[editor’s note: Matt has really gone off the deep one on this.. ] 

Confronting and evil culture 

So it happens to me again.. I’m watching the G4 network.. they had Fight Club on.. I’m only half watching.. while I’m playing a round of command and conquer.. when what comes on but “Babe’s of the Internet.”

Umm..  what is this crap?

Ok, lets get this straight, right from the top.. I like hot women. Ok? I’m not gay or anything.. and blah blah blah.. and I don’t want to put myself forward as some kind of model for having “the sort of attitude men should have towards women.” But.. Jesus…

Ok.. #1. I can not stand a soulless “look how hot I am” kinda women. Like seriously… It’s really a kind of prostitution of female sexuality..  somehow transmogrified into a total absence of..  anything beyond “look how hot she is.” Or this “we are using sex to sell our product because we can’t sell it without the sex.” 

I’m sorry.. I like a REAL women.. A real women can be super hot.. she can have the big boobs, and everything else.. but that stuff is not a prerequisite! And you know.. soul goes a long long way… a mind and personality aint bad ether..

I’m sorry, but it just frustrates me….

cyber fun

Online.. on your MySpace’s and whatever else.. you’ll see these women whom.. you’re like “are they real?” I think of this like.. the relationship between youtube video and like.. traditional media aesthetics.. that the youtube video has the benefit of authenticity.. or it did before the goal of hocking stuff got in the way..  And that’s my reaction to these women whom you’re like “are you real?”

For one thing.. the chances of them being real.. is not really all that high.. If the photos look like studio photography.. that’s a big red flag, right? And all the rest of it..

The artificial babe 

But there can also be that whole.. “this is a women who’s in demand by the male half of the species” thing.. and I kinda feel like.. if that’s all a women has got going for her.. I’m just a little repulsed… I’ve really hated it since I was a little kid.. the absurdity of it all… as a young kid.. you’re generally not looking at women from a sexual stand point.. though perhaps you might have a crush or two.. but then you’ll see these women who’s way of relating to men is like “what kinda drugs is she on?” Do you know what I’m talking about?

I guess it’s just like.. who are you beneath the surface, you know? I generally can’t stomach shallow people… and frankly, I don’t think they think too much of me ether.. and I guess that’s really what all this comes down to.. So it wasn’t really the “Internet Babes” that I had the trouble with.. more the coverage of said internet babes.. which was just God awful… 

On the troubles of relating to the other sex / finding “the one.” 

Strangely.. I do find myself meeting a lot of really beautiful women… lol, most of whom are one way or another taken.. and I’m always very thankful when I find them to be smart with a lot of soul.

The trouble of picking up a women in a somewhat professional context 

[editor’s note: What Matt is really trying to talk about is the problem related to sending bad vibes to the innocent, so to speak… er, something like that] 

This is maybe a different topic.. but in social media circles.. there are now more women then ever.. Often one of the first things that’s a little problematic is the question of.. are you talking to them to hit on them.. I don’t know if I play this right.. like ever.. but generally I feel like.. in social media vill I have a lot of goals that are kinda really important to me.. and it really is all about forming relationships.. and so that’s what I try to do.. in a way that’s sorta.. doesn’t really care about hitting on.. or like.. any of that stuff.

The other thing I figure is.. for a woman to… really dig me.. like if I did want to get somewhere with said female.. the most attractive parts of me are on the inside.. and it’s like.. that’s kinda the route I need to take, ether way.. one where the conversation is able to render that transparent.

Its a little bit complicated.. but generally I feel like if you get to know who I am on the inside.. lol, minus the bad stuff… well somehow I think it’s a real powerful thing..

The “are you trying to hit on them,” one way or another, is a really difficult thing.. or it’s more broad then that.. its a question of vibes. On some level I don’t really feel like I have a lot of control over what vibes I give off.. frankly.. at least half of what sorta vibe you get from me has to do with who you are and where you’re coming from.. its mixing with where I’m coming from, and then we are both reacting to resultant vibe, which creates yet another nuance to the vibe.. even if it’s just some strange subtext that neither one of us is totally conscious of.

A lot of the time my reaction is to bend over backwards to not present a difficult vibe.. There was this one women.. I met a while back.. and she was like.. I’m sure she could have been one of them internet babes if she wanted to.. or a Playmate or whatever…  and my own reaction to her was so bad that.. I had to work really really really hard.. to not be so effected as to not be capable of carrying a conversation.. all of which got even worse when she found her self in a saucy flirty sorta mood..  

Matt’s romanto-er0t0 strateg0ry 

When it comes to trying to hit on a women.. it’s that underly reaction that I kind of rely on.. It’s like trying to communicate.. even if only on a subtext level.. or a not quite conscious level.. that reaction.. while at the same time trying to communicate something of the inner me…

Ok.. let see if I can nail this one: Underlying dynamics

What is love? What is it that we are all looking for, if we are really looking? That’s a deep and complex question… But I dare say that one answer is sorta on the archetypal level.. which is to say the ideal is something that comes out of instinct.. built into the fabric of our biology…  Thus the answer can be found in mythology…

We will say things like “our other half” and talk about “soul mates.” There’s a certain level that I’m skeptical of this sorta talk.. I believe that.. on the deepest levels of our humanity… we are, in a strange way, not really different people at all but one person. I believe that that which makes us feel like we are some how separate, at least on a few levels, is actually a construct.

