It had to be done. Explanation here. Click for full size, bits of the process after the finished piece photo. I think I may have actually managed to keep my hair out of the syrup. :D I did this on a white trifold, and when it came time to photograph it, I carried it outside, which is why it ended up with the pretty sky-ish background. Media: Karo Lite Syrup, roses (flower, stem, leaf, thorn), water.
Rose Hork, C. Ford.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Click for full size. Have fun guessing, I’m not ready for a reveal yet.
© C. Ford.
CN: misogyny, violence, rape. Have a care before continuing.
Rachel Maclean:
13 May – 26 November 2017
Chiesa di Santa Caterina, Fondamenta Santa Caterina, 30121, Cannaregio
Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 6pm, free entry (also open Monday 15 May)
Rachel Maclean is representing Scotland at the 57th International Art Exhibition, the Venice Biennale, with major new film commission Spite Your Face – a modern-day, dark Venetian fairytale presented as a large-scale portrait projection at the altar of a deconsecrated church.
Rachel Maclean, Spite Your Face, 2017, digital video (still). Courtesy the artist. Commissioned by Alchemy Film & Arts in partnership with Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh on behalf of Scotland + Venice.
In Venice’s Chiesa di Santa Caterina, I am sitting in a pew, looking up to where the altar would normally be, watching the distinct yet unfamiliar movements of a gigantic nose being masturbated. A blue, gloved hand runs up and down its glittering gold length, and its owner, a cartoonish young perfume-purveying influencer named Pic, groans with pleasure. “I intended it to be shocking,” says Scottish artist Rachel Maclean, of her contribution to Scotland’s presence in Venice during the Biennale, a 35-minute, looping film with no beginning or end, that follows Pic on a morality tale that pits his conscience against his greed.
[…]
It would be hard not to see the political significance of the piece, in a world where outright lies appear to be de rigeur for anyone in the public eye. “I was disturbed by the ways in which lies had been used in the Trump campaign and the Brexit campaign, in a lazy sense, to substantiate a political narrative or an idea,” Maclean says. “I started writing the script in December last year and it was a scary time…” One narrative that stands out from the film is the idea of a transformation of fortune, a rags-to-riches redemption (or riches-to-rags, depending on which order you watch the film in), that sees a destitute young boy wind up as shill for a perfume brand called “Untruth.” This creates a fake corporate illusion, in comparison to the magic “Truth” one given to him by his fairy godmother.
“I’ve always been interested in perfume because it seems absurd,” says Maclean. “Really, it’s just a bottle of smelly liquid but it’s packaged in this way that not only makes the object into something more valuable, but it also suggests that you spraying it onto yourself transforms you into something more powerful and alluring.” This idea of a transformative solution to society’s problems critiques these myths that we are told about social mobility: lean in, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, it’s the American Dream. “I was interested in the compassionless aspect of it. The narrative suggests, if you work hard enough and if you dream it, you can do it. It’s a convenient way to gloss over the lack of social mobility in our society,” adds Maclean.
Another uncomfortable moment comes right after the unforgettable nose-onanism, where Pic’s guardian angel joins him in the sexual act. Pic becomes enraged at a perceived insult and ends up brutally raping this maternal figure. It’s uncomfortable, in fact, almost unbearable to watch, even though it’s still, absurdly, carried out by the character’s nose, lengthened from all those lies. “I’ve been disturbed by the rise in visible misogyny,” Maclean says, when asked about this scene. “There’s a level of immunity to it—where we’re just not affected by it. I wanted the rape scene to feel palpably violent and difficult to watch, so that it’s able to break through the surface of that a little bit.”
Rachel Maclean, Spite Your Face, 2017, digital video (still). Courtesy the artist. Commissioned by Alchemy Film & Arts in partnership with Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh on behalf of Scotland + Venice.
The Creators Project has the full story, and more photos. There’s also more at Scotland and Venice. I have no doubt this is both and impressive and disturbing work; not one I would find easy to sit through, but I would like to see it all the same.
Jean Colombe, Detail of a medieval miniature of the Siege of Antioch from Sébastien Mamerot’s Les Passages d’Outremer.
