Cryptography is the art of hiding information; before the modern era this was synonymous with encryption, the rendering of information from a legible state to an unreadable one. With the recent exposing of a secret Russian spy ring in the U.S. (still using, it seems, Rocky & Bullwinkle techniques) there has been a fresh...
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jud jud jud jud jud jud jud shud jud jud jah Gallop Song. Jud Jud (1987-1999?) To paraphrase one of my teachers,...
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Tags: atom egoyan, cindy sherman, eve sussman and the rufus corporation, john slone, spectacular agency
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The critical reception of Southland Tales at the 2006 Cannes Festival was pretty bad. The overarching sentiment was that Richard Kelly, darling of Donnie Darko fame, had been undone by ambition and sophmoritis. But let's take the critics' argument, then; let's say that this is a case of failed cinema (and not simply the...
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Tags: Giorgio Agamben, richard kelly, southland tales, spectacular agency
Posted in pop cult | 2 Comments »
What a beautiful face I have found in this place That is circling all round the sun What a beautiful dream That could flash on the screen In a blink of an eye and be gone from me Soft and sweet Let me hold it close and keep it here with me, me In...
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Tags: alexandre singh, Giorgio Agamben, Guy Debord, Nicolas Bourriaud, relational aesthetics, spectacular agency, walter benjamin
Posted in pop cult | 3 Comments »
I don’t need no doctor My prescription tells me that I don’t need no doctor My prescription tells me that All I need is my baby You don’t know I’m in misery –I Don’t Need No Doctor Humble Pie This week’s installation of popOp continues some of last week’s discussion about relational aesthetics, but...
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Tags: Claire Bishop, heidegger, liam gillick, Nicolas Bourriaud, rikrit tiravanija, spectacular agency
Posted in pop cult | 8 Comments »
A dreamer of pictures I run in the night You see us together, chasing the moonlight, My cinnamon girl. Cinnamon Girl. Neil Young. As you may have read, each week the avant guardian asks its contributors to write on a changing theme. This has the benefit for the contributors of eliciting novel responses and...
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Tags: Claire Bishop, desubjectification, Giorgio Agamben, Guy Debord, Jacques Rancière, Jamie Isenstein, Nicolas Bourriaud, relational aesthetics, Saâdane Afif, spectacular agency
Posted in pop cult | 5 Comments »
– OR — on putting things where they don’t belong. I think I’m a clone now (a clone now) There’s always two of me just a-hangin’ around I think I’m a clone now (a clone now) ‘Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down Weird Al Yankovic, I Think I’m a Clone Now Yes, popOp —...
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Tags: adam k. biggs, banksy, chatroulette, eva and franco mattes, Gary Brooks Faulkner, kevin whitrock, ninjas, postmasters gallery
Posted in art, pop cult | 5 Comments »
子曰:為政以德,譬如北晨, 居其所而眾星共之。 (Confucius) said: Governing with excellence can be compared to being the North Star: the North Star dwells in its place, and the multitude of stars pay it tribute. (Analects, 2.1) I’ve been trying to develop in previous posts an understanding of political action that is not pornographic, which I define as a...
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Tags: Confucius, hannah arendt, Judith Butler, philosophy, torture
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The genesis story of the Americas is that in some ancient Jean M. Auel age people with the bleeding-edge technologies of rocks, sticks, fire, and dogs wandered from the tundras of EurAsia and slowly meandered south. With this, U.S. society can historicize a central problem that persistently pops-up (such as the ridiculous situation in...
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double for the values with which they are at odds, thus haunting and reproducing the capital market, creating visionary expansions, producing a lexicon of body control and a private property of self — all of which awaits review. Avital Ronell, Crack Wars, 51. When I’m not writing for theavantguardian.org, I use an addiction model...
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Tags: addiction model, ancient eypt, aristotle, drugs, philosophy, reason, social science, socrates, spectacular agency, thales, you cant step in the same river twice
Posted in pop cult | 9 Comments »