It’s like this: “who are you?” We have lots of stories we tell our selves, and the people around us, about who we are, but is that who we REALLY are? Who we really are.. is actually a mystery to us.. We have a handful of intuitions on the subject.. but we don’t really know.

In the mystery of our own being… it’s tied up with the mystery of the universe.. so… basically.. the deepest of deep soul stuff.. that’s in us.. I tend to think can find it’s other half / soul mate in just about anyone.. the only thing that really blocks this is the way the person in question relates to there own mythology about who they think they are.. as well as there own mystery.. so that basically.. the issue is one of our ideas about the nature of reality obstructing our experience of reality.

So.. if I’m “Really looking” and.. and I look at a women.. and I’m knocking on her door.. asking “excuse me, but is my soul mate hanging out in there?”  …If I’m doing that.. particularly if I happen to spy her in there… well then there is a real danger that the women in question will fall head over heals in love with me.. that’s the seductive power of it… it’s not merely a materially based eroticism.. it’s an eroticism of the spiritual foundations of you’re being…  

A momentary digression into a problem 

Of course.. eventually you have to get down to who your personal mythology says you are.. because our identities are often somewhat static… and there’s the question of how we relate.. in who we’ve become in this life time… and there’s lots of other challenges around this stuff..

Another words, once we take the love potion.. there is the trouble of “waking up.”

And back to our story 

Before we get to the problem of waking up, there is the problem of jumping off the cliff… which is where the problem really lys. How often do you.. are you willing to.. make that jump? I’m not talking about getting married… not in the institutionalized sense here.. I’m talking in the.. ok.. we have recognized this thing that is an earthly manifestation of the divine.. and next comes the.. we’ve sorta called it into being.. but.. can we take the jump that brings it to full bloom, so to speak?

This is an incredibly difficult thing.. We are not talking about settling for second best here.. that’s actually pretty easy.. we are talking about a kind of total fulfillment of every romantic impulse you’ve ever had.. and actually believing such a thing is even possible! Usually… it’s the disbelief that gets us… that eventually we start telling mythologies that reinforce the disbelief… a kind of idolatry if you will.

The path through this is one of being able to embrace the mystery.. and one must make ones self worthy of the mystery.. so that the experience of life might be one of eternal revelations of the mystery. 

Latter:

There’s more to this subject then I’m going to be able to get to tonight.. I’m most over tired… so.. goodnight. 

If you’re into digital instruments, you’ve probably heard of Omnisphere… It’s a new software synthesizer put out by Spectralsonics… It came out this past September.. and it’s something a lot of people have been very excited about.. Because the music I make often has a very ambient quality to it.. and because Omnisphere is sorta like.. there older Atmosphere.. all be it on steroids.. and this being a truly wonderful instrument.. if you’re into making ambient music.. well, you can see why I’d be interested..

 Here’s a video to give you a better idea of what it’s like.

So far I’ve really only played with it for a couple of hours.. and I’ve watched all there instructional videos.. So.. I figure I have a pretty good overview of it.. enough to write a post on..  One that really won’t go beyond first impressions.

My current digital instrument library consists chiefly of Native Instruments Komplete… with Kore.. and then there’s Reason.. I say this because I think this is somehow coloring my perception. So far I’m sorta wandering around the application wondering what all the hype is about…. 

Basically.. out side of say Reaktor, I’d say this is probably the most powerful synth in my library now.. The modulation routing reminds me a bit of Massive, or even Reason’s Thor.. The envelopes are basically a take on Absynth.. taken some place else.. The patch browsing is like quite a bit like Kore.. I think I like Kore’s browsing better, but then I haven’t really adapted to Omniphere too much yet.. so maybe my feelings on that will change.

Programing sounds is a very modular sort of affair..  It sorta reminds you Kore in the sense that it’s as if you’re building a synth sound where in you could have multiple component synth sounds.. which is to say it’s sort of “super instrument esk”

 Omnisphere features a number of different synthesis types.. or should we say oscillator types..  which.. well they go deeper then an instrument like Thor.. there are places where I could see them going deeper.. 

I would say my over all feeling is that there’s a hell of a lot of marketing hype around Omnisphere.. and it’s not totally clear to me how it relates to it’s hype.. I think I’m going to have to take some time to really program sounds before I really get a feel for it… but… as critical as I sorta am of it, at this point, I could very easily see this becoming my favorite synth.. so..  We’ll just have to see… 

What I do really appreciate about it is some of the wild experimental approaches they’ve taken to develop of some there “psycho acoustic samples.”

Ok, well check out this video, right.. it’s like.. super “infomercial style” accept.. it’s like the coolest informercial I’ve ever seen.. I mean.. I mean it’s as if John Cage were a part of the informercial..

So.. I guess its sorta almost like.. on a philosophical level, that Omnisphere is so cool.. like a philosophy of sound design.. 

So I wanted to try and post some stuff on my Christmas experiences..  And today’s story will start out with on December 23rd….

I had sorta lost track of.. when Christmas was, it was creeping up on me, and in the last moment I discovered Christmas was only a couple days away.. so at the last minute I sorta put together the plans for a trip to Rhinebeck NY..

