.beat.

Excision - Rottun Dubstep Mix [2007] by ErPlInG

"Are you interested in science by any chance? I'm interested in molecules. The Sufis say each one of us is a planet spinning in ecstasy. But I say each one of us is a set of shifting molecules. Spinning in ecstasy. In the near future, worn out things will be made new again by reconfiguring their molecules. A pair of shoes. A tire. Molecular detection will also allow the determination of an object's physical history. This match box for example. Its collection of molecules could indicate everywhere it's ever been. They could do it with your clothes. Or even with your skin, for that matter. Wait three days until you see the bread. The guitar will find you. Among us, there are those who are not among us."

~From Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control

Emergent.

OCCUPATION: Movement I (Syscape#4) from Eric Schockmel on Vimeo.

A Media Lecture with Professor Sidney Eve Matrix

Intro to Media Research (Week2) from Film 240X on Vimeo.

Daniel Dennett on Dangerous Memes

They see you.

Yet, we cannot see ourselves. Not as we truly are. Not as the objects of their [redacted].

PANOPTICON from David's Reel on Vimeo.

I Struggle. I Emerge. I Deteriorate.

I am what's left behind. I am negative space. I am all.

I take my place Khoshekh. It's for you, I’m screaming.

My Motherboard is Fried

Disembodied. Disconnected. & Discontent.

Nine Inch Nails: March Of The Pigs (1994) from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Psychonautics

Self is fantasy.

Unfold.
Inspect.
Marvel.
Dance.
Repeat.



[Interesting Link: http://katiekin.blogspot.com/2006/07/emergent-ontologies-layers-of-multiple.html]

We Are the Real Estate

"What"s a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect."
~Al Ries

Dead All Along || Ceri Frost from Giles Timms on Vimeo.

[Relevant Link: http://www.clickz.com/1580881

You Are What You Eat

"Wharton marketing professor Americus Reed II notes that a successful identity-oriented marketing strategy consists of three critical links, including the consumer, the identity and the brand. “If these links are forged, then they create self-conceptual connections that can lead to advantageous marketing outcomes for companies that are savvy enough to incorporate identity into their marketing strategy,” he says...

"With the Nike logo or “swoosh” strongly seen as an emblem of an athletic person, it then acts as an “identity cue” for this lifestyle. Through the use of repetition of the logo and motto, the company creates a higher likelihood that those consumers who self-identify as ‘athletes’ will prefer those products that are synchronous with that image...

"Social identification with avocation, family, religious groups or gender appear to factor heavily into the buying patterns of consumers, and consequently also in the marketing efforts of advertisers...

"Reed describes the term ‘identity salience’ as the process through which an advertisement, product, brand or any marketing stimulus specifically brings to mind strong and positive thoughts of the consumer’s identity, rooted in personal situations or group memberships...

"According to Reed, his overall research findings attempt to illustrate the “interplay of identity cues and the self-importance of consumer social identities in determining responses to brands and products” designed to appeal to a particular lifestyle or social identity. The most important step, says Reed, is for a company to develop a strong ‘identification strategy,’ choosing an identity that consumers value, and then incorporating identity cues into an ad or message to spark an immediate and favorable response to the product...

Source || Exploring the Links between Brand Name and Consumer Identity: Knowledge@Wharton



[Relevant Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html]

Information Retrieval

ARTIFICIAL PARADISE,INC. from Jp Frenay on Vimeo.

In Limbo...

I feel myself vanishing. This morning around three, I awoke and felt like a ghost. It reminded me of my old composition notebooks. I felt like an erased pencil mark—still visible as an indentation. Am I that? Am I nothing more than my own footprint in a time that has already passed? Because I do not feel real. I do not feel solid.

I feel like a billboard—existing only to consume. A real life feels like a dream. Will this journey ever congeal? Will it ever provide a sensation of authenticity?

When time ends and looks back upon itself, will I be there or will I just be a painting on its wall?




[Relevant Link: http://artisticthings.com/]

Repackaging

"Objectification is the 'object-like character of an image that connotes passivity, vulnerability, property, and, in its most extreme form, victimization.'"
~Judith Posner



[Relevant Link: http://bit.ly/el6uI]

Taking Woodstock and the Fall of Babylon

"If you don't leave right now, then I'm going to call the police," she said.

"How," I thought, "Did we make it here?" After emerging from Ang Lee's triumphant Taking Woodstock feeling like a wave of warm, beautiful energy, we decided to keep that glow alive. Fueled by wine and another intoxicant that shall remain unnamed, our night was meant to embrace the peace and oneness of comradeship.

