The Worldwide Culture Gonzo Squad, Inc.

Dec 15

[video]

Nov 08

why Maker ethics might save us all

Creativity and Curiosity often go hand in hand, and both are discouraged in our society. Sure, we may talk big about them, but take a moment to think about the last time you came up with a truly outrageous idea, how the people around you reacted. What about the last time you went on a learning binge? Did the people around you look at you oddly? If not, count yourself lucky.
Come on a bit of a jump here with me - I think this has to do with how litigious our culture is. We generally look outside ourselves for blame when things go wrong. I’m not going to get into why we do this displacement of blame - others will be far better at discussing that than myself. What I can talk about is what that tendency does to us, and how we might remedy those mindsets.

An example, of sorts:
A producer has cater to the lowest common denominator when designing and marketing their product, both to reach the largest possible audience, but also to protect themselves. A producer has two general directions to go with their product in relation to their clientele, regardless of what the product is: open it up, or close it off. Opening it requires some level of disclosure about how the product works, encourages learning about the product, feedback about how to make it better, etc. This is expensive, assumes the user will take some personal responsibility interacting with the open product causes its breakage or their injury. The general mindset is that the risks of injury or intellectual property aren’t worth taking. So the other route is followed: closing the product off. The producer takes full responsibility for a product not working, but also protects themselves from intellectual property theft (thereby protecting their asset), has full control over the safety of the product, etc. They are much safer. The populace at large is, after all, stupid and litigious.

That’s where my issue comes in. The population at large is *not* stupid and litigious by nature, but because they are expected to be, and are treated as such. You can blame it on the Halo Effect (link), or one bad apple, or whatever you want to. Our court system is even based on precedence. If people before you thought that the action you’re parsing was a bad one, you’re supposed to also think it’s a bad one. But that also means that you can change that simply by making it clear how you’re dealing with a situation. We can change expectations, both in the legal and in the meatspace worlds. Most juries do find silly suits as just that - silly. We just hear about the epic and huge ones (lady that spilled coffee on her lap and won a bunch of money? Yeah, actually read the case sometime. I totally agree with the decision) because that’s what our media goes for. We need to focus on the ones where the juries or judges tell the plaintiff to suck it up, to quit being stupid, etc.

In short… hack it. Take it apart. Show them the new way.

Oct 03

[video]

Sep 29

Borrow The Indifference (Ed. I'm a spectator here too. Just passing along the uber. -Jerem)

- Written By ‘Siva de Ferrera [A.K.A. Keith Ferrera] 



Mail will be delivered by telepathy in 18 months. They are beta testing it now.

V0.86’s only bug to speak of is that files larger than 100MB make the recipient breakdown in tears. V0.97ALPHA fixes that bug and only at 1.2GB does the recipientstart to drool and recite screenplays from old Kaptain Kangaroo episodes. RC 1.0 will almostcertainly come with disclaimer. With the speed at which the Available Information Ageis traversing, intercourse, by touching forefinger-to-forefinger, is not too far away.
Japan, as always, is on the forefront of that technology. 
In fact, thumb-to-forefingerauto erotica SNAPS, as they are being referred to, are already being sold in Manga shops andBody Alt Clinics in New Tokyo   
and the openware downloaded on most Distributed Hash Trackers.
Short for Sexual Narcissistic Auto-Erotic Pleasure Signalation, they have replacedHeroin as the “New Nod”. Outlawing their commercial use in the U.S. has only made them moreprevalent and SNAPS modders have turned into the equivalent of a back alley abortionist…or abolitionist depending on which wing you cower under. Ironically though, drugs are no longeran issue since they, being only a substitution for prolonged orgasm, can’t compete with the real thing.Snapping your fingers in a Jazz club used to pronounce your hip appreciation for the artist.



Now, Mole Kids pop and lock, genuflect and gesticulate to MOOG lines and compressed beats 


at24 hour Stations


situated intra-bowery, 


underground… 


with raw fingers… oozing…  


Clasping hands, they hail one another with the credo, and subsequent manifesto, “Under and Out,”(as they Soul Shake, finger clasp, abrazo, and snap their fingers back on the release,taking care to firmly graze each others SNAPS) choosing to stay undergroundand riding the outer edge of frequency and technology, jacking whatever they can.
In these OutRiders, Morrison’s Ghost still haunts, moving their souls closer stillto The End through these depraved and vagrant halls.