Walmart is Evil 

Now my investment in new cloths has been pretty close to nil for the last year or so.. so I’m a down to about two pairs of pants… or was.. and one of them had holes in them! I had spied cheap pants at Wallmart.. So I headed out there.. and it turns out that Wallmart was going insane at about this moment.. a total pain in the ass…  while I was there I thought I’d pick up a Guerrilla pod for my camera..  and I always kind of have to look at DVDs when I hit Wallmart…

If  you see this image full screen, you’ll note the frustration on that there shoppers face!

As near as we can tell.. this is a $5 movie rack, right?

Looks that way, ha?

Now do you notice Braveheart in the upper left there? I’d wanted to buy this film forever… but found it hard to substantiate paying much more then $5 for it on DVD.. I’m cheap that way, don’t cha know… So I was really excited to find it for $5!..  

So the lines were F’N long… who knows how much of my life was waisted there.. when I finally got to the end of it.. turned out the DVD… there was a sku problem…. So someone had to go check it.. so more waiting.. and everyone else in line has to wait.. cause Walmart can’t get it’s act together, right? Till finally they are taking other people in line.. while I wait.

I was in such a pissy frustrated mood by this point.. was in a rush anyway.. I’m not communicating to you why…. I can only say I wasn’t a happy camper

The women who did the price check.. comes back, and tells me it was $10…

Excuse me, that’s $10? Everything on that rack is $5, did you notice? I’m argue with her.. no she tells me.. that’s what they said.. So I’m ready to rip her fucking head off.. I’ve waited and waited and waited… cause they can’t get there fucking shit together… and now they’re going to tell me it was $10 fucking dollars? How many times has Walmart, in the past… fucked me this way.. cause they don’t put the prices on the DVD? People move things from one rack to another, and you don’t know how much the thing costs.. cause there systems sucks.. and I’m sorry, but I REFUSE to pay for something when its a product of this bullshit.

I know.. I know, why am I getting so pissed off about $5? I couldn’t really tell you now.. the moment has passed.. but I was pissed enough to go pick up my camera and kinda covertly pick document there bullshit.. and post it online…  A kind of “I’m madd as hell and I’m not taking it anymore” kind of feeling.. a.. at least I can participate in the.. rage against Walmart thing…

I’ve had conversations with marketers lately.. about the bad brand experience of Walmart.. shit like this would be an example.. a bad brand experience..

It’s also worth mentioning that the version of a Guerrilla Pod I picked up there.. turned out to be a worthless piece of shit..  

Ok.. deep breaths.. Ok, I’m going to be ok… everything is alright..

Ok.. so this brings us to.. why, perhaps, I got so upset.. that is.. the other stuff going on in my life that might lower my tolerance.. 

Getting Dad Ready for the NY Trip 

Dad has had some health issues lately.. and among other stuff.. is the realization of his declining health. It doesn’t help that my mom died about a year ago.. with all the implications of that.. but now dad’s dementia and alzheimer’s gets worse.. and along with related things.. I’m beginning to wonder how long till I pretty much have to put him in an assisted living situation.. Thus the following story…

Dad would seem to be suffering from incontinence..  so.. laundry must be done before we leave.. and how much of a mess he looked like on our trip to Rhinebeck for Thanksgiving.. 

Getting Dad to do stuff like this had turned rather difficult..  thus, keeping the house in order has fallen more and more on my shoulders.. (which I’m not coping with well) so I figured I needed to kind of monitor him.. to make sure nothing gets too messed up.. and to try and glean more insight into the where Dad is really at… 

Dad had forgotten his glasses.. and had trouble reading the dial… further more.. I discovered him forgetting to put in the soap.. 

All of this kind of thing was like a growing revelation for me…  

There was a lot I had hoped to get done this day.. get Dad to do the laundry, take him to the hospital for an x-ray, get his hair cut, my trip to Walmart, pick up his medication from cvs… make the plans to actually go to Rhinebeck.. get Dad packed, and I can tell you we got very little of that done.. and some of it not done the next day.. when we actually left.. which is why we didn’t leave for Rhinebeck till about 7 PM.

Meanwhile, Kitty watches the whole thing 

So yeah.. that was some of my get ready for Christmas fun

I’m in a dark mood.. err, I think it’s dark?

I’ve said before that I think giving the life story.. is.. in someway a part of the art, and the art object, and of the context via which we appreciate the art.. “lets look at the life of the artist.” So I guess that’s a lot of what this scribbling is all about..

And on the other hand.. The story I give you is a construction.. my construction of it.. and so in a sense.. it’s a lie… as is ALL of social media. For this reason, from time to time, I have suggested that what I’m giving you is an unreliable narration.. that it’s in someway like James Joyce.. that you somehow have to jump in and kinda of make heads or tales of it you’re self.. and I suppose.. It’s my job, on a pr level, to try and influence you to see in the direction I want you to see.

Ahh.. but then there’s the artist in me.. The artist want’s to call you’re attention to this construct, and its seams.. it perhaps wants to put up this construction and ask you to look at the construction as art its self.. that the pr is the art… the marketing is art.. In some ways, you could look at this as if I’m saying “well really all art is is a special kind of frame.” But.. if you explore the philosophy of my art, which I take to be at least as serious as the art its self.. I don’t even believe in frames.. or I do, but in a complicated way.. inside of which I think it’s a mistake to view the world inside of a system of fixed frames.. and I even think the point of social media is frame granularization… ( Think Picasso on steroids )

This idea, as it happens.. is central to my art and thought.. that the distinctions we make.. between one thing and another thing, one field and another field.. are all a matter of frames, and not a matter of reality… and if we are able to see this.. we are able to see how we could learn one set of things.. and in so doing, we know a whole lot of things, perhaps everything.. and this notion underlies my idea of calling myself a “media artist” in the sense that I’m working with sound, computer graphics, animation, photography.. and on and on and on.. that on some essential level.. it’s all the same thing.. and if I put my focus on that level… well….

