More Philosophical ideas taken from my “thoughts.txt” file. Let me know what you think. There are issues of ethics, and total determinism that I didn’t have the stamina to include at the end. I’m sure there are plenty of other points as well. Though I’m aware of a few that can be examined, it would be nice to have others’ issues pointed out just in case. Also a nice critical review of my writing style would be nice..?
. . .
This morning I went for an early morning run. I was planning on making it two laps before heading home, but half-way through the second I noticed a very bright orange light in the southern sky. It was very overcast this morning, and at first I thought it was just ligh polution, until the fact that it was fading brighter and softer made it obvious that it was not. After climbing up some of the rocks near the running track, I could see that it was a massive flame from the top of a smoke stack. My guess is that it was from the refinery, although I would of thought that too far away to see.
Yesturday I went for a little ride on my bike, after having left it for more than a week in the rain without giving her exercise. The performance had been shockingly bad, so I took the excuse of checking out the flames as a chance to ride hard and get rid of any muck from the plugs.
It was great fun riding at 5am, as one can imagine, though I’m surprised how unconfident I am after just a few days off the bike. Couldn’t find signs of the flames, but headed to La Parouse as a good destination (near the refinery), and kept the bike in 2nd most of the way. The conclusion: Nice and cleaned out bike, and a happy owner proud of a bike that can do 130kph in 2nd gear! 
(Sorry for the obligatory bike-geek post. I’m really not that boring, but have just got back from the ride, so still buzzin’. Also, you may have noticed that I missed my chance to refer to the bike as a “she” and used “it” most of the time. I really love my bike, but have inexplicably given it a guys name: Christopher Walken. I think it’s probably traditional to do a girls name, but CW just came to mind. :S)
Note that the image accompanying this entry is for illustration only. The original can be found at www.fotosearch.com/comp/GSH/GSH177/GS067002.jpg
ABC News reports that the independant candidate for Pittwater has just won the seat. His reaction is idiosyncratically Australian:
“I think I’m going to have a celebratory beer. My boy over here tells me that there are some waves at North Avalon tomorrow, so he’s going to pick me up at half past five. We’re going to have an early surf.”
Good to see the Australian spirit is alive and strong in this nations political representatives!
Note that the image accompanying this entry is for illustration only. The original can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1517487.htm
Here is some late night writing I’ve done. It is a quick reinterpretation of parts of my “thoughts.txt” desktop file. Also, it’s a counter to the sorts of things Hayden has been writing in his blog lately. I’m sorry about the format, but I wrote it with this font, and I feel without it the writing is unjustifiably flowery. 
Please feel more than welcome to comment, as I need it. Of course I really need to write more and get through all the chaff that goes through my mind and onto paper (read: computer screen).
. . .
A few days have past since the opening of Material Satisfaction, and I’ve had a chance to get in a take some pictures of the works and the gallery setup. The opening was fantasic - a festival of familiar friendly faces
- and there has been a very good buzz to the show. The make-up of the opening crowd was a little more family and friends than it normally is, possibly as we had not done a comprehensive mail-out. I don’t think it suffered from that at all, however, as there has been a fair number of people coming through on the way to the COFA Grad show (which is on in parallel).
As I have said, the show has a really unique energy to it, which I’m quite proud of. 
All the works are documented in a Flickr set, that you are strongly encouraged to check out! The index picture to the set - at the top of this entry - shows some of Dan Simon’s rubber sex-dolls. These aren’t exactly indicative of the tone of the show, but are the most visually striking element as you might imagine. You may also be surprised by the non-interactive/technological nature of my contribution to the exhibition (i.e. “Ghede”, a suicide stuffed bunny rabbit). To be honest, there was a constellation of reasons I did this work. Amongst them; the worry (of fault, of theft) attributed to having tech art in an exhibition, my recent view of the art I’ve been making, and a frustrated and sobre mood that pushed me to kill a bunny. I am very happy with how he turned out though, especially with the interplay of Dave’s red-light piece and Anna’s uncanny video piece opposite.
This evening I should be adding an annotated gallery plan to illustrate the position of works. Watch this space!
