andy warhol did absolut ads, so why not architects doing bottle designs? I wonder if the Corcoran will have Wyborowa sponsor the Gehry wing launch party...
and it's been a while since Rapture came out, but I guess Dior has recently picked up a copy...
Oh the synergy. Who would think there'd still be powerful expressions of alienation, despite such connectedness?
1.27.2005
1.25.2005
1.22.2005
Comments on thesis writing thus far
okay, not the WRITING part as much right now as the TALKING part...
We had our colloquium meeting just over a week ago and found out our "schedule" for writing various sections. I am preparing for this like a track meet --- lots of diet mountain dew, sweatpants, mental stretching exercises, and marathon dance sessions to guns and roses.
An over-arching theme emerged from the meeting = ANXIETY, and I thought -- This Is It. This is when the history of future academics is written. Who will sink and who will swim? Who wants to stay in the academic institution pool, or who will escape to join the salary paying fields that kill trees to make new pools? I looked around the conference room to see if there were eyes hidding in holes peering into the room, or perhaps one way glass concealing the department chair and georgetown funders, each of them laying down bets on us little horsies all dressed and ready in our saddles, about to burst through the gates --- Fear Factor: which one of us will survive? And, who will get a book contract like two of our thesis advisor's students last year? "MTV, I wanna get MADE!"
Ugh. Reality Bites. A friend in the program is going through the break-down I experienced all last year, somewhat unfortunate timing, but fortunate in that there is ample opportunity for a truly creative project to emerge from that chaos...Amazing how the pressure of the institution can take away from the pleasure of the pain. Picture your subjectivity prior to graduate school as Pangea...your plates start to shift with every digested text, every alcohol-infused intellectual debate, every lonely night spent with one hand on your book and one hand on your text...At the end of it all, the breaking apart of prior perspective not only is an alllusion to the philosophical debate of knowledge construction that is embedded in theories of "postmodern subjectivity" as a state of mind, but it also mirrors Heidegger's notion of developing a New World Picture --- From Pangea we get this disconnected sense of self -- at times you feel more in a state of continental drift than others --- but, don't forget the water, the water binds it all, making a comfortable bath to lie in, hands with which to play with the arrangement of the parts.
I am embracing the pleasure of this moment. My plates are shifted, shifting, fighting for space, breaking mountains into plains and melting ice caps to leak liquid onto new ground, new territory that feels new just because of the rearrangment of the old (never forget your roots).
And in such rambling we hope an order emerges from the chaos (i'll spare the chaos theory quotation here and give the one that started this post):
"Intersubjectivity occurs at the moment of orgasm, when things break down." - Chris Kraus
Writing a thesis is a wave of cresting pleasures, and to reach such pleasure, you have to put in some time, some work, some energy. A thesis is a photograph capturing a moment of intersubjectivity, connections between the parts, your "world picture" perspective at that moment in the development of your own intellectual history. Damn it feels good...
We had our colloquium meeting just over a week ago and found out our "schedule" for writing various sections. I am preparing for this like a track meet --- lots of diet mountain dew, sweatpants, mental stretching exercises, and marathon dance sessions to guns and roses.
An over-arching theme emerged from the meeting = ANXIETY, and I thought -- This Is It. This is when the history of future academics is written. Who will sink and who will swim? Who wants to stay in the academic institution pool, or who will escape to join the salary paying fields that kill trees to make new pools? I looked around the conference room to see if there were eyes hidding in holes peering into the room, or perhaps one way glass concealing the department chair and georgetown funders, each of them laying down bets on us little horsies all dressed and ready in our saddles, about to burst through the gates --- Fear Factor: which one of us will survive? And, who will get a book contract like two of our thesis advisor's students last year? "MTV, I wanna get MADE!"
Ugh. Reality Bites. A friend in the program is going through the break-down I experienced all last year, somewhat unfortunate timing, but fortunate in that there is ample opportunity for a truly creative project to emerge from that chaos...Amazing how the pressure of the institution can take away from the pleasure of the pain. Picture your subjectivity prior to graduate school as Pangea...your plates start to shift with every digested text, every alcohol-infused intellectual debate, every lonely night spent with one hand on your book and one hand on your text...At the end of it all, the breaking apart of prior perspective not only is an alllusion to the philosophical debate of knowledge construction that is embedded in theories of "postmodern subjectivity" as a state of mind, but it also mirrors Heidegger's notion of developing a New World Picture --- From Pangea we get this disconnected sense of self -- at times you feel more in a state of continental drift than others --- but, don't forget the water, the water binds it all, making a comfortable bath to lie in, hands with which to play with the arrangement of the parts.
