June 2008

You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2008.

Now reading: Simulacra and Simulation

26 Jun, '08 in Books

Simulacra and Simulation – Jean Baudrillard
In “Simulacra and Simulations”, Baudrillard assumes the proliferation of images in advanced capitalism, with the expansion of commodities and the relentless advance of technologies of visualization and simulation.

In the essay, Baudrillard describes a movement from “representation” (of something real) to “simulation” (with no secure reference to reality). This movement from representation to simulation changes the relation between sign and referent, so that we lose the connection, once presumed to exist, between sign or image and the reality to which both were thought to refer. To develop this argument Baudrillard asks us to think about situations where the simulating sign or image usurps the priority of the reality it is supposed to “serve”.

Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map

The biggest deadline

26 Jun, '08 in Life

of course is our own mortality. Faced with that question, pretty much everything that isn’t truly important fades away. Steve Jobs of Apple put it best in his Commencement address at Stanford in 2005:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Found at Zen Habits

Now reading: Ik Jan Cremer (deel 1, 2, en 3)

24 Jun, '08 in Books

Jan Cremer

Jan Cremer was born on 20 April 1940 in Enschede, just before the Second World War swept over the Netherlands. His father Jan Cremer senior had many professions and was also a travel writer, photographer and journalist. It was him that Jan Cremer inherited his urge to write; the love of drawing and reading came from his Hungarian mother.
After the difficult war years in Enschede, Jan Cremer became a ward of the state and at the age of 14 he was sent to work in a factory. There followed a short intermezzo with the marines, after which he sailed on tramp ships, mainly to Russian ports. After his matelot period he travelled through Germany, Italy and France, finally landing up in Paris in 1958. Between jobs he studied for a few months at art academies in Arnhem and The Hague, where as later in Paris he took lessons in free painting and later specialised in printmaking techniques.
20080624_193_barbaar
From his earliest days Jan Cremer was an original, obsessive artist who lived for his work. At this first solo exhibition in De Posthoorn gallery in The Hague in 1958, the critics – still not fully recovered from the CoBrA riots – spoke of a ‘wild animal’. A year later he exhibited in the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, followed by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

He subsequently stayed for three years on Ibiza, connected with the ‘Grupo Ibiza’. In the meantime Cremer worked on his first book ‘I, Jan Cremer’. Published in The Netherlands in 1964 it caused a real cultural revolution and has since sold millions all over the world. There also followed more than a hundred exhibitions of his artworks in museums and galleries not only in The Netherlands but in many other countries. Cremer wrote more books, but also kept on painting, abandoning the abstract style of peinture barbarisme in favour of paintings of tulip fields and other aspects of the Dutch landscape.

There followed many years of travelling and painting, during which he wrote travel stories for leading newspapers and magazines as well. Jan Cremer stills manages to combine his work with his wanderlust. Sometimes he is away for six months of the year, although lately he has been staying more often at his home in Amsterdam.

http://www.jancremer.com/
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Cremer

Back in Town,

9 Jun, '08 in Diving

just back from my diving trip to Sharm (Egypt), and I had a great time! Did a lot of rebreather diving with tekstreme diving. Had a great time!