tuning in from the sublime landscape of mosca, colorado: almost 8,000 feet in elevation between the sangre de cristo and san juan mountains. yesterday i rode through the wild dunes on my adopted horse jose and learned about flora, fauna, cults, and creative writing. that's just about the most nourishing combination for this bag of bones. right now i'm looking out into a vista where nearly 1,700 bisons roam with a hummingbird dancing around me purring louder than a cat. i can hardly believe i'm here and that i have to leave tomorrow. ranchlands is in its last season after 18 years of stewardship. 100,000 acres are going back to the nature conservancy and will be reallocated to...?
i have so many feelings, so much to say but this week will be quite while i continue to notice, emote, listen. that's all to express, i hope you can find yourself in this part of the world at some point in your lifetime to fill your cup.
now onto this week's push picks. jonah is exquisite and lyrical in every way. he's a soul man that i got lucky to meet through the artist and gallerist karen flatow. soon after meeting he took a 360 scan of my husband (when he was just my new boyfriend) and i hugging. i was all wiggles and twitches and jay was calm as a stone. one indicator that he was my ride or die. like his answer, he lives deliciously and i welcome you to enter his poetic universe today.
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Jonah King is an Irish interdisciplinarity artist exploring human/nonhuman relations and speculative futures. Through emerging technologies: artificial intelligence, virtual reality, motion capture, and digital avatars, their multifaceted world-building projects examine how ecological intimacies influence individual and social identity. Jonah has exhibited internationally, holds an MFA from Columbia University, and is the Professor of Interactive Digital Media at Steven’s Institute of Technology.
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what kind of life do you want to live?
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I once read a Tibetan Buddhist prayer that included the usual Buddhist sentiments like “may all sentient beings be happy, may all be well.” However, at the end, it added, “may all beings have delicious drinks.” I appreciated the inclusion of "delicious." I want to live in a world where the compass is set on all sentient beings living deliciously.
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I am currently completing a project that I have been working on for more than two years, titled “Honey Fungus”. It’s an erotic eco-sci-fi Virtual Reality experience that invites the audience to expand their body into the greater ecosystem.
It imagines a queer sentient ecological being— manifested in the form of an omnipresent mycelial entity— that leads the audience on a journey through episodes of entangled ecology, where they engage in scenes based on different stages of the fungal reproduction cycle while uncovering the orgasmic potential of soil and weather systems.
It’s been an incredible project to work on. I went down the rabbit-hole of mycelium, biochemistry and queer ecological theory. Remarkably, fifty-seven percent of our cellular mass is not human. We exist within a complex web of macrobiotic interconnection. I hope "Honey Fungus" encourages viewers to reconsider their place in nature and, through virtual reality, embrace the idea of a 'second body' that connects us all. It’s also the most fun project I think I have made so far.
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jonah's social impact project
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Support Save The Children’s work in Occupied Palestine.
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I am going to plug a film that’s celebrating its 10th anniversary this week. It’s called “Out of Here” and is directed by my friend, Dónal Foreman. It’s a low-key ode to the city we grew up in at a very specific moment in its history.
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Busta Rhymes is still going and his new song “Tings” is a bop!
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jonah's article of the week
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This article is taken from James Bridle’s most recent book “Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence.” It's a must read. Bridle manages to deconstruct “intelligence” as a concept throughout the natural world, weave it into speculative computing and somehow come out with a proposal for our shared future. I found it at once the most radical and hopeful thing I have read in a long while.
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I want to give a shout out to the humble Tapioca. I discovered tapioca flour as an ingredient during a residency in Brazil at the Sacatar Foundation last year. You can make a yummy, gooey pancake by just spreading it out on a hot pan, no water needed or anything. Add an egg and its even better. The secret everyone needs to know.
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My favorite flower is a Hawthorn. In Ireland, its a tree that symbolizes love and protection, but it also is commonly seen a magical tree, around which the boundaries between worlds are thin. People tie amulets, ribbons and reminders of deceased relations to their branches and roads have been rerouted to avoid cutting them down. This is a photo of one I found on a walk in Co. Clare last year. I love these examples of ways that pre-Christian and pre-Colonial beliefs still lurk around in the modern world.
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and a few picks from push...
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check out the "stranger than fiction" trolley tour at green wood cemetery--they had me at mollie francher!
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the NYT is reporting that teen subcultures are fading. what a shame!
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on my list of things to order from another exceptional newsletter!
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we hope you are staying cool and that you enjoyed another installment of push picks. as always, if you like what you read, forward it to someone or encourage them to sign up. it would mean the world to us 🌎
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