Edit: And here it is!
- The layout/plan of Kudos gallery for our exhibition, including artwork positions.
and here’s a
Today’s exciting event was the setup* of Kudos gallery in preparation for an exhibition opening tomorrow evening. More specifically, the exhibition is the one we successfully applied for 3 months ago (application documents are linked to from my original blog entry). Aptly name “Material Satisfaction”, it is a dedicated 2nd year Sculpture, Performance & Installation showcase. A press release for the show is available on the Kudos website, and it is amusing to note that the promo image is a photo of the inside of my locker!
An early phonecall from Nyssa saw me enjoying a nice cafe breakfast and coffee - and with a nice relaxed atmosphere, as she’d heard we were starting an hour earlier than we actually were, giving us plenty of time.
As always, exhibition setup was no barrel of laughs. It’s generally an everyman-for-himself scramble for the best position and resources - a study in compromise and harsh politics. Thankfully the general amicability/friendship/love between the SPI students meant that despite the stressful environment it was incredibly heartening spending some time with them all again.
Needless to say, everyone is most earnestly invited to the opening tomorrow evening (Tuesday 22nd Nov) 6-8pm, at Kudos gallery. If you are unaware of where it is, the address can be found at the bottom of the press release. There is some very good work featured, and it is well worth a look-in. Pictures from the opening and of the general layout shall be available within the next couple of days.
* or Bump-in as it is apparently called
There is a fantastic short story over at monochrom based on H.P.Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and inspired by Goatse. Here is a snip:
The many data networks, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
…It makes me gleefully happy. Monochrom describes itself as a art-technology-philosophy group, and though I haven’t yet given it the time it seems to deserve, a cursory look at their site suggests it’s totally rockin’. My kind of people, especially since I am a self-styled art-technology-philosophy person myself!
I ran across an insightful and humourous explanation of the mechanism behind corporate customer care services:
…The monkey has two buttons in front of him. One is red, and one is green. The red button is very small and, when pressed, redirects the e-mail to someone higher up - say, the janitor. The green button is huge and, when pressed, sends a form letter to the sender and promptly deletes the e-mail… and then a banana drops out of a chute and a small electrode in the monkey’s brain gives him an orgasm.
The quote is taken from The Independant Gaming Source, which is a nice blog of interesting activity in the indie games scene. It’s worth a look if you’re after refreshingly creative games, most of which are at least as high gameplay and production standard as mainstream.
Also worth a look is the Freeware Top 40 - a great site to find distractions for all your procrastination needs, and all completely free! I’d give very solid testimony to the simple genius of Spirit Engine, to be found at Natomic Studios.
Note that the image accompanying this entry is for illustration only. The original can be found at http://marcoe.net/Cheeky-Monkey.jpg
For the last few days I’ve been getting back into a routine of running. Routine is probably a misnomer actually, as the times of the runs have been very sporadic - ranging from 12am to 5am. It feels good to be back on the familiar Centenial Park track, and I don’t know how I ever let myself forget that I love running!
Running at night has been amazing; I’ve seen many possums, rabbits, and bats, and had a nice time to think to myself. Once or twice I’ve run through the sunrise. Fantastically, I’ve also managed to see two shooting stars in the space of 4 days!
Note that the image accompanying this entry is for illustration only. The original can be found at http://www.orlandosentinel.com
The Blake prize (Official Site | Wikipedia Entry) opened tonight and I managed to get an invitation as provider of technical assistance to Allan Giddy. After which I was graciously invited to dinner at the Maya Indian restaurant with Allan, his partner, and their little girl.
There were very many old Conservative Christian old ladies there - in fact I was apprehensive of the crowd as I headed up in the elavator with them - though a nice selection of youthful interesting types were milling around once I got in.
I’ve stuck the few shots of interesting works up in a flickr set of their very own. My immediate favourite of those snapped was “The Philosopher’s God” for the humour, although I wasn’t able to spend enough time with the serious works for them to really hit me emotionally. Also, I didn’t have time to work out on which side of emotional resonance versus religious cliche many of them fell.