lunch by the Siphraya Pier, Bangkok. reading McLuhan's interview from late 1960s and thinking of it related to the Jean M Auel Earth's Children's series books I've read - am reading her latest "The Land of the Painted Caves" during this trip. so his ideas on the development of the phonetic language are interesting. I think he's talking about more recent times (& Homo sapiens / modern humans - probably around 3500 years ago up until today). but since I've just finished the book - which is about the period when both Neanderthal & CroMagnon man/humanoids are living together on Earth, I was relating his ideas back to the ideas in the book. Auel's books have talked about the sign language and large, communal memories of Neanderthal man (previous to CroMagnon) - they didn't have developed speech - or the ability to talk properly apart from a few words/sounds. so perhaps McLuhan's ideas mean we get the best of both worlds - memory outsourced to writing. I think Erik Davis has talked about these things in his Techgnosis book too iirc. I also liked how in the McLuhan article he was talking about such a "connected world" & computers and communication networks in the early 1960s! well, he did pretty much invent "communication studies" type uni classes, but still, you could read this article with today's technology in mind and it would still be relevant - if not even more today than in the '60s
anyway, a lovely afternoon - lunch, reading and writing and ideas.
...
tonight I've been listening to some of this talk and reading the article - it ties in to the book/ideas of this trip / today's reading also : Scott Taylor and Bob Dobbs discuss "FIBONACCI AND THE ECSTATIC DIGITAL CLUB SCENE" http://bit.ly/iy9YNKhttp://bit.ly/jbSrZP the "anti-cave cave" - they're talking of techno club as a modern cave with paintings on the walls (glowing lights) as well as mentions of the more obvious comparison to Plato's cave & the archetypes of reality, and McLuhan's ideas of advertising and tv being the "cave paintings" of our modern world.
[quote]The McLuhan Dew-Line; and, punning on that title, he has also originated a series of recordings called “The Marshall McLuhan Dew-Line Plattertudes”.[/quote]
McLuhan Dew-Line newsletters ad - love some of the topics: future editions will discuss.. "the end of history via the computer" "the end of the stock exchange via the computer" "the satellite as the end of Nature" "why the 'backward' countries will inevitably dominate the western world"
& I watched this video "I'm not beer" - mentions Bob Dylan, McLuhan, and Bob Dobbs
2011 is the 100th anniversary of McLuhan's birthday. there's a few events celebrating this : McLuhan 2011 (this weekend - just heard about it) and McLuhan on Maui has phone conferences feb-dec 2011 and an in-person conference later in the year (december) their about page has the details - there seems to be audio archives of the calls (eg the one above discussing the essay)
the camera didn't really do this justice, but there were these amazing ghostly reflections and patterns of light moving on the ceiling next to the Si Phraya pier today whilst I was having lunch. mezmerizing
some links on Bangkok sound art and digital art and other interesting blogs / media
art BAM - Bangkok Art Map - BAM is a printed art map available at galleries, hotels, art-cafes and various other places around the city. there seems to be a different issue each month. I found a copy of the 05.2011 version at the Kathmandu Photo Gallery off Silom Rd in Bangrak. the website has art listings and information also and is definitely worth checking out - you can even download a pdf version of the current BAM if you don't find one on the soi
Kathmandu Photo Gallery - there's books, art prints, and a gallery upstairs. it's a great old pre-war building, painted pale green - which reminds me of the smaller rooms in the old RSL halls in Brisbane in the 1970s where we did ballet classes - even the same pale green paint on the wall boards - it's very fresh and colourful. owned by well-known Thai photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom and artist/filmaker Ing K.
Reflections on Hunter's first three albums:
::: "Done DL" ::: Hunter and Dazastah (2002)
::: "Going Back to Yokine" ::: Hunter (2006)
::: "Monster House" ::: Hunter and DJ Vame (2010)
When Walter Benjamin stated in 1936 that, “the art of storytelling is coming to an end" due to the rise of the printed novel and the lowering value of experience, he hadn't anticipated the rise of the hip hop emcee to revive this craft in our modern world. In all his albums, Hunter shows his skills as a wonderful storyteller. There are tales of growing up, getting into trouble and later returning to his hometown of Yokine, Perth, in the songs "Adolescence", "Going Back To Yokine" and "Yokine (Drugs + Crime)". These are stories of self-discovery, and of changing his life, and of hope — giving up old ways that were not working for him to focus on music, rapping and living a hip hop-infused life instead. "What I Do Best" has the feeling of homecoming to a community of supportive people and finding his place in the world. There are stories of mateship and the value of community with his Syllabolix (SBX) family and crew. There are stories of having children and the specialness that can bring to one's life in "Ultrasound" and "Kids of the Future". Littering his rhymes in "Kids of the Future", "The Big Issue" and "Me Old Man" are stories based on his Dad’s advice, as he contemplates being a father himself.
