I Am Still Alive

Hilarious letterpress print by No Days Off in the UK. Printed in an edition of 60 by Adams of Rye on Fenner Colourset 120gsm uncoated paper (100% recycled).

“At AllthingsD.com, our website, we have coined a term for the economy; we’re calling it the ‘econaclypse’...”

And then

“Just because the market is in the eight thousands instead of the eleven thousands or unemployment – which is actually the more serious number in my opinion for gauging the length of the recession – is 8.5 percent, which it might get to rather than 4 percent, it doesn’t mean people stop working on new ideas, particularly in tech and particularly in consumer tech.”

‘Econaclypse’ is a phenomenal contraction.

A good profile of poet and Creative Capital co-founder Lewis Hyde:

After the lecture, as we walked across the darkened campus, I mentioned to Hyde that I had found [Lawrence] Lessig’s talk to be logical and well crafted.

“A little too well crafted, if you ask me,” Hyde said.

This took me by surprise – Hyde is a polite man who rarely speaks critically of others – and I later asked him to elaborate. “Look, Lessig is a lawyer,” he said. “I like him, I think he’s solid. But it’s a very particular way of thinking.” Hyde himself makes use of the Creative Commons, yet there’s a formality to the setup that troubles him. “All of the C.C. licenses use the lever of the law,” he said. “They have the assumption of private ownership behind them. So Lessig, in a certain sense, is confining himself to one slice of this stuff, which is not as capacious as a true commons would be.”

“With the holiday season kicking into gear, we’ve prepared a helpful shopping and business guide to help you support the many local businesses that have helped support the fight against Bruce Ratner’s ‘Atlantic Yards’ project.”

The MOCA in Los Angeles is apparently nearly insolvent; bummer – it’s always been one of my favorites. Proposed solutions include merging w/ LACMA.

“In the wake of Wednesday’s board meeting to discuss options for the fiscal crisis at the Museum of Contemporary Art, here is what I’m told the board is now prepared to do: formally approach the Los Angeles County Museum of Art about a merger, which will effectively mean a transfer of MOCA’s extraordinary collection to the Mid-Wilshire complex.”

LATimes art critic, Christopher Knight writes about why he reckons this is the wrong move.

“Walkability is not just an amenity. Is it not a lifestyle accessory for the well-heeled. It is, for many people, an issue of basic social and economic justice. Zoning that segregates housing from retail – and that reduces walkability and transit access – has serious consequences for equity. “

Eric Triantafillou writes a great essay in this month’s Brooklyn Rail about Signs of Change @Exit Art:

“I’m not advocating we stop mounting shows like Signs of Change in order to sit around and think about how to mount shows like this. Our practices – the process of putting this exhibition together and the work in it – are, as the curators have said, a site for thought, a beginning. If it maintains a self-reflective component, active experimentation can be a form of thinking and rethinking. But constant doing sometimes precludes us from ever really asking certain questions, questions that would necessarily place more value on certain ideas and actions and less on others. It is when we become trapped in doing – in a compulsion to act, then to affirm that act with more of the same – places us at risk of making history rhyme.”

2 colour Screen print on Somerset hotpressed off-white 190gsm.
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by James Brown
Paper Size: 38×56 cm. Image Size: 27×39 cm
£30 plus £4 p&p.

I missed this NYTimes profile of ESPO back in May. Thanks to Dan for sending it my way.

A love of graffiti has gained Steve Powers notoriety on the streets, fame in the art world and a long arrest sheet. It has also earned him a Fulbright scholarship…Mr. Powers has stopped painting illegally. “I wanted to find a way to grow out of it while succeeding at being creative,” he said.

Born out of a lifelong fascination with science photography and nature documentaries, Parroquet showcases a body of work by fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø, comprising eight film shorts and a selection of photographs. Keen to produce imagery that didn’t fall into the traditional genres of photography, this project’s central focus is the parroquet, a type of small, slender, long-tailed parrot.

Clever, clever, Daniel Eatock.

Complete set of 156 Prismacolor Markers (arranged following manufacturer’s numbered color chart) held within inverted glasses, one ream of 25” x 38” uncoated, 40 lb. paper, divided into two stacks

This work is adapted from Pantone Pen Print a 2006 edition of a total of 73 prints using a full set of Pantone markers. Over the course of the exhibition the paper will absorb all the ink from the pens, the sheets near the top of stack soaking up more ink than those further away from the tips. The result is an edition of organically related prints, each unique.

At the end of the show the pens will be removed from the paper and the sheets counted. The edition number and price of the each diptych is determined and equal to the number of layers the ink penetrates. Eg. If the ink soaks through 25 layers, each of the 25 diptychs are sold for $25 / If the ink soaks through 100 layers each of the 100 diptychs are sold for $100. The number of prints for sale is unknown, and is limited to the number that the process yields. Once the layers have been counted the price will be announced. All diptychs will be sold for the same amount…Each diptych is sold unseen.

Two staffers had just passed this site and done two pull-ups. Not to be outdone, Obama did three with ease, dropped and walked out to make a speech. Missoula, Mont., 4/5/2008

via Project.ioni.st

The subtitle of the Whole Earth Catalog, founded by Stewart Brand, was “access to tools.” Brand’s vision was to create a catalog along the lines of an advertisement or a telephone catalog, which would be an all-expansive, comprehensive and visually stimulating information database that people from different locations could plug into.This concept of a continuous intangible connective data tissue was largely inspired by the icon of the globe that would become the symbol of the Whole Earth Catalog’s covers. In this sense, Whole Earth Catalog, which ended in 1972, was the first publication that aspired to function as a whole earth system, and has been cited as a conceptual forerunner of a web search engine. Its original aims were to function “as an evaluation and access device. With it, the user should know better what is worth getting and where and how to do the getting. An item is listed in the CATALOG if it is deemed: 1) Useful as a tool, 2) Relevant to independent education, 3) High quality or low cost, 4) Easily available by mail.” The Whole Earth Catalog was specifically geared towards the development of a counterculture promoting alternative ecological products, technologies, methods, communities, and publications, eventually aiming to establish a consciousness for the emerging counterculture network. In fact, as Brand was specifically interested in a “commune-based readership,” the Whole Earth Catalog was originally conceived of as a manual for communal living, providing communitarians with the ‘know-how’ to set up their living experiments.

silica aerogel holds 15 guinness world records for material properties, including best insulator and lowest-density solid