You are here, it's not a virtual world

Well it is a recession and money targeted for research has been being diverted for years. What will this generation do in the name of progress? How do you use what we already have to go forward? Man, it's quite a trick to keep old values and move on to new frontiers. Our vision of the future has moved from clean and sanitary with enlightened human perfection to grunge and urban decay with anarchy and corruption. We have sort of given up on ourselves and are giving in to baser elements. Technology has not really been pushed down into our society except for cell phones and computers. Our other possessions are anchored in the past. Home furnishing are the major block to the perception of progress, we like period furnishings and antiques. We detest history yet love to look back to a romantic past, less complicated and more peaceful. Even I have dreamed of an electric African, being as advanced as can be yet still primitive or at least tribal in many ways.

In our looking back we try to make new art on old forms which doesn't work too well. We are so stuck on square shapes. Square defines what is a picture, windows, plumb walls, ceilings, floors, rooms, buildings, city blocks. Yet, when you look at the earth from space it does not resemble a "Borg" ship, is not a cube. It is so easy to manufacture a flat surface with 90 degree edges and border them with a frame. No matter what we put in the frame, it allows us to look back on an ancient technology. And you wonder why we don't progress. We think ditching the square will release us from our values also. Relax, your values are in you, not in the things you construct around you. The things reflect you, but are not you. You can make adjustments, the things don't change, become antiques, don't move on with us.

The latest love of my art life is to look at both African art and sci-fi art. The organic and the technical go together so well. I like the idea of using the present as a bridge between the past and the future. It sort of destroys the disconnect. I am not talking about turning tribal markings into facial or body tattoos or turning family reunions into tribal gatherings. Nothing we do can fix us or change us from what we are, humans living in today. We should stop trying so hard. Art and the things we gather around us though, create an environment around us in which we live. Art can have an effect on us, how we grow up, develop, are inspired. And I would like to avoid a grunge future and also the clean, sterile future. Neither are very practical or healthy or account for our ability to be decent. I am working to release both the death-grip of the past and the fear of the future.



So here we are, don't speculate, just move forward, when we get there, we are what we've become. We remember, we dream, but we live in today.