__________________________________________________________________________________

Borrow The Indifference


The abstract nightmare that is the the double-ought Decade is beyond our beatific imaginings.All the children are on Serotonin Re-uptakes…Them dementia prone nostalgics are driving them absolutely mad….and their parents are on Atypical Neuroleptics .
Hippies close in and infect us with PTSD.You selfish Fucks!God is sitting in a virtual reality busgoing insane from the never-ending slaughter film. Crying with me.
He realizes this… is the end,but is too disturbedto stop the rotisserie.His tears are desperate, but… he hears us not.
His pain is deep.This is his fault.He is forsaken.He has forsaken himself.
The sunbeam in his eye is glinting,glistening in his wet orb.He sees, butforgets his transgressions.
We are lost on his dandruffed scalp.We are the plague on his skin.We disturb him.We have disowned him.
He is alone and praying to give us peace.The parameters are too great.The rain falls intermittently throughout history.We gag on our monumental discrepancies.
We fight and coerce one another.We have lost touch with choice.We devise broken divisions of mistrust and abandonment.We strike and miss the totality of the struggle.
We curse our name.We bow to horrific non-fiction.Grabbing the neck in the mirrorwe strike with irrelevant Dogma.
We curse our loinsleaving our seed’s innocent child in perpetual assault.Destroy our nameIn-The-Name-Of.
Worship confused menand damn the others.The sand falls through the fingersand we hear not the wind.
The angry screamcriedfellowships with ignorance and lays wasteto friendship and brotherhood.
We are cloth and are clean.We are matter and existto balance anti-matter.We are one and only.
We cannot bring ourselves to the end of ituntil weborrow the indifference of the seato the shore.
Solace is a place beyond truth.Truth is irrelevant.We are a lost specieswaiting for a blackhole to swallow us with ambiguity.
We know ourselves backwards.We revel in it.Saccharin bravery and rehabilitative economic sanctionswill be the death of glory and Capitalistic socialist Neo-Conservatist Democracy.
Lose trust in a caricature.Dance silly to the Honky-Tonk Soul.It will glitch and glow to hyper-sensitive collective mediocrityand abandon itself to television opinion and categorical news.
Fishing will only happen on the radio.A wheel well willcollect mud as designed,unknowingly.
Darwin is proved and exonerated.We kick the wheel.We practice inconsequentials.We are proud and relevant.
And still the pain falls.It fallsand washesthe pride from our lips.
We jabber onand waitfor the firstto fall.
When he whispers that gentle commandHe gives us ,graciously,our last deep breath.
She runs her fingers through our hairone last time.She kisses our neckand divides time.
Our eyes closedwe see nothing.We heara timid and thoughtful love uttered.
She lingersthat moment like…unlike…ever before.
(Someone imagines a kind scene playing out on a stage)
Gleeking a final timeand brings reality to a complete and final retreat.In that finality the shadows live a lifetimeof doubt just as we had.
Pulling their black faces over our eyes.Nothing fingers clutchsun cast liesand don’t cry out.
Fuck! It’s never over.The back becomes the frontand polarizesthe insignificance.
The poem only ends the words,but the thoughts continue to prevail and destroy the living mind.It’s only inheritance; Schizophrenia and unreturned Love.Not enough and way too much.
Not worthy of the delicious completeness.Not born of Love, but constant reconciliation.of abandoned hope and futile adolescent grip.The suction of single purpose to open warmth.
We cannot bring ourselves to the end of ituntil weborrow the indifference of the seato the shore.
Solace is a place beyond truth.Truth is Siren, singing us to shipwreck.We are a lost specieswaiting for the singularity to swallow our ambiguity.


Find the author here: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=107910556
Thanks to @QMaab, via Twitter.

Sep 18

I’m going to call this “the little festival that could”.  LOLA (London Ontario Live Arts) fest in London Ontario is happening now, having just launched last night.  Throughout the core of the city are art installations based on the theme of light/ darkness.  Today begins the music portion of the fest as well, with VIctoria Park hosting 2 stages, a mainstage and the trans/media stage.    VJ POMO and myself will be VJing on the mainstage all weekend …

But what really struck me other than the usual amibitious work being done by fesitval organizers is how much tech they’ve included.  lolafest.com/live will be streaming content online for the next 48 hrs, not from just the videography on the stage, but from LOLA staff (and even artists) equiped with nokia cellphones capable of streaming live videofeeds (let’s call it live documentary) via a huge transciever unit called the C.O.W. which is set up in the park.   We’re going to be hooked up with one of these phones later today to add our experience to the LOLAness.

Also (and this is the first time I’ve ever seen then used in Canada in person)  LOLA fest folk added QR coding to all the signage (each artists station has a sign like in the pic — the one above being for our VJ sets on the mainstage).  Linking the art to digital mobile content was a fantastic idea, allowing the viewer to investigate more about the art and the artists.

