Aesthetics of the Invisible World

"The conventional spiritual journey is from the Old World to the New, striking out for fresh horizons..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:46:06 -0500

“The conventional spiritual journey is from the Old World to the New, striking out for fresh horizons and frontiers. It’s the troubled aesthetes - Henry James, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound - who make the reverse trip.”

- ~ Hugo Wilcken when discussing David Bowie’s Low

Context and scale. The implied narrative of the giant fish...

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:45:54 -0500

Context and scale. The implied narrative of the giant fish washing up in the middle of the forest.

~ü

By Adrián Villar Rojas, a most fascinating environmental sculpture, a to scale blue whale situated in Ushuaia, Ukraine. The subtle addition of the tree stumps to make it look like it is already being assimilated by nature, brilliant touch.

~ therhumboogie

"The way something is presented is often more important than its content. The most important part of..."

Mon, 14 May 2012 11:16:00 -0500

“The way something is presented is often more important than its content. The most important part of the way something is presented is how long it takes someone to consume it.”

- ~ Sam (from The Listserve project)

File Under: Ways That Technology Has Improved Parenting or The...

Sun, 13 May 2012 15:34:08 -0500

File Under: Ways That Technology Has Improved Parenting or The Hidden Mother or Happy Mother’s Day.

~ü

In the 19th Century having a photograph taken was a lengthy process. Frustrated by the difficulties of getting children to sit still long enough to snap a proper photo , photographers in the 1800’s conceived of a technique called “The Hidden Mother”. Draping a sheet over the mothers head in an attempt to camouflage her as a part of the furniture to better emphasize the child, the mother was then able to hold her infant and keep them still long enough for the camera to get an exposure.

~ geneparade

Buddha | ZEN PENCILS

Sat, 12 May 2012 18:00:09 -0500

Buddha | ZEN PENCILS

Frozen Smoke: Aerogel is the lightest solid known to science....

Sat, 12 May 2012 17:57:00 -0500

Frozen Smoke:

Aerogel is the lightest solid known to science. It’s also one of the most insulating materials on Earth, the most porous, and it’s nearly transparent. Those last two properties made it an ideal choice for catching flecks of comet and interstellar dust on the recently-returned Stardust mission launched by NASA and JPL.

Holding a piece of aerogel is an uncanny experience. It’s so light it feels nearly weightless, like a chunk of solidified fog or smoke. It feels a bit like Styrofoam, and it squeaks when you rub your finger on it. It’s strong enough to support many times its own weight if the load is distributed evenly. But bend it or squeeze it too hard, as one Wired News editor discovered, and a chunk of aerogel will shatter into tiny fragments.

Suspending untamable kinetic energy, freezing time, capturing moments - they are all about conveying a familiar feeling that has been lost to time. This is what makes the medium of film so powerful, in my opinion. Because it, like music, is based on bending our sense of time. It inherently feels both mysterious and natural. To make a leap, it is the allure of frozen smoke. Anything less is just storytelling.

~ü

[Image: NASA; Quote: Wired.]

"Alice: How long is forever? White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second."

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:47:26 -0500

“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.”

- ~ Lewis Carrol (via nachtstuecke)

"Instrumentation is when you take the music you or someone else has written and you find the right..."

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:13:54 -0500

“Instrumentation is when you take the music you or someone else has written and you find the right kind of instruments - one part goes to the oboe, another to the violin, another to the cello. They go along very well and the sound is good but that’s all. But orchestration is when you give a feeling of the two pedals at the piano: that means that you are building an atmosphere of sound around the music, around the written notes - that’s orchestration.”

- Ravel on the difference between instrumentation and orchestration. At times I find popular music and some singer/songwriter music uninspiring because it neglects the sound itself; this music expects the words and melody to carry all the weight and meaning. Words only go so far. Color and texture have no borders.

~ü

“What I felt when making this picture was a feeling of...

Sat, 05 May 2012 12:10:01 -0500

“What I felt when making this picture was a feeling of solitude—the cloud didn’t know which way to go.”

The best artists I know are the ones who never get lost. Even in solitude, where they often do their best work, they know which way is the right way. Even in moments of self-doubt, they have an immutable expression that is effortless. We do not question our need to drink water. A great artist or a great scientist does not question his or her need to create.

The quality of my work has improved tremendously since I have just accepted that this is who I am, that I am not someone else, nor would I want to ever be. But this is not just true of an artist’s work, it is true of life itself.

~ü

[Image & Quote: André Kertész Lost Cloud (1937)]

(via wonderfulambiguity)

May Day - International Workers Day: Those 8 hours for What We...

Tue, 01 May 2012 15:10:05 -0500

May Day - International Workers Day:

Those 8 hours for What We Will - and the resulting forty hour work week - have done more to encourage equal opportunity for all than any other piece of legislation in the industrial and post-industrial era. But we have a long way to go if a meritocracy is truly the goal.

