Author Archives: pau

shift happens

shift happens

i made this mix to help whoever do whatever, especially work, focus, relax or travel. i tried to play music that was new to me, or a recent favorite.

with love from sunny berlin! download 320 (1.12G) | download 128 vbr (514.9M)

tracklist:

1.trois gymnoédies – I & lent et douloureux / the miracle – aldo ciccolini & gabriel tacchino / jeanne lee0:00
2.fantasia on nanbu ushi-oi uta – naoharu yamakawa (shakuhachi) & yuji mori (koto)3:07
3.visiting song – dorothy carter10:35
4.soumanaro – soundioulou sissoko12:40
5.christina – depiano & orch. beguen band17:25
6.marry me – winston riley20:38
7.don’t know – delroy wilson22:38
8.jazz semai – koy yolu24:40
9.kometostai.aintreallynootherwaytoputitro – knxwledge28:27
10.jahara – teebs29:38
11.heavy mood – dj shadow32:37
12.malkauns – don cherry33:56
13.divine mother – cosmic sounds of gandharva47:35
14.flower of love – kaygisizlar49:32
15.question love answer – adrian orange and her band52:18
16.seat in the kingdom – crumb brothers57:36
17.mama na mwana (mother and child) – jean bosco mwenda1:00:00
18.al ouda el mensiyyi – fairuz1:02:56
19.lam phuthay – molam lao1:06:02
20.j’ai ecrit ton nom – joseph lacides1:12:24
21.part 4 – yatha sidhra1:16:15
22.al khadem – el khirani charki1:23:05
23.dam maro dum (take another toke) – kronos quartet and asha bhosle1:28:20
24.sanjina – orchestre régional de kayes1:32:52
25.golden girls – devendra banhart1:38:48
26.all the things – traumprinz1:40:12
27.tulpa ovi – robag wruhme1:49:17
28.space is only noise if you can see – nicolas jaar1:53:20
29.lemen yeweshal – alemayehu fanta1:58:55
30.rekon – knxwledge2:03:26
31.absence heard, presence felt – quantic2:05:19
32.medo hane – dawit guebreab2:08:17
33.why can’t we live together – timmy thomas2:13:36
34.jah works – the gladiators2:18:02
35.caution – bob marley and the wailers (mixed by lee scratch perry) 2:21:22
36.fu manchu – desmond dekker2:23:59
37.virgenes del sol – los siderals2:27:03
38.our love will still be there – the troggs2:29:48
39.insirâf tuwayyari masrâr (my little bird secret charm) – nassima2:32:52
40.husenek fa masher (“my love is more than the sweet perfume…”) – abdel karim el kably2:39:59
41.family – wildlife freeway2:40:34
42.all my trials – nick drake & gabrielle drake2:43:49
43.what’ll ya do/what’ll ya say? – michael hurley2:45:40
44.asar – morin khuur2:50:28
45.lalla maymouna sultan gnawiya – mahmoud guinia2:52:53
46.bhairavi – khamisu khan2:57:12
47.ghost – the acid2:59:47
48.spirit parade – dm stith3:03:49
49.bhajan de jugalapriya – lakshmi shankar3:06:08
50.track 2 – el khirani charki3:10:02
51.eltsuhg ibal lasiti – the daktaris3:14:23
52.a woman will do wrong – helene smith3:19:23
53.merry go round – the equatics3:21:54
54.gisela (lion rock) – fitz gore3:24:33
55.drum machine, cello, headwrap – prefuse 733:30:07
56.catch feelings – c. scott3:36:11
57.everything means nothing to me – elliott smith3:38:49
58.driving – sibylle baier3:41:07
59.awaleen eshqam tu boodi – ahmad zahir3:43:33
60.ağıt – yabancilar3:48:10
61.krishna krishna – alice coltrane3:52:00
62.line extension – oval3:57:04
63.nomusa – ndikho xaba & the natives3:59:59
64.rest your self – herman chin loy4:08:38
65.arise black man – alton ellis4:11:27
66.sorrow tears & blood – fela & afrika 704:14:49
67.declamation pt. 3 – sun ra & his arkestra4:24:57
68.here comes the family – family of percussion & archie shepp4:35:50
69.bring out the best – ohbliv4:43:26
70.thanks vision – toro y moi4:47:03
71.sunset in golden horn – mogollar4:50:46
72.hebebeb (zrag) – noura mint seymali4:54:51
73.a man is like a tree – albert ayler4:57:55
74.war is over – joe gibbs & the professionals5:02:21
75.2 anotha – dibia$e5:06:02
76.giant steps – john coltrane5:08:17
77.saya temokoto – boubacar traore5:12:57
78.manha de carnaval – antonio carlos jobim & luis bonfa5:17:27
79.raga jhinjhoti – shivkumar sharma / hariprasad chaurasia5:20:24
80.sahara – baligh hamdi & magid khan5:29:27
81.mi parcela – la sirga soundtrack5:34:07
82.reason or rhyme – bryan ferry orchestra5:38:07
83.god bless the child – billie holiday5:42:19
84.sheftha ghir b-nedhra – hamid zahir5:45:10
85.norvis junior – norv style beat5:57:06
86.mokeru mufinu – batucadeiras de rincon5:59:46
87.timbales y bongo – mongo santamaría6:02:21
88.roda da samba – afro brazilian rhythm band6:09:30
89.five for paul – max roach6:11:28
90.maddalam keli – ritual percussion of kerala6:17:31
91.a quality of seven (mridangam) – zakir hussain6:27:33
92.blue anthem – terry riley6:31:03
93.no drums – tim hecker6:34:23
94.hichki – dhodhe khan6:37:42
95.who you are – pearl jam6:41:38
96.play with fire – takkhalha6:45:21
97.universal spiritual revolt – tyrone washington6:47:28
98.ngillatun – traditional songs of the mapuche indians6:55:42
99.lamai nyaljor – ritual music for the tibetan monks6:57:36
100.kwaku baah – ma haba7:03:02
101.grass dance song – pat kennedy, clyde heavy runner, kenneth old person & aloysious weaselhead7:06:42
102.te na ko mai ra te atua (and the lord says) – ‘Inano Cultural Arts Theatre, Teau Glassie7:10:30
103.stroudwater, psalm 46 vv 1 & 2 – Donald MacLeod & Congregation7:13:29
104.gün ola devran döne – fikret kizilok7:16:52
105.mwashah – hamza el din7:19:41
106.dilerim sen (rast sarki) – udi hrant kenkulian7:23:18
107.splits are parted – amen dunes7:26:11
108.raga kalavati – shankar jaikishan & rais khan7:29:54
109.djoukou – stanley murphy & les grands colombias du peuple7:33:59
110.it’ll all be over – supreme jubilees7:43:20
111.neverending math equation – sun kil moon7:46:13
112.karen – the go-betweens7:49:00
113.spanish bee – the brian jonestown massacre7:53:03
114.shâh batha’i – yâru maliri7:56:33
115.el dzair – cheikha remitti8:05:11
116.syria: bedouin song and dance – deben bhattacharya8:12:00
117.vinaayagaa – kunnakkudi vaidhyanathan8:14:19

