Inbox

Some days my email inbox is one thick Smuckers chocolate fudge jar leaking pure intellectual indulgence of sweet but lucid and illuminating thinking. This morning's paragraph is from Thomas in the UK as we're having a discussion about music and Jaron Lanier (who I think we're in violent agreement on, is punching above his intellectual weight with his latest book).

Thomas writes:

As a perhaps superficial example, the 50's seem utterly distinct from the 60's which seem fairly distinct from the 70's. The 70's have a soundtrack that is distinct from the 80's. But 90's from Millenial? The sharpness of the contrast is becoming more and more attenuated. Perhaps this is because I didn't live through those periods but we've been to the Moon and now we've stopped bothering because it seems so pedestrian. The wide eyed wonder and mystery has become implicit and uninteresting, so full scale shifts in our cultural attitudes seem less likely, and thus there will no be soundtracks to accompany those shifts.

Is good yes?

Cognitive Biases

This is just as much for me as you which is why I'm embedding it some weeks after I first saw it. I am however slightly in love with all cognitive bias nomenclature if only because it's utterly humbling how little room there really is to be right. I could use a little humility more often. I even caught myself saying 'I don't know' to some French tourists requests for advice on some options the other night. I mean I think I knew what they were looking for but deep down I knew my ability to project what they were looking for was way more powerful than actually knowing. So I gave them both options.

Come to think of it I could have blown my cheeks and done the whole 'bof' thing too. Anyway cognitive biases; worth raising if it all gets a bit subjective as it often does in the worlds most subjective business. Yes I'm talking about advertising.

And while we're using Scribd just now. There's another document I wrote over a year ago, floating on the net that I neglected to proofread and edit myself. Some of you have written whole blog posts about it but I see that as asymmetric love for my writing as I don't read your work. I will however be editing it so you can see that the biggest howlers have nothing to do with paradoxical oxymorons but simple logic. If it was really important I'd have fixed it a long time ago but lesson learned. If  you want a job doing properly it's best done etc.

Cognitive Biases - A Visual Study Guide

Duty

A year or so back, Bangkok artist Jim Brewer explained to me a video installation concept he had and that I liked the idea of immediately. I'd touched on the subject myself back here though I had no idea when I wrote it how thematically integral it would be to maintaining the facade of cognitive integrity that is possibly holding together as well as holding back the entire Kingdom. (Sorry about that mouthful I'm spoon-feeding you but anything less elliptical is asking for trouble under censorship rules in Thailand). 

I saw Jim's piece in the WTF gallery a week or so ago and was absolutely super fucking jubilant when I learned that the some of the Thai visitors found the work so provocative and distressing they asked, nay 'demanded' to know more about the farang who made the piece. Artistically, the timing couldn't have been better with the recent color-coded massacres in the Kingdom, including the repugnant use of state-sanctioned snipers against Thai citizens (and foreign reporters) seeking refuge and safety in the temple Wat Pathum Wanaram  วัดปทุมวนาราม closest to the Red protest site.

Yellow shirts are hardly worn on Mondays as they used to be. 

I believe it was  Ian Curtis of Joy Division who wrote the song "Love will tear us apart".

Duty from The Human Eye Corporation on Vimeo.