A Neoist Research Project

'A Neoist Research Project' is the first comprehensive anthology
and source book of Neoism, an international collective network of mostly anonymous and pseudonymous subcultural actionists and speculative experimenters.

It collects more than one hundred Neoist texts and two hundred images, documenting - among others - Neoist interventions, the Neoist Apartment Festivals, definitions and pamphlets of Neoism and affiliated currents, language and identity experiments and Neoist concepts and memes such asthe shared identity Monty Cantsin.

by neoists & anti-neoists
ISBN 9781906496463

This book & video feature a Neoist Comic I (Monty Cantsin) did back in the late 90s.

White Stripes MiniPops using LEGO

I made this White Stripes figure using LEGO based on the Mini Pops book. Now you can replicate it using my build instructions I made using the LEGO Digital Designer.

LINK to instructions.

Miroslav Tichý

I went to the Miroslav Tichy exhibit at International Center of Photography a few weeks ago, and then I went back again last Friday. Miroslav Tichy is an old Czech, born in Kyjov, Moravia, in 1926. He went to art school, and then stopped painting sometime in the late 1950s. He became very unkempt, dressed in rags, and started wandering around Kyjov with cameras he constructed out of garbage—shoe boxes, twine, lenses from broken eyeglasses. According to some of the local residents who were interviewed for a documentary on Tichy’s life, most people didn’t believe his cameras were real; those who did would call the police whenever he began “taking pictures”—mostly of women’s feet, legs, and butts. The police also hauled Tichy off to the local insane asylum whenever he showed up for the annual May Day parade, because they didn’t want the village weirdo spoiling their proper celebration.

Art The images Tichy made are pretty great, because his cameras and his enlarger were made out of trash, and also because of Tichy’s obsession with his subject matter. Last Friday I watched a couple looking at the first few photos at the ICP exhibit; the young woman turned to her date and said, “He sure liked booty, didn’t he?” Clearly he did, which is pretty obvious to anyone who just looks at the pictures. But if you read the accompanying text for the show, written by some curator, you will discover that these images are all about esthetic choice as to how best to represent the experience of village life, or some such nonsense. Instead of shooting interiors or church scenes, Tichy chose to shoot at the local swimming pool for some esthetic reason or other. The fact that there are usually not a lot of half-naked babes at the church didn’t enter into it at all, apparently. But Tichy himself, in an interview in the documentary film that’s showing in conjunction with the exhibit, just goes on and on about sexuality, atoms screwing, dinosaurs doing it—he doesn’t say a word about his “esthetic choices.” He does say, “To be famous, you have to be worse at something than anyone else in the whole world.” So he’s not stupid.

I don’t understand why we have to do the Henry Darger on these guys. Nobody goes to all the trouble of making cameras out of trash unless their passion forces them to make those images. Why can’t people just look at the photos and appreciate them for what they are? It doesn’t lessen the power of the photos to accept that the photographer was the local creepy weirdo, or that any “esthetic choices” were being made by Little Miroslav.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.

Stolen From WFMU's Beware of the Blog, post by Iowa Firecracker

The Boneyard

In Colon Cemetery in Havana, Cuba is the site of the celebrated 'boneyard'. A single grave in the cemetery cost $10 in rent for five years. At the end of the five years, if the remains were not claimed, the bones were thrown into the boneyard [sometimes known as 'bone pile] by the cemetery authorities.

In the 1890s, American soldiers often removed skulls and bones and drove through the streets of Havana displaying them. Their commander, General Brooke ordered the practice to stop and gave instructions for the pit to be covered over. Two cards, here, show American soldiers stood on the thirty foot deep pile holding up bones in the shape of the skull and crossbones. Photographs were taken and sold commercially as souvenir postcards to send home to their loved ones. How times have changed! Remember to click on the images to enlarge them.

LINK

Bolivia Childlike photo-fit leads Bolivian police to murderer

New police Photo-Fit motto "keep it simple stupid" LINK

The head is shaped like a rugby ball, the lips slide to one side, the nose is phallic, the ears are missing and the hair is having a very bad day.

And what's more - they caught the guy and he does look like that!

How Mom Uses Facebook & Twitter to Stalk Her Son

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Crystal Cave of Giants Naica, Mexico

The Crystal Cave of Giants was accidentally discovered in 2000 by miners working in the silver and lead mine at Naica, Mexico. It lies almost 300 meters (900 feet) below the surface of the Earth and it contains the largest crystals known in the world, by far. The largest crystals are over 11 meters long (36 feet) and weigh 55 tons.

The crystals themselves are made of selenite which is crystallized gypsum, the same material used in drywall construction. Except these crystals formed over a span of about half a million years in a hot water solution, saturated with minerals. The the temperature inside the cave remained very consistently hot for the entire time the crystals were growing.

It is still incredibly hot in the cave due its proximity to a magma chamber, deep underground. The air temperature is 50C with a relative humidity of over 90%, making the air feel like an unbearable 105C (228F) Entering the cave without special protective suits can be fatal in 15 minutes. I will be entering the cave wearing a special cooling suit with chilling packs inside and a specialized backpack respirator which will allow me to breath chilled air. Even with all this equipment, I will still only be able to stay in the cave for no more than 45 minutes at a time.

In extreme heat, the body begins to lose higher brain functions which made the expedition much more difficult with the risk of falling into deep pits, or being impaled on a sharp crystal. All the camera gear needs to be slowly brought up to temperature beforehand by pre-heating it and most cameras with moving parts and tape mechanisms simply will not work at all.

It is as dangerous as it is beautiful.

link