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?
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.
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 officialat
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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 ;)
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.
Street art utopia is a website where people can post images and links to amazing works of art done in the street. My favorite are the illusions of giant caves or cliffs in the middle of the street. Overhead of the image, it just looks like random color or designs, but when you walk or drive up to it from a distance, at a certain point, the image comes to life and makes sense. I have seen them with my own eyes before, and it reminded me of another type of street art, the garbage bags. Walking by a vent or air duct, it appears as just a pile of trash, but when heat or pressure is released, it fills the bag and becomes an amazing sculpture held up by only air. Soon, I will be trying to create my own street illusion using chalk, I will post pictures of it, assuming it is successful. I will view more images from Street Art Utopia before I venture out and attempt, and I hope it can be of some use or inspiration to anyone reading this.
I came across this story a few weeks ago when preliminary reports of multiple children coming down with a mystery sickness. Their symptoms were seizure-like and resembled tourettes syndrome. Recently, famed environmental activist Erin Brokovich has attempted to obtain soil samples from around the school to test and determine what the illness could be, however, her team has met stiff resistance to the proposal, and the school grounds were closed. I have also read that around the time the school was under construction, a train derailment contaminated a large area of ground near where the school was constructed, and some of it may have been relocated to the foundation of the school. None of this has been confirmed, but given the circumstances, it doesn't seem out of the scope of possibility. The issue with the entire story is that there has been no testing done, at least to public knowledge. If it was a local outbreak from contact between the teens, or even if it was released by the soil, something needs to be done to prevent this from happening to more kids in the area. Stonewalling and trying to cover it up by the school and county officials only digs a deeper hole for the entire situation.
I've been familiar with Nassim for many years now, and have off and on, followed his work. He is a researcher trying to find a fundamental pattern in physics. Instead of searching for smaller particles, he has been looking for a pattern between the division of space. He talks through his education while he was growing up, all the way to his current research, how he has reached his current conclusions and ideas. I am very interested in understanding what makes us exist, what holds everything together, and the Universe in general. Nassim was a doorway for me back in high school, and inspired me to research Sacred Geometry and metaphysics myself, and how it has incorporated art over the brief history of mankind. His work has been met with a lot of criticism because he does not have a physics degree, but I don't believe having a title means you are not qualified to talk about advanced subjects such as metaphysics or astronomy. I think he is brilliant and his ideas deserve more credit and need to be looked into by mainstream science, but swaying the current system has been difficult to do so far.
Artwork
This is a piece of work I did in high school, not very recent, but I really wanted to share it. A lot of people hate doing stippling because it is so tedious, but I have been working more on this kind of art which I will share later.
One of my favorite artists in the Louisville area, Gibbs Rounsavall. I had the privilege of having Gibbs as a mentor and teacher during my high school days and have been following his work since I met him. His work is mostly abstract, focusing on line and color, but he has quite a bit of drawings too. He has had many group exhibitions, one recently I was able to attend at the Zephyr Gallery where I met his parents (who were quite lively and extremely encouraging of Gibbs' profession). The work he displayed there was mesmerizing, his paintings have a way of pulling at you, and giving you some weird feeling of tunnel vision. His drawings are quite remarkable too, my favorite one, called Be Idle in the Face of Nature (title picture) has so many interpretations, check it out!
Thinking
Quantum Communication
Quantum Communication is a video I came across a few months ago. I have always been interested in understanding the world around us, the Universe, why we exist and all of that good stuff. The video offered an alternative explanation to everything I understand about it, and thats what makes me want to share it with you all. Whether you believe in a God, a flying spaghetti monster or nothing it all, this documentary by David Sereda attempts to explain how communication works all the way from the quantum level, and what it has to do with the Laws of Attraction. Overall it was a very enlightening film for me, and maybe it can open some new doors of thinking for you too.
This link focuses on stats and statistics of how many police officers that were killed in 2011, noting that it was up 13% from the previous year, however I wanted to cover the drastic rise in fatalities caused by police officers on unarmed people. Who is keeping track of that? What is being done to prevent this? The truth is, the data probably does not even exist, but we hear about it in the news almost all the time. Unarmed suspects killed. The International Chiefs of Police, a police organization, tried in the
1980's to collect such information, but "the figures were very
embarrassing to a lot of police departments," said James Fyfe, a
professor of criminal justice at Temple University who is a former New
York City
police lieutenant. Why is this data not made available to better our police forces?
Recently, amid all of the current tensions with Iran, a nuclear
scientist (Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan) was assassinated by a small explosive
device placed on his vehicle in Tehran. The blast also injured two other
people, the driver of the vehicle died later of injuries sustained in
the blast. TIME cites an unnamed source that Israel's Mossad was behind
the assassination, and has been performing these types of murders out
for two years now. The reason I chose this for my social/political
issue, was because this eventually may affect us all. Our economy is
crippled already, and as tensions between the United States and Iran
escalate, I fear it will erupt into the third world war. Russia has
openly stated that any attack on Tehran (Iran), will be viewed as an
attack on Moscow. The implications of that are very severe, and I admire
Russian officials for trying to deter the escalation by such a bold
statement. An interesting point to think about is that absolutely no US
presidents have lost a secondary election during war time, and I view
this whole Iran situation as a larger agenda. How far will the United
States and Israel push Iran until a war breaks out? As far is it takes,
but hopefully I am wrong. The US cannot afford any more wars, its time
to take a back seat for a while and rebuild our own nation from the
inside out. Maybe people have too much pride for that to happen, but
pushing ourselves to the brink of collapse is not a better alternative.
Elfwood was something I happen to come across a few years ago while
browsing the web. Its a website dedicated to fantasy and science
fiction art, something I enjoy creating from time to time. The site is
full of inspiring and creative material contributed from people just
like you and me, just looking for a place for feedback and criticism. It
was founded by Thomas Abrahamsson in 2007, and although the website
DeviantArt.com is more popular and well known, Elfwood is an excellent
alternative, or you could use both as I do. The website itself isn't the
most advanced by any means, and is sometimes confusing to navigate, but
once you figure it out, it can become a valuable tool in your
development as an artist. I mainly use it for inspiration and themes
other artists present. The website has over four hundred thousand works,
and over thirty thousand members, and is growing every day. Its free to
join and easy to use, and hopefully some of you will find some use out
of it in your career's as artists.
Ethical Issue
Flouridation of Tap Water
Have you ever thought twice about fluoride? We know its in most of our
drinking water, and in toothpaste, but why? It prevents tooth decay, but
are there any side effects we should be concerned about? Fluoride is
considered a level 4 poison by the CDC, defined by their rating chart as
“life-threatening; major or permanent damage may result from single or
repeated exposure”. Based on this very basic data about fluoride, do you
think its right to force citizens to drink fluoride with their water? I
think we should have a choice of the water we drink. While most of us
do have a choice because we can buy filtration systems or buy bottled
water, but what about those who cannot afford these alternatives?
Another source of fluoride is toothpaste, but you're not constantly
ingesting toothpaste. I don't deny fluoride doesn't have positive
effects for your teeth, but to jump from having it in toothpaste that
you are meant to spit out, to just dumping it in our water supply is not
at all ethical in my opinion. People of all socioeconomic backgrounds
deserve a choice of the water they drink, and what that includes, even
if it is provided for free or from the government. I don't believe
water, an essential part of our lives, should be laced with a poisonous
substance in the guise of preventing tooth decay.
