Etsy

online at ETSY!

Etsy, the arts version of Ebay, now has a wastelandnumberseven shop! So alongside the shop at www.wastelandnumberseven.com you can now order my work alongside a whole host of other peoples!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/wastelandnumberseven

Robot

I find this to be quite an amazing video, robots, walking, they can walk up stairs, run, bicycle, play violin, just check youtube. But some reason this just makes me really sad, teary in a way. Is it the attempt at innocence in the design? is it the empty headedness of a 'being' which has none of it's own thoughts or desires? (are those numbers and codes it is programmed with, thoughts?) is it the childlike way it trustingly holds the hand of someone? or does it remind me about something of us.

It's all very touching anyway, in a cold sort of way. Someone commented on the violin playing robot video, that the playing "lacked soul". I, like many people i suppose, don't know what a 'soul' is, maybe 'feeling' or 'intuition' would be a better word. But it made me wonder if the whole of human life and activity could not live on, posthumously, within robots. Whether you could programme 'feeling'. To make a robot a living breathing record, an archive, of humanity.

It seems interesting also that robots take on the look of their makers. Surely there are much more effective designs for creatures, three eyes? 5 legs and a wheel? wings? but no, the attempt seems to be to make it look and move like a human. Assimilating human life.

On second thought, this sadness.. maybe it is some kind of hope, a brand new little creature, with no feelings, no thoughts of its own.. how are we to know, maybe that's not so different from ourselves? but experience, what little understanding i have so far, makes me doubt hope, it makes me sad when i see the brightness in childrens eyes, considering how little of it is left later on. but maybe that's my own shortcoming.

BUY MY WORK ONLINE!!! (or not.. up to you)

we've just finished the new Jules and Crispin, our late new year special:) and are raring to go on the next one!! www.julesandcrispin.com

[inter]sections - the latest magazine of peer-reviewed essays and reviews on art and other things from the faculty of American Studies at Bucharest University is now online! oh, and i submitted the cover drawing! http://www.americanstudies.ro/?article=144

also, i'm busy drawing something for a new blog (which i also have nothing to do with).. about horses and bikes, with hands.. very odd.. but here it is - http://horsewithhandsridingabike.blogspot.com/

oh, and did also mention you can now buy drawings and paintings of mine on my website, via paypal! very easy to use (only if you speak english though, unfortunately) and something which i've been nagged into doing despite many protestations by myself. (but it is lovely:) http://www.wastelandnumberseven.com/online-shop

remembering the present

I was doing some research into the culture of Luxembourg, i'm planning on applying for an art residency there, god knows if i'll get it. but i came across this website - http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=1538&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html - Memory of the World... kind of sounds like it's already gone. "To guard against collective amnesia"...

"..to guard against collective amnesia calling upon the preservation of the valuable archive holdings and library collections all over the world ensuring their wide dissemination."

it's interesting to see what has been included so far, it's relatively new only being established in 1992, so not as many things as you would expect are included yet. I went straight searching through for films, these are the ones i found -

Metropolis
The Wizard of Oz
Los Olvidados
Neighbours by Malcolm McClaren
Lumiere Brothers
Ingmar Bergman archives
The Battle of the Somme, a documentary record

palestine refugee woman cut off from her home by the "green line"

There are 3 bullet points under objectives -

• To facilitate preservation, by the most appropriate techniques, of the world's documentary heritage. 
• To assist universal access to documentary heritage.
• To increase awareness worldwide of the existence and significance of documentary heritage. 

Now, i have to go get ready, picking up mihaela from heathrow at 5:)

clearing snow

there's a view from outside my window, i've not noticed it for a while. Jules and Crispin is halfway finished, and the book should be finished soon. i've started wrapping presents, and will have to visit people too. the dvd's are carrying on burning, the post is still not here. i have to go to the job centre on christmas eve,and pray the snow is more manageable by monday. i have to put £25 in to the bank, before i get charged for an overdraught. have cleared the snow off the drives, so the car doesn't slide as you try to get in. I owe £320 for my dog's teeth, she had 7 or 8 out. everytime i start firefox, 'learn indesign' starts unnanounced. my brother and his girlfriend are coming for a visit overnight. i might be working in the new year, clearing out old unwanted junk. i was going to go to the pub today, but i don't have the money to go. but it's better than being a greedy swine, although there's no guarantee i ain't. gonna finish reading adrian mole, and restart linda nochlin. must go and do something productive. must start painting again soon.

no more ankles

it almost sound like it's cut out and formed from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. The video does go well with the song.. but i can think of other images that could go with it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr0KkzbbqPI. Quickly edited together images of death and bombs and murder is kind of an obvious solution, placed alongside this almost fairytale like song about orphans running through bloody snow. It's not very subtle or useful, and seems to just respond to the almost mindless punching of the guitar, but there's more to the song than that, how bout those words for a start - "Little Orphans running thru the Bloody Snow, Little Orphans running thru the Bloody Snow, Little Orphans running thru the Blood thru the Blood thru the blood. No more ankles and no more Clothes, Little Orphans running thru the Snow, Little orphans in the Blood in the Blood in the Blood."



and there's more, more to discover both here - http://www.lydia-lunch.org/ - and here