people

work all day and all night there is no end in sight of people working women men no dif fer en c e

is is is done.

i finally finished collaging is is, the book of collage that i’ve been working on for the last 3 years! now i just need to sequence it. it was quite an arduous process full of surprises. i was very present for all of it and i hope that is conveyed. universe produced this book through me via many serendipities. i’m excited to share it once it’s completely together, and hope you enjoy it! i intend to sell copies of it and will get it produced somehow, so stay tuned!

freedom throughout the universe!

i’ve been looking for the song sampled at the end of quasimoto’s ‘jazz cats pt. 1’ for a few years now, and i finally found it, thanks to this review of the Soul Jazz record titled ‘Black Fire! New Spirits!’. It’s by Tyrone Washington, and the song is called ‘Universal Spiritual Revolt’. Let’s do it!

secret secretions

Engraved illustration of the "chariot vision" of the Biblical book of Ezekiel, chapter 1, made by Matthäus Merian (1593-1650), for his "Icones Biblicae" (a.k.a. "Iconum Biblicarum").

Engraved illustration of the “chariot vision” of the Biblical book of Ezekiel, chapter 1, made by Matthäus Merian (1593-1650), for his “Icones Biblicae” (a.k.a. “Iconum Biblicarum”).

from shisha to spaceships, capitalism is the exploitation of secret, serendipitous or stolen concepts, objects, entities or abilities, often through slavery, for the secret enrichment of a self or sect. sharing is therefore adominable to capitalism (unless that sharing is sanctioned by a sovereign) because it reveals the foundation of capitalism, which is not greed as is often supposed, but rather secrecy. capitalism is not and never has been opposed to the gross and or meticulous transfer of wealth or objects, even in secret, provided their transfer is sanctioned by a sovereign (often via the method of taxation). it is opposed to open sanctimonious secrecies (ie tax free), which it therefore forbids via force. secrecies then are clubs that require the illusion of an often opiated egalitarianism, ie fraternity (instead of humanity or cosmic unity). make no mistake that a customer is a patron that patronizes an establishment, males created and continue to create the systems that stoke secrecy, while referring to prostitution as ‘the oldest profession’. the state regards men as property, while men regard women and land as property, sometimes in combination like the concept of ‘virgin land’ which is then deflowered by slavery. the word ‘lord’ etymologically stems from ‘the guardian of the loaves’. it was women who invented agriculture, but men who invented the systems that exploit it. bank accounts are secret. business transactions are secret. meetings are secret. profits are secret (though publicly posted, but created via accounting and secret offshore entities). technologies are secret. prayer is secret. great effort is invested to maintain this secrecy. the maintenance of the secrecy or remoteness of a source is in turn what enables capitalism. churches continue to exist because they fancy themselves as the middlemen between the masses and god, but their secret is that they are unnecessary as all are the same: the image of god (image being another arabic insight (like coffee and algebra) that has been exploited by the capitalist west for profit, stemming from the latin ‘imago’ but referencing ‘imitation’ which stems from the hittite ‘himma’). This correlation also reflects on the church and/or spirituality as partner with capitalism and the method it maintains to conceal its secrets (money, ideas, ideals, faith, libraries, etc). without churches, no state; without state, no churches. without body, no time, without time no body. without cosmic unity, aka atemporal extropy, no thing. therefore, the concept of radical honesty (or free unity) is antithetically radical to capitalism. the roots of a plant or tree as an idea are both secret through being unexposed, and the foundation of the plant’s ability to replicate, though both the roots and the leaves participate in realizing hidden energies (the roots by finding food in the ground and the leaves through the quantum mechanics of photosynthesis). symbolically, it makes sense that the shamanic world tree has its roots in the air, and is not uprooted but rather inverted and circuit bent. if we knew our true history, we would ask permission from power no longer. if you see the buddha on the road, kill him!

rastafari voices

we watched part of this last night and were both transfixed and kind of flabbergasted. i appreciate aspects of rastafarianism, but their reliance on the bible creeps me out. the vhs pastels radiate though! see what you think for yourself. and read the emperor!

dance space

julian weber performing at the twenty dancers for the xx century event that boris charmatz put together at the soviet war memorial.

