works within the deserted zone in response to the disaster, which a report published 20 years prior had foretold. (Japanese authorities announced last week that three former Tepco executives will face prosecution for professional negligence resulting in death.) The exhibition, titled Don’t Follow the Wind, centers on the notion of inaccessibility, with public permission to view the works tied inextricably to the unforeseen day when Japan lifts all evacuation orders. In the meantime, the art will remain invisible, not even available to see through images.

The exhibition, slated to run for the period of “2015 — ?”, was installed on the fourth anniversary of the nuclear fallout. Spearheading the project is the Japanese collective Chim↑Pom, who first visited Fukushima a month after the explosion. There, collective members watched as contaminated water leaked into the Pacific Ocean and smoke continued to rise from damaged power plants; all around stood houses abandoned by their residents but still stocked with their contents.

“Entering blockaded ghost towns officially renamed ‘difficult-to-return to zones,’ while struggling against the survival instinct that tempted us to go back right away, we were confronted with the fact that so many people had lost their homes all of a sudden,” Chim↑Pom told Hyperallergic. “‘Difficult-to-return,’ but where will they return to? The answer remains vague even now, four years after the disaster.”

The collective has developed strong relationships with former residents over time as it visited various pockets of Fukushima, and the works created for Don’t Follow the Wind occupy four contaminated and evacuated sites lent by former residents: a home, a warehouse, a farm, and a recreation center. The participating artists — half of whom are Japanese — include Ai Weiwei, Koizumi Meiro, Trevor Paglen, Eva and Franco Mattes, Taryn Simon, and Chim↑Pom itself. As Kenji Kubota, one of the exhibition’s curators explained, they had approached artists who they thought “could operate between speculation and memory, and peak the collective imaginary.”

In the space of the home, Kota Takeuchi has hung self-portraits of himself on the site of the power plant wearing clothes left in an evacuated house. Takeuchi once worked as a nuclear clean-up worker and may be behind the mysterious man who pointed a finger at a Tepco live-feed. Ai Weiwei’s contribution consists of photographs documenting daily life in Beijing, also installed in abandoned domestic spaces next to remaining family photographs. Trevor Paglen has crafted an opaque cube from glass he found from contaminated buildings then melted together; inside the cube sits a chunk of the slightly radioactive Trinitite from the site of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones dismisses Don’t Follow the Wind as a “fatuous plan” and “a mere stunt, a gesture,” but he fails to touch on how an exhibition based on inaccessibility engages with and highlights feelings of uncertainty and powerlessness in the time of an ongoing catastrophe. The artists refuse to share images of their work “in an act of solidarity with the residents until they can return to their homes,” as the press release states; the exhibition’s website is but a white page, with details offered only through voiceovers by the artists. This deliberate masking of the art frustrates and denies fulfillment of any desire for concrete information: we first have to hand over our complete trust to believe that the works actually exist, and then we are limited to imagining them. Now, we can only wait, along with the thousands of displaced residents who have been waiting, and continue to wait, for permission to return to their homes. Don’t Follow the Wind thus calls attention to the anxiety of suspense and the dependency on a timeline with no defined points. Although it seems like time has stopped in the deserted landscapes of Fukushima, the exhibition reminds that victims of the disaster feel its effects every day. The works, which will wear down over time from environmental forces, will also reflect the wearing on of cleanup efforts.

The artists also liken the current invisibility of their works to that of radiation, which they perceived only through beeps from Geiger counters while installing the works. The unseen menace highlights “that the causes of the most urgent threats to our collective existence — nuclear catastrophe and climatic shifts — cannot be seen, only becoming apparent in their disastrous effect,” as co-curator Jason Waite told Hyperallergic. “We don’t want to avoid the invisibility but embrace its alternative potential, as an invitation to use other senses and induce a speculation that can expand to imagine new ways of living together.”

As an extension of the localized exhibition, a “non-visiter center” will also open at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art on September 19. It won’t display images of the Fukushima works but rather “interpretations” of them, such as a drawing by a former resident. Don’t Follow the Wind borrows its name from this resident’s account of his evacuation, when a friend of his working at the power plant advised him to travel in the direction opposite to the wind since it carried nuclear fallout material. He changed paths — contrary to advice from official Japanese government sources, as Chim↑Pom relayed to Hyperallergic — thereby escaping with his family to safety. Access to works such as his drawing will still be limited, however, with the gallery’s entrance designed to be walled off and with viewing occurring from a distant observation platform, assisted by an audio guide. For now, and through an unfixed future period, that is all we have to accept.