I am embracing the pleasure of this moment. My plates are shifted, shifting, fighting for space, breaking mountains into plains and melting ice caps to leak liquid onto new ground, new territory that feels new just because of the rearrangment of the old (never forget your roots).
And in such rambling we hope an order emerges from the chaos (i'll spare the chaos theory quotation here and give the one that started this post):
"Intersubjectivity occurs at the moment of orgasm, when things break down." - Chris Kraus
Writing a thesis is a wave of cresting pleasures, and to reach such pleasure, you have to put in some time, some work, some energy. A thesis is a photograph capturing a moment of intersubjectivity, connections between the parts, your "world picture" perspective at that moment in the development of your own intellectual history. Damn it feels good...
1.21.2005
let us pretend
that this is over
final words are exactly that
- final
sex and skin are licked
once more and then
- not again
a light turns off in time to catch a shoulder
exiting the door
the hollow night
mirrors the moon into rings
that stain memory, through glass eyes,
rings that stay just long enough
at the bottom
to stain a cup
with the leaves
and water
that same shoulder
once helped
to pour
final words are exactly that
- final
sex and skin are licked
once more and then
- not again
a light turns off in time to catch a shoulder
exiting the door
the hollow night
mirrors the moon into rings
that stain memory, through glass eyes,
rings that stay just long enough
at the bottom
to stain a cup
with the leaves
and water
that same shoulder
once helped
to pour
1.20.2005
So my roommate and I just watched and listened to this guy give a prayer during the inauguration...
And we lowered the volume on the TV as I read aloud from Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again:
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
...And as we watch the rest of the TV programming showing the opulance with which the occasion of the moment will be celebrated, let us remember that...
"...sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up-there and rich and living it up have something you don't have, that their things much be better than your things because they have more money than you. But they drink the same Cokes and eat the same hot dogs...and see the same TV shows and the same movies. Rich people can't see a sillier version of Truth or Consequences, or a scarier version of The Exorcist. You can get just as revolted as they can - you can have the same nightmares. All of this is really American. The idea of America is so wonderful because the more equal something is, the more American it is."
---
I am Virilio's "body terminal of man...that interactive being who is both transmitter and receiver..."
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
...And as we watch the rest of the TV programming showing the opulance with which the occasion of the moment will be celebrated, let us remember that...
"...sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up-there and rich and living it up have something you don't have, that their things much be better than your things because they have more money than you. But they drink the same Cokes and eat the same hot dogs...and see the same TV shows and the same movies. Rich people can't see a sillier version of Truth or Consequences, or a scarier version of The Exorcist. You can get just as revolted as they can - you can have the same nightmares. All of this is really American. The idea of America is so wonderful because the more equal something is, the more American it is."
---
I am Virilio's "body terminal of man...that interactive being who is both transmitter and receiver..."
1.19.2005
cold boredom, and art can be boring sometimes
wearing you like the
comforting arms of
retreat
step indoors
smuggle yourself into
the blue night
the black darkness
the pink empty
of the space between
one fold of fabric
and another
wrap up within the layers
of little upon little upon little
snowflakes
eyelashes
cold cuts onto the tongue
your second finger
touch glass and ice
and forget the difference
open up alone
accept inevitable blending into silence
for white upon white upon white
is as warm as warmth you will ever know
cover blankets with more blankets
because you can, lucky.
let arms be the destination
of final retreat
indoors
alone
together
the right and the left
folded
comforting arms of
retreat
step indoors
smuggle yourself into
the blue night
the black darkness
the pink empty
of the space between
one fold of fabric
and another
wrap up within the layers
of little upon little upon little
snowflakes
eyelashes
cold cuts onto the tongue
your second finger
touch glass and ice
and forget the difference
open up alone
accept inevitable blending into silence
for white upon white upon white
is as warm as warmth you will ever know
cover blankets with more blankets
because you can, lucky.
let arms be the destination
of final retreat
indoors
alone
together
the right and the left
folded
1.17.2005
like a skipping record...
a scratched cd, the player winding and winding around trying to pick up someplace to start, but caught in its own strange loop...
