Dig up your life and change its course
1 
whoa
i love it
um
anyone else understand what the fuck this is supposed to mean
i just don’t get art sometimes
i really don’t
this is bullshit
it’s an installation piece that tells a familiar, immediately-identifiable story (that of the roughly, carelessly handled package) while simultaneously housing a handful of incredibly interesting ideas. the package was shipped with the full intent of it being handled carelessly, returned and presented as art — completely unbeknownst to the employees, who proceeded to treat it exactly as they would treat a package that did not contain “art”.
that indifference says a lot of things about how absolutely arbitrary the “value” we give to art is, and also poses some interesting questions about when exactly something begins to be classified as art — is it when the piece is planned? is it when the piece is shipped? is it when the piece arrives at the gallery? is it when the show opens?
if you happened across this piece sitting in a warehouse full of glass showcases, it wouldn’t be a piece at all, it would just be an unfortunate error waiting to be thrown away. if you happened across it in a FedEx warehouse, you’d reprimand the employee responsible and toss it. if you happened across it when it was outside the gallery waiting to be brought in, you’d assume the gallery owner would be very annoyed that one of the glass showcases they ordered broke and they’d have to order another one.
in fact, it is the very action of presenting it as a piece of art and opening it up for critical interpretation that defines it as art. that is the action that gives value to these two objects. it allows their story to be told by allowing you to experience it and consider it in an elevated, critical manner that you otherwise would never have done.
it’s a very high-concept piece and so it takes a lot more mental investment in order to understand and appreciate than, say, a pretty painting of a landscape would. but once you do, it’s a very nice treat. I enjoyed it.
(it also happens to be really really pleasing aesthetically, which I’m sure played a large part in the conceptual refinement and physical planning stage after the inception of the original concept. the decision to have the case be cube-shaped and not rectangular was a particularly well-considered decision that adds a lot to the final product.)
i came across this post again
vondell is smart and cool
man it’s been almost two years since i wrote this i think? somewhere in that area. dang. and it is still out there rustling jimmies to this day
(via tumblrisweird)
Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer:
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me, was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining it’s destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.
AwwWWWWWWAHHHHHHHHHHHH.
In. Credible.
A testament to the kindness of strangers! Well, at least to adorable little robots. No robot apocalypse if we kill them with kindness!
(via tumblrisweird)
(Source: dailydoseofmemo, via jussulentnatalie)
Ad Reinhardt, How to Look at Art, Arts & Architecture, January 1947
(via stoppingoffplace)
(via gregrie)
It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.
You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.
But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.
Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.
David Cain, “Procrastination Is Not Laziness” (via pawneeparksdepartment)
…oh. This explains a lot.
(via eccecorinna)
(via tumblrisweird)
Just a reminder:
When Prophet Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) was travelling on the road with his cousin, Al-Fadl ibn Abbas, a woman stopped him to ask him a question. The woman was very beautiful, and Al-Fadl couldn’t help but stare at her.
Seeing this, Prophet Muhammad reached out his hand and turned his cousin’s face away.
He didn’t tell the woman to cover her face.
He didn’t tell her to change her clothing.
He didn’t tell her that her appearance was too tempting or indecent.
He averted his cousin’s impolite stare.
(via tumblrisweird)
It’s exciting, this is special,” she says, adding she is going to celebrate with “pizza, chicken and waffles and good stuff.
Quvenzhané Wallis for best actress, best kid, best taste in snacks, best at celebrating. (via ramou)
So I just got home and I’m already fed up with how slow the internet connection is.
I fucking know, right?!
… I think our neighbors are stealing it.
