Mi’kmaw mask carving workshop is changing lives
Instructor Gordon Sparks teaches Mi’kmaw traditional hand-carved mask making at a workshop in Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick.
#art #culture #teaching #skill #Elsipogtog #Pabineau
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/9.6701395?cmp=rss
And finally, new data from Nameberry says people in red states are giving their kids the classic Jewish name Cohen (sometimes with the spelling Kohen). Our @CultureDesk featured this Forward story by Benyamin Cohen and Mira Fox, who are trying to figure out why. Theories include that people are naming their children after the directing duo the Coen brothers, or that it’s a co-opting by Christians of Jewish traditions. Says Benyamin: “I think it’s clever to give pets human names. We have chickens and each one is named after an NPR broadcaster. We have Terry Gross, Yuki Noguchi, Nina Totenberg and so on. We’re actually on our third Melissa Block. The first two, alas, are in chicken heaven now.” Mira replies: “And they all, of course, have your last name.” Benyamin: “Yes, yes. We call them the Co-Hens. I wonder what Nameberry would think of that.”
https://forward.com/culture/707893/kohen-mira-baby-name-popularity/
The weather forecast is predicting rain for this weekend's full bloom, disrupting cherry blossom-viewing picnic plans, so paintings in bloom might just be the next best thing. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2025/03/28/art/sakura-art-tokyo/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #culture #art #sakura #exhibitions #painting #japaneseart
N.L. schools ordered to destroy new books containing 'inaccurate information' on Indigenous people
Newfoundland and Labrador's Department of Education ordered its schools to destroy thousands of books purchased two years ago because they contained 'inaccurate information' about the territories, culture and his...
#education #politics #history #culture #NewfoundlandandLabrador #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/schools-nl-ordered-destroy-books-indigenous-1.7494978?cmp=rss
The map is not the terrain.
With all the new updates this week, a reminder that LLMs are an excellent illustration of the attempted shifts to redefine what we usually call art (and knowledge/skill) to be almost entirely separate from its creation process and from its original meaning, context, environment and situation which lead to its creation. Being trained on digital reproductions of artworks and some select metadata, these models are fundamentally constrained to identify patterns for regenerating simulacra, their usage purely symbolic — a user-driven form of meme-style cultural sampling, pure semiotic “affiliation by association”, a kitschy clip-art-esque usage of looks, styles and aesthetics, entirely decoupled and devoid of history, meaning, context, incentives and other factors of (art) making/learning. A total lack of embodiment. Make this look like that. Baby portraits in Rembrandt's style, Ghibli used for PFPs or to create Neo-Nazi propaganda. Who cares?!
The great homogenizer.
Even for me as an artist primarily using non-LLM-based generative techniques for 25+ years, training a model on a corpus of my own works and then having it churn out new derivations, other than a case study, it would completely counter any of the creative & systemic investigations I'm after with most of my works. LLMs turn everything into a sampling and prompting workflow. Replicating a (non-existent) house style is the very thing I'm least interested in!
Triteness re-invented.
Removed from any original intentions of the consumed works enslaved in their training corpus, ignorant to the emotional states of their creators, free from the pains and joys and myriads of micro-decisions of art making, of the social context and the limitations (physical, material, skill) which led people to search for expressing their inner thoughts & feelings via artistic means... AI enthusiasts celebrate this new contextual freedom as creative breakthrough, but it’s always the same underlying sentiment behind: “The final original idea was that everything had already been done before.”
The Exascale mindset.
From the ravenous assembling of training datasets by ferociously crawling & harvesting absolutely anything which can be possibly found and accessed online, entirely disregarding author & privacy rights and social/technical contracts of acceptable use, the energy consumption for model training at a scale competing with developed nation states, to the abrasive social and political engineering and the artificial inflation of framing this tech as beneficial and inevitable to our societies. Most of the news & tech media, always hungry for clickbait, YouTubers able to create decades’ worth of new content — everyone happily lapping up any press-releases and amplifying the hype. Are there any responsible adults left where it currently matters most?
This ignorance-by-design isn’t about LLMs or their impact on art: The wider discussion is about how a tiny group of people with access to quasi-unlimited resources, capital and politicians is attempting to redefine what human culture is and to treat it (us) like just another large-scale mining operation, converting millennia of lived human experience, learning & suffering into monopolized resources for total extraction/monetization, filtered, curated, controlled and eventually sold back as de facto truth, with original provenance and meaning annihilated or vastly distorted to fit new purposes and shifting priorities/politics...
Don’t let the map become the terrain!
---
Two quotes by Friedrich A. Kittler as related food for thought:
“What remains of people is what media can store and communicate.”
“Understanding media is an impossibility, because conversely, the prevailing communication techniques remote-control all understanding and create all of its illusions.”