carnival of cultures

one of my favorite strange events in berlin is ‘karneval der kulturen’, or carnival of cultures. i shot a number of videos on my camera while i was there a month ago which hopefully helps to explain why the event is so bizarre. what i appreciate most about it is the lack of separation between parade and spectator. it’s really easy to enter the procession and follow a group, and is even quite acceptable. the event is functionally a spectacle devoted to the idea of a cosmopolitan multiculturalism, one which ignores the obvious and deep history of imperialism and exploitation. but mainly, it’s a party and most people seem happy. there was one situation that i thought i recorded on my camera but alas did not, in which a man flashed some sort of passport at the palestinian participants and then threw water at them and subsequently his water bottle. there was a brief pulse towards confrontation that was quelled through intrusion of other participants and spectators, but a bike was nearly thrown. i’m glad that no one was hurt, but the incursion was both terrible and completely unnecessary. the streets get trashed, vendors sell whatever the idea of culture and/or heritage means to them to the throng, and the throng swarms and buzzes about, unfettered by police or lack of points of sale. i enjoy engaging in intentional spectacle as boundaries are quickly redrawn. i don’t normally take many photos of people’s faces, but there is an inherent permissiveness involved in performance. some of the performers for various cultures were simply stand-ins who wore the costume yet were not of that heritage (or at least seemed not to be). but everyone had fun. many danced.

A.C.A.B.

the only difference that i can perceive in the exacting of worldwide police tactics is whether or not police are allowed to actually shoot to kill or not, and how many times they are allowed to shoot (or torture) without censure or contract termination. many of the most brutal police receive promotions, much in the same manner that the most ruthless (ie anti-human) financial traders get the highest bonuses. otherwise, the police and military (and markets) exist primarily to reinforce the coercion inherent in the concept of the state, a coercion that increasingly relies on violence as a means of conquering peace. it isn’t long in the duration of a police action before the same police that brutally arrest someone in an unprovoked manner call in back-up to quell the growing crowd that has amassed as an audience to the total dehumanization of an individual member of the pre-crowd that has been chosen as a scapegoat simply to emphasize what could happen to anyone if they find themselves on the wrong side of the police. this happened down the street from me on saturday. a concerned person finds themselves with only one means of defense: the camera. the camera allows an accurate depiction of the progression of events and a truer recording of history. i must note that before roughly 2009 the police in berlin dressed mainly in green. there must have been an e.u. directive of some sort that mandated the new color choice, one that falls in lock step with the rest of the fiat world, black and blue. i must also note that societies that rely heavily on unjustified and unjustifiable (in a humanist way) police tactics are often those whose currency is backed only by credit and sleight of hand, or whose power system is undemocratic and despotic. these police systems become defacto occupying forces on behalf of the ‘property’ owners, namely those with roles in the production and maintenance of credit who control both the dissemination of macro-financing and the flow of materials and ideas that challenge the legitimacy of such a technocratic (and often plutocratic) ruling structure. in this way, the phrase ‘all cops are bastards’ rings true, in that they do not protect people from each other, but rather protect the rights of private property and its supposed holders from the people who give that same property value by trading their time and energy for it. i mean this more in the sense that police, as guardians of the state, no longer reflect the will of the people, but rather the will of a hierarchy that relies on the propagation of myth and lie for its power, the myth being that we as people require a state to govern us, and the lie being that its currency as a tool is worth the value that it purports to contain. when these assumptions are challenged, the most common response by the state is violence against people brought by people paid with the state’s currency (one that is inherently a false promise) seemingly in order to reinforce the state’s legitimacy to do so, which serves in effect to corrode the state’s legitimacy in the hearts of the people.

happy 40 july

this really needs no introduction, and is simply amazing, though i wish what he was singing was more accurate. the sentiment sticks, which is really what matters. this song has floated around my head for days.  

why quit social media?

my last twitter post

i could write a longer essay on my sentiments regarding social media, but since i’ve quit twitter, instagram and linkedin i feel much better! sometimes i think of things to post or thoughts to digitally socialize, but then i write them down and keep them to myself. instead of positing my feelings, how about some questions: is it helpful to read everyone’s thoughts all of the time? who does digital sharing really serve? which filters have we internalized and which are external? is it more beneficial to forget one’s digital trail, or does one’s digital trail enable predation? is social media actually social, or is it anti-social? does the feeling of being understood on a mass level subvert class cohesion in the form of actionable demands and goals? is refusal the only form of protest? what does digital privilege suggest about physical privilege? is everyone on the internet, or is this simply an illusion? what is the relationship between refusal and acceptance? is enlightenment possible? what does reification mean to you? what is mind control, and how is it applied on a mass scale? is it possible to apply mind control on a mass scale? why do we have cravings that are actually toxic to our bodies or psyches? are there positive cravings? what is the difference between satisfying a craving and satisfying a need? are basic human responses, like discovery, creation and love being co-opted by multi-national corporations? are states necessary? how does one overcome self, especially when one is convinced that self is of paramount importance? how does one explain the history of state/corporate collusion without coming across as a total asshole? can history be understood? what does it mean to synthesize?

is is

Is Is is a codex of collage that intends to semiotically explains our current human paradigm through employing symbols of various traditions to challenge the dominant capitalist narrative of freedom through object oriented mechanized progress, instead reinforcing that we are all emancipators of ourselves. Is Is questions the nature of reality and consciousness, reminding us that to be human is to be aware of being alive—of being a being—within time and space.