So essentially I’m a kind of Greenberg anti christ…  

On the “What is Art” issue 

As someone who spent some time in art school.. I don’t fully fathom the difficulty people have relating to art.. In the sense that I sorta grew up in it.. and it’s, at least on some level, my world. I don’t really feel alienated from it.. at least not most of the time… and I don’t go around spending a lot of time worrying if that thing in the museum is “really art.” (Of course, at least historically speaking, the Boston MFA has been rather conservative.. and thus has sucked ass when it comes to modern art, but that’s sorta another subject.)

The art I make.. normally isn’t the sorta thing that would seem to be pushing traditional notions of what art is.. accept that I would have the balls to say.. pr or marketing could be art.. or that we could understand it as art.. thus making it something like a POP art 2.0… or something. On the other hand, I grew up a fan of Frank Zappa.. who is sometimes looked at inside of a kind of POP art lens.. (having something to do with the relationship of high and low brow art) and his whole project object shtick.. is basically saying the same thing.. accept perhaps that I’m transposing it into a social media context.

To kinda sorta conclude this theme 

So the subject of.. aesthetics, which is to say the philosophy of art.. and how I approach thinking about it in my own work.. is not an in anyway uncomplex thing.. and there’s no way I can really cover the whole of it in one blog post.. but it did occur to me that I probably haven’t even approach the subject yet in this blog.. so.. you know, it’s about time!

But what of that transfiguration of the common place?

This notion of the transfiguration of the common place.. well, among other things it’s a book my Arthur Danto… which wrestled with the problem of what is art.. from a serious philosophical stand point. I never really liked where he came out.. which was an “institutional theory.” To me… this was a bit like saying might makes right, when it comes to defining what is art. And you can just imagine me, being so anarchistic to not even believe in frames, at least not in a conventional way… would have trouble with that kind of power asymmetry!

But I love his tittle.. in part because it calls to mind Duchamp and Warhol… folks who really challenged our notions of what was art was.. in.. well they were land mark figures along these lines… and because.. my relationship to frames, is mirrored in it..

Now.. it’s not that I don’t believe in frames, or the truth of frames, or even the truth of constructs! Hell.. I’m not willing to go with you on your little “art is a lie” ride.. or “art is a lie that helps to show what the truth is” ride.. What I more or less believe is that the conscious mind is a construct.. which is to say anything that ever dawns on you, more or less.. and that the unconscious mind is a construct for that matter to.. but what constructs it we might say is more “an organic process of nature” or something like that.. Or perhaps we could try to argue that it is less a product of conscious will then the conscious mind..

As I write these words out.. I become all too aware of the limitations of definitions.. aka frames.. never mind that Freud and Jung would differ on these t0… which are the meanings that I’m sort of coming from.. all be it revised by yours truly..

As I see it.. much of this comes down to problems with definitions of what constitutes knowledge.. knowing something.. I’m in the Jungian camp in so far as I will talk about “psychological truth” which is to say.. when we say “its only in your head,” for me, doesn’t make it less real then something we might call “objective truth.” For me inner and outer “truth” are both just as real.. and that a problem with our modern situation is that we do not appreciate subject truth enough.. 

Basically, I see all experience as mythology… lol, and of course by mythology I don’t mean a lie.

For me.. it all comes down to God.. so perhaps Nietzsche gave birth to tragedy, and its my job to go kill it! ( a somewhat arrogant aesthetics joke ) Or what I really mean is that Nietzsche took us from a world where religion was the basis of all values.. and took us away from that.. and I’m bringing it to God.

And, just who is God? Or perhaps.. who is my God? God, boys and girls, is a symbol of the mystery that supports the universe.. which is to say.. the ratio of the known universe, to the unknown universe, is about 1 to infinity.. if meaning comes from context.. and the ultimate context is such a mystery…  ahh.. so God is like a personification of this mystery…  

I did mention I was a mystic prophet philosopher artist, right?

Yeah.. lol, so anyway… this whole thing I’ve been blogging about is like… way to complex to fully explore in one blog post.. In any event.. now you should get my meaning.. of all experience as a mythology.. at least a little clearer.

So.. back to the Transfiguration of the Common Place..

So Dushamp, you no doubt remember, came from dada.. which is sorta the basement of the house of surrealism… and as it turns out.. Freud’s pyschoanalysis plays no small roll in data-ist / surrealist theory…  Dada and surrealism were a kind of art exploration of the unconscious…

Freud’s technique was to let you sit on his couch and gab you’re head off… and via this frame he would peer into your unconscious mind.. for me.. my gabbing my head off is my life stream.. and its via this frame that I’m attempting to transfigure the common place… which I suppose is a little like saying that Dada exists in an un-explicit way.. in the common place… err.. in conventional art.. 

Next day sometime 

The process of writing this entry has me thinking I should try and write more serious entries… to try and articulate where I’m really coming from.. on the more deep levels. I realize, as an artist, I’m really coming from a rather radicle direction.. and seeing as I don’t have a lot of art critics trying to make sense of it.. the burden falls to me.

