What is your favorite place to meet friends?
Linden Endowment for the Arts!
Latest answers from Vanessa Blaylock
do you have a favorite person to Wright about or a favorite topic to Wright about?
My writing, or my blog, started as a place to document performance art projects. It really could have been flickr or a wiki. It was sort of random that I picked Blogger as the place to document the work. It was a pretty lucky choice. It's become my focus.
Since the beginning the work has always had a heavy focus on Identity. In the wake of the Google+ Nymwars I've come to think a lot more about pseudonymous identity and free speech. I've always been a free speech and civil rights advocate. But in the past I think it was more of a theoretical or academic appreciation. Lately I've come to appreciate how fragile speech is. Just in 2013 alone, Aaron Swartz lost his life for it. And now Chelsea Manning is forfeiting 35 years of hers.
The most remarkable person to me now is the Russian patriot Nadya Tolokno of Pussy Riot. Sadly she's currently suffering in the most horrific facility of the horrific Russian / Soviet prison camp system. She's started a hunger strike today. I'm terrified that she will not survive prison in Mordovia. If she lives, she will be released on 3 March 2014. Perhaps she will live to do great things for her country. I hope so. I've recently started writing a letter a week to her. I publish them on my blog, and also print a hard copy which I mail to her in prison. I imagine that she never sees them. But I have to try.
http://irez.me/tag/nadya-tolokno/
Since the beginning the work has always had a heavy focus on Identity. In the wake of the Google+ Nymwars I've come to think a lot more about pseudonymous identity and free speech. I've always been a free speech and civil rights advocate. But in the past I think it was more of a theoretical or academic appreciation. Lately I've come to appreciate how fragile speech is. Just in 2013 alone, Aaron Swartz lost his life for it. And now Chelsea Manning is forfeiting 35 years of hers.
The most remarkable person to me now is the Russian patriot Nadya Tolokno of Pussy Riot. Sadly she's currently suffering in the most horrific facility of the horrific Russian / Soviet prison camp system. She's started a hunger strike today. I'm terrified that she will not survive prison in Mordovia. If she lives, she will be released on 3 March 2014. Perhaps she will live to do great things for her country. I hope so. I've recently started writing a letter a week to her. I publish them on my blog, and also print a hard copy which I mail to her in prison. I imagine that she never sees them. But I have to try.
http://irez.me/tag/nadya-tolokno/
Who would you cast to play you in a movie?
OMG, of all the dumb things I've wasted time thinking about... this is NOT one of them! :P Even so, it's easy: Winona Ryder. She's prettier than me of course, and possibly more wacky than me, but she's got the Alt, the Emo, the Irony, the Smarts - wow - it'd be great to have Winona Ryder play me. Now, like, I guess I just have to do enough stuff to fill up 90 minutes of screen time.
Oh look, here's a 17-year-old photo of me dancing with Stephen Carpenter. He was dreamy. We never dated. IDK why. Somebody hot should play him. Maybe Justin Timberlake. What's that? Winona Ryder's 9 years older than Justin Timberlake? Oopsy! IDK. I'm not a casting director!
Oh look, here's a 17-year-old photo of me dancing with Stephen Carpenter. He was dreamy. We never dated. IDK why. Somebody hot should play him. Maybe Justin Timberlake. What's that? Winona Ryder's 9 years older than Justin Timberlake? Oopsy! IDK. I'm not a casting director!
What is your favorite mobile app?
"Archaic" - Alternative photographic processes by Ales Kelnar from http://tigerapp.com is amazing! With the touch of a button you can make pretty decent simulations of Platinum Prints, Cyanotypes, and Van Dyke prints. I tried Platinum & Cyanotype in a darkroom years ago and it's quite a lot of work. It's crazy to have a tool that achieves the sensibility of these "archaic" processes at the push of a button. These older techniques / media tend to be flatter in contrast than our overstimulated eyes are used to today. If you run them through an Instagram filter or contrast magic, you can have an image that channels some of that visceral quality of the archaic, with contemporary edge at the same time. Lovely app! Thanks Ales!!
Do you think it is right to keep wild animals in a zoo?
You know, it may have made sense in the past for a variety of reasons. It seems like today the educational value is surpassed by the chauvinism of it. And with the extraordinary documentary filmmakers working today, with the long lenses and low-light cameras, and the Internet for distribution, it seems like we can educate more and better than ever, without any enslavement.
Do you remember your first kiss?
My actual first #kiss was my sister Fiona (ewww) but I assume the question means your first, you know, #butterflies in your stomach, kind of kiss. That was a guy named Brian. He was so beautiful! I always thought he was so much older, but we were actually the same age. He just seemed to know things or have experience or something. I really liked him, but I was also afraid, and I didn't feel like I was on his level. So the eventual first kiss, was actually a sort of goodbye kiss. I think he liked me, but I think he wanted to move on to more, IDK, available girls. He actually looked me up years later, and it seems like his life had turned out pretty well. By most measures I think he's more successful than me. But I had a sense, and I hope I'm not projecting anything, but I had a sense that there was this hole in his life, and that was sort of why he was looking me up. He was married with kids I don't think he wanted anything from me. But I think he thought I possessed this "art" thing that he found interesting. Or that maybe that was what in a way was missing from his theoretically complete life. Anyway it was just really nice to see him again.
What perfume are you wearing today?
uh, eau de ABC Gym! Workin' the pixels today!
Do you prefer to answer questions or ask them?
I like both a lot! It's hard to choose just one! :P
What haven't you done lately ?
Complained. (well, not as much anyway)
Do you prefer to eat at a restaurant or at home?
I prefer stuff out of a day pack while hiking.
What are the three things that you cannot live without?
nVidia graphics cards, megapixels, megaprims