Category Archives: writing

failure

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i’ve come to realize that i am not particularly good at anything

i mean, i’ve actually tried my hand at a lot of things in my life — and i feel fortunate to always be curiously distracted and experimental and exploratory in my pursuit of expression and life-long research in the world

so at least that’s cool

i think i’m slowly becoming okay with the fact that i’m mostly a really good failure

some definitions to consider

ocean

i look back lately — at my previous research and active design work at Dynamic Media Institute

i am re-opening my book — my design thesis book, that is — to once again take a look inside my veryOwn openContainer, and my intention to continue my investigative research into laughter, cyberSurrealism and the human experience swells and motivates me with a newfound retrospective clarity that i just frankly wasn’t ready to tackle back then

as i delve deeper into the investigation — an investigation that brings me to new areas of dangerous confrontation and heightened, intense self-awareness — i ready myself and my future audience of readers and participants with these 3 crucial definitions stolen from — or, uhm — cited from the Wikipdedia as core concepts for your consideration — important terms of reference regarding the underlying purpose and nature of my work

 

awareness
Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of something. In biological psychology, awareness is defined as a human’s or an animal’s perception andcognitive reaction to a condition or event.
Read more about Awareness on the Wikipedia

consciousness
Consciousness is the quality or state of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: sentience,awarenesssubjectivity, the ability to experience or to feelwakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.[3] Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.[4] As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: “Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.”[5]
Read more about Consciousness on the Wikipedia

mindfulness
Mindfulness is “the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment”,[1]which can be trained by meditational practices[1] derived from Buddhist anapanasati.[2]

The term “mindfulness” is derived from the Pali-term sati,[3] “mindfulness”, which is an essential element of Buddhist practice, including vipassanasatipaṭṭhāna and anapanasati.

Mindfulness practice is being employed in psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorderanxiety, and in the prevention of relapse in depression and drug addiction.[4] It has gained worldwide popularity as a distinctive method to handle emotions.
Read more about Mindfulness on the Wikipedia

 

All preceding definitions from this blogPost came from the infamous Wikipedia out there on the webz. Go check it out { as if you’ve never heard of it, right? } and don’t forget to occasionally donate a bit to keep the project funded and smoothly movin’ along — we all learn soOOoOoo much from our little Wikipedia that could now, don’t we?

 

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things i like about blogging

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its cool to blog, right?

take about 15 minutes to Google up some imagery that’s inspired by some current thoughtFlow you might’ve been having lately that might { or might not } relate to what you’re inspired to write about — i mean, that’s the way it typically starts up, these blogPosts — you gotta get in the image

blogging is part writing — or some activity that’s associated with writing, like typing — and part visual storytelling

a quick note about the whole writing versus typing observation — there’s a famous quote about Jack Kerouac’s famous Beat novel ‘On the Road’ — after reading ‘On the Road,’ Truman Capote reflected on the book by saying, ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing’ — and as much as i personally don’t agree with Capote’s opinion on Kerouac, i do believe that now, more than ever, we see the results of this tendency, this trend we see over and over and over again in this Age of Instant Information Transmission — the act of writing, and the processes surrounding writing, editing, thinking, reflecting, editing, re-writing, editing some more, re-writing some more, re-re-writing and eventual publishing and distribution can now feel much more like the act of typing than ever before

i guess it all depends on which blog you’re reading and the approach that blogger takes to their writing or typing

no matter what kind of blogger you might be, and regardless of your opinion surrounding the writer versus typer debate, right about here is an excellent second spot to insert a random or semi-related image to continue with the visual portions of the storytelling procedures associated with blogging

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many blogPosts might stop at around the second image

some might end at about another paragraph or 2 after the second image insertion

but that’s kind of beside the point as the post might continue on with the main thoughts brought up earlier in the blogPost, much as this post does

getting back to the main topic of things i like about blogging

so, you might take pride in the thoughts and ideas you’re trying to communicate and there is a slight chance you might type and write and edit and really thoughtfully consider your target reading audience or audiences as you put your posts together — or you might be far more excited by the concept of being able to instantly push out into the interwebbish cyberStreams those hawt and immediate thoughts that are passionately scratching and scraping around at the tips of your bloggish lobes and the actual grammatical aspects or even the clarity or general lack thereof might suddenly win second place to the contest of these blogPost energies, these internal conflicts that often get most clearly straightened out as the blogger pushes or taps on the big, blue Publish button in WordPress

but it almost doesn’t really matter

after all, unless you’re really doing something to market your blog or somehow draw attention to it with links pushed out to Twitter or via email or put into a Facebook status update you’re really not going to have any readership anyways, right?