“Don’t Follow the Wind is an exhibition for the human beings of all times,” Chim↑Pom said. “From those who have constructed history to this day, whether they forget or remember it, all the way to the children who will see it someday in the future.”

Don’t Follow the Wind continues at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan) through an indefinite date. 

MFP and I have pretty consistently practiced direct communication in our relationship, and it has served us well.  This means talking about issues — good and bad — as soon as we are able to do so.  If we can’t talk face to face, we send a text message, or an email, or something — but the direct communication is there.

Maybe she says something that hurts my feelings.  Maybe I’m worried that she took my actions to mean something other than I intended.  Maybe she went out of her way to help me with a task I’m doing.  Maybe I lent an ear when she needed one.  In all of these situations, we communicate!

“You hurt my feelings when you said that.  You probably didn’t mean to, and I recognize that –so I’m letting you know how I was affected.” Then we talk about it.

“I’m worried that you thought I meant X when I did Y, and I really meant Z — I’m sorry if I worried you.” Then we talk about it.

“You didn’t have to help me, and I know you’re busy — thank you.  It meant a lot.” Then we talk about it.

“I’m glad you were there to listen; I just needed to vent.  Thanks.  I hope I didn’t overload you!” Then we talk about it.

I mention this, because it’s a very distinct contrast to a lot of other people I know — or people I used to know.  Apparently a particular someone held on to their issues with me for several months, and only brought things up after I sent a message bringing up a few issues I had; they also only brought them up to tell me how full of shit I was, how fucked up my behavior had been, how horrible a person I was, and that it was good that we already had gone our separate ways.

Would have been great to know that I had done something to offend back when there was anything I could have done about it — but apparently avoiding the topic when we were around each other, acting nice and sweet like everything was cool, and then much later telling me that I’m the one to blame for not talking about it, and not being a mind-reader… apparently that’s what I’ve got to deal with.

I guess this is a good example illustrating of one of my dad’s theories: he calls it “The Principle of Least Interest.”  No, it’s not about loans and finances!  See, he figures that in any relationship or interaction between two people or entities, one of the two is less interested in maintaining that relationship than the other.  That person is the one in control.

For instance, an employee at an entry-level fast food job is much more interested in keeping that job — and the paycheck it provides — than the company is in keeping that particular employee.  The company has control.  Since the employee wants the paycheck, they are more likely to put effort into doing things exactly the way the company wants, and the company can fire the employee and find another one.  Or one friend who has an open schedule and wants to hang out with another friend who has entertaining things planned all week — the one with the packed schedule may also want to hang out, but the one who is bored is more interested in making something happen.  The busy friend has control.  The bored friend is limited by what the busy friend will do to adjust their schedule, unless the busy friend decides that it’s really important to hang out… then Busy becomes more interested than Bored, and Bored gains control.

In my case, the person I once called a friend has declared zero interest.  It happens sometimes, and sometimes it’s clear that won’t change.  The only real option at that point is for me to match that with my own declaration of no interest — because that’s the only control I can take back.  It hurts, and it affects other people too — MFP knows this person, and several other folks are mutual acquaintances too.  There may be unexpected fallout from this, but I’ll have to deal with that as it comes.  Right now, blocking on Facebook and walking away are the things I have to do for my own physical and mental health.  Gotta take care of me first, before giving anything to others.

Filed under: General

The mythology of the New World – as expansive as the continent itself – engendered a mania for magical thinking, for reinvigorating Old-World myths in a land that still felt only half-real…. a land without myths can be a lonely place.

Ted Scheinman writes for Aeon Magazine on the history of archaeological hoaxes and why these unbelievable stories are so readily (and eagerly) believed.

Related Posts:

• Why We Write with Words
• The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Steve Stern
• Heaven is (Probably) a Place on Earth
• Cocaine Wine
• Myth Remaking

Lunar Surface - The Incinerator

Continuation of project by Kimchi & Chips takes their Lunar Surface project into a new setting, an incinerator in South Korea - a virtual entity is projected on a sawying sheet which can be realized through long exposure photography:

Lunar Surface renders a shared manifold between reality virtuality, presence and absence.

A strong wind creating a deep breathing of new air into the incinerator which has been closed for five years.

Link

Originally posted 2015-08-03 18:41:28. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

heather night source: droolingfemme.

The United States is really proud of Frank Lloyd Wright — in February, it nominated 10 of the architect’s buildings for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Yet many of the buildings he designed, some well over 100 years old, are in dire need of renovations.

