Ragg It: November 2009

James Tiptree Jr.

(...) and in her moments of deepest depression found solace in gazing at the stars. “There must be other races out there,” she wrote in a letter to Ting in the mid 1950’s, “watching our tiny yellow sun glimmering in their unknown field of the sky. Do they desire us as we desire them?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/books/review/20Itzkoff.html

Love is the Plan The Plan is Death:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080513184250/http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/tiptree/tiptree1.html

http://davidlavery.net/Tiptree/Site_Images/tiptree.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr.

David McBride

http://davidmcbride.net/greatw1.html

http://davidmcbride.net/

Gil Heitor Cortesão

http://www.pedrocera.com/cortesao/index.html

http://bagger-ce.blogspot.com/2009/07/gil-heitor-cortesao.html

Herman Melville

"Oh! How immaterial are all materials!" -- Ahab, in Melville’s Moby Dick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville

http://e-flux.com/journal/view/94

"The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution.

The poor image is a rag or a rip; an AVI or a JPEG, a lumpen proletarian in the class society of appearances, ranked and valued according to its resolution. The poor image has been uploaded, downloaded, shared, reformatted, and reedited. It transforms quality into accessibility, exhibition value into cult value, films into clips, contemplation into distraction. The image is liberated from the vaults of cinemas and archives and thrust into digital uncertainty, at the expense of its own substance. The poor image tends towards abstraction: it is a visual idea in its very becoming.

The poor image is an illicit fifth-generation bastard of an original image. Its genealogy is dubious. Its filenames are deliberately misspelled. It often defies patrimony, national culture, or indeed copyright. It is passed on as a lure, a decoy, an index, or as a reminder of its former visual self. It mocks the promises of digital technology. Not only is it often degraded to the point of being just a hurried blur, one even doubts whether it could be called an image at all. Only digital technology could produce such a dilapidated image in the first place.

Poor images are the contemporary Wretched of the Screen, the debris of audiovisual production, the trash that washes up on the digital economies’ shores. They testify to the violent dislocation, transferrals, and displacement of images—their acceleration and circulation within the vicious cycles of audiovisual capitalism. Poor images are dragged around the globe as commodities or their effigies, as gifts or as bounty. They spread pleasure or death threats, conspiracy theories or bootlegs, resistance or stultification. Poor images show the rare, the obvious, and the unbelievable—that is, if we can still manage to decipher it.
(...)"

Alexandre Singh

http://www.preromanbritain.com/alex/index2.htm

http://rhizome.org/editorial/3045

http://artnews.org/gallery.php?i=1231&exi=11565

http://www.vvork.com/?p=6590

http://www.shotgun-review.com/archives/jack_hanley_gallery/alexandre_singh_at_jack_hanley.html

http://www.friezeartfair.com/yearbook_2009/artist/alexandre_singh

http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/hello_meth_lab_in_the_sun

http://www.artloversnewyork.com/artlovers/images/2005-06-13/283.html

Mitch Trale

http://www.jstchillin.org/mitchtrale/

Tjebbe Beekman

http://outsidetheivorytower.blogspot.com/2009/09/tjebbe-beekman-galerie-diana-stigter.html

http://www.tjebbebeekman.com/

Lucas Cranach

http://outsidetheivorytower.blogspot.com/2007/12/reformers.html

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpIIRxHESNOTA8iW-F8q5P_KYrZyAN0isqwcPfSywWbOmH8usGL9LqH45khyphenhyphenFyfK0IZ7zlLXJqO96vv8OD3h8YTnNrb38SAMmpwT55pFlZIAxOHPCIF9QTZSp9l-Je1cIl9LC/s1600-h/071217_cranach01_p323.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_Cranach_the_Elder

Satori

http://home.comcast.net/~dayamati/doris_buddha.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori

Mark Grotjahn

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/saltz10-30-06.asp

http://outsidetheivorytower.blogspot.com/2007/12/mark-grotjahn.html

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/mark_grotjahn.htm

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/mark-grotjahn/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/arts/design/22gall.html?ref=design

Jason Rhoades

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/bjorgulfsson/bjorgulfsson8-23-06.asp

http://www.whitney.org/www/2008biennial/www/?section=artists&page=artist_rhoades

http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/5/selected_works_1.htm

http://www.initialaccess.co.uk/artist.php?aid=65&id=10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Rhoades

West African Ritual Costumes

http://jonesthought.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/some-west-african-costumes-i-cant-find-source-info-on/

Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai

(excerpts)

To hate injustice and stand on righteousness is a difficult thing. Furthermore, to think that being righteous is the best one can do and to do one's utmost to be righteous will, on the contrary, bring many mistakes. The Way is in a higher place then righteousness. This is very difficult to discover, but it is the highest wisdom. When seen from this standpoint, things like righteousness are rather shallow. If one does not understand this on his own, it cannot be known.

Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall there was this one: ''Matters of' great concern should be treated lightly.'' Master lttei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously." Among one's affairs there should not be more than two or three matters of what one could call great concern. If these are deliberated upon during ordinary times, they can be understood. Thinking about things previously and then handling them lightly when the time comes is what this is all about. To face an event anew solve it lightly is difficult if you are not resolved beforehand, and there will always be uncertainty in hitting your mark. However, if the foundation is laid previously, you can think of the saying, "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly," as your own basis for action.

At the time when there was a council concerning the promotion of a certain man, the council members were at the point of deciding that promotion was useless because of the fact that the man had previously been involved in a drunken brawl. But someone said, "If we were to cast aside every man who had made a mistake once, useful men could probably not be come by. A man who makes a mistake once will be considerably more prudent and useful because of his repentance. I feet that he should be promoted.''

Someone else then asked, "Will you ;guarantee him?" The man replied, "Of course I will."

The others asked, "By what will you guarantee him?"

And he replied, "I can guarentee him by the fact that he is a man who has erred once. A man who bas never once erred is dangerous." This said, the man was promoted.

Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like. But it is important never to tell this to young people as it is something that would be harmful if incorrectly understood.

People with intelligence will use it to fashion things both true and false and will try to push through whatever they want with their clever reasoning. This is injury from intelligence . Nothing you do will have effect if you do not use truth.

In affairs like law suits or even in arguments, by losing quickly one will lose in fine fashion. It is like sumo [wrestling]. If one thinks only of winning, a sordid victory will be worse than a defeat. For the most part, it becomes a squalid defeat.

A person who knows but a little will put on an air of knowledpe. This is a matter of inexperience. When someone knows something well, it will not be seen in his manner. This person is genteel.

When going someplace for a talk or something similar, it is best to let the person know ahead of time, and then go. To go without knowing whether the other party is busy, or when he has some particular anxiety, is awkward. There is nothing that surpasses not going where you have not been invited. Good friends are rare. Even if someone is invited somewhere, he should use understanding. It is difficult to feel deeply the sensitivities of people other than those who go out only rarely. Fiascos at pleasure gatherings are numerous .

However, you should not be brusque towards a person who has come to visit, even if you are busy.

It is bad to carry even a good thing too far. Even concerning things such as Buddhism, Buddhist sermons, and moral lessons, talking too much will bring harm.

When Lord Naoshige was speaking to his grandson, Lord Motoshige, he said, "No matter whether one be of high or low rank, a family line is something that will decline when its time has come. If one tries to keep it from going to ruin at that time, it will have an unsightly finish. If one thinks that the time has come, it is best to let it go down with good grace. Doing so, he may even cause it to be maintained."

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/chabrieres/texts/hagakure.html

Al Farrow

Reliquaries:
http://alfarrow.com/reliquaries/

he Who Once Was the Engineers Beautiful Wife:
http://alfarrow.com/women/she-who-once-was-the-engineers-beautiful-wife/

Study no.4 for Icarus:
http://alfarrow.com/icarus-series/study-no-4-for-icarus/

Beggars:
http://alfarrow.com/beggars/

http://alfarrow.com

Sage Sohier

Mum in her bathtub:
http://claytoncubitt.tumblr.com/post/222582192

http://www.sagesohier.com/

Fernando Pessoa

Antes o voo da ave, que passa e não deixa rasto,
que a passagem do animal, que fica lembrada no chão.
A ave passa e esquece, e assim deve ser.
O animal, onde já não está e por isso de nada serve,
mostra que já esteve, o que não serve para nada.

A recordação é uma traição à Natureza,
porque a Natureza de ontem não é Natureza.
O que foi não é nada, e lembrar é não ver.

Passa, ave, passa, e ensina-me a passar!

Alberto Caeiro

~~~

"Sê plural como o universo!"

