CRIM/CITY/WIMP

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2018-02-12T06:59:00.002-06:00

Redefining death-rites in our modern society

2011-03-23T01:11:00.000-05:00

An avant garde mortician. This is a movie idea. closure. Inspired by the left-over egyptian god characters in American Gods by Neil Gaiman and the Idea of a relevant/fit/healthy mortician in The Lavender Hour podcast. Dad, lets collaborate. Our society is death obsessed. This could be a killer indie.

DeathBot Archive

2011-02-01T15:50:00.000-06:00

Film

2011-02-01T02:44:00.000-06:00

Acidophilus for the Wallet

2011-01-29T17:04:00.003-06:00

Multiples at strip clubs.

CRIIIMP'T.

Think About What Music Is

2011-01-27T21:53:00.006-06:00

Vive

2011-01-27T13:50:00.000-06:00

Slide Right off of my feet, kid.

Does This Matter Yet?

2011-01-26T02:49:00.001-06:00

Linkthink = Parentheticals = Debts(?) = References = Awareness = Spiderweb

At 15:21 Christopher Lloyd (AKA Doc Brown - A third mad scientist to add to Dr. Bishop's impersonation of Twin Peaks' Dr. Jacoby) plays on the piano what sounds like the intro to "Kings Get Deaded" by Doomtree's Mike Mictlan, which may or may not be an extended sample from the song "Kissing You" by Des'ree, a single featured in director Baz Luhrmann's 1996 take on Rome and Juliet. Coincidentally(?) Luhrmann is from Australia where Frige co-stars Anna Torv and John Noble also hail from.

= Fuck The internet.

Cheque Pue, Amigo.

2011-01-25T20:56:00.000-06:00

Got off a train down in Teguse', in my rat skin suit, with my orphan juice.

Thigger Yan Thour Broughts

2011-01-25T03:49:00.008-06:00

24 (twenty fore)

Back From Honduras.

Brigger Than Your Thoughts

2011-01-07T21:32:00.004-06:00

We Leave for Honduras in two days.

Doo Tay

2010-12-30T22:58:00.007-06:00

Smelt Frishk.

Jesus.

Tell Julie Andrews to get them titties out.

Having a good time every day

2010-12-27T11:13:00.006-06:00

Suyapatista in full affect, SON...

...Watch Me take and Intimate poop,
I got your mom all night like a .GIF on infinite loop...

...Buckin' shots with my boots, Squinting at tubular fruit,
re-runnin' Goof-Troop til I bled from the gooch.

CR-Lock Two's ER.

2010-12-24T13:32:00.010-06:00

Home for the holly days.

Sleeping on down the raud.

Where These T's been all my shelf?

Re-Make, Re-Up, Re-Ow, Re-Re.

Merry Crips, I miss my Sis.
Summer is as far away as it gets, so cheer up because it's only getting closer.
Fag.

CRIMLINGANG

2010-12-22T19:47:00.007-06:00

Crimmin' be dat forté.
Who's crew got dem claws cinched all up on D's Nuts?

Believe you/me, we got BURIED UP in dat shit, son.

NUUH.

Crumpelstilkstin.

"I'm gonna go get aids tonight before its gone like 4LOKO son!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
-neckface

Treebeard wants all your Bloods for Cripsmas.

Not Today, Not Threeday, Not even Four

2010-12-21T15:43:00.004-06:00

File under "Bunt"

2010-11-30T17:25:00.004-06:00

HBX @ 4:30 AM

2010-10-24T19:22:00.006-05:00

Ten-Thousand Baby Guys...
...dead.

Take an optimistic stance and run like that.

Why curtail yourself?
Sober people are people too.
Fascist cunts are cunts too.
Every state gets its' own super power.

Beep Beep

2010-10-22T11:46:00.003-05:00

Beerocracy

2010-10-12T02:59:00.005-05:00

Taft-Berry Blast

2010-10-11T03:11:00.001-05:00

"...We form like Voltron and alcohol happens to be the head"

Boxen the Goods

2010-10-10T01:28:00.004-05:00

Crampsognathus

2010-09-06T01:54:00.002-05:00

Hacks and Whacks.

Like a bad habit.

The SmileTones

2010-08-21T02:57:00.007-05:00

Far too awake to sleep.

He Pledged His Death-Wattle to the Cause of Poetry

2010-08-05T13:43:00.005-05:00

No, my son's name is also Bort.
777.

Was ist dir im Leben wichtig?

2010-08-05T01:40:00.004-05:00

Spenden Geld: is a false cognate?
...Tron Funkin' Blow.

Post Script: I got the job, Mom.

DonkeyRoll

2010-08-02T17:49:00.001-05:00

The man speaks for himself.

Apron Bagger

2010-07-25T22:27:00.002-05:00

BUY, BUY, BUY.

MooVee

2010-07-25T22:19:00.002-05:00

Gong to stand upona shelf.

It's insane this guys taint.

2010-07-16T22:02:00.005-05:00

Thanks internet.

Consequences will never be the same.

Take a Pun at the Sun / Diarrhea Mustache

2010-07-14T23:36:00.005-05:00

Grippin' the proverbial...

...trolled hisself a mac one.

...shore hisself a dirt one.

...nurgeld hisself a bunt one.

...chopped hisself a head one.

...hammed hisself a Zang one.

Shook Ones Part 2 (Hey Baby-Guy)

2010-06-30T09:20:00.010-05:00

Woke up.
Got out of bed.
Combed a bug out of my head.
and throat.
and stomach.
AKA - I threw up a lot.
I think I inhaled some toxic mold dust last night in the haunted basement.
Now I don't feel good.
I was thinking.
In the Rugrats movie the dad gives Tommy the pocket-watch because he has become the big brother and is responsible, but because he is a baby he thinks it is a compass and that the object itself is a physical manifestation of responsibility.
See, reification can be cute.

I want to know... If You've Ever Seen the Rain.

2010-06-05T14:52:00.005-05:00

An ugly downpour is obscuring my beach dreams and deflating my brain-chemistry*. I've been reading this science fiction for days, stone drunk on pulp and grain alcohol and the tyranny of possession. It makes me think about a story my grandmother told me about one time right after she married my Gramps. They were in college and he went out drinking with the baseball team and came home late smelling** like a good time. Grams says that if they hadn't lived in a different town, she would have gone and stayed with her parents that night.
If only they had been born fifty years later.
I can barley hear what they're saying anymore.

*It's that feeling like I'm out of control in the most boring way possible.
**Yesterday we were outside at the Soap after working on building the maze and Will told me "dude you stink. Yeah, I could smell you when I got in the car."

Lao Jing (Old Well), 1986

2010-04-28T12:31:00.005-05:00

Digging an old well: the labor of social fantasy in a contemporary Chinese film

"The currency of Jameson's notion of 'national allegories' is evident in its application by scholars who are otherwise different in their political, national, and gender interests. Rather than simply agreeing or disagreeing with Jameson and his followers, let us first reconsider what Jameson means by 'allegory': 'the allegorical spirit is profoundly discontinuous, a matter of breaks and heterogeneities, of the multiple polysemia of the dream rather than the homogeneous representtaion of the symbol"
- Rey Chow (403)

"...the realistic portrayal of Chinese peasants living in the feudal countryside. Instead, an age-old labor activity is now given a second-order signification, that of cinema, in order to project a very different concept of labor all together. This is the cultural labor of the 'Third World' in the 1990s, in which the 'Third World' can no longer simply manufacture mechanical body parts to be assembled and sold in the 'First World'. That the 'Third World' has been enlisted to do also is the manufacture of a reflection, an alterity that gives (back) to the 'First World' a sense of 'its' freedom and democracy while it generously allows the 'Third World' film to be shown against the authoritarian policies of 'Third World' governments. But and 'alterity' produced this way is a code and an abstraction whose fascination lies precisely in the fact that it is artificial and superficial; as Baudrillard says, 'it is the artifact that is the object of desire'..."
- Rey Chow (405)

"This structure of narcissistic value-making explains the current interest on the part of Chinese film-makers to search for China's 'own' others." (Chow, 408)
"the Chinese woman suddenly became a newly discovered 'primitive'..."(Chow, 410)

"...Qiaoying in much closer to man himself than the woman-at-home, in the rural village her avant-garde ontological proximity to masculinity is eyed with suspicion and distrust. The modernized, educated woman signifies romantic freedom - that is, 'choice' over her own body - and thus social instability. Quiaoying is represented as with out family relations. Like a mysterious signifier unleashed from centuries of anchorage to kinship, she does not know where she is heading." (411)

"Wangquen 'receives' not only food, cigarettes, and money from Xifeng, but finally, though reluctantly, also her body. Toward the end of the film, Xifeng is pregnant. By contrast, the romantic woman is turned into an outcast. Qiaoying is the 'enemy' of the economic basis of the village community who must be exiled." (411)

"Qiaoying's association with Wangcai is clearly presented as futile and futureless: Wangcai is an example of the 'decadent' younger generation of contemporary China whith no long term plan and no concern for society's future." (412)

"Romantic love becomes the signifier of emptiness - the emptiness and emptying of the social." (412)

Weak Spots

2010-04-17T18:43:00.002-05:00

From The CRIM Vault.

