Scribbling.Nadalex

Map of NY harbor by Bertholdi reproduced in "The Most Iconic American Artwork is the Hardest to See"

This expose on how the Trump administration has reshaped the SNAP program reveals biopolitics at work. The question of "who lives, who dies" unfolding slowly through "who eats." It is a brutal read.

It was sad to read how the program is now creating obstacles for single-mother families; though I couldn't help but think that the program helped to create, and does not just reflect, the American malaise of single-person households, how difficult it was to apply if you lived in a collective house, especially if that was extended family, but also if that was chosen family or an affinity group.

"Human services" also appears emblematic of all computer-mediated labor post-2020 when one interviewee comments:

“On the one hand, we are facing a doubling, in some cases, of the workload, and on the other hand, fewer resources to actually fund that workload."

I feel like this is what everyone with a job feels like the past year, double the work, and no help for it. New digital recordkeeping requirements that take time, but no time allotted, new wordy generative AI texts that must be read and decoded, loose ends, dead ends, an expectation to "whip up a graphic", all these aspects of starting over through the day. Still everyone with a job is happy to have their job. Because as this article makes clear, it is tough out there.

That fear is also biopolitics at work.

Link below is "unlocked" but Tumblr doesnt display previews for Unlocked articles... copy and paste.

There has always been predictive text!!!

Excerpt:

At last, Stelarc, the artist, emerged. Once inside the exoskeleton, Stelarc would continue to be free to move his legs as he wished, but his arms would be controlled remotely by an anonymous crowd watching and participating via the internet. Stelarc climbed into the machine, which he had named Movatar, and the system began to boot up. Soon enough, it connected to the internet where invisible strangers awaited.

Unlike a dancer who captivates you with the effortlessness of their movement, Movatar was compelling for its awkwardness. Its upper body moved jerkily, as if in opposition to the legs beneath. Its clumsy movements were strangely moving, brimming with significance — but signifying what exactly? I sensed a window opening onto the relationship between humans and their technologies and the same contradictions that had inspired Hesiod.

Stelarc’s Movatar prophesied what was to happen to us when traditional capital evolved into cloud capital, from a “produced means of production” into a produced means of behavior modification. Stelarc was merely experimenting with the idea of the post-human, but his Movatar captured the essence of humanity’s future reality. As I see it now, Movatar was a creature at the mercy of hyper-connected, algorithmically driven, cloud-based capital. Another name for it would be Homo technofeudalis.

Right now:

What ownership did Cage & co. get rid of?

" Everything is such a f****** mess and I purport to bring order? I will learn to keep order and try not to get too distracted by social media which has sucked all the wind from all of my thoughts for years. A conflagration of opinions fed by questions and likes. Amanda asked in a Tumblr comment if poor debtors would be used as compost for Mars and I tried to find the book I read this past year, which discussed settlers in Virginia as composed. I wish I had written the name of that book over here."

Thars a journal entry from my "Reading Journal" - September 2, 2021

I use this notebook for weeks and then lose it, so I have had it for four years. I found it today to enter notes for The Eye Of the Master by Pasquinelli. Do you keep a reading journal? How do you keep track of what you have read if you want to recall it later?

I miss Tumblr. How about you? I know I am here now, but it's too rare. I choose to log-in, usually on my computer. And I look at my notifications... always empty. The "dopamine-addict" in me forgets about Tumblr for weeks and goes back to the garbage of the Zuckaverse.

Here are some of the reasons I love Tumblr:

No one aims for a perfectly curated feed. Well, maybe some of the illustrators do.. but no one feigns a perfectly curated life. So it forms a more authentic record.

Tumblr fosters supportive communities... or used to.. I know it still is for some of my illustrator friends. (Im a little jealous.) For me, it still offers a social media where I can express myself without judgment -- without Instagram's pressure to pretend or the Twitter mobs that can beat you down and leave you staying home from work or hiding at an out of town relative's house with their threats and intimidation. Without judgment... and often now without response. Every post is a message in a bottle, a letter to posterity

Tumblr's Ask feature encourages direct interaction and creates opportunities for meaningful dialogue.... but I don't see many people using it these days (do you?) I will meet poets who are on here and ask them questions, get an answer 3-4 months later says "oh I didn't even know this was here? Hi!"

Anyway, I've quit Twitter, I'm tired of Instagram, and my Facebook is for engaging with local friends and community. I'm going back to Tumblr... How about you?

So many good notes in this library book that I must return. One to keep: Film as a Record. I must reference this if I ever write my essay about EMPAC videos as something between records and publications.

Also why didnt Essay Film make it into LCGGT?

So many good notes in this library book that I must return. One to keep: Film as a Record. I must reference this if I ever write my essay about EMPAC videos as something between records and publications.

Also why didnt Essay Film make it into LCGGT?

In Mohawk Maker Quarterly

A little story about "Save the Whales" and Animal Town Game Co.

A periodical / review / editorial advertisement published by Mohawk Paper of Cohoes, NY from 2013 to 2018.