Ouroboros

Violence is the extremity of belief. Violence is the extremity of cynicism.
Ouroboros

believe

don't believe

Discourse

I think people really like charts and graphs, which is why my entry on narrative was the surprise hit of the summer with the thread picked up by both Steve and Dennis. We are artists and love to think visually. To answer Dennis' question..I think I'll say "yes"..discourse is both a cloud of condensation, and precipitation...that's sort of the nature of clouds after all. But I also have a great wikipedia passage to crib and some images that may shed some light on just what this whole "discourse" deal is all about. The irony gods will appreciate this discourse on discourse. I'll get to nature and its obscenities later.

from wikipedia:

According to Foucault, discourse can't be reduced to an ideological reflexion, it is to be thought as itself a Kampfplatz or battlefield. Against Kant's conception, Foucault argues that truth is not the objective bounty that the winners can take; truth is not an absolute, it is on the contrary produced in this battle with strategic aims. This conception of truth may be related to Althusser's theory on the "epistemological break" between science and ideology (the "epistemological break" is not an event, but a process; "science" always has to fight for its truth against ideology, which keeps coming back). Since knowledge and power are intrinsically related, according to Foucault, he can thus say that power relations are immanent to discourses, whereas in the classic marxist conception, the discourse is conceived as the ideological superstructure - which, of course, interacts with the base, as Marx wrote, but this does not impede the power relations being essentially located in the economic base, afterward reflected in the superstructure.

Burden of Dreams

It's not only my dreams. My belief is that all these dreams are yours as well. And the only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them…and that is what poetry, and painting, and literature, and filmmaking is all about. It's as simple as that. I make films because I have not learned anything else, and I know I can do it to a certain degree, and it is my duty, because this might be the inner-chronicle of what we are, and we have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field...Werner Herzog, Burden of Dreams

ビタゴラスイッチ (Pythagoraswitch)

Dead Meadow, 7.22.07

at Little Radio "Summer Camp 2007"

Werner Herzog on Nature...

"the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder"

Narrative

up next: chaos and nets

Cobra Verde

I've been watching all of Werner Herzog's films starring Klaus Kinski. I wish I had time to write a proper essay on Herzog's view of nature and civilization. Herzog's colonial anti-heroes are usually left drifting in a nowhere land between two equally unappealing choices: the soulless and cold rationalism of Western Civilization, and the dumb and irrational Primitivism of the Native. The collision of these two worlds reveals the mistake we often make of Romanticizing Non-Western cultures as somehow Noble or above reproachment. In an interview, Herzog refers to Nature as a brutal obscenity and I think that he is strangely accurate. The jungles and rivers of Cobra Verde, Aguirre, and, Fitzcarraldo are indeed dark and murderous, placed in direct oppostion to the Will of Man. Ultimately of course, for Herzog nature works as a metaphor for the human spirit...and the realization that is slowly formed is that we are looking not at something other than oursleves, but at the dark mirror of the soul. If nature is brutal, than man is equally so. There is no resolution to this contest, although the effort consumes us. Man's conquest of Nature is itself a linguistic hallucination.....a task something akin to biting one's own teeth...for how can one conquer that which he is?

Dorothea Tanning

One of "The Surrealist Wives Club"...nearly forgotten but looking goood right about nah.
Dorothea Tanning
Kay Sage

Hedge Funds Explained featuring Nassim Taleb and the Black Swan

I love these financial guys.

this is prolly the coolest MF in the known universe

Tintoretto

il furioso

Persona

PERSONA: The word persona means actor's mask (from personare, “to speak through”). The persona belongs more to consciousness than to the unconscious; it denotes the various masks one wears when relating to the world outside oneself, the social roles we all learn to play. It mediates between one's individuality and the expectations of others. The persona is a necessity, but it should be flexible and adaptable; it is important that the ego does not identify with the persona.

The Process of Individuation

I Am Alive

..and so are you

Damien Hirst Must Die

I was listening to George Noory on Coast to Coast Am and the subject was the many Crystal Skulls that have been found around the world. All the sudden I realized that Damien Hirst's diamond studded skull is really lame and pathetic...until he dies. Currently it's trite vanity and a great example of how being an "artist" can bring out the worst in a human being..namely narcissism, greed, self-importance, being a soulless dick not to mention a great example of how the human race seems to prefer the menu to the meal. When he dies all that will be forgiven and it'll be great art. Until then it's a $100 million dollar turd. This might also apply to everything else he's made...

.....and also Jeff Koons.
.....Jason Rhoades dead but still no good....sorry dude.

Extreme Instability

one more WTF

I must apologize that my blog is just slowly becoming a backwash of boingboing video clips due to my laziness and general apathy towards the obligations and grave responsibility that authoring a proper blog requires. I will rectify my slovenly blogging practices and post more exciting human interest posts as soon as my mortgage loan is accepted and I am able to purchase an expansive and elegant Spanish style villa in Tossa del Mar within water balloon range of Dennis Hollingsworth's dumpy cottage. There I will entertain a select and hand picked group of the international ultra-hip cultural elite and we will laze about in the mojito afternoons talking about ArtBasel after-parties and generally arbitrate all matters that concern cognescenti like us. Weekends will be spent snorkeling in Ibiza and Dennis won't be allowed to come. Now that would be CONTENT!!

Psychadelic KFC

Chaos

The Long Tail

WTF

genius

The New Psychadelic Rock

Mithras Mithra

Mithraism

Interview with Bruno Dumont...

JP Munro does Bierstadt

JP Munro
Saw this at his apartment before watching fireworks. Incidentally it's his first oil painting. Strangely enough JP also has a painting of Tintin and Snowy(Milou) which is odd considering I did a whole Tintin series at CalArts...have to find those jpgs.

Klaus Kinski- Jesus

keywords: megalomania, Werner Herzog

MacArt Teil 4 von 5

German Art TV....enough said.

I'm still working on these but they're finished enough to blog.

Asha Bhosie

I love that song.

Also pretty sweet.

Triffid

My sister photographed this odd alien cricket somewhere in central Minnesota. Too bad Art Bell is retiring to spend more time with his beautiful 19 year old Filipina bride. Can you blame him ? We could've called in to Coast to Coast Am and got some answers. Alack...George Noory will have to suffice.

Pygmalion and Galatea

Pygmalion
Statuephilia

Thanks

Thanks for coming by and checking out my recent work and gorging on cow meat. I only managed to take one photo..Steve eating a piece of steak dipped in ketchup. It's really interesting to get a bunch of artists together in 2007..everyone has a different perspective and set of values. No one seems terribly inclined to follow whatever trifling fashion might be hovering above the market at any given moment. I feel like there are a number of conversations going on right now on a number of different wavelengths..and this variety is exciting-although it's clear that administrators will always be concocting narratives in order for us to digest the chaos. Can't sell chaos. Anyways I'm glad that official art "movements" no longer exist...because even though there's a certain exhilaration in the tribal cabal...it's a real drag to have to follow rules and be part of a lame bureaucracy/academy. Freedom is good for the creative process.