Coach Dave (Daubenmire) is on a tear again, this time over the woeful lack of aggressive violence in today’s Christianity. More violence! More aggression! More manly men being assholes! Yeah, that’s the ticket! I will say that Coach Dave gets a point for honesty.
“The only thing that is going to save Western civilization is a more aggressive, a more violent Christianity,” he said.
A good part of the planet is still soaking in the blood spilt by Christians throughout the ages, who could never seem to get enough war, torture, and various kinds of killing. Given a warped enough view, one could see that as ‘saving’, I suppose.
Playing a clip of Trump shoving aside the prime minister of Montenegro at a recent NATO summit so that he could stand in front of the group of assembled leaders, Daubenmire heaped praise on Trump for showing that “he is large and in charge.”
“Look at him,” Daubenmire screamed gleefully while watching the clip. “They’re all little puppies, ain’t nobody barking at him … He’s walking in authority. He walked to the front and center and they all know it, too, man. He just spanked them all.”
Trump’s behavior is an example for the church, Daubenmire said. “The Lord is showing us a picture of the authority we should be walking in.”
Oh. So that’s what Coach Dave means, that men should wallow in being toxic assholes. I’m rather amazed he hasn’t noticed just how many men already do that sort of thing. It’s a problem. Basically, this just sounds like the posturing plaint of “hey, you aren’t pussy-whipped, are you?” A moronic, faux-macho stance of fucking idiots everywhere. Allow me to translate Coach Dave: “See that? Trump isn’t pussy-whipped, he’s a pussy grabber!” Yeah, grate™.
Daubenmire then cited Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte’s assault on a reporter the day before he won a special election in Montana as another example for the church.
“People are sick and tired of it,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Yes, a fighter! Go, dude, go!’ … Who won? The dude that took the other dude to the ground.”
Well, no, dude, that’s not what happened. Most of the votes were already in when Gianforte assaulted the reporter, a crime he was charged with, by the way, because he was guilty. That’s not something to celebrate, and you certainly should not twist facts to make it seem like voters approved of his crime. I’m sure some of them did, but I’d be willing to bet most did not. No one wants to stand in front of someone who has so little self control. This person is sick and tired of all the toxic assholes running around, using dude dude dude in a sentence because their minds and vocabularies are so damn impoverished.
“That should be the heart cry of Christian men,” Daubenmire said. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of God has suffered violence and violent men take it by force.”
At least he got something right. Yes, Christianity has always been a horrible snarl of blood-soaked violence, brimming over with violent men who believe in taking everything and everyone by force. Seems to me it’s past time for that sort of shit to be over.
Via RWW.
This is Angel. “How do you get this open?” There’s a constant parade of girls trying to figure out this doorknob business, which is why it looks a mess, in spite of being cleaned every day. There are boys on the other side of the door, y’see. Yes, I keep it locked. Just in case. (They do manage to unlock it now and then.) Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
A quick way to chop 10 apples up for the rat crews. :D Also had some fun with photos.
© C. Ford.
Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Lady Mourning Dove, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
The substantive impact of Steve Bannon’s exit from the NSC on foreign policy remains to be seen. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.
Seems that Breitbart has lost its way, no longer able to whip hateful, conservative bigots into a convenient froth anymore. They now find themselves playing defense, and it is not working out for them. I, I … just can’t seem to conjure up a tear.
This year was supposed to be a time of triumph for the “alt-right” website Breitbart.com and its readers. The website’s CEO Steve Bannon became one of the most powerful men in the country, a senior White House adviser with a reputation for ruthlessness in the name of forwarding his white nationalist ideology.
However, according to Vanity Fair‘s Tina Nguyen, Breitbart.com has been racked by internal struggles in recent months and is seeing its once-plentiful traffic numbers take a steep dive.
[…]
“Just a few months later, the numbers have a different story to tell,” said Nguyen. “As of May 26, 2017, according to Alexa.com—the same web-ranking analytics company that Breitbart drew its numbers from in January—Fox News is the 64th most-trafficked site in the country. Huffington Post is at 60. Buzzfeed is at 50. The Washington Post, on the strength of a series of eye-popping scoops, is at 41.”
