Dear Moni, Trilby, Mireille & Aeon! aka “Owen’s Band!”
There’s a new Mixed Reality project brewing and I thought I’d turn first to “The Band” to see about your interest / availability.
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In today’s Mixed Berry Shake (tx 4 great name Ciara! 🙂 Kate expressed the concern that students in this new media age are so focused on new tools / toys and how they can gain an audience with them that they don’t care to / have time to, appreciate the history of their own medium.
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I am indifferent to colorisation, but B&W = Irrelevant is ignorant. Grapes of Wrath is what it is because of the use of light and dark. Manhattan would blur into <Annie Hall 2 were it not made in B&W. Dr Strangelove stands out from the pretenders.
Limitations of a medium is one of the impulses to create art through imagination. The best reason to colorise is to keep interpolators away from evaluating pharmaceutical trials.
Here’s today’s agenda:
* LACMA Grants
* Mixed Berry Shake 2014 schedule
* Van’s new Avatar Alphabet
Add any other links / ideas in the comments!
Sounds delicious 😉 Thank you for the invitation to hangout. I’m really sorry that I can’t join in today. I hope you have a good meeting and I look forward to hearing how things go.
Ahhh, Ciara, I was looking forward to your being there today. I hope you are able to join soon!
Hi all! Links here to my very early google hangout experiments for the performance (http://foolsfury.org/fury/) that’s happening this weekend. The piece is called “The Seeing Place” and is a meditation on Antigone. For this round, we hadn’t created aliases and were all using our own google accounts, so sadly there are no character names attached.
Soldiers
http://youtu.be/bwUrYKtMvns
Is an example of a scripted scene; text is from Brecht’s Antigone interspersed with an interview of a contemporary U.S. soldier serving in Iraq. The idea here was to replace my big old headshot with footage (sans audio) of the Creon character giving his edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices.
Creon Haemon 1-1
http://youtu.be/fcna_9j0qtU
and 2-1
http://youtu.be/fdV0pLlEVbA
were both attempts at overlapping texts spontaneously… made very difficult by the audio & video delay on our various internet connections. These also include two observers: one listening in at a local Starbucks, and another roaming the main branch at the SF Public Library. We were interested in what the effect of non-verbal participants would be.
The plan for the performance is to have one (very different) Google hangout that’s prerecorded as one of the scenes in the show, and another live hangout where audience members can see the Antigone character leave the theatre under guard. I will post a link to that Hangout-On-Air! Thanks Vanessa for that excellent suggestion.
That’s very little context for you, but any thoughts or questions are welcome!
So, I began composing this inquiry in my head earlier today:
Has anyone seen Sellotape lately?
I live a rich, full life. Sometimes I help protect a care package for a loved one thousands of kilometers away. Sometimes I engage in some harmless fun. I embrace all of it. I apologize for none of it.
Good to see you again, Sellotape, you wacky little adhesive! 🙂
Geez Nostradamus…
Oh how my lady would love to see a certain someone receive this fortune cookie!
Good morrow, Nostradamus, my Lord,
Mathematics are not my strongest suit (my armour is my strongest suit!) but this configuration of numbers that you cast in light the Princess’ life, deeply perturb me.
The Princess herself seems blithely unconcerned – but it is my duty, noble sir, to bear these fears for her, that they become mine own. But, my Lord, this world is large and I cannot un-sheath my sword and, in all directions at once, it wield. I pray thee, can you issue some further sign that I may better know against what or whom I should pit my fears and act in her defense?
look up the death of Ana Mendieta
draw your own conclusions
Noble Sir,
For this direction, my thanks.
Thus shall I counsel the Princess to stand no less than 5 paces from the edge of the parapets of the Palazzo Pitti, the Villa di Castello, the window-ledges of her University campus buildings and Gymnasium.
Upon Husband, brother and cousin of the former, shall I train a watchful eye…
giggles
Uh, Mr Knight, Sir, Dude…
You can never really know what Mr. how-do-you-spell-cryptic is actually talking about (and he’s never any help with that either)…
But I think the Ana Mendieta “draw your own conclusions” thing was about, you know, Husbands more than Windows.
