cells

the look of the body, hands specifically in this observation, with light shining through it reminded me of molton glass. the hot burning fire of something being created. it reminded me of the constant recreation that is life. engery broken down of death becoming new life. new stars forming, constant energy. i also thought it would make an amazing photo. i have a ring on, the silver swirls turn black while i glow.
not my hand:
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/translucency/tut28_fig01.jpg

the man in my head

http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html

so this is the basis of the thoughts of the rest of my semester/life. i have chosen abbie hoffman as the focus for my mental energy and life decision per requested by nik. he was a member of the chigago seven, defendants in a trial with charges including conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to protests that took place in chicago during the 1968 democratic national convention. abbie was a life long civil activist and free-spirit. im excited to take on the tasks described in the book above and create a more aware and active person in manners of politics, government, religion, and consumerism. 

perspectives

in my sculpture class my professor, nik, began speaking about space. of time, of occupying this space and being fully attentive to what is around you. in today's mass culture we are constantly surrounded by flashes of television, movies, computer screens, billboards, etc. it is hard to concentrate on occupying just one glimpse of time, the one immediate moment set before you. nik gave us the example of cell phones. he told us to make sure we set our phones to silent, that immediately we don't need to know how grandma in kansas is doing watching her wheel of fortune, that we can't occupy both of these spaces at once. i have struggled with this for some time, i used to own an iphone but found that so much of my time was spent on facebook or texting other people, that i wasn't fully invested in the conversations i was having with those present around me, with my tasks at hand.
to bring this back to my original thought process, nik then showed the video linked above as an example of occupying a space. through choreography, costume, and dance-taking in all the visuals with listening to the noise/music working with the dancers. i found myself following one dancer at a time across the video for some moments before recognizing my peripherals and what else was going on in the frame, and then becoming distracted. i began recognizing the correlation between watching this performance and the cell phone discussion earlier-with my previous thoughts of interaction in day to day life. we as people are able, through technology, to learn about everything and constantly view whatever we want of our "peripherals"-the news in afganastan, pictures of african sea turtles, all together general ideas from others in the world around us, and it can be very distracting. it's pretty amazing. but with this comes the loss of full attention to the immediate view of our own life. what is in front of us now. its hard to juggle both, i think the first step is recognizing this conundrum and unplugging. taking a walk. painting a picture. going for a walk. meeting a real-life friend. petting a dog. asking questions. and then read my blog.

p.s.- e.t. is a muddy buddy <a href="http://s476.photobucket.com/albums/rr127/sadlands/?action=view&current=et19.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/rr127/sadlands/th_et19.jpg" border="0" alt="sick et" ></a>