Anachrotechnofetishism

A show at the Suite 100 Gallery in Seattle, Washington: Anachrotechnofetishism – artifacts by pioneers of american steampunk

Long before the age of the internet, and well before the cold efficiency of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam. It was a time in which form and function lived in sin, and everyman was a revolutionary.

These are 13 American artists united by broad geography and narrow aesthetic.

Marrying narrative and nostalgia to design and technology, they imagine the triumphs of the past overriding the failures of the present to create from the ruins and detritus a dazzling future-perfect.

Madcow’s tarot

Madcow Cosmos has another high-prim temporary installation! This time it’s his 3D interpretations of tarot cards. Check it out! It will be up for a few weeks.

Curious omission

I’m eager to see the amazing builds in The Garden of NPIRL Delights | Rezzable. But I found a curious omission on the website describing the project. There is a page devoted to intellectual property rights, with specific suggestions for how to treat screen shots/photographs taken in the Garden of NPIRL Delights—but the website does not credit a source for the image of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights used on the website, the original of which is in Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.

I’ve never understood the arcana of how an owner can control images of a piece of art that is itself in the public domain—and then there’s the twist that in the US, as I understand it, a faithful reproduction of a piece of two-dimensional art does not itself possess the element of originality necessary for copyright, but in the UK it does.

AM Radio installation finale

By pure chance, on Thursday evening I was half-way paying attention to the Caledon state channel when people started chatting about fireworks. As luck would have it, the weekly Unitarian Universalist worship service had just ended, so I decided to TP over. The fireworks in question were on a sim that was displaying an installation by the artist AM Radio (he of David’s Marat and The Far Away), and it was the final night of the installation. What luck! Here are a few of my photos, which cannot do justice to the work.

Lovely, rich conversation

Last night I had the pleasure of hosting Sir JJ Drinkwater and Dame Kghia Gherardi at Ormsby Hall for totally delightful conversation at my monthly salon. No photos to show, but I can share the poem Dame Kghia contributed, by Mr Thomas Hardy:

Neutral Tones

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
—They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro—
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing…

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

The contrast with Miss Rossetti’s poem made for wonderful discussion.

January salon

Tomorrow (Tuesday, 15 January) evening at 5 p.m., SLT, Ormsby Hall on Little West Sniggery island in Caledon Murdann will once again be open for conversation. This month’s starting point is a poem by Christina Rossetti, the notable Pre-Raphaelite poet.

In the Bleak Midwinter (1872)

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom Cherubim
Worship night and day
A breast full of milk
And a manger full of hay.
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But his mother only,
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart.