Recommended reading: The Work Of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
(Don't worry, it's not communism)

And then a nice picture of a machine. :)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/media/detailed/ii_b_508.jpg
-"What is it?"
-"who cares, it's pretty!"

Another awesome artist whose gallery I want to share with you (sorry [Viking] it's the one I showed to you earlier, so it's a bit boring for you)
http://www.ronpippin.com/gallery/g_05/01.html
(Please notice that there is much more under "new work" than just the 10 images in the gallery this link opens to)

I love Ron Pippin's work because it's something I could do as well. The air around it kind of pseudo-scientific a la Victorian gentlemen (when the sign of a sophisticated gentleman was that he had all sorts of scientific equipment, even he didn't use them, they were status symbols). The old cases and machines and bones and all kinds of little curiousities... I love it all. I think that is a keyword for both Ron Pippin as well as for me: curious.

Awesome artist's website I found through browsing a magazine. :)
http://www.tomotterness.net/exhibitions_subway.html
I hope you all click that, because the first image that loads will just eat you. :3 But I heartily recommend browsing through the whole site, at least in "exhibitions" and "public art".

I'd also like to point out one thing about the work. It stretches from the 80s to present day, and it is all very unified. You can see that the artist has found a thing he's good at and enjoys making (probably not, at least not all the time, but he sticks with it, it's a passion), that is his thing. And I think that's one of the distinguishing marks of an artist, a proper artist. And I think it is wonderful when people find that, something they can keep up for decades, doing it over and over again in a new way... Cartoonists have to do that for a living, but artists do it because they just have to. Whether someone pays them for it or not. I hope my machines are like that for me. That I'll be drawing machines and getting heart-attacks just because a near-accident photo I take is so beautiful to me (even though it isn't to anyone else).

Suomalaiset ystävät olkaa hyvät ja tehkää menonne seuraavalle wikisivulle: Suomirokkia.

Apologies for my non-Finnish friends for the disturbance.

Brian Setzer is the love. <3
<URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8GbJYceG7s>

Yesterday I realised/discovered/decided that my favourite John Lennon -song is Watching the Wheels.
<URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XM4oQGp6uw>

Also I feel the need to say: "Yoko Ono did not break up the Beatles. The Beatles broke up the Beatles."

I still don't have any form of string instrument at my disposal. *fingers aching to get a hold of a guitar*

Today I got an email from PayPal saying "blahblah your account may be limited" and there was a link that in the email was paypal.com but after clicking it was paypalonline.com. I thought "that's funny, I didn't know I have a PayPal account" and replied saying "if there's an account associated with this email address, please close it down, I don't use PayPal." I got a response back that looked kinda like an auto-reply, saying a lot of things and mentioned "if you receive suspicious emails, forward them unaltered to spoof @ paypal.com so I did that. And they replied saying "thanks, it was a phisching email, you've helped PayPal fight phisching."

I've noticed that I have become an online-cynic. That is, I don't believe anything anyone tells me, especially if they are a stranger. Like the other day someone contacted me in Facebook, and said "I'm the long-lost sister of a friend of yours! I've sent her a message here on Facebook but she hasn't replied. Can you call her or something to make her login?" and I lied to her saying "I don't have that friends phonenumber and I dont see her around very much" because I didn't want to get involved in case it was a scam. Apparently it wasn't o.O; I hope my friend won't be too angry at me for stepping away there >_>

Animations with machines on them:

Wonderful old-fashioned thing, steam robot.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6xPzX6Mzalg

The amazing music machine
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MlVRdAU2-R0

Digital Stream Machine
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2AENeH0eMTA

The machine behind the eye
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gTdUo6aKBdw

The Twittering machine (if you'll only watch one of these, watch this one)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=af5AAFB3amE

Is interactivity inherently subversive?

Computers have storage media (a multimedia space) often called memory.
Media + Memory = Mediory? Memodia?

I have a friend who really likes pirates. And today me and another friend were wondering where she was because we hadn't seen her at all that day. And my friend said she must have had more rum than she could handle the night before. And I added without even realising what I said that she might be laying on a dead man's chest somewhere. XD My friend and the other guy there (both +50) were so shocked to hear that. Then a bit later my friend was telling me that he'd call me, call my private number, my secret phone etc... I added that he could call my shoe-phone, and he said I have a holster for my phone in my leg and I added "yeah a holster in the garters" and again they both had such a shock, and told me not to say such things to middle aged men, or they'd have to throw buckets of water at each other or slap each other with fish.

Just wanted to share that. :3 I have such cool friends. The lesson today is: go make friends with people thrice your age! You're missing out.

You can build a computer using Legos. :)

http://acarol.woz.org/

Give your mouse a rest. Let your fingers excercise a little.
http://www.ourmachine.com/ascii/
Try both programs. :)

Alsosome videos of interest:
http://machinedesign.com/pages/VideoLibrary.aspx
See the Norgren valve fountain thing, and the robot that can solve the Rubik's cube.

Do you use the left or the right side of your brain more

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html

Yeah, take a wild guess which way it turns for me ;D

WheeeEEEeeeEEEE! I has Lost Content!! XD

Means. My uni subscribes to Land Of Lost Content^* ( www.lolc.co.uk ) and I has access. Wayne Hemingway gave a lecture on it last wednesday and it was awesome and so is the site.


^*Land of Lost Content is a gigantenormous database of 20th and 21st century commercial imagery of all sorts.

Edit.
I'll see if I can inline images from LoLC. Don't kill me Wayne Hemingway.

Squeee, it works!! Teh Sex!

Note. I won't go around inlining pictures from them. But it's good to know I can show people images from there. :3

Cross-posted from my DevArt (sorry Tempie :P):

Started my MA Media Arts and loving every second of it. Two modules running at the moment, Visual Language (research - easypeasy) and Reactive Media. Reactive media means artwork that somehow reacts to viewer/user's presence. Not necessarely interactive - just reactive. I know what I want to do: a machine that listens to the viewer. So you have to talk to it to make stuff happen. But what stuff? It will be a machine, and machines are made to do work. What can a machine that is fuelled by speech make or do? Build an object, power something else, move something, lift something..? I've been racking my brain and I can't think of anything. I really need someone to bounce ideas off of. I need suggestions! Help me!! I have to start planning this machine and I haven't a clue what it needs to do, so it is very difficult to start visualising it.

So, this is another installation of Halp iippo!. :P

_____

In other news, BA fine art Hallowe'en fundraiser party is held in a pub on a Sunday, so I can't attend. -_- Fine, I didn't want to go to your smelly party anyway. But they are being a bit stupid - aside from the sabbath-deal, people usually have to go to work or school on a monday morning, so why would they want to go to a party on Sunday night?
Asshats.

Certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.

I'm not sure about that to be honest. Although if it is true, it means that other people have less power over us, and that would be a nice thing. But can you really have so much control that you don't get offended when someone gets really personal? Is getting offended a matter of choice? I don't know.