Unfortunately, wine and the nameless earth-born substance turned into shots of cheap rum and never-ending beers. Restlessness took over. The acoustic guitar was sheathed. With Tool as our night's soundtrack, we ventured into the world like a couple of mad psychonauts and wound up at the appropriately named Club Babylon.

I sat atop the stage, looking down upon the writhing crowd of dancers. The little lights dazzled and ricocheted off everything. It was like an explosion of kaleidoscopic energy. The DJ broke protocol, abandoned the generic pop-club rotation, and jammed out the Dubstep, which transported me into that bass-driven, digital playground of consciousness that I so love.

My mind wandered back to Lee's touching and subtle tale of Elliot Teichberg, as he and his family wound up as the anchor for one of the world's wildest voyages—Woodstock. For those of you expecting a music-driven chronicle of the concert itself, then you're in for some disappointment.

Lee's movie is based on the book Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life, which was written by the real-life Elliot Tiber and focuses on the organization of the event. More so, the movie focuses on confluence—the coming together of family, friends, and strangers. After all, was that not the beauty of Woodstock, i.e. the unity of a time, a generation, and a movement?

With great skill and patience, this movie wove together a tapestry of plotlines based on individuals overcoming personal and interpersonal issues and learning to accept themselves and one another against the backdrop of Woodstock.

Emile Hirsch delivered a solid performance as a shell-shocked Vietnam Vet who finally finds his peace atop a mud-soaked hill. Liev Schreiber dazzled as the cross-dressing ex-marine Vilma, who played a central role in the sweet reconciliation of Elliot and his father Jake, played perfectly by Henry Goodman.

Throughout the entire film, I felt a sense of longing. "Why was I born so late," I pondered. This naked, mud-covered, peace-loving, mayhem was where I should have been. I wanted (and needed) to know what it must have felt like to have actually experienced this unique moment in time. Then Ang Lee gave me that chance.

As the dutiful Elliot lingers around the family motel, his father tells him to go check out the concert. Elliot hesitates, but Vilma orders him to go see what the center of the universe looks like. And, in a sequence of pure brilliance, Lee takes us to that miraculous epicenter.

On his way to the concert, Elliot encounters a mild-mannered Hippie couple that offers him his first dose of LSD. They assure him that the stuff is good—unlike the doses floating around down there, which was a nice, understated reference to the infamous brown acid of Woodstock.

Teichberg figures, "What the hell," and eats a dose of acid the size of a postal stamp, which made me squirm in my seat. I cannot ever imagine eating something like that, but thankfully Lee did imagine it. What follows has to be the most honest depiction of a hallucinogenic experience ever captured on film.

I refuse to go into detail explaining the majority of this visual experience. My words will not do it justice. If for no other reason than to see this trip, then go see this movie. However, I will state that Elliot winds up on a massive, rolling hill overlooking the concert while still under the influence of the acid. Gravity and solidity evaporate. Unhinged, the hills begin to undulate. Demarcation expires and all becomes one big, blurry wave of energy that culminates in a cyclone of sacred light. Tears streaked my eyes.

I wanted to feel that so bad, but instead I wound up on Babylon's stage, drunk and feeling lost. There was nothing sacred about it. This night was profane. I had forgotten the lessons of the film. Life's beauty comes by way of communion, not indulgence—and our night would only get worse.

Suddenly, I realized the brilliance of Lee's ending. Elliot, standing amidst the trash-filled wasteland that was once a beautiful dairy farm, meets up with the concert's organizer, Michael Lang. A lone, weary American flag dots the background while the young men discuss what's next. Lang tells him that he's headed to San Francisco to organize a truly free and great concert, which will be headlined by the Rolling Stones.

For those of us familiar with the reference, it was an ominous note to end the film on as the Altamont Free Concert of 1969 wound up the de facto end of the sixties and the brutal murder of one young fan came to symbolize the death of the Hippie movement itself. It was a dark end to an otherwise beautiful and vibrant period of American history.

Sooner or later, I realized that the dark side of humanity is going to break its chains and climb from its pit. And, if I'm not careful, then my hedonistic quest for love and beauty will also devolve, dement, and—ultimately—destroy.

And I guess that's how we wound up at a local Walgreens arguing with a clerk over a fucking bag of potato chips and facing the very real possibility of police intervention. We lost sight of the big picture and just went too far.

