implicit art

The super-great Jonah
Brucker-Cohen is at it again. This time, with bumplist
- "An email community for the determined." A limited number of users
can subscribe to the list, and the oldest subscribers get bumped
when new users sign up (or re-subscribe). I’ve been booted twice already (or is
it three? I lose count). It launches on the Whitney
ArtPort on Monday, so you may consider yourself a guinea pig if you subscribe
before then (though I haven’t found any bugs).
Going away with Nicole, for our one-year wedding anniversary this weekend, to
Gold Reef City. Oysters, champagne and gambling. Yum.
My birthday is next week, so you can send presents to my home address (on
request), or email your much appreciated good wishes, here.
Almost done with the serial faces statements (and need some images).
It will be an ongoing exploration, so I just have to give in and post what I’ve
got so far! You will be pleased, methinks.
PJ’s new site is up for the
forgotten angle theatre collaborative.
I want a new computer. This one I’m using is nice, but mewant. CONSUME. The one
you are using now, to view this blog, seems like a winner. You can send
it to me for my birthday if you want.
The Blair Bush Project
was added to the Rhizome
ArtBase this week (need subscription; free on Fridays).
I’m hungry. Gonna go launch lunch.

Had a great day today. Gave a cool lecture at Wits on programming for Multimedia, then chilled with fellow American, Mike, helped out Wayne Barker on an art project, and we took a cruise around town. Rock like a masochist.

Check out this
fantastic essay about the politics of imagination, Mark Shuttleworth and the
African diaspora.
serial faces page, new statements (both written) and a re-organized gallery
should be up by week’s end. For real :)
It was Memorial Day in my home country yesterday, so I had a beer in the early
afternoon to celebrate. Ah, the benefits of being a freelance lecturer/artist/designer.
More Matrix:
If Agent Smith can download his "essence" into a human mind and then
exist in the real world, can humans go the other way around? In Matrix 1, Morpheus
says, "The body cannot exist without the mind." What about the opposite?
Can the mind exist without the body? (Editor’s note: for an interesting discourse
on this question, see Lakoff’s Philosophy in the Flesh and other published
works. I ask it now merely in relation to the Matrix.)
Can not a human, before their body expires, download their mind as software and
exist as the Oracle does, just a posthuman processor, in The Matrix? At some
point, the Merovingian’s ill-treated partner mutters, "He used to be like
you," to Neo. Could the Architect have lied about all former One’s making
the choice they were supposed to? Could the Merovingian have been One of the
"more respectful predecessors," perhaps choosing to remain a powerful
entity inside The Matrix instead of restarting Zion?

So I went to see The Matrix: Reloaded yesterday, being the geek I am, and I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
Needless to say, the graphics were "out of this world" and the continuations
and contradictions of what we were led to believe after the first movie
are what made it interesting. I do, however, have some complaints:
First, the way it worked: monologue, fight, monologue, fight. Fight, fight, monologue.
What I loved about the first movie is how we "discovered" The Matrix:
its rules, and which could be bent or broken, by being shown them in well written/active
scenes. This movie just tells us a history that would have been
far more compelling in other ways. I want to know more about the Keymaker, Merovingian,
the Architect, the Oracle, etc, but in their actions rather than speeches about
them…
Along those lines, what happened to a lot of the things that we learned in the
first movie? "When you see an Agent, RUN - unless you are The One."
Why, then, is it not such a big deal that both Morpheus and Trinity decide to
fight some? And how in the hell do they manage to win / get away (this goes more
for Morpheus, since Neo saved Trinity)?
And Neo, although he should not "just fly away," should have, and use,
a lot more power than we see in this film. If Agents and The Twins are still governed
by Rules, and Neo is not, why can’t he do everything they can and more? Make himself
intangible, jump into bodies, copy himself, etc…
Future predictions:
How many of the exiles really want to help? Or how many are just programmed to
do things? Or how many are double agents? Who gets to live on (did the Keymaker
help the other Ones?) or be deleted or killed?
More importantly:
Is Agent Smith a new kind of anomaly? He becomes more "human"
(choices and breaking of rules) each time he encounters Neo. I believe he is the
Gollum of the story, in a lot of ways - he has a "part to play - for good
or evil - yet." Both he and Neo’s love of Trinity are the major
differences in this storyline (as opposed to the previous Ones).
Another:
The Oracle seems to have picked up on something beyond love and choices, too:
FAITH. This is what drives Morpheus. This is what makes Neo able to be a superhero
(by simply believing that he can). "You’ve made a believer out of me,"
is the last thing she says to Neo before they part. Perhaps it is Faith in humanity
(or the human-ness of choices and love), in non-systemic existence, who
knows? But we’re going to see this Faith played out, big time, in the next film.