(I guess you could also blame Gravity for her death, but I don’t think “beware of gravity” is the most helpful warning.)
Also, you might not be too watchful with the cousin… some things are better left unwatched…
— AS
Fair Christa,
At some point in a future that I will not see, Johan Huizinga, in a scholarly contemplation of chivalry, will declare that a
“Knightly life is a life without historical dimensions”
I sense that I have come to the right place.
A Venetian sailor brings word of the seer’s projection to English shores. A lascivious drunkard, he spends an evening at a port-side inn regaling his audience with bawdy tales of a beautiful Princess Isabella, marked for death.
Forsooth, I shall forestall this death!
Ah, chivalry is not dead!
Fair Christa,
At some point in a future that I will not see, Johan Huizinga, in a scholarly contemplation of chivalry, will declare that a
“Knightly life is a life without historical dimensions”.
I sense that I have come to the right place.
During the carefree, almost banality of today’s Tweet Chat, something very weird happened. Did you notice that the French see’er Nostradamus showed up? Anyway, I served wine to him and to Mr. Donnie. Princess Isabella is just chatting with her friend Ysidora. And then Nostradamus just goes off with this cryptic prediction that sure sounds like he’s predicting when the princess will die!
And if he’s not weird enough, Princess Isabella barely even registers it. She just says I know, and then asks Nostradamus if he’s dating Tullia!? WTF!?
So weird!
* 1560.mediciprincess.com/death-princess
Hello Aurelia. (I love your name, by the way — she of the dawn!). We have not met before, but it was nice to see you yesterday at the #1850charla.
I was wondering what that gentleman was talking about. I figured he had already had a stoop of wine and was trying to be poetic (all poets are seers, but not all seers are poets).
Although I know what will happen (Isabella will always die), I live suspending disbelief. That is one way I can continue to exist!
Isabella will always die?
No!
I refuse to accept that a reflection seen on the surface of water can seal the fate of a young and charismatic life. What we do matters!
And I refuse to believe that the sword can ever be mightier than the pen! Cowards who don’t like culture have used the sword to erase it. No matter how many stelae you scratch Hatshepsut’s name off of, as long as there remains one voice to speak the truth then she will always be Pharaoh.
In time history rejects the damnatio memoriae.
In time history rejects the strangling hands of the evil husband or misanthropic brother.
Isabella Forever!
Hello Ysidora,
How gracious you are!
It is my job to blend in and be invisible. However I certainly noticed you. You had such a wonderful presence. Your “1850charla” is somewhat like The Salon that The Princess hosts (have you been to it?)
It is no wonder that you became friends.
I think your insight on see’ers is wise. With enough wine even Aurelia becomes a great prophet!
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
— AS
Vanessa Blaylock & Bibbe Oh (Bibbe Hansen) dancing in the fountain at Trafalgar Square
Dancing with friends for the 10th anniversary of Beth Fein’s Dance Anywhere!
Photos by Dire Penguin, Dire Penguin, classic_film, Kevin H., Kalense Kid, torbakhopper 
Tomorrow, from 9-10am PDT, the second #1850charla will happen on Twitter. I hope to see y’all there, and perhaps you’ll bring some other time-travelers or just plain old charla-tans with you. Please feel free to spread the word. Last time (February 28, 2014), we had some good tunes, interesting exchanges, and a few job offers!
Thank you for the reminder! I will see you there. I hope to see Isabella, Donnie, Mr. Sweetman (blush), and Aunt Renie there. And what about our comadre, Vanessa? And Ciara?
Very good! I shall be pleased to attend (but you already knew that, right?) I hope I do not wear everyone out with my venting. The Princess of Florence is doomed; the Queen of France is being blamed for the very war she worked so hard to prevent; difficult times. Being a see’er of truth in such times is an unpleasant affair at best.
At this point, I’m not sure what it is, but that looks good to me! Thank you for taking the time to diagram it.
Very interesting. But, aren’t I a real person? I would like to see myself represented even more than I seem to be in this diagram.
You know Ysidora, it’s funny, as soon as I saw your name, that you had commented, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps I had made “Co-creation” too big and “Story” too small. And yes, you are correct, you are real.
