AUFR: Artists Uniting for (a) Reason

Painting In the Pleistocene

2009-01-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

Read the Article

2009-01-11T17:38:00.000-08:00

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0024-094X%282001%2934%3A2%3C121%3ATATCBI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

Art Has No Limits

2008-12-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

Step 1

2008-11-19T18:43:00.005-08:00

Maybe this blog is not art, maybe it is,--what is this? people might ask this-- I don't want to think about how this blog is art or isn't art or if it's sculpture or not or what i'm doing or why. it's true i don't want anyone to think about that for now, it's a path it's a direction, directions, instructions, a guide, a fieldtrip, a trip.

Watch this:

I want people to continue to the next step on the list if they're short on time, but if they have time and are interested they / you should explore TED, maybe after completing the journey i've planned, or now, whichever, but making sure that everyone has time to hear/watch the stuff below eventually, before we talk on tuesday.

My favorite talks (when i was living in italy i would watch a new one each night as i ate dinner):
human nature
Design and the elastic mind
6 ways mushrooms can save the world
what is string theory?
militant atheism
Dan Dennett's rebuttal to Rick Warren
stroke of genius
story of the mars rovers

(you can get these on your ipod too by finding TED talks in the podcasts in itunes.)

I want to say that it is optional for people to listen to the podcast below because it's long and I don't want it to be burdensome, but I really think it should be heard and i know that if i say "optional:" that's like saying "don't bother". Here Kevin Kelly is talking about what science is to him and what he thinks it will become in the next 100 years: (get it on your MP3 player--see below instructions)

How do I instruct people on how to get these things into their MP3 player? it is so fucking awesome to listen to these ideas through headphones, when i'm cleaning or painting or yogifying or lying around or walking. Download it: http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/SALT.xmlSearch
OR Search "SALT" (Seminars about longterm thinking) in the itunes music store. Free subscription. And I love these talks also from the Long Now Foundation (these are best listened to via MP3 player while driving, doing other tasks, because they're long but brilliant:
Sam Harris (about religion) -- and / OR for a quick idea on religious moderation: consider this
Jimmy Wales (creator of Wikipedia)
Alex Wright (history of the Information Age)

But ALL the seminars are worth hearing even though they're long, these people are so fucking smart. And rational and informed and interested and interesting. I went to one of the seminars while i was in san francisco in september and the audience was young.

What IS the Long Now Foundation? http://www.longnow.org/

Step 2

2008-11-19T18:43:00.003-08:00

Susan Blackmore talks on the Point of Inquiry podcast: She's an interesting way to wade into the waters of Point of Inquiry. and if you want it on your MP3 player, download it or subscribe (free) to it at the episode archive

...or see her at ted. Other gems of Point of Inquiry include (but aren't at all limited to) Tom Clark, Steven Pinker, Guy P. Harrison How do i get people to listen to these? the best way is to just subscribe to the podcast through itunes or through the site (by hitting subscribe) and then having them on an ipod and taking them with you.

Step 3

2008-11-19T18:43:00.001-08:00

A taste of the first Beyond Belief conference (maybe explore the site after watching the video below)-- Beyond Belief 2006. I wish people would eventually watch all the talks, but to try it out--at least 30 minutes of session 9 down here should suffice, it's nice combination of major voices, major players in this game. feel free to plunk down and draw, paint, play, clean, stretch, primp, dance, whatever helps one get content, to make it pleasant and convenient because it can be quite convenient. The world gets bigger and better every time i watch a session and there's no pleasure like listening while i paint. or cut or paste. doing stuff with my hands helps me focus and hear better.

starting place:

and it only gets better as the years pass and we get smarter (if anyone is still thirsty...i highly recommend this...how do i give incentive to take the time and explore the places? it's so fucking worth it. that's all i can say.):
Beyond Belief 2007
Beyond Belief 2008

Step 4

2008-11-19T18:42:00.003-08:00

Radiolab has changed my life. and does everytime i listen to it. how should i write this? i know that whoever listens to it will have their view changed, that's what it's for to bring science to the public.

I finally figured out how to embed the list of radiolab episodes below, but sometimes they don't load right, so i am leaving the link for the EMERGENCE episode here also. I wanted to show the link anyway so that people / you (how should i address them / you? third person? which?) could get the MP3 on an ipod or an MP3 player and listen to it while you're at school or driving or walking...the world looks so beautiful when i'm listening to radiolab. where should i include the link for the other podcasts? i'll put it here. here it is. you can the episode on chris and lisa made me cry.

So if i have to choose 1 to recommend, i'm chosing the episode on EMERGENCE but it feels terrible to do this in a way because i know how profoundly awesome the other episodes are (SPACE, mortality, placebo, morality). i wish time was not a limitation and i wish that people or you or these viewers my audience whoever would just go back to the website and hear the other episodes when they have time or need something to fill the silence when they're folding laundry or vacuuming or baking. maybe they will. it's their choice, i hope i am planting a seed, that's all i can do.

Visit the Widget Gallery

5

2008-11-19T18:42:00.001-08:00

As Alex wright describes in his talk for the Long Now Foundation on this Information Age, Paul Otlet PREDICTED in 1934 the birth of the internet:

I've never thought so hard about how to create incentive for people. You all have not left my mind in over a week. i'm trying to get into your thoughts your obligations your desires your stresses your assumptions your orientations and perspectives and biases and curiosities and fears and fascinations. and i know i have no idea, but bare with me and i hope you are okay and i hope i haven't scared you and i hope this conversation doesn't end. i want to stop feeling alone. i know we can all think together. we can know things. i'm trying to be simple about this. simple simple easy accessible humble not arrogant. i don't feel superior because i'm not superior. and certainly i don't wish to be read that way even though it will inevitably happen if it has to. I don't feel somehow better than anyone reading this because i don't even really believe that i exist. or that you exist as something else. which makes things tricky sometimes...and i certainly don't think i should be getting into this because i'm going to seem crazy, but i'm pretty sure i'm not crazy and i'm trying to express all of this and the fact that i'm trying to be transparent but i don't want to explain my intention to be so. we are really just the same thing, made of the same stuff, changing our molecules all the time, my body is completely different than it was a few years ago or even months ago, i'm not made of the same stuff, i'm made of other stuff and so are you. but we're all made of star stuff (as carl sagan would say.... i should probably reference him here). so because we're not different, we can't be compared. and i am the way i am because i had to be, one thing led to another and here i am and here i am making this blog and here you are reading it after one thing led to another and made you who you are and suddenly you find yourself in hirsch's class and so do i and here we are online. and i feel so much happier when i'm not just thinking about this illusion of me myself and me.. and my sculpture and my lunch and my stuff and my things and my ass and my shoes and the next thing i wanna do. i think we need to be connected. to each other and the bigger thing too. because i believe there is a bigger thing. and we're part of it. really. as artists we can't not be connected. to the thing. and we are. and here we are. realizing how.

feel free to leave comments anywhere.

p.s. here's a place that might change some minds about design--maybe not. but i'd like to know if it does...

if you have to choose only a couple talks from this conference i recommend:
designing the human mind
new city
responsive architecture