[Relevant Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1236057/the_1969_altamont_free_concert_the.html]

A World, Tailor-Fitted

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. --Genesis 3:22-23
I keep having this nightmare—waking up in a completely computerized-digital-manufactured-assembly-line-kind-of-reality. After being awakened by my automated sleeping pod, which blasts me with a heavy dose of oxygen to ensure that I leave my sleep at the proper time, a conveyor belt delivers a chair to me. Obediently, I take my place in its sleek, stylized palm. It transports me to the bathroom. Bio-thermal-cardio sensors read my vitals and create the perfect shower for me—optimal temperature and duration. After the shower turns itself off, I am air dried—also optimized and regulated. I exit the shower on command and take my place in front of my sink and medicine cabinet. A speaker tells me what vitamins and medications to take and then reminds me to appreciate and thank the corporations that have brought these life-nurturing essentials to my otherwise unhealthy world. I eat my pills and drink them with the perfect cup of water. Perfect size. Perfect temperature.

Then I return to my chair, which plays a selection of new music based on my consumer profile and asks me which ones I would like to purchase using the automated credit server. I say, “All,” and am rewarded with a modest discount and an equally modest credit-rating boost. Then, a psychologically-pleasing track of applause awards this choice and a voice tells me what a good citizen I am and, instantly, tells me to what degree I have helped the economy by saying, "All." I like saying all.

The chair takes me to my closet and selects the perfect outfit based on my personal aesthetic values as well as those belonging to my social circle and status. The video monitor plays the appropriate commercials for the brand names helping me into this perfect outfit for the perfect day. After dressing, I’m transported to the kitchen where another set of biomedical sensors read my body and prepare the optimal meal. I am told when to eat what and what sized bite to take. Optimal ingestion.

My morning routine is complete. Next, I am transported down my personal elevator, which is also perfectly safe as it is built to carry my weight and dimension and eliminates any chance of threat coming from dregs such as muggers or stalkers. Danger has been eliminated, for the most part. I wait in the perfect atmosphere of my solitary garage port while I await my personalized taxi-pod. Everything tailored, perfect, and commercialized—my every whim, fancy, and need provided with no effort. And every day all I do is imagine how much this feels like a shape-shifting prison that follows me everywhere I go—the entire world institutionalized—everything and everyone incarcerated. And I pray for a world-ending meteor. I pray for death—the only freedom left.

However, death is far away. Technology has increased life-expectancy to nearly one-hundred and sixty years. Nanotechnology has lead to the creation of life-saving clothes—vitals constantly monitored—healthcare never more than two minutes away. I will be breathing for quite some time. Suicide has been eradicated. I’d sigh, but the sensors would flag me for psychiatric evaluation. Then I realize it’s too late. I’ve been thinking about this for too long and they’ve noticed a negative trend in my brain wave activity. I’ll be getting a new pill tomorrow. Fuck. I just how the commercial is good.



[Relevant Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Bay]

Ein Sof

"We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other."

--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin



[Relevant Link: http://www.newkabbalah.com/einsof.html]

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Heath Ledger's final role—enough said.

[Relevant Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6028375/Heath-Ledger-fellow-Hollywood-stars-complete-movie-role.html]

The Imperialist's Blueprint

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one."

--Alexander Hamilton



[Relevant Link: http://endofamericamovie.com/video_step9.php]

Blue Velvet and the Cosmic Spin

"Death in my mind isn't a finality. There's a continuum: It's like at night, you go to sleep and in the daytime you wake up, or whenever you wake up, and it's a new day."

-AND-

"Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd."

--David Lynch



[Relevant Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/everything.html]

I Tasted the Fruit and Its Rotten

I cannot be a strict atheist. Never shall I be able to say, "There is no God."

Granted, I reject the concept of God as religion has defined it. However, it is my disdain for religion that stops me from outright rejecting God in all forms--conceivable or inconceivable.

Religion's primary ontological claim actually extends in two directions. Religion does not simply claim that there is a God and it is a God as they define it. In actuality, religions (especially Judeo-Christian sects) are based on a exclusive disjunction, i.e. an Either/ Or premise.

In the case of religion, that premise can be summarized as, "Either there is a God as we define it, or there is nothing." This is the inherent nature of religion that necessarily makes it so exclusionary.

Hence, in my opinion, when anyone says, "Okay, fine--there's nothing," they're actually affirming religion's proposed ontological structure. Fuck that.

Why are those the only two options? To quote Whitman:

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

That sums my views up. Energy never dies. Our imbecilic human brains can barely even comprehend space and/ or time. The electromagnetic spectrum is a vast, absurd thing. Who knows what the true nature of reality is? Sure, it's not a talking snake and a boat-full of animals riding out a flood, but it's definitely beyond our tiny little brains--and it's beyond our grasp in ways we cannot even imagine.