Still, while your recent live performance from Houston (bravo & congratulations on that BTW!) was a lot of “Story” & “Real World,” I’m not so clear about “1850charla” here on .Re/act. As Ciara noted, it was a very unscripted, spontaneous “performance” in this virtual “place.”
So I’m happy to redraw the Radar Diagram if you like, but I think the “performance” or “event” here on .Re/act was not so much about Your Story & Your Real World as the Houston event was. The one here was, I think, more about the group dynamic that was explored. Perhaps “explosive” is a better word than “dynamic” given that both Oscar & Meg seem to have gone into self-imposed exile in its aftermath.
My Journey Begins:
http://n.ostradam.us/queens-errand/
You know, Isabella, I reckon I channelled the wrong Steve McQueen when vacuuming the other day as it was a pretty dull experience. However, this morning, plugging in the hoover, it was you that popped into my head and a much more inspiring visitor you proved to be!
I’m not sure you can have maximum story and maximum co-creation.
Perhaps it wasn’t your choice of Steve McQueens, but your vintage Hoover. If you win the lottery, you should totally get a Dyson!
Funny how “Hoover” caught on as a verb in a way that “Dyson” never did. Or didn’t it? Maybe Steve McQueen gets good ideas while doing the dysoning?
(To further complicate matters, would you believe, my hoover is, in fact, a Dyson!!! (albeit a very vintage one…))
haha, IDK Dyson was old enough to be vintage! And, OH NO, even Dysoning isn’t inspiring?
WE’RE DOOMED!
Hello Ysidora, and anyone else who might be interested: after a 438 year absence, I’ve decided to relaunch my Salon! As before it will be a celebration of many art forms: Literature, Poetry, Music, Song as well as visual arts and ideas about culture.
I enjoyed your songs at your recent Houston / EZTV performance Ysidora, and I wondered if you might like to sing for our first salon of the new millennium!?
I would be honored!
Ciara wrote an interesting post, “Some Thoughts About Staging,” and how .Re/act was a sort of Improv Stage.
Robert Pratten’s Transmedia *Radar Diagrams*
The first time I looked at Robert Pratten’s Transmedia Radar Diagrams I thought the words opposite each other were an axis, so a 2-axis diagram. But the axis is actually from the center to each of the words, and it’s really a 4-somewhat-independent-axis diagram. I say somewhat, because I think Story which seems like a top-down idea from a Creator (writer) and Co-Creation which seems like a bottom-up idea from Participants probably interact. I’m not sure you can have maximum story and maximum co-creation.
Safe to say, on the 1850 stage we had maximum co-creation. For me this is the most interesting aspect of cyberspace. IDK why, but somehow using Facebook as it’s intended just isn’t that interesting to me. Yet it seems like such a fun place to play. You could argue that all content on Facebook is “fiction” or at least “manufactured” in the sense that one spends time trying to think of the best way to sound casual and spontaneous.
Precisely as Ciara noted, the idea that different people could come and go and chime in as they wished, was compelling. danah boyd just wrote an interesting blog post: Why Snapchat is Valuable: It’s All About Attention. Perhaps .Re/act provided a nice frame for attention / activities. Any identity here could also have blog posts or tweets or flickr images etc, but this stage was a place to showcase / focus the various elements that may have been manufactured elsewhere.
Inspired by 1850 Charla, I’ve begun trying to resurrect my own 1560 Journals
Motherless Child
from « American Negro Spirituals»
by J. W. Johnson, J. R. Johnson, 1926
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long ways from home
A long ways from home
True believer
A long ways from home
Along ways from home
Sometimes I feel like I’m almos’ gone
Sometimes I feel like I’m almos’ gone
Sometimes I feel like I’m almos’ gone
Way up in de heab’nly land
Way up in de heab’nly land
True believer
Way up in de heab’nly land
Way up in de heab’nly land
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long ways from home
There’s praying everywhere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzc20VmMCl8&list=RD6iZj6P-bkcY
Welcome friends. The Queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici, has asked me to deliver a reading to her niece, Isabella, princess of Florence. Does anyone know where I can find her?