~~~

"Quanto mais desço em mim, mais subo em Deus."

~~~

"Pedras no caminho? Guardo-as todas: um dia vou construir um castelo..."

~~~

Quer pouco, terás tudo.
Quer nada: serás livre.
O mesmo amor que tenham
Por nós, quer-nos, oprime-nos.

~~~

Nunca a alheia vontade, inda que grata,
Cumpras por própria. Manda no que fazes,
Nem de ti mesmo servo.
Ninguém te dá quem és. Nada te mude.
Teu íntimo destino involuntário
Cumpre alto. Sê teu filho.

~~~

Natal

Nasce um deus. Outros morrem. A Verdade
Nem veio nem se foi: o Erro mudou.
Temos agora uma outra Eternidade,
E era sempre melhor o que passou.

Cega, a Ciência a inútil gleba lavra.
Louca, a Fé vive o sonho do seu culto.
Um novo deus é só uma palavra.
Não procures nem creias: tudo é oculto.

~~~

Há metafísica bastante em não pensar em nada.

O que penso eu do Mundo?
Sei lá o que penso do Mundo!
Se eu adoecesse pensaria nisso.

Que ideia tenho eu das coisas?
Que opinião tenho sobre as causas e os efeitos?
Que tenho eu meditado sobre Deus e a alma
E sobre a criação do Mundo?
Não sei. Para mim pensar nisso é fechar os olhos
E não pensar. É correr as cortinas
Da minha janela (mas ela não tem cortinas).

O mistério das coisas? Sei lá o que é mistério!
O único mistério é haver quem pense no mistério.
Quem está ao sol e fecha os olhos,
Começa a não saber o que é o Sol
E a pensar muitas coisas cheias de calor.
Mas abre os olhos e vê o Sol,
E já não pode pensar em nada,
Porque a luz do Sol vale mais que os pensamentos
De todos os filósofos e de todos os poetas.
A luz do Sol não sabe o que faz
E por isso não erra e é comum e boa.

Metafísica? Que metafísica têm aquelas árvores
A de serem verdes e copadas e de terem ramos
E a de dar fruto na sua hora, o que não nos faz pensar,
A nós, que não sabemos dar por elas.
Mas que melhor metafísica que a delas,
Que é a de não saber para que vivem
Nem saber que o não sabem?

«Constituição íntima das coisas»...
«Sentido íntimo do Universo»...
Tudo isto é falso, tudo isto não quer dizer nada.
É incrível que se possa pensar em coisas dessas.
É como pensar em razões e fins
Quando o começo da manhã está raiando, e pelos lados das árvores
Um vago ouro lustroso vai perdendo a escuridão.

Pensar no sentido íntimo das coisas
É acrescentado, como pensar na saúde
Ou levar um copo à água das fontes.

O único sentido íntimo das coisas
É elas não terem sentido íntimo nenhum.

Não acredito em Deus porque nunca o vi.
Se ele quisesse que eu acreditasse nele,
Sem dúvida que viria falar comigo
E entraria pela minha porta dentro
Dizendo-me, Aqui estou!

(Isto é talvez ridículo aos ouvidos
De quem, por não saber o que é olhar para as coisas,
Não compreende quem fala delas
Com o modo de falar que reparar para elas ensina.)

Mas se Deus é as flores e as árvores
E os montes e sol e o luar,
Então acredito nele,
Então acredito nele a toda a hora,
E a minha vida é toda uma oração e uma missa,
E uma comunhão com os olhos e pelos ouvidos.

Mas se Deus é as árvores e as flores
E os montes e o luar e o sol,
Para que lhe chamo eu Deus?
Chamo-lhe flores e árvores e montes e sol e luar;
Porque, se ele se fez, para eu o ver,
Sol e luar e flores e árvores e montes,
Se ele me aparece como sendo árvores e montes
E luar e sol e flores,
É que ele quer que eu o conheça
Como árvores e montes e flores e luar e sol.

E por isso eu obedeço-lhe,
(Que mais sei eu de Deus que Deus de si próprio?),
Obedeço-lhe a viver, espontaneamente,
Como quem abre os olhos e vê,
E chamo-lhe luar e sol e flores e árvores e montes,
E amo-o sem pensar nele,
E penso-o vendo e ouvindo,
E ando com ele a toda a hora.

Alberto Caeiro, O Guardador de Rebanhos

~~~

Para compreender, destruí-me. Compreender é esquecer de amar. Nada conheço mais ao mesmo tempo falso e signifcativo que aquele dito de Leonardo Da Vinci de que se não pode amar ou odiar uma coisa senão depois de compreendê-la.

