itookthepillyougaveme

Tag: life

  • Activity #8- anyspaceiwant

    I open it again. Flip forward until it’s blank. Yes. Spit it out. The page is lonely; colourless, not neglected no, just not discovered yet. Waiting to say, “hello, aren’t you the prettiest little fuck-up” . An Icarian Fall.

    Dimensions: about three inches by six. 3/4 inch thick. Red. Like a shitty rose.

    It’s important understand that this space is not for you. It’s mine. It does, however, bleed into my life, obscuring my eyes, guiding them with a lens of madness, of unremorseful appreciation. Know this; if it’s italic, it’s direct from the red space. Lucky you, fuck you think?

    As Max says “Dude what if we were dogs” Bro’s so real.

    a page from the space.

    Real, not tantalizing, close, not the brilliant illumination of ideals, but real. Truly real. What is? Whatever I allow, only what I allow to be.

    Forward 10 pages. A brilliance I receive beyond my power to make. Suddenly I know I have passed to a shore where I do not live. I see now, what I thought was part of the light, is part of the dark.

    It’s far too easy to get lost in here. I visit it everyday, and I still find myself slipping down the wrong hallway, sliding into one of the flooded rooms, the ones where the bulbs are burnt out. Most of what you find here is text, partially recognizable characters scribbled up and down the lines- 23 per page. You are often directed to a external work, one that does not exist within this space. Look! Go read The Industrial Society and it’s Future! Sink deeper into the depravity of this world under the false moniker of intellectualism. If you’re lagging behind the class, this space is a book, or rather an empty book waiting to be filled with text. It exists anywhere I exist, tagging along in my back pocket, chomping at the bit when any predicament or experience comes my way, eager to catalogue and commentate.

    Look closer, and you will find surprisingly deep pools of sorrow.

    Check out Hannah Arendt

    Lost again. Flip back to the beginning. Reread it. This time you’ll understand, this time you’ll enact it.

    Max and I with our hazy IPAs, we sit in the beargrass, admiring the lichen, discussing the whys of what has been, and the prospects of things to come. There you are. That is the start. Of this space. It’s really the middle of this chapter, however for our purposes that’s all you need know. It flits between the tangible and that which is only applicable in the mind, it exists because you will it to, you prune it and cherish it all whilst fearing what it reminds you of- yourself.

    This is not inclusive, nor is it exclusively selective. This space exists so that you may tamper with yourself in the safety of language. A third space only in ideals. This special issue.. blah blah blah… does whatever you want it to do. That’s why it’s not a third space. It’s more personal, more intuitive, a leper of fantastical notions.

    Are you there? You must be with me. There are pages, it is red, you know how many lines per page, you know there things that have been written. You do not know what they mean. You are not me. This is not your space. Sometimes, it barely feels like mine. Whatever this has meant to you, try to replicate the negligence of it’s nuance in your own way. Build your own little space of everythings and nothings. Collect your things too dear to speak aloud, and tuck them with purpose, hide them from all that ails, so that you may one day become what you hold so dearly.

    If found: Contact XXX-XXX-XXXX

    Reward: A spliff and a hug

    a hyperlink within an image, an
    image from a page of the space

  • Blog #9- Permitting a Placid Pulse

    I do like the notion we’re analyzing, the exclusion of statistics in favour of placing one’s finger on the pulse, feeling the blood pulsate, circulating, and knowing why, because you took the initiative to ask. To understand. Citations 86’d.

    Communities must be included as a driving force, as to leave them out is to throw accuracy to the wind, to break trust, subjectivizing every topic, every character, until you’ve squeezed the entire soul from the story. Make them your collaborators, not your serfs.

    The narrative references in “When The Sound is Frozen” are freaking sick. I may have to include a similar sort of cataloging in my future works. Experiment with that medium to say the least.

    I’d like to improve upon utilizing narrative extraction, in a fashion that utilizes the other resounding sensory factors when listening to someone talk about a topic. Fuck what they say, what do they sound like?(still hear what they say, just make sure to listen for more) How do their eyes look when they choke that sentence out? Forage for the grit. To enthrall. I want their stories to hold me captive, bind my arms, hold my tongue, so that which i do take is more meaningful. As a concoctor of verbally or visually transmitted symbols, I must remember- As purveyor of prescribed notions, it’s not my duty to sand them down to textureless nothings, but my job to make sure the audience can feel every knot, every offset grain in the wood, so that their hand is dragged so carelessly, lost in captivation, that they get splinters. Something real. Tangible.

    Writing and research are not neutral. The expression of anything aligns with the topic in a fashion that harbors responsibility for it to a certain degree. Real policies, real environments, and lives are shaped by such. I believe there is often fail to recognize this.It really boils down to an ever-resounding theme often neglected today; the art of listening. Slow it down, get messy, break a concept whilst trying to understand another- be more human.

  • Activity #5- Visual Ventricle

    Symbols are rhetoric. Rigggght. So is everything else. Right.

    Here’s my ‘moodboard’. The intention behind this is rooted in depicting the falsities we are preached as a society. Adherence is only necessary if everyone else adheres. Adhere to some degree to achieve some degree of success. Anyways, that’s irrelevant. Just remember to work hard in high school so you can go to a good university so you can get a good job so you can have a big, pure family so you’re able to lock yourself behind your white picket fence while the world around you burns. It’s simple.

    this is something i drew. it's a dystopian depiction of our world(not so far from today) it shows the pressure of the GRIND, propogated by our industry and popular culture, and how people are starting to wake to the notion that the eternal GRIND might just not be the end all be all.

