faithful i am not...

...to this blog. i find that in the midst of the madness (of thesis & research)i am less and less inclined to post... or at least not very often, because i may change everything tommorow! but i will not yet concede defeat (in blogging or art).
however, i am in a spot right now where i have (at least) 2 new projects underway and an exciting new venture outside of my thesis. as to the two projects, they must still be kept underwraps... i find that if i say too much, i do too little because the creative/communicative (?) urge is satisfied already to some extent. but soon i will post pics.
the other exciting thing is that i got together the other day with an artist's collective that is in formation stage. we mostly just discussed how we (as christians also) can encourage and support each other and what our dreams are. I think all in attendance were much encouraged by the simple act of gathering together in physical space as much as by sharing our grand dreams! very exciting!

censorship in japan

In Chris Marker's brilliant poetic film Sans Soleil, he makes the following claim while talking about censorship in Japan (specifically black bars and fuzzed out bits on TV).

"It points to the absolute by obscurring it. . . That's what religions have always done."

And it got me to thinking... Is that bad...? "pointing to the absolute by obscurring it..." maybe that's all we can ever really do... admit that we cannot know and cannot absolutely resemble -- or is that terrible? Shouldn't we be making straight the way, clearing the path, not doing what 'religions' have done in obscurring the truth? But if obscurring illuminates?. . .

back on track...

Well, after much fiddling around and uncertainty, I guess I'm going to carry on in the same vein... I attended a very crazy conference a few weekends back and while most of it was just wierd, there was one speaker (by the name of bruxy) who really said some great things which motivated me to not only get back on track but also back to Jesus as the core motivation of what I'm doing. It's amazing that in the midst of a project about religiosity and human quantification etc. and how we miss the point of God in all that crap, I got distracted by the project itself in much the same way! the nice part is, he preaches what he refers to as "the gospel of the irreligious Christ." I don't know if he was quoting someone when he said: "The trouble with organised religion is not that it's organised but that it's religion." yeah man.
I also received much encouragement after Jonny Baker posted about this blog... thanks y'all.
And then... just to top it all off: I found a book in our school library called Material Christianity. Now, as far as OCAD goes, this is a pretty pleasant surprise!!! I kept looking in our library for related things but never dreamed that there would be something so specific to what I'm doing. Anyway, I have only just begun reading it but it's all about reading the cultural artifacts of christianity as a way of understanding the state of christianity today. Fantastic.