listening to cat power's american flag...her voice makes you hold on, thinking it's about to spill over, the moment before the meniscus breaks, the moment in Keats captures in Ode to a Grecian Urn -- you expect her voice to go somewhere else, but instead it keeps you in that same moment...then you begin to enter into disbelief -- perhaps we aren't supposed to go somewhere else at all. maybe right now is all there is and that is that and so enjoy the looping moment, active suspension...
her voice in this song is exactly what the Philip Glass score used in Rondinone's Roundelay video installation does...keeps you moving in circles, starting and stopping without points to distinguish one act from another...extremely effective in Rondinone's video, and equally meaningful to the illustration of Cat Power's lyrics...
listening to cat power's american flag...her voice makes you hold on, thinking it's about to spill over, the moment before the meniscus breaks, the moment in Keats captures in Ode to a Grecian Urn -- you expect her voice to go somewhere else, but instead it keeps you in that same moment...then you begin to enter into disbelief -- perhaps we aren't supposed to go somewhere else at all. maybe right now is all there is and that is that and so enjoy the looping moment, active suspension...
her voice in this song is exactly what the Philip Glass score used in Rondinone's Roundelay video installation does...keeps you moving in circles, starting and stopping without points to distinguish one act from another...extremely effective in Rondinone's video, and equally meaningful to the illustration of Cat Power's lyrics...
for the indecisive, or perhaps the Honest
I just got back from a get-your-shoes-on-we're-takin'-a-drive spontaneous trip to pittsburgh. never been before. two weeks ago i thought i should move there. no comment now. jury is out and not due to return for quite sometime.
Saw the Warhol Museum (finally). Out of the fate of my fingers, the first binder (describing the contents of one of his time capsules) that I picked up, opened directly to a page that listed one of the contents as a letter from Alice Denney inviting Warhol to participate in her NOW festival. Pretty damn amazing that it was literally the first thing I read on the page too (a weird weird dc energy must be encapsulating my aura making dc type things attract to my skin -- maybe like when people have dogs that look like they do, or couples start to look like each other...maybe i've just been in dc too long...). Anyway...A few months ago, Alice gave a talk and slideshow presentation about NOW at the WDC Arts Club (moderated by Jean Cohen), which was the first I had heard about the event. Hearing about NOW, and the collaboration of Alice with Warhol, Rauschenberg, and other artists brought to DC for the week-long festival, made me salivate for a similar energy and ambition to sweep through DC and make a "new now" happen...and i'll leave that with an additional ellipsis...
Saw most of the 2004-5 Carnegie International...still wandering around in my eyes and ears is Ugo Rondinone's video installation, "Roundelay." And that's all i'll say about art for now...
Because.
The real thing that i can't get over right now is this hilarious invention called The Pittsburgh. It's a salad that wants to love you more that you want to let it. It's a typical salad with chicken or steak, and...French Fries, with cheese. It's for the indecisive - the want-to-be-healthy-but-still-craving-grease-and-salt-type. It's for the person who wants to feel good about choosing a salad for their meal, but since we know they will inevitably steal fries from their neighbor's plate, the kitchen sidesteps the ill will causing scenerio by including fries on the salad. Crazy. Smart. Tasty. Perhaps the embodiment of the entire spectrum of the American palatte -- health conscious, but inevitably subject to the failings of our own systems of restraint (oh our protestant roots shake at this). Mmmm...The rewarding taste of Honest Sin.
Saw the Warhol Museum (finally). Out of the fate of my fingers, the first binder (describing the contents of one of his time capsules) that I picked up, opened directly to a page that listed one of the contents as a letter from Alice Denney inviting Warhol to participate in her NOW festival. Pretty damn amazing that it was literally the first thing I read on the page too (a weird weird dc energy must be encapsulating my aura making dc type things attract to my skin -- maybe like when people have dogs that look like they do, or couples start to look like each other...maybe i've just been in dc too long...). Anyway...A few months ago, Alice gave a talk and slideshow presentation about NOW at the WDC Arts Club (moderated by Jean Cohen), which was the first I had heard about the event. Hearing about NOW, and the collaboration of Alice with Warhol, Rauschenberg, and other artists brought to DC for the week-long festival, made me salivate for a similar energy and ambition to sweep through DC and make a "new now" happen...and i'll leave that with an additional ellipsis...
Saw most of the 2004-5 Carnegie International...still wandering around in my eyes and ears is Ugo Rondinone's video installation, "Roundelay." And that's all i'll say about art for now...
Because.