Is Is is composed of 108 pages (54 front / back panels) of paper collage on illustration board. Its images were sourced from secondhand gifts or found materials, most of which was trash. It was conceived and completed over a period of 3 years, between 2012 and 2015, between la crosa (italia), san francisco and berlin.

gate/gate

gate/gate, 120 x 120cm, oil on canvas, 2011

on december 9, 2009 this spiral appeared over the western coast of norway. it was captured on multiple different video feeds and cameras. at first it was explained as a failed russian missile launch, which was virulently denied by the russian military. a week later they acquiesced and took responsibility. however, i don’t believe that the spiral is the result of a failed russian missile launch. since 2009 it has even appeared in different nations and different contexts. as a form, the spiral has been illustrated since prehistoric times, and appears in multiple petroglyphs from various geographical areas. what is this? is it a star gate? is it a russian missile launch? does it matter? in gate/gate two gates are depicted: one allows cars to pass into a parking lot seemingly for a factory, and the other is a mammoth swirling light form. i deliberately chose an image of this phenomenon that featured contemporary human technology markers like telephone wires, minivans and dumpsters to posit it within our historical time, though the spiral remains timeless.

rite of passage

sunrise, 125 x 140cm, oil on canvas, 2011 morning dew, 200 x 140cm, oil on canvas, 2011 estimated prophet, 200 x 140cm, oil on canvas, 2011

perhaps the essence of an image’s timelessness relates to the infinity of its nostalgia. nostalgia knows no bounds. rite of passage is a series developed from a 1989 grateful dead documentary entitled ‘love on $14’ that was shot and edited on vhs tape, then transferred to the internet, then saved as a screen capture, projected, and painted. in this way, the incidental moments, those especially laden with infinity, become monuments to timelessness, monuments to the infinity of their nostalgia.

i never attended a grateful dead concert. when i was 14 i was gifted a box of live grateful dead tapes, which hooked me. i would listen to these tapes in secret, as i knew no others with a penchant for the grateful dead. the concert documentary was filmed in east troy, wisconsin at alpine valley. i have attended concerts at alpine valley, but not this one, during which i would have been 7 years old. yet i know the figures and the zen of their pre-internet horizons quite intimately.

each painting is named after a similarly evocative and period sensitive grateful dead song. the documentary may be found here.

the concert series may be heard here: July 17, 1989 July 18, 1989 July 19, 1989

white hole

white hole, 160cm x 90cm, collage on mirror, 2009

white hole, 160cm x 90cm, collage on mirror, 2009

white hole / it is not far, installation view

white hole / it is not far, installation view

white hole / cosmos, installation view

white hole / cosmos, installation view

white hole explores the relationship between image and creation. the title white hole references the concept of the opposite of a black hole, a cosmic entity that hypothetically cannot be entered from the outside and continuously emits matter and light.

cosmos

cosmos (it is not far), 122cm x 122cm, oil on canvas, 2009

cosmos (it is not far), 122cm x 122cm, oil on canvas, 2009

cosmos, or an orderly and harmonious system, is the title of the third painting in it is not far. it attempts to depict the paradox of attempting to depict something that can’t and doesn’t yet exist. therefore i painted color field and interwoven energetic filaments. cosmos was painted over one and a half years in 3 different cities.

logos

logos (it is not far), 122cm x 122cm oil on canvas, 2007

logos (it is not far), 122cm x 122cm oil on canvas, 2007

the second painting in the triptych it is not far, logos, is a photo of a paused second generation ipod. unknown artist, unknown album were byproducts of cd-r’s and the beginning of free and wide distribution and memes. they also represent me as the painter of the painting. the duration of the song is 11:11 (there are 7 1’s in the painting) which symbolizes awareness. logos represents the intersection of the divine and language, or ‘the word’, and inherent truth. in this case it is depicted as an antiquated (even in 2006) technological artifact, as the present tense, though real, is necessarily ephemeral. the battery is half full, half empty, and the song is track 1 of 1, one life in one moment. ipods represent personal empowerment and the potential for divine self reflection as an igod.

noos

noos (it is not far), 122cm x 122cm oil on canvas, 2006

noos (it is not far), 122cm x 122cm oil on canvas, 2006

the series it is not far depicts temporal time in its different incarnations. historic symbolic time is depicted in the first painting in the series, noos.

during a visit to the metropolitan museum of art in new york in the fall of 2005 i felt my first fundamental energetic connection to the fetish and devotional objects on display. this was due to the realization of their language. they spoke in symbols, often favoring animals and simple yet striking designs. around this time i found an $8 copy of shamanism by mircea eliade at a street sale, and synchronistically i happened to possess only $8. i belabored the decision, but purchased eliade’s masterwork. between toronto and montreal i read an account of a shaman, in which they endured an ecstatic trance ritual of fasting and imbibing some type of substance. the shaman awoke in a different world and was made to lie down by a smith. the smith gouged out the shamans eyes, placed them in the furnace, and returned them. he did this with his arms, legs, and various other appendages. when the shaman returned to the tribe he/she was fundamentally different. her/his body had been altered, forged on god’s anvil, and had returned now as a conduit between the spirit world and the tribe.

the flowers depicted are symbolic in both type and number. there are 4 poppies, positioned as the cardinal directions as explained to me by a towa man on an amtrak train whom i met by changing my point of disembarking. after painting i checked his information against the colors popularly accredited to the medicine wheel, and he was slightly off. however, i appreciated this accident as it relates to the happy entropy of oral history. there are 5 pansies, as 5 is the man number (we have 2 arms, 2 legs, and a head). there are 3 lotuses, which symbolize birth and rebirth, and 3 is echoed throughout the painting as the number of divine trinities. there are 3 anemones, which mean ‘of the wind’, and are also the dying god symbol as the painting represents different forms of knowing and the past. there is a single daisy, which symbolizes the innocence of totality, and a single calla lily, which represents me, the artist. calla lilies are now common to me in california, but when i delivered flowers to weddings in wisconsin they were very rare and expensive, and also bruised when touched. they possess a phallic grace, yet render very little scent. 4 horses are depicted, symbolizing the journey and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. there is a snake which ferries souls to and from the underworld, and 3 eagles, symbolizing the creator and divine trinities.

