The Status of the Last Days

Martin Everald / the whole fear with global warming is generally we 'kill' the planet and then we die because we're connected right? watching the news and such where volcanoes ground flights and snow shuts down highways i think it's more likely that if we keep 'pissing off' the planet it will just wipe us off it and heal itself alone.

Honestly, I'm not completely sure where I'm going with this post. I'm currently sitting in front of CBC news and they're harping on about this bad winter weather and the toll it's taking, especially on drivers. So that was more my reaction if anything, the finished thought is still liquid.


I do have interest in the future, visions of the future and 'impending' apocalypse, technology, manufacture, and things concerning the ongoing man vs. nature discussion. Hence my interest in Margaret Atwood, Edward Burtynsky, Koyaanisqatsi, National Geographic's Aftermath: Population Zero, etc etc. See my photography statement for a more eloquent, creative, and detailed response/interest (below). 

This post is not much different. It isn't for protesting purposes. This is more the written component, a possible written component for a visual idea to be.  In Koyaanisqatsi the basic idea is that we started out with a very natural planet and now we're migrating into this almost completely technological, very unnatural planet. When I hear/view things like extreme winter in Europe, and here, North America, it contributes to the aforementioned dialogue (man vs. nature). It challenges the notion that nature is weak or rather completely fading into the background.  Almost amounting to a dramatic hyperbole of: "What is this... boeing? This awesome plane that can do so much and carry so many people? I am volcano and I'm erupting, and if you think you'll be able to fly until I stop, you're wrong." or "Oh, look at you and your comfortable family vehicles and 53 foot transport trucks, aren't you cute. Vehicles and highway meet blizzard." *vehicles stuck in ditch for many hours* 

ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO PROPAGANDA

Copied from Summer/Autumn 2008 Issue of Arena Homme+

Vivienne Westwood's Active Response To Propaganda

ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO PROPAGANDA
Culture versus dogma

The world suffers from three evils: Nationalism, which has taken the place of religion, Organised Lying; and Non-Stop Distraction.  The most pernicious of them is Non-Stop Distraction; the more you consume, the less you think.

These three evils can be summed up in one word: PROPAGANDA.

Culture is the antidote to Propaganda; by 'culture' is meant intellectual culture.  Thinking involves doubt, all knowledge is uncertain: the Greek word for this is scepticism.  It is the underlying principle of their discoveries and of their civilised values.  By this method Democritus put forward the atomic theory in c420 BC.


I would define culture as the cultivation of the individual.  (This is very different from today's cult of the individual -me, me, me!)

Education is of prime importance.  We can educate children as individuals or as citizens.

On first consideration, there seems to be no antithesis between the good individual and the good citizen.  Surely the good individual is inclined to administer to the good of the whole which is made up of good individuals, but in practical daily life the education which results from regarding a child as an individual is very different from that which results from regarding him as a future citizen.

Citizens as conceived by governments are persons who admire the status quo and are prepared to exert themselves for its preservation.  Citizenship as an ideal is inadequate for it involves an absense of creativeness, and a willingness to acquiesce in the powers that be.  This is contrary to what is overemphasized to prevent ordinary men from attaining the greatness of which they are capable.

PICTURE 1
PICTURE 2

I Heart Constructivism (Part 2)

Looking up some works by Piet Zwart caused me to end up revisiting some work done by Shepard Fairey.  Specifically the work he did for Saks Fifth Avenue in spring last year.

“Saks Fifth Avenue, which has surely felt the recession’s sting, is taking just such a fist-raising stand with its spring marketing. The campaign is inspired by the bold graphic designs and propaganda spirit of Constructivist art–although it is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.”(link)

I first encountered these works in my "Practices of Looking" class  taught by Kym Pruesse, but we were just doing a connotative and denotative analysis of the "Arm yourself with a slouchy bag" ad. So it was really nice to see the rest of the series. Really makes me wish I was near a Saks so I got have gotten some of the catalogues/print materials. But at last I have the pictures. From a design standpoint I think they're absolutely amazing, definately more interesting then the stuff circulating now. So great thanks to NOTCOT for posting. (link)

I Heart Constructivism (Part 1)

I am gearing up for the graphic design portfolio I will be presenting in February.  This preparation includes but is not limited to having actual pieces to show and having knowledge of graphic design and graphic designers. But apart from that my face is always in my art books/creative dealings because art/creative work is what I love. 

So like I was saying I'm doing research, specifically I was looking at poster design examples in my copy of Megg's History of Graphic Design (precisely why I don't give away, sell, or destroy my textbooks. I also love books, and I'm always going back into them). Today's browsing ended up becoming specifically focused on constructivism and the work of Piet Zwart. I love that constructivism can be so engaging but yet simple for the most part -simple shapes, few colors used, simple photography etc...

Some more work by Piet Zwart Here (that's also where I got most of the pictures here)

15 NOV 2010

LISTENING TO: Jem -Save Me

READING: GQ Style No.1 Work

WATCHING: Youtube

EATING: Homemade pizza

DRINKING: Grapefruit Juice & Green Tea

Mixed Feelings

So I have mixed feelings. All of a sudden my mind has been reeling on some sort of syndication regarding my work, specifically all posted/online content. I feel like everything is so random and scattered. So I've been trying to put all the pieces together at least under one name so that if God willing I, Martin Everald, am ran through google there should be enough good things to look at or something. Of course pulling everything together means coming across the not so great stuff, aka the first trials and beginning stuff, and my reaction for the most of it is [...] but it's also good because it means I've moved forward and can look back at the [...]. Even some of the stuff I'm doing now is [...] but I am moving forward.

More and more it seems important to have a great sense of online self, and since currently I don't have independent backers who can advertise on my behalf I will have to get the ball rolling myself.

