Pimms summertime

Been making Pimms cocktails for my summer afternoon and dusk enjoyment.

Best of all, making them with cukes from my(!) very(!) own(!) garden(!)!

Good thing I've got dozens of cucumbers getting ready.

A reason not to be an expert

I am in Murcia, Spain right now, doing research for an upcoming biennial called Manifesta. The Action Mill is one of four groups of artists/people who do stuff in the "real" world that have "real" effects. The four groups were put in a set and filmed having a discussion about criticality in art production, questioning how it relates to changing destructive systems. It was a hard couple of days having interesting discussions, needless to say.

This is an image of the cathedral in Murcia, which has an incredible carved stone chain from the Baroque period (if it ain't baroque...don't...uugh). Once the artisan completed carving the chain, the patron had his eyes plucked out so that he would never be able to make another.

If that's a reason not to be good at anything, I don't know what is.

Lamplit

Keith Lemley and Taryn McMahon

when am i going to get over my thoreau stage?

listen (to a mostly complete draft of a pathetic love story) here.

Portland

Yesterday it looked like this in Portland. Today, my feet won't get dry and I am cold cold cold. Pacific Northwest?

walking shots

Transmissions to change the way we think about us

Exhibition I've been coordinating opens today at hesaidshesaid.us in Oak Park. Information below:

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We send dozens of emails, we talk on our cell phones while driving, and we g-chat while at work. We are arguably more connected than at any moment in history, and yet these forms of communication do little to make us feel connected. Somehow a handful of emails never get responded to, we screen our calls, and we pretend to be "invisible" on chat. We have facebook, twitter, and other social networking websites, and yet we continue to read about increased alienation associated with these methods of communication. When we were in middle school and played a game of telephone, our efforts at communication necessarily failed, but our collective bonds were strengthened by the changes that occurred in the space between the first and the last transmission. Flashlight Morse code between neighbors, and Pig Latin on the playground were not easier to understand than picking up the telephone or speaking in the common tongue, but something else was gained beyond ease.

The projects collected here are about the potentialities of communication. These projects point to the promise, the unexpected nature, the potential failures and successes of communication experiments. Culling from historical archives and our own childhood as research, these projects are situated in the mundane with a desire for the transformative.

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Angela Regas reflects upon social networking and online dating in her essay, "Looking for Love." Beginning with harmless trolling of Craigslist missed connections ads, she finds herself in a trailer smelling of cat pee. And yet, she's still at it.

A Literal Letter Service writes custom letters for you! Fill out a form and the two employees write and mail correspondence based upon your requests, free of charge.

Astrodime Transit Authority attempts to connect Bumpkin Island to mainland Boston through tin can telephone networks. Their motto: "We can!"

Onboard the 1977 Voyager spacecraft, Carl Sagan's Golden Record carried message of human life. This solid gold record included no instructions for use; rather the cover of the record showed obscure diagrams of Earth's position within the solar system, binary code depicting hydrogen atoms, and wavelengths for sound. The relative scale of the Voyager spacecraft to the universe is such that the likelihood of discovery is slim if not nil. Yet Sagan and NASA's collaboration acts as a time capsule for the hopefulness of early space exploration. Jimmy Carter summed it up: "This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours." Recorded originally at 8 1/12 speed, here are a series of aluminum dub-plate replicas recorded at 33 1/3 speed.

The Golden Spike connected the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroad lines, creating the first transcontinental railroad. The railroad effectively ended the American notion of wilderness, as the entire continent was now able to be crossed with relative ease and speed. The event was marked with members of each railroad company's executives hammering in the last spikes. When the final spike was driven into the ground, a telegraph wire was attached to the rails, which was to send a Morse code "dot" to each coast. The telegraph wire failed to send the signal, and instead a transcontinental telegraph was sent hours later to newspapers on each coast saying only, "Done."

Join in sending off helium balloons with your messages to whoever might find them. No additional postage necessary if mailed within the United States.

Flag Singer Showdown

I have broken two Singer sewing machines while sewing historically accurate colonial American flags.

first it was this one:



then this one:


is there a conspiracy?