Thursday, September 17, 2015
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
NFP
Happy Birthday Earthbound Moon, NFP!
We are officially a Not For Profit organization, world! With luck, we will be granted 501(c)(3) status as a federally recognized tax exempt organization by the end of the year. That paperwork is next.
Last night, after the CBWP event, EbM enjoyed a small meeting. Carson, Amy, Alex, Zelda (our newest member at 3 months on Planet Earth,) and I chatted to discuss my upcoming visit to LA. I am only there for seventy or eighty hours, but the time is jam-packed with goodness.
Alex will be in town, as well, and so he and Amy and I are making an EbM pilgrimage to two of the most important places on Earth: The La Brea Tar Pits and Urban Light. Readers of this blog know I hold Urban Light dear, it is one of the great public sculptures of human history. I will rant and rave about it more when i get to LA, rest assured.
The Tar Pits are even more magical as the birthplace of the TemporAleph, the birthplace of my annoying habit of asking people to take me to the place in their locale where time breaks down, where our inability to experience physics time (as opposed to physical, or linear, time) is overcome. Everywhere I have been on Earth there is Temporaleph, a place where you can stand and experience the past, the present, and the future simultaneously. over the last seven or eight years I have collected experiences of these places around the world in sound and image. Every place humans settle you can find one. The La Brea Tar Pits were the first place I recognized this experience, the dissolution of temporal linearity, drifting out of the confines of human sensoriality and into a place-induced expansion of awareness, a vista, a panorama not just of sight and sound, but of time, looking in all temporal directions at once.
We also discussed our two new programs, ESP and RIME, which along with EbR, M3OPUS (you will learn more soon!) and the Temporaleph project constitute our 02015/02016 "install" schedule.
I will intersperse more on all of these upcoming confections inbetween cloud posts in the coming weeks.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Chicago Books to Women In Prison
Tonight I attended the Change In Action -- People & Prisons event sponsored by Chicago Books to Women In Prison.
My wife is on the board of directors for this small nonprofit. The stories told by women who have been in and out of the penal system brought tears to my eyes. The larger discussion of just how punitive and broken our justice system and penal system are is nigh on overwhelming. I strongly believe the people and the intentions are good in these systems. The systems, however, are deeply compromised and tortured.
I spend a lot of time dreaming of ways EbM and other projects might constructively engage with aggressive social change. Our mission is, of course, aggressive global change, social and physical. It is, however, also geologic change, our mission is molasses slow, intentionally.
For now, I share the above link, and encourage the handful of you who visit here to visit there, and perhaps make a donation, or find another way to give a little towards a better near-future.
My wife is on the board of directors for this small nonprofit. The stories told by women who have been in and out of the penal system brought tears to my eyes. The larger discussion of just how punitive and broken our justice system and penal system are is nigh on overwhelming. I strongly believe the people and the intentions are good in these systems. The systems, however, are deeply compromised and tortured.
I spend a lot of time dreaming of ways EbM and other projects might constructively engage with aggressive social change. Our mission is, of course, aggressive global change, social and physical. It is, however, also geologic change, our mission is molasses slow, intentionally.
For now, I share the above link, and encourage the handful of you who visit here to visit there, and perhaps make a donation, or find another way to give a little towards a better near-future.
Sunrise East and Sunrise West this morning
I wake at 5AM these days, work in my studio/office for an hour or three, and then head out to the day job. I have a great day job right now, btw. This morning a little after the sun fully rose, these delicious colors burst in my mouth like the ripe fruit I enjoy with ym yogurt and granola each morning. Such beautiful skies. <3 p="">
The Ocean Above Us
Between us and space is a greatly dispersed ocean, one as deep and mysterious and filled with life as the earthbound oceans. Wind moves currents of water in the sea and in the air. Clouds move like slow motion tides, like sea foam. I often watch the sky the way I watch tide pools and surf, the way I watch ripples and wakes. Less and less do I feel a distinction between the oceans and the sky. The water cycle we all learn as children feels each day more concrete to me. I do not know why, but it seems intimately linked to EbM, if my (admittedly damaged) sense of time is accurate.
