I’ve been reading a lot more about the SINGULARITY – we’re only a couple of years away from machine being more intelligent than man. We’re maybe about 20 years away from AI being as intelligent as THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE. OKAY – SIDENOTE…I made the film for AYIA, as a sort of Garden of Eden meta narrative – the monolith representing the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. In that narrative Adam and Eve were told not touch or eat of the tree – I initially thought it was so that they won’t become like God (something that God wanted to reserve for himself), but I think it’s because UNBRIDLED KNOWLEDGE would ultimately destroy them. It’s a little strangely coincidental that the device that is causing mental instability (our iPhones – essentially a portal to the knowledge of EVERYTHING…GOOD AND EVIL and everything in between) is the symbol of a half eaten APPLE – Garden of Eden story much???) OKAY BACK TO THE SINGULARITY. Elon Musk reckons that the only way for humans not to be oppressed by our own creation (the machines) as we inevitably draw closer to the SINGULARITY, is to keep up with them – to become BIONIC. We already are – via our phones. Our phones are extensions of ourselves. But we suffer a bandwidth problem. We can only output (and also, but perhaps to a lesser extent – input) as fast as our fingers can type…so he’s developing technology where our mind can be linked to our devices (via his NEUROLINK tech) – to make the bandwidth a non issue. Think about our relationship to technology now – even in low bandwidth – we’re slave to it, and so many of us are so depressed/anxious/mentally pummeled by it – which I think is why the Biblical Story of the Garden of Eden makes so much more sense to me today. After the Fall, Adam and Eve were told to work, and in the work/toil/struggle they would find meaning and purpose. As we reach the SINGULARITY robots will do the work, HUMANS will either be wiped out if we don’t become BIONIC (Elon’s theory), or we’ll become God-like without the need to work – so we’ll lose our sense of meaning. Thus the only game we’ll play is the one of “pleasure” – which quickly deteriorates into nihilism, or perhaps is the evidence of it.
I learn so much from people who have every reason/right to be angry, cynical or vengeful, but who are able to rise above that impulse and respond with kindness, openness, forgiveness and gentleness. Sadly I feel like they are in shorter and shorter supply. I know the world is complex and it’s problems are complex, but when you find someone who defies the odds – who are softer, gentler, kinder because of the pain and suffering they’ve experienced…that gets me. Antoine – in the words of this poem reflected that. @_nightbirde words reflected that. Its incredibly counter cultural, and needed today more so than ever.
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard and Fyodor Dostoyevsky believed that if you gave humanity Utopia – if you gave him everything he wanted – that man would become so reviled by the lack of purpose and meaning that he would destroy Utopia in order to find meaning. Many at Kierkegaard’s time thought Utopia would be Communism – maybe in our day it’s this new technological dawn of AI efficiency, which eliminates our need for work. Elon Musk is already suggesting that there would be a BUI (Basic Universal Income) in the future because man won’t work anymore. It is crazy to me that in our lifetime, man’s “creation” will surpass man himself, in intellectual (perhaps even in “consciousness”) capacity. NEVER HAS THIS HAPPENED, and I think about the metaphysical or spiritual reality of that and consider the Biblical Stories of Adam and Eve, The Tower of Babel – which I was looking at through the lens of “allegory” or “myth” not too long ago…but see more as psychological prophecies these days. Where our creation – and by extension, perhaps US – BIONIC man himself, would become like God. I don’t think we’re ready for that (look at mental health and suicide rates due to the adverse effects of social media) – clearly we’re not ready…I don’t think we’re made for it (look at our closest approximation for “deities”- celebrities – and their struggle with that status) – clearly we’re not made for it.
Some things that made it, others that didn’t. “Don’t Go” @skrillex @justinbieber @dontoliver
Immensely grateful whenever a project so many of us have labored over, gets some love. MOTHER/MOEDER wins “Jury Distinction Award” @veneziashorts. Thank you to the jury for this great honor. Film to be up online this summer!
