Guestbook

We first started asking visitors to sign a guestbook in 2010, primarily as a way to ascertain whether we should continue to spend money on expensive print and internet advertising.  Three years later, visitors have filled up one rather large book with their names, hometowns, and how they heard about us.  It makes for interesting reading, and we've gained a few insights about our visitors in the process.

Mindport visitors tend to:

a) use the internet to figure out what's fun to do in a town they are visiting (and are sometimes visiting from quite a distance)

b) notice ads placed on public transportation but are only occasionally prompted to visit Mindport as the result of a brochure or advertisement in a magazine

c) are not opposed to a little aimless wandering on foot

d) have kids, grandkids, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunties and uncles, friends, sweethearts, veterinarians, counselors, employers, coworkers, roommates, baristas, teachers, and "nice ladies on the street" tell them about Mindport

e)  be enthusiastic, descriptive, funny, and curious (but we could have guessed that)

Here are a few visitor responses to the question:  How did you hear about Mindport?

I love reading that "GABE!!" or "my friend Gracie's stepmom who works across the street at the Blue Horse Gallery" or the "Sehome Starbucks drive through barista," or "my doctor's nurse," or "fellow campers at the Cedar Park campsite" told a visitor about Mindport, and then imagining the conversation and the path they took to wind up here.

What we say matters.  Not always, that's certainly true, but perhaps more often than we think.  In Mindport's case, all those people saying, "Hey, check out Mindport" means we can spend more money and time making things and welcoming visitors and less of both trying to just get folks in the door.  Thank you for your kind words.  Keep on talking.

(And thanks for sharing these milestones with us.  Congratulations!)

Tallie Jones

The Virtual Life

Nosing about on the Web I ran across mention of a book of photographs by Doug Rickard that interested me enough to acquire a copy. These aren't really photos by Rickard, but were shot by Google's Street View camera. Rickard re-photographed the Google images on his computer monitor, cropped and processed them, and assembled them into this book. I guess you'd have to say it was a joint effort between him and Google, though nowhere in his book did I find any formal credit attribution to Google. His focus was on the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in several US cities, which he discovered via City Data website, from which he gleaned information on which neighborhoods were to be avoided in the cities in question. Ironically, the most broken parts of any US city he said could be found by looking at a Google map of the city and dropping in on any street or boulevard named after Martin Luther King.

Having done a lot of virtual "driving around" via Street View myself, I was very curious what sort of images Rickard had extracted. To me they're reminiscent of of the lonely, alienating paintings of Edward Hopper. If you blurred out the faces of a Hopper painting, the emotional affect would be similar. The human figures in Rickard's Google images have been recorded by a machine, so there's no relationship established between them and the photographer, which partly accounts for my bleak emotional reaction to them. Of course the areas Rickard chose to portray are bleak in themselves, and he went out of his way to convey an idea about the bleakness associated with poverty and racism.

Aside from the subject matter of these photos, and the artful way Rickard has processed them, the other aspect of them that interests me is the general idea of virtual reality, i.e. accessing graphic space in a way that conveys the illusion that we’re accessing a “real” world. Cruising along via Street View gives the impression that you’re actually viewing the area you’re accessing. Even though I know intellectually that these are machine images, and they may be years old, I can slip into believing that I’m looking through a window at the place being represented. It’s not unlike interacting with video games or virtual reality programs like Flight Simulator.

The few video games I’ve tinkered with (Riven, Wild Divine), and other V.R. apps, like Flight Simulator, and Google Street view all have had a similar emotional effect on me. After being involved with them for awhile, I begin to get the same bleak, lonely feeling that Rickard’s work conveys. I haven’t fully penetrated what this means, but I think it has to do with the fact I’m instinctively looking for relationship and not finding it. In other words, if I didn’t have means or ability to access human relationships in the real world, I might resort addictively to virtual reality in a fruitless quest for them. All addictions amount to looking for satisfaction in the wrong places, due to the fact that authentic satisfaction, for one reason or another, is not available.

This line of thought lead me to an idea: suppose Google Street View was somehow made to operate in real time, so that you’d be able to cruise the streets of a foreign city (as I’ve used Street View to cruise streets in Europe) and “be there now.” Then take this ability one step further: Rent-a-Robot. You go to a website, put $50 on your credit card. The site, for a day, assigns you a drone-like ground-based robot that operates just like our military drones, except it’s not equipped with killing equipment, but rather with shopping equipment. It allows you to wheel around the streets in a remote town with stereo vision, stereo sound, and the ability to rotate your remote “head” 360 degrees, thereby letting you look around and up and down, just as you do in Street View. Naturally, there would be provision for anything you bought to be shipped to you at nominal cost.

