Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Chrystia Freeland the 44 year old Canadian-american writer, journalist and editor of Thomson Reuters Digital has published an article titled ‘Finding economists’ common ground’. Freeland states in the article “This is a tough time for experts. Empowered by the Internet and embittered by the sour economy, many people doubt the wisdom of expert elites. Journalism sometimes casts further doubt by seeking polarized positions that can draw an attention-grabbing debate, or by taking refuge in he-said-she-said accounts to avoid the harder job of figuring out who’s right. Now one tribe of specialists – economists – is striking back. Concerned that the great unwashed have come to see all economic proposals as being equally valid, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has led an effort to figure out what economists agree on, where they diverge and how certain they are about their views. To do that, the Booth school called on reputable economists to join its panel of experts. Each week, the panelists are asked whether they agree or disagree with a particular economic idea. … they did pick up a clear difference between men and women. “Women,” they wrote, “tend to be more cautious in taking a stance.” For women making their way in the 21st-century world of work, that reticence is mostly a handicap – a willingness to admit to uncertainty is one reason women are paid less and can find it difficult to break through the glass ceiling. For the benefit of the community as a whole, though, more female economists may be needed. The quest for objective economic knowledge is surely a good thing, as is the Booth effort to map where economists agree and where they diverge. But, given how profoundly and unexpectedly the world economy collapsed in 2008, maybe a little more womanly humility about that conventional wisdom would be a good thing, too.”

Inspired by Chrystia Freeland, Reuters ow.ly/gT6KV Image source WEF ow.ly/gT7ka

Clive Thompson the 44 year old Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science technology writer has published an article on the Wired titled ‘No Longer Vaporware: The Internet of Things Is Finally Talking’. Thompson states “…The Internet of Things is the long-prophesied phenomenon of everyday devices talking to one another—and us—online, creating odd new behaviors and efficiencies. Fridges that order food when you’re almost out of butter! Houses that sense when you’re gone and power down! Back in the ’90s, big companies built systems to do tricks like this, but they were expensive, hard to use, and vendor-specific. The hype eventually boiled away. The Internet of Things turned out to be vaporware. Until the past few years, that is, when the landscape shifted from below. … After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, many Japanese worried that the government wasn’t providing adequate data on areas outside the evacuation zone. So some hackers designed customized Geiger counters that automatically updated radioactivity levels on an online map. Soon there were more than 300 jury-rigged all over the country, so the public could see real-time radiation levels. “It was the largest nongovernmental radiation-monitoring network in Japan,” says Chris “Akiba” Wang, one of the hackers. A similar example recently emerged in earthquake prone Chile, where a student modded a seismometer to tweet its readings. It quickly amassed more than 300,000 followers, who were grateful for the early alerts. In essence, the Internet of Things is happening because it has reached the “Apple II stage.” This is the moment when a new technology finally becomes easy enough to use that thousands of people start doing experiments to scratch a personal itch—like Sande with his fan. And the pace of experimentation is going to accelerate, as new gear arrives that makes it even cheaper and easier.”

Inspired by Wired ow.ly/g2h7N image source Twitter ow.ly/g2h1M

William Sanford “Bill” Nye the 56 year old American science educator and television host, best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children’s science show ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ has released a video online urging creationist parents not to force “Crazy” world views of their children as “We need them”. Neetzan Zimmerman in a Gawker article states “In a new web video from online knowledge forum Big Think, science guy Bill Nye talks about evolution denial and its negative impact on society. “When you have a portion of the population that doesn’t believe in [Evolution] it holds everybody back,” Nye says. “Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It’s very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates.” His disagreement with grownups who believe in creationism notwithstanding, Nye says they are welcome to their “crazy, untenable, inconsistent” world view, so long as they don’t try to force it on their children. “If you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them,” Nye says. “We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can-we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.” The video concludes on a positive note, with Nye assuring viewers that “in another couple of centuries that world view…just won’t exist. There’s no evidence for it.”

