Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Week Seven

Mass Resignation of High Level Bankers

According to this list, there have been 81 resignations of major bankers/political figures since November 7th, 2011. More precisely, there have been 75 resignations since February 15th, 2012. This is, as of today, an average of 6.25 resignations a day.

Please notice we're not talking about small and random bankers here. We are talking about high influential figures, such as the head of the World Bank, the Romanian PM, Haiti PM, Pakistan PM, German President, and MANY CEOs of major banks. We also know that Goldman Sachs' CEO will resign somewhere this summer.

And I’m also wondering whether these mass arrests and chief executive resignations are linked to a speech that Lord James of Blackheath delivered to a practically empty House of Lords a few days ago, in which he revealed his suspicions, backed by a convincing paper trail, of  a huge fraud to the tune of  $15 trillion dollars possibly involving “a major American department agency …gone rogue and … seeking to get at least 50 billion Euros as a payoff.”




Hopefully this will cleanse the greed and help restore some stability to the financial structure of the entire world. I have to speculate that these bankers are being told to resign by someone even higher than they are, or they are trying to get out while they can, before the entire system collapses. Maybe they all know something we don't?






More Street Art



I decided to highlight another article on street art, I found a lot of stuff I have never seen on Street Art Utopia, and thought it would be nice to share it here. "In an anti-establishment movement that’s taking the art world by storm, 6 of the world’s most famous Street Artists whose work is intricately connected to the urban environment were commissioned to paint the iconic river façade of Tate Modern exterior walls with 45 foot (15 meter) high towering artworks for the first major public museum display of Street Art in London." - taken from Lifeinthefastlane.com. I could talk about specific work in the link, but you just have to see it for yourself. 








Art for this week



Since I haven't been able to attend class for the last few meetings, and since I was unable to attend the field trip, I will share this happy little painting I did a few days ago. I rediscovered the old "The Joy of Painting" show and had pretty much all of the materials I needed to attempt it, except I used Acrylics instead of oil (which proved difficult because they dry very quickly). It turned out pretty nice, I will be doing a lot more in the future once I get some oils to work with, the paintings will be a lot softer then.










Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Week Six

Spectrum Crunch


The problem, known as the "spectrum crunch" threatens to increase the number of dropped calls, slow down data speeds and raise prices. It will also whittle down the nation's number of wireless carriers and create a deeper financial divide between those companies that have capacity and those that don't.
 Wireless spectrum is the invisible infrastructure over which all wireless transmissions travel  is a finite resource. When, exactly, we'll hit the wall is the subject of intense debate, but almost everyone in the industry agrees that a crunch is coming. The U.S. still has a slight spectrum surplus. But at the current growth rate, the surplus turns into a deficit as early as next year, according to the Federal Communications Commission's estimates.
"Network traffic is increasing," says an official at the FCC's wireless bureau. "[Carriers] can manage it for the next couple years, but demand is inevitably going to exceed the available spectrum."
By starving the successful operators of the oxygen they need--spectrum--the government is creating conditions that force a company to provide inadequate service. Everyone agrees that this is an imminent problem: The most successful operators will run out of spectrum by 2015. When that happens, the reduced download speeds and connection reliability will push customers to leave in frustration and switch to other providers. I don't use a smart phone, I mean they are appealing, but if I start dropping calls on my phone that doesn't use hardly any spectrum and the guy sitting there with his Ipad is watching a movie over it, I might be a little pissed.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Week Five

Birgit Kratzheller




Within the context of city and landscape, Birgit Kratzheller occupies herself with various kinds of spaces. Designs for squares and installations in agricultural areas alternate in her work and open a wide spectrum, interiors are confronted with processes of vegetative growth.
This piece to the left is called "Pataters" (appropriately) and the whole point of this work was to bring forth the history of potato growing in the region. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the land in the so-called "Wet Triangle" between the Elbe and Weser rivers was drained. During the first decade of the 20th century the farmers in this region started breeding and growing potatoes. Between Hamburg and Bremerhaven twenty-seven train stations were built to support the potato farmers. Adjacent to these stations a special type of agricultural building was created. Inside these buildings young seed potatoes were germinated. From harvest up to the start of the next planting-season they were stored in special wooden boxes to provide the best conditions of air, warmth and light. The "Stader-Kartoffel-Vorkeimhaus" building near the city of Stade was typical of the region. This is where Pataters was installed.The installation was viewed first by going through the "Dark Room" which was dedicated to the past, then the "Light Room" which represented the present. This is just an example of her work since I was unable to dig up much from her past.



Judge Napolitano Fired for this?

It seems the internet is up in arms over the Judge being "fired", but according to some people its just a coincidence. A rumor has been circulating that Judge Napolitano has been fired from his job at Fox Business, following this rant against the two party system and the main stream media, or even his rant saying Israel manipulates the United States to exploit our Military power, putting our soldiers into foreign wars for the benefit of Israel.