in fact, this blog { if you’re reading it at all } is the metaphoric equivalent to screaming into the silent and vast endless vacuum of deep outer space through a bendyStraw

there’s not even an affiliated echo as far as i know

i don’t even check up on it, its almost doesn’t matter to me

i’m sure there are different types of people blogging though, each with their own particular intentions, aims, goals, motivations and devotion to the art of blogging

HiP-Paris-Blog-flavijus-Brussels

as you add further imagery to your blog, definitely feel and take advantage of the raw power of near-Dada-level randomness that can be leveraged during the textuavisual storytelling process

its quite liberating

just put anything in there, experiment all you want

you can actually sometimes benefit by putting totally disparate visual information into a blogPost you’re writing because then you’ll most likely consider building a Surrealist juxtaposition that might actually be extremely important to building good Search Engine Marketing phrases to exploit in putting your blog and your ideas up on the searchable webz we weave

i mean, i don’t know why i put that last image up there, but the chick is kinda hawt in her own way and i love that the scarfish-looking black area around her neck almost seems to push forward — looking nearly crow-like even — reaching beyond the obvious reflective phenomena of the glass that the female window-shopper looks through with desire for delightful pastry consumption

she wants it

and we want to see desire and to see attractive pastries that are the obsessive target of raw feminine desire and the collective subconscious desire espoused by all web-driven marketing, writing and expression

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and then there’s something liberating, too, in the kind of political power — or at least the power of potentially immediately readable thought that we feel when we put it out there on the webz through blogging

i promise to write more about that soon, too

as another advantage to blogging is that its a serial activity — you don’t need to complete cohesive and comprehensible thought on the web, its just non-essential to what its all about out here — in fact, the cliffhanger might be a tastier morsel to put in the mouths and minds of your readers as you put them posts up on the webz almighty

we’ll be back, after these menses

deletedStreams | fetish object experience { memory }

an excerpt from deleted streams

 

 

fetish object experience at the arcade

 

My family and I often stopped off at Weirs Beach on Lake Winnipesaukee for a day or 2 prior to finishing off our summer vacations in Twin Mountains. The vibe at Weirs Beach was wonderfully seedy: Arcades; t-shirt and souvenir shops; minigolf; and greasy food shacks lined both sides of the main drag through town. I might’ve been 11 years old at this point and definitely more keenly aware of the relationship between visual form and desire. As a pre-teen, romantic curiosity in the opposite sex colored my experience of this New Hampshire beachside community.  

 

I had earned enough parental trust, after several summers of excellent behavior, to wander around on my own for a few hours at a time. Our hotel was only up the hill from all the action. Early evening offered up a nice array of tourists and locals for the purpose of peoplewatching, wandering and social interaction. 

 

Being a bit of a late bloomer, my shyness prevented me from getting into any real trouble — but even with my quiet presence and gentle exploration of such a fertile pandora’s box, all of the temptation associated with teenage wunderlust and the whirling counterculture of the ‘80s videogame arcades by the lake seemed to lure me in like a Siren on the shore.

 

Amidst the amber bright noise and beep-chirp chaos of one arcade — tucked behind the rows of pinball machines, a shooting gallery and myriad collections of stand-up games — I found ‘The Stripper’. Just the name of the game on the side of the black, verbotin cabinet started to quicken my pulse and create an inner heat that I was only beginning to understand. An oasis of sin inside an electronic Eden — the machine almost seemed to whisper softly to me, to send a sultry invitation. 

 

I looked around to see if anyone might be watching me as I approached ‘The Stripper’. Once I felt safe that my parents weren’t on secret reconaissance, I looked to see if any instructions might allude to illicit nudity and naughtiness implied by the name of the game. But look as I might, not a single instructional sticker or other related labelling revealed the deep, hidden secrets awaiting me. Another quick look left and right — and then I dropped a quarter in and peered deep into the 3-inch square opening to the visual display. 

 

An almost manual-sounding click turned on a projector and I could make out the figure of a scantily-clad ‘70s-looking pin-up within the dark interior of this awkward viewSpace. The pin-up moved in a circular fashion and after a few seconds, once my eyes adjusted to the motion and strangely-lit figure, I noticed the first target. The hunt was on. Instinct kicked in. I immediately knew what I needed to do. Grabbing the joystick controller, I started to aim for the target. Such a difficult task — and due to my excitement, the purely visual sexual stimulation, and the promise of what might be revealed once I hit the first shot — I found the task of shooting the image of this woman extraordinarily difficult, but weirdly natural.