Inspired by Gawker ow.ly/djmaP image source Twitter ow.ly/djm1a

Maryvelma Smith O’Neil the American Historian and activist for Palestinian statehood has published an article on Aljazeera arguing the Illes Relief as a prized treasure should be returned to Geneva rather than squandered in Jerusalem. In the article O’Neil states “The model relief was made by Stephan Illés, an enterprising young Hungarian Catholic, who arrived in Jerusalem in 1864. He spent his days quietly binding books to earn a living, but escaped after dark into a marvellous miniature world of his own creation. From 1872 to 1873, he painstakingly crafted a 4.5 by 5 metre (15 by 16ft) 3D model to make what came to be known as the Illés Relief – a 19th century Google Map of Jerusalem. …Back in Geneva, the Maison de la Réformation council had been assured that the relief would be seen by thousands of museum-goers. However, finding it today demands directed curiosity or deliberate intention – since it is tucked away deep in the subterranean level, where it attracts few visitors – as recently attested by a museum guide. It is the only artifact in the museum, yet it is simply described on a plaque as “a 19th century model of Jerusalem”. This near absence of curatorial documentation does not fall in line with Professor Rubin’s valuation of it as “an accurate and detailed cartographic document and therefore an important and unique source for the study of the history and georgraphy of Jerusalem in the 19th century”. “

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/d7c5U image source Bangkok Allure ow.ly/d7c1U

Nick Turse the American journalist, historian and author has published an article on Toms Dispatch titled ‘Obama’s Scramble for Africa’ where he discusses ‘Secret Wars, Secret Bases, and the Pentagon’s “New Spice Route” in Africa’. In the article Turse states “They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks.  Instead, it’s a superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food, and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing U.S. military presence in Africa. Few in the U.S. know about this superhighway, or about the dozens of training missions and joint military exercises being carried out in nations that most Americans couldn’t locate on a map. …operations in Africa have accelerated far beyond the more limited interventions of the Bush years: last year’s war in Libya; a regional drone campaign with missions run out of airports and bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Seychelles… The U.S. also has had troops deployed in Mali, despite having officially suspended military relations with that country following a coup. …engaged in a twenty-first century scramble for Africa, the possibility of successive waves of overlapping blowback grows exponentially.  Mali may only be the beginning and there’s no telling how any of it will end.  In the meantime, keep your eye on Africa.  The U.S. military is going to make news there for years to come.”

Inspired by TomDispatch ow.ly/czrF7 image source Radcliffe ow.ly/czrAT

Mark Weisbrot the American economist, columnist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Learning the wrong lessons from Latvia’ referring to Europe’s use of the Baltic state’s austerity programmes as an example. In the article Weisbrot states “Latvia, a Baltic country of 2.2 million that most people could not find on a map, has suddenly garnered attention from economists involved in the debate over the future of Europe and the global economy. …This is terrible, because if there’s one simple lesson that most of the world – if not the European authorities – seems to be learning from the prolonged crisis in Europe, it is that fiscal tightening is not the proper response to a recession. …Latvia lost about a quarter of its national income. Unemployment rose from 5.3 per cent to more than 20 per cent of the labour force and, …under-employment peaked at more than 30 per cent. Official unemployment remains at more than 15 per cent today, even after the economy finally grew by 5.5 per cent last year, and about 10 per cent of the labour force has left the country. …the bottom line is that no country with three times the unemployment rate that it had before the world recession, and Latvia’s huge income losses, should be considered even a qualified success story. It would be a shame if these unwarranted conclusions from Latvia’s experience were to help prolong the unnecessary suffering in the eurozone.”

Inspired by Aljazeera http://ow.ly/cf9jQ image source Twitter ow.ly/cf9h3

They didn't say 'we'll wipe it out' (April 24th 2012)

Dan Meridor the 64 year old Israeli deputy Prime Minister a longtime member of the Likud party and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy, has admitted Iran’s President Ahmadinejad was misquoted, never saying that Israel must be wiped off the map. Speaking to the Arab network Aljazeera, Meridor stated “They [Iranian leaders] all come basically ideologically, religiously with the statement that Israel is an unnatural creature, it will not survive… They didn’t say ‘we’ll wipe it out,’ but (rather) ‘it will not survive, it is a cancerous tumor, it should be removed’. They repeatedly said ‘Israel is not legitimate, it should not exist’.” An English translation of a speech attributed to Ahmadinejad in 2005 at the “World Without Zionism” conference highlights the problem in translating a Persian metaphorical turn of phrase where there is no exact English language equivalent. The importance of these translation issues rests with how Israel has used the words to garner global support against these Iranian overt threats toward Israel “In the words of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister: “They are the leaders of Iran who called for a new Holocaust and who vowed to wipe Israel off the map.””

