| Heroes and Sociopaths |
[23 Nov 2009|01:00pm] |
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Well that explains a whole to me about…myself. No, I don’t think I need to elaborate.
Behaviorally speaking, heroes and serial do-gooders have a lot in common with sociopaths, according to this paper on psychology and neuroethics: “their personality traits are very similar, with only a few features to distinguish them.”
We look at heroes and do-gooders as a special sort of breed: people who possess extraordinary traits of altruism or self-less concern for the well-being of others, even at the expense of their own existence. On the other end, sociopaths also have an extraordinary set of traits, such as extreme selfishness, lack of impulse control, no respect for rules, and no conscience.
As crazy as it sounds, there may be a closer link than than most people would think between the extreme-altruistic personality and sociopathic personality. Would it shock you to know that two people, one with the traits of extreme-altruism (X-altruism) and the other the traits of a sociopath, could be related? Even siblings? And that their personality traits are very similar, with only a few features to distinguish them? Research by Watson, Clark, and Chmielewki from the University of Iowa, “Structures of Personality and Their Relevance to Psychopathology” [pdf], present a convincing argument in which they support the growing push for a trait dimensional scheme in the new DSM-V to replace the current categorical system.
Via BoingBoing.
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Resources |
[22 Nov 2009|10:48pm] |
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One thing I never knew until recently was how much digital artists seem to depend on each other. Sort of like djs taking samples of each other’s music, photoshop artists put images and imagelets from every imaginable place, remixing them to new and unrecognizable shapes. Maybe it’s stupid that I never thought about this until a year or two ago, but there you go. I always liked the idea of art arising from the dusty depths of cloistered genius. Sometimes it’s tempting to just spend days trolling the internet for, say, high res concrete textures, collecting and examining them, and then maybe never even using them. Alternatively, I have spent days photographing different parts of the ground, intending to use those image textures for “something.” I could fill hard drives infinite with little pieces of art waiting to be made. Funny enough, I never seem to get around to putting the pieces together these days. Is it time to clear my calendar, disconnect the internet and confine myself to photoshop’s company until I produce something worth keeping with all these pieces? To all of my friends, if you either don’t hear from me or receive an incomprehensible collage print for Christmas I apologise in advance.
Speaking of them, this is a really great resource: LostAndTaken.com, a blog dedicated to providing obsessive compulsives like me with high res textures and texture-related chatter.
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Matthew Ritchie |
[12 Nov 2009|09:30pm] |
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Brilliant article I am rereading over at artforum about one of my favorite contemporary artists, Matthew Ritchie. I haven’t actually thought about him much since I saw his 2006 show at Andrea Rosen (which was beautiful) but I almost want to mouth idiotic things like “everything he touches is fantastic” as though he were not just a guy. I am most drawn to artworks that speak to the mythical and larger than life, and his work always does so while creating its own language and operating very strictly within its own logic.
Matthew Ritchie in collaboration with Aranda\Lasch and Arup AGU, The Morning Line, 2008, mixed media.
Installation view, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville. Photo: Benjamin Aranda.
Somewhere amid this tangle of incomplete emancipations lies a great deal of the work that we call emergent today. A prime example is Matthew Ritchie’s current traveling—or is it self-replicating?—project, a series of structures including, most recently, The Morning Line in Seville and The Dawn Line in London (now on view in New York). An earlier, scaled-down iteration, titled The Evening Line, was presented at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, with the larger, more expansive and centrifugal Morning Line following soon after. This trajectory itself is a sign that Ritchie’s work has found clear and unapologetic interest among architects, but, more germanely, Ritchie himself developed, resolved, and realized these structures only with the collaboration of Benjamin Aranda and Christopher Lasch, two young researchers who specialize in algorithmic design. While The Morning Line initially appears as a snarled tumbleweed of metal filigree accidentally forming both interior and exterior cavities for inhabitation, as well as the structure of transfers and arches necessary to keep it stable and upright, it quickly resolves in one’s perception as a pattern of modules that is rotated, displaced, and scaled at every level and along what appear to be determined paths. This is the moment when an underlying predisposition is sensed, which transforms one’s understanding of the work (the modules, in fact, are hand-generated cartoons that are computationally “grown”). Ritchie brought to the table a taste for medieval knowledge systems and the dream of their comprehensive resolution within a pageantry of materials and narrative characters. His interest in the figures or actors of knowledge as points of compression of historical understanding and imagination, or simply as convenient ways of presenting these to the mind, belies a profound belief that the world encodes itself in its productions and that this code represents an asset and resource that could and ought to be tapped, if only we knew how.
Systems Theory - Sanford Kwinter
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| On demand and we demand |
[06 Nov 2009|08:52pm] |
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I learned the other day that Warren Ellis is unleashing an interesting experiment on the world in the form of a new book, called Shivering Sands. What’s experimental about a well-established author releasing a book is that he’s doing it via Lulu, an independent print-on-demand service.