2010-03-26T13:06:00.001-05:00

WHAT BE DAT?

DAT BE CRIMMIN'

The Winning Streak Continues

2010-03-12T09:07:00.004-06:00

Each one of these pieces has been meticulously hand-slathered in a fine, delicate, always fresh except when partially-frozen layer of Grade A Crim.

Hot of the crimming-room wall.

Delicious and crim for the whole family.

Gorigami is presented in ®Color© where available.

Another One of Those Other Ones

2010-03-09T17:51:00.005-06:00

KB's hosting another trivia night, this time in scenic and historic White Boy Lake.

Is that bitch still talking?

2010-02-08T20:03:00.004-06:00

Disparate Design Deals

2010-02-07T22:33:00.005-06:00

For Kevyn's upcoming trivia event:

For Richard Dawkins:

For Betsy Munro:

I've got a trunk full of paint but photoshop won't shut the fuck up.

Old Art Sundays II

2010-01-17T14:31:00.004-06:00

Coffee
Tea
Gauche
Acrylic
Colored Pencil
Sharpie
Prismacolor
Correctional Fluid

From 2005, just like the other one only bigger and older and less "together".
More free association.
Drawn in one six hour stretch, if I recall correctly.

Merry Christmas Sister Bear

2009-12-24T14:27:00.001-06:00

Paper (from previous post)

2009-12-23T20:23:00.005-06:00

     In this paper I will examine the way that Michel Foucault's theory of the will to knowlege mediates the construction of a postmodern identity within consumer culture. To do this I will apply the differentiation made by Douglas Kellner between the modern identity and the post modern identity to the theory of "the society of the spectacle" proposed by Guy Debord. I will also examine the role that imagery created by consumer culture plays in construction of identity and the need that individuals have for tools to mediate the kinds of imagery they consume.
      Within the first volume of Foucault's The History of Sexuality, one encounters three salient theories which Foucault develops over the course of the text. The first theory that Foucault forwards is that the repressive hypothesis - the assertion that since the 19th century western societies have sought to repress human sexuality and sexual urges - is false. In its place, Foucault offers that "... Rather than massive censorship... what was involved was a regulated and polymorphous incitement to discourse." (Foucault, 34).
      In problematizing the repressive hypothesis Foucault questions the relevance that sexuality plays in the formation of ones personal identity. "...There emerged a completely new technology of sex... Through pedagogy, medicine, and economics, it made sex not only a secular concern but a concern of the state as well; to be more exact, sex became a matter that required the social body as a whole, and virtually all of its individuals, to place themselves under constant surveillance" (Foucault, 116).
      This recognition of how social institutions regard sex reveals the constructed nature of sexuality. Rather than ones identity being derived from the sexual self, Foucault forwards that identity and sexuality are both social constructions. The nuanced relationship that they have with each-other is not hierarchical, but give and take. This redefining of sexuality's role in the formation of ones identity also problematizes "identity" itself. If - as Foucault suggests - ones identity is not ones sexual self, what then does identity consist of?
      This is a question that Douglas Kellner addresses in his text Media Culture. "...Identity has been increasingly linked to style, to produce an image, to how one looks. It is as if everyone must have their own look, style, and image to have their own identity, though, paradoxically, many of the models of style and look come from consumer culture, thus individuality is highly mediated in the consumer society of the present..." (Kellner, 233).
      Kellner's assertion that identity is linked to look, style, and image fits with Foucault's belief that the creation of identity draws from numerous sources. Like sexuality, image is both an input that forms identity as well as an output of identity. The salient point found in Kellner's thought is the role that images from consumer culture play in creation of identity. However, this point raises several more questions, specifically, where do images of identity within consumer culture originate? And, what is consumer culture?
      Foucault has already answered the first question in his debunking of the repressive hypothesis. When he described a "polymorphous incitement to discourse," Foucault was referring to the way individuals within consumer culture willingly submit the intimate details of their lives to social institutions of power. "... Sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology [etc.]," (Debord, 42) these institutions within consumer culture ingest information from individuals and output data, text, and images.
      The second question - what is consumer culture? - is addressed by Guy Debord in his text The Society of the Spectacle. "...The world at once present and absent that the spectacle holds up to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its development is identical to people’s estrangement from each other and from everything they produce."
      Debord is saying that "the society of the spectacle" is a culture of consumers living within the economic system of global, late capitalism. He is also describing the world in which we live today; a world in which the value of a quality or quantity is proportional to its potential to exist as a commodity. In this society, identity - like everything else - has been commodified. Kellner describes the process of this commodification when he makes the distinction between the idea of the modern identity, "...An innate essence which determines what I am..." and postmodern identity, "...that identity is constructed not given, that it is a matter of choice, style, and behavior rather than intrinsic moral or psychological qualities... ...Postmodern identity, then, is constituted theatrically through role playing and image construction..." (Kellner, 242).
      These two forms of identity fit within the society of the spectacle in an interesting way. If - as Debord believes - the spectacle constitutes the entire culture in which we live - and our identities are informed by roles and images we consume from culture - then the idea that one can "just be" (possess a modern identity) is false. Within consumer culture the modern identity only exists as a form of ignorance to the fact that every identity is postmodern. To clarify, the postmodern identity is an image or role that one constructs and performs. It is based on images and images of roles that one consumes from culture. The institutions of consumer culture produces images based on input from individuals. This output is consumed by individuals and used in the creation of identities. Individuals (possessing identities) then submit more information to the institutions of consumer culture and the cycle repeats. The nature of the postmodern identity is intimately linked to image, specifically images produced by consumer culture. This begs the question; what do the images of consumer culture look like?
      Jonathan Crary addresses this concern in his text Techniques of the Observer, "... the historically important functions of the human eye are being supplanted by practices in which visual images no longer have any reference to the position of an observer in a 'real,' optically perceived world..." (Crary, 2).
      Crary is describing the form that images produced by consumer culture now almost exclusively take. He is specifically referring to the creation of digitally manipulated imagery and entirely digital images and environments. The proliferation of these sorts of images within consumer culture is of great concern to Crary because they present themselves as reality, when in fact they have never - and in many cases could never - actually exist.
      Non-real imagery of the sort described by Crary is given a name by Jean Baudrillard in his text Simulacra and Simulation, "...Today's abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that preceded the territory - precession of simulacra..." (Baudrillard, 2).
      Baudrillard and Crary are both concerned with the quality of image that is being produced by consumer culture. They both believe that the digital imagery consumed by individuals through advertising, the internet, film, and television are overwhelmingly hyper-real in nature. The question that is found within the subtext of their concern can be explicitly stated as, "If the imagery produced by consumer culture is overwhelmingly hyper-real (simulacra) - and individuals construct identities from images taken from culture - are those identities simulacra as well?"
      The relevance of this question is addressed in the second theory - the concept of biopower - presented by Foucault within The History of Sexuality, "... An explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..." (Foucault, 140).
      This reification of groups of people into "populations" is a technique of consumer culture that is enabled by the creation of simulacrum identities. The knowledge that this system of control exists is an aspect of Foucault's third theory, the will to knowlege.
      The will to knowledge in essence is the will to power; but instead of taking power by force, or by "right", one obtains power through knowledge. In the case of consumer culture, power is obtained over populations through the same input of information and output of imagery that turns identity into simulacrum. Conversely, individuals within a population may gain power over consumer culture through the knowledge that this process is occurring. Knowledge of this process also gives individuals power to consume images that are not products of consumer culture.
      What does imagery that is not a part of consumer culture look like? In a visual culture of television, cinema, and the internet how does one discern if the media one is consuming is authentic - not hyperreal - in its production? One example of modern film production that attempts to address this concern is the Dogme 95 movement created by directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in the mid 1990's (wikipedia.org). Von Trier and Vinterberg laid out a declaration and a set of guidelines to aid filmmakers attempting to create a new type of film that could not be effected by the production values of consumer culture. "...Today a technological storm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetics to God. By using new technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in the deadly embrace of sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hide behind. Dogme 95 counters the film of illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules known as The Vow of Chastity..."
      The "elevation of cosmetics to God" that the Dogme movement attempts to circumvent is synonymous with Baudrillard's description of the hyperreal. The "Vow of Chastity" that filmmakers working in the Dogme 95 style take are ten guidelines that von Trier and Vinterberg believe are necessary for the creation of films that owe no debts to the production values of consumer imagery. The rules of this style of film production are useful in attempting to create new films, but also can serve as a makeshift measuring stick for texts that already exist. This is not the intended purpose of the Dogme 95 movement, but in making such a comparison one can observe the sort of films that von Trier and Vinterberg are trying not to make.
      The most popular movie of 1994 - the year before the creation of the Dogme 95 style - was Forrest Gump, with a domestic box-office gross of $329,691,196 and six Academy awards including best director and best picture (imdb.com). Forrest Gump is not a Dogme 95 film, a fact which is observable when you compare it to the ten parameters which define that style.
      The first "Vow of Chastity" states that, "Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found)" (wikipedia.org). The story-line of Forrest Gump begins in the 1950's and progresses through the 60's, 70's, and 80's with fastidious attention to detail in re-creating each decade with accurate props, sets, and dressed locations.
      The second states that, "The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot)." Forrest Gump relies heavily on music to build dramatic tension as well as to add to the authenticity of the various decades that the characters found themselves in.
      The third states that, "The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place." In re-creating battle scenes from the Vietnam War, Director Robert Zemeckis utilized helicopter shots to capture scenes of soldiers from above.
      The fourth states that, "The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera). Forrest Gump has many scenes that take place at night or indoors which utilize artificial sources of light specifically for production purposes.
      The fifth states that, "Optical work and filters are forbidden." In one scene in Forrest Gump, the title character - played by Tom Hanks - is digitally inserted into preexisting film footage so as to appear to shake hands with president John Kennedy.
      The sixth states that, "The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)" During the portion of Forrest Gump which takes place during the Vietnam War, Gery Sinise's character - Lt. Dan Taylor - has his legs shot off.
      The seventh states that, "Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now)." As already stated, Forrest Gump spans several decades in its timeline.
      The eighth states that, "Genre movies are not acceptable." This is a criteria which Forrest Gump may meet. The film has funny moments but is not a comedy, has war but is not a war movie, and is historical without being a reenactment of any one instance in particular.
      The ninth states that, "The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)" Forrest Gump has an aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and many of the special effects were shot and edited digitally.
      The tenth states that, "The director must not be credited." Robert Zemeckis is credited for directing Forrest Gump.
      In making this comparison one can see the way in which films with one set of concerns and production values compare to another set with very different ones. Although the tenets of Dogme 95 may not be the best criteria to judge the "hyper-realness" of an existing film, a system of checks and balances similar to it may be.
      To conclude, the images that consumer culture produces are consumed by individuals and used in the creation of identities. The images of consumer culture are predominantly hyperreal in their nature, and and upon consumption forward the creation of identities that are necessarily hyperreal as well. To avoid the form of social control offered by the simulacrum identity it is of interest to individuals to develop a system of analysis with which to gauge the relative hyper-realness of a given image.

