Art and politics

The Soweton

The late Eugene Terreblanche, reading the bible to his murderer, Chris Mahlangu, seated on his lap.

The piece was created in February for an exhibition -The State of Chakra - that will take place in August.

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Some comment is necessary i think, i repost these contentious issues because i can, literally. I can also speak my thoughts on the matter, so excuse me if i practice awhile. We may not have this privilege for long, and since it's about art, i'll call this waxing lyrical, only i can't sing here, for which you should be grateful.

Art, that picture is art. It can only be, because it's not really anything else? Not something i'd want to own to be honest, especially with the political overtones, but if i were in an art gallery, this is what i would be seeing right? The artist had a feeling, a thought, an impression, and instead of tying it all up in words, like we do, he painted an image. A single image that can convey quite a lot of different, sometimes opposing messages.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

The creation of Zuma as Lenin in the typical Soviet style, of course with the invocation of patriarchy and naked emperors, did the same thing.  It was an idea, presented in a single helping. No sentences and paragraphs to wade through first. BANG. You are now thinking about something the artist wanted you to think about. An art gallery is where you go to be imbued with the artistic expressions of others.

And it should be provocative, in many different ways. And if a simple painting can inspire action in others, so much the better. Brett Murray can never be a poor man now, his creations have authority in the art world. The personal expression of one man made a nation talk, that is more power than Zuma has ever had. Other works of art are forgotten by the next piece in the gallery, they may be nice, but they do not inspire one with passion.

I am enjoying this re-awakening of art. The South African story has inspired many people to express themselves in many ways. I learned recently that former minister of defense Adriaan Vlok was so remorseful over his actions that he began washing the feet of his victims, as penance. That too is art. Creating something unique and beautiful even for a moment in time, is art. It is the act of living itself that is artistic, merging creativity and experience to further the boundaries of one's own world.

We live in the land of Afrika Burns, where art is created with the sole purpose of destroying it, and immortalising it at the same time. How can the same place and time co exist with the madness of the last few days? Art reflects life, it comes out of life. What we saw this week with the destruction of art, and newspapers, is death, and by extension, murder. It is the opposite of life, and art, and is the mud from whence the lotus flowers bloom.

This painting is the answer to the other. They mirror each other ... a white artist painting a black man, and a black artist painting a white man. Both show South African leaders in a context seen by the painter, and both highly relevant not only to the artist, but to all of us, the viewers. Both are emotive, possibly insulting, and open to a fair amount of personal interpretation, and both are intentionally provocative. Curious that seen from the position of their "opposites", one is remembered for his lesser known male bits, and the other in a context of a religion.

So go paint something today, or someone, which is usually more interesting!

Censors

Censors are dead men
set up to judge between life and death.
For no live, sunny man would be a censor,
he’d just laugh.
But censors, being dead men,
have a stern eye on life.
—That thing’s alive! It’s dangerous.
Make away with it!—
And when the execution is performed
you hear the stertorous, self-righteous heavy
breathing of the dead men,
the censors, breathing with relief.
 
 
DH Lawrence, “Censors”

DaggaCouple - History of Dagga

http://daggacouple.co.za/

Teeheeheeheeheeheehee

Zuma in perspective.

The crucial connection comes through an evolutionary phenomenon that began as our ancestors encountered inequality in wealth, power, and reproductive opportunities, and which disposes some men to behave in reckless, risky, and violent ways. You might call it "the problem with men," and though it's not something that manifests in all males, it is endemically masculine, and at its most extreme it can poison societies. But, much as we have dealt with obesity epidemics not by blaming obesity sufferers but by understanding the ways that evolved human physiology and psychology can create innate vulnerabilities, so too can a better understanding this evolutionary phenomenon help us to deter its damage.

(...)

Despite a few significant holdouts, polygamy continues to dwindle. There are still Jacob Zumas in the world who use "tradition" to shield their polygamist privilege, much as the mega-rich can usually be counted on to venerate wealth and promote inequality. But millennia of evolution ensure that polygyny and inequality will always stir violent competition and risky behavior among men and the oppression of women. Fortunately, our sense of fairness also has evolutionary roots, as does our ability to cooperate for the greater good. And those better angels of our nature will consign polygyny and entrenched inequality -- and men like Jacob Zuma -- to the wrong side of history.

Zuma's Wives: How Humans Evolved a Link Between Inequality and Misogyny

Hat tip to Gus Silber ‏@gussilber

Do not ...

... pick the flowers.

Ok

Information Aesthetics

I like that phrase, say it with me: Information Aesthetics. Not only data, but attractive data, visually at least. I think it's a kind of design holy grail, merging form and function seamlessly into something that anyone can understand.

Your common pie chart is an example of visually presenting information, anyone can do it, and thankfully, it still looks better than the spreadsheet. But of course we're talking about the lowest levels. On the higher levels of intelligent data visualisations, where you're being highly selective about colours and shapes and the associations people have, it stops being an infographic, and becomes .. almost a book, with stories to tell.

Enter Moritz Stefaner, who holds a B.Sc. in Cognitive Science and an M.A. in Interface Design. Right.

Notabilia:

Quote: "I came up with a tree visualization, where Article for Deletion discussion is represented by a thread starting at the bottom center. Each time a user recommends to keep, merge, or redirect the article a green segment leaning towards the left is added. Each time a user recommends to delete the article a red segment leaning towards the right is added. As the discussion progresses, the length of the segments as well as the angle slowly decay."

I have to point out this is example number 1, i did not select this topic:

But you get the idea, a thread runs along with users arguing for deleting or keeping as a Wiki page. Clearly "Unusual sex acts" was dropped, but the single thread shows perfectly how the discussion went, arguments from keep, to delete, to keep, but clearly bending towards deletion. 