What a kick, eh? Of course you’d have the ability to speak: “Hi, I’m a virtual tourist and I’d like to shake your hand.” And you’d want arms to shoplift. . . er to pick things up with. . .and to shake hands, of course.

Then I thought about hackers. It would be inevitable that someone would hack the remote tourism site and start controlling the drone robots anonymously. Maybe by this time they would have been developed to the point of being indistinguishable from real people, so you’d have these robot people walking around, being sometimes controlled by legitimate clients, sometimes by anonymous hackers, who could do anything they wanted and get away with it, and sometimes by authorities trying to catch the hackers. In other words, you’d effectively have anonymously controlled sociopathic robots roaming the streets.

Oops. I guess it would be a lot like things are now, with the “real” world. Way too many apparently robotic humans are heading corporations that do things like pollute the Gulf of Mexico with toxic dispersants in order to hide the messes they’ve made in consequence of their own crass negligence.

At one time in our country's history, corporations were allowed to exist only if they served the public interest. This function has now been subverted, to the point that too many of them act like sociopathic hackers, for whom there seems to be no operating rationale other than hoarding dollars and political power. This is undertaken with little discernible benefit to the public. Indeed, corporations themselves are robots, operating according to simplistic legal programming designed only to generate profit, with their operations frequently subsidized directly or indirectly by taxpayers. They assuredly are not people and should not have the rights of people.

Despite my fanciful digression, I wish to convey that Doug Rickard’s book is an impressive and evocative piece of work, and a good example of a creative use of the Internet. I hope I haven’t given anyone ideas for an actual tourism service, or if I have, I want a commission on any profits accruing, which I will donate to Mindport.

Study question: How would you feel about tourist robots cruising your neighborhood? How about remotely-controlled airborne drones?

Kevin Jones

New Exhibits

Joining our freshly painted walls and reorganized displays are two new exhibits, both collaborations by Exhibit Manager Bill Lee and former Exhibit Builder/Designer John Ito.

Swirl, a stand-alone sculpture featuring rheoscopic fluid under glass, evokes air and ocean currents and was inspired in part by a trip Mindport's staff took to Science World in Vancouver a number of years ago.  I can't help but say, "Come give Swirl a whirl."  All flippancy aside, it's a lovely exhibit.

Magnetic Molasses, which shows off the interaction between a large magnet and an aluminum tube, is a re-visioning of our original table top version.  The new magnet is mighty enough to be a danger to folks with pacemakers and to credit cards, so be sure to stand back a foot or more while operating if you have either.


Tallie

Taste

A visitor quizzed me recently about a group of my photos hanging in Mindport's gallery. Quite a number of them most viewers might term "abstract," in that they are images of patterns in seashore gravel, water, clouds, seaweed; fragmentary views of pedestrian objects whose identity is not always apparent from their close-up perspective. Our visitor told me he couldn't tell what they were, and wanted me to explain it to him. Doing so was a challenge, akin to attempting to ascertain whether, when I see blue, another's experience of that color is the same as mine.

Patterns attract my eye without any rational explanation. They give me a certain feeling, and that's what the images are about. Either they give someone else a feeling or they don't. Whether they give someone else the same feeling they give me, I don't know. But most people seem to respond favorably to such abstractions. Eventually I told our guest that the pictures were simply of patterns I found appealing because they reminded me of images I see in dreams. He seemed satisfied with that explanation.

One of the interesting lessons learned from my years of experience attempting various art forms, including photography, ceramics, drawing/painting, and three-dimensional kinetic sculpture, is an awareness of the diversity of perception between different people viewing the same piece of work. I became increasingly conscious of this during a period when I was working with clay, mostly making ceramic hanging lamps, but also miscellaneous glazed clay vessels. One woman who was quite taken by my efforts, which she'd seen displayed at a local crafts fair, came by my studio for a visit. I gave her a tour during which she spotted a box of rejects, mostly things that I thought were ugly or which didn't meet my standards in one way or another. You'd think she'd found a pot of gold! She asked if she could go through the stuff. As a starving potter, who was happy to glean every cent possible from his work, I told her, Certainly. She carried away a number of items and insisted on paying me $15, which at least covered the cost of the materials from which they were fabricated. Some artists wouldn't get caught dead letting "inferior" work loose on the world, but I was living on a pittance at the time and wasn't going to let pride stand in the way of my next meal.

That was my first objective demonstration of how radically taste varies from person to person, and it was a good one. It taught me not to worry excessively about people's reactions to what I create, since whatever I do, some will like it and some won't. Having grown up in a household where criticism was rampant, it was finally liberating to realize that as an artist I have a choice whether to take criticism to heart or to let it go the way of water on a duck's back. In one sense criticism, preferably self-criticism, is a good thing when done in the correct spirit, because it keeps you on a path toward improving your work, or perhaps I should say it can hone your ability to express your feelings accurately as well as helping you clarify the direction your future efforts should take. But when fear of criticism prevents you from doing anything at all, it's good to come to terms with such fear and not let it paralyze you.