Identity as Simulacrum.

2009-12-13T21:09:00.015-06:00

Simulacrum then...

...and now.

1. Michel Foucault (paraphrase) - Is ones "true self" (identity) really derived from ones sexuality? If so, to what degree? What other factors inform ones identity?

2. Douglas Kellner - "...Identity has been increasingly linked to style, to produce an image, to how one looks. It is as if everyone must have their own look, style, and image to have their own identity, though, paradoxically, many of the models of style and look come from consumer culture, thus individuality is highly mediated in the consumor society of the present."

3. Question - a. Where do images of identity within "consumer culture" originate? b. What is consumer culture?

4. Answer to a: Foucault - "...Rather than a massive censorship, beginning with the verbal proprieties imposed by the Age of Reason, what was involved was a regulated and polymorphous incitement to discourse."

5. Meaning - "We" - individuals within a population - willingly submit the intimate details of our lives to the institutions of power (AKA "... Sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology [ect.]..." - Guy Debord). 6. Answer to b: Guy Debord - Consumer culture is the culture of the commodity AKA The Society of the Spectacle.
"...The world at once present and absent that the spectacle holds up to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its development is identical to people’s estrangement from each other and from everything they produce."

7. Clarification - 1. "The Society of the Spectacle" is image/consumer culture within the economic system of global or late capitalism. 2. Identity, like everything else The Society of the Spectacle produces, is a commodity.

8. Application to Kellner - Kellner differentiates between the modern identity, "...An innate essence which determines what I am..." and postmodern identity, "...that identity is constructed not given, that it is a matter of choice, style, and behavior rather than intrinsic moral or psychological qualities... ...Postmodern identity, then, is constituted theatrically through role playing and image construction..."

9. Question - c.How do these two forms of identity relate to each-other?
Support for c. -Charlie Rose (to David Foster Wallace (41:53)) - "Quit worrying about how you are going to look and just be."
David Foster Wallace (45:16) - "I think postmodernism has run its course... A lot of the schticks of postmodernism - irony, cynicism, irreverence - are now part of whatever it is that's enervating in the culture itself. Burger-King now sells hamburgers with, "You've got to break the rules...""

10. Question (rhetorical) - How can one "just be" when one lives within The Society of the Spectacle?

11. Clarification - Postmodern identity is an image or role that one constructs and preforms. It is based on images or images of roles that one consumes within culture.

12. Jonathan Crary - "... the historically important functions of the human eye are being supplanted by practices in which visual images no longer have any reference to the position of an observer in a 'real,' optically perceived world...".
12a. What is Crary talking about? - The proliferation of digitally created imagery and environments that have never - and could never -exist in the real world (outside of an image).
12b. Why is this relevant?

13. Jean Baudrillard (from Simulacra and Simulation) - "...Today's abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that preceded the territory - precession of simulacra - that engenders the territory..."

14. If the digital images - advertising, photographs, movies, news, television, etc - that have become ubiquitous within our culture (AKA The society of the Spectacle) are overwhelmingly hyperreal (simulacra) and we construct our identities from images taken from culture, are our constructed identities simulacra as well?
14a. What does this mean?
14b. What is the consequence of this?

15. Answer to a and b: Foucault - explains biopower as, "... An explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..."
15a. Interpretation - The postmodern identity as simulacrum is a a technique of power (here power is synonymous with "The spectacle") for achieving control of populations.

16. Is an identity simulacrum desirable?

I submit that it is not.

16a. To avoid the consumption of simulacrum - ergo, the creation of a simulacrum identity - one must consume imagery that is factual, original, and objective (or self critical). 16b. Rhetorical - How does the consumption of an image relate to an actual experience?

17. Question - What defines imagery that meets the above criteria?
17a. How does one create imagery that is factual, original, and objective (or self critical)?

18. Potential formulae - 1. Lars von Trier - Dogme 98. 2. Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida. 3. Peter Beste - Literary photojournalism.

Could This Happen Again in 2010?

2009-12-11T11:05:00.008-06:00

Q: Church?
A: Uhh...
Q: Helping out people who got fucked over?
A: Let's do this.