Inspired by Dudi Cohen http://ow.ly/anBhZ image source דן מרידור, מאיר שמגר http://ow.ly/anAPd

We have seasons, just like flowers (March 29th 2012)

David LaChapelle the 48 year old US fashion, advertising and fine art photographer has recently been interviewed by Alexandra Ilyashov for Fashion Week Daily on the unveiling of his recent work ‘Earth Laughs in Flowers’, described as “a vibrant, vanitas-inspired spate of photos … which include decayed flowers, balloons, and burning cigarettes—and some touching tidbits from [his] teenhood stint at Interview.” During the interview LaChapelle stated, “The series is inspired by vanitas works by the old masters; all the objects had symbolic value and told a story, whether it was a fish, a knife, or a quill pen. Everyone’s done their flower series, whether it’s early [Irving] Penn, Mapplethorpe, Caravaggio, or Warhol. Vanitas reminds us of our connection to nature, and that life doesn’t go on forever. We have seasons, just like flowers. Spring is about youth and beauty; we age, ripen, and mature in summer and autumn, and then we decline and die in the winter of our lives. The title, “Earth Laughs In Flowers,” is taken from a line in an Emerson poem that I came across when I was halfway done with the series.”

Inspired by Alexandra Ilyashov http://ow.ly/9EaON image source the1secondfilm.com http://ow.ly/9Ebec

Zones of pain and pleasure near and far (March 15th)

Maurice Benayoun the 54 year old Algerian born French new-media artist and theorist whose recent works comprise large-scale urban installations and interactive exhibitions “hopes his recent work will in fact aid and engage the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he says is still more potent in the U.S. than in Europe — though not for long” according to Michael Kurcfeld in his recent article published on Huffington Post. Benayoun arrives in Manhattan to unveil the latest in an ongoing multimedia series called “The Mechanics of Emotion” — a 15-part opus which grew out of the idea that the Internet is the world’s nervous system, and that messages sent between users crossed “zones of pain and pleasure” near and far. Using various analytic and graphic tools in his ever-evolving tech arsenal, he set out to map the world’s emotions. In one part, he created a series of “frozen feelings” — machine-made sculptures of digitally carved disks in various materials. Each disk bore a topographic pattern that corresponded to real-time Web data which inventoried emotional states in the 3,200 biggest cities on the planet, by tracking word clusters …”

Inspired by Michael Kurcfeld http://ow.ly/9v94d image source MoBen http://ow.ly/9v8Zx

Fascinated by the marks of a pencil on a surface (February 27th)

Edwin Hayes the UK Goal Mapping Practitioner, Life Coach and Marketing Consultant has realized a thirty year dream; Thornwood Studio a place where creativity can be explored and an artist can evolve. Hayes states “The moment you … became fascinated by the marks of a pencil on a surface or loved and attraction of colour;  that is the moment it started… In the early years creativity is encouraged only as far as it is seen as being helpful to the more “necessary skills”… if a person looses the opportunity to be creative, or creativity is suppressed in some way, a process of degeneration begins within that individual… I see the answer to so many issues in life lying in the ability of an individual to express themselves sufficiently through creativity, be it art, writing, performing or articulating an emotion through speech…  Thornwood Studio is an ambitious representation of a personal long-term dream, goal and journey. It is, in its simplest form a place, not only to explore my own creativity, but also a place which represents my passion for encouraging others to find what may have been misplaced, stolen or suppressed.”

