implicit art

I’ve just finished reading my friend Justine’s first trilogy, Magic or Madness - Young Adult Fiction - and it’s great. Mostly intended for teens (without condescending to them), and widely read by adults — her husband, an old friend of my wife’s, Scott, has been on the NYT bestseller list a few times - I’ve been enjoying YAF since the two of them introduced me to the genre.

spoiler warning

The basic premise is simple in that “clear and easy to understand, but I never would have thought of that and it’s so cool” kind of way. Here it is: magic (for those who have it), tho wondrous, drains your life any time you use it - most magic folk consider themselves extremely lucky if they reach the age of forty; but if you don’t use it, prolonging your life, you go mad. Oh, and you can steal magic from others, shortening their lives while making your own longer.
As you can imagine, this creates all kinds of interesting (and horrible) relationships, especially among magic friends and family, and we follow 15-year-old Reason Cansino over the course of (I think it’s about) 2 weeks, from her discovery of magic, her learning how to use it, her wielding of massive amounts of power, her unfolding of the lies and deceit in her family because of (and through) magic, and finally the destruction of magic (at least across the hundreds of living magic-wielders in her own family).

Aside from being well-written, surprising, suspenseful and fun, the final book left me in awe of just how much Justine trusts her readers - children and adults alike. Cory Doctorow (boing boing) called the ending very risky, “really disturbing and thought-provoking… a direction I hadn’t expected and that has me thinking about it still.” Magic becomes an allegory for money, power and greed, where a little is needed to live (once you enter the system - like capitalism, perhaps?), but the more you have the more you want, and of course, there is only one top dog: isolated, and without humanity.

But it’s also not so simple as it sounds - some of her characters are stripped of their magic without them wanting to be, others are left magical without knowledge or choice. And while Reason opts out of magic, one of her friends, Tom, does not; he keeps his magic, and his foreshortened life. Justine is careful in her writing of his justification (”magic is who he is”), and leaves us hanging as to how he will turn out (he is the only character in the book that is never selfish with his magic, has never attempted to steal anyone else’s, and has even given it away when others needed it — but then again, he’s still young). We as readers are not meant to judge, and we only hope he will walk the lines between need and greed, power and responsibility.

Nice, J. Recommended.

Fantastic interview. Available in Windows Media Player or Quicktime.

Great panel in SL right now… Am there… Link. Click for enlarged image and see SL art stars….

via Joy at NewsGrist, who got it via email:

via email:
WASHINGTON, D.C.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS - WE WILL NOT BE SILENT

Multiple actions occurred in the early afternoon today inside the Hart Senate Office Building. Eight New York
activists were among the 15 plus arrested.

TODAY, APRIL 26, 2007, A.R.T.* OCCUPIED THE HALLS OF CONGRESS IN A DRAMATIC TWO-PART ACTION.

First, in a massive distribution, A.R.T. hand-delivered a 20-page tabloid petition to every representative. It contained documentary evidence for indictments, literally putting impeachment back on the table.

Then, at 1PM, in a spectacular visual feat, A.R.T displayed the full text of Article II, Section 4 to the Senate as a 30-foot banner drop in the Hart Office Building atrium. A second 30-foot banner read “YOUR SILENCE YOUR LEGACY”. Organizers said, “We must magnify the refusal of Congress to uphold the Constitution. Their silence equals complicity in the flagrant crimes of this administration.”

Contact: *A.R.T. (Activist Response Team)
email: stateofemergencyaction@gmail.com

There’s the “Body in Quotes” panel at the Borders, Boundaries & Liminal States conference in Second Life. Sponsored by Ars Virtua New Media Center, and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media, and hosted at the Amphitheater on Learning (NMC Virtual Worlds). From stage left to stage right is Xerxes Druart (Stuart Bunt of SymbioticA) , Wirxli Flimflam (Jeremy Turner), Natberg Sternberg (me) and The Unknown (Carlos Castellanos - moderator). I think I’m cool cuz I know that Pling Ping, the avatar up front and on the left from the camera lense, is Jo Greene of Turbulence. We like her.