One of those buildings is now getting the much-needed overhaul it deserves. According to the Chicago Tribune, a $23-million restoration has begun at the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. Back in 2008, part of the ceiling above the pulpit collapsed, though the church was luckily not then in session. Large cracks have also formed in the concrete structure.

The 107-year-old building is one of Wright’s great masterpieces. The architect conceived it as two separate buildings — a “Unity Temple” for worship and a “Unity House” for social functions — connected by an entry hall. The geometric church was a curiosity when it was built in 1908: it didn’t have a steeple or dome, and it was made entirely of reinforced concrete, which was unheard of at the time. “When I finished Unity Temple, I had it,” Wright later said of the building. “I knew I had the beginning of a great thing, a great truth in architecture. Now architecture could be free.”

Chicago-based architect Gunny Harboe is now leading the charge to restore Wright’s building to its former glory. The building’s stained glass windows have been taken down and shipped to Los Angeles for restoration and its woodwork has been stripped for repair. Workers will clean and fix the walls and install a new roof, along with geothermal heating and air conditioning that will allow the building to be used year-round when it reopens in 2016.

It’s not the only Wright-designed building undergoing renovations. Several more restoration projects are underway — the Martin House Complex, Robie House, the Edward E. Boynton House, and the gardens at Wright’s Wisconsin home Taliesin. And the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, the Oak Park Home and Studio near Chicago, and the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, were all recently restored.

Hopefully the Unity Temple restoration project will inspire other cities to act. Dallas has been planning since 2006 to overhaul the gorgeous Kalita Humphreys Theater, built in 1959 for the Dallas Theater Center and, since 2010, home to the Uptown Players. The Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, could also use some love.

Correction: An earlier version of this article claimed that the Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas had been shuttered when in fact it remains open and in use by the Uptown Players.

thepoliticalfreakshow:

“Reasons.” Police Violence. America.

Apparently my video about how Planned Parenthood is obviously not selling baby parts has gone viral amongst horrified anti-abortion proponents, which has led them to flood my inbox and my Twitter feed with outrage.

Yesterday, one angry man Tweeted me this:

@rebeccawatson how dare that baby come stomping in and take over your stomach. He must have just appeared there I guess. #dontplaywithfire

— Nathan Platfoot (@nate_dogg1620) July 31, 2015

I found it hilarious that a grown adult thought babies grow in a woman’s stomach, so I retweeted it and played along with a pretty decent baby-eating (and baby-pooping!) joke:

Sweetheart, if a baby ends up in my stomach, I'll know how he got there, and I'll also know how he's getting out. https://t.co/rWVypjO4sm

— Rebecca Watson (@rebeccawatson) July 31, 2015

Then I muted him and moved along, because I have a life.

This morning, I found that my baby-eating Tweet had apparently caught the attention of the other anti-abortion folks, and judging from their reactions, I’ve realized that “nate_dogg1620″ isn’t just an outlier: there’s an entire hoard of people who want to force women to give birth but have no idea what that entails, down to the very basic fact that fetuses are carried in the uterus, not the stomach. In part, I blame the anti-abortionists’ use of euphemisms for nearly everything, to engender the most amount of emotional attachment and the least amount of scientific accuracy. In particular, the use of the word “womb” seems to have confused people who don’t realize it means “uterus,” as opposed to “magical place in the midsection of a woman where the stork delivers the baby.”

Here’s a selection of responses for your amusement/horror:

@rebeccawatson but let me guess, you are appalled at the killing of Cecil… Only up side you recognize exactly what it is… A baby!

— jen (@Littlelena73) July 31, 2015

@rebeccawatson so you found a guy to sleep with you?

— Clown Dawg (@poemclown) July 31, 2015

@rebeccawatson What? It's a baby? I thought it was just a mass of tissue! ???

— BarbieBean (@GotJellyBeans) July 31, 2015

@rebeccawatson by getting man to rip it out of it's womb with a pair of tongs. anyways going to puke at this disgusting antiwoman #sickos

— Sun Wukong (@ZZLaowai) July 31, 2015

@rebeccawatson This is the most demented tweet I've ever read in my life…

— Andrew Shepherd (@_shepherdandrew) July 31, 2015

Perhaps she will volunteer to harvest the "specimens" parts. https://t.co/NIXZkDBsF0

— Ms. Mac (@MadonnaMadsen) July 31, 2015

This right here is why our great country is going down the drain https://t.co/bWioX52G04

— Grant Spika (@GrantSpika) July 31, 2015

@rebeccawatson I don't think you have to worry about getting pregnant.

