But hurry—there are only a few items currently for sale, and each is unique.
Angels, Animals and Cyborgs: Visions of Human Enhancement at the Cornelia Street Cafe
Angels, Animals and Cyborgs: Visions of Human Enhancement at the Cornelia Street Cafe
An illustrated lecture by Salvador Olguín
***IN MANHATTAN at The Cornelia Street Cafe as part of the HUMAN+ series***
Date: Sunday, July 22
Time: 6 PM
Admission: $10, includes one drink
Presented by the Hollow Earth Society, originally presented by Morbid Anatomy
Deplored by many as yet another fashionable post, and defended by its supporters because it encompasses our current fears, hopes and changing reality, posthumanism is an attempt to think seriously about the possible long-term effects of technology in our society, our bodies and our mind. According to some advocates of posthumanism, these effects will be so deep, that they might change the human species as we know it, allowing humans to transcend the boundaries of their mortal lives by technologically altering or enhancing our bodies.
The desire to go beyond the limitations of our condition as biological beings has been constantly present throughout history, and is can be linked to mystical and religious discourses. From theological discussions regarding the nature of the human body after the resurrection of the flesh, to the projections of today’s futurists, and including figures such as the Golem, Frankenstein’s monster, angels and cyborgs, our culture has produced a collection of bodies with wider possibilities than ours. Myth, science, art and literature have treated the topic of body enhancement, considering its pros, its cons and its limitations. In a time when pacemakers, prostheses, cloning and cryogenics are making human enhancement a reality, it can be fruitful to look back and compare the wildest fantasies of posthumanism with its intellectual predecessors, to get a better picture of what is going on, and try to sketch a genealogy of this set of ideas.
Salvador Olguín is a writer and researcher born in Monterrey, Mexico, currently based in Brooklyn. He holds a MA in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU. His work has been published in magazines and journals in Mexico, the US and Spain. He has worked extensively with cultural artifacts connected to the representation of Death, and has developed critical studies on post-humanism and the relation between literature and photography. In 2010 he received the Carmen Alardin Poetry Award granted by Mexico’s National Council for Culture and the Arts for his book La Carabela Portuguesa. Olguin is the founder and director of Borderline Projects.
This talk was originally produced at Observatory in Brooklyn by Morbid Anatomy.
***
About the series:
Cornelia Street Cafe and Observatory present a series of Observatory talks in the borough of Manhattan: HUMAN+ (You’ll Be Partly Plastic When You Die): Lectures on posthumanism, machine music, transhumanism, and machine love. These talks will introduce Observatory to a new audience and give presenters the opportunity to update their work.
Produced by the Hollow Earth Society and Ted Enik. Originally produced at Observatory. Thanks to our hosts, Cornelia Street Cafe, and our presenters: Kip Rosser, Laura G. Duncan, and Salvador Olguín.
“Hey, Where’s My Robot Girlfriend?” at the Cornelia Street Cafe
We have our second-to-last scheduled Cornelia Street Observatory event coming up this Sunday with the erudite and intriguing Laura G. Duncan:
“Hey, Where’s My Robot Girlfriend?”
An Exploration of Sexual Robotics, Teledildonics, and Carnal Technology at the Cornelia Street Cafe
An illustrated lecture with sexual health researcher, educator, and writer Laura G. Duncan
*IN MANHATTAN at The Cornelia Street Cafe as part of the HUMAN+ series*
Sunday, June 24 • 6 PM • $10, includes one drink
Presented by the Hollow Earth Society and Morbid Anatomy
The robotic bride. The orgasm ray. The sex machine. These classic tropes of science fiction—how fictitious are they really? Hybrids of sex and technology are flourishing in contemporary culture, from basement workshops where power tools are lovingly repurposed into bedroom aids to sexual media empires with genres devoted solely to robot-human couplings. The medical sciences have even gotten in on the act with models of sperm-powered nanobots.
Technology and sexuality have long been intimately connected, each inspiring innovation in the other and nowhere is this more striking than in the fields of teledildonics (computer-interfaced sex toys) and sexual robotics. The mechanical in service of the libidinal is rooted deeply in our cultural consciousness. So just how close are we to having a real life Data, the beloved android from Star Trek, as fawning partner to our eminently human Tasha Yar? Will we be able to disable our foes with weaponized orgasms? Can you learn to love a robot? Can a robot learn to love you?