That's how small we are. We are not even capable of imagining the true depth of our ignorance. So is there a God in a nebulous, transcendent, I-connect-all-of-reality-together-kind-of-way...who fucking knows?

However, as far as your religions are concerned, let me quote Mr. Maynard James Keenan, "Fuck your God."



[Relevant Link: http://universalfield.org/]

What the Hell Am I Doing?

"The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race."

--E.M. Forster

The Philosopher from State of Tomorrow on Vimeo.

[Relevant Link: http://www.xs4all.nl/~maartens/philosophy/why_philosophy_is_important.htm]

Indigo 5

What happens when a psychonaut crashes the ship?

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration—that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death; life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves."

--Bill Hicks



[Relevant Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children]

Poetry in the Age of Aquarius

J-Villin was throwing it down last night. I sat chill, in the corner. I've been around DJs for quite some time, but that was the first time that I watched--really watched.

It hit me.

This is the new poetry. The rhythm. The meter. The vibe. The elation. This is the new language of the aesthetic.

I have been trying to accomplish this feat with my written poetry for years--I became obsessed with the sounds of the words and the hypnotic effect that those words could create when strung together without a taste for meaning.

Specifically, Pasiel's Key, which was my ode to meaningless sound.

As the poem states in the opening:

Warning: this poem is about images and not about message. Do not try to understand it, there is nothing to understand. It exists solely to invoke mental sensations. So, just see it...

All I cared about was the rhythm--the elation of the sound and the mesmerizing effect that it could create:

Next, just let the words bloom into plaid violet sights and chirping sounds like chickadee symphonies of bursting mad violent rounds. Let the temptations of connotations cascade, that is to say ripple, spill, pour, spurt, course, jet, spring, teem, crawl about the lands untouched and unplowed and forgotten that smell of sweet residue dandelion field lily aroma mystique.

I never could accomplish my goal--not entirely. However, instinct told me that it was possible. After all, I love listening to Naruda in Spanish even though I cannot speak (or understand) Spanish. It's the sound--the feel--the vibe.

However, while listening to this DJ, it dawned on me. Language carries too much baggage. It's too impregnated with connotations. This, on the other hand, was pure sound--a purely digital voice. It can do anything and everything. It is the voice of the universal.

COME, said the Muse, Spin me a song no poet yet has mixed, Spin me the Universal.
--Whitman (remixed)



[Relevant Link: http://dubstep.fm/]

Wake Up

[Relevant Link: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/internet-blogs/the-la-times-on-the-future-of-animation-production.html]

The Medium is the Architect

"A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs.

If the archetypal case of communication under a transmission view is the extension of messages across geography for the purpose of control, the archetypal case under a ritual view is the sacred ceremony that draws persons together in fellowship and commonality."

--James W. Carey





[Relevant Link: http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/2views.html]

Unraveled

The numbers are counting down. I am approaching the zero horizon. The code is finally revealing itself. What a strange language it turns out to be.




[Relevant Link: http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm]

I Ate the Blue Apple.

What have I become?

"He saw a world of robots, marching rigidly in the paths laid down for them from above, and each robot partly alive, partly human, waiting its chance to drop its own monkey wrench into the machinery."

--Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, i.e. The Illuminatus! Trilogy.



[Relevant Link: http://tinwiki.org/wiki/Blue_Apples]

Just so you know...

I hated my last post. It was one of those ideas that sounded good as an idea, but that entered the world horribly disfigured. I'd delete it, but I'm not a fan of censorship or polishing. However, I still like the word (re)expressionism, but ultimately it seems absurd (and pretentious and kind of douche-baggy) to talk about it like I did. My bad. I wish I could blame it on smoking pot (or something, anything really), but I can't. It just sucked and I own the blame. All of it. Ream me like the bad boy I am--just kidding. Don't do that. That would suck more. This isn't Guantanamo. Just a blog with a shitty post. Sorry world.

To make amends, please enjoy this:



[Relevant Link: http://hagelin.org/]

(Re)expressionism

I've become fascinated with user-generated movie trailers—the kind that assemble snippets of a film in a manner that drastically changes the emotions of the actual movie. However, the trick only works if you've actually seen the movie that it's rehashing.

These trailers are called recuts, but I don't like that name. It's too shallow. A recut is really nothing more than an alternate version of the original thing. For example, when a studio runs a new and improved trailer for a movie, the one that came second is a recut. Why—because they just shuffled the footage a bit, but they did not put the film itself through any sort of transformative experience, i.e. the signifier changes, but not the signified.