That being said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it down to New Orleans again this year to help rebuild shit/listen to old people from the church I attended while growing up talk about "mission" and "service"/get wasted/jam 70's metal with Mama Sue all the way to Graceland.
It could happen, I'd like for it to happen. I just don't know if I've got the two weeks to spare in January - AKA - a bunch of stuff is about to peak in the next month.
It is what it is, as they say. Regardless, last year was a blast. Whoever is going/has gone/is there right now; Props, Pounds, Kudos, and Bonus Points.

Portraits From Two Kitchens Ago

2009-12-07T22:55:00.007-06:00

I think that these photographs were taken in the winter of 2007.

Old Art Sundays

2009-12-06T20:41:00.007-06:00

From here on out, Sunday night is now "dig through the archive of shit night".
The goal being to document and disseminate some of my old style back into the light of day in order to compare it to work that I am currently making.
How will this shit be similar?
How will it be different? Here is the first in a soon-to-be recurring series of posts entitled: Old Art Sundays.

Coffee
Tea
Gauche
Acrylic
Colored Pencil
Sharpie
Prismacolor
Correctional Fluid

This one is from 2005, the high-school archive, back when I was really good at not sleeping, inadvertently biting David Choe's style while trying not to bite David Choe's style, and listening to Venetian Snares.
Soooo...
I guess not a lot has changed.
Except the medium.
Looking at this drawing reminds me of some of the Gorigami collaborations that Will and I and Co. were doing last winter. This old shit is way more controlled, less fun, and less spontaneous though. That and just I made oldie, not a crew of peeps like with the Gorigami.
Food for dude AKA thought.

New Land of Milk and Honey: Segue Action Photographs

2009-12-06T17:32:00.002-06:00

This is a preview.

Show at the Soap Factory opens February 22nd.

At Jake's House.

2009-12-05T20:26:00.004-06:00

From Last night.

Turf Club

2009-12-03T12:38:00.007-06:00

MILK ORB

Dante & the Lobster

Grandchildren (Phrom Philadelphia)

MoonStone (On tour December 28th - January 16th)

Digital Shitograph.

Skate Polaroids from the Film Archive

2009-12-02T16:17:00.010-06:00

I was going through a notebook and found a bunch of LandCam 100 shots from a couple of summers ago.

Harry.

T. Hudson.

J. Vichich.

J. Palmer.

Noah.

Fletcher AKA The Boss

2009-11-21T23:19:00.004-06:00

Woman from the Segue™ place: "I mean, even though you've obviously ridden one before, I've still got to have you sign the waiver."
Fletcher: "Ridden one? Oh no, never."

Ain't no thang, at the New Land of Milk & Honey.

From Friday

2009-11-21T23:11:00.008-06:00

Old HOLGA Negative I Found in a Box

2009-11-19T12:35:00.004-06:00

There's more.
More?.
Much more.
Film, Film, Film. Shoot? Film.

Miles + Plate Glass Window = Suave

2009-11-18T23:01:00.002-06:00

Hello, Lee Friedlander.

Gay's World: Party Time? Excellent.

2009-11-17T11:15:00.017-06:00

     Gays World is brought to you by some Noah's-Ark Bullshit: Party on Gays.

(Turn the volume to a good reading level so the track can play like background music to the post.)

      It's Tuesday, It's 11:30ish, it's time to party with your wack-cellent host the Catholic church and with them as always it NARTH. Party-on Gays, and Fuck-you NARTH.
      In today's Star Tribune there was an article about how the Catholic church still hates gay people. I was not surprised to hear this. I was taken aback at the turn the Diocese' tactics have taken in channeling their hate and homophobia. This shit has most likley been standard policy for awhile - it doesn't sound like the kind of shit that you apply to your organization of billions over night - I've just haven't heard the Catholic™ brand of reactionary fear phrased like this before.
      Basically the church says homosexuality is a disease (that's shit I have heard already) and that through therapy, confession, and prayer The Gays can "develop their heterosexual potential". That's the part that threw me.
Really? Develop their heterosexual potential? Schyah, right.
      That soft fucking legal-eese, associated-press-approved, politically-correct language... Fuck. It gets me every time.
      The Catholic church maintains that they aren't raging homophobes, they just like their gays like they like their priests: celibate, repressed and out of touch with their sexual selves, excepting children, of course. The Catholic clergy basically says, if you're a Gay, just don't be gay anymore.
Yeah, they're real creative.
      The majority of the gay people that I know are down with Sigmund Freud, even if they don't acknowledge the fact. Freud maintained that the sexual self is the essential self - basically that your sexuality is a manifestation of your "true self".
      Personally, I don't believe that shit - not whole hog anyway - but for many a gay, that shit is policy number one.
Ask a Gay to describe themselves. Being gay is usually pretty central to a Gay's identity (obviously there are exceptions ).
      The Gays are a minority and get shit on by conservatives and religious fundamentalists just like every other minority. The way they defend themselves from bigotry and violence is through the solidarity of their comunity/subculture. The Gays' point of solidarity - being gay - is what unites them against crazies like the Pope, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachman, and NARTH.
      Which brings me to the obvious question that the Star Tribune article begs: If there is a NARTH - National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality - why isn't there a... NARTH - National Association for Research and Therapy of Heterosexuality (maybe they could find a different acronym).
But you get what I'm saying right?
      If the extant NARTH is an "educational" "resource" for gays that want/are pressured by the Catholic church to try to act straight, why isn't there an organization for the heteros who want to get down with some homoerotica?
Think about it, by being straight you immediately eliminate half the market for sexing.
      If the thought of having sex with another man is currently repugnant to you, but you have an open mind and like to fuck a lot, a class or organization that could "educate" you into finding men attractive might be right up your alley. (play)
      Which brings me to this video from Illdoctrine about the use of the slang terms "pause" and "No Homo" in vernacular speech, specifically in Hip-Hop. That shit is way funny.
The salient point within JSmooth's analysis of the parenthetical use of "No Homo" can be found when he says, "... as a general rule, if you're not the original target of an insult, you cant be the one to reclaim it..." - as a general rule.
I interpret that shit to mean "If you aren't the original target of an insult, the only way you can reclaim it is with some creative linguistic acrobatics."
      So, as a a straight guy, I propose that if one writes some ambiguous shit that could be construed as homoerotic and one does not give a fuck, the appropriate parenthetical addendum to said written shit would be either "play" (opposite of pause), "HOMO?" (if one wants to leave that shit ambiguous), or "YO HOMO" (If one want's to go for the gusto, "Yo" being snonomous with "Yes").
      If there is going to be an "incitement to the proliferation of discourse", we are going to need some better/comprehensive/more robust linguistic options than are currently available,
Motherfucker.

Tall Tales

2009-11-16T22:18:00.002-06:00

I found this photo of Nik from last winter in the archives.
He gave me a bunch of zines he had made and I read them on a trip to texas then left them at different gas stations and truck stops.

Locked Down: 'Toons in the Stupermax

2009-11-15T18:05:00.008-06:00

My Fellow Gangmericans:
There are a lot of gangs in prison.
That shit be scary.
Both prison and gang people.
      It's funny how they - the prison gang bangers - remind me of cartoons I watched when I was a kid. All these goofy looking guys, covered in ink, committing heinous acts of violence...
I can see the connection.
      The anvils and dynamite in Road-Runner are kind of different than the shankings and gang-rape in Pelican Bay State Prison, but since I played all those violent video games during my formative years, the comedic effect hits my funny bone in the same general area.
YAHTZEE! I frickin' found it.

Addendum 1: A bunch of bullshit I wrote.
Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax.