Join researcher Laura G. Duncan for a multimedia lecture on sexual technology to find out. With examples from popular media, the medical sciences, and actual sexual robotics projects, this talk will work to explode the dichotomy between the “natural” and the “technological” and open a critical analysis of how society conceptualizes sexuality, science, and even the body itself.
Laura G. Duncan is a lecturer and researcher whose research focuses on social inequity in sexual healthcare and the influence of medicine on social understandings of sexuality and the body. She has taught sexual health education in a variety of academic, non-profit, and community venues and currently serves as a full-spectrum doula with The Doula Project. She is, disappointingly, not a robot. www.lauragduncan.com
This talk was originally produced at Observatory in Brooklyn by Morbid Anatomy.
About the series:
Cornelia Street Cafe and Observatory present a series of Observatory talks in the borough of Manhattan: HUMAN+ (You’ll Be Partly Plastic When You Die): Lectures on posthumanism, machine music, transhumanism, and machine love. These talks will introduce Observatory to a new audience and give presenters the opportunity to update their work.
Produced by the Hollow Earth Society and Ted Enik. Originally produced at Observatory. Thanks to our hosts, Cornelia Street Cafe, and our presenters: Kip Rosser, Laura G. Duncan, and Salvador Olguín.
Morbid Anatomy Library Benefit – Saturday, June 30
Friends, fans of Observatory, nerd-party people: Lend me your ears. Our good friend Joanna Ebenstein, curator of the Morbid Anatomy Library, has suffered some losses to her wonderfully weird archive due to a fire and flood in our little gallery. To amend the sitch, she’s hosting a big gala benefit on June 30. Presently appear all the deetz. See you there!
RESURRECTION! A Gala Benefit to Rebuild The Morbid Anatomy Library, Saturday, June 30, 8 PM
For those of you who might not have already heard, on Good Friday of this year, The Morbid Anatomy Library suffered a mighty and devastating deluge. On Saturday, Saturday, June 30th, Observatory and Morbid Anatomy will host an epic and underground-star-studded rebuilding gala, and we would love to see you there.
The fête will be hosted by Evan Michelson of The Science Channel’s Oddities and cult writer and luminary Mark Dery, and will feature mini-lectures by such luminaries as Mike Zohn and Ryan Mathews of Oddities; Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy; New York Magazine’s Mark Jacobson; Carl Schoonover, author of Portraits of the Mind, and many more. The silent auction to follow will include works by such amazing artists and makers as Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood, Robert Marbury, Sophie Blackall, Jessica Joslin, Paul Koudounaris, Sue Jeiven, Daisy Tainton, Sigrid Sarda, Saul Chernick, Nicholas Kahn, Laura Splan, Alex Kanevsky, Erika Larsen, Shannon Taggart, and Justine Cooper.
Full details follow, and invitation can be found here.
If you can not join us at the benefit and are interested in aiding in rebuilding efforts, here are a few things you can do:
- Make a monetary donation; to do so, simply click on the black “Donate Here” button on the top right hand side of this blog
- Sponsor a book; Click here to see a list of damaged books; books purchased here will automatically ship directly to The Library and populate our sadly empty shelves.
- Help spread the word!
- Donate new books or artifacts for the collection: Mailing Address: Joanna Ebenstein, c/o The Morbid Anatomy Library, 543 Union Street #1E, Brooklyn, NY, 1121
Thanks so much! And hope to see you soon at a bigger, better Morbid Anatomy Library very very soon!
Proteus Gowanus annual benefit: NOMAD MIXER
The annual Proteus Gowanus benefit is coming up soon. Buy a ticket! Deetz:
Nomad Mixer
Saturday, June 2, 7–10 PM
As our Migration year draws to a close we invite you to celebrate the things we’ve seen, how far we’ve come and where we’re going next.
Image by Atty Gell
A Party to Benefit Proteus Gowanus! A winding, art-packed romp through our labyrinthine halls and courtyards with music, food, drink, and exotic experiences ’round every bend.
F E A T U R I N G
- Intimate encounters with the literary Gypsies of The Poetry Brothel
- Uncanny Tarot card readings
- The runaway-train sounds of the Union Street Preservation Society Band
- Theater experiments from the Dzieci Theatre Ensemble
- Holus Bolus transformation of our alleyway into a Nomad Spectacle
- The incredible steam-punk Seed Machine
- A transformative Map Your Life workshop
- Writing challenges courtesy of the Writhing Society
- Shift Beds for transients and would-be horizontals
- Live Auction of Extra-Ordinary Experiences!