WIrxli has a fantastic summary of his talk and some images of the panel etc over at his blog. I had no idea he had so many avatars, and it was fun to have a bodyguard protecting the guy sitting next to me in SL. He also says my audio kept crashing, which sucks. I had no idea. Oh well. I’m not gonna paste my notes, like he did, cuz they are mostly disorganized, but I will say that a draft of the short paper where most of my ideas come from will be online in the next few weeks. It mostly looks at affect and body-environment coupling in and around the space of the computer, network, crying babies and spouses, all between RL self and avatar self, and how those might disperse and interfere with one another. Next time I try to use ventrilio and SL at the same time, I will go into the office rather than trying to use my home connection….

Stuart’s work blew me away - he is a bio-engineer that works on a team facilitating art and artists (the likes of Stelarc). Some of his recent work includes pigs with wings, and attaching a homegrown ear to Stelarc’s forearm; oh and, the one my veggie wife likes, they “grew” a leather jacket so as not to harm a cow!

Thanks to all on the panel, and to Carlos…

Nice group show at the Goethe in Joburg; my buddy Christo Doherty (head of digital arts at Wits) in participating. Recommended if you are in the area!

Not sure when I missed this, but it seems that South Africa’s premiere (and apparently accredited) contemporary art mag (um, only printed contemporary art mag, really, tho there are more and more “lifestyle” mags that do some art and design) now has most of its issues and articles online - including the ability to comment! - plus a blog-ish feed of announcements, a few articles and exhibition openings. The RSS seems a bit publish-happy, and I’ve only just added it to my reader (so am not sure if all the new articles from the actual mag go there as they’re finished, or if they are just announced all at once), but it’s a pretty great resource, and you can bet I’ll be starting to read and link online beginning with the next ish. It’s GREAT that there is another serious, mostly online publication for contemporary SA art (the other being artthrob), and it’s very smart of them do to this; my guess is it’ll increase international interest from advertisers, as well as readership, and more and more artists will be linking to their articles, helping sales, ads, the rest of it (not to mention the fact that their galleries represent many of the hot names in the mag’s pages, just in case you didn’t know). And although I don’t know the peops over there very well, I’d be willing to guess they had a bit of wanting to help prop up SA art in general as part of the plan. Rock on you guys.

Check it out: Art South Africa (rss feed on the right of the menu).

The ‘Remains’ panel discussion @ Borders, Boundaries & Liminal States, from letft to right: Rubaiyat Shatner (James Morgan, Ars Virtua), JOE Languish (Laura Jones, anthropologist and archaeologist), Chloe Mahfouz (Renée Ridgway, artist & curator), Kliger Dinkin (Brad Kligerman, artist & architect).

Yesterday marked my own first interaction with other avatars in SL, and, unfortunately for the organizers, it was kind of like how most skeptics might’ve imagined it. To quote James Morgan via Rhizome:

If you haven’t been in Second Life then you cannot understand the lengths to which something can go wrong. It was certainly odd for the world to be offline at the beginning of our conference yesterday [and they didn’t get the sound working - imagine giving a prepped 15-min presentation by typing just the important bits in real time!], but I have to say that Laura Jones, Brad Kligerman, and Renée Ridgway managed to maintain composure and have an interesting session on remains.

Yes, the second part of his statement is dead on - despite technical problems. It was admittedly more like a chat, where other things interrupt (BRB!), than like being at a physical conference, where that is the sole thing you are doing (and I think audio might have helped there), but that is the nature of SL, I imagine, and I think the generosity and interest of everyone I spoke to actually showed an enjoyment in navigating that space. There were continual slippages between SL and “RL” names and activities, my favorite part being when Brad / Kliger’s beautiful but dopey-looking avatar (which had just finished giving a pretty intense “talk” about his work) said he was “fried.”

SL means never looking bad or having morning breath, no matter what happened the night before.

Hopefully I’ll ’see’ some of you at today’s sessions - I’m on the second one, “Body in Quotes” - program here and instructions on participating here.

My favorite South African displaced in New York, and an inspired/inspirational sculptor and artist, Sean Slemon, is having his Masters Solo Show at the Pratt Studios in Brooklyn, 30 April - 4 May. If you’re around, do yourself a favor and attend (and tell him I said hi - he’s very nice). More on Sean (scroll down a bit for some text I wrote about his last solo in Joburg).