     The SHU - Security Housing Unit - is a function of the Supermax prison system designed to contain the "worst of the worst" of felons. Mostly the SHU holds known gang leaders and higher ups in the gang social hierarchy. Prison systems that utilize a SHU facility do so with the specific goal of isolating gang members from interacting with members in the greater prison population as well as those outside of prisons. The only way out of the SHU - aside from parole or death - is to snitch or give up information regarding past or current gang activities.
      The American Radio Works audio documentary Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax presents a vision of the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison that does not live up to the stated expectations of what a SHU should be.
In the documentary Michael Montgomery makes the distinction between street gangs that also operate in prison and prison gangs that have moved out onto the streets. In the first segment Montgomery interviewed Armando Frias Jr. about a murder he committed on behalf of the gang Nuestro Familia (NF), a gang that formed in prison and now operates in the outside world. Nuestra Familia is controlled by street bosses and leaders serving time in prison, including some that are currently incarcerated in the SHU system at Pelican Bay.
      Montgomery's interview with Epitacio Cortina - a former NF boss and felon who served time in the SHU - revealed that prison gangs like the NF recruit members primarily in prisons. The education of new recruits takes place behind prison walls with the assumption that members will one day be released back onto the streets where they can continue to carry out the gang's agenda. Cortina elaborated on how senior members serving extended or repeat sentences pass on criminal knowledge,
      "...how to do bank robberies, how to do armored car robberies, how to do home invasions..." as well as knowledge of the different methods, codes, and languages that the gang uses for communication between prison and the street.
      Gangs like Nuestra Familia and The Mexican Mafia that have large portions of their membership inside of prisons enforces solidarity by killing members who snitch or try to leave the gang. The flip side to this is that gang members gain reputation and status for doing their time without rolling over or giving up information on their fellow members. It is also common knowledge that ratting out your people is one of the three ways to get out of confinement in the SHU. With this in mind it is unsurprising to hear testimony from people like Raul Leon who talk about doing a life sentence in the SHU with a casual pride.
      Leon's swagger is given credence by sociologist David Ward when he compares the personality type of a cocksure SHU lifer to that of a military medal of honor winner. Ward's comment on the status that long time SHU inmates receive as, "...the strongest of the strong..." is reminiscent of the SHU's stated objective to house "The worst of the worst". Conflating these two clichés to create criminals that are more hardened, committed, and relentless than they were before entering the system seems to be the ultimate result of the SHU within prisons.
      The "worst of the strongest" paradigm is illustrated by SHU resident David's recollection of what going to prison meant to him as a younger man.
      "...I think that it's hard for normal people to understand, but the way I used to look at prison when I was younger was like it was kind of like college. I had to go there to further myself. If I wanted a career in what I was doing, then I needed to go to prison and make a name for myself in there in order to do so..."
      Montgomery informs the listener that David "apprenticed" under a senior gang member while serving time in the SHU. The use of the word "apprentice" to describe a relationship that david had with another detainee inside of the SHU contains several assumptions and begs several questions. It is assumed that to successfully engage in a master/apprentice relationship that some modicum of communication must take place. If the SHU exists to inhibit inmates - specifically inmates engaging in gang activity - from communicating with each-other, how is it possible for David - the apprentice - to contact anyone, let alone a senior gang member who could further Davids goal of "career membership" within his gang.
      David also commented, "...I always looked at the SHU as like a piece of steel that you could sharpen yourself with [sic]...".
      David is only one inmate and can not represent the entire demographic of SHU detainees with his personal statements of resolve. However David was one of few inmates to be interviewed for this radio documentary and his words and philosophy present a significant point of view to the listener. With David as a specific example of a life-long criminal who has circumvented the SHU's strict policy of isolation and null-communication - specifically between active gang members - and effectively achieved "worst of the strongest" status, I forward that the SHU system of detention does not achieve its stated goals.

Addendum 2: I've refrained myself from making the entirety of all that bullshit I just wrote a link to this video from JSmooth's illdoctrine.com.
The man knows his shit.

Emergent Patterns Within Arbitrary Data Sets

2009-11-14T21:12:00.012-06:00

What Is Going On In This Photograph?

2009-11-14T18:52:00.000-06:00

Tristadecaphobia? Shut the Front Door.

2009-11-14T10:49:00.006-06:00

Last night went:
Take What's Your Dad Like? photographs of Elliot & Dad.
Eat dinner.
Go to the gym.
Buy the beer.
Go to Organ Haus.

See these friends/bands play music:
A Mean Caress

Steely Dad

Squid Fist (link to their myspace)

W((AA))OUW (link to their myspace)

Yochum Kay (link to their myspace)

Trout & Steve doin' the jam.

Hang out with friends.
Drink the beer.
Take the photographs:
Hang out with more friends.
Eat Pizza.
Watch X-Files.
Pass out.

.DNG + Lab Color: A Simulacrum of Nature?

2009-11-12T12:56:00.003-06:00

Some potential submissions to Ubuntu for desktop background art in the upcoming Lucid release?
Could be.

Gym-Speak

2009-11-12T00:01:00.008-06:00

I went to the University Rec Center today and "rode" this:

It was the closest a stationary bike has come in simulating riding a real bike.

The recreation center is a pretty fucking weird place.
It is a center. For recreation.
It is the center. Of recreation.
If all recreational activity on the University of Minnesota campus were an amoeba, this would be the nucleus.
If all recreational activity were a target, Robin Hood would hit the Rec center. Now think of your own meaningless metaphor, remember to place Rec in the center.

So I was riding the bike and lifting some shit and looking at all these other people, students, professors, riding and running and lifting shit all around me.
It was kind of enthralling.
Dudes act/look/are fucking weird/funny/crazy in the gym. You can tell by a dudes stances and facial expressions - mid lift - how seriously they take themselves when they go to work out.
1. There are the dudes that are super ripped and super intense and have missile guidance systems in their brains that direct them from weight-rack to weight-rack. They operate with such efficiency that only two guys of this variety ever lift together at one time. Silent, intense, massive. Lift, spot, lift, spot, these kind of dudes stand like the last mastodon on a frozen butte, facial expression locked in a totally neutral, gray mask of muscle.
2. Then there are the ripped guys that are there to hang out because they have been hanging out in weight rooms since the seventh grade, and now it's just what they do whenever nothing else is going on. This variety of dude usually rolls in a crew of four or five really tall guys and one short guy. They kick it around the bench while one guy casually benches 500 lbs. and the others sac-tap and towel snap each-other. I would hazard that for this kind of guy, three to five hours of any given day is spent in a gym or weight-room of some kind with only about 30 or 45 minutes of actual weight lifting taking place.
3. There are the old guys. The old guys always look like they are about to fuckin' keel over, but I have yet to see one do so. Old guys usually fly solo, unless they are playing racquet-ball - old guys love racquet-ball - in which case they have enough people for doubles plus a couple of extras who kick it outside of the glass and talk business and hock loogies on the carpet.
4. There are the really fat guys that walk on the treadmill with a five pound dumbbell in each hand. They usually wear grey above-the-knee shorts that are made out of T-shirt material and really clean Newbalance sneakers. I have seen a really fat guy talking on a bluetooth, alternately reading Time magazine and drinking Powerade™ in one hand, lifting a 5er in the other, and walking on a treadmill with the pace of a toddler (really small steps, knees turned in, arrhythmically alternating between the heels and balls of his feet) all at the same time.
5. There are the freshmen/dudes that have never been in a gym before and have the heroine sheik/sickly vegan look. These dudes always do the elliptical cross-trainer machine and can do more chin-ups than you because they weigh 95 lbs.
6. There are the Hell's Angels looking dudes with super gnarly tattoos and burly beards/shaved heads. These dudes range in age from 17 to 60ish and are in varying stages of beefy.
7. And there are the dudes that are there a couple times a week to ride the stationary bike, listen to slayer, lift a little and hit the sauna.

There are a lot of kinds of dude.
Thank me Captain Obvious.

While I was being #7 this evening, I was thinking about how these different kind of gym dudes offer a glimpse into different kinds of male personalities. The setting of "The Gym" engenders interactions that make it almost instantly apparent who the alpha males are and who the beta males are.
I'm sure that one google search could provide me with innumerable studies, flow charts, and taxonomies of the different forms of male-ness that have been classified by psychologists and other bullshit of that ilk, but I'm trying to work this shit out by myself. Here is what I've got so far:

Alpha Male: Type One - The guy that leads a group and has to be in charge at all times. This dude can hang out with other dudes as long as the other dudes are cool with always taking a beta position. Type ones always have to have the biggest dick in the room.
Alpha Male: Type Two - The guy that can kick it with anyone and doesn't care who the "leader" is. Type twos are down to take the lead sometime, but are also alright with other people stepping in and taking control.
Alpha Male: Type Three - The lone wolf. This dude can't really hang out ever because he is super into his own shit and doesn't really like other people. The lone wolf is super assertive and confrontational but only if another Alpha questions his autonomy.