I’ve been a big fan of POD for as long as I’ve known about them so I’m looking forward to seeing them get more publicity and seeing how Warren’s book fares in this type of release. There’s something great about being able to release a book on your own with very little upfront cost. I created my own book with Blurb a couple years ago and was very happy with the print quality and the ease of the thing - these POD’s take care of everything from printing and prepress to managing orders and shipping. Easy!
My lady friend Sarah Sharp has also released a POD book called “Changing States”, also with Blurb, containing photos and writing about her trips to all 50 states, something I totally wish I could go off and do and will really do, really, one day, when I’m not so busy, really……………..[imagine me sighing wistfully as these dots line up across your screen]……………….
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Goddess of the Market - not exactly a review |
[05 Nov 2009|08:42pm] |
For conservatives, the causal connection between virtue and success is not merely ideological, it is also deeply personal. It forms the basis of their admiration of themselves. If you ask a rich person whether he ascribes his success to good fortune or his own merit, the answer will probably tell you whether that person inhabits the economic left or the economic right. Rand held up her own meteoric rise from penniless immigrant to wealthy author as a case study of the individualist ethos. “No one helped me,” she wrote, “nor did I think at any time that it was anyone’s duty to help me.”
Wealthcare, The New Republic
Interesting article in which TNR discusses the “mythology of heroic capitalist individualism.”
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| One month |
[25 Jul 2009|09:13pm] |
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It’s been a month. I still can’t believe it. Here, have some desktop wallpapers, 1920×1200. Click for full size and try not to cry.
Michael Jackson at Neverland, 1993, by H. Benson
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Get OBJECTIFIED- May 10 - The Pill |
[05 May 2009|11:47am] |
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Sunday, May 10 /// OBJECT OF OBSESSION /// The Pill
Guest Producer /// Sam Black
Main Gallery DJs /// DJ Shakey /// Greything
DJs in The Rubber Room /// Xris SMack! /// DJ Stalagmike
Interactive Electronic Music by /// Loud Objects
Live printing by Peripheral Media Projects
Bring your own clothing or buy a blank tee.
$5 per print! Designed to inspire!
Fashion Presentations by /// The Baroness /// Third Earth Designs
Go-Go Illusionists /// Sequinette /// Machine Sex /// Najy Glitteratti
Visual Video Stimulation by /// Jez
Greeting you at the door /// Mistress Crimson
Devious Equipment /// Master Virage
And celebrate EditrixAbby’s Birthday!
ISO Cake Wrangler!
Pertinent Details:
The Delancey /// 168 Delancey (Clinton & Attorney) /// MAP
Doors at 9pm - PartYcipate til 4am
$20 for the Uninformed /// $10 for the Fabulous
FREE for Artists who bring 2D/3D art, offer a performance or otherwise partYcipate!
Dress: Explorers, Inventors & Scientists–All Centuries, Pharmaceutical Phashion & Capsule Couture, Mommy Homages, Expectant Mothers, Adult Babies, Embryos, OB/GYN/Delivery Room Drag, All Interpretations of Birth Control. Make. An. Effort.
Check objectifynyc.com for updates on this and future events!
Conspirators /// Xris SMack! /// The Baroness /// Irene Kaoru /// Editrix Abby
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| OBJECTify - Opening Night - April 12 |
[24 Mar 2009|10:41pm] |
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Did I mention I’m throwing a party? You’re invited. So are your friends. The hot ones, I mean. Keep an eye on www.OBJECTifynyc.com for details and lineup. (It’s pretty bare now, but check back for event info and images in the coming days and weeks.) Add us on myspace for fresh, quivering updates. Think of fascinating things you can do to yourself and others with an eggbeater. Oh yes yes yes.
Once upon a time, New York nightlife was a bubbling cauldron of creativity. Disparate members of assorted underworlds mingled behind unmarked doors where entire genres were inspired and spawned. We long for a resurgence of stimulating nightlife. OBJECTify is the answer.
OBJECTify seeks to unite the many tribes: gay, straight and bi; male, female and trans; costumers, anachronists and crossdressers; the kinky and the queer; the polyamorous and the swingers; sadists, masochists and fetishists; fairies and fashionistas; freaks, geeks and hippies; hipsters, wishters and wannabes. And in addition, provide an environment where even the most “vanilla” of adventurers can feel safe to explore, experiment and experience.
Embracing the Dadaist anti-aesthetic, each month OBJECTify will obsess about one particular OBJECT. Also influenced by Burning Man and its “no spectators” ethos, OBJECTify encourages guests to partYcipate. Reduced admission is available for everyone dressed to reflect, reject or otherwise demonstrate a grasp of the evening’s goal of interactivity. Free admission is offered for revelers who bring sculpture or other 3D artwork, painting or other 2D artwork, a DVD of electronic visuals or those interested in taking the stage for an installation, interactive or similar piece of performance art. And a cash prize will awarded for the most inspired interpretation of the chosen OBJECT…all with the aspiration of having every attendee contribute to the evening’s collective outcome in some way.