It's naturally pleasing when people love your work, but even that can be an inhibiting factor. I had a conversation once with a well-known local artist who was experiencing distress because he was tired of doing the sort of thing he'd been doing for years and wanted to take a new direction. He'd tried new forms of expression but a large number of his "fans" had objected so strenuously that he felt like making changes had become a painful uphill battle. This situation is especially difficult for artists who are attempting to earn a living with their creations. It's easy to become a slave to the tastes of your public rather than feeling completely free to go your own way. The tragedy is that so many past artists who remained true to themselves died paupers, only to have their work become highly valued decades after their lives had ended.

One moral you might take from this story is that the happiest artist is the one who isn't required to earn a living from his or her work. But I've heard it argued that the agonies of the market ultimately push artists toward excellence. . .  which inspires the question, is the happiest artist necessarily the best artist? The question, if answerable at all, could be the subject of a whole essay in itself. It all depends on the personality of the artist, circumstances, the sort of work s/he's doing, and how you define "best" and "happy."

For awhile, at Mindport, several artists met weekly to discuss their work. The rule was that when viewing another's creations, you didn't label them "good," "bad," or with any other objective label. Rather, the instruction was to describe how a piece made you feel, what it reminded you of, or otherwise how you responded to it. We all came to agree after practicing these habits for awhile that receiving this sort of response to our artwork was much more helpful, not to speak of interesting, than having pat labels applied to it. Even receiving such comments as "I like this," or "I dislike this," were of little use to us. As an artist you're attempting to communicate something, and the most gratifying response is hearing the details of how your work affects others, beyond simply kudos or condemnation.

It's true that as a viewer of art in some circles you may justifiably fear that you'll be considered naive or ignorant if you respond honestly to work in the way I've suggested. But I promise you that you won't get a response like that at Mindport. We're happy to discuss what we show, and will meet any questions you have with respect. But please, remember that we're vulnerable too and like to be accorded similar consideration.

Kevin Jones

Spring Cleaning

Mindport's tenth-year (in this location) revamp, painting, cleaning, and exhibit-shuffling session is near its end. We're open again, most exhibits are ready for visitors, and a new show of Kevin Jones photos is hanging in the gallery. One new exhibit, a newer and larger version of "magnetic molasses" has been installed by AnMorgan and Carol. The whole staff, including docents, have put in a lot of effort on this project. When you visit, we think you'll like what you see.

Regular followers may notice that the Blog heading has also been remodeled to reflect better what actually goes on with this blog. Over time it's become apparent that only a couple of the eleven staff members have much interest in writing entries. We, the two writers, are more entertained by writing about the philosophical ideas relating to Mindport and its social environment, than we are by writing about Mindport's internal daily doings. One reason for this is, in the collaborative process inherent in Mindport's operation, there isn't much obviously visible on a daily basis. Exhibits have a way of "coming about," rather than being a consequence of a hard-and-fast planned process. Often, an exhibit or project which starts out being one thing becomes another, an implication of this being that most of us who build exhibits don't care to talk about what is in process until it's actually complete. Personally, I've found that the surest way to lose interest in building something is to talk much about it while it's being conceived or built.

Judging by the statistics on our blog site, and by the questions asked by visitors in person, more people are interested in the ideas behind Mindport and in the sort of ideas that keep US interested in the ongoing collaboration which is Mindport, than are interested in descriptions of physical "daily doings."  We do enjoy writing something about new exhibits when they show up on our floor, and we'll certainly continue to do that, as well as announce any events of interest that happen to be imminent. But entries dealing with more philosophical subject matter, mental "daily doings," will be our focus when something we're reading about, seeing in the media, or thinking about inspires comment. We're living at a pivotal point in history when the survival of the human race depends on a major change in our collective belief system. We at Mindport are acutely aware of this, and much of what we create reflects, directly or indirectly, a response to what we see going on around us, filtered through through our personal histories and a shared world view.

Mindport is about ideas, Writing about these ideas is useful to us because the process of writing has the effect of clarifying in our own minds what's important to us and suggests future directions for our work. What we write also provides past and prospective visitors hints about the thought behind what they see exhibited on our floor.