 

After a solid 30 seconds or so I made my mark. The lights went out in an amazing no-fidelity manner and then quickly clicked back on to reveal the same female model, now lustfully re-posed and slightly more revealed — missing only one of the few original garments from the original pose. Again, the same hypnotic and manually-spinning motion made target number 2 nearly impossible to hit. 

 

My motivation ran high. How dirty could this machine get? How much would be revealed with each successful gunshot simulation? What new pose would the stripper turn or twist into next? Would anyone in the arcade want to stop me from my frenzied pursuit of crazy, uncontrolled, female nudity? 

 

Try as I might, I could only successfully shoot 3 or 4 targets in each stripper image series per gameplay. The visual equivalent of ‘first base’ at best. Occassionally, out of guilt or the fear of getting caught, I would move away from ‘The Stripper’ to play a round of Donkey Kong, Dragon’s Lair or some other ‘safe’ and socially acceptable videogame. But no matter how many times I returned to ‘The Stripper’ that year, I could never entirely undress the model down to her pure, luscious, and ultimately naked state.

 

 

Fast forward to the next summer at Weirs Beach. My best friend Tom Tripp came along with my Mom and I that year and I was determined to let him in on my ‘stick-‘em up’ activities with ‘The Stripper’ from last year. I mean, I didn’t talk about this strange machine on the carrride up or anything. But I knew it would come up as Tom and I wandered the arcades on the weirs. 

 

The first night, we wandered into the same bustling arcade and weaved our way back to this machine of lust and desire. I told Tom all about the game and let him at her. After a few shots, I noticed he started to follow an entirely different strategy. A seemingly better strategy. With just one quarter, Tom got 2 and a half models to take off all of their clothes! He probably saw more flesh through ‘The Stripper’ that night than I got to see through the entire previous summer. And what was Tom’s secret method? He just shot at the image in any random direction. He didn’t even bother to aim at the target. The faster and more chaotic he clicked, the better his chances of getting to ‘the next level’. 

 

The remaining details of these semi-conseceutive summers at Weirs Beach blur together a bit. Pizza, videogames, gokarts, fireworks, minigolf, the lake — all mixed-up and layered in a huge, messy memory document. Maybe the cartoonish exaggeration of pure, playful sexuality from this surreal videogame stands out despite the patina of time. Memory of ‘The Stripper’ reveals a delicate boundary — a subtle, broken membrane granting me the permission to explore my own honest, internal components. I seem to focus on the fragile economy of social dynamics — on fabricating stories ( through any medium ) to release tension and potentially open up a dialogue — new dialogues that might not happen without a crack in the ‘perfect’ surface world.

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Design Seminar 2 » Blog Archive » one cozy minute of isolation

one cozy minute of isolation

By lou suSi March 4th, 2009

a crisp, saturday evening in autumntime

down in the fort point area of Boston, the mobius annual artrages fundraiser party takes over an entire floor of commercial space to create an atmosphere of surreal, unbound creativity — the crowd warms the space — the rawness of the space goes unnoticed as people walk through and enjoy the art installations, participatory music and performance art, roving performances, and the company of so many amazing, creative people — lights and sound cascade and echo across the hardwood floors — there is a sense of celebration, uncanny premeditation and a joy for the subconscious enjoyment of this ocean of possibility

the night sings of timelessness — suspension of clocks and watches — a quarternote of one moment

i am waiting in line — the half hour passes fairly quickly as i talk with the waiting people — there is an installation up ahead — conversation in the line compresses time even further — there are people to watch, performances to figure out and discuss, distractions and thoughts pouring in like sunlight

as i get closer i see a man in a dark suit — very much a sombre sight — serious and cleancut — either a bit of business is being conducted or there may be a funeral, i can’t quite figure it out — but he is opening and closing a wooden door { the door to the installation } — letting people in and out, one by one — he is pleasant enough, but tall and calm in demeanor

every once in a while there is another person — shorter, wider — dressed in overalls and a thermal shirt, workboots and a red and black plaid hunting hat — he seems to have tools and occasionally goes into the wooden space between the flow of the line — he’s a bit nervous, but all smiles —  almost a living contradiction to the suit

as i get closer i can see that the wooden door opens into an outhouse construction labeled with a large ‘#1’  above the door — the man in the suit talks to each person at the head of the line — he literally helps each person in and out of the installation — i can see each person being pulled up and out from behind the door — everyone that emerges from the installation seems happy, pleasant, a bit relaxed

i look at the artrages map — apparently the piece is called ‘claustrophillick enclosure #1’ — i am almost at the front of the line — people are wondering what’s inside