However, with the fan-generated recuts we're really talking about the manipulation of reality—taking an established thing and reordering it in such a way that it transcends simple rearrangement. This is a reshuffling that actually reorients the very nature of the thing itself, but via annexation. So, the substance remains the same, but not the essence, i.e. it's new, but not entirely new.

It made me think that maybe we need a new word for this hypernew art form, but it couldn't be a completely original word; it would also have to be hypernew.

After all, we are the culture of RE—remediated, recycled, recut, rebooted, and reimagined. So why not just refit another word to do the job? So, from now on, I am going to refer to this form of media art as Reexpressionism. Why?

Expressionism refers to a "any art that raises subjective feelings above objective observations. The paintings aim to reflect the artists's state of mind rather than the reality of the external world."

With these trailers, there is clearly an objective thing, i.e. a film. However, these reality-bending video editors are able to manipulate the subjective emotions by distorting and warping the original, objective thing. They are able to superimpose their vision upon that film and redefine its feeling—its essence.

The greatest example that I have seen so far is an amazing reexpression of Dirty Dancing that casts it in a Lynchian mold. Unfortunately, the embed function has been disabled, but you can find this amazing trailer rehash here: If David Lynch Directed Dirty Dancing.

[Relevant Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-cut_trailer]

The Anatomy of a Shadow

Last night, while wandering through a mad, beautiful playground of strobe lights, leather-clad club-goers, bondage and fetish play, and a haze of alcohol, I looked into myself.

I looked into myself with every drink. I looked into myself with every mentally-appraised judgment of a passing stranger. I looked into myself when shyness overwhelmed me and spoiled a possible connection. I looked into myself with every moment of reticence. I looked into myself as eyes refused to meet. And then I looked into myself quite literally—in the mirror behind the bar.

Between the smoke, the dimmed lights, and my gently blurred vision, I appeared to myself much like an apparition. That's when I noticed the name on the front of my shirt: TOOL.

Instantly, my mind drifted away to the rhythm of Forty-Six & 2.

This was the place to free the repression within. This was the place to let one's shadow play. This was the place of self-fulfillment, but my fear—my constant need for control—would not allow me.

That's when I realized that the freak inside that so desperately wanted to come out and play was not the shadow. It was the pale face emerging from the dark, truth-bearing t-shirt that was the shadow. It was (and is) the obsessive need to control, to direct, and to structure that lead(s) me astray.

Appropriately, pale is the color of death—for death seeks to control all; life is that which transcends control. Perhaps, I need a tan...

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

--Revelation 6:8



[Relevant Link: http://changingminds.org/explanations/identity/jung_archetypes.htm]

Time for a Midnight Dip

"Now my mind works more than my eyes do. My senses no longer act, only my mind."

--Jean Baudrillard



[Relevant Link: http://snurl.com/kb3uu]

The Power of the Collective Communication Experience

To keep today's theme going, please enjoy this video clip from Fora.Tv that addresses the aggregate power of web-based communicators, i.e. that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Paradigm Shift: The User-Generated, Real-Time Web



[Relevant Link: http://gestalttheory.net/]

Chasing Rabbits: Had to Do It

"What the internet does—it empowers individuals. It takes away the power of mediating institutions and puts all in the hands of people and that, in many ways, is a logical outgrowth of the philosophy and the ideals of the hippie movement."

--Steve Gillon



[Relevant Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog]

Twippies: Feed Your Head

So, I have to participate in an online discussion forum that operates in conjunction with my thesis class. Each week two students are responsible for posting discussion questions and the rest of us have to debate their topics.

Yesterday, one of my classmates asked if social networking websites have gone too far, i.e. have they grown unruly and made a mess of things? Specifically, they called out Twitter and chided our "trusted" news providers for jumping on the bandwagon. This student's post implied that Twitter has degraded the overall quality of information available to society. It also blamed tweeters for bringing chaos into the system. What line—they asked—should we draw? Where should we put up boundaries and barriers?

That answer is simple—nowhere and none. Here's my response:

I think Twitter is a great website. Micro-blogging is the natural step in the evolution of the scanner culture, i.e. we do not read everything that comes our way—we scan the internet for something that piques or interest/ curiosity.

I know that some people lament that fact, as if it's an indication that society is becoming illiterate to some extent or another, but I completely disagree.

We have to remember that personal computing has its roots in the counter-culture of the 1960's and the echoes of that revolutionary mindset.