the tree in the middle is the world tree, a birch tree, and is upside down with its roots in the air. the river in the background is the delta of the ganges, one of india’s sacred rivers, and also symbolizes delta, or change.

collages

national security state, paper collage, 2012national security state, paper collage, 2012

national security state, paper collage, 2012national security state, paper collage, 2012

awaken, paper collage, 2012

awaken, paper collage, 2012

saving-grace1

rare-earths-common-dreams1

pre-post-history's ghost, 8" x 12", paper collage, 2012

pre-post-history’s ghost, 8″ x 12″, paper collage, 2012

ancient future, 34cm x 46cm, collage on mdf, 2010

ancient future, 34cm x 46cm, collage on mdf, 2010

disembark, 30cm x 24cm, collage on mdf, 2010

disembark, 30cm x 24cm, collage on mdf, 2010

time is a circle., 363cm x 133cm, collage on paper, 2009

time is a circle., 363cm x 133cm, collage on paper, 2009

nothing to eat, 63cm x 67cm, paper collage, 2007

nothing to eat, 63cm x 67cm, paper collage, 2007

dharma dvāra, 40cm x 15cm, collage on poster board, 2010

dharma dvāra, 40cm x 15cm, collage on poster board, 2010

a life, 25cm x 43cm, collage on paper, 2008

a life, 25cm x 43cm, collage on paper, 2008

shadowed past, 20cm x 27cm, collage on paper, 2008

shadowed past, 20cm x 27cm, collage on paper, 2008

the great debate, 18cm x 28cm collage on wood block 2008

the great debate, 18cm x 28cm collage on wood block 2008

the mobile savage, 53cm x 45cm, collage on found wood, 2006

the mobile savage, 53cm x 45cm, collage on found wood, 2006

und allah schuf aus den wassern alles leben, 20cm x 30cm, collage, 2008

und allah schuf aus den wassern alles leben, 20cm x 30cm, collage, 2008

white hole, 160cm x 90cm, collage on mirror, 2009

white hole, 160cm x 90cm, collage on mirror, 2009

wholism, 18cm x 27cm, cut out, 2008

wholism, 18cm x 27cm, cut out, 2008

pasture, 42cm x 29cm, collage on paper, 2009

pasture, 42cm x 29cm, collage on paper, 2009

learning curved, 18cm x 39cm, collage on paper, 2008

learning curved, 18cm x 39cm, collage on paper, 2008

in patience, 21cm x 70cm, collage on paper, 2008

in patience, 21cm x 70cm, collage on paper, 2008

in fin it i, 30cm x 30cm, collage on paper, 2008

in fin it i, 30cm x 30cm, collage on paper, 2008

impose symposia, 40cm x 30cm, collage on wood, 2008

impose symposia, 40cm x 30cm, collage on wood, 2008

gem in i, 28cm x 22cm, collage on paper, 2008

gem in i, 28cm x 22cm, collage on paper, 2008

a naked girl wearing lots of gold, 18cm x 27cm, paper collage, 2009

a naked girl wearing lots of gold, 18cm x 27cm, paper collage, 2009

elohim, 30cm x 30 cm, collage on paper, 2008

elohim, 30cm x 30 cm, collage on paper, 2008

era, or?, 65cm x 42cm, collage on paper, 2009

era, or?, 65cm x 42cm, collage on paper, 2009

event horizon, 40cm x 30cm, collage on paper, 2009

event horizon, 40cm x 30cm, collage on paper, 2009

free time!, 50cm x 50cm, collage on paper, 2008

free time!, 50cm x 50cm, collage on paper, 2008

game preserve, 22cm x 28cm, collage on paper, 2008

game preserve, 22cm x 28cm, collage on paper, 2008

[PAUAU]

[PAUAU]

[PAUAU] is an ongoing project in which sampled loops of ethnographic field recordings are played simultaneously on top of themselves with a homemade arduinome to create a new type of trance from an already hypnotic style. often these songs are culled from snippets, as LPs, limited in play time and often attempting to condense much longer format celebrations into audio works. [PAUAU] utilizes space and repetition, along with minimal effects, to bridge the cultural and durational void that separates the original event, peoples and forms from the present day. Music is most relevant when it is alive, and just as folk music must be continuously updated to suit the time and the players yet remain reverent to the original form, so must it become current with the ways in which we can understand and play. [PAUAU] attempts to gather cultures together and then let them continue to be themselves, but fractalized. click here to listen to this work in progress.

decoloneyes

byron peters, decoloneyes

byron peters, decoloneyes

christopher kline & sol calero, decoloneyes

christopher kline & sol calero, decoloneyes

tar art rat, decoloneyes

tar art rat, decoloneyes

matthew wallrath, decoloneyes

matthew wallrath, decoloneyes

self-portrait, decoloneyes

self-portrait, decoloneyes

i was inspired to create decoloneyes, a cross of the words (and concepts) ‘decolonize’ and ‘eyes’ and pronounced thus, as a result of a trip to the deyoung museum with leslie kneisel. at the end of our excursion, i came upon some inuit snow goggles and was awestruck by their brilliance. i then began to collect scraps of wood from hikes and carve these goggles with my grandfather’s hand tools, later adding bands made of woven canvas strips as a tie-strap. all have been given away as gifts. they work really well, and alarm people. once i was asked if i was wearing a baguette on my face. inuit snow goggles would normally be made of bone but are sometimes fashioned from wood. i’ll make you a custom pair if you contact me. or even better, you can make them yourself!