Kip Rosser at Cornelia Street Observatory, next Wednesday night!
At 6 PM next Wednesday, May 30, we’re exciting to once again host thereminist/performer/all-around amazing human Kip Rosser on behalf of Observatory, this time at our monthly Manhattan event (details here). Check out Kip’s music:
In 1919, Lev Sergeivitch Termen, known throughout the world as Leon Theremin, invented the first synthesizer. Originally dubbed the Aetherphone, the Theremin remains the only musical instrument played without being touched. His genius did not stop there. A prodigious inventor and visionary, he went on to revolutionize the fields of communications, surveillance, and even Macy’s window displays.
Theremin suffered (and miraculously survived) the pitfalls that brought down many of history’s geniuses, a classic combination of volatile personality traits, poor judgement, and the striking of an almost Faustian bargain with those in a position to help him…
If you’ve never seen a Theremin in action, definitely stop by Cornelia Street Cafe and witness one of the most original (and melodious) blendings of human and technical object.
Organism for Poetic Research/Pelt event at Observatory this Friday!
The future of poetry, philosophy, publishing, and collaboration come together in DIY para-academic groups such as the Organism for Poetic Research/Pelt. I have only found out about these dedicated word-scientists recently, and I’m proud to be hosting them at Observatory on Friday.
If you have any interest in the intersection of poetry, philosophy, and political life, come out at 8 PM at hear their latest lab and field reports (details >>).
Lab and Field Reports for the Organism for Poetic Research on the Skin of Space/Pelt No. 1 Release
Friday, May 25, 2012 • 8:00 PM • FREE
The Organism for Poetic Research consists of exactly what its name says it does. The publication PELT constitutes its epidermal organ, its interface with the world. Operating at the crux of empirical and humanist methodologies, fascinated with differentiation, the OPR has been studying the problem of the Skin of Space as an important political effort.
This event marks the release of the first volume of PELT, titled “The Skin of Space,” and heralds the occasion with the presentation of additional field and lab reports on the subject, in the form of poetry, lecture, and findings presented in printed graphic arts.
Participants include:
- Lytle Shaw
- Ed Keller
- Jeff T. Johnson
- Daniel C. Remein
- Ada Smailbegović
- BF Bifocals
- Gracie Leavitt
Art from the Mailbox: Jon De Simone’s “Matchstick Anomaly”
When two matchstick heads are fused together they form a delicate wishbone shape. A manufacturing anomaly such as this will occur rarely and might even be less common than a four-leaf clover in a clover patch. In a sense, coming upon fused matchsticks makes one lucky. For Special Delivery 2010, Jon De Simone was intrigued by this rare error and recreated 20 ornate multiples of fused matchsticks to distribute in this mail art project. Orange and yellow paint coat the heads of each matchstick, while metallic Mylar paper adorn the stems. In their square plastic cases, the pieces fit neatly in your palm, which is the best way to feel the fragility of the sculpture’s structure.
Matchstick Anomaly
It’s a neon poem. Some of the great uses of artmaking are bound in Jon’s piece. These multiples highlight the extraordinary in what might seem like the ordinary. Well, a fused pair of matchsticks is extraordinary but not many would notice them as such. Through bright colors, Jon pinpoints that uniqueness in the simplest object—a barely noticed part of life.
This whole conversation recalls Cullen Murphy’s essay “Out of the Ordinary,” in which he writes of a certain path to enlightenment, “the mundane studies approach.” In this, “something seemingly unremarkable (a kind of food, an article of dress, a body part) […] derives a larger world of meaning.” He goes on to describe the many essays, books, and studies that have stemmed from topics such as dust, potatoes, and paperclips.
As an art maker producing a sculptural text, Jon works similarly to those propelling mundane studies. He directs our attention to an object that would otherwise only be viewed as a production error. Meanings in the matchsticks are open for viewers to create.
“Scooter, Newtown Creek” on Underwater New York
I have a new short-short story on Underwater New York about an object that fell into a favorite NYC waterway (Newtown Creek). Check it out >>
This is the image of wonderful muck that inspired the story. Image copyright Nate Dorr, who is awesome at photography and also has these bangin images of the Gowanus. Big ups, Nate Dorr; big ups, UnderwaterNYC. If you like writing/drawing/talking about muck and murk, consider writing something for UnderwaterNYC.
