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A few years ago I read up on the Apollo missions, because I had very limited knowledge of all the different missions and the details of the missions. In my reading I never came across the Moon Museum project. A group of artists wanted to send art to the moon with the Apollo 12 mission, which was the second manned flight to land on the moon.

It’s disappointing that Nasa rejected the project. But it is awesome that the artists went ahead with the project and secretly attached the art to lunar lander. There are questions about whether the artists succeeded or not, we’ll have to wait until we send astronauts back to the moon to find out.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-how-warhol-rauschenberg-and-chamberlain-smuggled-art-onto-the-moon

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/moon-museum/

I don’t know who will win the election tonight, but I just hope whoever it is, that we’ll all be OK. That America will be OK.

On a positive note, here is a ray of sunshine to keep us all going. The focus of this article is not to discuss pros and cons of Musk’s plan or him as a person, but rather to focus on the fact that he laid out a very difficult and seemingly impossible dream, and we all collectively said “OK, let’s do that.” This to me is what is important to protect and nurture everywhere:  the ability for anyone to come up with an idea, no matter how insurmountable or complex, and then to say “OK, let’s do it. Seems impossible, but heck, it’s just a series of solvable problems, yes?” There are so many dreams we can choose to walk away from because we can’t see a vision of success, but we don’t. We go for it. And we should be proud of that.

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/11/01/500188892/elon-musks-reminder-to-america

Sometimes inspiration comes just from changing your perspective. Our cities and communities look very different in these detailed photographs of Earth taken from space. First what strikes me is everything looks so small, reminding me just how big the Earth really is. Second it’s so beautiful.

http://twistedsifter.com/2016/10/photos-that-will-give-you-a-new-perspective-on-earth/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailyoverview/

Soon there will be more and more robots as technology advances, and the focus of VC funding moves toward robotics and AI. But how should we treat these creatures? We know they can’t think or feel (yet). Humans have such a strong desire to anthropomorphize objects, that it’s going to be very difficult to not treat them as pets, children, or even companions.

And how we treat them tells us more about ourselves than about robots. It tells us something about empathy and what it means to be human, how we choose to treat something with no power when we have all the power.

Robots will learn from you; this next wave of machines coming are not just dumb terminals designed for data input, but will be learning how to act in society based on what they see and hear in the real world. What you say and the way you act will be reflected back to you, as machines learn how to act according to your behavior. How will you feel when you own irritation, anger, or spite is reflected back? Will it make you feel proud or embarrassed?

Hint: anyone with children knows the answer already.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28293-not-like-us-how-should-we-treat-the-robots-we-live-alongside/

https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-you-shouldnt-swear-at-siri

First this article caught my eye because I love the phrase “when art and science were friends.” It does feel to me today, as an artist, that art and science aren’t friends, and that technology and art are also often not friends. I love bringing these 2 disciplines together; I think in the fast-paced world of science and technology, art is being left behind; it feels old fashioned, inaccessible, and out of touch in the days were increasingly complex technologies make use of the newest scientific discoveries. In today’s VC funded world, art doesn’t bring in the Big Bucks; even President Obama dissed Art History majors by saying that you can make more money learning a trade than studying art history. He’s implying you’re not contributing to society if you’re not studying specifically to make money. (He later apologized.)

I hope my work shows that we still need art; we still need visual ways to express and process what is going on in society and culture. Art is not just for cold galleries and stern museums; art is something happening all around us right now that helps us understand  and mirror back the culture that we’re building with all these new discoveries. If we charge ahead without considering what we’re building, we’re stumbling in the dark.

Second, the author has examples of Art Deco tiles, which is actually one of my favorite historical artistic movements, partly due to the fact that so much inspiration was taken from nature and animals. Houses were decorated with art,housewares, and wall coverings that depicted animals, insects, flowers and trees.

Lastly, there is something called the Chicken’s Wedding. Not only is the chicken getting married, but she is being attended by monkeys. And there is never anything wrong with that.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/mysterious-tiles-from-a-time-when-art-and-science-were-friends/