my first k-film. I've been wanting to try this for close to a year or more, ever since Adrian Miles pointed them out on the artists in the cloud list. built using Korsakow. I was running an old version of mac o/s so I couldn't use the software. upgraded on sunday night & now it works. I've got a couple of orphan branches and I didn't clean up the clips or audio, so it's far from perfect, but gives me the idea on how to do it. this is just a simple one using flying / water / blue / waves / waveriding / patterns type keywords
these korsakow k-films really are quite wonderful. it links the videos on words (in & out). so u can have a language story underlying the film. there's many words / things I cannot say - either for not having the words or not being able to speak them. but I can think them when filming. then link them up later. story within the story. hopefully the mood / theme comes across. so many ideas to try.
this test film is using steps involved in the How to SNUify (first) tutorial. I'm sure there's plenty more things yet to try. it was very easy to make. just add all the clips, then add input & output words to create the 'links' between the videos.
if you play it, maybe turn down your volume as I didn't remove the audio so it's natural sound with lots of wind & plane/flying distortion. I might try a music soundscape next - replace the audio on the video clips and then link them - it would sound different each time, depending on the order you / the viewer (listener) played the films back
note: the default embed code seems incorrect : the url seems incorrect - it should be .html not .htm & the .js file shouldn't have the index.html before it, so change these and it should embed ok on other sites. doesn't seem to be displaying, so use the link above. will look at it later after some sleep
the Flood Money Auction is a fundraiser that is bringing together the Australian hip hop community to support those who have suffered after the devastating floods in QLD. The biggest and best have all donated some amazingly rare and valuable items to be sold with all proceeds going towards the Premiers Flood Appeal. visit http://floodmoney.org for more details and to see the items up for auction. as at 13th feb, @PeakStreet mentioned "$4,500 rustled up for this #FloodMoneyAuction already & counting!" great work everyone
the stems cake for my friend's birthday. myself & another friend made & decorated this 13/09/1987. it looks like the cover of their record. I think my copy of the record was stolen at a party a couple of years later (as were my old violent femmes & swampy records) :(
wow the stems are still touring overseas (2010). great to hear www.thestems.com.au "AT FIRST SIGHT VIOLETS ARE BLUE" was the record
I hope lyocell is ok, because this tshirt I bought, 50% cotton, 50% lyocell is *the* most comfortable shirt I've had since I was a kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell says it's bleached wood pulp. so thank you trees (sorry you were cut down for this). need to get more. the shirt feels like this abba tshirt I had when i was about 8 that I used to wear every day. would rollerskate under friends house in it. the feel of 1000 washes and Brisbane summer heat & kids playing in big back yards & under-the-house skate rinks.
I don't want to wash it yet in case the feeling goes away! ha http://bit.ly/g5Ztxu if u want to try one. I just bought another
graphs of an ngrams (http://ngrams.googlelabs.com) word search in google books for "consciousness". it seems it peaked in the late 1800s, early 1900s and then again 1970s-1990s. perhaps not an exact science as it would depend on how many books (these are English books only) have been scanned & included in the source files, and how many people used the actual term in those books. but it gives a general idea of when the term was more popular in writings?
searching English books from 1500 - 2008 (I asked for 1 - 2010)
searching English books from 1900 - 2008 (I asked for 1900 - 2010)
I attended the St Peters Coal Seam Gas Mining Public Meeting at Petersham Town Hall last night, along with about 150 other concerned citizens from St Peters, Petersham, Tempe and other surrounding suburbs (I'm in Camperdown)
I took some notes - in addition to my previous post about this which has newspaper article links - I haven't had time to type them up yet, so below are my notebook pages - pls excuse the messy writing. some of it was hard to hear so there's a few "...??(pls check)" sections but it should give you an idea on what was discussed. I also recorded audio of the meeting though it's rather unclear to listen to also (phone recording)
i just finished reading "on the shortness of life" by seneca. I think the main idea is that we are too busy being preoccupied and busy that even if we live a long life in number of years, we've only lived a short time in quality life terms. he suggests that in order to live a long life we should read and think more in philosophical terms.