Oh, and big, big, gross-out ups, NYC’s polluted yet still inhabited waterways.
Sigils & Signs at Observatory
We’re proud to belatedly announce Sigils & Signs, a new show curated by our good friend and colleague Pam Grossman, at Observatory. Sigils & Signs is a group show of artworks featuring magical symbols. The show will be up through Sunday, June 17, 2012. The show is gorgeous. If you’re in Brooklyn between now and mid-June, you should go see it!
SIGILS & SIGNS
The fibers of art and magic are woven so tightly together, it’s often said that they are one and the same. Images are imaginal pictures. When we see something, a constellation of synapses fires, associations swirl, and new thoughts are born. We are altered—and what is magic, if not this?
The works in Sigils & Signs are agents of change. By using occult symbols from various traditions and times, each artist explores what it means to be a magician in the modern age: to emblazon sigils upon the energy field; to make magic marks. While these artworks may be appreciated for their aesthetic value—and oh how valuable they are—the viewer is invited to engage with each piece on the immaterial level. Whether protective or contemplative, refueling or revealing, these “wall spells” are cast with careful beauty and the intention to transform.
On View: April 28–June 17, 2012.
Gallery Hours: Thursdays & Fridays 3–6 PM; Saturdays & Sundays 12–6 PM.
Show image: Jesse Bransford, “Every Man and Woman is a Star,” detail, 2008.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Andreco
Jesse Bransford
Derrick R. Cruz
Adela Leibowitz
Jason Leinwand
Tamalyn Miller
Deborah Mills
Annie Murphy
Ouroboros Press
Daniel Rabuzzi
Michael Robinson
David Chaim Smith
Fredrik Söderberg
Hilary White
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Pam Grossman is an independent curator and lifelong student of magical practice and history. She is the creator of Phantasmaphile, a blog which specializes in art and culture with an esoteric or fantastical bent, and the Associate Editor of Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies. More >>
Host Architectures and Expressive Ecologies
Check out continent‘s new call for a massive scholarly wiki version of A Thousand Plateaus >>
From the official call:
We suggest “2012-2017: Host Architectures and Expressive Ecologies” as the working title of this particular plateau, a project in which the complete English-language text of A Thousand Plateaus is converted to a wiki-based application. In this latest “death of the author” incarnation, community members would then have a five-year window in which to freely edit, change, remix, translate, illustrate, update, recompose, define, hyperlink, or otherwise reconstruct the text.
Decay, excise, churn, flourish, proliferate. You can imagine where things might lead from here.
Though by no means an exhaustive list, some of the questions this project might address include: What will this movement between communication modes resemble at the end of the experiment? How will the elements of smooth and striated interplay both within the technological form itself and the content generated within? Which elements are included or not included for instantiating the editing process: images? endnotes? index? publication history?
I particularly dig the idea of a ecologies that are themselves expressive, desirous. This feels already like an update of the machinic desire: Now we are writing of worlds as machines, and machine as worlds; of course the writing itself could take on either or both of these forms…
What about generating theoretical texts via wiki or blog? I know this process had some impact on the evolution of Cyclonopedia. Recently, our own art has turned more theoretical, and our theoretical efforts more machinic. We begin art on Google Docs and work as a group, using agreed-upon constraint (certain archives, certain questions). This has only been fruitful. Channeling our own thought, assembling a new ecology each time (or at least, that is the goal).
Perhaps enduring ecologies migrate from world to world, via technics, escaping the deaths that ecosystems must face. The logos finally escapes the world and vice versa, per Baudrillard. Per D&G, the world reterritorializes onto any discussion of it. We must be more wiki (quick) than the process of rigidification…
Our Favorite Obscure Adventurers
This list was drawn up for a friend but never used. I want to share it now, because I am excited about the possibility that a) my own Society’s past is irrecoverably clouded by time and fictions and b) someday, my own involvement in the Society will be as well.
Also, c) perhaps I could weave these figures together into a single fictive arc, or a single thread of thought about home/foreign land, or even movement/stillness… Or make a deck of adventuresome trading cards to sell on BoingBoing and Etsy…
That’s for the future. For now, cheers to the obscure-in-the-service-of-inward-enlightenment!
Timeline of a Few Obscure Adventuresome Societies and Adventurers of Note:
THE BRONZE AGE
- The Pythagoreans, ~500-400 BCE, they hated beans!