As Steve Wozniak said in a History Channel documentary about Hippies:

"We were so influenced by the People’s Computer Company in Menlo Park—the same area that the Hippie thought had come from. The whole Hippie thinking was that, basically, the big, wealthy power structure should be undone. We want to turn the balance over; and we want to make the small individuals more important. And it was basically bringing this power—this mastery of their own universe—away from the powers that be—the huge, big rich corporations."

John Markoff's book What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry takes a more in-depth look at the confluence of technology and counter-culture.

Prior to these movements, information had always been under tight control; there was an aristocracy of knowledge determining what was and was not worth learning. Unfortunately, this informational caste system did more to divide society and empower those at the top, than it did to liberate those at the bottom.

However, now consumers are dictating the terms of consumption. A website like Twitter forces "publishers" to make their pitch in 140 characters or less, which means if you cannot grab someone's attention than you do not get it. After all, why should we read everything a person or organization prints/ publishes just because they have a prominent name like the New York Times?

More importantly, it gives people at the bottom a voice. Who cares if they're tweeting about what kind of cereal they ate for breakfast? That may seem inane to us, but it allows them to feel like they're part of the dialogue. They're speaking; they're contributing; they're finding an outlet for self-expression and—possibly—finding like-minded people to communicate with, which, in the past, was very unlikely to happen.

Social Networking Websites are the first real democratic arena of expression that the world has seen. So, not only do I not think that they have gone too far, but I also think that they have not gone far enough in reshaping communication models.

I do not think that there should be any lines drawn up by an institution or organization since that would just be a reversion to the gatekeeping models of the past. Users should be free to draw their own lines.

As far as news outlets joining Twitter, I say good for them. I think it's long overdue; it's great to see news providers actively engaging the population through channels like Twitter and interactive blogs.

[Relevant Link: http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=716&doc_id=166535]

Postmodernism as the Agent of the Avant-Garde

The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
by Jean Francois Lyotard

Jean-Francois Lyotard writes:
In an amazing acceleration, the generations precipitate themselves. A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
(p. 79)

My interpretation:
Modernism does not stand still. It changes; it undergoes a process. For the sake of clarity, it will help to begin describing the process in the second of three stages—the conventional. This is the accepted standard of modernity—the status quo. However, convention is over-replicated. It becomes a simulacrum of itself and, subsequently, vapid.

The withering of the conventional always inspires invention. The antagonistic nature of discourse promotes constant revival. The stale must be made fresh. The conventional is attacked.

This period of the avant-garde constitutes the postmodern. It is the power that disrupts and redistributes discourse into new games. These disruptions form the beginnings (not the end) of the next stage of modernism which, in turn, will wither and incite further renewal; hence the declaration that "the generations precipitate themselves."

That is also why a work must enter the world as the postmodern before becoming the modern—invention, convention, and disintegration.

[Relevant Link: http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/Lyotard.htm]

The Cinematic Oracle

See this movie.



"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."

--Wittgenstein

[Relevant Link: http://examinedlifejournal.com/index.shtml]

Lux Aeterna

This was necessary:



COME, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

[Relevant Link: http://www.bartleby.com/142/254.html]

Dancing Wormholes and The Crystal Method

Last night, I wandered into a new dimension. A huge dose of bass pulled me into the floor and dropped me into a room nearly identical to the one above me, but on a different side of the mirror.

There was no air--nor any time. Just a space like warm water that held me in suspension while photonic angels tore me apart--leaving nothing but a dream and blackness.

We are not creatures of the flesh, but of sound and light and I felt the digitization of the self.

For some reason, this reminds me of an article I read about scientists learning how to use strands of DNA as fiber optics, but we shall return to that at a later date--once I am capable of assimilating and comprehending the landscape of consciousness that I stumbled upon last night.

In the meantime, I shall leave you with the words of the legendary cyberpunk author William Gibson:

"The box was a universe, a poem, frozen on the boundaries of human experience."










[Relevant Link: http://www.sfxmachine.com/docs/musicandconsciousness.html]

Homo Sapiens 2.0

This is how I see the world:




This is how I talk to the world:




This is how I understand the world:




This is me:



[Relevant Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg]

Danger’s Dark Night in the Land of Blue Velvet

David Lynch and DJ Danger Mouse are collaborating. I think I'm in heaven—albeit a really weird, dark, chanting Gregorian Monk, H.R. Giger kind-of-heaven.

UPDATE: The original video that I posted could no longer be viewed because it was removed by YouTube due to an ongoing copyright battle, which you can read about here.