Beta Male: Type One - Dudes that are not the one in control but aspire to acquire Alpha status.
Beta Male: Type Two - Dudes that are not in control and don't care.
Beta Male: Type Three - The guy that chooses Beta status and actively works to maintain it.
Beta Male: Type Four - Dudes that were Alpha at one point but got relegated to Beta status because they fucked up too much.

Outlier Male: Type One - The stringent feminist guy who lives to subvert systems of patriarchy.
Outlier Male: Type Two - The dude who can successfully act any of these types without actually being it or inadvertently becoming the Type he is acting over time.

This list is incomplete and inaccurate. Dudes can be mixes of any number of these types, or a dude can shift over time from one to another.
I'm sure context is a key factor.
I mostly need to write and think about the shit I have been reading and the shit I have been writing and re-read the shit I have been reading and then write about it some more.
Duh.

Hold Please.

2009-11-11T02:24:00.003-06:00

Yet another late night. It's almost three, just like last night, just like the night before.
I'm going to be on Garage Logic tomorrow on AM1500.
Why?
I'm not really sure.
Road Signs Always Look Better Looking Over Your Shoulder, I guess.
To many classes, not enough class. I'm all over the internet.

Today's the Day...

2009-11-10T14:41:00.004-06:00

...That this goes out on the internet:

Commissiooooon, Commission. (repetition of melodic/percussive light-motif) Commission!
Yes, that was a Fiddler on the Roof reference.

Reb Tevye = Dr. Zarkov, bitches.

The Tenacity of the Formative Tendency

2009-11-10T12:21:00.003-06:00

Trout's One Man Band. October, 2009.

Sam Kramer, nackt drinnen Küche im Organ-Haus. Oktober, 2009.

Yep, once you get good at doing something it's hard to stop. Do I consider this kind of thing "serious" photography? I don't know.
I know that the process of shooting and editing is one which I enjoy.
I also know that the method which allows me to make photographs like these is one that I am highly critical of. There is separation that still exists between the ethics that inform the imagery I am producing and the actual images themselves. This is probably because I still do not fully grasp the meanings within the texts I am looking to in creating my own ethical framework for making photographs.
Should my photographic practice fully and exclusively adhere to one ethical method? I am curious as to the effect that a full realization of the spectrum of objectivity will have on my persisting desire to create formative imagery.
At present I am concerned that my interest making formative images will persist and that the ethical model I desire to construct will end up assuming the function that many of Michel Foucaults theories do. Foucault viewed the breadth of his work as a toolbox that philosophers, academics, students, etc. could pick and choose from in service of future development of ideas.
I see the value in having an ethical or metaphysical set of prefabricated thoughts or ideology to run specific content through, but I am unsure if this is a cultural practice that I want to emulate in my own development of Ideas.
In theory, if the stipulations of an objective ethic is sound enough, it should satisfy my entire desire for creative output. Right?
Looking at artists who have already dealt with similar systems of rules and ethics that modulate and govern their creative process will undoubtedly benefit me in answering this question.
Specific examples that immediately come to mind:
1. Lars von Trier - the development of the Dogme95 film style/genre.
2. Ingmar Bergman - looking at history, technology, subjective reality, human interactions, etc.
3. Robert Mapplethorpe - Specifically the differential that exists between Mapplethorpe's different bodies of work. How is X Portfolio different from Black Book? How is Y Portfolio different from his "architectural" photographs of the human body? Why is this shit different? why does it matter?
4. News photography. Images taken by photojournalists that receive a sanction of objectivity by the Associated Press. What makes these images objective? What makes them powerful? Are they either of these things? How is the objectivity/power/meaning of an image subverted by pundits and commentators that work for "theatrical" news corporations - MSNBC, FOX News, CNN, etc.

The saga must continue.

Creating a Spectrum of Objective Documentation

2009-11-10T00:21:00.012-06:00

      In dissecting the first volume of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, one encounters three salient theories that Foucault develops over the course of the text. The first theory that Foucault forwards is that the repressive hypothesis - the assertion that since the 19th century western societies have sought to repress human sexuality and sexual urges - is false. In it's place, Foucault offers that "... Rather than massive censorship... what was involved was a regulated and polymorphous incitement to discourse." (Foucault, 34).
      The second theory presented by Foucault - the concept of biopower - supports his view on the true nature of the repressive hypothesis. Foucault explains biopower as, "... An explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..." (Foucault, 140).
      The explanation of how biopower - as an apparatus of power - subverts the repressive hypothesis can be found within the subtext of Foucault's third assertion: The Will o Knowlege. The will to knowledge, as Foucault forwards, is the form that the will to power has taken within modernity. Foucault postulates that power and the exercise of power has undergone a radicle transformation due to the emergence of global, capitalist economies. With the reification of groups of people into "populations" Foucault demonstrates how biopower works to instigate, then control discourse. Power and the institutions of power, "... Sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology [ect.]..." (Debord, 42) incite members of a population to subject the intimate details of their lives to the quantifying machinations of said institutions.
      Foucault's specific concern on the subject of sexuality being processed and commodified through the discourse of power stems from Sigmund Freud's equation of the sexual self to the essential self. Foucault challenges this belief - that ones true identity is the summation of their sexuality - by exposing the role that the institutions of power have played in the construction of "mainstream", or sanctioned sexual practices.
      Foucault believes that "normative" sexuality and sexual practices are constructed cultural commodities that have been dictated to populations by the cultural institutions of power. The question that Foucault alludes to with this assertion can be specifically stated as, "How can ones sexuality represent ones essence when sexuality itself is a commodity of the discourse of power?"
      The combination of these three theories raises the concern of an individual's place and function within a reified population. How does one enact agency in a world constructed by power?
There are many possible answers to this question.
      I would like to forward one example that examines the nature of agency by comparing two styles of documentary photography. To do this I will examine the methodology behind Robert Mapplethorpe's 1978 X Portfolio in comparison with Peter Beste's ongoing documentary effort, True Norwegian Black Metal.
      In X Portfolio Mapplethorpe presents images of the homosexual leather, bondage, and domination subculture as it existed in San Francisco in the 1970's. The prime photograph from this body of work is a self-portrait of Mapplethorpe that depicts the artist clad in black leather chaps and vest, anally penetrating himself with a bullwhip. The inclusion of this self portrait within X Portfolio contextualizes Mapplethorpe as a participating member of the gay leather community documenting himself and his peers from within. He is an insider, and as an insider he is giving "us" - the viewers of the photograph - an insiders perspective. However, as Mapplethorpe allows the outside viewer this voyeuristic glimpse into his exclusive clique, he retains an agency over what we see as well as how we see it. Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio offers a unique breed of objectivity which allows his subjects to enact agency in the making of his photographs by virtue of Mapplethorpe being a part of the "subject" he is documenting.
      Peter Beste presents a method of documentation that differs from Mapplethorpe specifically in this regard. Originally from Houston, Texas, Beste has documented the music, lifestyle, and progression of the Black-Metal subculture in Norway since 2001. "...Leather, spikes, face paint, and brandished weapons are not only de-rigueur, but congenial with a clearly stated stanza of outsider-dom. Everyday Norwegians have responded with shock and loathing..." (Beste, 14).
      Peter Beste is not a member of the Black-Metal subculture. He is an outsider who has gained access to this exclusive group by forming relationships and building trust between himself and key members of the genre. Beste's approach to representing his subjects is akin to the "New" or "Literary" journalism of Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer. The formative conventions in many of the photographs included in Beste's 2008 book True Norwegian Black Metal give the imagery the feel of an album cover or poster. However, these formative conventions function the same way literary stylization within texts like The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Wolfe) or In Cold Blood (Capote) did in the first wave of literary journalism. The performance-esqué quality of Best's photographs and subjects function primarily as a reminder to the viewer that the images are fact. What one sees actually took place.
      I am interested in the space that exists between the methodology of these two styles of documentation. Where is the line that separates one from the other? How does a documentarian cross that line, and - once crossed - can one return? To fully and accurately represent the spectrum of documentary photography I suppose I should find a straight-journalism/hard-news photographer and add them to the far end of the spectrum from Mapplethorpe.