But um.. I think I’ll leave this post here… 

Wrestling with the darkness of your own soul, or the darkness of the universe, life, whatever… or that monster that goes by the name God.. ….yeah, don’t be fooled by that new testament happy stuff! God still indulges in those bets, like did with that poor Job fellow.. 

Not that I’m as righteous as Job mind you.. 

Err… ok, yeah.. so a dark mood.. err.. not really as dark a mood as all that… but.. a sense that.. the future might… well we don’t really know yet, do we?

In any event.. I went to see Frost/Nixon today.. and I dug it.. I left it with the feeling that.. Nixon’s a guy I’d probably really love.. if I knew him on a personal level. In any event, at one point in my life.. going to the movies was like going to church.. and I wonder if tonight had been such a night.. if that thought that burned in me.. was the answer to prayers, answers to question… I don’t know.. maybe it’s only a momentary thing.. and one wonders.. about this world.. if evil will win, is winning, if you can do things the right way.. etc..  can you trust in God, or in doing the right thing, or anything.. I mean.. what is the right way to live?

Cue music video

You see my fine readers, if you do not have the will to sustain the wish.. it drifts down into that dark labyrinth.. and you don’t get those golden seeds back less you’re feeling up for a little minator tango.. 

Anyway, as near as I can tell.. God want’s me to go hang out in a volcano some place and toast marshmallows…

If my way of speaking is to cryptic.. which it might very well be, I don’t know.. I think perhaps Eminem sorta got at it once upon a time:

I don’t know if what I’m trying to talk about.. really.. is even.. I don’t know if it will make any sense.. or if I can communicate it… so maybe we just gotta chock this one up to.. I don’t know.. a swing at it.

That fire.. you go down into it and you can forge some serious shit. At times its an overwhelming feeling.. like.. can a human being even live that way.. I think Jung spoke of the dangers of said volcano.. but is said marshmallow toasting my vocation, or what?

I just feel a need to let out a cream.. in the cyber space forest.. howl at the moon.. and then give in to the commitments of deeper spirits.. or the subduction of those commitments.. or to those commitments.

This journey of my life.. the preamble to this moment.. you try and read it like the I Ching or something..

But in the theater.. the suggestion to burn.. just burn.. trust in the fire.. like Moses or something.. that this is some pattern built into humanity… that..

Well… meaning comes from context, right? Kinda sorta? So what’s the context of your understanding of self? It’s not the ultimate context, is it? The fire is like.. some vortex beyond space time.. and it has the power to recontextualize.. and so in that way it is like the philosopher’s stone, able to turn lead to gold.. in terms of.. the impact of experience’s relationship to nurture…

Err..  Is an experience good or bad, does it save you or damage you? And what of our damage.. the damage that we carry around with us.. from past moments in our lives that has left us, in one way or another, handy capped? Isn’t this sorta.. how we understand the human today? In so many ways? I’m not in anyway arguing with the truth of it.. but.. once upon a time the human condition was a hell of a lot more difficult then it is today, and how the hell did we ever evolve, or progress, to this point?

I mean think about it.. if damage is like karma.. where the abused becomes the abuser.. and on and on it goes through generations.. till China does what it does to Tibet.. and the Dali Lama tries to put an end to that karmic cycle.. in his reaction to the Chinese…

See, we are all more then what we understand our selves to be.. we are, really, more mystery then known entity, no matter how good we are at autobiographical self hypnosis.

Cluttered around my existence are the effects of the fire in my life.. sitting around like evidence of the existence of God.. little signs of a truth disguised under the mask of myth.. and when they all line up together.. self configuring, they tell a story.. they speak.. and cast a light… into the darkness.. of my own consciousness.. or perhaps unconsciousness..

So, what of these totems? They beacon me onward, send a shiver up my spine.. with a feeling like.. they are telling me something about the future that I can not know by conscious means..

There really are so many strange things afoot in my life.. Things suggesting things.. and the really freaky crazy thing is that often it seems that the people around me see it more then I do!

What I’m trying to talk about, in this strange post.. well I guess I’m growing too tired to finish the post but.. I hope you can kind of dig it.. like don’t just understand this as something particular to my suffering or struggle… see if, within it, you can’t find your own struggles..

And so.. I guess I’ll leave you with that thought.

You have any thoughts to leave me with? 

My father and I ended up… 2 hours away from our house, and 1 hour away from our destination.. as I was discovering.. a feeling like.. the car was coming out from underneath me. Was it just the wind? We had no cell phone so we were just stuck out there.. at around 10 PM… christmas eve.. more on this story coming soon…  including, with any luck video.. and.. well, the story is still unfolding as we speak.. or as a type.. 

Perhaps its worth mentioning as well.. that many things are being disrupted in the life of Matt, and with we shall find shifting plans.. so some talk of that is sure to come soon as well.. and I should say that this isn’t a happy story ether.. 

But for now I must be dad-a-lee-skit-ing on over to the library to return some about to be over due DVDs before they close, see if I can’t catch Frost V Nixon.. and who knows what from there….

In any event.. hope all who’s reading.. should be reading this around this time.. is having a happy holiday…  

I don’t know if I’ll actually post this or not, we’ll see, but I’m suddenly possessed by the desire to talk sex. I was just at my computer, playing a computer game, when the TV went to a paid infomercial for a product designed to make a guys penis larger.  Being consumed with the game.. I was forced to listen to this crap.. and felt the need to say something.

