David Stoddard's online mind

Ugly, but useful info graphic by the NY Times on the proposed US budget.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/index.html?hp

So, long 1-11-11, 11:11 see you in November. A kiss to my daughter!

Today, I gathered all the useless electronics from the past 7-8 years. There is a trailer on the campus where I work to which one can take these things that have out lived their usefulness. They are a tribute to personal debt, and the success of corporate plan obsolescence we mostly all have experienced over the paste decade (not that either of these are new to society — just the latest manifestations). In the bunch of stuff were first generation cell phones, CD drives, VCRs, DVD players, cordless phones, more cordless phones, obsolete computer components, more obsolete computer components, and cables representing interconnectivity whose standards had long since faded.

I considered the impact of the stuff I took to the trailer. Some was personal, some was for the department for which I work. I know, as I mentioned, that much of this represented debt for the things we all feel we must have, and even feel entitled to as modern citizens of the world. I thought about the environmental impact of the all this stuff. The toxic waste it probably represented. How it was still viable, but yet still useless to me as it had been replaced by something that promised to be “it” — the next greatest thing ever invented — the thing we will all need next, and can simply not do without. I thought about the economic development, and how two an a half billion Chinese and Indians might have slaved to make a living and had found some step up toward the middle — the gold standard of modern life. I thought about the rich, the advancement of technology, of the story I saw on TV last night about the massive arms producers trade show — where US arms-producers sell arms to countries that they know will give, or sell them, to entities who will turn around and use them on us and our troops, or innocent people of the world. I can’t do much about human nature.

I consider that perhaps I am a cog. Debt, although a nuisances, is not usually fatal nowadays — that in itself is interesting. Even though it exists, and it could have possible meant the demise of individuals even 50 years ago, it is not fatal somehow now, at least not in the west. Maybe this is progress. On one hand, I feel the cards are stacked against the vast majority of humans currently living (including myself) controlled (somehow) by the uber-consumers — the ultra-rich who own the media, banks and know when to get in and out of whatever.

On the other hand, I stand on a tennis court at sunset, in the middle of a match, and I am fortunate enough to breath fresh air, and have the mobility and freedom to run back and forth making sometimes amazing feats of personal physical achievement, while enjoying a sublime sunset — unspeakable, awesome beauty to which I had nothing to offer — what luck. I am not having to have electro-shock therapy to cope with the devastating effects of a clinical level of depression. The animal living in my walls, a raccoon perhaps, is irritating, but not killing me. How lucky am I.

Perhaps, the debt, the consumerism, the pollution is all leading us (the human race) to the next level. The level where devices, and useful things are created without the massive destruction of the environment, and where lives are less negatively affected by their production. A level where people are made equal to any other person on the planet. Maybe this mound of electronic refuse, and the money that paid for it has been the fuel for a brighter future. Progressiveness has been given a bad name, and yet it continues. The right can always whip up support against it, yet social progress happens. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed against all odds in the current U.S. political environment. How the heck did that happen? Where was the political maneuvering that brought this about for the last two years? I scratch my head, and refer back to being a cog.

Anyway, the trailer of useless electronics . . . it is tough to stomach. It’s enough to make you want to express yourself.

Transfiction

The Horrendous Whimsy of Stupid Sharp Things
The actual pieces are 7 feet high.

Spectacle

A study based on the Horrendous Whimsy of Stupid Sharp Things series.

Winter’s coming.

Lea Ann, my wife, took this of me — the reflection in our wood burner. She’s getting really good with her D90. It’s like photoshop in a viewfinder.

It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion.

I will not be getting the time-based piece finished in time for the faculty exhibition deadline. I will spend more time on it this fall. Hopefully, it will evolve into a much stronger work. I will publish it when it is ready.

Meanwhile, I have another pieced based on the lines made by students cutting on a table for decades of artmaking.