Mathematically Correct Breakfast

Also known as Möbius strip bagel. More room for cream cheese!

The real question is: is it worth it? How much more spreading room do you actually get? Mathematician Antonio R. Vargas has done the calculations, and they get quite complex, veering into calculus. On a webpage hosted by Dalhousie University, Vargas concludes that “the ratio of the surface area exposed by cutting along the two-twist Möbius strip to the area exposed by cutting the bagel straight in half is approximately: 1 + 1/6 (heights/width-height)2.”

To make a long story short, the amount of spreading surface you get depends on the size of your bagel, but it will always be more than if you had cut it in half.

Science Explorer has the full story and instructional photos.

Second Skin

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Second Skin (2015), Esmay Wagemans. All images courtesy to the artist.

Instagram itself is quite clear about it: nudity is in no way allowed. Yet there’s still a lot of discussion going around this policy. A question that often arises, for example, is: Why are male nipples allowed while female ones aren’t?’ Last year, the #freethennipple movement unexpectedly took surface. Woman from all around the globe took to Instagram and Facebook, and shared selfies of their nude bodies. They still got censored, but the motivation was clear. Advocates of the movement accused the Western world in general (and the platform itself) of a sexist double-standard. Instagram subsequently defended their policy by stating they wanted their platform to be suited for all age groups (the app has a 12+ rating in the App Store). And children, so it seems—according to their general opinion—shouldn’t see any female nipples.

If it’s up to Esmay Wagemans, a fourth year at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, this will soon change. For her project Second Skin, she worked out a way to bypass Instagram’s nudity censorship. By using a self-developed special kind of latex, she actually managed to show her nipples without showing any skin.

I spoke to Wagemans about the creation of Second Skin, how people reacted on it, and why she thinks it’s important to revolt against any patronizing platform.

[…]

Why do you think it’s important to put your breasts on Instagram?

To me, Instagram is a very important platform to share my work as an artist. And I’m not going to change the essence of my work just because it would be too shocking for other people, or because it wouldn’t fit the social norms. Sure, I get that pornographic images shouldn’t be on it, but then again Instagram should focus on creating a different, less sexist and more refined nudity and censorship policy. Apart from all of this though, I do think Instagram’s strict nudity policy is sustaining the idea of a woman’s body as a sexual object.

How do you mean, “sustaining the idea of a female body as sexual object?” Don’t you think it’s a good thing children are restricted from seeing naked breasts?

I myself don’t think nudity should be such a taboo, because it feeds objectification. Look, if you’re not portraying breasts in an erotic or pornographic way, I think everyone should be able to see them, even children. By withholding those kinds of “normal” nudes from young teenagers, you’re still presenting the female body as something sexual. That’s simply not beneficial for anyone. Within that abstinence, the idea of the body starts being seen as something separate from the woman. It’s right there, where the objectification starts.

Six Indigenous Films Funded.

Vision Maker Media website.

Vision Maker Media website.

Vision Maker Media (VMM) has announced financial support for six new projects for production by and about Native Americans.

With funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Vision Maker Media’s Public Media Content Fund awards support to projects with a Native American theme and significant Native involvement. […] “The goal of the Public Media Content Fund is to increase the diversity of voices available to PBS viewers,” said Shirley K. Sneve (Rosebud Sioux), executive director of Vision Maker Media.

The final slate of documentaries funded this year represents Native voices and stories from across the United States, including Alaska, California, Illinois, Montana, Oklahoma and Washington, some documentaries will cover stories coast-to-coast. In this funding cycle, 66 percent of the filmmakers are women, 33 percent are male; 66 percent are enrolled in a federally recognized tribe.

Funding was awarded as 75 percent production, 19 percent post-production and completion and 6 percent new media.

The projects are:

ATTLA

Catharine Axley

Production | 100,000

ATTLA tells the gripping story of George Attla, an Alaska Native dogsled racer who, with just one good leg – childhood tuberculosis left him with a lame leg – and a determined mindset, became a legendary sports hero among both western and Native communities across the country.

Kendra (Working Title)

Brooke Swaney (Blackfeet/Salish)

Production | 100,000

What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.

The Blackfeet Flood

Ben Shors, Lailani Upham (Blackfeet/Sisseton Wahpeton/Gros Ventre)

Production | $73,484

More than a half-century after the worst disaster in Montana history, two Blackfeet families struggle to come to terms with the 1964 flood. While one family held on to their rural lifestyle, the flood scattered the other family across the U.S.

