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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Kate Wilson
Cold Drive 2000 series of 248 paintings, oil and digital media
on vellum, 23 x 30 cm
Today I went to the ministry of health to update my OHIP card. The guy at the counter noted that our birthdays are very close together and that we both have a watershed birthday coming up this spring. "I don't care," he said, "you're only as old as you feel." Then, when he took my picture he said, "Is that one okay with you?" I shrugged "sure." It's not like I sit around staring at my OHIP card. Then he said, "even with the frizzy hair?" Then he said, "it's winter hair." Then he said, "I know that feeling." Then he said, "not that I have any hair." Then he said, "I'd rather have frizzy hair than no hair." I was pretty much done with saying things, myself, so I left. Which is all by way of introduction to my new favourite phrase:
"graceful degradation"Which has deposed my old favourite phrase:
"accelerated decrepitude"Here's what the current issue of Scientific American says about graceful degredation in their article on the broadcast transition to digital tv:
Even if your TV can receive over-the-air digital signals, that does not guarantee you can see the pictures. Analog offers what is called "graceful degradation": people in fringe reception areas can at least see something, even if the picture ghosts or fades in and out. DTV is not as forgiving. You either get it, or you do not.Being of a fairly murky mindset I find myself quite comfortable in the fringe reception areas. I grew up in the country without cable and spent a lot of time staring at something-less-than-completely-random TV snow that teased me with rare decipherable images hinting at the storyline of Battlestar Galactica. I'd rather have a fuzzy winter broadcast than no broadcast at all.
Sally has gone horseback riding. Discuss.
A friendly reminder (via Von Bark) for any of us who forget to read Bookninja: read Bookninja. This recent thread about Margaret Atwood's Globe & Mail essays on arts funding might be the most sophisticated arts funding debate I've ever seen. Even the internet-obligatory just-looking-out-for-me-and-mine dude has some thorough and complex insights. My favourite bits, however, are embedded in George Murray's response. Excerpt...
Artists have always been supported by the tribe/lord/town/government. Art is not a business. It can’t be run that way. It’s not a free market of supply and demand. And despite history’s filtering, it’s not Darwinian on the macro level of present day. If it was, it would all be cartoons, dogs playing poker, corporate sculptures, Brittany Spears and John Grisham novels. And we would all be working in art sweatshops for a few cents an hour and another part of you would be crying for our liberation from oppression.note: L.M. and I re-posted both of Atwood's essays in the comment thread here.
Perception of perception report by Joe McKay
According to Donald Hoffman, our vision does not accurately describe the world at all. In fact it constantly lies to us so we can eat and have sex before we die. Why should our vision be excluded from Darwinian evolution? Donald had a host of wacky optical illusions to show us, but also the science chops to back em up. Plus he used an overhead projector to show stuff not a data beamer so we would not think it was a trick.
Also awesome was Norman Klein, who showed us a fly through his new graphic novel "The Imaginary 20th Century" made from culling images from days of yore. I'm not sure the book will be better than his impromptu performance was, but then again who knows.
The second day of the event was held at the Velaslavasay Panorama where we got to have a preview of the upcoming exhibit. The panorama has that kind of effect on your body and mind that makes you say "duuuuude" as soon as you climb in to the room even if you've sworn off saying "duuuude" because you're well into your late 30's and enough's enough already. It really is sweet [d'oh!].
Lastly, here's an image meant to illustrate how change blindness works. I'm not sure how exactly, but I'm pretty confident that I see a bunny. How this makes me A. have more sex or B. live longer is none of your business.
Over the past few weeks, L.M. and I have been posting some lovely mature juicey finished artworks by artists we admire. I decided to break it up with some raw scratchy half-baked drawings from my own sketchbook...
space/time cat water balloons
right/left brain owl
spread inspired by Miyazaki movies and a novel by Iain M. Banks