Facebook: Stealing from Standing Rock.

https://www.facebook.com/ntvsclothing/photos/a.248774832000321.1073741828.245852668959204/527999037411231/?type=3

People being what they are, there are many who are more than willing to steal and scam from actual Native artists, and using the good-heartedness of people who want to do something to show their support for Standing Rock. Indigenous artists have a difficult enough time, there are always a host of people trying to rip off what they do, but this is not only out of control, but once again, FB won’t do shit about it. So, it’s up to you. The people doing the scamming are mostly based outside the U.S., and they have enough money to buy sponsored ads on FB, which are resulting in millions upon millions of views, and worse, shares. Most Native artists and small business owners cannot afford the same amount of sponsored ads, their attempts to alert people don’t get very far, and as Aaron Silva noted in comments in the above post, FB was not allowing him to boost it.

We all know how lax FB is about such matters, in spite of what they might say. If you’re someone who wants to support Standing Rock, and thinks doing a donation by way of getting a cool shirt is a good way to do things, then do that, but do everyone a big favor by putting on your thinking cap, and keeping those eyes sharp. Verify, verify, verify, because money you think is going to Standing Rock isn’t, it’s going into the pocket of a thief. Aaron Silva has some helpful tips on what to look for at NTVS Clothing.

BuzzFeed has an extensive article about the problem. If you see a fake site, please, report them. Warn others, all the things you do on FB when you know something is bad. Native artists and all those at Standing Rock thank you for doing whatever you can to combat this ongoing problem.

Edited to add: If you fell for one of these scams, don’t feel bad, but do get mad, and help take them down!

Putin: Artists, Do Not Be Dangerously Creative!

The Russian President told members of the artistic community not to “divide society” during a televised debate with theatre and screen star Yevgeny Mironov who voiced concerns about growing restrictions on artistic freedom in Russia.

The Russian strongman said there was a “very subtle line between what I would call dangerously outrageous behaviour and creative freedom”.

“It’s a very subtle thing, a very subtle line. It depends on a feeling of tact, from all of us: officialdom on the one hand and people in creative professions on the other,” he said.

No, it’s not subtle, nor is it a feeling of tact. It’s anything you decide to take offense with, anything you feel just might contain a criticism of some sort, or express a dissatisfaction with the status quo. When you start suppressing artists with made up excuses, you have just screamed “There will be no dissent!” You may as well just come out and say so.

Mironov, who heads the Theatre of Nations in Moscow, told Putin in the televised exchange that fears are growing in creative circles over restrictions on artistic expression.

“Creative freedom is guaranteed by the law of our country” and bans “can be enforced only through a legal process,” Mironov said.

In recent months, religious and politically conservative activists have interrupted theatre productions and stormed galleries and defaced exhibits.

Orthodox activists this year campaigned to close a provincial staging of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Jesus Christ Superstar”.

[…]

Last year the director of a Siberian staging of Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhaeuser went on trial for offending believers, although the charges were eventually dropped.

Oh, the boot stomp of Christianity, those lovers of fascism. This is a dangerous time for artists, who are always irrepressible.

Full story here.

Engineering and Art, Which Came First?

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Anthropologists often use ochre processing as a proxy for the origins of human symbolic thought. That’s partly because ochre is relatively difficult to make, requiring a few steps and at least two kinds of tools. As the researchers write, ochre comes from “rocks containing a high proportion of iron oxides, often mixed with silicates and other mineral substances, which are red or yellow in color, or are streaked with such shades.” Ochre itself is made by pulverizing the rock with one kind of tool and then reducing it to a powder between two grindstones.

There are many aesthetic uses for ochre, including as fabric dye, paint for cave walls, or a stain for rocks and other materials. All these artistic or cosmetic uses imply symbolic thought. But early humans used ochre for utilitarian purposes, too. The powder was mixed with other adhesives to keep weapons snugly attached to their hafts. Put simply, ochre was a key ingredient in glue.

The question that has long raged among archaeologists is whether people first began using ochre as a tool for engineering or as a substance for making art. In other words, does symbolism start with science or aesthetics? By examining 23 ochre-processing tools from Porc-Epic Cave, researchers figured out that the answer is that both emerged at the same time, in the same workshops.

A fascinating article, the full story is here.

Cool Stuff Friday.

Song Peilun is a hermit, an artist, a former professor, and now can be called the father of Yelang Valley.

After spending almost 20 years trying to build a wonderland-like place, Song’s vision has finally materialized.

It all started in 1996 when he quit his teaching position and spent his lifelong investment to buy a 200,000 square meters’ of land in an isolated mountainous forest area in Huaxi, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, and decided to stay there – just to pursue his quest of building a utopia-like community that resembles characteristics from the Middle Ages, or Winterfell from the hit TV series Game of Thrones.

But Yelang Valley’s civilization is believed to be older than the Middle Ages, before the area was part of modern-day China. Here, experts say, multiple ancient cultures were rooted, which have prospered for tens of thousands of years.

Song, now 76, has been studying the colorful minority cultures that have existed in the Guizhou region for years. After visiting the United States, he was particularly touched by the parallels between the ethnic minorities in Guizhou and the Native Americans – he was deeply saddened to see cultural infiltration had contributed to the loss of age-old traditions and heritage.

But the retired professor and cultural enthusiast wanted to restore that heritage in Huaxi, if not entirely then at least a part of it. He was inspired by the Crazy Horse, a mountain monument dedicated to a Native American warrior, in the US state of South Dakota. Song wanted to create something similar in the mountains of Guizhou.