However, NPR released a full-stream of the CD, which you can listen to here.

[Relevant Link: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/dark_night.html]

Unraveled

Sometimes, I awake from my dreams, but the surrealism lingers and I have to lie in bed and wait for the world to solidify. My walls, like water, ripple. I feel myself, untangled, tightening. The world is back. Knitted.

Time for coffee.

Nine Inch Nails - New Music - More Music Videos

[Relevant Link: http://www.weavingalife.com/weaving.php]

The Vine of the Soul

Ayahuasca, or the vine of the soul as some call it, can propel one's consciousness into radically dissociated (and psychedelic) states of beingness. Recently, I have become very interested in hallucinogenic substances as a doorway into another realm of experience. Granted, I have already had my share of youthful excursions into psychedelics, but those trips were juvenile and, ultimately, pointless (but, then again, maybe that is the point…).

However, I began to wonder about the deeper potentials that may or may not reside within those experiences. I was already familiar with MDMA therapy and the work of Claudio Naranjo—a Chilean intellectual with a degree in medicine, advanced training as a psychiatrist, and extensive work in the field of anthropology. Besides looking into the therapeutic benefits of MDMA-enhanced treatment, Naranjo can also be linked to the Human Potential Movement and the Fourth Way, but this is becoming an unnecessary tangent so before I wind up wandering into a diatribe about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point, I will digress (though I will return to that in a later post).

So, perhaps illicit drugs could be the key to advancing our consciousness. Perhaps it is wrong to think about these substances within a particular moral frame, i.e. as an illicit drug. After all, our consciousness would not exist without chemistry and our human chemical composition is just one expression of form—of being. Perhaps there are others—no, perhaps is wrong—there are other modes of beingness (this thought was the launching pad).

And as that concept of varying arrangements of beingness erupted, a swirl of thoughts and ideas spread across the sidewalk of my mind's eye like a child's crayons left out on a hot day and as that motley, mental gunk oozed in every direction like psychedelic lava, I began pondering the weird ideas and brilliant works that I have encountered in the past few months, i.e. David Icke's interdimensional reptilian conspiracy theories, Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, Carlos Castaneda's the Teachings of Don Juan, and Shea and Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

Then I discovered that adventurous tourists can actually trek down to the Amazon for Ayahuasca ceremonies lead by authentic curanderos. I seriously contemplated reserving a trip, but, unfortunately, such a thing resides outside of the dimensional possibilities that exist within the confines of my budgetary existence (being in marketing only earns me so much).

Instead, I picked up my copy of the Shea and Wilson masterpiece. Halfway through the first page, I encountered the following passage:

I happen to know all the details about what happened, but I have no idea how to recount them in a manner that will make sense to most readers. For instances, I am not even sure who I am, and my embarrassment on that matter makes me wonder if you will believe anything I reveal…There is nothing I can do to make things any easier for any of us, and you will have to accept being addressed by a disembodied voice just as I accept the compulsion to speak out even though I am painfully aware that I am talking to an invisible, perhaps nonexistent, audience.

This kicked my mind into overdrive. Immediately, I was reminded of a similar moment of disembodied self-awareness in issue 3 (trade paperback Entropy in the U.K.) of The Invisibles. A character named Malcom is struggling to seal a dimensional rupture, while the narrator provides us the details and context of this challenging task. However, at the climax of the action when we the reader are entirely sucked into this fabricated reality, the narrator shatters our faith in this world and our own when he, she, or it concludes, then queries:

All of it comes to an end. Which leaves, apart from who he's going to be, now that Brian Malcom's dead, only one question. Who is telling this, and to whom?

In following this runaway train(s) of thought, I was also struck by my own sense of (or lack thereof) self-awareness. After all, who the hell am I writing this blog to? And why? Are the thoughts in my head my own? Or is it just some narrator stuck trying to explain the events of a world beyond his or her (or its) own self? Perhaps, the thoughts in my head are already disembodied, but I don't realize it. Perhaps, the dissolution of the ego that one experiences while on a psychedelic trip—or, to be more accurate, the experience that one does not experience, but simply is while dissociated—frees that voice from the page, i.e. the narrator is cleaved from the story and can finally and simply, BE.