“Breitbart,” she said, “is in 281st place.”
Web analytics can be a woolly discipline, Nguyen noted, but across the board, Breitbart’s numbers are suffering. “ComScore estimated that Breitbart had nearly 23 million unique visitors during the month of November 2016, but only drew 10.7 million in April 2017, a 53 percent drop. Last month, the site had fewer visitors than it did in April 2016, when 12.3 million people visited the site.”
[…]
Breitbart.com has walked the line of the acceptable, spewing out thinly-veiled hate pieces about feminists, people of color and anyone deemed to be “politically correct.” But now, with its enemies purportedly routed and their nominee in power, Breitbart doesn’t know what to do with the inchoate rage that it has inculcated among its users.
Screen Grab. Playable video at link.
The willful blindness of some people never ceases to baffle me. I’m not much a one for taking things on faith, and I never take any politician on faith of any kind. Politics being what they are, an arena for game playing, with rewards for lying and other duplicitous behaviour, it strikes me as pure folly to rely on faith in the words of any politician, and in particular when it comes to someone like Trump. I’m not overly inclined to being sympathetic to Trumpholes, but it’s difficult to not have compassion for those who feel betrayed as result of their blind faith in a person who did not deserve it in any way. The best they can do now is to get damn active in The Resistance, and try to atone for boosting the Tiny Tyrant into place.
An upstate New York man who sold many of his possessions last year to fund a months-long tour playing music at Trump rallies now regrets his vote for the Republican candidate.
“I had everything riding on the fact that he was going to make things better,” Kraig Moss told the Associated Press. “He lied to me.”
Then-candidate Donald Trump looked Moss in the eye at one rally in Iowa and told the grieving father he would help end the drug epidemic that had claimed his 24-year-old son, whose ashes accompanied the truck driver to 45 rallies.
“He promised me, in honor of my son, that he was going to combat the ongoing heroin epidemic,” Moss said. “He got me hook, line and sinker.”
Post-election analyses found that Trump over-performed in Rust Belt counties ravaged by public health crises — such as drug and alcohol addiction and suicide — but the president’s budget released this week slashes funding for addiction treatment, research and prevention.
Medicaid funding would shrivel under Trump’s 10-year plan, which could devastate coverage to an estimated three in 10 adults addicted to opioids.
[…]
Trump promised during the campaign and after his election to help families suffering from the opioid epidemic — but his voters feel betrayed by the president’s focus on tax cuts, military spending and border security.
“I didn’t see this coming,” said Paul Kusiak, of Massachusetts, who told Trump the candidate about his sons’ successful battles with addiction. “I’m trying desperately to have hope and take the president at his word.”
[…]
“Inside I’m screaming,” said Sandra Chavez, of Sacramento, whose son died from an infection related to drug use. “We’re going backward with Donald Trump’s plan.”
Trump has proposed cutting funds for addiction research, prevention programs, drug courts and prescription drug monitoring, as well as eliminating support for training of addiction professional.
Justin Butler, a 36-year-old Trump voter from Cleveland, fears he will be back on the streets, using drugs and selling them, if Medicaid stops paying for addiction treatment.
“He’s turning his back on people,” Butler said. “He’s a liar.”
It’s one hell of a harsh lesson, and none of these people, in spite of voting for Trump, deserves to be tossed aside like so much trash. None of us deserve that. That said, as noted earlier, being sorry isn’t enough. Regretful Trump voters need to channel that disappointment and betrayal into working for The Resistance, and to now work to get the Tiny Tyrant unseated.
Via Raw Story. There’s a similar story, about a Trump voter who is completely dependent on SSI, finding out she most likely will not have that anymore under the Tiny Tyrant.
Greg Rucka said Wonder Woman’s queer identity was important to the narrative. Photograph: Frank Cho/DC Comics.
Time to get drunk on tears once again. Some screenings of Wonder Woman have had a Women Only night, and all the dudes are upset.
“Wonder Woman” may be a feminist icon, but some male moviegoers aren’t happy about some scheduled women-only screenings of the film.
