So lax a poster

My sincerest apologies to all my faithful readers (all 20 of you); I have not posted for such a long time.
I’m in Philadelphia right now at the annual BuildaBridge Institute; we’ve a collection of visual artists, dancers, actors, sculptors, textile artists, musicians, and bits and pieces of several other disciplines here this week to learn about using their arts in education (again, not necessarily teaching art itself, but using the arts to educate and inspire children).

You can read more about this year’s institute here

Accepted

I am now officially accepted into the Department of Geography and Sociology at the University of Strathclyde to pursue a MSc in Human Ecology (now I just need some buckets of money).

The WELL

I’ve joined the grandfather of discussion groups (not quite the oldest, but it went online in 1985!). It’s called the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (the people behind the Whole Earth Catalog in the sixties and seventies originated it; it’s now run by Salon.com). This is something new for me; other than a couple e-mail lists and lurking around on a blog or two, I’m not really part of an “online community.” Eventually, I hope to set up a discussion forum on the BuildaBridge site for artists and arts therapists to discuss work and exchange ideas. This is my case study for learning how to form and moderate such things.

The Well is divided up into hundreds of discussion threads on just about everything (from poetry to philosophy to popular culture to public policy). There is a very active “writers” discussion on the shaping and use of words. Early on, the Well gave away free membership to journalists and writers, so there is an established base. I’m really looking forward to diving into the discussions and hoping for some intelligent feedback. The interface is really quirky; I access through a UNIX command line—remember back when everything was text? There is a web-based version, but it’s actually not as easy to navigate. Perhaps, for BuildaBridge, we can set up something really archaic where people must log-on with old Apple II computers or punch cards; retro is really in now.

Random line

I just found this line from an e-mail sent long ago:“The dark and lonely torment of a child’s lost balloon.”

New BuildaBridge website

The new BuildaBridge website is up and running (sort of). We have some kinks to work out and the coder is working on putting everything into a content management system; but the bulk of it is live. Our first main concern is getting the weblog functional. Any comments or suggestions are welcome (either here or e-mail me).
It’s at the same address: www.buildabridge.org

Waste II

Though I worked for a company that sold large-format inkjet printers, I really never considered the (somewhat taboo) subject of inkjet cartridge refills. Have you ever wondered why printers are so inexpensive? It’s because the money is not made on the printer itself; it’s all in the subsequent purchase of ink!

I have an oddball Lexmark printer left behind by the previous tenants; as I was unable to find a replacement cartridge in town, I wound up in a shop that refills old ones. Somehow, and I can’t really place why, this sort of thing always seemed rather shady to me. It was like trading in your pillows when you tire of them or filling up nearly empty toothpaste tubes (wouldn’t that be a cottage industry). This is partially because I once spent a great deal of time explaining to clients how they must replace the inks in their large format printers with cartridges from the manufacturer (and this does have some merit when one is printing display art for archival purposes as some inks and papers are specifically matched; off-brand ink could also flummox up the print heads). However, I’m printing drafts of text from a clunky old printer. I’m not going to need any sort of super quality or archival stability.

Consequently, I got the cartridge refilled, popped it back in, and it prints like new. This can be done several times at a significant cost savings (less than half the price of a new cartridge; though, even at that price, the people doing this are making a significant profit. These little canisters only hold one or two-hundred ml. of ink. If I were doing a whole lot of printing, I would probably buy the ink in bulk and inject it myself). Not to mention it’s one less thing in the trash (note that most office supply stores have drop-boxes for recycling ink and toner cartridges, some even offer a credit toward purchase).

The most sensible thing, though people have a hard time thinking through this, is to spend a little more for a well-built printer with large ink capacity at the outset (that is, if you are doing a significant amount of printing). Epson’s mid-priced pro level printers will last for years (they sold the 3000 for something like a decade and it just sat there sipping ink; there are, no doubt, thousands of them sitting around still sipping ink). The $100 ink-jet on special might look tempting at first; but you will eventually end up spending far more in consumables.

These violent connexions

On Monday I went with some friends to Lidice, north of Prague. After the NAZI regime annexed Czechoslovakia and set up a “protectorate” state, the Czechs assassinated the leader of the party, Reinhard Heydrich (who, in a public speech, had openly stated that the Bohemian and Moravian lands were to be eliminated and the entire area was to become Germany. Heydrich was one of the main architects of the Holocaust).

After his assassination, the NAZI’s picked a village (essentially at random) and completely destroyed it, killing all the men, taking the women to concentration camps, and gassing the children (except those children of the proper racial stock who were eligible for Germanisation).

I have been to Nürnberg; I have seen Hiroshima. When I go to these places, I’m overwhelmed that we, as a species, are capable of such insanity. There is nothing noble or grand about the propagation of death. The men from this village were lined up by the stone wall of a farmhouse and shot; I cannot fathom the killing of children.

On the site of the village, there is now a memorial and museum. In the field is a bronze sculpture of 82 life-size children; it commemorates those murdered from the village and the children massacred in the war.

I was greatly moved by this piece; it is simple and haunting. I was saddened by the thoughts of what had taken place here. However, I was given hope that, perhaps by memorials such as this, we are encouraged to prevent such things in the future.

Unfortunately, ironically, I learned later that, as I was standing at this memorial, as I was filled with the mix of sadness and hope, a man in Virginia began the worst shooting rampage in US history. Someday there will be a memorial to the people killed there. I could go on with a clot of cautionary and melancholy words; maybe I should. Today I will not. We, the senseless and the damned, never take note of them anyway.

Dark pretty things

Last week, I was searching for photographers who make large format negatives and contact prints. I came across the work of lauren e. simonutti. She has an absorbing gallery posted on flickr here (this one was my favourite; follow the rabbit hole to her others though).

Though I would, of course, love to see the original prints, I’m so thankful we live in an age where one can view online the work of someone producing images through a meticulous 100 year old photographic process.

(For more information on large format contact printing and the craft behind it, see here. I remember printing 50 year old 8×10 negatives from the university archive when I was in school; outstanding.)