DS106: Remix Monday (Week 2)

I’m doing a five-week, every-Monday (unless I space out and forget) remix of a piece of art from the earlier days of DS106. (Read more about what I am up to here).

For this week’s remix, I took the text from the original image as a visual image, then ran it through a series of art filters, and then composed some music to go with it, and finally pulled it all together into a video collage that I hope focuses on the message of the writing (which is about remix and making art).

Peace (and remix),
Kevin

Graphic Non-fiction: Hidden Systems

Hidden Systems by Dan Nott

Dan Nott’s graphic book — Hidden Systems (Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind The Systems We Use Every Day) — is a visual exploration of what the subtitle says it will do — go deep into the workings of three main systems that are part of our modern lives: the Internet, the electrical grid and water networks.

In each section, Nott shows how well-informed he is with his research as well as how skilled he is as a visual artist and storyteller. The reader is quickly immersed in systems thinking, and architectural and engineering design, but Nott never goes so far into the weeds of those worlds that the average reader gets lost. Nott is an able and reliable guide, and the visuals here provide angles of understanding that text alone might not.

Nott brings us into the mostly invisible networks of wires and pipes that form the core of society (caveat: modern American society), where so much of how things function for us depends on extensive networks. These systems bring benefits but also have fundamental weaknesses and historical impacts on the environment and people, too.

Nott shows the historical beginnings behind the visi0ning of the Internet and electrical and water systems, and how some thinking created opportunities while other thinking created vulnerabilities. In some cases, the development of these systems happened by chance or without a larger vision or design, leading to problems in the grids.

We often just see the surface of our surroundings, but by understanding these systems more deeply, we can form our own questions about their past and future. The answers to these questions can help us not only to fix these systems, but also re-imagine them — creating a world that’s more in balance with the Earth. – from Hidden Systems, by Dan Nott, pages 238-9

I found that, after reading Hidden Systems, that I found myself seeing the landscape of power grids and water systems and the Internet in more nuanced ways, noticing the physical connections in my own community, the places where these fundamental services flow and connect, and that’s what good books do, right? They make us notice the world, in a different way.

(I write this on my Internet-connected laptop, at a table with a light over my head, and cup of coffee brewed with tap water by my side — all elements of the networks that Nott examines in book)

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This book would be a good addition to any middle school or high school library.

Peace (and Systems),
Kevin

Daily Create: Ten Clicks In

I submitted the idea for this morning’s Daily Create, using River to navigate through a series of artistic tiles and end on a page of art. I made a short video of my excursion with my ten clicks. I found it interesting and mesmerizing and rather soothing.

Peace (Wandering In),
Kevin

DS106: Remix Monday (Week 1)

DS106 Remix Mondays Week1

After a DS106 Daily Create prompt yesterday (Sunday) about coming up with a new day of celebration based on Stir-Up Sunday, I decided that a Remix Monday sounded cool. Then, I thought, maybe I should try to do it — to remix a single piece of art, five different ways, over five weeks, every Monday.

Remix It Mondays

I dove back into the DS106 archives and found this image and text by Guilia Forsythe that was used more than 10 years ago by the DS106 community (before my time) for a Kickstarter campaign, and began to brainstorm some ideas. I soon realized that the image was actually a remix itself, from a Sonic Youth album cover (Goo), and although the album cover seems to have a “fair use” license, it also seemed to say you had to use the entire album cover, not just pieces of it.

So, I mostly am focusing on the handwritten text that was part of the remix done way back when, although today, for my first remix (the next will be next Monday), I revamped the art itself, adding new images to replace the original, but keeping the same text, which celebrates the act of making art.

Peace (and Remix),
Kevin

Book Review: The Comfort Of Crows

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I love Margaret Renkl’s regular column of observational writing in The New York Times and I enjoyed her last book – Late Migrations – immensely. Her latest book — The Comfort Of Crows — hit me in a different way, as she documents the seasons of the year through the lens of nature in her Nashville yard.

My connection with her narrative is that, like her, our three sons have all moved out of the house (the last one is in his first year of college) and my wife and I are navigating these empty spaces that were once full of noise and activity. We’re awash in the stories of their childhoods in sudden memories, and thinking of where our next phase of life will bring us.

Renkl does the same, but with lovelier language and keen observational skills, and this collection of short essays and “praise songs” for nature and the animal world resonated, particularly as she grapples with the changing environment and animal passages through her property, connecting what she is seeing out her window with her own family history and her own stories.

The Comfort Of Crows is beautiful writing, made even more delightful by the collage and artwork of her brother, Billy Renkl, who illustrates each section with intriguing art that mixes various media together to capture the natural world.

Peace (ponderings),
Kevin