Monday, November 28, 2011

"Call and Response: Stevin Wilson"


In another moment down went Alice after it,
never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

STEVIN WILSON'S RESPONSE:

hey tom. not sure of "format" correctness, but wrote a little whimsical chunk about my choices: __________________________________________________ this morning, while still separating my blurred psyche from last night's dreamland, i began sipping my coffee and contemplating this task. while a fairly basic request on the face, when you begin rummaging through your heart and fond memories, complexities may arise. i suppose, in part, that is why these 4 "things" sprung to mind. there's something close to magical about the ability to capture those things that go on in all of our heads, but rarely manifest in waking life, whether its a simple feeling, a connecting set of images or a more enveloping overall experience. whether its a longing fantasy or a recurring, disturbing nightmare. these things seem to somehow always insist on being just out of reach; seen but not touched. and so these are a few people i feel, throughout my life, have always been able to not only grab hold, but to then wrangle, arrange and regurgitate that which most feel ever eluded by. connect at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ShamGrammar/87454806804
high-brow lo-fi musician, chickenscratch wordsmith, and proud empathinc-er.
_________________________________________________
lemme know that this all makes sense, links correctly, etc. and thanks again for the invitation to interact. i always enjoy contributing, and self is the easiest and most challenging subject, one in the same.

Editor's note: highlighted, underlined phrases take you to other links,
and interesting info!



"David & Goliath"© 2009 MEAR ONE
Mear One





"The Work of Director Michel Gondry - Trailer
"
Michel Gondry




"The Cocktail Party"
Max Dalton


Tomschulzartist responds: So, yeah maybe it's about bein' cool. Like Pythagoras was cool, cause he like, worked out the angles, and Hildegard of Bingen was cool cause she worked out all the angels. Copernicus was cool. Galileo paid attention. And that's cool. Like as in what are the relationships of the planets? How do you exist in a system? Family. Friends. Networks.
Shoot.
So, you do the ramificating, and me? I'm interpolating.
Conjugating, verbalizing - moving words is tantalizing. Break a mirror and shards you're seein'. But live those shards, and friend you're bein', a broken life that's full of strife, and Davey, "Who's that freein'?" Sling your stone at the confluence of power and dude, then it ain't the hour - for that shit be comin' down. (musical interlude, fade to black)


While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.


Thank you Stevin, for Responding to the Call.
The "format" correctness patrol will send a citation. Peace, Tom.

SPECIAL BONUS ROUND! IF YOU KNOW TWENTY FIVE PEOPLE,
YOU CAN MAKE MONEY WATCHING THIS VIDEO AT HOME!





Thursday, November 17, 2011

"Call and Response: Artist Carrie Schulz."


Your own ideas are sane and rational,
but this is my unconscious
you’re trying to use, not my rational mind. . . .
You’re handling something outside of reason.
You’re trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with
a tool that isn’t suited for the job.

Ursula K. LeQuin, The Lathe of Heaven, 1971

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

CARRIE SCHULZ' RESPONSE:



"Happy Tuesday #1"

I wrote this, but where to cash?
(Editor's note: we will gladly endorse this.)


"Happy Tuesday 2"

Happy ____day! Presto. Sometimes I see wonder in the daily.
Other times I just wonder.





"Happy part C"

Rushing is the new zen.
Really, I'd stay and chat but I'm off to learn how to relax.




"No Title"

Pink is the new black. Or, what am I looking for?



"On Space and Being":
A brief interview with Carrie Schulz, by Tomschulzartist:


TSA: Edditington first 'proved' the theory of relativity by viewing a total solar eclipse and taking pictures. It was the actual 'blocking' that provided the insight. Can you comment on the convoluted paths of discovery?

CRS: la la la precedent research la la la baron von haussmann chops up medieval paris la la la cholera outbreaks la la la olfactory revolution la la la people start closing the door to the bathroom la la la
TSA: Brilliant!
CRS: Brilliance is elusive right now. Perhaps just around the corner or hiding under my desk?
TSA: So brilliance is sometimes elusive? And yet, it is always just around the corner. Or better still, is being bent gravitationally so that you must look perhaps peripherally? How do you see this as applicable in the "big picture".
CRS: Pack the truck. Composition. Present a project. Composition. Write a paper / composition. Right. Exit strategy. Evaluate all pieces. Visualize it all fitting. Edit. Load shift load.
TWA: Then, we don't see the writing on the wall cause we expect another language, so that is what we see? Then how do we translate that language and what would our coping strategies be?
CRS: There is this part of me that just wants to draw, but it is cool because the questions are about interstitial spaces and times, so i think I can delve into how we undermine our current urbanity to find new ways of being dense.
TSA: How do you know if the endeavor is worthwhile when you are bucking up against prevailing models? Is it change to polish up the apple and call it a pear?
CRS: Isn't that what we are attempting to do? Allow thoughts and feelings to come forward into fruition without even knowing what that means or how to do it?
Every seed in every apple has the potential to make a new type of apple (I learned that at the farm market) still related to the model, but new, an offshoot, a trajectory, a wave or ripple moving embarking, crossing paths.

