When disaster strikes the stocks go down. Within days, people’s guilt feelings about living on without “doing much of anything to help” is cashed in through national fundraising efforts. We dig deep into conscience. At the same time and without second thought, we support an immoral system (that allows people to “remove” their cash from…

Astrology Astronomy describes in scientific manner the state and history of the universe. We cannot but acknowledge that the state and history of the universe form the necessary conditions of everything that happens in our lives: Our lives are determined by what happens and happened in the universe, how can they not be? Yet, we…

Listening to the radio is not just about the music. JazzFM, SkyRadio, and many other radio stations broadcast randomly chosen selections from a selection of music. Perhaps the initial selection (of what should be in the database) was made by humans—or maybe they used an algorithm such as iTunes’ Genius. …With computerised radio stations the…

How does one photograph “what it means to be absent”? These pictures are meant to help mourn the recent past we just left behind. We recently moved from this place (Bestuursgebouw) to inner city Utrecht.

Banksy makes public art. (If you don’t know his works, please Google.) It is public; the works are out there, on the streets, for all to see. They are accessible to all, and make ample use of circumstances available on the streets (empty walls, holes, sidewalks). The pictures are always carefully, and beautifully rendered and…

One problem with the “roadside monuments” in Jonas Staal’s “Geert Wilders Werken” is that initially, i.e. when their effect was still of maximum height, they did not make themselves known as art. As a consequence, they did not induce the passers-by to take up an artistic attitude, but lured them into believing the “roadside monument”…

Op 26 en 27 november 2010 organiseert het Van Abbemuseum The Artistic Device, een tweedaags symposium met Brian Holmes. Holmes is een Amerikaanse cultuur- en kunstcriticus, die met een wat activistische inslag schrijft over de relatie tussen kunst, de samenleving en nieuwe media. Zijn vorig jaar uitgebrachte publicatie Escape the Overcode, Activist Art in the…

At last we can prove the secret connection between Nietzsche and Kant. “The Transcendental Anti Christ” © Sam van Gerwen, 2010.

chatroulette.com offers people the possibility to check in with someone anonymous, exchanging live footage from the webcams of both people involved, and a switch-button allowing either of the two to stop the interaction at will and without explanation. 1. I am convinced chatroulette has an addictive aspect. 2. It also tampers with Kant’s Practical Imperative:…

Thinking does not seem to require objects (real things, I mean)—all it needs are subject matters. Thinking as such cannot establish whether there is an object out there. Action needs a way to assess objects—it seems perception provides that way, rather than (or next to) thought. If I throw something at you, how do you…