Immensely grateful whenever a project so many of us have labored over, gets some love. MOTHER/MOEDER wins “Jury Distinction Award” @veneziashorts. Thank you to the jury for this great honor. Film to be up online this summer!
Immensely grateful whenever a project so many of us have labored over, gets some love. MOTHER/MOEDER wins “Jury Distinction Award” @veneziashorts. Thank you to the jury for this great honor. Film to be up online this summer!
Immensely grateful whenever a project so many of us have labored over, gets some love. MOTHER/MOEDER wins “Jury Distinction Award” @veneziashorts. Thank you to the jury for this great honor. Film to be up online this summer!
Shower upon him (man) every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface. Give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cake and busy himself with the continuation of his species. And even then, out of sheer ingratitude. Man would play you some nasty trick, he would even risk his “cakes” and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive, good sense his fatal, fantastic element. …then man would purposely go bad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point (meaning). FYODOR DOSTOYVSKY (as a critique on Utopia).
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
AICP recognized the work we did for @__ayia__ with “Easy” with a couple of nominations. Done as a sort of “passion project” – with a lot of heart and hours from @artjail. It means a lot when you work on something you believe in, for it then to be recognized, despite the doubts of others. Glad we stuck to it. Also nominations for Little Simz’ “Introvert” – thanks for the trust @littlesimz.
Paris 2017
Trona, CA
We are “meaning-seeking” creatures, not just happiness or pleasure merchants – the latter are low-order aims. Meaning sustains us when seasons of happiness and pleasure wanes – which invariably and inevitably happens. But we’ve been on a strange trajectory over the last 100 years or so. With Modernism we dispensed with Meaning, the Spiritual and the Transcendent and we traded it for the Rational, the Empirical and the Scientific. With Postmodernism (and subsequently Neoliberism) we’ve dispensed with both the Spiritual/Transcendent AND Rational/Scientific for what I would call “Woke Morality” – the type of morality that doesn’t see the face of the person it’s fighting for, but only the likes from followers. It’s the type of morality that has no real relational connection with the people who are being advocated for in the shadows or in the private/offline experience, but only want to appear morally superior in the online/public spaces. We don’t like rational truths or metaphorical ones – we just like how we “feel”. We’ve been placed into various “groups” or “tribes” by the powerful so that we can play US vs THEM games with the group that is “other” than us, while the powerful control us. We’ve lost the ability to see the need for Justice AND Forgiveness (which doesn’t NEGATE the NEED for Justice). Justice without Forgiveness perpetuates the atrocity within the heart of the perpetrator. But give him a chance to be forgiven (while still paying for the crime), and he can be restored. It’s at the heart of all the great stories of redemption. And it was at the heart of Desmond Tutu’s desire to restore the divide in my nation of South Africa when he instituted the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” as Apartheid came to and end. It was a nationally broadcasted forum where victim and perpetrator were allowed share their pain, their sorrow, their guilt and their TEARS. IT CHANGED A NATION. Many in Europe predicted a bloodbath at the end of Apartheid – fearing massive retaliation from those oppressed during this time for sins committed against them. But it never happened. This is a Divine idea that we’ve lost. We need to lift our eyes again.
Jovan in Serbia
We thought that reaching for the Knowledge of All Things in the Tree at the Garden of Eden would make us powerful and wise, but it was a weight we weren’t meant or made to carry. We tried again at the Tower of Babel, and unknowingly perhaps we’re doing it again now. We’ve created a tool (AI) to help us Transcend but that tool is fast becoming a “being” unto itself and fast surpassing us as its creator. And so our best strategy for survival is to integrate the tool into our being so we can be matched with our creation – because we might be fighting our own creation for domination. We as a species never had to compete for domination – we’ve been at the top of the hierarchy since the dawn of time. We’ve had the monopoly on it. Sure there’s been infighting – but introduce competition for species domination and watch our (technological) evolution explode – not to mention how the effects of recursive self improvement will underscore this evolution. Brave New World On the horizon.