The real thing that i can't get over right now is this hilarious invention called The Pittsburgh. It's a salad that wants to love you more that you want to let it. It's a typical salad with chicken or steak, and...French Fries, with cheese. It's for the indecisive - the want-to-be-healthy-but-still-craving-grease-and-salt-type. It's for the person who wants to feel good about choosing a salad for their meal, but since we know they will inevitably steal fries from their neighbor's plate, the kitchen sidesteps the ill will causing scenerio by including fries on the salad. Crazy. Smart. Tasty. Perhaps the embodiment of the entire spectrum of the American palatte -- health conscious, but inevitably subject to the failings of our own systems of restraint (oh our protestant roots shake at this). Mmmm...The rewarding taste of Honest Sin.
1.11.2005
Now is the winter of our discontent...
January 20th will be a busy, busy day. Besides the swearing in of gw, two other events of interest are the following:
1 - at Fusebox, 7pm - Francois Bucher's Television (an address) live video feed from Bogota with the Former President of Columbia. (too bad there is no online feed as well.
2 - at the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, their two session winter symposium, Politics in the Age of Empire, starting at 1pm PMT. Fortunately, for this one a live stream the day of the event is available -- http://www.pactac.net/stream.html
just when you thought strategic synchronicity was only a tool of marketing firms...
"I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin," (from Richard III).
1 - at Fusebox, 7pm - Francois Bucher's Television (an address) live video feed from Bogota with the Former President of Columbia. (too bad there is no online feed as well.
2 - at the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, their two session winter symposium, Politics in the Age of Empire, starting at 1pm PMT. Fortunately, for this one a live stream the day of the event is available -- http://www.pactac.net/stream.html
just when you thought strategic synchronicity was only a tool of marketing firms...
"I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin," (from Richard III).
1.08.2005
sex lies and videotape
i watched sex, lies and videotape for the first time last night. what a trip! i wish i knew what the popular response to that film was back in its day.
i enjoyed it for its oh-so-quaint lens into the circa 1989 representation of people's relationship to video technology and its fetishized use in mediating the late 20th century notion of "the confession."
today's version (perhaps): http://www.dailyconfession.com. or, of course, the mtv-patented confessional booth in The Real World.
"Told to tell in detail what she had done she replied, 'I have already told you the truth.' Then she screamed and said 'Tell me what you want for I don't know what to say.' She was told to say what she had done, for she was tortured because she had not done so, and another turn of the cord was ordered. She cried 'Loosen me, Senores and tell me what I have to say: I do not know what I have done, O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!'" -- In Lea, Spanish Inquisition.
eh. i could get more into this stuff but i have to save it for an upcoming installation piece. besides. it's saturday. and there's nothing else to do.
i enjoyed it for its oh-so-quaint lens into the circa 1989 representation of people's relationship to video technology and its fetishized use in mediating the late 20th century notion of "the confession."
today's version (perhaps): http://www.dailyconfession.com. or, of course, the mtv-patented confessional booth in The Real World.
"Told to tell in detail what she had done she replied, 'I have already told you the truth.' Then she screamed and said 'Tell me what you want for I don't know what to say.' She was told to say what she had done, for she was tortured because she had not done so, and another turn of the cord was ordered. She cried 'Loosen me, Senores and tell me what I have to say: I do not know what I have done, O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!'" -- In Lea, Spanish Inquisition.
eh. i could get more into this stuff but i have to save it for an upcoming installation piece. besides. it's saturday. and there's nothing else to do.
1.07.2005
like returning home from your brother's funeral and finding yourself clutching and smelling his forgotten dirty sock found under the bed by the dog...
...after you thought you already cleaned up all of the leftover details...
I came across a quote from Susan Sontag in a book yesterday...It seems so strange to read another's words when the memory of their death is so fresh in your mind...
the quote (from "notes on camp"):
"To snare a sensibility in words, especially one that is alive and powerful, one must be tentative and nimble. The form of jottings, rather than an essay (with its claim to a linear, consecutive argument), seemed more appropriate for getting down something of this particular fugitive sensibility."
--Well, this is a fitting quote to come across given previous discussions here on the portability of quotation, its link-like form (linking another's mind to the stretch of your own), and the re-re-presentation of it here in the blog (the form i chose for the very reason Sontag states).
