I keep a folder full of memes. Actually, I keep several folders of memes, and some are even sorted into themes. A bit nerdy? Oh yes, very. But memes are one of my favourite things to be found in the slew of nonsense available through the interwebs. They make me feel connected to the strangers that create them. As we come closer to finish line of 2025, it is very hard for me to pick my favourites for this very weird year, but I think I am going to go with these 2. There is a dual message here that resonates —radical kindness, and yeah, very little is under control, but maybe that’s OK— and this makes me feel connected to the strangers that created them.
AI & And A Five Year Gap
Well, at some point in 2018 I seemed keen to try and blog, and there were some posts, and then somehow, it became 2023. So, here we are, with many possible entry points back into the blog. So, I will start here, with AI and Nick Cave, because he says much of what I am feeling, but better, and because the Red Hand Files is such a lovely way to communicate.
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chat-gpt-what-do-you-think/
"Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations..."
---As always, such a master with words---
Cities and Memory
Sound projects!! Very inspired by the work of sound artists, the growth of sensory ethnography, and learning how to better explore understandings of place in ways that decentralize the visual.
Cuba!
Cuba! From May 16-20 the Canadian Anthropology Society partnered with the Society for Applied Anthropology and the Universidad de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba to host the annual 2018 CASCA conference. WOW!! What an experience! A week later and I am still processing what it meant to attend this conference. I remain incredibly grateful to have met so many amazing people here and to have had the opportunity to share work during a symposium devoted to arts-based research under the umbrella of "Ethnographic Hallucinations" co-sponsored by the Center for Imaginative Ethnography. However, the conference was not all that united us in Santiago de Cuba. On the Friday of the conference a tragedy struck Cuba. A Cubana airlines flight crashed in Havana on the way to Holgin and 112 people died. This was a profoundly sobering reality for those of us visiting as Cuba entered a state of national mourning for the remainder of our conference. To be united in grief for a country in mourning is a moment that I will never forget. To be in and learn from Cuba as a place, remains an experience that I am sure will come to shape all of our thinking in years to come. What a gift.
There is Truth Here: Creativity and Resilience in Children’s Art from Indian Residential and Indian Day Schools →
A first post that is also a late post! But in the webs, things live!
http://uvac.uvic.ca/gallery/truth/
Please visit and share this online resource for the exhibition: There is Truth Here: Creativity and Resilience in Children’s Art from Indian Residential and Indian Day Schools, at the Legacy Art Gallery in Victoria,BC from September 23, 2017 – January 6, 2018. Though the exhibition has come down, the work to repatriate collections of artwork created by Indigenous children while in Residential Schools across Canada continues. In addition to images of the artwork, this online resource provides information about this research, media links, and important writings from intergenerational Survivors, artists, curators, researchers, and students involved with this work. For more on this project see http://uvac.uvic.ca/gallery/truth/airs-repatriation/ and http://www.ajacketfullofstories.com/#/ridsar/
