Bethany's bike / Ohbadiah

I wanted to post about this a while ago, since I finished it in early November, but that would have ruined the surprise for Bethany. I built this for her out of Ebay parts and things I had laying around. The best component find was the Miyata 710 frame (in her size, 48cm! wow) for $50 on Ebay. It came as a complete bike, but needed a new fork because of shipping damage, and most of the other parts were not worth keeping.

The drivetrain is 1/8", because that's just what I had on hand, 42Tx16T gearing, flip-flop rear hub. Not a racing miracle, but sturdy and lighter than my old aluminum road bike.

...

Nick wrote a thoughtful response to my post about placelessness among global elites. Talking about these kinds of topics, he presents himself in a much more human way than I do. He also has a picture of me picking apples and wearing goofy-looking cutoff pants. He asked me to post more regularly, though I don't think this entry is as content-ful as what he had in mind.

But here's a thought on that thought:

My problem with blogging is that I'm a slow percolator, and think about one issue for months before I have a coherent idea of something to say on it. My presented hypotheses often start with vague anxiety, unease, or a complaint, which I then feel compelled to internally deconstruct. By a quirk of personality, I subject all of my emotions to analysis that is almost scientific in its rigor (because I feel, ironically enough, that emotion must be validated, or even purified, by reason). This analysis must necessarily cast a very wide net. The ideas and arguments that end up being coherent enough to write something about are usually byproducts of the process, which are then slowly refined in conversation before I ever attempt to articulate them in a formal, organized way.

In other words, it's possible that I only have external insights because I find my own internal life unacceptable.

And...again

8/25, the hottest day of the year (finally getting around to it now)
Manual panorama mash-up rules: turning & cutting allowed; stretching, bending, retouching, & exposure matching not allowed

Burning the old life

We burned everything left over from Linshuang's 9 months in New York. Client presentations, business cards, plane tickets, hotel stationery, bank statements. This is our altar, a burnt offering of sorts that recognizes that the final offering has already been made, and that our peace comes only with substitution. It is liberating to destroy the artifacts of the past, while creating an artifact of liberation itself.

News

My online persona is for all intents and purposes dying... there's just no time to spare for the Interweb.

The above was taken last weekend while Rosetta was recording drum tracks for our next full length. All the other parts we're recording later in-house at Janedoll, but drums were engineered by Colin Marston from Dysrhythmia and Behold... The Arctopus, at his new-ish studio in Queens. This was our first ever recording to analog tape.

Project Mercury got a 9 out of 10 in Decibel Magazine! Ha. Splits are still cool. This is from the new issue with Neurosis on the cover.

I have been MIA because I just finished shooting/editing/web-porting a large documentary media project for one of the departments I work for at Penn. If you care, you can look at it here. It's not exactly high art, but my people skills have certainly improved.

Comfort / Space / Steadfastness

I keep returning to this place. I first came to it in person a little less than two years ago, to explore it with a 6x6 manual TLR camera as a metric proxy for my eyes, which were overwhelmed.



As much as half of my constructive output over the last two years has made use of this site. I have finally concluded that the reason is comfort. I was explaining to a friend recently that there are some things which, though they are simple, overlooked, or odd, are comforting and beautiful to us because they are steadfast. They remain. In the context of that conversation I somewhat facetiously referred to peanut butter as one such thing. Though everything fall apart, I will still enjoy peanut butter. This is reassuring.

These towers, though both hyperrational and ethereal, are comforting like peanut butter. Every night since I first moved to Philadelphia at age 8, to this day, I have been able to see their pulsating red lights from the window next to my bed. Thus, to me they represent steadfastness and transcendence in a way that can never be expressed in words, because the subjects themselves stand silent. Their idiom is the glow, the hum, the breeze, grass, metal, and radiation: a quiet spring of enormous power, a bridge between earth and sky. (Given my sentiments about media and information, it would be entirely appropriate and expected if I hated and feared them. Quite the opposite.) Ironically, though they are implements of broadcast, in my mind they do not impose or interject. They watch. Their vigil is not invasive, judgmental, or in any way reminiscent of Big Brother; rather it is patient, reliable, and benevolent --- as friends ought to be. As such, the towers stand as a tangible, monumental, omnivisible reminder of the unseen power which guides my steps and Remains, though everything else be ruined. Perhaps this is naive.