    Let that seep in. Pure artistic expression. Sheesh.

    I applied both the usage of visual elements such as representation through colour, as well as brief symbol usage(the no sleeping signs).I’d say this is a depiction of a dystopian reality except that is basically how we currently exist. Think about it. Pretty simple isn’t it. Text is utilized in order to make the message more consumable, as well as to plant some propaganda seeds in your little mind. (your mind only exists in relation to this.) The gushing metallic heart of capitalism continues to pump, sending clanker reinforcements anywhere but where they’re needed. Leaches. In paradise. Sucking the life out of you while you smile, clapping your hands in front of your brand new financed (monthly through blackrock subsidiaries) HD colourpop9000™️ 72-inch television set, drooling just a bit onto your pet labubu(which you’re still paying off yet have an insatiable hankering for a new one). Truly, and beautifully content in your squalor. Like a good American. Don’t be ashamed. Go on. Go buy another. Yes, because you want it, sure. Because you can. What else could pacify you if this is your world….. right?

    Nothing’s ever good enough. More. I need more.

  • Blog #5- Communication Control

    Here we are, floundering in yet another rhetorical medium. Lovely. We’re back to third spaces: the cigarette stained stoops, the pavilion amongst the felled oak trees; those spaces in which existence is less so guided, and more so encouraged. Except now, they’re magazines. Zines, to be specific. These are basically small-form printed written works, often including visual elements, sort of pocket books for the people if you will.

    Upon exploring a few zines on the internet archive, I was not convinced they can be considered third spaces within themselves. I’d say that they can be a very useful medium for circumventing constricting idealisms, but they’re a medium. There is no reflected discourse within them exactly, it’s the discourse that exists around them in the communities they help curate. One could say, well third places in general are just a medium. The place is just a place until you define the place. And I would have to agree. So, I suppose there is essence in claiming them as a place for conversation. For expression. An extension of the imagination if you will. I suppose the main issue is interacting with them digitally. I’d hope for some sort of chat feature or digital discussion room, as that would complete the third place definition for me. Zines are akin to posters, to songs, to notes scribbled then tucked into the drawer of International. They are simply another means to an end.

    That being said I do dig some of Licona’s sentiments regarding imagination as within the realm of positive application. That it is indeed productive to endorse one’s imagination, that it transcends escapism. It’s a nice thought, with a lot of truth to it. Among explored zines was the Warrior Crowd Control and Riot Manual . It was neat. Here’s a little taste for you.

    a zine showing how to use riot control grenades, and how to combat them. It also shows the types of grenades- M7A3 CS, and M25 CS

    Tear gas types mainly utilized by police and military are detailed. One smells like apple blossom, one smells like pepper. Both will make you cry.

    While I feel someone could consume any type of media and be receptive to it, depending on both the topic at and, and their interest in it, I have enjoyed the images in these zines. The sort of pamphlet feel makes for a bit more of a hands-on vibe. Very effective for spreading rhetoric. I can already picture an “Earth First” zine in detail; Erika facing down bulldozers in Northern Arizona. Straight out of Hayduke Lives!

    I still don’t think zines are really third places(my earlier logic says otherwise) but I can understand and appreciate the niche they fill in spreading rhetoric, especially within marginalized movements or for more guerilla sectors, which they seem to be perfectly suited for. Dropping little zine manifestos from the sky. Soon enough. Sound familiar?

  • Blog #3: Gamification of Everything

    Every digital interface is lilted with components designed to engage every sense of it’s user, to drag them in and maintain their control, doing the most to avoid relinquishing their grasp on your psyche. Attention is time, time is power. The clankers have obtained our most valuable resource with such an efficiently constricting grasp.

    Now, pivoting back to the realm of De Certeau. If interaction with your environment(in this case walking) lets us bend space in small acts of resistance, playing a video game can feel similar—sometimes finding hacks, sometimes being utterly strangled by it’s design. Either or, it’s evident that the power retained through agency isn’t purely an abstract concept. Submerged in stoplights, lurking in street names, even harbored in controller buttons. Or this keyboard. In my mind it’s difficult to escape the notion that we are all slaves to the technology we benefit so dearly from. A leach to both ourselves and this world.

    I personally never play video games. I never possessed a system when I was younger, nor did my friends. This resulted in my never figuring out how to use a controller properly. Due to that, I still avoid playing them today. Admittedly, I despise the things. My hatred for video games is seated in my upbringing, my ecocentric mentality, the ideals that being outside and active will always be better. For you, and for your reality. Not to mention that your tangible interaction with the world IRL will always be closer to being real in my mind. Of course, it’s all just a differing of views within an infinite amount of constructs, so it doesn’t really matter. I can appreciate what video games can do for certain individuals. Complete creation of their own world, utilizing their own rhetoric to craft an entity that means something to them.

    a film photograph I took of a young lad getting cuffed on the sidewalk, shirtless, and liquored up.

    Go get drunk and watch shirtless kids get arrested for engaging in a liquor-fueled jousts instead of sitting in your basement. As with everything, this is purely my opinion, my interpretation of my world.