So lets start.. does size matter?

LOL, sure, why not.. I mean.. if you think about it the right way.. everything matters, so why shouldn’t size? I mean.. we’ve all heard that size doesn’t matter enough to know that it must… But you know.. if you seriously fall for someone, does it matter? I like breasts… but if I’m in love with a women.. it doesn’t really matter… and frankly.. it doesn’t really matter for crushes, or any of that..

So it just strikes me as incredibly shallow stuff..  

I’ll tell you what is important to me.. it’s who you are as a person.. love is important to me.. its the humanity of a thing. I mean a women can be crazy hot.. and sure.. I’m effected.. but if it turns out that I don’t like who she is on the inside.. she really just becomes ugly to me.

Now if we want to just totally objectify women.. or if we are just to focus on sex in a kind of…  well causal sex sorta way.. to me.. who the person is on the inside still matters.. though perhaps not in the same way.. and general hotness has a different kind of value..

But.. and this is important… what turns me on the most? It’s kind of psychological… or.. it’s like a sexual kind of charge.. I like.. a little dyonesian.. a wild impulse..  an impulse that over takes reason and rules.. and thus.. is potentially destructive.. I like Nietzsche’s suggestion on matter.. that we should seek out “our most dangerous play thing” which I suppose is why a woman’s humanity is important to me sexually.. 

I don’t want to say this in such a way as to suggest that.. my animal impulses are some how elevated… only that there is an ecology of factors..  and its a mistake, in my opinion, to try to reduce it all down to one thing.. on the other hand, I’m pro freedom enough to say that.. if that is you’re thing, that’s cool..  I mean.. I don’t mean to call you shallow for it.. you may very well not be.. but the general idea strikes me that way.

I’m really.. on my deepest levels.. a kind of romantic I think.. Love as a physical manifestation of the divine.. which may sound a little crazy and unrealistic.. but I don’t think it is without its truth…. and a very deep truth at that. The seed of it in my soul.. I have a kind of sacred relationship to.. even if, up till this point.. it seems like my love life has not always been the best exemplar of this sort of idea.. but to really get into that.. might be taking this whole social media transparency stuff further then it needs to go..  lol..

But its those dreams of the heart.. that I feel like.. well like that’s the sorta stuff to try and make manifest in my life.. romanic or other wise, even if it sometimes seems a little…

How about we end this post with a very special kind of spiritual love song..  

Can you dig it?

(err, guess the talk never got as frank as I was expecting to get) 

Yeah… lol, so what do you think? 

Long time readers will no doubt know that.. I have some interest in photography.. I bought my first DSLR, the Cannon 40D, this past summer.. sorta early summer. I had wanted to take up photography since I was a little kid.. but never got the chance till now.. not only this but I’ve taken very few pictures in my life.. so.. going digital here.. means I get to really knock myself out.

I’m still kind of blown away by my Cannon 40D.. The 40D is considered a “mid range” pro type camera.. If you’re a serious “arms race” style photographer.. meaning you need to have more or less the latest and the greatest.. or you’re serious enough.. and in it enough that.. spending a lot of money on photography gear makes sense to you.. the 40D would be considered a respectable “secondary” camera..

For me.. the 40D is just about right.. and I have no complaints. From what I’ve seen the camera’s that are little lower end.. they just feel like they’re missing certain things or.. they seem to all present some sort of hassle that get in the way of your photography stuff.. like “what do you mean there’s no dial for controlling aperture?” the cameras that are higher end.. well there’s a number of them I wish I could own.. but.. considering how much money I’ve spent on different sorts of media arts gear in the past year.. and everything else.. never mind what I see on the horizon, I find them hard to justify.

My lenses are not the uber grooviest.. and you’re supposed to spend more money on you’re lenses then you’re camera.. so sometime in the future I’m sure I’ll upgrade those.. and maybe consider a flash.. or a nice tripod, or a better case, etc..

Where I’m at photography wise

Like I said, I’ve been shooting for less then a year.. I’m serious about my photography when I shoot.. but I don’t think I really shoot enough to consider myself super serious.. or there’s just other stuff going on in my life right now.. and so I have a hell of a lot of growing to do.. and a lot to learn.. but I am learning.

Today’s Photography Fun 

The photos I want to share with you today are mostly my first night photography pictures.. this is where you put you’re camera on a tripod and keep the shutter open for a while.. in order to shoot in dark.. This is also my first time shooting with a tripod.. The tripod I’m using is probably an antique.. it’s my dad’s.. who’s.. what, in his 80s these days? He was big into photography when he was in college.. but hasn’t done much since I’ve been alive anyway..

That steak would be the lights from a plow in the background there… his head lights lit up the street area there…

These night shots are actually taken from my second night out.. the first night pictures were lost by the evil Aperture.. which would be the software I use as my digital darkroom, so to speak. 

What you’re seeing in the above shot.. as well as the next shot.. is my car stuck at the bottom of the drive way.. couldn’t get it up the drive way, or out of the drive way the next day (running late for a tweet up I realized if I had to shovel my way out, I’d likely get there after everyone had left).

I had gone out to get some food.. and do a little grocery shopping.. which was nuts, given the weather.. The roads were so bad I was afraid to stop at any of the fast food places less I get stuck in there parking lots.. I did, however, manage to make it in and out of the Walmart Parking lot with out too much trouble..