Words From A Bear: The Enigmatic Life of Author N. Scott Momaday

Jeffrey Palmer (Kiowa)

Production | 115,000

Words From A Bear examines the enigmatic life and mind of Pulitzer-Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday. The biography delves into the psyche, ancestry and writings of one of Native America’s most celebrated authors of poetry and prose.

Keep Talking

Karen Weinberg, Kartemquin Films

Post-Production | 100,000

Kodiak Alutiiq Elders of Alaska’s Gulf Coast are victims of systematic assimilation and abuse, first by Russian occupation, then by the United States government. Now with less than 50 fluent Native speakers of Kodiak Alutiiq remaining, three young Alutiiq women battle the resulting historical trauma and discover that saving their language is truly a matter of life and death.

In the Beginning was Water and Sky

Mackenzie Gruer (Tyendinaga Mohawk), Ryan Ward (Métis)

New Media | $30,000

In the Beginning was Water and Sky is a short-form New Media project that tells two parallel stories about a Chippewa boy who runs away from Indian Boarding School in the 1950s and a Chippewa girl who runs away from her village in the 1700s.

ICTMN has the full story.

It’s a theory, theories are unproven…

Texas State Board of Education District 9 candidate Mary Lou Bruner (WFAA/screen grab)

Texas State Board of Education District 9 candidate Mary Lou Bruner (WFAA/screen grab)

Mary Lou Bruner. Again. Ugh. This woman makes most extreme Christians seem downright liberal. She is running, once again, for the state school board in Texas. She doesn’t care for her competition, Keven Ellis, who is of the opinion that religious instruction should take place at home, not school. Mary Lou probably thinks that makes him a demon in disguise.

During a Sunday face-off between Ellis and far-right opponent Mary Lou Bruner on WFAA’s Inside Texas Politics, both candidates made their case to voters for the May 24th runoff for the GOP nomination.

Ellis argued that schools needed to be properly funded, but that the district had a responsibility to see that money was spent wisely.

Bruner, who has warned that pre-K programs indoctrinate children into the “homosexual agenda,” called for slashing “special programs” and early childhood education.

[…]

“Ms. Bruner has said that she wants creationism taught in science class,” Inside Texas Politics host Bud Kennedy noted. “And that her views represent those of the district. Are you Christian enough to represent this district?”

“Yes, I am,” Ellis insisted. “I’ve taught Sunday school and Bible quiz in my church in 20 years. And I believe it’s my responsibility to teach my faith to my children. The catch of when you get religion in school is whose religion is going to be taught?”

Bruner disagreed: “When we only teach theory — it’s a theory, theories are unproven — but in the science class, if only one theory is taught then we’re teaching a religion. It is the religion of atheism.”

Via Raw Story.

Chewed Gum and Old Books.

Photographer Michael Massaia has created some amazing work with chewing gum. Yes, you read that one right.

Broken Heart-2016 42"x60" Pigment Print

Broken Heart-2016
42″x60″ Pigment Print

Transmogrify#2 – Chewed Gum Sculptures-
All of the images are created from a single piece of chewed gum. I mold all the shapes by using my hand, tongue, and teeth ( the shapes are not created digitally). The sculptures range from anatomical organs, flowers, sea creatures, clothing, and abstractions. After I mold them, I mount them onto black plexi glass (or face mount them to regular glass), and photograph the sculpture using either a Creo scanner or a large format camera.

The rest of the series can be seen here, and WOW is about all I have. I have used a good number of unusual things to create art pieces, but chewing gum never entered my mind.

Cara Barer has found old, discarded books to be a great medium.

"Nightshade" 2015 48" X 48" Ed./9, 36" X 36" Ed./9, 24" X 24" Ed./9

“Nightshade” 2015 48″ X 48″ Ed./9, 36″ X 36″ Ed./9, 24″ X 24″ Ed./9

"Morpho" 2014 48" X 48" Ed./9, 36" X 36" Ed./9, 24" X 24" Ed./9

“Morpho” 2014 48″ X 48″ Ed./9, 36″ X 36″ Ed./9, 24″ X 24″ Ed./9

I transform books into art by sculpting them, dyeing them and then through the medium of photography presenting them anew as objects of beauty. I create a record of that book and its half-life.

