this is a collage of three pages from my sketchbooks, dealing with three different aspects of my current work.
the fish is from some natural history studys that ive been working on lately, just to improve my skills, but also possibly the basis for a street zine.
the “skull smear” is a photocopy manipulation of a regular everyday local octopusy type skull. this stuff is fun, i spent about two hours at my local photocopy shop doing interPRATive dance on the machine with a few different drawings (including a lobster), while old ladys with recipe books stood in line behind me and looked concerened. this stuff will more than likely be put together into a zine when i get the time…
and the little dudes are portrates of dead men… possibly…
your turn BC
el Local Octopus

Some people may be aware of recent documents which have come to light in the EFF vs AT&T issue.

Ahem. I mean the recent “US Government vs the Citizens of the world” issue.

Their aim is to build a system that can automatically identify threats based upon a collection of data, and allow humans to act accordingly. The trouble with the system is that while a human can act with discression & humility, humans can not. They fall over each other in a beaurocratic orgy of “care about the issue”. Every single person in a room cares more than the next about any given issue, because every single person deserves more money or more votes than the next. Thus the beurocratic system becomes a binary machine when faced with such data and the end result is “Cmon, lets move on out!”

An efficient computerised system could just as easily replace the human reaction, taking “pre-emtive strikes” against such threats, and automatically counter any ‘threats’, leaving us humans to do what we do best (argue and debate the issues politicians dupe us into caring about)

It’s been a while since i’ve seen Terminator 2, but I remember in the first incarnation, The Governator was a bad guy. Now that’s not to say that “Total Information Awareness” is skynet, but I for one am already looking for a kid with an Atari & a crazy mother.



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A new House bill seeks to protect the interests of those who bribe them.

I can’t begin to imagine how these things land on the agenda of Senators. Recently Australia passed some incredibly bizarre laws that make it legal to copy in a limited sense, but essentially say that you can record a TV program to tape freely, but once you watch it you must delete the copy. Your brain is now a storage device.

I’d like to think I could store it on a device with slightly less redundancy than my brain, but who am I to argue?

It is incredibly difficult for podcasters to get permission to play music as there is a ‘conspiracy’ (ok ok, its called a business arrangement, much like how bribery is now called lobbying) between the major record companies, and the major radio station(s). Imagine how you would feel if you invested huge amounts of time and money on creating an ‘artist’, photoshots, media releases, cover design, sponsoring/manufacturing subcultures only to find your artist makes 46 on the charts and was beaten out by the “Arctic Monkeys”. Fuck that! Thats why you’d get Mcdonalds to buy a truck load of albums thus enabling you to DEBUT at number 1. They always talk about how artists debut at number one - they are so upfront about their corruption, yet people continue to lap it up.

The difficulties podcasters face is an attempt to turn podcasting into “another stupid DIY phase”, but it is fortunately having the opposite result. It is exposing the underground, unsigned and independent artists & ignoring the mass marketted photoshopped trite. It is obliterating the means to which the few cyphen all of the funds from the many.

The smarter folk will work out how to make money out of the emerging infrastructure rather than attempting to ignore & obliterate it. You don’t need to be a Professor of History to see things fall between the fingers of those who attempt to gain a tighter grip on things.

There was a small period of time in humankind’s history when we were ignorant of the diversity of music and all pointed our eyes and ears towards the messiahs of the time, like the beatles and their ilk, but that tunnel vision is gone, and people can all share their music and ideas. It should be possible to live off your music, but it shouldn’t be supporting an industry of middlemen… There are two groups required for this transaction: The artists & the listeners. Often on the internet there’s no distinction between the two.

If mass market media can’t find a way to be profitable on the new infrastructure, by the people for the people, the mass market media can die a slow & well overdue death.

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