Sadly, we have taken many steps back along the way. I have far too many friends that work a 37.5 hour work week so the employer can avoid paying benefits. I have many other friends that have a 60-80 hour work week on salary so they are not paid a fair wage. As long as people take the 8 hour day for granted, we will continue to slide backwards.

At the very least, wish another person a happy May Day. It’s a gentile reminder that people died for this. It’s also a reminder that people are still fighting.

~ü

Supreme honor and real happiness lie in self-respect, in high...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:01:11 -0500

Supreme honor and real happiness lie in self-respect, in high resolves and noble purposes.

~ ‘Abdu’l Bahá

Life is resilient. Life is fragile. ~ü [Image: Stephanie...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:46:09 -0500

Life is resilient. Life is fragile.

~ü

[Image: Stephanie Hillson Fragile Light]

When Being Your Best Means Being Destructive:

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:56:42 -0500

Many creative individuals have faced this. From mathematician Paul Edrös to musician Kurt Cobain. The reason for their creative success is often confused with the drama of their life story - so much so that the tortured artist has become an archetype. There is a true sting to the social rejection that many creatives face. There are also the economic risks we take in reaching for a life more expressive than most. These factors can compound and create a downward, self-destructive spiral.

The resulting work lies somewhere on a scale that runs from self-indulgent to total sincerity. In an insincere world, where self-awareness and exploration are disparaged, people are drawn to some honest candor. The tortured artist feels the sudden rush of acceptance and the spiral inevitably continues. The destructive hand got you to the point that no other force could, suddenly you’re trapped because this is the part of you that’s venerated, the part that people love, and the best of who you are.

I’m not sure how I’d react if my work was ever recognized on a larger scale. Perhaps I’m fortunate - I work to imbue my films with spiritual sincerity, a sense of beauty, and a veneration of life and all its simple problems. These aren’t the hallmarks of the tortured artist that people love to lament. I figure that as long as I’m bucking the trend, I’ll never have to worry about the trappings of sudden success.

~ü

Degas’ Ghost En pointe. Center stage front. Her tutu is a...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:46:28 -0500

Degas’ Ghost

En pointe. Center stage front.
Her tutu is a plumed chrysanthemum,
delicately balanced on dual stems.
She traces the air with pale fingertips,
as if to memorize it as woman—
not the swan she soon will become.

We flocked to see Nureyev that night,
expected to grow damp with rapture
from his fierce Neapolonic leaps,
head tilted cockily in the fury
of his futile heroic dance.

We only saw her…
This flower. This reluctant swan.
Degas white, pinned
under a dimming spotlight.
Fluttering and lifting.
Dipping and fading.
Then, abruptly, the vacant stage.

~ Pris Campbell (2005)

[Image: Edgar Degas Prima Ballerina (1876)]

Degas’ ghost [Image: Tasha Tilberg photographed by Paolo...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:44:40 -0500

Degas’ ghost

[Image: Tasha Tilberg photographed by Paolo Roversi]

"As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions?..."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:01:17 -0500

“As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions? The instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”

- ~ Leonard Cohen

The New Aesthetic is a purported artistic manifesto that gained...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:56:10 -0500

The New Aesthetic is a purported artistic manifesto that gained traction at this year’s SXSW. Its most pervasive presence is this Tumblr embodying post-postmodernist mentality using 21st century tools. In general, the post-postmodernists reject the notions of beauty and grotesqueness as a way to directly engage the human soul. They favor the use of familiar symbols and popular (usually American) culture; they adore a piece’s process and intent over the actual resulting artifact. Like good disciples of Warhol, post-postmodernists inevitably use scale or variation and repetition to make objects absurd and engaging.

At their best, post-postmodernists are commenting on a larger consciousness. It is difficult for me to see past the reductive nature of most of this work. Art is a scientific pursuit for me, offering insights into individuals that, over time, comes to reflect the culture as a whole. That honest assessment of the soul is filled with analysis and experimentation, gut feelings and reflective thinking.

I’ll cede that some of this can come through popular culture but in the larger scheme, there are laws at play, there is order and there is entropy in the universe that informs what is beautiful and what is not. It is much larger and more mysterious than the culture in which we reside. This is where the action is. The rest is trivia.

~ü

[Image: J. Seward Johnson Forever Marilyn Chicago, IL]

My Ethos:

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:02:05 -0500

Make every action pure in its intention and deliberate in its nature.

~ü

He’s sometimes pretty, she’s sometimes handsome. It...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:21:00 -0500

He’s sometimes pretty, she’s sometimes handsome. It doesn’t matter as long as fashion is somewhere between utility and trend: in other words, honest.

~ü

[Image: Frida Kahlo]

“The way I need to look, it’s a very personal thing,” Pejic...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:20:32 -0500

“The way I need to look, it’s a very personal thing,” Pejic explains. “When I started experimenting, it was to make myself feel happy, to look in the mirror and be satisfied. I never did drag or anything like that. It was always that I wanted to be pretty, to look beautiful, as a girl would want to.”