Blog Posts
Basic Relations to Keep in Mind :
(format: In Umbrella Academy = In Violence by Zizek)
- The Commission = Objective Violence
- Number Five (+ Umbrella Academy except Vanya) = Liberal Communists, brutal humanitarians (+ variants)
- Vanya = Subjective Violence
- 'The Way Things are Meant To Be' (Correct Historical Course) = Current socio-economic order (Liberalism-Capitalism)
Warning! This post is full of spoilers.
Before I begin, despite how it seems, this is not a technical post.
GUI is short for Graphical User Interface - something that, I think, is a big part of the figurative 'box' in the wisdom of 'thinking outside the box'. Recently, I've been exploring data visualization - design of visuals for encoding and propagating information - leading me to take a closer look at the structure behind webpages and applications that we use regularly. More specifically, I'm pondering how the structural properties of Social Media networks like Twitter and Instagram or content distribution apps like Spotify effect my cognition (process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses).
A new bill is looking to find a replacement for Seattle's iconic Lenin Statue. Yes, I know, I had the same question: How in the hell did Lenin get to be in Seattle? I'll tell you, along with why I think the statue's journey gives us a caricature view of the social creative act.
Those of us who explore ideas on whim may find ourselves oscillating between the philosophical and the poetic. Often, the effect of one pushes us towards the other - why?
Katy Bohinc, a poet (and a data scientist??), has an interesting break down of the spectrum in her book 'Dear Alain', a compilation of fictional 'love letters' to the philosopher Alain Badiou.
Recently a statement by the director/screenwriter of Godless (a ‘feminist’ Western) caught my eye as he was explaining his placement of women in the plot:
“I worked hard for them [women] to save themselves. The army doesn’t come; they have to fend for themselves.”
— Scott Frank (Director of Godless)
Often people comment on art as if representing against the status-quo is simply a matter of choice - forgetting the skill required to not break the spell of an art work as it represents something outside the norm. I’ve often seen friends applaud ‘representation’ and I have to kind of nod and smile in a politically correct fashion even if I think the ‘representation’ was detrimental for the art.
I know many curious folks (myself included) tend to enjoy exploring the narcissistic killers we make movies/series about (Ted Bundy, etc.). The danger of staring into the abyss is captivating, but at some point, you ask the question, 'Why do I want to understand these terrible, narcissistic killers?'.
With regards to this question, I keep coming back to a monologue by Felicity Jones' [Jill Barker] in True Story (which, ironically, is about a narcissistic killer..).
Researching GDPR and its impact, I came across some elements of GDPR that piqued my interest for what they implied about our culture and paradigms around data privacy:
A. What is ‘free’ consent?
B. Data as an ‘object’ vs. data as an ‘experience of you’
C. To be forgotten by the network beyond the individual
Some years ago, when I decided I wanted to be actively reading — in classic DIY fashion — I picked up How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.
