scary
UK Indymedia | Experts examine Apache Killing Video - scary, American crimes of war that will never reach trial….
red-haired kate
T-Shirt Majority - you’ve just gotta love Kathleen Kranack.
polliticking bomb
Poll: Bush Has Likeability Edge on Kerry - this is very scary, especially when you see this: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: The Making of the Autobiography of George W. Bush (an Excerpt)
Los Angeles Times: Kerry Feels Squeeze on Iraq Policy
Democrats Wonder if Kerry Should Stay on Careful Path
And of course there’s this on the Veepstakes: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: PROS AND CONS OF JOHN KERRY’S TOP TWENTY VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
And in other news:
Feed the Worms Who Write Worms to the Worms - The economic logic of executing computer hackers. By Steven E. Landsburg - OK, so it’s a bit much, but he makes some interesting points in here.
‘Super Size Me’ Gets Downsized by MTV - I remember hearing about this documentary. I wonder when it’ll hit South Africa….
play with yourself
BUSHGAME.COM - THE ANTI-BUSH ONLINE ADVENTURE - this has to be one of the best things I’ve ever seen. The intro is brilliant, and the surprise guests are fantastic - be sure to see all of their “special powers,” when using them, by pressing the enter key with each character…
Mac OS X v10.3.4 Update - I’m still on 10.2.6 myself (for compatibility issues with my serial to USB port, for physical computing), but that doesn’t mean you have to be.
But back to politics, From the Editors: The Times and Iraq - has to be the biggest kick in the pants I’ve seen in a bit. The LA times has become the only voice of reason over the past while, and the NY Times has been, well, crap. Does this mean they are ready to shape up their act again?
Emin tent feared to be among Saatchi works lost in fire - sad story. I guess if Duchamp work was in the fire, he would say it was now ‘finished.’
And now some blog features, from blogger:
Kuwait Diary
jerusalem wanderings
Andy Kaufman Returns
world at small
Susan Sontag | Regarding the Torture of Others - highly recommended. Beautifully written, thought-provoking, and slightly scary. Sontag is swell.
Pension fund for artists - nice idea. “A new company called Mutual Art has created a pension fund for artists, which they fund by ‘investing’ artworks rather than cash.”
Google Bomb List - the most famous ‘Google Bombs,’ which use google’s search technology in order to hack into their top links, and return humor/politics.
Moore Film Is Held Up by Questions About Rights - more Moore; we all need to see this film: Fahrenheit 9/11. It’ll really help do things like this: Bush Poll Numbers On Iraq at New Low.
On the same topic:
Allies dispute post-handover blueprint for Iraq
Oil debate to drive Kerry’s talk here (’here,’ read as ‘in Seattle’)
Nader Calls for Impeachment of Bush Over the War in Iraq
Campaign Ads Are Under Fire for Inaccuracy
Edwards’s edge on economy
too much stuff
Google’s desktop bet - everybody’s favorite search engine is moving to your desktop, in order to help you find files on your own computer!
Shrek 2 take is big and green like its star - the biggest take since (and in some cases, larger than) Spider-Man’s release.
‘Potter’ premiere sizzles - two questions: why wasn’t I that cool when I was 14? and, where was Gary Oldman?
Bush Speech to Try to Assure Americans on Iraq - we’re all rooting for a Burning Bush over here…
newsmap - a socially generative net.art project, ‘Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator…. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap’s objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.’
‘MidiTron is a new MIDI to real-world interface designed to simplify the process of creating sensor and robotics based electronic art projects. It is easily user configurable and provides 20 terminals of digital and analog inputs and outputs in any combination.’
Willem Boshoff @ Goodman (+ more!)
As suspected, Willem Boshoff’s show at the Goodman Gallery is definitely worth seeing. There was also a decent turn-out at the walk-about I did with Marcus at the ArtSpace, regarding our work on the GetAway Experiment - we even followed it with a meeting about GetAway2, which brought about some interesting ideas. I had a few chats with locals, including Christo Doherty, Abrie Fourie and Christian Nerf about my upcoming Johannesburg Art Gallery solo show - I’m really excited about it, but am having trouble finding the funding and equipment support I need to make the exhibition all I’m dreaming it to be. If you have any ideas, feel free to leave some comments, below…
Truth wins at Cannes, says Moore - well, it’s too bad we’ll have to wait a while to see this film in South Africa, but I’m glad to hear it’ll get the exposure in the states that it deserves, despite Disney’s refusal to compromise. Actually, I just found this article with Moore fun quotes:
Cannes Gives Filmmaker Moore Anti-Bush Platform
This is hilarious:Naked students in rollercoaster world record
art is good. yeh.
Yay, art!
Last night was not uneventful. First, I headed over to the Momo Gallery in Parktown North for Conrad Botes’ opening - highly recommended.
I next hit on the PhotoZA Photographic Gallery for a group discussion on photography’s critical culture in South Africa, led by Jo Ractliffe and Sean O’Toole. As group talks go, it got fairly polarized (between the artists and press) at points, but for the most part, it was a lively and interesting discussion.
I actually didn’t do anything after that, so maybe it was not that eventful a
night, after all…
This weekend, Marcus and I will be giving artist talks about our work at the artspace,
at 10AM, and be sure not to miss the Willem Boshoff opening, at the Goodman
Gallery, beginning at noon. Honestly, his work is stunning.
Finally, if you’re looking to enter the prestigious (and dreamy) Brett Kebble Art Awards 2004, do it now! Installation and New Media proposals
are due today, and the regional centers (for relatively smaller work) are
open for drop-offs from Monday 24 May - Monday 31 May, Monday - Friday, 9am -
4pm. More info at the link above.
stuff:
White House Memo: Concern in Republican Party Is Tempered by the Calendar - makes me giddy
The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities - including spam filters!
TinyURL.com - where tiny is better! - nice idea
as usual: politics, macs, art and tech
Kerry revives ‘92 election theme to attack Bush - Dean praises Kerry and they both stomp Bush.
Kerry Vies for Screen Time - this is so ironic. Right after the primaries, Kerry was in the lead; following lots of media attacks / presidential infomercials, Bush took over. But if you looked at the numbers, it wasn’t that Bush’s popularity had increased - it was that his slander had sufficiently decreased Kerry’s popularity. Thanks to some real Iraq coverage now (not that I’m happy about what is going on - trust me), it seems like the reverse is happening. Kerry may not be getting the national coverage he wants - but most of the Bush news is negative
Booting Up Interactive Art in Shows of Prizewinners - a kind of ARS Electronica retrospective; will interactive art soon be an accepted and engaging form by, and for, the mainstream?
Apple - Mac OS X - Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac - new layouts, incorporated applescript, and more… But those who look to pirate, beware! There have been a few reported cases of OS X viruses from limewire…