Now this next graphic is what excited me, to quite a silly degree in fact.

Commissioned for Citibank *spit* the whole interactive bit is unfortunately not available, only screenshots. But my oh my, what an interesting story it tells. Who, how much, where to, and from, all with a single glance. 

I'm not going to talk about the content, but if only all information was this easy to grasp. 

http://moritz.stefaner.eu/

Global Popularity 2012

Hat Tip to Gilad Atzmon Via Moonofalabama Comments.

Every year the BBC holds a worldwide opinion poll on the how several countries are perceived around the world. Each country is ranked either "positively" or "negatively" in terms of influence, essentially how much do they matter, and is their contribution good or bad?

The loser is obviously Iran with an average negative rating of 55%, and a positive of 16%. Pakistan came an unsurprising second last place at 51%, and North Korea and Isreal tying for third place at 50% of most negatively influential countries. Telling stuff.

I noted that South Africa was not in the list of respondent countries, so i was very surprised on page 26 to find that opinions on South Africa had been solicited. The global average view of South Africa's influence in the world? 37% positive and 25% negative, various regions displaying varying degrees of bias, Russia providing the highest percentage for the survey with 67% of them saying they have no opinion on us. Japan also shares their disdain.

We're a lot less popular than we were a year ago, clearly all the bad press is getting out to the international press. Unsurprising but clearly not ideal. Nigeria thinks we're great, but they like Isreal too, i truly wonder how a Nigerian perceives countries? SA = $? Likewise then for Isreal? Why does Nigeria like Isreal? It doesn't make sense. Mexico decided last year to hate us, going from 48% to 24% positive, in 1 year. I know of nothing to cause that, i (naively) thought Mexico had bigger problems?

http://www.deliberation.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2012_bbc_country-rating-final-080512.pdf

Go read the full document, it's very enlightening, and while it doesn't address specifics of what has happened in the last year, it compares with the previous year's results, and seems to be a good reflection of how people see politics and world influence.

Perspective

You are here. There. With every single known organism that has ever existed. And the sum total of all our efforts to impact the universe. All the money, time, energy, everything. Just a little blue dot. The dot displayed here is 200 million light years across, and includes the probable radius of radiowaves emitted over the last hundred odd years. The outer ring of this dot is composed of the static ramblings of simple folk who had discovered a new toy. Slightly inside the outer ring, aliens will be introduced to the radio chatter of WW1, WW2, and everything else before they hear our SETI calls. 

I truly wonder if they'll bother to stick around long enough to reply??

A day in the life

So i tell people that when i'm riding along, my head is full of ... stuff. Music, thoughts, insights, commentaries and all sorts. And then i read THIS, and realised i really am not alone.

Following on from that article was another LINK, even better than the first.

So a few highlights:

Thought One: "I wonder how much those wing mirrors cost to replace?"

Thought Two: "Should I tear them off, punch them or just boot that mirror as I ride past?"

Through Three: "That meathead should really get new tires, driving around with them completely bald must be pretty dangerous."

Thought Four: "Oh look, he's getting out of his car. Do you think he realizes I'm wearing head-to-toe body armor and the carbon fiber equivalent of brass knuckles?"

Thought Five: "Man, car drivers are an angry people. They sure do shout into their phones a lot."

Thought Six: "It's not my fault you have to sit in traffic. In fact, by not contributing to congestion, I'm making your wait incrementally shorter. You should be thanking me."

Thought Seven: "If you like that phone so much, then why'd you make me take it from you and throw it over that barbwire fence?"

Thought Eight: "Are red lights and stop signs really that hard to see?

Thought Nine: "I wonder if there's a correspondence between road rage and Clear Channel listening?"

Thought Ten: "Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise."

Thought Eleven: [just making the sound a sheep makes inside your helmet]

Thought Twelve: "This would all be a lot easier if people just looked where they were going."

Thought Thirteen: "Good job, accelerating wildly like that netted you one place in traffic and cost you about $10 in gas."

Thought Fourteen: "You know, you don't have to sit in traffic either. Learning to ride isn't that hard."

Thought Fifteen: "Did your dad never teach you how to drive in the rain? Following that close is a really bad idea."

Thought Sixteen: "You realize that if I tear off your door/mirror/aerial/headlight/whatever, it's a matter for the insurance companies, but if you hit me, you're going to jail, right?"

Thought Seventeen: "Man, it's nice out today."

Thought Eighteen: "Let's see. 100 HP and 400 Lbs or 160 HP and 4,000 Lbs. Who's going to win this race?"

Thought Nineteen: "Wouldn't it be nice if cops wrote tickets for bad driving instead of just speeding? That way, the roads might actually be safe and stuff."

Thought Twenty: "Screw this, I'm outta here."

Tree in a bottle

Now i know what i'm doing soon!

Yay

SO my silence has been part quietness, but a bigger part blogger not letting me log in. So yay, somebody fixed something. I have had many experiences since i last posted here, and many thoughts and ideas ... and thankfully, many many moments of intense beauty.

Life has been abundant, and i am sated with good foods, good company, and travels and adventures too. Tomorrow is back to the daily grind, i may actually survive it for the next ... however long till holidays again :-D

I have many photos, and thanks to OneStonedCrow and others sharing their travels, i feel obliged to overload your bandwidth. My only disappointment is that i never get to use a camera anymore, 2 cameras and 3 kids ... well you see the problem :) Photography remains my passion, and i'm delighted to find children experimenting with light, although this "take a picture and look at it" still confounds me.

Ok, i can't upload a pic :/

Watch this space .....

peace and love and laughter and light

Laws and morals

“ I live by morals, I don’t live by laws,” he went on. “Laws are something made by assholes. ”

- George Hotz, Sony, and the Anonymous Hacker Wars