1.Beste, Peter (2008) "True Norwegian Black Metal" Vice Books: Brooklyn, NY, 2008.
2. Debord, Guy (1967) "The Society of the Spectacle." Rebel Press: London, 2004.
3. Foucault, Michel (1984) "The History of Sexuality Vol.1: The Will to Knowledge." Penguin Books: London, 1998.

Subject:Verb:Object

2009-11-09T17:25:00.015-06:00

The conflation of masculinity and femininity resulting in divers manifestations of androgyny.

Specific example number one: Angela Gossow - Lead Vocalist for the Swedish Death-Metal group Arch Enemy.
Arch Enemy formed in 1996 with Johan Liiva (formerly of the Death-Metal band Carnage) as the original lead vocalist. The musical style, performance, and lyrical content of Arch Enemy's first two albums released in 1996 and 1998 was fast, aggressive, violent, and explicitly Satanic in nature. Gossow was asked to join after Liiva was kicked out of the band in 2000 because his theatricality or "stage-presence" was not "dynamic" enough in the eyes of the other four, male band members. The fact that Gossow was deemed more suited to be the "face" of an extreme-metal group wanting to embody brutality, (satanic) individuality, and aggression - all overtly masculine traits - in their live performance makes her a candidate for representing an atypical form of feminine sexuality and androgyny.
In performance Gossow sartorially and theatrically conflates the traditional image of the female body with the über-masculine style and attitude of the male Death-Metal "frontman". The prime example of this conflation can be heard in Gossow's vocal ability and style. The Death-Metal "growl" has developed as an almost exclusively masculine form of singing. The harsh, deep and abrasive nature of this vocal technique has made its use by female vocalists few and far between. Gossow however has developed and employed this technique almost exclusively over un-growled or "clean" vocals on the four Arch Enemy albums on which she has sang.

At the start, when Gossow is addressing the crowd, I believe she says "GraraghRaghrt! I want to see the fuckin' place burn..."

On page 172 of Susan Bordo's "Unbearable Weight", recovering anorexic nervosa diagnosee Aimee Liu states, "I need nothing and no one else... I will be master of my own body, if nothing else, I vow..."
This statement could be Metal lyrics.

Subject: Verb: Object.
Women historically have been put into the position of object.
When a woman exercises agency and become a subject acting on an object, specifically in regard to her own life or body it sounds revolutionary, inflammatory, or extreme.
Bordo defines the schism in femininity as the requirement "...that women must develop a totally other-oriented emotional economy." She forwards that this emotional asceticism - focus on "feeding" others and denying the self - is a result of the historic control of "...Female hunger - for public power, for independence, for sexual gratification [etc.]..."
Historically women have been expected to preform, and confined to subservient roles. As women win/gain rights from power/discourse, older forms of femininity and feminine sexuality shift to take into account these new freedoms and venues for agency. The differential between what femininity was, what femininity is, and what it is becoming leaves room for the proliferation of socially rooted disorders like agoraphobia and anorexia nervosa.

Specific example number two: Lydia Lunch - Specifically - "The Cancer Has Finally Become Contagious" off of the 1987 compilation "Tellus #18: Experimental Theater".
"I hate all men... who play god, because god was the first cop"(1:00), "I don't want to see nothing I don't want to see [sic]. You wouldn't know the fucking truth if it slapped you in the fucking face, and I might just slap you in the fucking face... keep talking ass-hole" (7:45), "You're starting to sound like my mother! You sound just like my mother; well if you didn't act like such a goddamn fucking baby I wouldn't have to sound like your goddamn mother" (8:27).

Lydia lunch presents a conflation of masculinity and femininity in her artwork, music, performance and lifestyle. It makes me wince when I think about analyzing her or her work. Like she is going to reach through the words in the book or my speakers and punch me in the face.

Cultural artifact of contention number one - The internet/television advertising campaign for women's "EasyTone" Reebok™ sneakers.

Transcription of commercial:
Close up of a woman's chest, woman is wearing white brasier.
Right Breast: "Hey did you see? Nobody is staring at us anymore."
Left Breast: "Aren't we still hot?"
Right breast: "Cah-learly [sic]. You know what, it's all because of that stupid butt down there."
Left Breast: "Yeah, stupid butt, it gets all the attention now."
Cut to: panning shot of the woman's cleavage from stage left.
Right Breast: "She's so tight now, so round, so pretty."
Left Breast: "So... stupid!"
Cut to: Panning shot, left to right of the woman leaning forward.
Voice over: Mans' voice: "Make your boobs jellous with the shoe proven to tone your butt more than regual sneakers."
Cut to: Close up of the woman's butt, woman is wearing white underwear. Woman bends over, runs finger under elastic of underwear, and sticks butt towards camera.
Voice over: Man's Voice: "Reebok easy tone with balance ball inspired technology, better legs and a better butt with every step."

Subject: Verb: Object.
Commenting on this shit is so...
I mean these are SHOES... ...FOR women.
Do women personify their tits and fantasize about how they talk to their butt? Ever?
It's like the people that make this shit should...
They should already know that...
Gargh, it is fucking mind boggling.
Fuck. Shit. Piss. Fer' real.
There are a-million-and-one ways to sell sneakers.
Make something else, it's fucking simple.

Old Dish - Don't Forget That Shit's On the Back Burner

2009-11-06T16:43:00.002-06:00

Barry's got JUICE.

COM-ISH

2009-11-05T21:45:00.003-06:00

Moulin Rouge movie poster rip off?
You got it.

GIT SUM

2009-11-05T10:38:00.009-06:00

Adam and Eve were hanging out nude in the Garden of Eden. They were the "first people" but there were other people around too because Homo Sapiens-sapiens evolved as a group, not as two individuals that were created by a single, omnipotent, white god.
So, there were some other people around and everyone was in their birthday-suits' and even though Adam and Ever were an item, when Adam was out naming the animals and talking to God about the book God was going to commission some poor-ass dudes in the middle-east to write after they met God's son in 3,000 or so years (the bible says the earth is 5,000-something years old, "0" AD was 2,000 years ago, do the math) Eve would sometimes get-down with some of the other dudes who were hanging out around the garden. Adam was pretty oblivious to Eve's free wheelin' ways until one day when he came back from telling the Marine Iguanas that they were called "Marine Iguanas" early, and caught Eve "communing with a serpent".
Adam got all jealous and emasculated (when I say "serpent", I'm talking PYTHON) and Adam's bitch-ass was all, "I'm telling God on you Eve".
But Eve had a bunch of endorphins flowing from the vigorous cardio she had just been engaging in and she invented the "baby, don't go, I never meant to hurt you" line on the spot.
Adam was totally disarmed and unable to deal with the emotions he was experiencing, so when Eve took him by the hand and brought him over to where she had been - biblically - "getting to know the snake", he was in a really fragile state and totally receptive when she said, "Just relax and go with it..."
So Adam and Eve and this other guy invented the menage au trois and just when it was getting pretty hot and heavy, and Adam was starting to open up to the idea that sexuality exists as a continuum - not a binary - God showed up and saw them and got super pissed.
"Adam, what the fuck? I thought we were cool man, then you go and turn fag on me? You KNOW I hate gay people."
Adam totally pussied out and tried to make some wimpy excuses, but Eve wasn't the kind of woman who tolerated that kind of weak shit. She also didn't sit for the kind of bigoted bullshit God was all up on his high horse about, so she called him out on his shit.
"Hey old man, lay off. Just who do you think you are? What the fuck did you think we were going to do with these perfect, youthful, nude bodies of ours? We didn't ask to virtually loose all our body hair and walk upright. We didn't ask to share common ancestors with great apes that evolved from proto-mammals, that survived the comet that killed the dinosaurs, that evolved from gnarly sea-monsters, that evolved from bacteria, that jolted to life abioticly in a primordial sea after the earth was done accreting 4.6 billion years ago from heavy elements, that had been created in the hearts of dying stars, that originated as hydrogen and some other lighter elements after the big bang, which happened because the..."
All the while that Eve was talking God was getting more and more pissed and finally he blew his stack and just lost it,
"You think you're so smart, don't you Eve, don't you. I'll show you how smart you are, KAZAM!"
And he threw Adam and Eve out of the garden and told Adam to make Eve clean the house and do the dishes and only receive 70 cents on every dollar that Adam made and to beat the shit out of her whenever she said anything interesting or tried to empower herself.

