Theoretical Physicists: The real artists of the 21st Century

Art & Science Are Theoretical Physicists the only true artists left in the 21st Century? Conceptual jester Jonathon Keats has suggested that the science fiction of the future will be written in mathematical equations but sci-fi, speculative fiction and futurism are all now things of the past: We are the future and the romantic idea of the artist is dead, politics is a fiction, and the only space where the Absolute, the Sublime and Beauty remain possible is within the theoretical micro equations of the quantum physics.

Jail Rebecca Brooks and Andy Coulson, now!

Politics Irrefutable evidence from Channel 4’s Dispatches that both the two main political parties and the police are in the pocket of the Murdoch Clan/News International. Former NOTW editor Andy Coulson and current NOTW editor Rebecca Brooks (Wade) were/are engaged in systematic criminal activity including blackmail, phone tapping, illegal payments to police, and perjury. Those in a position to expose News Internationals criminal activities have been threatened, either explicitly or implicitly, with retribution using the very tactics that are currently destabilising our Democracy and legal system. If British Democracy and the rule of law are to be seen as anything but farce Coulson and Brooks should face criminal prosecution and ultimately jail.

Private View: Thursday 27th 6:00pm - 8:30pm

Central Saint Martins’ MA Fine Art - Interim Show 2011
Description: Showcasing the work of Central Saint Martins’ MA Fine Art students
Continues: 28 January - 30 January 11am to 6pm
Location: Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse St, South Bank, London, SE1 9PH

020 7021 1686
http://www.coinstreet.org/

Transport: Tube: Blackfriars, Southwark, Waterloo; bus: 45, 63, 100

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five: Live on The Tube (1983)

Nostalgia Remember watching this at the time - People retrospectively hype The Tube as hip and cutting edge but it hardly ever had any black acts when hip-hop/electro and funk/soul/boogie where by far the most innovative forms of music during the period (early 80’s). For more classic electro links, mixtapes and re-edits join the Facbook group Let the music play - a homage to electro-funk. For westlake72’s take on the Message mashed with the Clash’s Guns of Brixton go here.

Chuka Umunna

Politics I believe the next Labour PM will be Streatham’s current MP: Chuka Umunna. I was extremely impressed by Umunna’s performance while grilling the vile Bob Diamond. He exhibited three vital qualities that Ed Milliband distinctly lacks: i) Clear, concise, communication skills, ii) A passionate, and authentic, sense of right and wrong, and iii) the appearance of a sharp, intelligent, confidence while still managing to appear ‘normal’. Roll on 2020… Mr Umunna also fancies himself as a bit of a Soulful House DJ. Click here some of his choices.

Sarah Palin: No sense of dignity, No sense of shame.

Politics In Sarah Palin’s video responce to the Arizona shooting it only takes Ms Palin 1 minute 30 seconds before she forgets about paying tribute to the Liberal senator Gabrielle Giffords, who lies fighting for her life and the lives of 6 others (including a 9 year old girl who she neglects to mention), and starts to make excuses for herself, and her hate filled friends in the media: Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh et al and their rabble rousing  rhetoric  'tageting’ Liberals such as Gabrielle Giffords who they attempt to portray as “anti-American”. Rather than show grace, humility and dignity she bizarrely chooses to attack others for “irresponsible statements” while refusing to accept that her, and her cronies, statements could have in anyway have created an atmosphere where violence is used to attack Liberals. If this was a one off incident she may have got away with it but this is only the latest and most serious example of violence directed against those Ms Palin and her supporters in the Media and the Tea Party view as “enemies”. Gabrielle Gifford herself had already warned about the danger posed by Ms Palins tactics:

Gabrielle Giffords warns Sarah Palin there will be consequences (video)

as had others:

Elizabeth Hasselbeck: Sarah Palin's Crosshairs Ad ‘Despicable’ (video)

Even the Republican Judge John Roll had previously received Death Threats from right wingers who objected to his ruling on immigration:

Reports: Judge Roll Received Threats (text)

There are too many instances to list here of right wingers threatening, or using, violence either explicitly or implicitly against their Liberal political opponents so Ms Palin hasn’t got the excuse of hiding behind her own ignorance. In the wake of this paradigm shifting incident she had the opportunity to demonstrate both courage and humility by paying respect to the dead and injured by drawing a line in the sand, acting responsibly and pledging to refrain from using inflammatory language in the future and encouraging her supporters to do the same. Did she choose to show such courage and humility? No, she chose excuses, self justification and cowardice.

Increase the Peace

Music an hour of chilled out sun-kissed soul from my podcast.

Horny Chic (Flying Away)

 Music Horny Chic (Flying Away) by westlake72

This Trumpet lead, soulful, nu-disco groover is the most popular download from my Soundcloud page.http://soundcloud.com/westlake72/horny-chic-flying-away

Glen Campbell: Wichita Lineman (westlake72 remix)

Music Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman given an old skool jungle drum’n’bass remix by westlake72 with accompanying mash-up video.

Future Now Exhibition

‘We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us’ - Marshall McLuhan (1964)

All paradigm shifts in art emerge in response to social change and technological innovation. In the last 15 years information technology, particularly the emergence of the internet, has began to touch, and often reshape, every sphere of our lives. It is the electronic inter-connecting network potentially linking every human being directly to every other human being on planet. As human beings we are essentially social constructs – that is we are defined by our relationship to others – any fundamental shift in these relationships mediation is a fundamental shift in what it is to be human. It has been argued that the emergence of the internet is either A) the biggest technological innovation since Guttenberg’s movable type printing enabled the reformation, the scientific revolution and the birth of modernity B) A system as transformative as the very emergence of the written word in Mesopotamian 4th BC, or even C) a biological shift in human kind on a scale of the emergence of language itself. Therefore we are currently living through an age of technology-lead social change so all encompassing that we are presently unable to grasp the full implications of what that change may mean, other than to state simply that this social change will inevitably lead to a fundamental change, not only in what is meant by the term 'art', and what it is to be an 'artist', but what it actually means to be a human being in this emerging post-Gutenberg galaxy.

Future Now is an online exhibition featuring 5 emerging artists working with digital print, video projection, sound performance, text, digital programming, and drawing . This exhibition will create a dialogue with the monumental technology-led social/cultural shifts that have emerged in the last 10 to 15 years focussing on our changing relationships with technology and each other within the birth of the information age.