Psyberspace Podcast – Reviews & reflections on success gurus

A mix of stuff in this 35 min podcast.

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Psyberspace Podcast 19 May 2008

Review: Digital Art Studio – Techniques for combining Inkjet Printing with traditional media Amazon

Reflection: “limited editions” in the digital medium.

Review: The Brief Wonderous life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Loved it. Amazon

Review: New Dimensions Podcast – Innovate Like Edison

This is followed by some thoughts about success gurus.

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Covers:

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My New Art Blog

I have just set up a new art blog. In this Moment. That means this psyberspace space can return to its slow reflection & exploration of the psyche in cyberspace in all its forms, not just the visual.

Fear of Images

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This essay The Image Culture, by Christine Rosen covers the history of opposition to images from today to biblical times:

They have, by their sheer number and ease of replication, become less magical and less shocking—a situation unknown until fairly recently in human history. Until the development of mass reproduction, images carried more power and evoked more fear. The second of the Ten Commandments listed in Exodus 20 warns against idolizing, or even making, graven images: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

The essay is has a snippet from most commentators on the image, it is a resource. It is a full on part of the anti image culture for all that, and it is interesting how this philosophy comes part and parcel with conservative and Christian politics.

The net has fairly recently become more image centric. Youtube & flickr are evidence of the ubiquity of digital image making hardware and of the broadband to make use of it. But there is another wave that is possible. Built into Vista and no doubt every OS in the future is the ability to use a touch screen. Strangely photography took longer to develop than simple drawing & painting, on the net it looks as if sketching will come later than text and photos. It will come. The slate was an early educational tool (my parents used slates at school, paper was too expensive) the digital slate is a natural as kids learn to read & write online in a digital world. They will draw!

Ubiquity of the hand hewn digitally born image is a possibility, that it lags is possibly due to the fear of the image and dominance of the word.

Mcluhan probably had all this in mind, that in the electronic era, there would be a demise of the word. However we know now that nothing is ever replaced or lost, rather it transforms. Her final point that because we have more images we will have less meaning & not be able to transmit culture is just nonsense.

The future is not what it used to be


I am (still) reading Walter Benjamin’s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction I enjoy the quote that opens it by Paul Valerey. Sounds like Mcluhan, but he is talking (Benjamin too) about shifts due to mechanical development – reproduction, now this needs updating with an essay about art in the age of electronic production.

More Paul Valery quotes follow, including the bit I have paraphrased above from the Benjamin essay.

Continue reading “The future is not what it used to be”

Layout back to normal.

But what it looked like  was something like the Socio site.  My image, also on Thousand Sketches is used as the masthead.

The encounter symbol.  Nice.  It does draw my attention to the difference between up and down as opposed to left & right.  Horizontal implies equality, or perhaps more neutrally, it implies similarity.  The up/down  in this encounter symbol seems like different entities interacting.

Up /down has some power implications, or is that just cultural? Maybe it is OK!  Maybe it is always good to know, who is earthy, who is airy.   Maybe every encounter is a meeting of earth & sky. The “masculine” aspect is the top one it would seem, but the overvaluing of that is probably cultural.

Kurt is up in heaven now.

Scoop: Vonnegut Dies Without a Country or Religion:

As it happens on that very day 13 April, I bought two Vonnegut books on Amazon, they are on their way, but I only just heard he died.

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The sketch is from the wonderful: Writer’s Mugs

And here are some quotes from: Quotations Page

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand

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I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

2007

The year has found some footing. Years of course have a place in space not just time. This one is in cyberspace but as the one tending it I see a New Zealand summer outside my window. I have returned to work after a summer break and so the feel for me that 24 January is bringing has that sense of a new start and this feels like an early moment in that.

Psychotherapy Online – I have opened my book for new clients – it has been closed for most of 2006 as I had a full case load.

Thousand Sketches – This is still the “year of the sketch” it will be until Spring 2007. I am about a third of the way through doing the 1000 digital ones I am committed to. it is a project in psyberspace!

The Psyberspace Podcast – I am quietly continuing this project and have been chatting about the sketches.  However there are more brewing on purely psychological matters too.  Subscribe to the podcast.