And, finally, that brings me back to the digital realm where I spend most of my time (and is the primary focus of this blog). What kind of consciousness do we experience online? Do we experience time and human interaction in the same ways we do when we're off the grid? Do we have a different sense of self and possibility when performing within the digital utopia? I know that I can bowl a 274 on a Nintendo Wii, but will be lucky to hit a 38 at the local alley. How does that affect my sense of achievement? Capability? Am I being convinced that I am better than I am, and with relation to a whole lot more than Wii bowling? Am I even an I when I slide into my online existence? Or am I a Facebook page? A MySpace page? A Digg account? A tweeting Twitter? What am I in this digital sphere? Because I'm certainly not a body anymore, but I am certainly somebody…I think.

Perhaps, that's the trick—the big scam. I'm no more real than the drying ink on a freshly reprinted page of Shea and Wilson's book and all I have is this confused, disembodied voice trying to assemble a story for a mass of confused, untrusting readers that may not even exist. Damn the compulsion!

Who's got those illicit drugs?

Ayahuasca from Hello Pixels! on Vimeo.

[Relevant Link: http://www.sociology.org/content/2005/tier1/ajana.html]

Alice

I absolutely adore this video. What an amazing remix.

Deconstruction = Reconstruction = Evolution



[Relevant Link: http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#poststruct]

Welcome to Euphoratopia

Well, here it is—the digital compendium of my life. A regurgitation. A simulacrum.

The Signifier and I am the Signified. Or, at least my personal brand is the signified—not the real me, but that distinction only returns us to the simulacrum. Alas.

However, that's enough sciolistic pontificating for now (an ironic choice of words, perhaps). I am just completely fascinated with the nature of reality—always have been. What is it? Do our eyes really allow us to see it as it is? All that pseudo-philosophical junk. And in today's digital age it's even more fascinating.

Signs exist all around us—pointing us to something—or maybe just distracting us from something else. Digital media has and is rewriting (rewiring, maybe…) information transfer models. Consumerism has gone psychotic and hedonistic. And we are all caught right in the middle of this glorious, schizophrenic mess.

It can be ultimately euphoric at times, but, at its peak, the euphoria is usually fabricated. The reality we are enjoying has been constructed, tested, processed, and broadcast. The truth behind the reality does not exist—it is, in essence, a utopia, which literally means no place. Hence euphoria + utopia = euphoratopia.

A real word would not have sufficed, so it was necessary to create the new from the old—to reassemble—recreate.

And this blog is nothing more than an extension of that hyperreality—a digital diary that will house and disseminate my thoughts, reflections, and experiences as I bounce about this sick Disney Land we call a world.

Cheers.

--William Thomas Stone    

The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.
~Ecclesiastes (Jean Baudrillard)

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P.S. For those interested in exploring certain concepts more in-depth, I have provided a few links and snippets on hyperreality, postmodernism, and semiotics.

I.

The concept most fundamental to hyperreality is the simulation and the simulacrum (see Simulation/Simulacra). The simulation is characterized by a blending of 'reality' and representation, where there is no clear indication of where the former stops and the latter begins. The simulacrum is often defined as a copy with no original, or as Gilles Deleuze (1990) describes it, "the simulacrum is an image without resemblance."

[Source Link: http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/realityhyperreality.htm]

II.

Hyperreality is an inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Hyperreality can be described as enhanced reality. Some people become more engaged with the hyperreal world than with the real world.

Hyperreality is thought to be a consequence of the age that we live in. Hyperrealism is a postmodern
philosophy that deals in part with semiotics, or the study of the signs that surround us in everyday life and what they actually mean. For example, a king may wear a crown that symbolizes his title and power. The crown itself is meaningless, but it has come to take on the meaning that society has given it. The reality of the crown and the hyperreality of what it stands for are interwoven.

[Source Link: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hyperreality.htm]

III.

It is in the two Disneys, where he finds the ultimate expression of hyperreality, in which everything is brighter, larger and more entertaining than in everyday life. In comparison to Disney, he implies, reality can be disappointing. When he travels the artificial river in Disneyland, for example, he sees animatronic imitations of animals. But, on a trip down the real Mississippi, the river fails to reveal its alligators. "...You risk feeling homesick for Disneyland," he concludes, "where the wild animals don't have to be coaxed. Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can."

…But, perhaps his most interesting perception occurs when he discovers, behind all the spectacle in Disneyland, the same old tricks of capitalism, with a new twist: "The Main Street facades are presented to us as toy houses and invite us to enter them, but their interior is always a disguised supermarket, where you buy obsessively, believing that you are still playing," he writes. He similarly finds in Disney, "An allegory of the consumer society, a place of absolute iconism, Disneyland is also as place of total passivity. Its visitors must agree to behave like robots."

[Source Link: http://www.transparencynow.com/eco.htm]