ana v digi v ana v digi v

There is a revelation that occurs the first time you pull your film out of the development tank and look at it in the light - even if there is nothing on it. A transformation occurred that you made happen. If nothing came out, or your exposure was off, there is no apple (or control) + z, no undo button, no revert to saved, no save in increments, no back up. You must figure out where you went wrong and redo it, hoping that you did indeed figure out where you went wrong. (ok, sometimes it could be a faulty camera) Yet, you will not know for sure until you pull the newly developed, dripping in photo-flo, film out of the developing tank again. Similarly, you are the sole person/thing responsible for it. You can only loose it if you physically misplace the film. No crash, no accidental delete, no system freeze in the middle. You are responsible and there is no one and nothing else to blame.

The revelation doesn't occur on the computer, where if you don't like the filter you just applied, you can undo. This is fine for those of us who have experienced the revelation, at least once. But those who have never experienced it have been deprived of a significant event, a feeling of satisfaction and positive reinforcement from oneself. Those of us who have been privy to the revelation perhaps imagine a small one each time we learn new tools or discover new methods in our current digital practice.

If all I knew was apple+z, would I be as fulfilled with working in the intangible? How did I ever give up control over my work to a finicky computer that is perhaps subject to frequent crashes and irreversible deletions?

. . .

A lil less thoughtful ...

The excitement
literally
As the days get shorter my anticipation g r o w s

yes, again literally - for both you and me
Soon the climate will change

Life will seem back on track, but when was my life knot

Tied up
In knots
Bundled
Tight
Bound
errrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Goals may be clear

Or perhaps just as hay zee butt bottom derière quite contraire

Clear that each end begins a new knew what I was missing miss

ing Eye In Geezzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's time.

Tie me.

Untie me.

Un Knot.

Writing

Written language is an artifice.

I have recently been listening to a class. There are 36 lectures in the whole thing (I downloaded it as an audiobook); I started this past Saturday, and I am already on Lecture 19. I told a friend that it is a class I have always wanted to take, but I was too busy being an "artiste" when I was in school (both/all times). Needless to say, I am a bit obsessed.

It is titled The Story of Human Language and it is taught by John McWhorter. He is one of my new heroes. It is probably much healthier to have him as a hero than some of my other current heroes because (a) he is alive, (b) I don't agree with everything that he says, and (c) he has demystified some things - which in turn has taken some ignorant theories of mine and shown that they have already been disproved. I downloaded the lecture series from The Teaching Company. I am in love with them too.

Back to the class. At the end of lecture eighteen he says that "written language is an artifice." Immediately I remembered it as "written language is a fallacy." In fact, I did not realize that he said "artifice" until I started writing this post. Artifice, fallacy. Fallacy, artifice. Contrived, deceptive. Skillful, false. Subtle deception, a false notion. The more I think about the words, the more I find them to be similar, which, of course, agrees with the fact that I perceived him to say one and not the other. Yet, when I initially thought about those two words I found them to be quite distinct in meaning. Not that they have become the same word, but their meanings seem to be growing closer (and closer).

Through this class ideas/theories I had about language, dialects, time, culture, immigration ... have been debunked. All of these theories were fallacies. I now realize just how stunted my education is. Here I am with an MFA, yet what do I truly know and what can I do with that? No, I am not feeling sorry for myself - quite the opposite, actually. I am trying to rationally and objectively look at my education (both formal and informal) and analyze the gaps. As Dr. McWhorter talks about high languages and low languages, dialects and standards, I have begun to simply look at my language learning experiences (and language teaching experiences). All three languages that I speak I learned in three very different manners and use them and very different ways. My "highness" and "lowness" (and my comfort with speaking/writing/reading in the way that I do) of these languages oscillates greatly. Is that good or bad is neither here nor there. The difference is what is significantly important. Yet, I am not sure why (but that doesn't matter). To look at it is important. To think about how you communicate and how you perceive your communication is important. To understand the means of your communication is important.