Just to give you an idea how crazy it was… check out my visibility in this shot!

 Ice kept forming on my windshield whippers rendering the whippers largely useless..

When I got home.. I actually had to shovel part of the drive way just to get the care off the road..  

What follows is some shots from around the neighborhood the previous couple nights..  

I live in a very hilly area, on a dead end street no less.. This would more or less be the view you’d have driving to my house.. just before you actually got there… 

 Much less snow going on there then.. say, here:

 Those, of course, would be the trees that I and the other kids in the neighborhood liked to play in best.. much to my parents dismay… lol.. I used to have a rope on it so I would swig out in front of cars as they drove by.. lol, can you even imagine?

This might be a good time to show you the house I’ve lived in all my life… minus the college-ish years?

 My studio.. where I make the music would be the room where we see the air conditioner..  above which you may notice a slightly.. ganging too low gutter? Yeah… well it bent / feel down under the weight of the next days snow fall.

Now.. you see where that light poll is? Here’s a view of it from the drive way:

 And of course if we just rotate a little to our left, we get this point of view….

 Of course that’s before the car was stuck, right? 

The last picture I want to share with you is one taken from.. well the street.. just about where I used to swing out above on coming traffic from those trees…

I think all these pictures look a lot better more full sized.. which of course you can find on my flicker…. speaking of which, if you’d like to check out / follow my photography fun.. why not check out my flicker? …and feel free to friend me up, should you like.

To conclude…..

After I took these pictures.. I spent sometime looking through my Flickr feed to find that I really didn’t have too much up.. which means I gotta start posting more pictures! I also went through my Aperture library.. all the photos I’ve taken since I got the camera.. and discovered that there’s quite a lot of photos in there that I really like.. so..  I’m really going to have to start sharing more! ….and then the final thing I realized is..  I need to take more pictures!!!

So what do you think, is my photography coming along well?  Hope you liked it.

A little earlier tonight I sat through a number of motion graphics examples.. I was expecting to get a lot of eye candy wow-ness.. and while I got a bit of that.. I was left with a feeling of.. being utterly unimpressed with much of what I saw, which probably relates to the problems and issues I’ve been talking about, in my last 2 posts, on the subject of digital story telling. That said.. I did come away rather inspired.

I feel like.. as far as creative possibilities are concerned, the medium of 3D and motion graphics.. is powerful as all hell… The trouble, at least as near as I can tell.. is nobody is really doing it right..  Wow, what an arrogant statement.. well forgive me.. if you’re one of the folks doing it right.. I know.. it’s a little bit of an over statement.

But.. I’m also talking as a fine artist.. I’m also talking about the potential of the medium.. at least as I see it.. and anyway, I wanted to start to talk about some of what has me inspired.. talk about what I’m dreaming in this moment.. that kinda thing.

Dreams

The cost of the dreams 

It strikes me that anything is possible. In this simple statement.. in this feeling that anything is possible.. in there.. the god’s sing.. the music of the spheres.. just waiting for an artist to hear.. and there tail to be retold. Can you hear it?

When we talk about film making.. when the conversation turns to special effects, 3D graphics, motion graphics.. we often talk about how expensive it is. That expense would, at least in large measure, seem to be an effect of what the designers in this area are able to command salary wise.. even with a lot of work being outsourced to India.

Of all the art forms I’m interested in, there is no doubt that 3D and motion graphics is the most expensive areas. Cinema 4D, which I’m using.. retails for between $3 and $4K… After Effects is now going for around $1K, Final Cut Studio is around $1.3K, last I checked.. and there are many other tools.. plus one needs a super fast and powerful computer.. and having many computers to form a render farm.. is a nice idea..  If one is shooting video as a part of it.. pro cameras are several grand.. lighting rigs probably start at around a grand.. MoCap is more then I even want to start thinking about.. the gear to pull keys is more money… 

So just to get the tools to start learning the stuff is like.. prohibitively expensive..  or at the very least, investing in them takes a major commitment.. and then you’ll be faced with a ridiculously steep learning curve! So all of this “might” have something to do with why it’s as expensive as it is…

But lets just say you’re crazy like Matt.. and you’re like “screw it, I’ll invest in it cause I have a big dream,” now the economics are a little different. Now the economics are.. well once you’ve bought the equipment, the only real expense is the time you have to put into the work.. and arguably the regular expense of upgrades.

Of course Matt is even madder then all that! Cause I mean.. I’m also doing the sound studio stuff! The web design stuff? Yeah.. I have issues!

Ok, so implications of these here economics

So.. much like the lizard king, you can do anything..

A bit latter:

Anything seems like a worthwhile topic for meditation.. though anything might not be real. The topic of technical limitations comes to mind… limitations of skills.. as well as limitations of time… and there are still some limitations to my studio… but.. there is still, given all that, many vectors of limitlessness… 

There are lots of little ideas.. many of which have been formed over the course of.. well many years really. I have all sorts of “strategic communications” ideas… relative to the question of how to relate to the market place.. well, lets explore these..

A few days latter:

Little ideas

I think what I really want to do is create “audio visual experiences.” I put it this way because putting it any other way seem to have a certain amount of bagged to it.. it suggests certain things… that “audio visual experience” does not. 