Continued working on a new piece for serial faces today, and am hoping
to have some images and a new gallery page up late next week (with statement).
Met with PJ Sabbagha of the Forgotten
Angle Theatre Collaborative today for lunch. He’s a wonderful choreographer,
and a great friend, who I worked with on the
double room, an award-winning South African physical theatre work. We’re
going to collaborate on a new multimedia performance, which takes some of its
concepts to a new level, inviting viewers into a space of secrets, disease, relationships,
closed and open doors, and culminating in an encounter with the viewers themselves.
The piece is tentatively called There is no Room in this Bed, and opens
at The Dance Factory, Newtown Cultural Precinct, Johannesburg, in late June of
this year. the double room
will also be revisited as an educational project for local schools, in November.
Great Dean (article
1) on how
he’ll beat Bush (article 2) as
a grassroots leader (article 3) that cares
about the children (article 4). I like him.
I like him a lot.
Vote in the Democratic Primaries (for Howard
Dean) and for the American President (same as last parenthetical statement).

Ooooooh. Two blogs one day.
I couldn’t resist just a little news surfing. Here’s
a nice one on Howard Dean. Fleischer
is resigning and this could be good for the rest of America. Perhaps Bush
won’t find a decent press secretary (sigh)? Kerry
is calling for a tax increase on the rich, and it’s the first time I might actually
have feelings of "like" for him. Perhaps he is not as bad as I thought,
and I guess "anyone but Bush" ain’t so bad. Now THIS
is sad - who benefits from tax cuts? The rich. Who pays for Bush to spend millions
on a 5-minute clip convincing the middle class that he is "our kind of guy"?
The middle class.
How come Clinton
is cooler now than when he was president? More
Dean, which says, "I’m conservative about money. I really do believe
in a balanced budget, but I’m appalled by the president’s fiscal irresponsibility.
And I’m liberal about social issues." This
is funny. Dean
in Newsweek.
And lastly, The
Matrix: Reloaded finally opens in South Africa on Wednesday. I can’t wait.

Now this is much
cooler than the "democracy that confused capitalism with a way to govern
a country" United States and their researchers of marketing - and it’s right
in my backyard!
Did I mention that in addition to us being far less safe without Saddam (see article
posted from a few days ago), GW Bush is the only president to actually lose
Americans jobs since Truman? See these
stats.
Here’s an interesting net.art site I recently stumbled on: http://rent-a-negro.com
My buddy Johann’s blog
launched today. Woohoo! Happy b-day to him!
My sister is really great and I like her.

Exciting (and scary) times for politics right now. Remember just a few days ago
when I asked if anyone out there thought the whole world should get to vote for
the US President? Thanks to Raina
Kumra for posting this.
Other political news:
Think America is safer without Saddam? Think
again. (need free NY Times subscription)
Wag the dog is real. There are new
heights in presidential commercialism, and we’re paying for it - literally.
(need free NY Times subscription)
Howard Dean finally
gets some decent
Dem primary coverage on MSNBC.
Not political:
There has been an amazing spike in site visitors to nathanielstern.com
over the past few weeks. Hooray for South African socials, American politics and
contemporary art!

If you voted for Nader, Gore, Bradley, Clinton or anyone to the left of GW Bush,
you should read this
(full text here)
and then do this.
Whether you are a supporter of Dean
or not, who gives these guys the right to tell us what a Democrat is, to tell
us that anyone looking for change is elitist and has a narrow agenda? DO
THIS. (Note: even Clinton, who was taught under the wing of one of the main
writers of this document, disagrees with how it portrays Dean
and his supporters - see this
article.)