Archive for the ‘ Sage Wisdom ’ Category
In the June issue of WIRED, Clive Thompson asserts that,
“Automatic-translation software has long been treated as a joke because of how hilariously it mangles phrases. But in the past few years, something has shifted: The technology is now surprisingly mature.”
Read the full article here.
Beautiful installation by Diane Cooper
“What they call talent is nothing but the capacity for doing continuous work in the right way.”
~Winslow Homer
Should educational materials be provided for free? There’s been a large movement over the past several years that says “yes!!”
Here’s a good background article from the New York Times.
Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many classes in the visual arts – at least not that I’ve seen. I hope that can change.
Access is key!
We were babysitting my 12 (soon to be 13) year old niece this weekend, and I couldn’t help but watch and wonder at her communication forms and habits. She was generally texting and on facebook at the same time, but she only used the telephone as a phone (a live voice transmittal device) twice: once to ask her babysitter for the week if there was more baloney, and once to let her friend know that she was leaving the house and would see her in about 5 minutes (said friend lives about 3 blks away).
Anyhow, it’s got me to thinking a lot about the way that we will communicate in the future – will any of our communication be technologically unassisted? Is a voice-conversation turning into a nostalgic event? (This is also something we’re exploring as part of the UPP) Anyway, here’s a quote from an interesting article in the NYT:
“But the children, teenagers and young adults who are passing through this cauldron of technological change will also have a lot in common. They’ll think nothing of sharing the minutiae of their lives online, staying connected to their friends at all times, buying virtual goods, and owning one über-device that does it all…”
Read the full article here.
You can really learn a lot reading facebook status updates. A few of my favorite quotes from some of our facebook friends (fbfs):
Dax Tran-Caffee “successfully traded a painting for poetry – creativity is the currency of the FUTURE”
Tif Bullard “life is full of flakes – some snow, some human.”
Joshua Esmanuel-David Slater “I wish I didn’t have to pay rent and medical bills and school tuition and other bills so I can shop all day. But then I would be living in my mama’s basement…I still look good so it all works out.” 
Lily Sage, on returning to the city of Chicago after being in the country for 3 months: “I just need to remember that nothing is living or dying on how other people feel about it.” AMEN.
“I try hard never to forget that art is essentially a game of signification, and that in our capacity as artists, we always endeavor to ask questions, to search, and to play.”
This time about the “indentured servitude” that student loans are piling onto Americans, and its effects on both the (idea of) middle class and the “American Dream.”
See a great article with multiple links here.
It’s my personal belief that student loans are creating an over-educated, under-employed/employable class of citizens in this country – particularly in the arts, but in other disciplines as well. The upside, I suppose, is that such conditions generally make fertile ground for true revolution.
Marlene Dumas famously wrote,
“lf a Prostitute is a person /
who makes it a profession/
to gratify the lust of various persons /
for economical reasons or gain, /
where emotional involvement may /
or may not be present— /
Then it seems not so far removed /
from my definition of an artist.”