Anyway. What I want to get at is how sad it feels to catch a recorded glimpse of a woman's articulation of the world, knowing that it is over. No more will be produced. Like playing the record of bands dead and long gone (IMAGINE), all you have left is the reverberation of their presence...all of a sudden quotations like this are cherished for another reason than before, with a weight of finality that we know is inevitable, but still tastes like cold metal instead of warm tongue.
(I've been living another's death through the eyes and words of my sister who recently lost her most intimate friend, and I feel as though I am pulled like a piece of trash along a riverbed to contemplate death again in a more visceral way, now in this season of its meta-metaphor.)
When Sontag died, I thought of Derrida's recent death. Then of Bourdieu. Then Said. And who is next? Baudrillard? Virilio?
It seems that all the great theory matriarchs and patriarchs are completing the end of their physical season. Will the kids born thirty years from now learn to employ their quotation? Or will it be the words of us sitting here right now that will matter more? I've struggled myself to come to a semi-resolution about the library-as-graveyard dilemma. Which do I prefer? Honor the dead? Wear their skin in the words of my text, marked off by little lines at the top and to the right and left of thought? Or, burn the memories and memoirs - claim no one can comment on the present without a working set of lungs - fill in their blanks? Neither matters as both make nice beds. Both make nice coffins. (what kind of sleep doesn't lie?)
and Virilio -- I hope my quotation doesn't invoke his death too...(read Open Sky, where this quote is from):
"One day the day will come when the day will not come."
Clearing Houses for Irrelevant Theories.
Washcloths for Weightless Words.
postmodern theory always Rests In Pieces.
I came across a quote from Susan Sontag in a book yesterday...It seems so strange to read another's words when the memory of their death is so fresh in your mind...
the quote (from "notes on camp"):
"To snare a sensibility in words, especially one that is alive and powerful, one must be tentative and nimble. The form of jottings, rather than an essay (with its claim to a linear, consecutive argument), seemed more appropriate for getting down something of this particular fugitive sensibility."
--Well, this is a fitting quote to come across given previous discussions here on the portability of quotation, its link-like form (linking another's mind to the stretch of your own), and the re-re-presentation of it here in the blog (the form i chose for the very reason Sontag states).
Anyway. What I want to get at is how sad it feels to catch a recorded glimpse of a woman's articulation of the world, knowing that it is over. No more will be produced. Like playing the record of bands dead and long gone (IMAGINE), all you have left is the reverberation of their presence...all of a sudden quotations like this are cherished for another reason than before, with a weight of finality that we know is inevitable, but still tastes like cold metal instead of warm tongue.
(I've been living another's death through the eyes and words of my sister who recently lost her most intimate friend, and I feel as though I am pulled like a piece of trash along a riverbed to contemplate death again in a more visceral way, now in this season of its meta-metaphor.)
When Sontag died, I thought of Derrida's recent death. Then of Bourdieu. Then Said. And who is next? Baudrillard? Virilio?
It seems that all the great theory matriarchs and patriarchs are completing the end of their physical season. Will the kids born thirty years from now learn to employ their quotation? Or will it be the words of us sitting here right now that will matter more? I've struggled myself to come to a semi-resolution about the library-as-graveyard dilemma. Which do I prefer? Honor the dead? Wear their skin in the words of my text, marked off by little lines at the top and to the right and left of thought? Or, burn the memories and memoirs - claim no one can comment on the present without a working set of lungs - fill in their blanks? Neither matters as both make nice beds. Both make nice coffins. (what kind of sleep doesn't lie?)
and Virilio -- I hope my quotation doesn't invoke his death too...(read Open Sky, where this quote is from):
Clearing Houses for Irrelevant Theories.
Washcloths for Weightless Words.
postmodern theory always Rests In Pieces.
1.06.2005
armed with technology/wrapped up in arms of lovers dead. gone. killed.
"Again we have to ensure that the best of the human is not lost amidst the best of technology, corresponding exactly with the current positioning of Uranus (the mind/technology) in Pisces (the heart/emotion). A difficult juxtaposition, but one that we must get in balance and harmony." (from artnet)
worth considering, even if horoscopes aren't your thing.
and one more,
"The truest representation of the searching mind is just to 'follow the brush.'" (from Tanizaki's in praise of shadows)
worth considering, even if horoscopes aren't your thing.
and one more,
"The truest representation of the searching mind is just to 'follow the brush.'" (from Tanizaki's in praise of shadows)
1.01.2005
The holidays always leave me feeling so...
Deflated, 2005
Kathryn Cornelius
T610 mobile phone digital photograph
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