I, of course, am a sound artist.. I kind of think being a sound artist is a huge advantage for a digital film maker.. type.. because you’re able to think holistically.. sound could be central, visual aesthetics could be central, the “art-ness” could be central, dialog could be central, a plot could be central.. and what is central, at any given moment, could shift.. and you really only have the ability to work this way if you are fluent in all these parts..

So audio wise I want to create an experience. There’s a lot of ideas I have that are unlike anything I’ve ever heard before, as a part of some sort of film.. so all these things must be explored.. along with.. just creating an amazing sonic experience.

3D

The impression I’m getting about 3D is that It’s really more about design then production. Every element.. it pays to do research for.. and its all about paying a serious amount of attention to detail.. and it might even be that I can get great results.. nearly coming out of the gate.. if I’m willing to put in the work on the research and design front.. along with a little exploration here and there…

Planning

It’s all about planning! My way of thinking about it is.. you start out with an idea and you develop the hell out of it… work everything out.. from how the sound might work, to how the plot works, the story…. all this stuff, and really refine it.. take it to an extreme.. but then, at that point.. well at a certain point.. be willing to just improvise and explore.. 

 Day latter:

 I’m thinking I need to just post this so I can go on to the next post.. I’m thinking this should be called memoirs of a meditation on digital story telling.. for the simple reason that it seems more like a record of a meditation then anything… 

I’m in this strange mode of meditations on digital story telling… I am driving into this arena after all…

I’m a strange bird, for this there can be no doubt, and so it is that when I approach anything, seems to not matter what, I can’t seem to escape a certain contrarianism.. This is apparently my little cross to bare.. as it seems to have been an issue for me, at least.. since the age of 3… So it’s hard not to think “well, I guess this was God’s idea of a joke on the world” or at the very least it’s sorta a “vocational” thing, maybe.. You ever feel this way? Well… lets explore this as it pertains to story telling.

I have this strange belief that we are all in a constant process of having these little unconscious conversations with each other.. or that there is constant unconscious communication going on.. If you don’t quite believe me.. try taking LSD sometime.. err, I better explain that one, ha?

LSD has a way of giving everything a luminous, numinous, glow. As near as I can gather, from my limited knowledge of neuroscience, psychedelics like LSD essentially create a kind of state of “brain damage,” inside of which the.. lets call it cognitive process.. of attributing causation to stuff..  produces a kind of meta consciousness experience. This, of course, would seem to expose certain structural elements of the psyche to the conscious mind.. so that we have a kind of waking dream experience.. inside of which we can explore our subjective relationship to empirical reality. LOL, boy, doesn’t that sound technical?

Reality.. well it’s something we “experience.” In philosophy and science we often try to understand reality in a way that is like a god’s eye view.. it is a way of looking that is in search of objectivity.. of verifiability.. a way of looking that would seem to be emancipated from human experience.. at least in it’s goals.. The troubles with this are many fold.. not the least of which is that we never experience reality without our “experience” of it. Inside this experience.. is our own “subjective” view point. Here in lys the value of some understanding of psychology in.. well life. 

One idea I developed once upon the time was an idea I called “the order of revelation.” The idea is.. in a world of infinite facts.. infinite ways one could come to understand something.. we only experience a limited portion of that totality.. and the “order of revelation” has to do with the order in which this stuff dawns on the conscious mind. The “order” determines “the shape” of our understanding. The order of revelation is thus the expression of the subjective on our experience of objective reality.

What shapes this order of relations is a complex of factors.. we can influence the order by means of prayer, ritual, and “magick.” Archtypes, as we learn from Jungian psychology, are what makes up the structure of consciousness and the psyche… and so the meta consciousness experience of psychedelics.. the numinous nature of them.. is about this.. and thus the connection to the order of revelation.. and the reason why so many people associate psychedelics with notions of enlightenment.

Ok.. enough of this craziness, how does this relate to the subject of digital story telling?

As I was saying before.. there is this thing I’m terming “unconscious communication.” In my last post.. (which as of this writing I haven’t posted) I spoke of the notion of “ambient story telling” which.. essentially points to this concept. We could look at this simply on the level of “what are the unconscious cues” we get as we go about.. life, from our experience of… whatever. When we get “a feeling in our gut” or.. have a feeling about something that we are unable to quite articulate.. simply have a feeling about something.. or… perhaps an intuition.. this is what we are reacting to.

The lie detector test.. which measures biometrics in relationship to questions, is a means of detecting certain types of unconscious communications… The conscious mind is giving you one story, while the biometrics is giving you another. And so it is that the world of “non verbal communication” is an incredibly nuanced world. There are simple things about.. how you’re talking.. word choices, spaces between words.. tempo of words, pitch of words, varying amplitude and volume between words.. words, phrases, sentences.. the body language as this happens.. where the eyes move.. all sorts of little, itty bitty things… are expressing stuff.

Inside of this expression, interestingly enough.. we find the imprint, on everything, of the shape of that there order of revelation…

So, before.. in that last post.. talking about a painter versus design approach to media arts.. in talking about communications versus expression.. perhaps art versus design.. all of this kind of thing.. is about this sorta thing.

So.. that 3D graphics.. and motion graphics, is largely dominated by the design process.. as a pose to a painters process.. that what we are seeing is so much about conscious design.. means that the story telling of medium are more limited to the surface then.. might be.. ideal.

Next day sometime:

Hmm, perhaps I should post this.. and skip on to the next entry on this subject.

Few days latter:

Ok, I’m really going to post this