- Journal (Hackpact)

October 22th 2017

Preperation Eye reading group
“Deep Neural Networks (DNN) can detect sexual orientation from faces” by Yilun Wang and Michael Kosinski. It claims that faces contain information about sexual orientation and that AI can interpreted this better than humans. An Artificial Intelligence Gaydar so to say. According to the study gay men and women tend to have gender-atypical facial morphology, expression and growing style. This corresponds with the idea of PHT (prenatal hormone theory).
This theory asserts the following:

“(…)same-gender sexual orientation stems from the underexposure of male fetuses and overexposure of female fetuses to prenatal androgens responsible for the sexual differentiation of faces, preferences and behavior” (Wang, Kosinski, page 30).”

The Gay State > In this book, or pamphlet the writer argues that “as long as we, as a people (lgbt people), allow our freedoms to remain in the hands of our historic and oppressive majority, we will not be free, equal, or hold the keys to liberty.” (p. 57). He believes this can only be solved by creating an independent Gay State.

Jonestown > The peoples Temple Agricultural Project > American socialist Organization
In Guyana
909 people died in mass suicide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpy-I7ce3tg&list=WL&index=102
Children of the Stars, unarius
Religious sect > making films



Entertainment and Utopia:


“Entertainment is a type of performance produced for profit, performed before a generalized audience (the ‘public’), by a trained, paid group who do nothing else but produce performances which have the sole (conscious) aim of providing pleasure.” (Dyer, p. 19).


Entertainment is produced and defined by professional entertainers. 

“Professional entertainment is the dominant agency for defining what entertainment is. This does not mean, however, that it simply reproduces and expresses patriarchal capitalism. There is the usual struggle between capital (the backer) and labour (the performers) over control of the product, and professional entertainment is unusual in that: (1) it is in the business of producing forms not things, and (2) the workforce (the performers themselves) is in a better position to determine the form of its product than are, say, secretaries or car workers.” (Dyer, p. 19-20).

The central point of entertainment is utopianism. It functions as ‘escape’ and as ‘wishfulfilment’.

This does not mean that entertainment provides a model for utopian worlds. It rather works at the level of sensibility (it’s about the feeling it embodies).

This level of sensibility or an affective code, uses both representational (stars are nicer than we are, characters more straightforward than people we know etc.) and non-representational signs (colour, texture, movement, rhythm etc.).

Both are in Peirce’s terminology, largely iconic; but whereas the relationship between signifier and signified in a representational icon is one of resemblance between their appearance, their look, the relationship in the case of the non-representational icon is one of resemblance at the level of basic structuration. 

This concept also relates to music. As “we are moved by music, yet it has the least obvious reference to ‘reality’ — the intensity of our response to it can only be accounted for by the way music, abstract, formal though it is, still embodies feeling.” (Dyer, p. 20).

Music is a tonal analogue of emotive life according to Susanne K. Langer.

“.. modes of experiential art and entertainment correspond to different culturally and historically determined sensibilities.” (Dyer, p. 21)

October 20th 2017

October 19th 2017

I went to a demonstration to protest against arrests carried out by the police against LGBTQ people in Egypt and Azerbaijan. The EU is not reacting in any way, so in multiple EU cities there were protests today to make the EU react. I took my camera along. The photographs are not really in my usual style, but I had to deal with the environment and light that was available. I'm not sure if I want to use these images for anything, but let's say I put them in my "archive" and see later on. The person in the middle is wearing a t-shirt that says "the future is trans" and the person on the right is wearing a button that says "let's get one thing straight, I'm not".

October 18th 2017

One name that keeps being referenced in the texts I am reading is Kaja Silverman. Male Subjectivity at the Margins & The miracle of analogy.

October 15th 2017

October 14th 2017

October 13th 2017

October 12th 2017

October 11th 2017

Didn't have time to make a little thing because I was taking some pictures for a friend (see images).

October 10th 2017

Screenshot of first arrangement of images on a webpage made for a webpage to accompany an exhibition (where I don't show work) The theme of this exhibition is intimicy.
Full page: http://www.fabianlandewee.com/intimacyopdeschans/index.html

October 9th 2017

Coming

October 8th 2017

October 7th 2017

Sculpting a face in Cinema 4D tutorial. Still working on this...
Can I sculpt a typical face?

October 6th 2017

/Comment and thoughts: Filmed and edited in half an hour. Wanted to try something a bit less conventional visually. I got as feedback to be a bit less conventional in my choice of aesthetics (and thinking about it: the main point of queer cinema is to be unconventional I guess). The video is blurred, and the wrestling is awkward. Comment from my co-performer: "looks like a cheap music video"

October 5th 2017

Comment: Scan scan scan

Feedback today:
For thesis outline:
- Use text on methods/graduate proposal for thesis outline

- Write synopsis of text you want to use, as a way to articulate argument
- How much can images communicate without text
- Visual essay ?
- What are the ingredients of queer cinema