- Hadrian, CE 76-138, the wandering emperor
THE MIDDLE AGES
- Xuanzang, 603-664, epic walker from China to India
- Ibn Fadman and other Arab explorers of the North, 900s
- Leif Ericson reached the North American mainland around the year 1000 and called it Vinland
- Robert Guiscard, AKA Robert the Fox AKA Robert the Resourceful AKA Robert the Wily, 1015-1085, sailor-slayer-prince-adventurer, founder of the Crusading dynasty of Bohemond and Tancred, Norman Italy and Sicily
- Ibn Rushd, AKA Averroes, 1126-1198, ultragenius, doctor, Cordoba
- Marco Polo, 1254-1324, who had the get-up-n-go about him, Italy and Asia
- John Mandeville, mid-14th century,
- Erasmus, 1466-1536, scholar-human, the HRE
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Obscure Knowledge
- Abu’l Fath Jalaaluddin Muhammad Akbar, 1542-1605, Mughal emperor and patron of thinking
- Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, Viscount St.-Alban, gentleman-genius, (to some) the secret-Shakespeare
- Athanasius Kircher, 1602-1680, volcano-priest
Obscure Politics
- Ben Franklin, 1706-1790, O. G. nerd Hellfire Club patron — perhaps a spy – perhaps Jack Black? (See below)
- Francis Dashwood, 1708-1781, founder of the Hellfire Club, 15th Baron le Despencer, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Fais ce que tu voudras (do what thou wilt)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, poet-addict, his spying (also his failed commune based on Pantisocracy), did he really spy or was he simply pro-democracy?
MODERNITY
Obscure Religion
- Richard Francis Burton, 1821-1890, linguist-adventurer, translator of The Arabian Nights
- Isabelle Eberhardt, 1877-1904, desert explorer, convert to Islam, fighter against colonial injustice
Obscure Nature
- Alexander von Humboldt, 1769-1859, biogeodude
- Joseph Leidy, 1823-1891, paleontologist and the first forensic pathologist
- Teddy Roosevelt, 1858-1919, president-naturalist
- Carl Akeley, 1864-1926, taxidermist-superhero
- Percy Fawcett, 1867-1925, botanist with a gun
POSTMODERNITY
Obscure Depths
- Jacques Cousteau, 1910-1997
Obscure Cosmos
- Yuri Gagarin, 1934-1968, Wikipedia on astronaut terminology: “In China, the terms “yǔhángyuán” (宇航员, “sailing personnel in universe”) or “hángtiānyuán” (航天员, “sailing personnel in sky”) have long been used for astronauts.”
The Obscure Self
- V. S. Ramachandran, 1951-, exploring the mind, looking in instead of out
Our Obscure Back Yard
- The Clampers, or more properly, members of E Clampus Vitus – a group who, like Atlas Obscura, have dedicated themselves to exploring the known and finding it not so known after all
Living Books About Life
This incredibly new book series from Open Humanities Press has got me all hot n bothered. Open Humanities is amazing; even moreso, the promise of a continually updated set of resources on the intersection of the humanities and sciences. Here’s the official description:
Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and published by Open Humanities Press (OHP) (http://openhumanitiespress.org), Living Books About Life is a series of curated, open access books about life — with life understood both philosophically and biologically — which provide a bridge between the humanities and the sciences. Produced by a globally-distributed network of writers and editors, the books in the series repackage existing open access science research by clustering it around selected topics whose unifying theme is life: e.g., air, agriculture, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, electronic waste, energy, neurology and pharmacology.
By creating twenty one ‘living books about life’ in just seven months, the series represents an exciting new model for publishing, in a sustainable, low-cost manner, many more such books in the future. These books can be freely shared with other academic and non-academic institutions and individuals. Taken together, they constitute an engaging interdisciplinary resource for researching and teaching relevant science issues across the humanities, a resource that is capable of enhancing the intellectual and pedagogic experience of working with open access materials.
All the books in the series are themselves ‘living’, in the sense that they are open to ongoing collaborative processes of writing, editing, updating, remixing and commenting by readers. As well as repackaging open access science research — along with interactive maps, visualisations, podcasts and audio-visual material — into a series of books, Living Books About Life is thus engaged in rethinking ‘the book’ itself as a living, collaborative endeavour in the age of open science, open education, open data and e-book readers such as Kindle and the iPad.
Perhaps this is the promised return of the medieval book, without author, with only author function. Living books about life, as opposed to dead books about death. I like it.