m3tr0p0lis occupy

m3tr0p0lis occupy began with the album bot hits, which Leslie Kneisel asked me to do to accompany a screening of Fritz Lang’s metropolis at an exhibition of her newer and amazing lithographs in atlanta. spacey, sci-fi and house-y were all adjectives she asked for, as she intended to bring out the aesthetic futurism of metropolis. the resulting bot hits is testament to her intention. i lived in berlin when she suggested working together, and thus was inundated by house music. bot hits grooves steadfastly at 107 bpm, which later made editing it much easier, as coincidentally lang’s editor cuts at about this rate also. i intentionally only watched the trailer of metropolis before composing the music, and after completing bot hits, leslie and i began to cull images and compose the adaptation of lang’s opus. we found the original overlong and sometimes tedious, and the soundtrack cheesy. therefore, we created m3tr0p0lis occupy, which takes its name from a triad of factors. metropolis, 300, who is a homeless man i conversed with at length on the street in berkeley, in which he alleged to have been attacked with a hammer at occupy berkeley, and referred to homelessness as ‘the worst punishment you can imagine’. he is also generous and loves to bestow gifts. occupy, the social movement, zeitgeist of 2012, felt closely aligned to much of the sentiment contained within metropolis (and vice versa). at the heart of occupy was an insistence on heart and the recognition of human energy, which is the dominant theme of metropolis (to use the heart to unite the head and hands, thought/love/action).

wow-pow-wow

i ordered this collection after being recommended it while i was dj’ing some american indian music at the bottom of the hill. i’m thankful to whoever it was that told me about it, these records are fantastic, and in their original shrink wrap from 1972. don’t sleep! i have no idea how many sets they have, but even though they’re mono i highly recommend this collection. and only $50 for 23 records! so far the peyote record is my favorite. if you only want to try one at a time, get that one. american indian music is like tribal house music, except without houses.

the myth of the eternal return

this book by mircea eliade opened up my face. time as a circle, an ouroboros, is an idea that i’ve often returned to, but this work offered a significant cross-reference of cultures that all operated within the framework of time being cyclical rather than linear. if we are to imagine the sun as moving away from some universal center and the planets trailing behind it, not in perfect circles but rather perfect flowing spirals, the linearity and cyclicality of time can be commingled. this book doesn’t state that per se, but that’s where my thinking is at.

fragile fingers

my father-in-law collected stamps as a child. he is persian and lived in iran before the revolution.. this collection of stamps is stunningly beautiful! i love the aesthetic sense many of these stamps display.

the antique blacks

i haven’t been able to stop listening to this record, i’ve been spinning it twice a day at least. sun ra lets his space flag fly, and gets souled out on this aug 17,1974 recording, live in philadelphia. highly recommended. i was thinking about sun ra in relation to mlk jr and malcolm x on mlk day. on one hand, there’s no comparison. sun ra was a musician and weirdo, but just as sincere as x or mlk. mlk jr preached non-violence, from a christian lens, whereas malcolm x spoke of liberation and black power, but within the context of the planet. sun ra stated that he was from saturn and was liberating people’s souls through music. which style is the most compelling/necessary?

infinity in solidarity

infinity in solidarity was painted only 4 days after pancho ramos-stierle, the man here depicted, created this monumental gesture in support of occupy oakland as the camp at oscar grant plaza was forcibly removed for the last time. as a consequence, ramos-stierle is facing deportation, as he moved from mexico to work on his phd at uc-berkeley before quitting the program due to the realization that his work would only be used to make better bombs. he has subsequently focused on activism and human rights. i ran into pancho a month or so after painting him, and let him know about it. he was fairly blase about the painting, but suggested that he meditated in reverence of the first people, the ‘native americans’, to honor their sacrifices and love for the universe. i couldn’t agree more. read more about pancho ramos-stierle on salon.com

bot hits

Swirling alien light forms and sampled synths mingle with vintage drum machine sounds and effects to create dj ALLCAPS latest recording, bot hits, named in homage to ‘Web bot hits’, the result of the data set analysis and forecasting work of Clif High. The recording will accompany a recut version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and is a collaboration with artist Leslie Kneisel.

the transcendental waterfall

the transcendental waterfall, 120 cm x 90 cm, mixed media on canvas, 2010

the transcendental waterfall, 120 cm x 90 cm, mixed media on canvas, 2010

details: 1 4 7 6   2 3 5
and how should they explain it? by not explaining. thus is it called ‘explaining.’ as a lamp, a cataract, a star in space an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning view all created things like this. -Diamond Sutra, Chapter 32
the waterfall (or cataract) is a static yet liminal space. an object that is not an object. yes, water falls from one point to another, at a near constant rate, yet the phenomenon of falling water depends on the rate of evapotranspiration and the resolution of drainage and pressure systems. the transcendental waterfall mimics this liminality, acting as both a static space and an energized space captured and frozen in time, much like a photograph of a waterfall. the title ‘the transcendental waterfall’ is borrowed from a john fahey song of the same name. the transcendental waterfall was painted in berlin during the winter of 2010, in a studio without heat. i bicycled there each day over groovy ice and painted until i couldn’t feel my hands any longer, or about 45 minutes. the painting retains this icy energy, this charged yet static silence.

in the studio

i have been steadily working on painting youtube stills taken from a short independent documentary on deadhead culture, shot on location at alpine valley in east troy, wi in june of 1988. i was 6. the following image is an animation of the progress i have made in the first painting. the series is entitled ‘not fade away’, but the paintings are as of now untitled.

person

i’m working on getting together some other longer posts, but first (and as a segue), here is the first painting i ever made (and recall making). i was 2, it was 1984. without further adieu, i present you ‘person’.

