“The most, the best, we can do, we believe (wanting to give evidence of love), is to get out of the way, leave space around whomever or whatever it is.”
Author: Paul Greer
‘I thought the tech world would be full of new voices and people. It hasn’t happened. The number of women in the sector is tiny. It’s such a waste’
“We need those warriors of the future, we need people who are going to battle in all of the things that we face in challenges every day – the entrenched poverty in this country through to the changes that we need to make in our education system, in our health system. Women have to be part of those battles and if we don’t empower them digitally then I don’t believe we’re going to have as competitive an economy as we could.”
“Actually, there’s no secret. One simply pulls the cork out of the bottle, waits three minutes, and two thousand or more years of Scottish craftsmanship does the rest.”
- INTERVIEWER: Let’s start with obsession. You seem to have an obsessive way of repeatedly playing out permutations of a certain set of emblems and concerns. Things like the winding down of time, car crashes, birds and flying, drained swimming pools, airports, abandoned buildings, Ronald Reagan . . .
- BALLARD: I think you’re completely right. I would say that I quite consciously rely on my obsessions in all my work, that I deliberately set up an obsessional frame of mind. In a paradoxical way, this leaves one free of the subject of the obsession. It’s like picking up an ashtray and staring so hard at it that one becomes obsessed by its contours, angles, texture, et cetera, and forgets that it is an ashtray—a glass dish for stubbing out cigarettes.
- INTERVIEWER: So you rely on the magnetism of an obsession as a way of proceeding?
- BALLARD: Yes, so the unity of the enterprise is forever there. A whole universe can be bounded in a nutshell. Of course, why one chooses certain topics as the subject for one’s obsessions is a different matter. Why was I obsessed by car crashes? It’s such a peculiar idea.
- INTERVIEWER: Yes, why were you?
- BALLARD: Presumably all obsessions are extreme metaphors waiting to be born. That whole private mythology, in which I believe totally, is a collaboration between one’s conscious mind and those obsessions that, one by one, present themselves as stepping-stones.
from the Paris Review
The first great works of digital literature are already being written
“The problem is that people who like science and technology, and people who like storytelling and the arts have typically been placed in different buildings since about the age of 16. We haven’t been taught how to admire each others’ work, to recognise excellence, or even to know that there is excellence in “the other culture”. There’s a kind of sullen arrogance on both sides, with some people in both camps simply denying that the other knows anything worth listening to. There is a kind of “worthy” arts professional who thinks that knowing nothing about games – like saying “I don’t even own a television!” – is a marker of intellectual superiority.”
‘I set myself a schedule of three to five pages a day’
“With more than 40 works, five Man Booker nominations and a win under her belt, does she consider herself prolific? She scoffs at the word. “Joyce Carol Oates is prolific; I’m just old,” she says, drawing out the last word for laughs. At 75, she says writing hasn’t become any easier, listing her main distractions as laundry and emails. She sets herself a “schedule of pages rather than a schedule of times” aiming to write three to five pages a day. “You can cheat by increasing the type size,” she says. “Then you get really motivated and feel like you’re really speeding along.””
notepad-2015-weeks-39-41
As always more for my benefit than yours.
That’s a picture of the recent Supermoon over the front hedge.
We were lucky enough to see Dismaland 3 days before it closed on Wednesday, I felt like I was going because I ought to rather than wanted to.. But, no, it was wonderful, for several reasons. Firstly because the visitors there were not your average gallery goe, there were all different kinds of people engaging with what was there.. Secondly because it was like going to a rock concert rather than an art show. Thirdly the range of work there (most of it not by Banksy) was for the greater part technically excellent as well as engaging. But mostly because it didn’t feel like it came out of that art world, it felt fresh and relevant. (Some good animation on show at the cinema bit too!). An uplifting experience, not empty or even dismal in anyway.
News
https://twitter.com/joannaq/status/652295694259200000
Bookmarked
An analysis of #ThisIsACoup – with data via Visibrain Focus/A physicist considers the appeal of miracles/Jim Le Fevre Interview/Micachu and The Shapes: The Art of the Happy Accident/The Perfectly Looping Mini-Trips of Hayden Zezula/Weird Facebook is a subculture of meme pages, secret groups, friend networks, and personalities/Essential Crowdfunding Campaigns You Need to Support from Art Aid Nepal, 2D Cloud and Off Life/Frank Krause: Mining the Internet’s Fears/BlenderVR/Music video for Karma Fields by ravenkwok is presented entirely using animated Voroni tesselations/artists are using Google’s Deepdream in virtual reality/Bereavement and Grief Powerfully Examined by Cj Reay and Black Lodge Press/Sunny 5 by Taiyo Matsumoto: to be unreachable, by kindness or hope/
Social
So I nuked the Facebook page I made. I was a nice experiment, but quickly became apparent that using it for a sole artist would require more money and work than I can spare, just to get people to see it. So I reactivated the Follow option on my standard profile, so if you don’t know me IRL you can follow my public posts there. I’m trying real hard to love Facebook, I understand one has to work it to really hard turn it into the space you want. So I am going to give it a go.