Kevin Jones

Personal History and the High Tech Path

"Home Brew" Radio Transmitter

I've been involved with science and technology since about age 7. At age 14 I earned my amateur radio license, and at age 19 started my first paid job in the field of electronics, which was serving for 15 months as electronics tech on an oceanographic ship in the Indian Ocean. After that, I spent a couple more years in electrical engineering school, then worked for the University of Colorado in two different branches of the physics department, involving research satellites and radio astronomy respectively. Upon moving to Lummi Island in 1977, I started my own business, initially repairing TVs, radios, ship radars, etc. As consumer electronics became less economical to repair, I found myself designing various electronic gadgets, which I sold via mail order, or which I supplied to others who commissioned me to build them. In 1995 Joe Edwards and Robin Burnett, and I, started Mindport. Several of the exhibits I've built for Mindport incorporate electronic circuitry, and, in a couple cases, microprocessors.

Over the last ten years, or so, I've become increasingly interested in the ways that electronic technology (and other sorts as well) impacts our lives, particularly the downside. Having spent so much time working in technological fields, I'm well-aware of the upside, since that's what drove my youthful passion to become involved there in the first place. From early on, I was intrigued with the idea of automating things, a fascination that bloomed with the advent of microprocessors and computers. It was after an extended involvement with the development of a microprocessor-controlled espresso machine that it became clear to me that technology, especially electronic technology and electronic "information technology", are not just neutral tools, but ones with often unrecognized and undesirable social and economic implications.

The development of the electronically-controlled espresso machine demanded that I become more deeply involved with computers and microprocessors than I'd been previously. In those days, we were still mainly using DOS (the early computer Disk Operating System). Windows had not yet come on the scene, or was still in a rudimentary form, as was true of the Internet. My early computer involvement gave me a first taste of high-tech rage, an emotion that has only become more severe and prominent over the years, not only with me, but just about everyone I know who suffers any involvement with computers and related equipment. It's difficult to find anyone who isn't.

It's an odd feeling for me to realize that there are young adults all around me who have never lived in a world without personal computers. Cell phones came along a little later than the early PCs, so they're only slightly less internalized in the lives of a twenty-year-old than the computers are. I compare the perspective of today's youths to my own, when I was twenty, employed as an electronics tech. I worked with people in their sixties who had been young in a world where the "personal motor vehicle" was a rarity, and rudimentary, at that. Same with broadcast radio. TV, of course, was barely conceived possible when those people were young. Experiments in sending pictures had been tried, but no commercial application (mercifully) had appeared. I, on the other hand, had known radios and automobiles all my life, and took them for granted, just as today's twenty-year-old does computers and the Internet.

I was 7 years old when I saw a TV for the first time, and was completely enchanted. My parents refused to have one in the house until well after I'd left home, at age 17. Correction: someone did give us a junker TV, when I was 13. It received one channel poorly, lasted a year, and my brother and I watched the Micky Mouse Club on it. Nowadays, I'm grateful that my parents eschewed TV, because I would have spent a lot of time in front of it, instead of tinkering with radios and electronic gear, which activities eventually culminated in an effective means to earn a living.

I've written this post as a prelude to others I doubtless will write in the future about technological impact, especially of the electronic variety, on our lives. It's a subject that comes up for me more frequently than any other, so, to avoid repetition, I've summarized experience that I hope will lend credence to future critiques of technology coming from my keyboard. I don't want anyone labeling me an uninformed Luddite, in other words. We're heading toward a likely comeuppance if we don't start paying attention to the road we're apparently taking, technologically speaking. Electronic technology is SO seductive, and nobody is more aware of this than I am. Because I become increasingly uneasy about its impositions on my life, and on the lives of everyone around me, particularly the very young, I find ideas about it creeping into my daily awareness, and into much of what I write. There's a message there that I won't ignore.

My grandson is almost four, and technology asserts a pressure on his life, and therefore the lives of his parents, that concerns me. It brings up questions about the world he and his cohorts will be creating for themselves when he's become a young adult himself. We do have the option to make choices about what technology we adopt and how we adopt it, but powerful forces militate against our making those choices, including the very seductiveness of the technology itself and the pressure exerted by its purveyors to keep us hooked on it. We must also consider the possibility that high tech may disappear, since it does require large amounts of energy to sustain its associated infrastructure, and future energy resources are uncertain. You may be tempted to scoff at this possibility, but, on the chance we must revert to more rudimentary technology, what will be the price we pay for having allowed ourselves to become absolutely dependent on the level of technology we presently enjoy?

Reading suggestions:

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr
Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less from Each Other, by Sherry Turkle
The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst, by Stephen Talbott

Kevin Jones

Closing for week of February 4th

Mindport will be closed to the public from February 4th thru February 12th, reopening for our normal hours on February 13th.

After over ten years in this location, it's time for some painting, sprucing up, and reshuffling of exhibits. Please forgive us if we're upsetting your plans for a visit, and give us another try when you can.

Kevin Jones