post-posts

some of you (whoever may be reading) might remember me from facebook as a voracious poster, commenter, link maker, and photographer. it is in part due to the intentional deletion of my facebook account that i am reinvigorating my personal website with the content and intention that i once freely bestowed upon the seemingly friendly corporate machine that is facebook. [slideshow] if you are an existing member of facebook, you might find the following tips useful: 1. don’t care. facebook desperately wants you to care. if you ever intend to leave, it will insist that those people closest to you, namely the avatars of people that you once most interacted with via facebook, will miss you. it will also ask people that have tagged you in photos or in posts who you are, and suggest reconnecting with ‘you’, this new mysterious other. in hopes of preventing this, i deleted each friend, each photo, each tag and each bit of information before deleting my account. the cyber version of a master-cleanse. 1a. don’t opine this relates back to not caring. having an opinion works two-fold. it brands you (in a facebook marketing sense) and will change the advertisements that you are shown towards ads more suitable to your stance on __________. further, if you state something that you believe in, be prepared for people to ‘crawl out of the woodwork’ that intend to assail your point of view, and by association, you personally. the false notion of facebook friendship actually belies the disintegration of our social network, not the reclamation of it. facebook is the blanket full of smallpox handed gracefully to a cherokee (or other tribe) person, that at first protects them from the cold, thereby physically destroying them. as facebook shifts language towards acronymizing, it also shifts people’s identities towards avatars. we begin to believe that we have ‘a wall’ (not a home). this wall also operates dually. walls both enclose people within a system, and ostracize them from it. 2. don’t vote facebook isn’t democracy, it’s a plutocracy. it is administered by people who get paid a lot of money to keep people within it. it wastes your time, energy, knowledge and humanity to continue to partake in the ‘news feed’ (pavlovian pellets, rats pressing levers). each vote further confines you within a web of likes that aids in the marketing of your own identity to you. you are what you eat, and if you eat only the news feed of fast food you’ll end up both malnourished AND obese. btw, each vote or ‘like’ posits one further and further down the mineshaft named simulacra. 3. don’t believe if facebook were a church, it would be one of those churches that’s built into a vacant store-front in a strip mall. it is a merging of church and market, superego and id impulses that lead to facebook campaigning for everything from gay marriage to saving the whales. just like a vote within our ‘democracy’ is on some level useless (in that it grants the necessity and validity of the organization counting the votes), petitioning and publicly proselytizing within facebook is as helpful as a bumper sticker. actually, it’s about the same as covering one’s self with bumper stickers like a nascar driver is covered in logos. therein lies the paradox! 4. don’t be private it’s impossible! granted, you can change your settings so that only friends can access your data publicly, but friends of friends of facebook ALWAYS have access to your data. you don’t own your photos, or information, or account just as if you are a property owner you don’t ACTUALLY own the property on which you live (at least in the u.s.) as it’s owned by the government, and property taxes are the lease that you pay for the land (after purchasing the right to pay the taxes). 5. don’t be passive-aggressive. perhaps the most obvious change in becoming an internet based society is the level of passive-aggression that mediates our relationships with others, with our computers and within ourselves. as consumers, we have learned that our voices only matter when they are complaining. language flattens the potential of human expression (especially when utilized in a linear manner), and this makes it much easier to arrive at misunderstandings. take for example this firmly worded letter sent by the father of a friend that i grew up with. in person we have a very light and humor filled relationship…
This note is for you only, not for your wall. “Paul Tyree-Francis still sort of surprised that most here seem to believe that democrats are different than republicans. whoever is in power will still bow to the people, and by people i mean corporations.” Generalizations on any side of the political spectrum are dangerous. Your Mac is made by a corporation. The plane you flew to Germany on was made by, and operated by, corporations. Ditto however you got to/from airport. Your cell phone. The electricity that recharges the phone and computer arguably contribute to global warming. Not all people, politicians, and corporations are bad. No one, nothing is perfect. People who think otherwise should live in a cave and not use any of the benefits of the systems they think are so bad. I am not happy with the election, but we still have freedoms few other countries have. You live in Germany, right? Didn’t the PM or president recently say that there is no room for Muslims there unless they conform to the norms? Then, why are you living there? This note is for you only, not for your wall.
this was my response to him:
i agree with you XXXX, but there’s no need for antagonism. facebook is also a corporation, and i know obviously that the corporate world is by now basically inextricable from daily life, that is obvious. everything you stated is true. if you’re even still reading at all, watch this hakim bey video. he is old/wise and a firebrand, and you probably already know about him anyways. still, we need more of him. he is revolutionary (though sometimes he bullshits, but who doesn’t?). [youtube i3HyRtdu1o0] on his advice i will close my facebook account upon the download of all of my data. and by the way, i don’t have a cell phone. all the best, paul
my favorite line from the song ‘this land is your land’, by woody guthrie, is the line that was redacted from the version of the song that we learned as children (thanks to capitalism/democracy/plutocracy/TPTB):
As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me. Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me. In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple; By the relief office, I’d seen my people. As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?

spectral alphabet

spectral alphabet was installed at golden parachutes in berlin between july 4 and august 8, 2009. it represents roughly 5 years of my work, and touches on themes of time, space, spirit and the artist.
time is a circle detail

time is a circle detail

another brick on the wall

another brick on the wall

spectral alphabet, installation view

spectral alphabet, installation view

cosmos
cultivated incompetence, installation view

cultivated incompetence, installation view

extra-nomenclature, installation view

extra-nomenclature, installation view

haiku, atomic clock water walk, grace installation view

haiku, atomic clock water walk, grace installation view

it is not far, installation view

it is not far, installation view

mara-and-color
time is a circle detail

time is a circle detail

no no no no no no doubt, installation view

no no no no no no doubt, installation view

particle-collider-housing-r
time is a circle detail

time is a circle detail

time is a circle detail

time is a circle detail

time is a circle, installation view

time is a circle, installation view

white hole / und allah schuf.., installation view

white hole / und allah schuf.., installation view

white hole / it is not far, installation view

white hole / it is not far, installation view

white hole / cosmos, installation view

white hole / cosmos, installation view

time is a circle, installation view

time is a circle, installation view

particle-collider-housing-r2

hip hope

it is not far

noos (it is not far)
noos, 123cm x 123cm, oil on canvas, 2005

\logos (it is not far)
logos, 123cm x 123cm, oil on canvas, 2006

cosmos (it is not far)
cosmos, 123cm x 123cm, oil on canvas, 2009

the series it is not far depicts temporal time in its different incarnations. historic symbolic time is depicted in the first painting in the series, noos.