"A Living History Of The Mid 90's Rave Scene" you know, if you're into that (or were into that.)
N.L. schools ordered to destroy new books containing 'inaccurate information' on Indigenous people
Newfoundland and Labrador's Department of Education ordered its schools to destroy thousands of books purchased two years ago because they contained 'inaccurate information' about the territories, culture and his...
#education #politics #history #culture #NewfoundlandandLabrador #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/schools-nl-ordered-destroy-books-indigenous-1.7494978?cmp=rss
Elsipogtog workshop passes down rare mask carving teachings to the next generation of artists
A group of eight students from the Mi'kmaw community of Elsipogtog in New Brunswick are learning skills and teachings from a traditional wooden mask carver.
#art #culture #education #Elsipogtog #NewBrunswick #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/elsipogtog-mask-carving-students-1.7495128?cmp=rss
N.L. schools ordered to destroy new books containing 'inaccurate information' on Indigenous people
Newfoundland and Labrador's Department of Education ordered its schools to destroy thousands of books purchased two years ago because they contained 'inaccurate information' about the territories, culture and his...
#education #politics #history #culture #NewfoundlandandLabrador #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/schools-nl-ordered-destroy-books-indigenous-1.7494978?cmp=rss
This traditional mask carving workshop is changing lives
A month-long course in Elsipogtog, N.B., is teaching eight artists the skill of Mi’kmaw traditional hand-carved mask making. Instructor Gordon Sparks, from Pabineau, N.B., learned the skill from renowned artist Ned Bear, and is training the next generation of carvers in a course grounded in ceremony and teachings from Elders.
#art #culture #teaching #skill #Elsipogtog #Pabineau
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/9.6701395?cmp=rss
N.L. schools ordered to destroy new books containing 'inaccurate information' on Indigenous people
Newfoundland and Labrador's Department of Education ordered its schools to destroy thousands of books purchased two years ago because they contained 'inaccurate information' about the territories, culture and his...
#education #politics #history #culture #NewfoundlandandLabrador #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/schools-nl-ordered-destroy-books-indigenous-1.7494978?cmp=rss
Elsipogtog workshop passes down rare mask carving teachings to the next generation of artists
A group of eight students from the Mi'kmaw community of Elsipogtog in New Brunswick are learning skills and teachings from a traditional wooden mask carver.
#art #culture #education #Elsipogtog #NewBrunswick #News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/elsipogtog-mask-carving-students-1.7495128?cmp=rss
@adapalmer @histodons @histodon
We uploaded our collective memories, record-keeping, and #culture to…the cloud.
The name Kohen (or Cohen) is skyrocketing in popularity, but only in red states, while Mira is all over blue states. What's driving the popularity of these traditionally Jewish names? Forward's Benyamin Cohen and Mira Fox have thoughts. Mira: "Does Cohen mean anything else, besides being a priest?" Benyamin: "Sure, it means, 'Hi, I’m a Jew.'"
Tarun Nayar is a musician, but his instrument of choice isn't guitar or piano. He makes melodies from mushrooms (and other plants). Atlas Obscura spoke to him about how it all works, his goal with the project, and his next adventure, exploring the relationship between taste and sound.
This Inuk carver transforms antlers into makeup brushes — each with their own story
Saelym DeGrandpré, a 23-year-old woman living in Ottawa, carves makeup brushes out of antlers. She says it's a way to connect with her culture and her ancestors.
#art #makeup #culture #Ottawa #News #Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/inuk-carver-antler-brushes-ottawa-1.7493620?cmp=rss
Wake up, Japan! NHK E’s “The Wakey Show” is about to shake up kids’ TV with rapping puppets, history lessons and a DJ bear in a sideways cap. Even Elmo’s joining the fun! Can it make mornings a little brighter? https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2025/03/27/tv-streaming/the-wakey-show-nhk/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #culture #tvstreaming #nhk #thewakeyshow
This Inuk carver transformers antlers into makeup brushes — each with their own story
Saelym DeGrandpré, a 23-year-old woman living in Ottawa, carves makeup brushes out of antlers. She says it's a way to connect with her culture and her ancestors.
#art #makeup #culture #Ottawa #News #Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/inuk-carver-antler-brushes-ottawa-1.7493620?cmp=rss
This Inuk carver transformers antlers into makeup brushes — each with their own story
Saelym DeGrandpré, a 23-year-old woman living in Ottawa, carves makeup brushes out of antlers. She says it's a way to connect with her culture and her ancestors.
#art #makeup #culture #Ottawa #News #Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/inuk-carver-antler-brushes-ottawa-1.7493620?cmp=rss
@nixCraft @sl007 Is it once again "Decline of the West", … er "Decline of the East"? Why can't people learn to come to terms with the ever ongoing #influence of #technology on #culture?
