earliest animation

too cool for school...

http://www.artsjournal.com/bookdaddy/2007/04/one_of_the_earliest_animated_f.html

cheers,

choice generation

just finished reading this, Next Deal, its a book by Andrei Cherny who was most notably the writer for the 2000 democratic party platform. the book is a good read, there is a fair amount of political insight as to the workings of capitol hill. Cherny is convinced that this generation, what he calls the choice generation demands a new form of government then we have been used to. rather the reforms that need to be made are fairly radical, and coincide more with what the Internet culture provides with instant decisions, collaboration, and participation. sadly, he seems to leave out considerations of our consumeristic culture. specifically, the thought that went through my head, was how can it be called the choice generation when their "choices" are packaged via the consumer driven industries. most of his ideology I can agree with in principle, it is just some of his applications that i am still turning over. his site, provides a fair amount of excerpts and I'll leave the rest to you.

next book, is Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds, a book about M-theory and related...word of warning, his site is a little hokey...which worries me about the book, we shall see.

if you've been wondering, my computer is on the flip, and ram or that lack thereof is seriously impeding my digital work...so these days, reading, analog drawing, and writing...

cheers,

21st century thinking...

although his writing has been around for a few years, I just found out about this.

Willaim McDonough and Michael Braungart published a book Cradle to Cradle that puts forth thinking that has more to do with mindset shifting then methods.

McDonough has several websites that are pretty substantial if you have the time.

enjoy

weekend art notes...

a few articles of interest, the one on LeWitt is good...

more here at the modern art notes, then of course here.

cheers,

Rove et Crow

in an exchange last night at the correspondents dinner, between Sheryl Crow and Karl Rove...

...Sheryl abruptly responded, “You can’t speak to us like that, you work for us.” Karl then quipped, “I don’t work for you, I work for the American people.” To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, “We are the American people.”

read the full story here.

cheers,

Youth dada or data

more from a favorite site of mine, civicyouth.org

"The research on youth volunteering trends found that 50 percent of young people between ages 18 and 25 who volunteer grew up in a family where someone spent time volunteering;
while 65 percent of youth who do not volunteer followed their non-volunteering family’s lead. Further, the data showed that 60 percent of young people who volunteered came from a household where politics was discussed."

text from the press release found here. I had difficulties downloading the report, if someone else can, then let me know.

and just in case you missed it last time I posted it, here's the data on youth voting from the mid-terms.

FYI, youth voter turnout for ages 18-29 was 24%. and that's up from 20% in 2000

cheers,

more on energy

from the Gallup poll...

"The importance of energy as a concern for Americans rises and falls with the price of gas. When the price of gas goes up, concern about energy goes up. When the price of gas declines, energy costs become much less salient to Americans."

read more here.

the syntax is interesting in that it portrays a certain antiquated view towards energy, that is to say, that Americans see energy as gasoline. it questions whether in Americans minds there is any other form of energy...

energy is the solution

in a conversation today, the topic came up, among others, about how influential energy consumption is in our world. solving energy problems is the road to solving most if not all other human problems.

sadly, there is further proof that Europe is ahead of us. go ahead and search for yourself, but here is proof as to the progress that is being made in hydrogen fuel cell research. try googling solar powered hydrogen electrolysis and browse the results. puts an end to the ethanol and bio diesel debate, me thinks.

In some cases, it is even possible to generate the hydrogen through renewable methods without consuming natural resources.

daily humor

its good to laugh, even if it is at ourselves...

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/21/tds-jason-jones-refutes-an-inconvenient-truth/

enjoy...

art Hist 101

found this a few days back, but forgot to share with everyone.

its a good article on some of the progress and otherwise that has or hasn't been made.

enjoy...

cheers,

good stuff on OIL

watched this documentary last night. it reminded me a lot of the Crude Addiction t-shirt that my sister gave me back in the late 80's...which was the one with the hypodermic needle filled with Crude Oil, and if i remember correctly it was jammed into the USA...along with some text on the borders relating to wars and what not relating to maintaining our oil addiction, sadly the t-shirt didn't make me any more popular. nonetheless, the film talks numbers and very harshly about the realities of how much our addiction to oil pervades our society. some of the subjects we have heard before, peak oil, wars, energy economics...but this time around it goes further and speaks to an apocalyptic demise to the economy being just around the corner. one interesting factoid was how OPEC manipulates their published reports of reserves where in effect, the amount they produce in a given year is miraculously replaced by years end; thus there is no real way of knowing exactly how much is left. however, in the film, there are a few that have been able to bring reality to the numbers, and it looks, well, it ain't good. like i said, a really happy, lift your spirits up kind of movie. maybe disney will make a version.

evolution...

how much longer will we tolerate acts of violence? and when will we begin to see the connections to culture, politics, and daily life? there is no mystery as to how these things come about, the only mystery is why we continue to condone violence.

simTrans

check this out, its a bit of new art, by a couple of folks that are making some interesting interactive art...

http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/simtrans/index.htm

Behind the Screen

a bit of re-memory here, one of the projects of documentation that we did for the Aven Project, was a documentary film that contained interviews, footage of the project, and shots of some of the fabrication/installation that took place. It took a lot of work, and it was a lot just to make the film, especially considering all the time and effort that went in to it. well, i have finally gotten around to making some short web versions, so for those that are intersted you can check it out here. enjoy. feedback is always appreciated.

a call for patience...

very interesting article in the times about modern life and our collective inability towards understanding things out of context.

pearls before breakfast


worth the read....

cheers.

cartoons

political cartoons...

http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/04/saturday-cartoons.html

3 phase updates

have finally gotten around to updating the 3 Phase section of the site. there are now, slideshows, more animations, and re-formatted text.

check it out here.

cheers.