TWA: It is my observation that you live into change as much as any one I know. It isn't work ethic so much as desire. And the drive to actualize that desire into a reality. It's sculpture on the most realistic level.
CRS: I need to build a quiet zone around myself so I can get really loud!
TWS:We tend to forget that the space between the points of loci are chock a block full of information and that we are not passing through it all, unscathed. Is that the way we troll for knowledge?
CRS: I feel so completely different and yet so much more some semblance of self I always was. Known and unknown all at once, and I think if I can handle it staying in flux, I can be informed and shifting all at once. If Corbusier is Modernism, and Venturi is Postmodernism (have you read Complexity and Contradiction?) - where is the text for our expanding moment? Hope all is well in the abstractly concrete world.
TWA: Thanks, Carrie.

Carrie Schulz, currently a designer at LTL Architects, has been known to jump off boulders into the icy mountain waters, regardless of their depths.


While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thank you Carrie, for Responding to the Call.
By the way, did you know that Leonora Carrington was born on April 6, 1917? Coincidence? Or Continuity?
Hope all is well in your concretely abstract world. Tom.


We may have to learn that the infinite whirl of death and birth, out of which we cannot escape, is of our own creation, of our own seeking.
Lafcadio Hearn, "Out of the East", 1895


Friday, November 11, 2011

"Call and Response: Isaac Schulz."



To understand what I really am at this moment, I need sincerity and humility, and an unmasked exposure that I do not know. This would mean to refuse nothing, exclude nothing and enter the experience of discovering what I think, what I sense, what I wish,
all at this very moment.”

Jeanne de Salzmann


THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.


ISAAC SCHULZ' RESPONSE:


Isaac Schulz 5:08am Nov 6
trying to think of four things i like is hard for me

Tom Schulz 6:21am Nov 6
try four things of interest. Try four things that you don't like. Try four random things. Evidence.

Date: November 8, 2011 7:04:51 PM EST
To: tomschulzartist@gmail.com
Four things of interest have been sent.





This video interested me yesterday.





"I haven’t spent thousands of hours on the streets creating a name
for it to be used as some bullshit 'charity'."

read interview here.




Three: Shibuya Wildcats
follow blog here




Number Four: Me:



Tomschulzartist responds: My Grandmother lived to be just shy of 105. She would be furious at me for this disclosing indiscretion. I used to marvel at all the technological and cultural landmarks that occurred during her lifetime. But that's chump change compared to the speed of change that artist Isaac Schulz lives within and works into.

Currently based in Tokyo, Schulz chews through information like a vacationer at a seafood buffet - a hunter gatherer on aesthetic steroids. I find it intriguing that he can find more things of interest than things he likes. And one wonders if it is interesting yesterday, is it still interesting today? This is not to say that I believe information is disposable for Isaac. It's a Lego, a microchip, a structural component, a layer of paint.

What I see in these 'four things of interest' is a declarative statement regarding the significance of self. A responsible self that recognizes the essential creativity involved in Being.

It's like hearing. Really hearing, when Rilke says that, "...the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

And then that's exactly what you set about doing.



While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.


Thank you Isaac, for Responding to the Call.
Yo, Tom.



Friday, November 4, 2011

"Call and Response: Jane Hudson."



“I don’t experience life in a linear fashion, in any kind of continuum.

It’s moment, moment, moment, moment.”
Amy Hempel


THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.


JANE HUDSON'S RESPONSE:


Hi Tom...I'm responding to your request for four things of interest for your blog.



Here's the first, which is from Cricket Creek Farm, a local CSA, that is part of a very active locavore movement in these parts. Sustainable farming/eating/economy being at issue.
I'll send other items under separate emails.
Cheers, Jane





Tom...here's one of my pictures of a house in my neighborhood. Clearly this building is from another era, cottage living. Thinking about small in this post-McMansion time. Idea of sepia toning is to evoke the past through an older technological frame while identifying its viability as a present trope.
Cheers, J





This is an image of a re-release of our music from the early '80's which includes all material recorded as Jeff and Jane in that time. Available through Dark Entries Records or on iTunes.





Phenomenal techno-thrill by the brilliant writer of Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age. Just blown away by it! Locate REAMDE here.


Tomschulzartist responds: I first met Jane Hudson fourteen years ago. I was a late-comer to grad school and she was gracious in pointing out to me that it didn't matter if I entered through the back door or the front door. Because there were no doors. She courageously challenged my artist's strategy of obfuscation. Well, evidently not all lessons take root.

I've been ruminating all week on the information that Jane sent. Looking for a connection, for a narrative.

I remembered when I was a kid and went fishing with my old man. Dad thought patience was something that belonged in a hospital, and not on a john boat. When his line got tangled (and his line always got tangled) he would pull and curse and smoke. Eventually he handed the muddled mess off to me. I learned to cajole and coax the ten-pound test like I was the freakin' mono-filament whisperer. That skill set serves me well here at empathinc.

Four things of interest. Then I saw it: the gift in the information was that I was allowed to discover my own connections. I wasn't told what to see. What freedom! Instantly all the shiftings from one time to another time, irretraceable cultural mores and digressions, skittering viabilities and evocative sustainabilities relaxed into nothing less than Ariadne's yarn.

Vernon Howard said that, "If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark, because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”

Fourteen years, and she's still telling me secrets.

On Oct 28, 2011, at 1:59 PM, Jane Hudson wrote:

Hope I didn't overwhelm. Did as you asked, and I await your response. Will you let me know when you do, or should I subscribe?
J

Overwhelm? Are you kidding? That's my brier patch.
I'll let you know, but subscribing is always nice.
T


While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thank you Jane, for Responding to the Call.
Cheers, Tom.