*sigh*

why does life have to be some damn over whelming?

we do it to ourselves you know.


just ask richard a

Weird Dream

I had a very weird dream the other night, not much to describe here.
I basically dreampt that I saw an airplane being tossed about by the wind like a rag doll. Kind of in that jerkily motion that Harry Potter gets tossed around on his broomstick in the HP #1 movie when he is being cursed duriing the qudittch match.
Maybe because it was so windy the other night, but maybe not. In any case, this is what the airliner looked like.

Searching. Searching.. Searching...

The first image in the series I am trying to find deeper, historical, etc. meaning in (atleast within the symbols within) can be found here. Or, alternatively, it is the image posted a few entries back.

I am not sure if my research in to the symbolic meanings of these objects within the images is mearly an attempt to justify my art, or an attept to search out and find what makes me tick inside, the human condition. In any case, the search into the symbolism does give me a basis on which to draw conclusions about the use of these objects in other visual implimentations of them. In finding there meanings, it brings to my mind the questions of awarness of the meanings of these and all other symbols within art or advertising, musical lyrics, or even in the adornment of the home or body with them.


Lets start at the beginning of this image. For me it was an investigation into my spirituality. I feel that it is something that I have been given, not something that is taken. I feel that my spiritual beliefs have shaped my thoughts and ideas and is something that I have not consciously sought to believe in, but is something, a way of seeing, that has made sense to me. I found myself in the company of people who have similar beliefs and ideals, either in a religious context, a simple fact of life, or a combination of both. There is a division of five into which this spirituality readily adopts, five essential elements. What makes the most sense to me to use as a symbol of each of these is a childhood memory/fantasy. One I believe that is of the culture that I grew up within.


The main subject being a Jar of Lights (Christmas Lights, that are in themselves very representational and symbolic). But this was not where I would have them go. The lights are to be seen, in my mind, as Fireflies. My childhood memories bring this back to me as a warm summer night's experience full of wonder and harmonious enjoyment. This inner light of the fireflies has always seemed magical, even after the knowledge of the biochemical processes that make it possible. But the fireflies also holds a spiritual symbolism to me. As the element of fire and light.
I only have an intrinsic understanding of what this means and represents. A warmth found in the heart, the passion and magic of childhood, content ignorant adolescent happiness, raw and uninhibited emotion. Freedom of thought and feelings that bind.

The remaining objects can be taken as either mundane or scientific (or both) forms of inspection. They were each choosen with investigation in mind.

The jars or vials in the back. Used to hold small amounts of things. Used to hold things together yet seperate them out from the rest, so as to avoid contamination. Found in many kitchens and laboratories alike. They perform a function of grouping and seperation at the same time.

The compass. Used the draw a circle and take measurements. A form perfect in itself and used in measurement. The analysis of many things, geometricly is to be found often times within the use of such. An architect's tool and a child's toy.

The closed book. Empty yet full of pages to be filled. The information within is held secretive to all except the reader. A means of recording, the place in which to write, plan, read, remember. A scientific journal and a diary, secretive and personal introspection into matters.

The open dictionary. Used in interpretation. Filled with information, in this case on historical symbolism, a dictionary of symbols. The page that is turned to has the subject of the Sun clearly present. A clue into the meaning and focus of this investigation. A Reference for meaning and background. The first stepping stone into understanding. Students, teachers, politicians, lawyers, writers the list is almost endless. A language societies guide to understanding the signs of communication.

The knife. Used to seperate, take apart, cut through. The knife is a tool that can cleanly and precisely divide, yet it has limitations as to the size of which it can cut. Some can handle larger seperations, with the loss of precision on smaller ones. Where as smaller more precise knives can only seperate things that are already well divided. Kitchen and laboratory alike.