A solidão desola-me; a companhia oprime-me. A presença de outra pessoa descaminha-me os pensamentos; sonho a sua presença com uma distracção especial, que toda a minha atenção analítica não consegue definir.

Bernardo Soares, Livro do Desassossego

~~~

http://www.pessoa.art.br/

http://multipessoa.net/

http://www.astormentas.com/pessoa.htm

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa

Marcelo Caetano

"(...) não sou mais religioso, porque não presto culto a Deus, a quem não nego, apenas considero a criação e conservação do mundo um grande e prodigioso mistério insusceptível de ser penetrado pela inteligência humana, capaz apenas de procurar hipóteses explicativas, das quais a existência de Deus é uma."
http://www.escamoes.pt/alunoscomotu/ALUNOS_COMO_TU/alunos_como_tu/MarcelloCaetano/Documentos/artigo_vpv.doc

"Não creio em Deus nem na Sua existência: reconheço que há um domínio que não consigo penetrar e paro à porta dele por respeito."

John Karel

http://vimeo.com/6761925

Martina Johnson-Allen

http://www.flickr.com/photos/libbyrosof/tags/martinajohnsonallen/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sokref1/1392696996/

http://theartblog.org/2009/10/totems-fabrics-bodies-at-university-city-arts-league/

o great spirit,

http://www.torontohistory.org/Graphics/Taber_Hill_Plaque_2.jpg

Alex Mcleod

http://theartblog.org/2009/10/toronto-sweet-digital-dreams-of-alex-mcleod/

Emperors' Helmets

http://theartblog.org/2009/10/power-dressing-treasures-of-the-spanish-royal-armory-at-the-national-gallery-of-art/

Duchamp's Étant Donnés

http://theartblog.org/2009/09/michael-taylor-tells-all-a-talk-on-etant-donnes/

http://theartblog.org/2009/08/the-conceptual-eroticism-of-marcel-duchamp-marcel-duchamp-etant-donnes-at-the-pma/

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_4_89/ai_73236106/?tag=content;col1

http://raggit.blogspot.com/2009/11/maria-martins.html

Maria Martins

À Procura da Luz:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexplorer/sets/72157606243231939/

Impossible III:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesw-bell/2260948281/

Images start on page 14:
http://iad.ufpel.edu.br/prodart/artigos/download/83

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_4_89/ai_73236106/?tag=content;col1

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/10/arts/art-in-review-437697.html

http://www.tntarte.com.br/tnt/imagens/leiloes/2008_out/livros/g/204.jpg

C-130 Launching all flares and chaff

"A C-130 launching all flares and chaff. Some say the smoke left behind looks like an angel...."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDJOEnuLPzk

Rumi

"I become a waterwheel, turning and tasting you, as long as water moves."

"This is how I would die into the love I have for you. As pieces of cloud dissolve into the sunlight."

"Being is not what it seems. Nor non-being. The world's existence is not in the world."

"Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent."

"Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you."

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love."

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep."

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."

"When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them."

"Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart."

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet."

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home."

"Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah... it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you."

"There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

~ ~ ~

The Mystery of Presence

The mystery of presence
will not arrive through the mind,
but do some physical work, and it comes clear.

An intellectual gets bound and wrapped
in complicated nets of connectedness.
Whereas the Friend rides the intelligence
that is creating genius at the center.

The mind is husk, and the appetites love coverings.
They look for them everywhere.
That which loves the kernel and the oil
inside the nut has no interest in shells.

Mind carries reams of reasons into court,
but universal awareness does not move a step
without some definite intuition.
One covers volumes of pages.
The other fills the horizon with light and color.

The value of scrip resides in gold
stored somewhere else. The value of a body
stems from the soul. The value of soul
derives from presence. Soul cannot live
without a connection there.

~ ~ ~

Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.

If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth,
which the mirror reflects.

If metal can be polished
to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror
of the heart require?

Between the mirror and the heart
is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets,
while the mirror does not.

(thank you, Che)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi

Marko Pogacnik

Lithopuncture:
http://www.markopogacnik.com/healing.html

http://www.editions-triades.com/livres/nature-et-sciences/declaration-d-amour-a-la-terre-art654.html

http://www.markopogacnik.com