Down with corporate greed!!!

After watching Rip the other day, I was a left feeling a bit peeved by the abuse of copyright law by corporations. I wanted to put a voodoo curse on them all. The film raised serious questions as to the nature of copyright and made some strong arguments in favor of appropriation. First of all, how is possible for someone to own an idea or creation? And more importantly, how is possible for a corporation to own someone else's idea and profit off it? And really, what is the point of owning an idea? Money, of course, but beyond that,...what good does it do for humanity? In the case of medical research, it could be said that copyrighting ideas or research does more harm than good. Cures for AIDS and cancer might have been discovered by now if people were more open about sharing ideas, pooling together their intellectual resources and putting humanity first before profit. Withholding such information while millions of people die needlessly should be outlawed! Now, I'm not saying that people don't have the right to make money off their ideas or creations but its impossible to stop other people from building off them. Once you share something with the world, you can't take it back. It becomes part of the collective consciousness, and doesn't belong to you anymore.It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun. (I appropriated that from the Bible. I hope Disney doesn't own the rights to it.) Any advance in human knowledge is built on the knowledge of the past. If that knowledge is to expanded on, we need to be able to access it. Luckily, we're in the dawn of a new information age. It will become easier and easier to share knowledge with each other and increasingly more difficult for corporations to control its spread as we become more technologically advanced.

material girl in a digital world

I've been thinking lately about the impact digital technology has had on the art world and I am most impressed by its ability to create new realities almost magically. Never before has it been so easy to alter visual appearances. The validity of the photographic image can no longer be trusted as artists blur the line between fantasy and reality. Programs such as Photoshop allow for a new and improved kind of hyper-beauty, instantly erasing all flaws and signs of age. Figures can easily be placed in new settings, creating new histories. Filters can transform the photograph's appearance into that of a painting, drawing, or mosaic. It's incredibly liberating to have such power at the tip of your fingers. It's modern magic, allowing for the creation of grand, beautiful illusions. This semester I would like to focus on this idea of altering reality through the use of digital media. I plan to do this through the use of digital photography and Photoshop by taking images of people and objects from the material world and placing them in fabricated or appropriated scenes of a utopian nature to capture that grey area where fantasy and reality blurs, existing together in imperfect harmony.

links

B-52 Bomb footage

phoenix plane

h-bomb hellfire

train wreck

Tony Oursler

Tony Oursler was born in 1957 New York City. He received a BFA from the California Institute for the Arts in 1979. His work is comprised of video and installations involving video projections of distorted faces and figures on fiberglass sculptures. He seems to have an interest in neurosis, psychosis and inner mental turmoil which he reflects through a almost nightmarish hallucinatory visual and audio experience. Oursler continues to live and work in NYC.

artist's website
http://www.tonyoursler.com/
videos
http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?EVOL
installations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=licQZBwn7ys&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s31r2Id390g&feature=related
interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH9t5ohL89c&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-s4xzB5D2Q&feature=related
pieces
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aqIk_ynVak&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giROCwGx9wo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHp_vGWAaaM

The Journey Within
3:25
The Journey Within is a video self-portrait that focuses on confliciting self-images and discovering the differences between an inner impression of oneself and the external impression held by others. At times what one feels about oneself is at odds with what society sees. Sometimes we feel good but look bad; sometimes its the other way around.

She-Puppet by Peggy Ahwesh is a short film using clips of the character Lara Croft from the video game Tomb Raider as played by the artist with added narrated excerpts from Sun Ra, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The video depicts a young woman on a journey through distant lands filled with peril and danger, unexpected alliances and revelations. As the artist leads Lara through various stages of the game, it seems that she plays rather poorly at times letting Lara die over and over again. It becomes apparent soon enough that this is done on purpose and that the point of the video is not to show off her gaming skills but rather to make a comment about life. We empathize with her repeated failings as she dies over and over and over again, seemingly by her own design. She is immortal and the game never ends which of course brings to mind our own mortality. The mystical, soul-seeking speech adds an impression of poetry and sadness. What Ahwesh has done is given Lara Croft a soul and yet at the same time questions whether a person is in full command of their life at any point in time or are we held mercy to the whim of a capricious creator, the victims of circumstance?

200 tidbits about me

one-of-a-kind. only child. mixed-breed mutt beast. native san antonian. grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. eastside, southside, downtown stomping grounds. sunday-school dropout. ninth in my class without trying. yeah, cool like that. laid-back. easy-going. procrastinating "creative type." part-time poet. painter because painting is pain...and a pleasure. does that make me a masochist? photographer of the damned. closet musician. karaoke killer. legend in my own mind. quiet but not shy. myopic but not blind. thrift-store junkie. procurer of the strange and unusual. cat lady. pack rat. heart attack in the making. friendly neighborhood fortune teller. chain smoker. dancing queen. rock n' roll. retard. nerdy nerd. four eyes. bleeding heart. artsy fart. snoozer. boozer. late. always late. will be late to my funeral. fashionably. sweetheart. true friend. lover and a fighter. shoulder to cry on. cheerleader. survivor. keeper of secrets. liar, liar, pants on fire. master of the obvious. hidden. in-between. wishy-washy. chaotic. content. i think too much sometimes but still act the fool. pity party of one. i like anyone, everyone, no one at all. vice versa. this shop girl says: "thank you, have a nice day...."