11.22.2013
11.20.2013
The Present Prize: FINALIST
Ladies and gents, I am one of three finalists for The Present Prize!
THANKS to everyone who voted for The Beginning Was The End. I find popularity contests extremely awkward and do what I can to avoid them; if I win this one it will be a lifetime first. And lucrative, to boot.
A verdict is due in a couple of weeks, so in the meantime I am still up against a couple of formidable superstars... I will keep you postered! Enormous thanks again to all of you who have supported my work. You are the best.
THANKS to everyone who voted for The Beginning Was The End. I find popularity contests extremely awkward and do what I can to avoid them; if I win this one it will be a lifetime first. And lucrative, to boot.
A verdict is due in a couple of weeks, so in the meantime I am still up against a couple of formidable superstars... I will keep you postered! Enormous thanks again to all of you who have supported my work. You are the best.
11.17.2013
In My Own Language
"The previous part of this video was in my native language. Many people have assumed that, when I talk about this being my language, that means that each part of the video must have a particular symbolic message within it designed for the human mind to interpret. But my language is not about designing words or even visual symbols for people to interpret; it is about being in a constant conversation with every aspect of my environment, reacting physically to all parts of my surroundings.
In this part of the video, the water doesn't symbolize anything. I am just interacting with the water as the water interacts with me. Far from being purposeless, the way that I move is an ongoing response to what is around me. Ironically, the way I move when responding to everything around me is described as "being in a world of my own," whereas, if I interact with a much more limited set of responses, and only react to a much more limited part of my surroundings, people claim that I am "opening up to a true interaction with the world." They judge my existence, awareness, and personhood on which of a tiny and limited part of the world I appear to be reacting to. The way I naturally think and respond to things looks and feels so different from standard concepts or even visualization that some people do not consider it thought at all, but it is a way of thinking in its own right. However, the thinking of people like me is only taken seriously if we learn your language, no matter how we previously thought or interacted.
As you heard, I can sing along with what is around me. It is only when I type something in your language that you refer to me as having communication. I smell things. I listen to things. I feel things. I taste things. I look at things. It is not enough to look and listen and taste and smell and feel: I have to do those to the right things-- such as look at books-- and fail to do them to the wrong things, or else people doubt that I am a thinking being, and since their definition of thought defines their definition of personhood so ridiculously much, they doubt that I am a real person as well.
I would honestly like to know how many people, if you met me on the street, would believe I wrote this. I find it very interesting, by the way, that failure to learn your language is seen as a deficit but failure to learn my language is seen as so natural that people like me are officially described as mysterious and puzzling rather than anyone admitting that it is themselves who are confused, not autistic people or other cognitively disabled people who are inherently confusing. We are even viewed as non-communicative if we don't speak the standard language, but other people are not considered non-communicative if they are so oblivious to our own languages to believe they don't exist.
In the end, I want you to know that this has not been intended as a voyeuristic freak show where you get to look at the bizarre workings of the autistic mind. It is meant as a strong statement on the existence and value of many different kinds of thinking and interaction with the world, where how close you can appear to a specific one of them determines whether you are seen as a real person, or an adult, or an intelligent person. And in a world in which those determine whether you have any rights, there are people being tortured, people dying, because they are considered non-persons, because their kind of thought is so unusual as to not be considered thought at all. Only when the many shapes of personhood are recognized will justice and human rights be possible."
~A.M. Baggs
I recently returned to teaching experimental video to teens (and younger kids) on the autism spectrum. When I tell folks what I'm doing, most respond with some amount of surprise, and almost all say something about how incredibly difficult it must be. In fact, it's something I find extremely satisfying and it actually feels pretty durned natural. The reason for that, I'm finding, is that I empathize with these kids: I'm beginning to locate where I may lie on the spectrum myself.
Although there seems to be some controversy over the authenticity of A.M. Baggs' diagnosis, which is more than a tad perplexing, she's one articulate woman who I hope to have the chance to meet someday.
10.29.2013
The Present Prize
I was nominated for a couple of interesting art awards in September, one of which goes to Bay Area artists with a research focus, The Present Prize.
This is decided by public vote, which is very nervewracking.
I am one in a formidable bunch of fellow artists, so... If you want to see more sublime, uncanny, culturally important work come out of OOwen Labs in 2014 well then get thine mouses clicking, good people!
We need all the help we can get.
Pleasethankyou.
You can vote often and until the end of day NOVEMBER 15th...
