Mailer vs. McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan

asymptote

The closer I get to thinking I'm done with this one the more it want's to remain just out of reach.

The High Nihilism of Bricolage...or just Lane Relyea at CSULB

Lane Relyea at CSULB 032608 Part 6 of 7

Thanks to Dennis Hollingsworth for posting.
At 3:18: "Today the Artworld overly Romanticizes, I think, the notion of the Everyday"

I couldn't agree more. If there is no difference between production and consumption, if the network is the primary currency of meaning, then there is no real value in the practice of art. If the individual is subsumed and assimilated by a network- ostensibly experiencing the simulation/illusion of agency as a cultural node co-tangential to a supposedly reflexive exchange of ideas and meaning, then he/she is being sold a bill of shoddy goods. This model, far from expressing a democracy of exchange made manifest by it's pre-supposed horizontality, is in fact always contained within a larger arena, the quintessence of which is a pyramidal structure of exclusivity and verticality. This blunt failure to acknowledge the aporia embedded within the disjunctive antinomies that are being offered as co-present and symbiotic models of understanding seems to me to be a most heinous insult and indicative of the type of denial that is common in the Dominator Culture of modern civilization. There is a High Nihilism embedded in the impulse of bricolage...it is the symptom of the infantilization that current culture seeks to foster within both creators and consumers. The sine qua non for the production of meaning is to remove oneself from the leveling forces of cultural boundaries and networks, however democratic they are promised to be. Matter must be transmuted into Spirit-alchemically concretized by the unique and authentic experiences of the individual, not as he/she exists as a sort of Frankenstein of cultural detritus, but as a the accretion of the direct immediacy of experience and the concrescence of a life lived, slowly and methodically reclaimed from the dross of the everyday in a meditative practice of formal invention and authorship.

Starbucks

..it's just a ride

mammon

Boston Dynamics Big Dog (new video March 2008)

amazing

The Power of Nightmares

Introduction:

This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

"Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.

The Power of Nightmares

note: It's a three part 1 hour series, all begin with the same intro so don't be confused.

Part 1 : Baby It's Cold Outside


Part 2 : The Phantom Victory


Part 3:The Shadows in the Cave


Well worth the 3 hours. The strongest statement in evidence yet for the necessary death of ideology that I have seen in any media. Thank you BBC and Adam Curtis.

The Dollar

Terence McKenna- "Build Your Own Damn Boat" 1-9

A dense but rewarding lecture in which Terence discusses the paradigmatic nature of "Freedom" and "Law" and the alternative concepts of "Habit" and "Novelty" by pointing to emerging evidence in astrophysics and evolutionary theory.

part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4


part 5


part 6


part 7


part 8


part 9

image first spotted on crystalpunk

Terence McKenna- "A Crisis in Consciousness" parts 1-6

I uploaded this talk to youtube so that Steven Larose could get better acquainted with The Great Bard without having me mangle his ideas. Listen to it while you paint dude.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6

btw

Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People

...'nuther videocollage I made this weekend. enjoy.

Seven Seers

I made this video collage with some great footage from "Atragon".

Atragon

Dark Roasted Blend has some cool stuff

Quantum Computer