Inspired by Thornwood Studio http://ow.ly/9dmyK image source Total Art Souls http://ow.ly/9dlQi

Herculean struggle with US establishment (October 26th)

Franklin Edward “Frank” Kameny a US gay rights activist and deemed one of the most significant figures has died at the age of 86. Kameny was dismissed in 1957 from his position as an astronomer in the Army Map Service because of his sexuality, leading him to begin “a Herculean struggle with the American establishment” that would “spearhead a new period of militancy in the gay rights movement of the early 1960s”. Kameny protested his dismissal and argued this case to the United States Supreme Court in 1961. Although unsuccessful in his petition, it was notable as the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation. In 1963 Kameny launched a campaign to overturn sodomy laws and became the first openly gay candidate for the United States Congress, personally drafting a bill that finally passed in 1993.

Inspired by Linda Hirshman http://ow.ly/6ZkWk image source DCVirago http://ow.ly/6ZkSM

Sarah Parcak a US archaeologist and Egyptologist has used satellite imaging analysis to identify from surface surveys thousands of new archaeological sites in Egypt. Having completed her Ph.D at Cambridge University Parcak combined the satellite images with the surface surveys to identify potential water sources in Middle Egypt and also into the East Delta and the arid regions of the Sinai. From this information, Parcak and her team have announced discovering underground building remnants including 3000 settlements around the ancient city of Tanis near San El Hagar, over 1000 tombs and 17 pyramids. With the help of infra-red satellite images taken from 640km distance from the earth, outlines of structures appear visible due to variations in the earth density, enabling Parcak to map a detailed street plan of the ancient city.

Inspired by Mike Pitts http://ow.ly/5aPVv image source University of Alabama http://ow.ly/5aQ98

Bryan Fischer a director of the American Family Association (AFA) has created controversy and is battling accusations of racism following his posting on the association’s blog, citing that welfare destroyed African-American communities as they ‘rut like rabbits’. Fischer claims in his blog that “Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.” The AFA has now slightly changed his blog entry to remove the reference ‘rut like rabbits’, but essentially remains the same content. Fischer has previously claimed the First Amendment of the US constitution only applies to Christian Americans and not to Jews or Muslims.

Inspired by Courtney at feministing ow.ly/4z9X5 image source pinkmap ow.ly/4z9VQ

David Kennedy an Australian archaeologist Professor from the University of Western Australia has unearthed 1977 potential archaeological sites in Saudi Arabia using high resolution photographs from Google Maps. Kennedy scanned 1240 square kilometres of the country to reveal 1082 potential ancient tombs that are shaped like tear drops, and has been able to confirm two of these sites after having a friend in Saudi Arabia drive out to the sites and photograph them. Kennedy believes the sites may be pre-islamic up to 9 -10 thousand years old, however acknowledges that some may be more recent perhaps within the past two centuries and hence will need further investigation to verify. Technology and its ease of access is now permitting research previously inconceivable.

Inspired by Asher Moses of the SMH ow.ly/3TKZc image source ow.ly/3TKVC

Wired together a twelfth of humanity (December 20th)

Mark Zuckerberg the 26 year old founder and chief executive of the social network Facebook has been named for better or for worse the 2010 Person of the year as having done the most to influence the events of the year according to Time magazine. Time made the claim based on his connecting of more than half a billion people, wiring them together to create a twelfth of humanity into a single network, mapping the social relations among them thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the US, a system for exchanging information and for changing how we all live our lives. Ironically after only seven years the network is set to be overtaken by the new phenomenon ‘Twitter’.

Inspired by BBC World News http://ow.ly/3rsub

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com

The most idiotic religion of them all (November 11th)

Michel Thomas known as Michel Houellebecq the 52 year old French best known international author has been awarded the Prix Goncourt Prize for his book about the Parisian art scene titled ‘The Map and the Territory’. Houellebecq won the French top literary award after previously being nominated in 1998 and 2005. Houellebecq a controversial figure had been accused by Muslim groups of insulting Islam culminating in him winning a court case in 2002 for allegedly inciting racial hatred. Houellebecq has written five novels all translated into many languages. He currently resides as a recluse in Ireland and takes his pseudonym from his maternal grandmother who raised him from the age of six.

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com