Been trying Flipboard in the hope it would give me the curated link feed we use to get in Google Reader, but it doesn’t seem to be responding to the information I give it. Also been trying Pinterest, but I always go back to Tumblr just because.
Playlist
Chromatics – Tick Of The Clock
Smaller Than My Mother – The Overcoats
Reading
Post-Capitalism by Paul Mason
Emma by Jane Austen
Miracles Of Life by J G Ballard
Back Up
Everything, all the time.
Have your say on the future of our BBC
I am posting this here in case anyone hasn’t seen it.
Last night I filled in my answers to the governments public consultation document for the future of the BBC. It has been sneeked out and the questions are weighted heavily so it is essential that anyone who cares about the BBC and would like to see it’s future secured in a way that benefits everyone, take the time to fill it in. It takes about quarter of an hour. There is just over a day left.
Here’s the link.
Here are my answers. They’re not perfect, but they’re done:
How well is the BBC serving its national and international audiences?
Extremely well. With news coverage, drama and especially documentaries. I also use the podcasting feature a lot and the radio iplayer.
Which elements of universality are most important for the BBC?
The BBC is a relied upon national institution, unique in the world. It is trusted universally and is a major driving part of British culture. It is extremely important that ti’s content is advert free as it provides a space for thought and consideration free from sponsorship.
Is the BBC’s content sufficiently high quality and distinctive from that of other broadcasters? What could improve it?
The nature of the BBC allows new talent and ideas to grow organically, many cultural icons with global influence exist today because they were nurtured and allowed to grow on the BBC. The BBC should be allowed to produce the kind of content that other companies cannot due to to market forces being their main drive.
Where does the evidence suggest the BBC has a positive or negative wider impact on the market?
It is extremely important that BBC news comes free from any adverts or sponsorship for obvious reasons. The powerhouse of innovation and creativity which the unique way the BBC is funded produces some of the most important cultural forces we have today. It is a shelter for innovation which produces benefits which far out way the investment.
Is the expansion of the BBC’s services justified in the context of increased choice for audiences? Is the BBC crowding out commercial competition and, if so, is this justified?
It is essential that the BBC provides an alternative to other commercial news and online content, if people choose to use the BBC over it’s competitors because of it’s high quality then surely that proves it’s value. If other commercial companies feel they are being pushed out maybe they should rethink their strategy of connecting with people. Their audience will not increase just because the BBC is not there.
Has the BBC been doing enough to deliver value for money? How could it go further?
The BBC is incredible value for money, if one compares it with any online subscription service. To get the equivalent breadth and range of content using other services one would have to spend considerably more than £12 per month, possibly 5 to 10 times that amount.
How should we pay for the BBC and how should the licence fee be modernised?
I think the existing license fee system is fair. I would like to see the BBC supplement this by providing an fee paying subscription for the iPlayer for non-UK customers.
How should the relationship between Parliament, Government, Ofcom, the National Audit Office and the BBC work? What accountability structures and expectations, including financial transparency and spending controls should apply?
The BBC should be supported by government but this regular interference by successive administration is unhelpful. There is room for improvement in the way the BBC is run, but I do not think many politicians have the breadth of knowledge and experience to be applying their opinions to the corporation. I also believe may politicians are under the influence of corporate lobbyists representing the interests of those who want to see the BBC diminished for their own personal gain. The BBC is for the people of Great Britain, it is for them to decide if the fee is suitable and appropriate and not a few politicians.
(cross posted from Facebook)
Intermittently Regular #365 Sketch Project Update 102-116
Incorporating Dismaland visit and the completion of the pub drawing.
All images link back to original Instagram postings.
If you’d like more immediate updates you can follow on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
Other 365 drawings can be found here.
GHOST CELL – TRAILER from Antoine Delach (2015)
Ghost cell 3D Paris scan / more : antoinedelach.com/GHOST-CELL
“A la fois film scientifique, documentaire et balade onirique, Ghost Cell est une plongée en relief au cœur des entrailles d’un Paris organique vu comme une cellule au travers d’un microscope virtuel.”
Paul Greer 