This morning looking into the ocean above us, the different pressure layers of the sky and their individual slow motion currents were so boldly on display I could not resist sharing with you. Looking up at the Chicago sky powerfully reminded me of looking down into the Gulf of Alaska, back when I spent five weeks as boat cook on a University of Alaska research journey.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Susan O'Malley
In late February, EbM and the world lost a great inspiration. A good friend, colleague and collaborator to many of us in EbM, Susan O'Malley embodied the simplest and most difficult pursuit of all: togetherness and love. Deceptively simple in approach, she helped us believe in a world of openness, exchange and silliness.
We will be forever in her debt and can only hope through life and through projects like Earthbound Moon to continue on the work of transforming the world without hesitation.
For those who didn't know Susan, she thankfully left behind a body of work that speaks loud and clear. Please follow the link below to read more about Susan and her incredible work:
morebeautifulthanyoucouldeveri
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Earth<3
O hai, blog! Did you notice the lovely, fluffy, gargantuan snow flakes in Chicago this morning? Did you see that astounding Yves Klein dusk last night? So beautiful. Stunning. Inspiring. What an amazing place to live, Earth. I do dearly encourage you to fill your heart and soul with the awe that looking up will inspire. Holy mackerel! Oh, expand, dissipate, disappear, pop, expand, dissipate, disappear, pop, expand, dissipate, disappear, pop. Isn't the universe (infinitely cycling, never repeating) wonderful!
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Who do we want to be?
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/27/detroits-young-gentrifiers-face-a-daunting-task-in-buying-500-homes-evicting-poor-residents
Over the past several years, EbM has spent a lot of time discussing this issue, how our project could be be harmful to the sites' communities. We hope this is never the case, but every install carries the risk of gentrification in it.
We have looked at Detroit properties since the start of EbM.
We have opted against purchasing a property in Detroit in large part because we are not a mature enough organization to address the complex issues and responsibilities of building there. It is a site where, I suspect, we would need to live, to engage day to day, in order to feel certain that our installation wasn't more harmful than beneficial to the community.
Speaking of which, last week we were offered three properties in Chicago. The properties consist of six city lots total. They are not fully contiguous. I am going down to look at them this coming weekend. I will post photos here for everybody.
The issue these lots raise is similar to the issue lots in Detroit would raise, they are in community where a sited artwork will need far more support and engagement than any previous installations. For any project by EbM to succeed on these lots, we will have to change as an organization.
I think this is probably not a bad thing. We have talked a lot over the years about incorporating and trying to become a more traditional arts/culture business. We have not done so, I think, because our simple, amateurish approach is fairly fulfilling while remaining free of too many obligations and responsibilities. It has been fairly risk-free. If we move forward with these properties, that will have to change completely.
RIME is already pushing us in the direction of this change. If we accept these Chicago properties, we will experience a much greater, much higher pressure change.
We are truly blessed to have such difficult choices to make! :-)
Over the past several years, EbM has spent a lot of time discussing this issue, how our project could be be harmful to the sites' communities. We hope this is never the case, but every install carries the risk of gentrification in it.
We have looked at Detroit properties since the start of EbM.
We have opted against purchasing a property in Detroit in large part because we are not a mature enough organization to address the complex issues and responsibilities of building there. It is a site where, I suspect, we would need to live, to engage day to day, in order to feel certain that our installation wasn't more harmful than beneficial to the community.
Speaking of which, last week we were offered three properties in Chicago. The properties consist of six city lots total. They are not fully contiguous. I am going down to look at them this coming weekend. I will post photos here for everybody.
The issue these lots raise is similar to the issue lots in Detroit would raise, they are in community where a sited artwork will need far more support and engagement than any previous installations. For any project by EbM to succeed on these lots, we will have to change as an organization.
I think this is probably not a bad thing. We have talked a lot over the years about incorporating and trying to become a more traditional arts/culture business. We have not done so, I think, because our simple, amateurish approach is fairly fulfilling while remaining free of too many obligations and responsibilities. It has been fairly risk-free. If we move forward with these properties, that will have to change completely.
RIME is already pushing us in the direction of this change. If we accept these Chicago properties, we will experience a much greater, much higher pressure change.
We are truly blessed to have such difficult choices to make! :-)
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