Books, physical objects and repositories of information, are being displaced by zeros and ones in a digital universe with no physicality.  Through my art, I document this and raise questions about the fragile and ephemeral nature of books and their future.

I arrive at some of my images by chance and others through experimentation. Without these two elements, my work would not flow easily from one idea to the next. A random encounter on Drew Street with a Houston Yellow Pages was the primary inspiration for me. After that chance meeting, I began to search for more books, and more ways to recreate them.

I realized I owned many books that were no longer of use to me, or for that matter, anyone else. Would I ever need a “Windows 95 Manual”?  After soaking it in the bathtub for a few hours, it had a new shape and purpose. Half-Price Books became a regular haunt, and an abandoned house yielded a set of outdated reference books, complete with mold and neglect. Each book tells me how to begin according to its size, type of paper and sometimes contents.

As I begin the process, I first consider the contents of each volume. I only spent a few seconds on the “Windows 95 Manual”. The “New Century Dictionary of the English Language,” was a treasure. Its fascinating illustrations and archaic examples saved it from taking on a new form.

This transformation and photographic documentation led to thoughts on obsolescence and the relevance of libraries in this century. Half a century ago, students researched at home with the family set of encyclopedias, or took a trip to the library to locate information. Now, with computers, tablets and/or smartphones, an Internet connection and cloud storage, a student has the ability to amass knowledge and complete a research paper without ever going near a library. I have fully embraced all this technology, and would not want to be without it, but fear the loss of the beautiful record of books common over the last two centuries.

Have a look. *Thinks about the stacks of old manuals in the house*. I’m just going to have to play around a bit.

Whoosh

No, these aren’t portraits showing the extraordinary beauty of Grackles,  this is what happens when you put butter cookies out for them. Butter cookies, a leading cause of temporary grackle insanity. All images 1500 x 996, click for full size. I rather like the disembodied talon in the last shot.

Whoosh1

Whoosh

Whoosh2

Whoosh3

© C. Ford.

Odd Things

Cope Ceramic, acrylics, mix media 10" x 15" x 8" 2016

Cope
Ceramic, acrylics, mix media
10″ x 15″ x 8″
2016

Erika Sanada does absolutely stunning sculptures, which are born of anxiety and trauma:

My work reflects the weird and the creepy; I am fascinated with the dark side. “Odd Things” is my current body of work and I use ceramic for making bizarre creatures. They have extra body parts such as multiple arms, legs, teeth and ears.  These are how I express my sensitive mind. There are two reasons I create misshapen and abnormal work. One is my bitter childhood and the second is my constant anxieties.

When I was young, my friends ignored and bullied me. As a result, I stayed indoors and watched supernatural movies and animations. They helped me escape from reality and gave me power. These movies showed main characters using magic to turn others into freakish animals and insects. This transformation inspired me to make work that reflected the images that I saw in those movies and animations.

I have had an anxious personality since I was a child. I worry about everything, even tiny things. Anxiety drags my mind to the dark side, which is more powerful and intense than my bright side. Sometimes I can’t move forward because I am emotionally paralyzed. I decided to go face-to-face with my anxieties by creating irregular and eerie creatures representing my dark side. As a result, these creatures show my twisted mind as I try to overcome anxiety through my creation.

Influence Ceramic, glaze 10.5" x 9" x 10" 2015

Influence
Ceramic, glaze
10.5″ x 9″ x 10″
2015

Have a look at Odd Things, wonderfully beautiful and thought provoking.

INKS

For their latest video game INKS, London-based State of Play Games have created a new spin on classic pinball by turning the background of a pinball game into a piece of interactive art. As the ball traverses the course, the bright lights and clanking sounds of traditional pinball are replaced with pockets of watercolor paint that explode into flourishes. The ball in turn leaves trails of color as you solve each level. […] It’s a visually stunning game with some pretty innovative ideas, even if you don’t particularly enjoy pinball. You can download INKS for iOS here.

Via Colossal Art.

And, if you prefer a longer version:

I always sucked at pinball, but this looks fun.

Kidnapped, Gagged, Surgically Altered Jesus.

(REUTERS/Anton Meres (SPAIN))

(REUTERS/Anton Meres (SPAIN))

There have been a number of articles written recently [by Christians], making the case for Jesus being transgender, what with taking flesh from Mary, missing a chromosome, all that. I can’t say I find any of it particularly interesting, because there’s no Jesus. It is upsetting a whole lot of other Christians.