— BillFear (@Billfear) July 31, 2015

There are probably more that I already muted, but that should be enough to convince you that holy shit, we need better sex education everyone.

EDIT: Thanks to Brandon K. Thorp and Adam Levenstein, I now know that these people are all coming from this hilarious article on YoungCons, where the author, Michael Cantrell, thinks that a stomach is the same as a uterus. Here’s the text of the post just in case they become self-aware and remove it:

Yesterday we showed you a video by a truly horrible, despicable human being defending the baby chop shop Planned Parenthood, and the overwhelming majority of folks who read the piece agreed the lady was sick and twisted.

Well, for those who might’ve been on the fence about how evil this girl is will no doubt jump on over after seeing this truly horrific tweet she posted to her account.

Seriously, this is demented.

Sweetheart, if a baby ends up in my stomach, I'll know how he got there, and I'll also know how he's getting out. https://t.co/rWVypjO4sm

— Rebecca Watson (@rebeccawatson) July 31, 2015

Hmm.

That’s strange. She calls the unborn child who would be in her uterus a baby and not a clump of cells.

Looks like deep down this monster actually knows what she supports is the murder of innocent children.

It’s hard to believe there are people as disgusting as this chick in the real world, but lo and behold, here’s the proof of her existence.

This is a prime example of the twisted evil progressive ideology and culture produces, and believe it or not, there are many others like her out there. If we’re going to win the fight to preserve the right to life for the unborn, we’re going to have to confront this darkness both out in public, and privately in prayer.

While I’m so angry at Watson I could scream, and reading what she posts makes me want to slam my head against the wall — actions I wouldn’t advise anyone taking — deep down my heart aches for her.

She’s so consumed by darkness and selfishness she’s blind to depth of her own evil. This woman is headed down a road to destruction, both in this life and the one to come.

This is a realization I had upon reflecting on Watson’s video, and it hit me that this woman needs us to do more than just expose the darkness, though that’s certainly needed.

She needs us to pray for her and share the truth with her, both on abortion and the gospel of Jesus Christ, because only Jesus has the power to change her heart.

He’s sort of in the business of redeeming and changing monsters. After all, He did this for me.

Let’s hope all of this sinks in and she’s freed from her hate of the unborn.

renaissance-art:

Peter Paul Rubens c. 1602

The Deposition (detail)

“RAWRRRRR!!!!”

Hovertext: This comic officially not in relation to anything.

New comic!
Today's News:

 Tickets for BAHFest East are now on sale!

These tickets have sold out early every year so far, and the student tickets (available to students from any university) usually sell out very quickly. So, if you want to guarantee a spot, and see people like Rosemary Mosco, Abby Howard, and Max Tegmark, please book soon!

Author: Pai Osias Source: Mobile Web (M5)

RT @Asher_Wolf: Ahahahahaha reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comm… http://t.co/2CTV7r41hD

4gifs:

Wall used counter-attack. It was super effective! [video]

gamegrrl:

did a little eyeliner tutorial for you guys :-)

mercurialistheather:

I AM THE PRINCESS KING

Find your way!

dontbeanassharry:

aroacelukeskywalker:

nursenotes:

1. Fist: Make a fist around the epi-pen, don’t place your thumb/fingers over either end

2. Flick the blue cap off

3. Fire. Press down into the outer thigh (the big muscle in there), hold for 10 seconds before removing (the orange cap will cover the needle). Bare skin is best but the epi-pen will go through clothing. Avoid pockets and seams. 

- Ring an ambulance even if everything seems to be fine!

Oh my god.
So as someone who has to carry an epipen EVERYWHERE I am so happy to see that there’s an info post about them.
Like in the extreme case that I can’t inject myself, somebody else would have to do it, but nobody knows how to do it! Thank you, this may just save my life some day.

Don’t be wimpy about it, either. I know friends who are like, “but idk if I could stab you with a needle!” Please stab me with the needle, don’t be hesitant about it.

In my case (I can’t speak for all allergies), an epi buys me 20 minutes of breathing to get to the hospital. It is not a magic bullet, it’s a few critical minutes to help get me where I need to go.

artdweeb:

Durden likes to watch me change clothes.

creepingmuse:

mewbutts:

internetexplorers:

when i die i want to be buried wearing a pair of sunglasses so that a few decades down the line i will also be a cool skeleton

26,473 notes. 26,473 people identified with this statement. if even half that many people actually did this, can you imagine how confused future archaeologists would be

We believe the dark glasses may be a sign that the deceased wished to hide their guilty eyes from St. Peter, who guarded the gates of heaven. Their true ritualistic use is unknown.