The controversy began when the famous Alamo Drafthouse cinema in Austin, Texas, announced it would be hosting a screening of the new movie, which stars Gal Gadot as the superhero.“Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying ‘No Guys Allowed’ for one special night at the Alamo Ritz,” the announcement read. “And when we say ‘People Who Identify As Women Only,’ we mean it. Everyone working at this screening — venue staff, projectionist, and culinary team — will be female.”
That didn’t go over well with some men, judging by the comments on the theater’s Facebook page.
“Apparently ‘equality’ is only selective nowadays,” one person wrote. “How about a ‘men’s only’ showing of a movie or is that not how equality works?”
Why no, that is not how equality works, you crybaby of a cupcake.
The Alamo responded to many of the negative comments, pointing out that they have hosted screenings for select groups before, including veterans for military films, and that it’s about a celebration of the Wonder Woman character.
Hmmm, I’ll just bet there wasn’t any leaking of man tears over a veteran’s screening. So, cry some more, dudes, cry enough for us all to get drunk!
Full story at CNN, beware autoplay. Hat Tip to Saad.
Credit: Imzy.
Imzy, the “nice Reddit” has been laid to rest, and is being mourned by its users. It would seem that nice has little place on the ‘net, and has once again been chased into small pockets here and there in the netverse.
After a long bout of illness and injury sustained from battling racism, misogyny, and general depravity, Imzy — the last hope for human decency on the internet — has died. It was 2 years old.
Imzy, the “nice Reddit” created by Jessica Moreno and Dan McComas, two former Reddit executives who left the company in 2015 amid intense controversy over their anti-harassmentpolicies, will officially shut down June 23.
The reason? There’s no room for a platform that promotes basic politeness in the social media market.
In a blog post announcing the impending shut down Wednesday, McComas wrote “it is time for us to shut down the site” as Imzy couldn’t find a “place in the market.”
[…]
Imzy’s sunset isn’t just a loss for users, who regarded it as a place of belonging, it’s also a sign that the worst things about human interaction — bullying, harassment, forums dedicated to promoting racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, unsolicited photos of genitalia, beheading and other snuff videos, child pornography — are likely permanent fixtures on the internet, and by extension in society.
[…]
Maybe this is what life on the internet is supposed to be. After all, the internet is just a mirror of the society it serves and a product of the biases and blind spots of a technology’s creators, so why would we expect it to be any different? Why should the internet somehow be better than the casual and blatant nastiness people experience every day?
It seems that belief in duality persists, this idea that online is distinct and separate from ‘real’ life. Yes, the ‘net is societies, writ large, often in crayon and spray paint. There’s a whole lot of ugly in human societies, so it should not be a surprise that ugly rears up on the ‘net. There’s a whole lot of kindness and creativity in human societies too, and that also shows up on the ‘net. It’s true that nice, fun, and kind don’t garner the same attention as ugly and malicious; we are all attracted to the worst excesses of humankind, if for no other reason, to tsk and be shocked that people could do such a thing. I’ve done my own tiny experiments here on Affinity, with doing nothing but art / photography / nice and fun stories in a day of blogging. When I do that, my stats take a serious hit. Blog about politics, assholes, bigots? Much better for my stats. I try to strike a balance, but it’s not always easy to do.
I am not a social person, at my keyboard, or away from it. I find socializing to be exhausting, and can only handle it in limited amounts, so for someone like me, the internet is ideal, because I can wander away when it all becomes too much. That’s why I don’t indulge in social media much, because being involved with social media means being involved with people, and all the consequent obligations to those people. I don’t think there is any particular reason nice can’t thrive on the ‘net, there are pockets of it all over the place, if you go looking. PZ has written about Mastodon a couple of times, and seems to enjoy it. If you’re trying to be a massive media giant, maybe it doesn’t work so well, I don’t know. Imzy had a great deal of money in October, $8 million. I won’t pretend to understand why it’s now being considered a failure, and those in charge don’t seem to want to explain it fully. Perhaps if there was less focus on the money, nice would thrive better on the ‘net, I don’t know. Seems to me that greed and nice don’t go hand in hand, but what do I know?