10.14.2013
Because It's Free Anyway
. . .
nothing got wild here, the west didn't get wild until the white man
got here. And then it got very wild. And so what we had was a clash of
values and perceptions. So when our Chiefs talked with these men,
these leaders, who we met from another hemisphere, their discussion
didn't mesh, they passed one another. They weren't talking about the
same thing. So when they sold the island of Manhattan,
or, shall we say, when the Dutch "bought" the island of Manhattan, the
Indian said, `I wonder why he's giving us all this, because it's free
anyway. But he's a nice fellow so we'll take it and we'll share this
with him too.' So the next year as the Indian came back to hunt and fish
in this great hunting ground Manhattan was. . . there was a fence and
they said `What's that?' They said, `Well that's the fence, I have just
bought this land.' And they said, `What do you mean, "bought"?'
And so began the conflict.
...This conception of private ownership--of property, of the blood and sinew of Mother Earth, of people, of life, of ideas--came from the euro-centric world-mind. This kind of mentality is not only destructive, it is devolutionary. It is NOT appropriate. The indigenous mind operates from the basis of "Is it appropriate?" The euro-centric mind has only ever asked "Is it possible?" In our species' present collective memory, such a world-mind did not exist here on Turtle Island as it did across the Atlantic prior to 1492. What a truly radical "way of life" was operative here as of 1492 compared to what had been happening on the european continent for millenia. The descendants of those people and that "way of life" still exist and endure here. They still struggle to live by their ancient, sacred precepts and teachings. How MUCH people like myself with a euro-centric upbringing can learn and come to understand and appreciate by teaching ourselves all we can about this more balanced and connective way of being and sharing. We must all begin to reconnect with the practice--in a daily manner--of asking the question "Is is appropriate?" This will open us up to and reconnect us with the intelligence of the heart and will offer our species the most potent healing opportunity to again be aligned in a positive, constructive manner, with our infinite potential to transcend our own self-created and self-learned limitations and boundedness. There are an infinitude of dimensions of being beyond this physical time-space world we have been taught to regard as being "all there is." The ability to conceive and be aware of such dimensions comes through reconnection with the intelligence of the heart.
~Oren Lyons, Los Angeles, October, 1990
Happy Columbus Day
And so began the conflict.
...This conception of private ownership--of property, of the blood and sinew of Mother Earth, of people, of life, of ideas--came from the euro-centric world-mind. This kind of mentality is not only destructive, it is devolutionary. It is NOT appropriate. The indigenous mind operates from the basis of "Is it appropriate?" The euro-centric mind has only ever asked "Is it possible?" In our species' present collective memory, such a world-mind did not exist here on Turtle Island as it did across the Atlantic prior to 1492. What a truly radical "way of life" was operative here as of 1492 compared to what had been happening on the european continent for millenia. The descendants of those people and that "way of life" still exist and endure here. They still struggle to live by their ancient, sacred precepts and teachings. How MUCH people like myself with a euro-centric upbringing can learn and come to understand and appreciate by teaching ourselves all we can about this more balanced and connective way of being and sharing. We must all begin to reconnect with the practice--in a daily manner--of asking the question "Is is appropriate?" This will open us up to and reconnect us with the intelligence of the heart and will offer our species the most potent healing opportunity to again be aligned in a positive, constructive manner, with our infinite potential to transcend our own self-created and self-learned limitations and boundedness. There are an infinitude of dimensions of being beyond this physical time-space world we have been taught to regard as being "all there is." The ability to conceive and be aware of such dimensions comes through reconnection with the intelligence of the heart.
~Oren Lyons, Los Angeles, October, 1990
Happy Columbus Day
9.11.2013
The Oowen @ USF LASER, 2013.09.09
By the nice opportunities and invitations that have come my way from this in the past day or so, I must have done better than I thought. Tech
woes with USF's machine threw me, but I'm posting Piero Scaruffi's documentation for you here anyway. Thanks for checking it out.
Full, brilliant line-up:
Full, brilliant line-up:
- Allison Leigh Holt (Visual Artist) on "Hybrid Reality in Javanese Culture"
- Margot Gerritsen (Stanford Mathematics) on "Linear Algebra: the incredible beauty of a branch of math with a bad reputation"
- Bernie Lubell (Kinetic Artist) on "Intimacy and Entanglement"
- Helene Mialet (UC Berkeley) on "On Stephen Hawking and his extended body"
8.25.2013
allisonHOLT | LASER talk @ USF, 09.09.2013
In a couple of weeks I'll be giving a LASER presentation (Leonardo Art / Science Evening Rendez-vous) on The Beginning Was The End. Join me Monday, 09.09.2013, 7PM
at University of San Francisco's Fromm Hall.
Many thanks to Piero Scaruffi for the honor of being included amongst some formidable folks. Hope to see you there!
Many thanks to Piero Scaruffi for the honor of being included amongst some formidable folks. Hope to see you there!
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