Mortar and pestle Used to pulverize. To make things into a very fine form. Finer than the knife, but again, its capabilities of taking things apart, making them smaller can only be used for objects that are already smalle nough or digested enough to be ground into a pulp or powder. Certain characteristics and abilities of objects can sometimes only be gotten to when that matter is in this fine of a state. Used for spices, medicinals and compunding ingredients. Again, kitchens, laboratories and often viewed as being within pharmacies.

Canning Jar. Not just typical of the containment of the "fireflies", but also in the containment of something to be perserved for use later. Something that is typically made and needs to be sealed so as not to be spoiled by outside elements. Again, a seperation of an object from its environment, yet the glass is clear so the viewer can see it contents. Sealable jars are also comonly used for the preservation of specimens in scientific laboratories.

This is the beginning of the analysis. What I think and how I feel about my art. But what I am looking for in terms of more "enlightenment" of my own thoughts and beliefs, will come from other contexts. As I have been influenced by those around me, family friends, lovers, enemies, I will also find more and more of where my "truth" comes from in history, and start to be able to see the misgivings of myself, my society and my history.

What the Hell do these things mean? And what is it you are saying?

In an effort to share my ideas and ways of thinking, I have decided to follow with research that I have been doing in the making of my artwork, saving you all from the possible boredom of the research into the censorshhip and government abstractions of freedom pertaining to the interweb. Which, in itself, pertains to the broader aspects of my interest of the idea of ideals, cultural constructs and the interpretation and evolution of those ideas within symbols and objects.

I am interested in the meanings we attach to symbols, where those meanings come from, how they change, what they mean to us (society), them (culture) and to me (me). I find it extremely interestings that the same symbol or object has many differing interpretations in contemporary society, but I also find it interesting how those interpretations have developed and changed throughout time. As an artist, I am drawn towards art, and as a human, I am drawn towards understanding.

Earlier in the semester we had discussed semiotics, and the meanings that are formed in specific signifiers. Since I use objects to signify, I use the objects as symbols. And I will thus call them that. With more research into semiotics I may change my flavour, but that is now neither here nor there.

One of my current projects is an exploration into this symbology of the spiritual. Many items and objects have a contemporary meaning, an historical meaning or two or three and several contexual meanings, which often only loosely draw upon each other in conjunction with one another. They also have specific meanings to me, often times more than one. Originally in the conception of these images, I was investigating these symbols in my spiritual beliefs, finding a way to link these everyday objects into a spiritual and physical meaning of my own. In doing so I have found the interpretations of others valuable in linking them.

In each of the images there is a "main subject" of investigation for me. This main subject finds itself among tools and impliments that contain, divide, unite, deconstruct, interpret and investigate the meaning of itself. Leading to the idea that there are and can be various meanings of the main subject. Meanings that, as stated previously, can be found by using and researching various historical, contexual, cultural and societal meanings.

The images itself, being the investigation, and hence, being the "true main subject" must then also include these impliments and tools. It is also within these tools and implication that the complexity of the image starts to unfold and the story of my investigation can be read. For these tools and impliments also hold various symbolic meanings in the same way that the main subject of the image (not the image or "true main subject") does.

Confused yet?
It is just becoming clear to me.

Interesting link....

Our little discussion tonight made me think of a few things, but there was one thing I couldn't get out of my head.

So whatever you do,

Do Not Click Here!




dont say I didn't warn you

This week...

wiki
hypertext art online
poetry, lit
l33tsp33k
fun and glamour

An image for digestion

Sometimes I make things and have a vague notion of what they mean. Kind of like life itself. I think that in time I will grow to understand things better the more I look/live with them, be they images, actions, people, choices, circumstances, objects, ourselves. But if you do not live with them in some aspect of your life, meaning, if they do not have a place in your mind or heart, then they do not develop or grow within your understanding of them, rather they just exist, there in the corner, maybe not even visable.

Weird.

Manovich

Easier to find it this way... Manovich Article.

Political Censorship

A few notes for myself.
You are all welcome to check out the sites.

