Fish At Meta-Play

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22.13″ x 28″, Edition of 3
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The photos in this remix were taken of an indoor “wintering” pond. The bright spot is the reflection in the water of a hanging overhead light fixture. One of the fish is named Templeton and many of the fish are her kids. Maybe, now that I think about it, at the time these photos were taken, Templeton was, and remains, dead.

 

On The Way Out

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21.45″ x 28″, Edition of 5
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A few years ago I visited a junk yard in nearby Owen County. I shot about 100 photos that I have come back to again and again – mixing and remixing the mixes. I sometimes pull up a piece I did earlier and rebuild it. In the interpretation above, there’s not much identifiably junkyardish in the thing.

 

How Much to Tax

Tax at a rate that is optimal.

Duh.

I know it seems pretty duh, but the rate at which to tax different income groups and corporations should be informed by the behavior of the taxed. Tax enough, but not too much.

Duh.

Many thoughtful people claim that higher tax rates reduce the capitalist will that is applied to creating opportunity and building growth. I assume that, to some extent, this is true. We just have to answer the question, “To what extent?” 

We need to do some surveys – some analysis of historical data, some economic game experiments. These could provide actionable data and answer the question of how much to tax. 

Once you know how different tax rates elicit different behaviors you make informed decisions about tax justice.

Take the idea of the Laffer Curve seriously, just not necessarily the shape of the curve.

Lower taxes will, to some extent, encourage productive investment. Higher tax rates will discourage investment. Once we answer “how low”, and “how high”, we’ll be able to create a tax rate that maximizes state revenue while minimizing productivity losses. We can run psychoeconomic experiments to analyze our way to an optimally effective tax policy.

I personally think that the capitalist profit motive is relatively independent of tax rates. That the urge to make more money persists when additional money is personally useless. Think of the wealthiest people in the world. Additional wealth will provide them with nothing they can use. It will not increase their quality and frequency of food. Their ability to have functional shelter. Their ability to attract mates and reproduce (or go through the motions of reproduction). A large portion of the wealthiest people in the world continue to seek greater wealth. These well healed folk want more money for its own sake – seeking a score-keeping abstraction. And that behavior, that motivation, is something that is very good for society as a whole. 

Tax rates should be based on how hard a captain of industry will work for the abstraction of profit – for the sport of the market, before the opression of taxation cuts off enough motive to be inhibitive. 

We can figure this out through experimentation and have a fully functional tax code.

Some ant species have workers who gather vast quantities of food in their large distended bellies then redistribute this food to hundreds of others. They are isolated in large, relatively opulent rooms, collecting and dispensing their ant honey, their value.

In effect, in our world, the wealthy serve this purpose.

There’s This Note I Really Like

Tearing Space and Time Just a Bit

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9.9″ x 17″, Edition of 23
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I made this remix while listening to Zuill Bailey playing Bach’s 5th Solo Cello Suite on Performance Today. There was something about the warm contrapuntality of the tunes that seemed to inject itself into this visual interpretation.

The source images were shot of my son Nick who had drilled a hole through a tennis ball, inserted a bolt, attached that to a chain, dipped the ball in lighter-fluid, lit the ball, and waved it around at dusk in the middle of the cul-de-sac outside our home.

 

 

Caress as Art

Right now, in 2009, there’s an art and media for just about any form of communication.  

There’s mp3, wav, cassettes, records, etc. for sound.
Printing and video for sight.
Recipes and mass-produced foods for taste.
Smell-o-vision movies and aroma-disks (there is such a thing, I’ve got one) for smell. 

But there’s no media for touch. There’s no art of touch. No recorded art of the caress.

Which is a danged shame, because a wonderful caress is a thing of beauty and a joy to receive or express.  

In general, caresses are currently expressed as part of the love and sex thing, massage, friend and family touch, but not in a choreographed sequence of non-theraputic, not-necessarily-erotic movements. You can’t go to Lincoln Center to be caressed by Twila Tharp. And in any case there is no ability to broadcast — all touch is one on one.

You can’t download a popular suite of Kate Winslet caresses or an invigorating foot massage.

But, I have a great deal of confidence that in the development of robots we will be able to record or create sequences of gentle, skin-friendly movements. An artwork of caressing. And that these patterns of touch and movement will be duplicatable and transferable.

Snicker

Yes, yes, like any new media technology, the pornography of touch, or to coin a phrase pornotactus will be among the first uses.  But, just as not all touching is erotic, not all tactile recordings will be either. 

So, to get things started, here’s the general specifications for a very short, non-erotic, non-massage,  ”Hello world.” sort of tactile recording. A brief recorded caress. A little tactile haiku. A tact.

 

1. Lightly touch above the right eyebrow.
2. Lightly touch above the left eyebrow.
3. Gently roll knuckles along the right cheek.
4. Lightly touch the tip of the nose.

Eventually, this simple caress sequence will be able to be specified in a computer file of robot movements with generated gestures and pressure response parameters that is run through drivers that can adapt to any individual human face, limb or whole body.

What we’ll have will be a recorded work of ars tactus, the art of touch. 

In addition to erotic and artistic tacts, we will have massage tacts delivered by robot masseurs. Possibly designed by — or recorded from — skilled caress artists, utilizing touching themes, designs and tactoharmonies.

Sci-Fi Shelving

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In the future, specially designed multi-dimensional shelving units will instantly transport objects from one location to another.

 

 

Sunday is Tuesday in Lebanon (Savonarola)

Sunday is Tuesday in Lebanon

Green is Blue in Spain

Bill is Rachel in the country

and behind my eyes is pain.

 

I’m slipping diagonally between different views of time and place

and it hurts my head.

 

In order to stay on the surface of the earth

I can only pick certain times

and certain people.

Skipping staccato across a crowd in Panama

briefly inhabiting every 3rd teenager

slowing and finally dropping in on a 12 year old

by the Cathedral

who is praying.

 

Surprise Pablo!

I’m a brand new voice in your head.

I’m not God, but a kind of friendly spirit.

wait . . .

 

Dang.

Lost it!

It’s suddenly Florence, 15th century again.

and they’re lighting the fire under me now.

 

I’m toast.

 

 

Fence

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image 34″ x 36″, Edition of 7
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There’s so much of the everyday stuff around us that, one day, will go from ubiquitous to rare. Chain-link fences are, I think, one of these things. The rise in worth of metal, and the declining price and improving strength of other materials will provide us with a new type of ubiquitous fencing. Frank Gehry famously used chain-link on his home in Santa Monica showing that the mundane can be reformed into something interesting and striking.

This particular fence surrounds a high school football field in Indiana. I used object distribution techniques to effectively explode the fence creating an all-around visual echo of the chain-link diamonds. After a few decades chain-link fences will be as quaint as split-rail fences seem today, and this piece will elicit nostalgia from the future’s elderly.

 

Much to do

there’s a lot to do between morning and night

a lot of running around to do

buying things

eating things

moving things

watching things

 

what I really need instead

is just a great tree

tall and full and alone in a field

 

especially one that won’t laugh at me

for all that running around

saying

“you guys are so crazy”