Before he arrived, some of the villagers living in the area were working as masons, mining in the mountain and selling the stones to make a living.

“It is not fun selling them,” Song remembers suggesting them.

“Let’s build blocks,” he told them.

And the villagers agreed. They later became the architects of the valley that Song was visualized.

Through the years, Song trained them to become landscape architects – he had previously tried building an artist community in another area aiming to bring economic benefits to protect their culture but had failed. In Yelang Valley, he was continuing his pursuit. During the years, many locals aged, some died too, but their collective dream only thrived. And when Song ran out of money, the villagers even volunteered to contribute.

After all, Yelang Valley would become their spiritual home.

After two decades, Song says they have attracted visitors. Many locals, including him, now live in wooden houses perched in trees and the place looks like a settled community, but it is still an ongoing project, the creator adds.

However, along these years, Song’s wish of creating, and then retaining a village far from the hustle and bustles of city life has been hit hard by signs of modernization that are slowly seeping into the community.

But Song says he is not worried – if destroyed, he says, he will spend another 20 years to build another community in the other end of the valley.

This is so wonderful. I’d live in such a place, and happily so. We could use communities like this everywhere. Via CCTV News, Alfalfa Studio, and Great Big Story.

Ah, The Old Days.

Put up July 28, 1982, at the corner of Cedar and Center Streets in Santa Cruz. Appeared on the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel on August 4. Despite the publicity, it was not covered over until August 31, after being up for 34 days.

Put up July 28, 1982, at the corner of Cedar and Center Streets in Santa Cruz. Appeared on the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel on August 4. Despite the publicity, it was not covered over until August 31, after being up for 34 days.

The old days, specifically, the early 1980s. Before internet activism, and the ease of creating subversive memes, artists had to take a few more risks to get their message across. I was privileged to see a couple of these in person, and they pretty much delighted everyone. Well, okay, most of the younger crowd. It may well be time to get subversive once again, off the net.

The year was 1980 and no billboard was safe. A loose group of artists, designers, and troublemakers called Truth in Advertising were makjing not-so-subtle changes to advertisements all over Santa Cruz. The goal was to subvert lowbrow doublespeak with clever turns of phrase that made fun of the product being sold or revealed the truth behind the slogan. One example is is cigarette campaign with the vaguely positive language, “Kent III, Experience It!” tweaked to say “Cancer, Experience It!”

Bob Stayton, a.k.a., “William Board,” invented a method for “updating” these monumental ads that would spread to friends and friends of friends, all operating under the Truth in Advertising moniker. “No one knows how many people participated over the years,” Stayton writes on his website. “There was no roster, and no email list (there was no email back then). Since the activity was illegal, it was best not to know names.” He tells The Creators Project that his process involved carefully studying the typography of the ad words, projecting Polaroid photos onto graph paper to nail the proportions, and then pasting wallpaper painted with acrylic over the billboard.

[…]

Stayton was personally involved in at least 12 rewrites, which he planned or photographed. “I’m retired, but I published the directions in case someone else wants to give it a try,” he says. While he’s focusing on his day job as a computer consultant and the author of a book about solar energy, he’s left an open invitation to artists looking to take up his mantle. “If someone uses our method then they can use the Truth in Advertising name. No trademark there!” he says. While we don’t condone the destruction of private property, you can read the official guide to Truth in Advertising here, and do with it what you will.

The Creators Project has the full story. It’s always time to get creative!

Vorja Sanchez.

Amazing, beautiful work here. So imaginative, and so very playful, with just a hint of dread:

vorja-4

vorja-1

vorja-3

Barcelona-based illustrator Vorja Sánchez depicts comically surreal storybook creatures that look like a cross between mutant dinosaurs and shadowy demons—but also captures the very lifelike spirit of birds and other animals. Working with a variety of mediums from pen and link to watercolor or spray paint, each piece is inspired by events in his daily life, an observation he makes while walking through the forest or drawing from a recent stint living in Nicaragua where he organized painting classes for children and adults. Sánchez has just begun working as a full-time artist in the last few months and is currently wrapping up work on an illustrated book. You can follow more of his artwork on Facebook and Instagram.

So much to savour and explore! Via Colossal Art.

Tattoo Tech. Or Tech Tattoos.

Taking a break from the bad news factory that is the U.S., there’s some fun stuff from Make, as always. Tattoo fun, and even people who would never dream of getting a permanent tat can have fun with some of these, and I expect sprogs would be delighted to do something like this. I’ll be delighted to do something like this!

Skintillates aren’t limited just to embedded LEDs. In their video they show a few other compelling examples of using temporary tattoos for computer input devices and sensors.

On the purely visual side, Sparkfun shared this project called ElectriCute last year. It is a tutorial on how to put an Electroluminescent Panel on your skin and cover most of it up with makeup to appear as though you have a bright, glowing, tattoo.

Chaotic Moon put together this great presentation on how they would use the technology. One thing that stuck out in my mind was the very first example showing how you can easily paint on your own circuits with conductive ink. They do a pretty decent job of mixing the circuits with some aesthetic bits.

DuoSkin really stands out with their designs. They have a few that only use the conductive material, but it is shaped in striking and pleasing ways. Then they go on to show a few other really cool examples, such as using material that changes colors when hit with heat.

Then there’s this, which I’m quite interested in at the moment:

Happy watching and making!