Can we grasp this sense of ourselves as existing in time, part of the beautiful continuum of life? Can we become inspired by the prospect of contributing to the future? Can we shame ourselves into thinking that we really do owe those who follow us some sort of consideration, just as the people of the nineteenth century shamed themselves out of slavery? Can we extend our empathy to the lives beyond ours? - Brian Eno writing about the 10,000 Year Clock, in the essay from which The Long Now Foundation got its name. The clock is now under construction.

Questions Remain After Ai Weiwei's Release (Hyperallergic)

Tokyo-based, Senegal born, Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri's video Visual Violence, part of the bi-annual Aboveground Animation show, works off of the curt dialog and banal negativism (complete with the lethal injections and inner demons) that are common to a certain style of Japanese comics [with the] insertion of Qadiri’s own, more concentrated aesthetic, which often references Kuwaiti culture and traditions - V magazine. Interview with Al Qadiri. Vimeo page

Findr: Jacob Gaboury and Todd Shalom are using Grindr as a psychogeography research tool over Gay Pride Weekend. Interview on the project. It's not that we're rehabilitating a potentially problematic technology, it's that we are using the technology to find new ways to interact and create a shared, networked physical space. We're hoping to create new forms of contact between anonymous strangers, and in so doing create new ways of navigating the city.

Summer 2011 issue of Afterall themed around "the act of mapping, the land and locality."

2011 Frieze Projects announced: The artists commissioned to create site-specific works for Frieze Art Fair 2011 are: Bik Van der Pol, Pierre Huyghe, Christian Jankowski, Oliver Laric, LuckyPDF, Peles Empire, Laure Prouvost and Cara Tolmie.

Roberta Smith reviews Ryan Trecartin's show at MoMA PS1, What he has unleashed is larger than himself, which is why both his sudden appearance and continuing evolution are such cause for hope.

Dead Cruise Ship on Google Maps (via Gizmodo)

How Lytro is like a time machine (After Photography)

How Joseph DuCreux became a meme [The] eighteenth century French artist known for his unorthodox style of portrait paintings... has inspired a series of exploitable macros, featuring “archaic reinterpretation” of popular rap lyrics superimposed over the artwork (via z85, prosthetic knowledge)

What Mortal Kombat Characters Do In Their Spare Time

Charlie Stross' three arguments against the singularity I can’t prove that there isn’t going to be a hard take-off singularity in which a human-equivalent AI rapidly bootstraps itself to de-facto god-hood. Nor can I prove that mind uploading won’t work, or that we are or aren’t living in a simulation. Any of these things would require me to prove the impossibility of a highly complex activity which nobody has really attempted so far. However, I can make some guesses about their likelihood, and the prospects aren’t good.

Motherboard meets with Reed Ghazala, the founder of circuit bending.

NSKYC The average color of the New York City sky, updated every 5 minutes.

Katie Paterson's 100 Billion Suns in Venice.

"Ryan Seacrest has gotten the farthest," in the "The World’s Most Exclusive Website."

The most frequent criticism of Gaga is that her music sounds like everything else—often extraordinarily or eerily so. I would argue that this is exactly the point. We live in an age of quotation, appropriation, recycling, and repetition. - Cory Arcangel writes about Euro-trance for Artforum Keep Clicking...