Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sketch furniture project

I watched Sketch Furniture project on travel&living the other day and it's really awesome. Furniture is built using motion capture (the sketching of furniture in the air) and the materialization of 3D files.

This whole nuclear thing is depressing. It coincides not only with Cold War studies (the Doomsday Machine), but also with Philip K Dick's world which envisions different possible outcomes of WW2 / CW: 1. America loses; Germany and Japan rule the world. 2. The TV set did it; we hide underground for fear of the machines. 3. The sci-fi reality seems to be paving way for a more concrete future given recent news.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Camera Lucida

I really want to write on Camera Lucida (how is it possible that a so-called elite university course can completely miss out on Barthes?), but as it is, I can't write for love's sake. So I'll just note down this little bit. Barthes writes that the Photograph leads to a peculiar dissociation of consciousness and identity; that when photographed, one instantaneously makes another body, an "image".

"In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art...I do not stop imitating myself, and because of this, each time I am photographed, I invariably suffer from a sensation of inauthenticity..." (Barthes, Camera Lucida)

I like that feeling of inauthencity. The hardened smile, the nervous still pose, the slightly angled head. And that you aren't just being watched by the photographer, or the callous audience, but your picture also passes on through time, by others, unknown hands, faces, the millions and the zeros. You are reduced to an image, but you look, and simultaneously connect and disconnect with that very same "self"/"image" of a photograph. It's you and it's not you.

Monday, May 18, 2009

sometimes i'm so scared i feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest. i desperately need this to work out.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Tshirt bag

I am going to be selling bags (recycled from old T-shirts) at this art event held in June. 100 T bags. Where's my asian sweatshop team? I need to make on average 3-4 bags / day! Come on machines!