Nocturnal

Fog level ~800 ft. / Still air / Aesthetic refuge
Low-level 60Hz hum from 13,700V transformers

More to come

Same old

Finally found a way onto the rail bridge.

Consenting to be invented by the Other.

If you don't shop and you don't drink, there's nothing to do in New York City

Trigen revisited

IMPULSE GENERATION {
Current {
Turbines
Transformers
}
Comm {
Towers
Arrays
Dishes
}
}

TRANSMISSION {
Wires / ground
Signals / air
}

Thesis show starts TODAY

KILLING FIELDS OPENS TODAY

5pm-9:30pm, Cinemagic @ Penn
3925 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
(next to Philly Diner)
4/14-4/17

It will be open through Monday night -- the loop is about 25 minutes long, so it's not a major time committment to come and see it, but of course you can stay as long as you like.

I am so glad this thing is done. Now you just have to make all this work worthwhile by showing up and hanging out (I'll be on-site, gallery sitting, during all open hours).

DIY stop motion studio

No sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Please make my insomnia worthwhile and come to my thesis show this weekend.

A note about MACRoCk: apparently everyone in Rosetta is stupid, or else highly postmodern. None of us brought a camera on Saturday. Thus, no pictures from MACRoCk. If you were there and you have some, please send them to me, I would appreciate it greatly.

Context is everything

Nothing is ever just what it is. It's really unnerving to see retrospectively in one's own constructions the unintended expression of the subconscious. If that's in fact what it is. Who knows? Blah.

Thesis junk

Catalog page for the VS thesis exhibition

I've settled on a title, Killing Fields. Thanks to the people who gave thoughtful suggestions.

Onomatopoeic teetotaling doom metal ventriloquists say:

I may not drink, but I love the RUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Less digital

Polaroid type 557 emulsion transfer
4x5 view camera / colored strobes

{
Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia
Loscil - Stases (available entirely for free here)
Pulse Programming - Tulsa for One Second
Kayo Dot - Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue
new Rosetta recording for Balboa split disc

Thesis item #1

Finally, some video (from a thesis all-nighter):



Generally speaking, this project is about consumption of violent images and the "cue system" that image consumers use to determine what is "real" versus what is "fake." The images initially appear purely formal, then gradually activate more mental cues until it becomes clear that the situation is in fact real.

What you "see" here:
+ Stop-motion "progressive drawing" -- prototype for a series of eight faces, mostly famous dictators. I'm also using some purely abstract animation.
+ U.S. Military footage from inside a tank as it destroys a burning Iraqi vehicle
+ Chechen rebels beheading a Russian soldier

Towers

Yes... again. Doc project for Color II (light cycle). WCAU #2, late morning.

Poster

New tour poster (incomplete):



School is nuts. I'm nuts.

Done

^ What I've been working on... sort of. (video still)

I'm so done. So so so done. Time for xxxmas and some cleaning. One semester left in college, with drastic changes in store, then the unpleasant prospect of growing up.

Shirt designs

New Rosetta shirt design, silver ink on black fabric:


This will probably be modified into a zip-up sweatshirt shortly, with only images on the front and a larger body of text on the back.

I'm also starting a new series of five t-shirt designs, with one for each different star system from disc 2 of The Galilean Satellites: Deneb, Capella, Beta Aquilae, Ross 128, and Sol (the Sun). Each design will be limited to 36 shirts.

Playing:
Sunn0))) - Black 1
Balboa / Nitromegaprayer split
Ion Dissonance - Solace
Byla - s/t
Stars of the Lid - Per Aspera Ad Astra

Monochrome