I don't watch Cnn, Fox, or any mainstream news, but I do occasionally come across a segment from Judge Napolitano, and I truly believe he is trying to report the truth through a corrupt news system that plays on fear and emotion that simply lies to us all. I would like to believe that he was fired for these segments he did, but I don't think it is accurate to say that. Apparently the whole lineup of shows around his were cancelled as well, due to their poor ratings and viewer numbers, I think he knew it was going to be cancelled, and seized the moment to put out two very strong segments. The first showing the fake and corrupt political system in the United States, the second showing the manipulation by Israel to drag us into foreign wars.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Week Four

Artwork

Tiny Crab makes awesome art



Instead of focusing on one of the artists this week, or on a specific piece of art by an actual human being... I wanted to present this. Its a Sand Bubbler crab, and basically, they unintentionally make artwork. Its hard to explain, so here is an explanation taken from the article. "During low tide, the diminutive species, averaging less than a half-inch across, exit their burrows to scour the sand for tiny bits of organic debris in a radial motion. While eating, the crabs ball the excess sand on their heads, then discard it when it gets too big for them to see over -- leaving behind a remarkable-looking reminder which helps them keep from searching for food in the same sand twice."
The remnants of this eating activity are radial patterns that expand outward from where the crab began to eat. I find it quite amazing that the most basic, primal instinct from such a tiny creature can leave behind these amazing patterns. The question that comes to my mind is: If these are unintentional patterns, can they be considered art? If I was eating a hamburger, and just threw the wrapper on the ground, is that art? Hopefully by the end of this class I can answer those questions with confidence, because at this moment in time, I see it as a form of art.

Here is a video of the crab in action:





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Ingrid Koivukangas - Environmental Artist


"Working in the land, responding to sites around the world - integrating new media & new technology - creating permanent public works,
site specific installation, intervention, ephemeral sculpture,
video, sound, web, permanent site specific sculpture, photography, printmaking, painting & drawing."

 Ingrid works mostly with trees, she began her research with writing on trees to figure out what kind of history was associated with it.  "As an environmental artist I work intuitively at sites, usually directly in response to being there. For this new work at Bois de Belle Rivière I was sent site photographs of possible locations to create a new work and asked if I could choose one. I was immediately drawn to the photo of a stand of trees in the forest. Over the coming weeks every time I looked at the photograph I kept thinking - ‘writing on trees’. I began to have dreams of walking through a forest in the Laurentians, birds flying overhead and animals peering out at me from behind trees, keeping me company as I approached a tree and began to write upon it."  Ingrid Koivukangas is an environmental artist, educator, designer, writer, Reiki Master and energy healer. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia Okanagan and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary. She lives on Salt Spring Island, by the sea, surrounded with Arbutus and ancient Cedar and Douglas Fir. Eagles, hawks, ravens, hummingbirds, deer and otters are frequent visitors at her studio. Ingrid’s work as an environmental artist encompasses many mediums including site-specific ephemeral and permanent works, interventions, installation, sculpture, video, sound, web, digital, photography, painting, printmaking and drawing. She is interested in issues of identity, especially indigenous cultures including her own, the environment, technology and globalization – questioning how our identities are shaped by the land while also exploring how technology can be integrated into that understanding. Working intuitively she creates new site-specific works for each site she is invited to. Much of the work is an attempt to provide the viewer with a starting point to begin contemplating their own connections to the land.

Her blog











Current News

Ancient Lake Vostok


Vostok is the third largest freshwater lake in the world,by volume,  but it is not commonly known because of its location. It is trapped under 2 miles of ice in Russia. It was named after Vostok Station, which was named after the ship that discovered Antarctica. This lake was one of the last major geographical discoveries on the planet, and the Russian team stationed there has been drilling for twenty years, bringing up Ice-cores for research. The implications of reaching the actual liquid water trapped below is huge, now we can study anything we find in the water, such as microorganisms or sediment and oxygen levels. The Russian team plans to send a robot down to collect samples and test all ranges of chemical composition and gas levels.
It will help form a better picture of how the earth has changed over millions of years, and how it may change in the future. The article talks about how alien the environment is in Vostok, that it is comparable to Europa and a moon that orbits Saturn, and with research may help us determine if life exists in those areas of our solar system. I am very excited about this development, its been a long time since any profound discoveries have been made related to life on other planets or other bodies in our solar system, I really hope some kind of life is detected below - it may help push our governments back into funding our Space programs so we can have another space race. This time though, it would be to another planet or moon, not just our own. Hopefully ;)




Extra bit

Nano-Art



This is some really cool art I came across, but haven't had much time to look into it yet. I have no idea how its created, but it is simply amazing. Art at the nano-level..










Art for this week:

I did a recreation on a smaller level of what deforestation looks like, I wish I had a better camera, the picture quality didn't turn out too well.