I want to again mention the art show at BMEfest. To recap, we're setting up a gallery space for the day after (also the Uvatiarru pre-screenings) in which people here are welcome to hang their artwork. This is for a silent auction with part of the proceeds going to charity (I'm leaning toward a teen anti-suicide charity or an anti-teasing campaign, but I'm open to suggestions) and the remainder going to the artists themselves.
I'll be hanging a painting I think, but not the (blurrily photographed 4'x4') one above because that was a present for Rachel. If you want to hang work as well, I hope you do! To do so, just contact Badur and let him know what you'd like to exhibit — painting, photography, sculpture, etc. is all welcome. It does not have to be body modification related.
I was a bit worried because I wanted to do a darker painting. Like most people I think, I paint from my emotions, and I try and tap into the better ones. However, when it comes down to it, at my core, sex and violence is pretty much what I'm about. Luckily I have a decent conscious processor that keeps it locked in my nightmares and daydreams instead. Anyway, I was worried because people who know me know that everything I paint (hell, everything I do) is a self-portrait, so working in darker areas might make them uncomfortable.
But this morning I read Bernard Wolfe's Limbo (more), about a WW III neurosurgeon who escapes to a Pacific Island where he becomes the doctor for the tribe, which does primitive lobotomies as a part of their faith (to induce pacifism). When he takes over, he starts documenting what is “lost” when he removes parts of the brain, and tries mapping it. He discovers that aggression and eroticism and creativity and violence are inexorably linked. I believe that's true. So maybe it's OK.
The book then continues about the “queer limbs”, people with nuclear powered arms and legs… Check it out, it's way ahead of its time as a transhumanist novel.
Anyway, I've got a buffet to go to.