Nothing is concrete but the current rough plan is to start publishing online mainly under the name of Martin Everald. "Future company name" wise I'm thinking I'll publish under the name of EVERRAM/ EVERRAM | art + design. The various posting outlets are as follows:

BLOG | FACEBOOK | FLICKR | VIMEO

**nothings up on vimeo yet... check back soon though.

MUSIC: FOALS

...for they are awesome. the epitome of audible greatness

*art convulsions*

So I'm really going through a huge art convulsion right now...

Art Convulsion which is my word :D/:P is just a term for a heavy surge of all that is creative to the point where you feel like you're about to go into a spasm or 'convulsion'. Convulsion came into my vocabulary via. House (the medical drama) where they were talking about cardiac convulsions which included the visual of a woman, having said convulsion, convulsing back and forth-she was next to violently jerking back and forth. What triggers these art convulsions is looking at other people's creative work, especially the work I consider to be on many many levels greater than my current abilities.

Some good places for inspiration:

FFFFOUND!

Looks Like Good Design

CORE 77

DESIGN SCENE

The Awesome Antonov 225

Martin Everald / bananas don't weigh a MILLION and a quarter pounds and fly through the air with ease




As of late I've been really into planes. I find planes are probably one of the most awesome of man's inventions. I believe it started after watching National Geographic's "Aftermath: Population Zero" (a movie that simulates how the earth would change if every human being were to disappear off it. Extremely fascinating BTW!!) Anyways, in that movie they stated that thousands of planes would be trolling through the skies on autopilot (that is until they run out of gas and crash). Can you imagine, every human on the earth is gone but all these planes are still flying around in the air? And while I'm not sure of all the details but after watching the super structures video on the Boeing 747 (less impressive after hearing about the Antonov) some planes apparently have the ability to land themselves? That's intense. This isn't like your average little coffee percolator automatically making a fresh pot in the morning while you're just getting out of bed. This is something typically a few times bigger than your house that knows how to control itself for the most part.

Irregardless of what other planes can do the Antonov planes immediately sets a high bar with scale, especially the 225. It does your brain in to think that something can weigh a million and a quarter pounds and still be able to get off the ground let alone be able to fly with ease. Also I'm pretty sure it must have autopilot. Imagining it being able to do all that AND land itself feels pretty unfathomable.

See "Super Structures: Antonov 225 (Part 1)" below





--
**picture is of the antonov an-124, not the 225. the 225's have six engines.

PIC LINK HERE

The Urban "Cross Walk"

Martin Everald / i love the "cross walk" in the morning at union station. everybody's so dead on the train but as soon as it arrives and you get on the main floor it's '>>'. you just speed and weave your way through to get to where you need to go. however, it only works when you have the music to match. marathon walking; take the paper instead of the cup of water. you are one with the herd but you are an individual. no waiting. no stopping (until you reach the bottle-neck at the station door)

music

Martin Everald / with ears to fill, and ipods to feed the problem seems to be we'll like and love more music than we could ever afford.

is there truly anyway we could have all the music we wanted legally? personally, i find it hard. i used to to download music, and now i buy but there's so much that i want and i don't have the money right now. then there's other issues such as space and taste -once you buy you're pretty much stuck with it, and that 99 cents adds up.

and now that ipods are made with alot more space you're tempted to use it up. granted there are other things that could easily burn it up, but say you actually did fill up the 160 gigs, how often would you be listening to it all? or would there just be some security in the fact that you can pull up anything at a moments notice?

There's a Season for That

"FOR EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON"

Meaning: There is an appropriate time for everything.

Origin: From the Bible, Ecclesiastes III (King James Version):

3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
3:6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The piece was set to music in 1952 by Pete Seeger in his song 'Turn!, Turn!, Turn!'


{LINK}

The Year of the Flood (excerpt)

THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD - MARGARET ATWOOD

CHAPTER 36. / PAGE 188

According to Adam One, the Fall of Man was multidimensional. The ancestral primates fell out of the trees; then they fell from vegetarianism into meat-eating. Then they fell from instinct into reason, and thus into technology; from simple signals into complex grammar, and thus into humanity; from firelessness into fire, and thence into weaponry; and from seasonal mating into an incessant sexual twitching. Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment into the anxious contemplation of the vanished past and distant future.

The Fall was ongoing, but its trajectory led ever downward. Sucked into the well of knowledge, you could only plummet, learning more and more, but not getting any happier. And so it was with Toby, once she'd become and Eve. She could feel the Eve Six title seeping into her, eroding her, wearing away at the edges of what she'd once been. It was more than a hair shirt, it was a shirt of nettles. How had she allowed herself to be sewn into it this way?

She knew more, however. As with all knowledge, once you knew it, you couldn't imagine how it was that you hadn't known it before. Like stage magic, knowledge before you knew it took place before your very eyes, but you were looking elsewhere.

Luis Barragán + Paul Gauguin

So yesterday in one of my classes we were looking at the topic of critical regionalism, and it brought to me the work of architect Luis Barragán. I just love the colors he uses in his buildings especially on the Egerstorm (Mexico)[above], they just feel so relaxing, dreamy, and happy. Personally, I find they remind me the work of the post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin.










LINK

MUSIC: Rihanna -Rude Boy

Rihanna -Rude Boy

I like this video, and I like this song (it's catchy!) but that being said I think the music video is wrong for this song or at least definitely wrong for this album. 'Rated R' is supposed to be all 'hard', 'edgy', and 'dark'. And this video is quite the opposite -it's colorful, it's playful, and it's retro/tribal; a clear disconnect. I think that a video like this would have been more suited for her first album, Music of the Sun and maybe for the song, "There's a Thug in My Life" (with an exception to the pace).