Hello! I read some poems at Isabella’s salon the other night and she asked me to share something here. I think To Ochino was her favorite. It is a poem to “religious reformer” Bernardo Ochino. He’s been preaching for the abolition of Carnivale! Isabella and I both believe this is such a wonderful event and we are shocked that he wants to take it away.
Bernardo, it should be enough for you,
With that sweet speech infused in you by Nature,
To light our hearts to high eternal works,
Here where the King of Rivers flows most clearly.
Since your own inner wishes are sincere,
And your own life reflects a pure intent,
You’re rather an inhabitant of heaven.
As to these masquerades, dances, and music,
Sanctioned by time and by the ancient customs –
Why do you now forbid them in your sermons?
Holiness it is not, but arrogance
To take away free will, the highest gift
Which God bestowed on us from the beginning.
The scent of hyacinths, like a pale mist, lies
between me and my book;
And the South Wind, washing through the room,
Makes the candles quiver.
My nerves sting at a spatter of rain on the shutter,
And I am uneasy with the thrusting of green shoots
Outside, in the night.Why are you not here to overpower me with your
tense and urgent love?
— Amy Lowell, Vernal Equinox
Photos by: David Wilson Clarke, Mamooli, NASA Goddard Photo and Video, Joana Roja
I love this reflection, Ciara, especially the analysis of .re/act as an open stage that tolerates all kinds of characters. This is an interesting idea in light of your point about improvisational acting, where the first rule is say “yes!”
Earlier I was reflecting on the activities on .re/act that lead up to the #1850charla — I think I reflected over on .re/search? — and I wondered about where authority lies in the chaos of several different virtual “yesses!” happening. Regarding the open environment, I am not sure that .re/act is totally open; one has to “apply” to post here, I think; although I could be wrong — Vanessa?
Also, your point about the exchange between Isabella and Ysidora as a song is mighty interesting to me, especially in light of something that I heard long ago, “In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea” — an oft-quoted remark attributed to poet Amy Lowell (the poet proffered by Isabella in her Vernal Equinox offering). Isabella is interested in visual synchronicity (a la Joseph Cornell’s boxes); I am interested in the way aural synchronicity works and how images can bloom (or wither) within the sound carriers they travel in. How does the digital exchange affect the visual and aural carriers? One thing is that other voices — yours, for example — lifts up an idea and shakes it up to make it even stronger. Thank you!
Yes, yes! Wonderful ideas about our virtual stage, Ciara & Christa!
Re Open:
.Re/act is pretty open, and I think as open as it is possible to be. Anyone can comment, and anyone who asks can post.
We’re able to let anyone comment because we use the “Akismet” spam filter. Even on days when there isn’t a single post or comment, .Re/act still gets 300+ spam comments. Without Akismet we couldn’t function.
If we had “open enrollment” for authors, we’d similarly have hundreds of spam authors (it’s true! I’ve tried before) who might be able to hack the site, and in any case would generate hundreds and thousands of fake Louis Vuitton links. You wouldn’t even be able to find the content in the spam haystack.
As is peeps simply ask for account and they get one. I might have a pretty good idea who the typist for some identities is, but I’ve never actually asked anyone who’s typing for you, and we’ve never turned anyone away. So we’re as open as the reality of the Inter-Net-Street allows.
This issue winds its way into other places as well. If you only use a platform like Facebook, you won’t even know what spam is because they do a great job of prescreening users and keeping them on a short leash. But it’s also a kind of silo’d space.
I was just helping my mom with some cable stuff and was horrified (I don’t do television myself) to realize how much money they charge for cartoons or fake history docudramas! (especially when they could get so much better fake history right here!)
From the perspective of a rapacious monopolist broadband provider like Brian Roberts / Comcast, every minute you “waste” looking at a website is a minute he could have been gouging you for sports video. For a platform provider like Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook, it’s a minute you could have spent enriching the value proposition of his silo.
I know it sounds like I just ranted, but the important point is that these rich white guys have the opportunity to get a whole lot richer still, and it’s in their interest to make sure that your limited experience is smooth, easy, and flawless.
When you go out on the Open Web where free people can freely exchange ideas, you don’t have the protection of billion-dollar corporations. Fortunately the Open Source community makes platforms and tools that let us dangle by our fingernails a little bit longer in the accidental freedom and speech we got when they weren’t looking and a bunch of hippies designed The Internet.