I’ll be semi-live blogging on my tumblr page all weekend. As they’re also setting me up with a wireless account that I can access right from where I’m VJing.  THanks to the C.O.W.  I’ll find out what it stands for and edit this :).

** the COW is simply. the cell on wheels.  hmph was hoping for something more dramatic.

Sep 02

[video]

Sep 01

[video]

Aug 28

[video]

Aug 22

Twenty Years Hence, A Fierce Ecology

As the world changes, so do our needs.  As our needs change so does the world.

Who needed literacy 20,000 years ago?  Who needed the internet just twenty years ago?  In just twenty years hence, you might need a garden and a second head complete with penile attachment.  To show you’re stylish and forward thinking, perhaps you’ll grow the garden on your clothes and your second head not only has the penile attachment but a matching scrotum chin.  There,  you keep your DNA computed, semen tweets translated direct from thoughts.

You meet up with a friend who has a head womb to ejaculate and  impregnate with a dream.  Few days later, its head gives birth, via self-organizing vomit, to a chimera that acts like a carnival barker, spouting your combined ideas on street corners, hawking only the finest dream images  to bored commuters for credits uploaded into your organ banks.  A good portion of this is paid as a bribe to the cancer corporations so they keep your substitute kidneys healthy.   The rest is spent on dream improving drugs.  After all, you’ve gotta stay current or get left behind.  Get left behind and all your replacement parts get the fucking cancer.  It’s a fierce ecology.

Just ask your chimera.

Right now, it’s wrestling over the prime real estate with other creatures of the same type.  Winning some battles, losing others and every minute becoming obsolete.  When it’s not fighting it’s desperately mating to birth fresh fantasies, hoping to get its own cash flow going, hoping to sell little monster dreams to other chimeras and save the money to buy an upgrade into full human status.   It’s not likely.  But it’s the only chance it has.

More likely, it’ll just collect wounds and weaken until the young drive it off into some death ghetto where it’ll be eaten and turned into compost by the garden trolls.   Those god-damn garden trolls.  With their pointy hats and big blind eyes, selling the compost back to humans as dream enhancing drugs.  Always pricing it beyond reason.

They only come out at night.  Preserves the skin.

And they’re vain about that.

Aug 05

Nostalgic tales of media piracy

Afflicted with yet another Winter plague, I spent the better part of the waking hours of the past four days burning through the DVD box-set of Neon Genesis Evangelion, a show I had missed first time round.

Whilst discussing this landmark anime with my buddy the daniel, he shared the story of how he had earnestly tracked down taped copies of the show from a “supernerd” in California.

This reminded me of my own experiences earlier in that last decade of the 20C, where in my fellow nerds had used IRC to organise tape exchanges, all to obtain the latest season of X-Files as it aired in the US.  We would anxiously await the arrival of the latest tape full of episodes, and crowd around one of the few video players in the library capable of playing NTSC recordings.

Fast forward to the early 21C and we have a guy known as The Todd.  The definition of an early adopter, he had shelled out for the first available ADSL connection, and would pass around the office VCD (and later SVCD!) copies of the latest US shows.  This was how I first saw 24, Alias.. and Firefly in the original broadcast order that turned me off it for years to come, months or years before they aired in Australia.

But The Todd would not take requests, so I had to commit the worst sin of all, paying money to a grey re-seller “legally” importing content from Taiwan, to get my fix of GITS:SAC season1.   Beautifully packaged, perfect broadcast quality DVDs with English subtitles that had gone through at least two languages translations beforehand.  It was pretty, but barely comprehensible, yet I would still hand over $25 per disc.

Because someone always makes money on piracy, even if the legitimate owner isn’t.  If it’s not the grey re-seller of yesterday, it’s the ISP of today selling 100Gb a month plans.  It’s these profiteers that should that MPAA/RIAA etc should be going after, not the impatient consumer.

By the time season2 of GITS:SAC was airing, I finally had a broadband connection myself.  Determined never to suffer the fate of incomprehensible subtitles again, I found a fan-subbing group I liked and stuck to it; even though that meant often horrendous gaps in between eps.

Like any good media pirate, I observe the Golden Rule - steal it now, buy it later, and have even taken my love of GITS:SAC skin deep.

Each jump in tech has provided new and easier methods of piracy, with increased quality (HD .mkv’s anyone?).  It is funny to think that as a generation comes online, the available standard will be the expected standard.  I doubt a tween today even knows what a VCD is, let alone what to do with a VCR.

These are the shows I remember most at each turning point.

Now, it’s your turn.. what are your nostalgic tales of media piracy?