Written language is a fallacy. It is an artifice. It is completely contrived. Everything that you write is contrived and self-conscious. Most of my "artistic" life I have been urged, by my professors and therefore by myself, to not be self-conscious, yet I don't recall ever wondering (a) why am I self-conscious or (b) why is being self-conscious bad -i.e what is taking away from or how is it corrupting?

Why am I self-conscious? Well, obviously, we are self-conscious whenever we put something on the page because that is not an instinctual or intuitive act [this being one of the reasons why I think that working intuitively is ever so important, but of course you must step back after the fact to look objectively]. You actually think before you form the words with a pen or type them on a keyboard. Blogging and email make writing a bit more intuitive because we, as a society, are much more forgiving (and lazy) with spelling and grammatical errors that we read (write) in emails, im chats, and blogs. But, all in all, the word is not your thought. As an aside, I know that there are many arguments about how we think. One theory states that we think in what is called "mentalese", therefore any (recognizable) language that we use is secondary and requires yet another layer. Thus, writing is even another layer farther removed from the actual, pure thought. So, too is making: sculpting, drawing, painting, constructing ... This said - how could one NOT be self-conscious? Is it possible to truly work intuitively? Can you actually work un-self-consciously? Is working self-consciously an artifice? Who or what is it tricking? Is the trickery OK? Sometimes trickery is OK, right?

Politics

While traditionally I am not a political person, I feel that the results of the election require a comment, especially after reading a note a friend of mine posted on Facebook:


How come you supported Obama?

I'm not trying to start a fight. I'm just curious. I've already had a few people drop me from their friend's list because of different political beliefs, and I've been called a racist several times because I don't support Obama.


I am SURE that someone out there can do better than that. So could someone please tell me on what issues they side with Obama? I ask because I cannot find a single issue that anyone would rationally say, "yes, I agree with him and I believe that is the best course of action for our nation".


Or does it really just boil down to one of the following:
-yes, we can
-change
-a vote for Obama is a vote against Bush

Please, give me hope that we voted him into office for reasons other than those.


This was my response (which didn't fit on one comment space, so I had to post two!):

They may have dropped you because of how you are making your comments, rather than your support of McCain.

I, too, am a registered independent, and I voted for someone who I believe can actually change our country back to what we grew up believing it was. I have felt completely estranged from American politics and America for years (hence my constant living abroad). In the past few days I have received emails from non-US friends of mine encouraging me to vote for Obama and also congratulating me after Tuesday night. I think that the world's perspective of our country and us as Americans is important; it is quite amazing how much an effect our president has on other countries and on how they view us - whether or not you feel that is a valid relationship, that is a relationship that the world makes. This election and hence the results are about so much more than just who we want in office for the next four years. I don't necessarily support all of what Obama supports, nor do I think that he will be able to complete all of the promises that he has made, but I believe in him. I believe that he (and, let's be honest, his team) will be able to help us through this financial crisis, find a way for us to pull out of Iraq successfully and peacefully, and find our place in the world not as a THE world power, but a power among many, which is our place.

I hope that makes sense to you. I am sorry that your heart has broken and that someone who you supported so whole-heartedly didn't win. But, I hope that you can come to terms and realize how historical these results are - not just because he is our first black president. He had so many supporters from all walks of life, all races, all ages ... yeah, sure some of the people who voted for him voted blindly for change or an African-American, but some people who voted for McCain made similar decisions. Many people who voted for the first time because they have felt disenfranchised with the political system and voted for Obama now feel that their vote truly can make a difference. This is important to the future of our country. A country where the people (all the people) matter is the country that I thought I grew up in, but as I became an adult I did not see it that way.

P.S. i would never drop you from my fb friends, in fact even though some things you have written infuriate me, it is wonderful to hear your opinions because they would absolutely NEVER occur to me.


This event is not about race, but about opportunity and the since defunct American Dream. There is a new energy in the American people. Even though I don't like to repeat rhetoric (especially political rhetoric), but it is about hope. A hope that was lost when JFK was killed. A hope that died when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. A hope that some Americans never even knew they had.

Review

New Atlanta art blog, Burn Away, reviewed Le Flash and the One Minute/One Night videos.