That's the story of Adam and Eve.

Post Script: The best part of the story comes later when Eve figures out how to clone male reproductive cells from female StemCells and Adam - true to form - shits his pants.

Go on, get out of here. You're Free Now. Go on, GO...

2009-10-28T23:53:00.006-05:00

Preface: You know in kids' movies when the kid has to let the animal go back into the wild?
The Text:
The salient point within chapter two of Guy Debord's 1967 Society of the Spectacle can be read within the subtext of aphorism number fifty-three, in which Debord states, "...this project is the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its own making." What Debord calls into question here is the value of a human life.
Debord establishes earlier in chapter two that within the discourse of the society of the spectacle, the usefulness of a given quantity is explicitly proportional to that quantity's ability to participate within, and thereby perpetuate the discourse of the spectacle. He also establishes that for any "thing" - be it an idea or a solid object - to be of use to the machinations of the spectacle, the qualities of a substance must first be quantified. This quantification serves to transmute the essence of an idea or object into a product: a commodity that fits within the spectacle's discursive specifications. The quantification that Debord concerns himself with throughout Society of the Spectacle, and is specifically addressing in aphorism fifty-three is that of the human as commodity.
The scene is set for the fruition of human reification by the actualizing of Michel Foucault's concept of biopower. When he (Foucault) describes "...an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations..." (Foucault, 140) Foucault is describing a tactic of power that politically quantifies the human body. This alchemy of discourse is a method employed by the society of the spectacle which Debord specifically names in aphorism forty-two when he says, "...domination is broken down into further specialties such as sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology..."
These institutions, like the people that fill them, are products of the culture that produced them. Debord identifies these quantifiers of human life and consciousness as the internal way in which the society of the spectacle regulates its participants á la biopolitics.
The total commodification of human life that Debord identifies as the final expression of the spectacle is taken one step further by Jonathan Crarcy within his text Techniques of the Observer. Cracry first identifies that despite culture producing the way which one experiences the world, as human beings our primary form for perceiving objective reality is through sight. Historically, Crarcy argues, seeing has been believing. Humanity has evolved with the implicit constant that to see something - an object or an event - is to experience the fact of that things existence objectively.
Crarcy believes that this ability to implicitly trust the world we see in everyday life will soon be a thing of the past. When he states that, "... the historically important functions of the human eye are being supplanted by practices in which visual images no longer have any reference to the position of an observer in a 'real,' optically perceived world..." (Crarcy, 2) he is not alluding to the suspension of disbelief that one engages in when reading a novel, or the consensual illusion entered within the walls of a movie theatre. Instead Crarcy refers to the creation of an environment that we interpret as reality, but has never, and could never exist in any physical form: cyberspace. The acceptance of imagery that only exists in a digital, non-real space is a concern for Crarcy because it effectively quantifies reality.
The codification of experienced reality into "... millions of bits of electronic mathematical data..." that Crarcy is describing seems to breach the last bastion of human experience that until the "digital revolution" had been out of reach for assimilation into the discourse of the spectacle. To appreciate the potentiality that Crarcy envisions for cyberspace, first imagine an Appalachian coal-mining town at the turn of the twentieth century.
Commonly referred to as "company towns", these communities were owned in totality by a given coal company. Employees labored in the company mine, bought company food from the company store with company money that they also used to pay for their company house situated on company land. Children went to company schools and parents filled their company cars at the company service-station.
Company Towns were in effect a precursory microcosm of what Guy Debord would later describe as the society of the spectacle. The spectacle being the coal company and the society - the coal miners - being the entire world. Debord's vision of a global economy beholden to the doctrines of reification and total commodity that extends into all aspects of human life in the same way that coal companies dominated the lives of their employees. However, the spectacle as described by Debord was not yet a closed system. The global commodification of resources - vegetable, animal, mineral, and ontological - into the cultural product of the spectacle still had gaps and inconsistencies in 1967.
What Crarcy is describing "... [an] equivalent sensation and stimuli that have no reference to a spatial location..." (Crarcy, 24) is the effort of the system to close itself. Debord related a future history that warned where we were headed, Crarcy is describing the way in which we have gotten there.
The value of human life that Guy Debord is concerned with within Society of the Spectacle focuses on the quantitative - or monetary - value of a person's labor within a system that equates value with the perpetuation of the system. The quantitative ubiquity of the cultural object designated as "money" confers power through perceived value into a system that, once adopted, required its participants to perpetuate.
However, not all action in the system described by Debord engage - and by definition - perpetuated the system. An individual may have been produced by and exist in relation to the spectacle, but the singular act of existence does not implicitly engage with the spectacle directly. This is where Crarcy's admonition of the quantification of reality reminds one that the spectacle, as an expression of power, has only grown more complex since Debord gave it a name in 1967.
Crarcy's premonition of an augmented, codified, and quantified reality turns the very act of existing into a commodity. This closing of the system makes the participants completely beholden to the discourse of power and effectively neuters any potential for true resistance. If the spectacle can produce a closed system in which the world we experience in real time is totally physically constructed by the discourse of power, the resultant commodity will be denied even self-contemplation.

1. Crarcy, Jonathan (1990) "Techniques of the Observer." MIT Press: Boston, MA, 1992.
2. Debord, Guy (1967) "The Society of the Spectacle." Rebel Press: London, 2004.
3. Foucault, Michel (1984) "The History of Sexuality Vol.1: The Will to Knowledge." Penguin Books: London, 1998.

MOONSTONE

2009-10-14T19:43:00.007-05:00

Recalcitrant love-children of First Earth, lend me your corporeal forms.
KidPix is flowing like a river.

Forest Of October, Motherfucker.

2009-10-09T06:59:00.008-05:00

I found KidPix.
The CD-ROM was in a cabinet in the middle of a spindle between "Now That's What I Call Music, Volume 3" and a scratched-to-shit copy of 8mile.
Relics from the misspent junior-high-school days.
I also found my copy of Orchid by Opeth.
I thought it was lost.
Opeth fell out of my rotation two years ago when my laptop got stolen and I lost all my music.
Now they are back with a vengeance.
It sounds like the 7th grade ski-bus in this bitch.

Conflict: Resolution

2009-10-06T13:02:00.009-05:00

Sometimes Dumb Crimes Blow My mind.
Christopher Hitchens is droppin' some serious science.
Hitchens submits that not just the religious right, but any formal religion, practiced to any degree, is a farce and hell bent on the destruction of non-believers.
Fuckin' yeah.

Spit that shit.

Good Night, Sir.

Pulp Culture Knee-Jerk I

2009-10-02T14:43:00.005-05:00

This is the first of a recurring segment I hereby dub: "Pulp Culture Knee-Jerk". The idea is to take two pulpy,useless, annoying pieces of reality and smoosch them together into a bizarro-gestalt that means even less than than the two original ideas. Round one: I was on vbs.tv and saw this then I saw this and it reminded me of when I saw this.
Imagine a kid with Down's Syndrome and a northern english accent thick as fuckin' prime rib that can flow over the worst/fastest/Donkest beats and then imagine how much more watchable "What Is It" would have been if the soundtrack was a Donked-out version of the Benny Hill theme song (yakkity-sax?) with that Down's MC kid spittin' some unintelligible shit over top of it. Just food for thought here. Mooshy, soupy, Puréed, old-folks-home-style food for thought. Also, could this be the next Grey Album? That is a whole 'nuther can of conceptual shit.

No Work = Medusa

2009-08-22T01:29:00.003-05:00

OutHang

2009-08-21T16:23:00.005-05:00

Sisters

2009-08-17T11:20:00.001-05:00

Old Thing

2009-08-05T21:42:00.006-05:00

Deck Painting at Leonardo's Basement

2009-08-05T16:57:00.008-05:00

Crown Town

2009-07-30T16:17:00.002-05:00

Who Was That Kid?

2009-07-27T01:25:00.005-05:00

Sherlock

2009-05-05T18:39:00.008-05:00

What Hath Bob Wrought: Palm Springs, 2009.

2009-04-27T00:52:00.007-05:00

This has been a photographic study of my father in his natural habitat. More to come.