"Life is short, art is long" a quote from Hippocrates (pg 1)
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it" (pg 1)
there have been reports in the paper recently that St Peters is going to be mined for gas
update 07/12/2010 *** : I attended the public meeting in Petersham last night - here are my notes ***
from what I've read online (newspaper articles) it seems that the St Peters gas drilling won't use fracking techniques - hydraulic fracturing (with the chemicals) but still, City of Sydney & Cr. Clover Moore allowed it to go through - correction 29/11/2010 Kristina Keneally's office approved the exploratory drilling via Clover Moore's tweet in reply to Sophie Loizou's question : @CloverMoore : @sofieloizou @cityofsydney has no role in approving or assessing exploration licenses. See my question in Parliament: http://bit.ly/httJL5
if it isn't bad enough to be drilling in the city, the scary thing (I think) is that they *do* use fracking techniques when drilling in the country areas close to the dams in most states. this could have huge impact in contaminating our water supplies, which as we know are very precious (luckily we've had rain this year so many dams are full)
also I don't recall receiving any notices about this in leaflet drops - a city of sydney one arrived this week, I'll have another read to see if it's mentioned. if the greens hadn't asked for more info I'm not sure anyone would have known about this??
there's a film called Gasland showing at these cinemas which shows the practice of fracking in the USA. I'm going to see this on the weekend.
on the Greens website there's a couple of articles and a petition. I think people need to be made aware of what's happening. I know I'd like to know more of the details of what's involved & impacts etc.
Greens MP Cate Faehrmann has some info on the sydney (& nsw) gas drilling if you want to find out more http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cate-Faehrmann/125981310754146 - 'fracking' seems to be happening in other parts of Aus too - disturbingly close to our water supplies/dams. what's that song? "Australia, don't become America"
a drive to bethells beach not far from Auckland, NZ on 10/07/2009. another video from the archive. this is my favourite beach in Auckland - the sand is brown and in winter the wind blows and you're surrounded by a sandy mist.
I've started another MLA (maybelogic.net) class called Global Village - I'm a little behind as I joined a week late, so tonight I watched the week1 videos and read through the forum posts. I'm behind on another too - Douglas Rushkoff's "Program or be Programmed" which hopefully I can catch up on during my holiday weekend (though I think this might be the last week). for Global Village, run by talented artist Bobby Campbell, we watched videos by Robert Anton Wilson, Marshall McLuhan, William Gibson, Ray Kurzweil, Timothy Leary and more. I liked the quote from Soren Kierkegaard "life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlSOzj3BsR8 - I think this is partially what we're (?) / I'm doing with the video diaries each November for #vlomo10 (videoblogging month). I watched another of McLuhan's videos where he spoke about technology/gadgets vs the book & the return to tribalism (technology/communication gadgets/tribes) from individualism (renaissance man/books/singular experiences) : Marshall McLuhan - The World is a Global Village (CBC TV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic - this was interesting too - his predictions of the future were very apt.
on 08/08/2004 I went on a helicopter ride over Wiltshire and surrounding areas and saw some of the crop circles. my cousin's husband worked for the flight company (pilot though he wasn't flying this helicopter) and they were taking people on crop circle tours and there was a spare seat so I jumped at the chance to see them. there was also a crop circle conference running that weekend further down the hill but I recall it was quite expensive so we didn't go in to it. the end of the video is some footage from the same day driving through the UK countryside - England is beautiful in the summer - the colours of the wheat fields against the sky is one of my favourite memories of UK summer. so, for day 15, this is another one from the archive.
I don't think the video is online as I didn't think the quality was that good and I didn't like how shaky the camera was, but again. but I really like the colours in the footage & I even like the shakiness now too - with the frames of the helicopter windows and different shadows. am glad I didn't delete these clips now! amazing how time can change your views on things (& the world) I took many photos on this day and some of these have been included on a UK crop circle tracking website.
