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About the Flaneur
I walk through my blindness the way I wander down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, alert to the raw material of the senses. I am a flaneur. Come along with me. Just don’t try to take my arm, unless I ask. What’s a flaneur? Read the first post, Return of the Flaneur to Galerie Vivienne. After that, try Foot Rage and the Blind Flaneur. Then stay tuned.Letting Go of Sight
I’ve canoed on Lake Superior for almost as many years as I’ve been losing eyesight. I return year after year like a migrating loon to learn the other side of a slow, uncertain process that we could call “going blind.” After 35 years with the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read Big Water. See more about the Great Lakes.Not This Pig
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in Not This Pig (2003).Media in Transition @ MiT
Disabled Americans today have to negotiate for the kinds of accommodations made for FDR, and the caveat “reasonable accommodation” is built into the law. President Franklin Roosevelt did not have to negotiate. He could summon vast resources of the federal government – money as well as brains – to accomplish the work of disability. And it was accomplished with such thoroughness and efficiency that its scale could be called the Accessibility-Industrial Complex had it been directed toward public accommodations and not solely the needs of a single man. Read FDR and the Hidden Work of Disability [MiT8 2013]
Shepard Fairey claimed that his posterization of a copyrighted AP news photo of Barack Obama was a transformative work protected by the fair use doctrine. In other words, it was a shape-shifter. I claim fair use, too, when I reproduce and transform copyrighted works into media formats that are accessible to me as a blind reader. Read Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]
The social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars in New York never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it, either. In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in 1916, he could not have expected that one day blind photographers would reverse the camera’s gaze. Read Curiosity & The Blind Photographer. [MiT5 2007]
Category Archives: attention economy
Attention Economy - July 8, 2023
Paul Delvaux. The Great Sirens. 1947. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Great Sirens Identified with the Belgian Surrealist movement, although never an official member, Paul Delvaux was influenced by his contemporary René … Continue reading
Attention Economy - June 18, 2023
Siebert Collection : Compound Object Viewer | Ohio Historical Society A photograph of a stone building in Yellow Springs, OH that was an Underground Railroad station. Baptists look to rich village history | Yellow Springs News Online Virgil Hervey “Moncure … Continue reading
Attention Economy - June 11, 2023
Into the Void | OntheBoards.tv Josef Vascovitz: “As a commissioned work, Catherine Cabeen’s Into the Void is a smart choice for OtB, especially as the theatre season winds down. First it’s a beautiful blend of music and stagecraft, with exquisite … Continue reading
Attention Economy – June 4, 2023
Yves Klein. Anthropométrie de l’époque bleue (ANT 82). 1960. [Source: Yves Klein Archive] Catherine Cabeen and Company: Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers; Opening Day at the Walker Art Center 102310 Catherine Cabeen: “As a woman artist who is … Continue reading
Attention Economy - May 28, 2023
“People Begin to Fly” (1961) was shown at the Hirshhorn Museum’s 2010 exhibition “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers.” [Source: NYT/ Menil Collection, Houston; Artists Rights Society, New York/ADAGP, Paris] See more of his art at the Yves Klein Archive … Continue reading