When Christian ministers in the Civil Rights Movement appealed to the character of Jesus Christ for the wisdom and strength to pursue equality, they did so knowing that they were following His lead. They were advocating for His will and supported by the Christ of Scripture. Jesus, you might say, was a willing participant in the push for equality.

Now, however, as the push to redefine humanity in the sexual revolution is underway and the effort to seek “equal rights” for transgenders is the cause célèbre, Jesus has to be bound with chains, gagged with duct tape, kidnapped and surgically altered to serve as the champion of that movement’s ideal for equality. He has to be dragged kicking and screaming to a place His creation was never intended to go.

Emphasis mine. There sure are a whole lot of people bullying God these days. I do find it interesting that Christians manage to cry “Persecution, you are bullying God!” while at the same time, able to wax poetic about the all powerfulness of said god.

[…]

This is, of course, utter nonsense and not akin to any interpretive paradigm for the incarnation ever offered by any theologian, at any time, in any era, on any continent, for any purpose. It is a fabrication of minds clouded by the scars of sexual rebellion.

[…]

Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, preached in a synagogue (which only males could do), was referred to as the “son” of Mary (and Joseph, though erroneously so), referred to exclusively by the Greek pronouns “his” and “him,” and was referred to as “King of the Jews” – not “Queen of the Jews.” Nowhere is it recorded that Mary dressed poor female Jesus in male clothes to ease his transition into patriarchal society. Nowhere is Jesus said to be screaming internally for his inner female self to break the chains of restrictive, theocratic society to have a coming out party.

These patently obvious cues in Scripture, however, will likely not dissuade armchair theologians on the Left from validating Hall’s thesis.

I, therefore, turn to church history. In the entire corpus of writings on the church fathers, there is not a single writer who claims Jesus was anything other than anatomically and psychologically male in his humanity. The church does not depict him as schizophrenic, bi-polar, bi-sexual, homosexual, questioning, or transgender.

[…]

He is a new creation, indeed – just not one to be used to bolster a new, tired old argument about Jesus’s sexuality to make transgenders feel better about their gender dysphoria or the fact that they are prohibited from using the opposite sex’s restrooms.

I’d rather they just admit that they’re looking for a different Savior than the one given to us in the Christ of the Bible.

The full rant is here.

Egyptian Artists Work Around State Oppression And Censorship.

Ollah - installation by Hossam Dirar (2015)

Ollah – installation by Hossam Dirar (2015)

 

Division (2013) installation by Hossam Dirar (Photo via Hossam Dirar)


Division (2013) installation by Hossam Dirar (Photo via Hossam Dirar)

In times of chaos, artistic expression can be cathartic. But artist expression in a place like Egypt can be insalubrious while working under an oppressive political regime.

“In recent years, the Egyptian arts and culture sector has faced debilitating repression,” the Arterial Network, a non-profit network of artists and activists building democratic arts practices in Africa, noted in December. “Prohibitive restrictions affecting the freedom of artists and journalists are ongoing.”

The Egyptian government passed a law that debilitated certain art-funding NGOs in 2014, and in December of last year, police raided and closed a gallery and a theater in downtown Cairo without giving an official reason. Some artists have also been banned from traveling abroad to receive awards for their work.

Crackdowns on the arts have led many Egyptian artists to avoid addressing politics altogether. “Most of the art since 2011 has avoided talking about political points, aside from a handful of artists,” Dirar told ThinkProgress.

“The current system is perhaps the worst in terms of attacking [or] not accepting people’s voices, whether artistic, political or social,” he said. “There can be no opposition; the state rejects opinions and ideas that differ from their own. The artist finds himself in a tight spot. If you like the system and choose to defend it, you’re fine, but if not, if you vocalize dissatisfaction, if your commentary does not match theirs, you could end up in jail for life.”

Politics may be taboo or risky, but artists throughout history have found ways to be subversive or rebellious to oppression. But for some artists, avoiding politics is impossible. Their impact casts a shadow over society and affects the calculated behavior of every individual Egyptian. To avoid repression, Egyptian artists create social and political commentary using Aesopian methods.

Justin Salhani has the Full Story at Think Progress. It’s a great read. What can I say? Artists must create, it’s not a matter of what we do, it’s what we are. These are artists working in highly dangerous circumstances, going ahead with making a statement and sharing that expression with others at personal risk.

Ollah Project.