i finally get to the front of the line and the man in the suit welcomes me — he explains that one person is allowed in the space for exactly one minute — he warns that the space is tight and if i have any fear or phobia of being alone, enclosed in a tight space, then i may want to reconsider experiencing the enclosure

he opens the door, reaches in and helps a young woman get up and out of the space — the interior of the outhouse is lined with a pink, floral cushioning material — the woman stands up, readjusts to the light of the mainspace and moves to re-gather with friends at the party — the man then helps me curl up inside the womblike fabric of the inner space — as he closes the door i am completely alone, surrounded by darkness — it is warm — the scent is that of flowers, perhaps the previous visitor to the enclosure

since i am enveloped in pitch black — my attention is drawn immediately to a subtle soundtrack — no real music, or at least no instrumentation — just many sounds, a soundscape — water dripping — passing traffic — a jet flies by — little girls singing together — songs from a playground — hopscotch or jumprope comes to mind — a muffled heartbeat becomes the most overwhelming sound in the mix

the space is warm and soft — very accommodating

my eyes begin to grow accustomed to the dark — i see what looks like someone moving, directly in front of me — just the silhouette — a little scary — i am looking into a mirror — a mirror on a medicine cabinet that is clearly marked ‘PRIVATE’ — an image of an angel dangles from the edge of the cabinet — i am facing my reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet — i notice a sign that says ‘Open Me’ — i open the door to the cabinet and can see restroom signs, the symbols for ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ — between them is a small jar with a magazine clipping — the image of child inside the jar — just the child’s face — there is also another clipping that says ‘True Love’ — and then i notice a sign that says ‘Close Me’ { very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland | Through the Looking Glass } — i close the medicine cabinet and quite suddenly the door opens up — the man in the suit asks me how i am doing, let’s me know my minute in the claustrophillick enclosure is up, and reaches down to help me exit the outhouse — my eyes hurt a bit as they begin to readjust to the light

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blogpost to Design Seminar 2 for The Dynamic Media Institute @ MassArt :: in response to Kevin Brooks’ session on Storytelling and Narrative …

..:: What is DESIGN? ::.. ..:: Designers’ Talk Discussions on LinkedIn ::..

10:14 pm – ..:: WHAT is DESIGN? ::.. ..:: Designers’ Talk Discussions on LinkedIn ::..

Fred Showker, Editor and Publisher of DTG, recently posted the following question in the Designers’ Talk Discussions section of LinkedIn:

My question: WHAT is DESIGN?

So many readers often write to ask about becoming a design professional. Many ask “What is Design” or “What is Graphic Design?”

Among the established definitions you’ll find that just about anyone you ask — you’ll get a different answer. So, in the May issue of DTG we’ll be asking …

WHAT IS DESIGN?

My studies at The Dynamic Media Institute at MassArt bring up many questions about design, media, communication and creativity. The question What is design? seemed to perfectly resonate with recent thoughts and discourse with the fantastic community engaged in these discussions at DMI.

Here is my response:

WHAT is DESIGN? What an excellent question. And what an important question to ask ourselves on a daily basis.

Here is my quick interpretation of design …

First of all, I think of the word design as more of a verb than a noun. An active process. A process that can contain elements of expression, research, planning, thinking, doing, conversing … but design is best when there is a lot of active exploration, research and process behind the end result.

As a second notion to consider … here is a layman’s linguistic deconstruction of the word as interpreted by someone personally and professionally involved with design for a decade or more. So here is my breakdown by syllable …

The ‘de’ part of DESIGN … ‘de’ reminds me of the word ‘di’ in Italian, both in phonetic | aural similarity and in direct translation of meaning … ‘de’ = ‘of’ in English.

The ‘sign’ part of DESIGN … ‘sign’ is the root of the word ‘significance’.

Literally translated DESIGN means ‘of significance’. More importantly, the interpretation I come away with is something more like the infinitive ‘to bring significance’. I think of it as a process where the designer brings meaning … actually brings something significant to the world. Or at the very least to a certain targeted audience.

So … in the end, we not only need to ask from day to day the all-important question ‘WHAT is DESIGN?’, but we also need to continually update and define ‘WHAT is the role of a DESIGNER?’ … the answers to both of these questions are shifting and changing more and more often in these times, due in part to the speedy development of new technologies and also immensely influenced by a confluence of so many eclectic fields coming together to define and design new significance, new meaning, new thought, and new methods of communication.

View the original LinkedIn Answers question and responses here: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=92232&discussionID=2742196&commentID=3023128&goback=.hom.anh_92232#commentID_3023128

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recent post on LinkedIn … check it out!