China tightening Online freedoms
Reporters without boarders
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents
Blogging vs. Journalism
Electronic Fronteir Foundation
Combating CBDTPA
Tinsel-Town, a short Flash about CBDTPA

All for now, more later...

The not-so-free Internet

When Canadian Internet law expert Michael Geist tried to download his e-mail in a Beijing hotel room recently he ran into what he thought was nothing more than a technical hiccup.

"I'd be downloading and all of a sudden it would be cut off," said Geist. "And at first I thought it was a coincidence and the network had a glitch."

Well, no. It kept happening again and again.

Geist -- who holds the Canada Research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa -- had run smack into everyday Chinese censorship of the Internet.

What was happening, he later discovered, was that a filtering program was going through his e-mail word by word, term by term, and when it hit a something it didn't like, bam, goodbye to his download.

Geist started looking for methods to beat the system, which was also blocking his access to some websites...

So far, at least, the conventional wisdom is -- like that of Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) co-founder John Gillmore more than a decade ago -- that the Internet always manages to route around problems.

"It certainly has been the conventional wisdom," said Ronald Deibert, who director of The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. "The problem is that the conventional wisdom is being increasingly challenged."

Deibert -- whose Citizen Lab is a member of the OpenNet Initiative that creates technological tools to help citizens evade state Internet censorship -- said that countries are becoming increasingly intent on and more adept at controlling online information.

Five years ago, he said, there were perhaps two countries -- China and Iran -- that were imposing Internet filtering and now there are dozens, including Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

He said that, as with any kind of censorship, only a small minority of people try to get around it.

"What happens in countries like China and Iran is that the government is secretive about it and yet there are stiff penalties for people caught violating those ambiguous regulations, said Deibert. "It creates a climate of self-censorship. In other words, people become very cautious because they're afraid."

Interestingly, said Deibert many countries use western technologies to do filtering, as shown by analysis by the OpenNet Initiative, which connects computers clandestinely to filtered networks.

OpenNet includes The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Program at Cambridge University.

"We have people who work with us inside countries, often at great risk to themselves," said Deibert. "They go into a hotel in the country, plug into the Internet and run tools that we provide for them and that we've kitted up on their laptops. What we're essentially doing is mapping the Internet infrastructure from the inside out."

The OpenNet Initiative recently discovered that a product called SmartFilter, marketed by United States-based Secure Computing, was being used in Iran, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

"So they definitely see a market and they're pushing their product," said Deibert. "Of course, they deny they've sold that particular product to Iran because there are sanctions against Iran right now in the United States. They say it might have been downloaded illegally."

Deibert said that Citizen Lab and OpenNet Initiative is developing new software called Psiphon to allow those in such places as China and Iran to get access to an uncensored Internet.

"The way our system works is if you have friends or family in a country where censoring takes place, you would have them connect with your computer with a couple of simple changes to their browser," said Deibert. "They wouldn't have to install anything. Then you would run a program on your computer that would allow them to surf through your computer."

There are other programs available for this. Circumventer, for example, allows those who install it on their computer to connect to proxies, which in turn access information and sidestep the filters.

"The problem is that the Chinese government is now aware that there is something called Circumventer, and so it's a cat-and-mouse game," said Deibert.

Not that long ago, said Deibert, the Voice of America, the U.S. State Department's propaganda arm, worked together with a company called Anonymizer to create a circumvention system for Iran.

"We connected two computers in Iran and connected them to the Anonymizer service and ran tests where we requested literally hundreds of thousands of Web sites."

What they found in place on the Voice of America software were porn filters that blocked sites by searching for such terms as "ass" which meant that if you tried to look up a U.S. embassy it was blocked.

"They had decided, somewhat mysteriously on their own -- there wasn't any public discussion about this -- that the American taxpayer wouldn't want Iranians surfing porn," said Deibert.
article found @ : http://www.news.utoronto.ca/inthenews/archive/2005_09_23.html
origanally: The Vancouver Sun