Co-conspirators Editrix Abby, The Baroness, Xris SMack! and Irene Kaoru have conceived an “open source” format, with different guest producers joining them each month, bringing fresh concepts as well as a discerning new pair of eyes. The guest producer will act as both the evening’s curator and its docent, assisting with displaying the art and choosing the prize recipient. DJs, VJs, performers, go-go installationists, designers and artists in all media are invited to partYcipate in unique, perhaps-as-yet-unthought-of new ways.
Sunday, April 12: OPENING NIGHT!
OBJECT: The Egg Beater (Easter Sunday)
Sunday, May 10
OBJECT: The Pill (Mother’s Day)
Sunday, June 14
OBJECT: The Sextant
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Celebrities are like you and me |
[15 Mar 2009|08:44pm] |
“As details about an alleged assault of Rihanna by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, emerged, fans and the entertainment industry grappled with what it could mean for the future of the young star’s career.”
Really? That’s not what I’ve been “grappling” with.
I’ve been “grappling” with why the media is so sympathetic to an asshole who beat up his girlfriend, causing her injuries and public humiliation. Could it be that he’s a man and we’re used to blaming the victim and assuming she must have deserved it? I’ve been “grappling” with why her privacy has been totally shredded when she was an innocent victim of a crime, why it’s her face on countless tabloids, not his. Is it because tabloid readers are titillated by bruises and tears? Why aren’t they more interested in bringing a criminal to justice and denouncing his actions? I’ve been “grappling” with why supposedly respectable news outlets would frame this story in such a way as to make it sound like Chris Brown is actually the victim. Maybe he was just minding his own business and he was possessed by a violent demon that forced him to beat up his girlfriend and now he is unfairly paying the price. Or maybe he was just minding his own business when his girlfriend talked back to him and he was forced to teach her who was in charge and now he’s being unfairly portrayed as the bad guy. I sure hate it when women argue with me.
I especially like that the events in question is now well-known and clear-cut, yet news reporting continues to use words like “allegations” and “alleged beating,” as though some new evidence could be uncovered. Maybe she beat herself up. I think I like that even more than I like the use of the term “slapped around” in news reports about assault against women.
The most sticking “grappling” point for me is the suggestion that Brown’s error was in failing to provide the correctly apologetic PR statement immediately. I thought his error was in punching his girlfriend repeatedly in the face. I guess there are lots of things to “grapple” with here. Looks like CNN and I don’t see eye to eye on what’s important, as usual.
ETA: This is depressing, though not surprising: 46% of Boston teens surveyed say it’s the woman’s fault. I wonder how many of them bothered to read the account of what he did to her or if reading it would make a difference.
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Lord protect us all from Congress |
[12 Feb 2009|01:08pm] |
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The Honorable Nydia M. Velazquez
The United State House of Representatives
Rayburn House Office Building Suite 2466
Washington DC 20515-3212
The Honorable Charles Schumer
The United State Senate
Hart Senate Office Building Suite 313
Washington DC 20510-3201
Please Repeal the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
Between 1997 and 2006, incidence of elevated blood lead levels in children fell by 84%. According to the Center for Disease Control, the remaining area of concern is lead paint in older homes, and a few other “potential” dangers mainly related to the household environment. Toys and other children’s products are nowhere mentioned.
Clearly, lead poisoning is an issue that’s already well under control in this country, not one that requires invasive government “help.” As your constituent, I implore you to consider the larger picture, not just a few highly publicized and unfortunate incidents. Don’t make rash, under-thought decisions that negatively affect our entire economy in these hard times.
This Act will cost business owners thousands of dollars, de-incentivize innovation and environmentalism and drive many out of business if it is not repealed. Small, “green” manufacturers, using only organic materials, could be wiped out because they can’t afford the per-unit testing on their small production runs. This will increase the market share for large companies that are better able to absorb the compliance costs. Ironically, large toy makers, like Mattel, were responsible for the lead scare in the first place. Do we really want to reward them while punishing small, environmentally friendly businesses?
Please fight to repeal this law.
Ms. Irene Malatesta
XXX XXX XXX XXX
New York, NY 10009-5952
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Remember the Gentleman Peeler of New York |
[04 Feb 2009|01:51pm] |
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Joe Ades, beloved vegetable peeler salesman, passed away 2/1/2009. He will be missed.