during a visit to the metropolitan museum of art in new york in the fall of 2005 i felt my first fundamental energetic connection to the fetish and devotional objects on display. this was due to the realization of their language. they spoke in symbols, often favoring animals and simple yet striking designs. around this time i found an $8 copy of shamanism by mircea eliade at a street sale, and synchronistically i happened to possess only $8. i belabored the decision, but purchased eliade’s masterwork. between toronto and montreal i read an account of a shaman, in which they endured an ecstatic trance ritual of fasting and imbibing some type of substance. the shaman awoke in a different world and was made to lie down by a smith. the smith gouged out the shamans eyes, placed them in the furnace, and returned them. he did this with his arms, legs, and various other appendages. when the shaman returned to the tribe he/she was fundamentally different. her/his body had been altered, forged on god’s anvil, and had returned now as a conduit between the spirit world and the tribe.

the flowers depicted are symbolic in both type and number. there are 4 poppies, positioned as the cardinal directions as explained to me by a towa man on an amtrak train whom i met by changing my point of disembarking. after painting i checked his information against the colors popularly accredited to the medicine wheel, and he was slightly off. however, i appreciated this accident as it relates to the happy entropy of oral history. there are 5 pansies, as 5 is the man number (we have 2 arms, 2 legs, and a head). there are 3 lotuses, which symbolize birth and rebirth, and 3 is echoed throughout the painting as the number of divine trinities. there are 3 anemones, which mean ‘of the wind’, and are also the dying god symbol as the painting represents different forms of knowing and the past. there is a single daisy, which symbolizes the innocence of totality, and a single calla lily, which represents me, the artist. calla lilies are now common to me in california, but when i delivered flowers to weddings in wisconsin they were very rare and expensive, and also bruised when touched. they possess a phallic grace, yet render very little scent. 4 horses are depicted, symbolizing the journey and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. there is a snake which ferries souls to and from the underworld, and 3 eagles, symbolizing the creator and divine trinities.

the tree in the middle is the world tree, a birch tree, and is upside down with its roots in the air. the river in the background is the delta of the ganges, one of india’s sacred rivers, and also symbolizes delta, or change.

the second painting in the triptych, logos, is a photo of a paused second generation ipod. unknown artist, unknown album were byproducts of cd-r’s and the beginning of free and wide distribution and memes. they also represent me as the painter of the painting. the duration of the song is 11:11 (there are 7 1’s in the painting) which symbolizes awareness. logos represents the intersection of the divine and language, or ‘the word’, and inherent truth. in this case it is depicted as an antiquated (even in 2006) technological artifact, as the present tense, though real, is necessarily ephemeral. the battery is half full, half empty, and the song is track 1 of 1, one life in one moment. ipods represent personal empowerment and the potential for divine self reflection as an igod.

cosmos, or an orderly and harmonious system, is the title of the third painting in it is not far. it attempts to depict the paradox of attempting to depict something that can’t and doesn’t yet exist. therefore i painted color field and interwoven energetic filaments. cosmos was painted over one and a half years in 3 different cities.

elaborate

elaborate, finished in 2007, is a tribute to the late great j dilla. borne out of necessity and zeitgeist, the album is cobbled together loops taken predominately from mp3s of field recordings from around the world but also including flourishes of funk (dyke and the blazers), jazz (lonnie liston smith) and indie-pop (arthur russell and joanna newsom). elaborate is intended as a companion piece to both cultivated incompetence and trance send dental, which if ever released in a physical format would be a triple album. click here to download the whole album.

trance send dental

trance send dental was created using field recordings recorded during my travels in europe in 2007. the raw audio was then chopped into loops and manipulated with ableton live, establishing the feeling of organic impossibility like a surreal dream state.

cultivated incompetence

in 2006 i began compiling cultivated incompetence as an attempt to create hip hop without rappers, instead utilizing public speeches from famous and semi-famous people, including: laura huxley, william s. burroughs, henry miller, ahrundati roy, steve jobs, alex jones, michael talbot, angela davis, abbie hoffman, e.e. cummings, and derrick jensen. cultivated incomptence, much like elaborate, is crafted out of samples from mp3s and vinyl, and marked my departure from a singer-songwriter style. click here to download the whole album.

logos

in 2005 i left new york city and over the course of a month made my way to the san francisco bay area where i subsequently resettled. i carried with me a gifted super 8 camera and shot stop motion film of my trip. during this transition i made a point of not taking any photos, relying instead on the cartridges of super 8 film stock that i had to trust were actually working, though there was no way to prove this until they were developed. i would click away in a rhythmic manner, click.. click…….click.. click…….. click.. click.. click.. i later had the footage digitized and subsequently synchronized it to the second side of lucky dragon’s fantastic album widows. i intended to show liminal paradoxical american spaces and symbols in a non-linear fashion through the inherent emotive nostalgia of bygone physical media, though this project began more as an experiment that congealed into this film than an intentional work of art. i show my life and my friend’s lives in the last moments of youth and the first moments of true adulthood. the title ‘logos’ references the intersection of the known and the unknown as essence.