So, haha, I’m done finally, .Re/act is pretty open, and I think as open as it can be given the balance of tools and threats in the neighborhood.
is Steve McQueen related to Steve McQueen?
So who is “this guy”? He’s quite dashing. No frock coat, I see. Is that some sort of wool-lined jacket?
Gosh, do you know, Isabella, I didn’t manage to catch the chap’s name at the time. I reckon he’s a regular at that place, though, so I’m sure I can ask him next time. He is rather smartly dressed, I agree. He’s got that whole chequered look going on with his trousers and, if I’m not mistaken, matching lapels on his jacket!
Houston Ship Channel, photo by tony barilla
And a poem with your ship in it.
by Cole Swensen
erodes the line between being and place becomes the place of being time and so
the house turns in the snow is why a ghost always has the architecture of a storm
The architect tore down room after room until the sound stopped. A ghost is one
among the ages at the edge of a cliff empty sails on the bay even when a ship
or the house moves off in fog asks you out loud to let the stranger in
St. Patrick’s Day Treadmill Pub Crawl!
6-8pm EZT / PDT / SLT Monday 17 Mar ’14!
9-11pm Eastern
1-3am Tue GMT
* Izzy’s Gym / SL
Gosh, Isabella, you’ve set me thinking…I’ve neither seen nor heard from Donnie for weeks now. Do you think it is possible that he’s been in training for this event? Hmm…I wonder if Mr. Sweetman will march/crawl too. Wasn’t his brother was in the drinks trade?
Oh yes, Donnie & Patrick. All they ever talk about is beer! And where are they today of all days!?!?
Donnie! I saw him last sitting on a bar, dreaming (was it?) of two spirits — Gin and Tonic?
Are those spirits European? I have yet to encounter them. Perhaps those 2 are Yankee spirits?
What a color!
I loved the scene in Girl with a Pearl Earring where Colin Firth (Vermeer) sends Scarlett Johansson (Griet) to buy Lapis Lazuli and adds
My wife need not know about this
Damn that stuff was expensive. Yves Klein worshiped it.
Is lapis the most divine, royal, sublime color?
Or is there something about the relentlessness of any pure color? Kids go nuts with primary colors. As “adults” we exercise refinement in elegant palettes and blends. Or grey. Have we washed the power of pure color from our souls?
Photos by: Orbital Joe • cobalt123 • Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel • cobalt123 • Lelê Breveglieri • lisabelle3
Yes, lapis lazuli. The very name sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Was that what Yves Klein was thinking when he named his painting Requiem? Requiem for a dream of pure color?
Aero Bigboots
AlexandreLois1
Ananda Crystal
Andrea Foenander
astrid
Aunt Renie
Aurelia Scheppers
Christa Forster
Ciara Finnegan
Bird on a Cyber Twig
Diptheria
Donnie Archer
Edie
Elle
Emma
Elizabeth Taylor Swift
Fanny
FeelsEmpty
Glad Kidd
Izzy
Jade Ravenheart
Kate Nova
Ken Doll
Mary Anning
Meg O'Ryan
Michael Masucci
Mireille
Molly Ross
Monerda Skute
Myra
Neeva
Newton
Michel Nostradamus
Oona
Oscar
Owen
Patrick J. Sweetman
Paypabak Writer
Pearl Grey
Rebecca Narum
rmarie
Ryan
Scarlett Luv
Sello Tape
Serra Qendra
Teresa of Avila
The Knight
Tiffany Mosienko
TrilbyM
Tullia Aragona
Vanessa
veyot
wendz tempest
Xue
Yellow Fever
Ysidora Pico
Yves
Zsophia
Mike is discussing. 
Rebecca, 
Ciara are discussing. 
Sello Tape are discussing. 
Donnie Archer are discussing. 
The Knight, and 
Ysidora Pico are discussing. 
Mireille Jenvieve-Woodford 09:12 on 15/04/2014 Permalink |
This sounds like fun! Thank you for the note, Vanessa. The timing seems good for me, and I look forward to learning more.
Happy SPRING!