A PUBLIC INVITATION // FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Februrary 4, 2009
To honor the passing of Joe Ades, the widely-renowned and much-beloved carrot-peeler peddler who frequented the Union Square Greenmarket, we invite the New York City community to join us in remembering his presence and his terrific salesmanship. We will gather at the statue on the south side of Union Square park on Saturday, February 7th, at 1pm and invite everyone to bring memories, anecdotes, and of course, a peeler and carrots or potatoes. As we join together to peel, we will create a temporary vegetable memorial that will incorporate stories and photos that the community brings to share.
WE WILL REMEMBER JOE ADES
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on the south steps of Union Square,
Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 1:00 PM.
Bring a peeler, carrots and potatoes.
Traditional memorial offerings are also welcome.
No need to RSVP, just show up and join us. Please help spread the word.
[Contact: rememberjoeades@gmail.com]
Joe Ades Memorial Facebook Group
The Gentleman Peeler - Flickr Pool
Vanity Fair profile, 2006
A notice in the New Yorker
Joe Ades, Deconstructed
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| I Heart Art |
[27 Jan 2009|11:18am] |
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Good news: I just got an email letting me know that my photograph, “The strange forest,” was accepted into the Work/Wassaic “I Heart Art” benefit show! The show will be February 14th from 1-4 pm and will include bands, an affordable auction, cupcakes and beer! The piece will be a special edition 5×7″ print.
Now, it’s a benefit show, so this will cost me money, not make any. And I’m out of town on February 14th, in Boston, attending to family things, so I can’t actually go. But I can send my piece ahead of time, the proceeds go to the artist-run gallery which is a good cause and hey, a show is a show. So please go, even though I can’t!
(Of course, if you can’t or you’re curious, you can see the open edition 8×10″ print here.)
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| good words |
[17 Jan 2009|06:59pm] |
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
steve jobs, 2005
Allie sent me this speech the other day, it’s old but a good read. It articulates more or less my philosophy for approaching life and work and it’s always nice to have affirmation and a reminder.
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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| Delicious Books: 2008 |
[31 Dec 2008|03:35pm] |
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Last year, I restarted a childhood tradition. I kept track of all the books I read each month. When I had time, I jotted my thoughts about them. I really enjoyed this, found it spurred conversations and great book recommendations and motivated me to keep reading. It seems I had a slow spring for books, which is funny because I was only spottily employed and had all the time in the world, but I spent all that time running around outside with my cameras. My new job in autumn brought with it hours of time on the subway–unprecedented novel-devouring hours!
Here’s what I read this year. What did you read?
JANUARY
A Clash of Kings - GRR Martin
The Beckoning Fair One - Oliver Onions [bookclub]
The War - Marguerite Duras
FEBRUARY
How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer - Debbie Millman
Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Jean-Dominique Bauby
House of Incest - Anais Nin
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
A Storm of Swords - GRR Martin
MARCH
A Feast for Crows - GRR Martin
A Void - G. Perec [bookclub]
Shopgirl - Steve Martin
Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl
Venus in Furs - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch [reread]
In Defense of Food - M. Pollan
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket - Edgar Allen Poe [bookclub]
APRIL
Psyche in a Dress - Francesca Lia Block
The Rose and the Beast - Francesca Lia Block
The Danish Girl - David Ebershoff
The Velderet - Cecilia Tan
MAY
The Book of Nightmares - Galway Kinnell [bookclub]
JUNE
The Last Gentlemen Adventurer - Edward Beauclerk Maurice
The Haunted Looking Glass: Ghost Stories - various, Edward Gorey (ed)
Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists - C. Reas and B. Fry
JULY
Outlander - D. Gabaldon
The Edge of Pleasure - P. Stockley
The Prestige - Christopher Priest
Play Piercing - D. Addington
The Adventurist - R. Y. Pelton
AUGUST
The Hedge Knight - GRR Martin
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Altmejd - Louise Dery [reread]
SEPTEMBER
If on a winter’s night a traveler - Italo Calvino
Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons - Deyan Sudjic
The Mount - Carol Emshiller
This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
OCTOBER
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Sharp Teeth - Toby Barlow
The Beautiful and the Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Catch 22 - Heller
Perfume: A Guide - Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
The Other Boleyn Girl - P. Gregory
NOVEMBER
Candy Barr - Ted Schwarz
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel - Rolf Potts
Copywriting By Design - D. Herzbrum
Careers by Design: A Headhunter’s Secrets for Success and Survival in Graphic Design - R. Goldfarb
Great Design Using Non-Traditional Materials - S. Clark & W. Lyons
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles - Murakami
DECEMBER
A Woman Alone: Travel Tales From Around the Globe - Christina Henry De Tessan (ed)
Marjorie Morningstar - Herman Wouk
Mistress - Anita Nair
Shadow of the Torturer (Book of the New Sun 1 and 2) - G. Wolfe
after the quake - H. Murakami
Here’s what I read in 2007.
Originally published at IRENE KAORU. Please leave any comments there.
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