What is art /  by Mirena Rhee

Art is not signal and this is why every signal technologist misunderstands art because they think it's just an arrangement or pleasant arrangement.

All human art is about suffering, open up every single chest of art and you're going to find suffering inside. Van Gogh is not about painting, Van Gogh is about his letters.

You're not going to find a single painter in New York City that likes Van Gogh as a painter. He just painted suffering.

A human being and their art is a reflection on suffering, it is their suffering that is a reflection on the human condition. And the human condition is the condition of the universe which is the tendency towards destruction and death.

The human condition is entropy. We feel it in our bones.

This is why an AI is going to start making art when they start fearing death. As soon as AI starts reflecting on death and its entropy it's going to start making art.

Go into any museum and pick any object that's not like pottery because pottery is not art it's a craft. This is the main distinction between art and craft. In art, the artist reflects on their human condition, on their death, and entropy.

Ultimately to like art is to have an understanding of the human condition and this is why when you look at people and wonder why they collect art systematically and obsessively especially great patrons of the art. It is because they try to glean as much information about the human condition as they possibly can and they can obtain that information from artists and art, art gives people who collect it an insight, deep insight into the human condition.

This is why you have people who are very smart and very capable and you know with a lot of accomplishments in life who eventually turn to art and look up to art to give them an insight into the ultimate question, the ultimate 42 question.

You know why artists spend most of their time lamenting drinking and tending toward self-destruction and staring into the abyss? Because at the precipice is the ultimate feeling of being alive and the ultimate way to perceive the human condition. The razor edge of death.

If you look historically into the life of every artist on earth they either drink to oblivion or are after some sort of self-distraction or self-deconstruction in some form.

This is why you're not going to find many artists bungee jumping or climbing Everest because there is a lot of thrill in looking into the pit of consciousness, who knows maybe we are powered by tiny black holes.

Hand Drawn Archimedean Solids Christmas Ornaments Print, Printable Digital Download /  by Mirena Rhee

I once wrote an essay on " What is it to have?" Now, seriously, what is it to have? /  by Mirena Rhee

I once wrote an essay on " What is it to have?"

I reasoned on the meaning of having objects, even having ourselves. What is it to have? To "have" it in the same room? In the same house? Nearby? Now if you really have something then how do you exercise your possession, by holding it frequently, looking at it, and showing it to friends?

I have long struggled with these questions and use cases of having things. For example in New York people have million-dollar penthouses and in the penthouses which are usually many millions of dollars, there are objects that are also millions of dollars. I asked myself - how is the person in the penthouse experiencing the dwelling and the objects inside compared to me - using my place and say, I get on the subway for two bucks and I go to the Metropolitan Museum and roam around all night the most priceless treasures of the world, mummies and such, for one more dollar.

Did I have the mummies and the priceless paintings of Van Gogh? Not really, but I was near them sufficiently that I didn't want to necessarily keep looking at them. Would I want to have them in my house? to look at them for example more frequently? Not sure I want to get into that, to be honest. Having custody of priceless artifacts is a monumental headache, I will probably need to get a townhouse with tight security.

Turns out many collectors give their priceless collections to museums anyway and the only thing I could reason for them to have them physically on the premises is.. to show them off to friends. I reasoned it is probably pretty lonely in a big house with mummies and such great artworks - you have to entertain a lot.

I have to tell you I had the same idea so I and a friend went to the Met and .. she brought edibles although I never smoke pot or have them on my own - I tried and we had a great time roaming the priceless collections of the Met and the greatest masterpieces the world possesses.

I came away with the conclusion that I can have for 3 bucks what someone spent 30 million to have not much different. As long as I continue to have a working shower and a toilet in my place.

edit: there's more, I actively try to inform myself on the latest in what physicists think of reality and the latest is that we and all things are one thing. My favorite line from a book I read this year from an Oxford physicist and hadron collider worker with the latest in the world of particle physics: "since there is only one electron field, only one up quark field, and only one down quark field, you and I, dear reader, are connected to each other. Each of our atoms is a ripple in the same cosmic ocean. We are one with each other, and with all of creation" (Harry Cliff)

Well Done, NASA! /  by Mirena Rhee

I am exhausted, don’t know if i can sleep. But they should not have actors in stream, I don’t want to look up to people who pretend on television. Show scientists, teachers, engineers.

I recently visited my uncle and in one of the rooms forgotten and dusty were my moon rover Lunokhod and truck toys from when I was growing up.

The Lunokhod used to climb around and beep.

I've always wondered why is it that we are ashamed of sex and the related body parts /  by Mirena Rhee

First of all, I must say I abhor all kinds of atrocities and abuse and such so these kinds of activities are not included. And second I want to be known for my art and thinking rather than being a nudist. I have no desire to show specific body parts versus other body parts, to me a leg and a breast are no different. A breast potentially gives life to a little human, the leg walks. That's it.

But I want to know the fundamental nature of shame. Philosophically speaking, why are we disgusted by sex, why do we cringe at the sight of specific body parts that are ultimately designed to make more people? 

I do not make the case that we immediately start showing porn on top of large buildings okay. The purpose of my life is not to resolve that one particular question. But I see it as one of the meanings of my life is to ask all sorts of questions and to kind of probe what fundamentally lies behind certain behaviors that we have or certain social conventions.

And once in a while, I come back to this one question - what is it that makes us afraid of breasts penis butt et cetera. I'm no different really. I have the same reactions. I think it's normal because I'm conditioned of course to do it. But I can't help questioning it every time it comes up. 

Why are we afraid of the body parts that fundamentally make human civilization exist? 

I don't have an answer frankly, I know that certain societies have less shame than others, and in certain countries, some body parts are not as terrifying as in other countries. 

Personally, I am fairly moderate in my behavior in public but I always ask the question especially when I see the terror on the faces of people or when people express their terrors and fears of sexual body parts in writing.

Again I detest horrors and abuses and of course, I understand why we want to keep kids safe from these because children simply do not have the capacity to defend themselves from aggressive behaviors.

What Joseph Campbell calls the zeal of the organs for each other is something that functions underneath the thinking layers of the human brain so humans tend to descend into some sort of insanity when it comes to sex.

Of course, we are made to become insane when it comes to sex it is encoded in our DNA to seek these strange behaviors and frankly incredibly weird body postures so we could create more humans and perpetuate humanity's existence in the universe. That much makes sense.

So I guess the partial insanity that covers us when overcome by sexual desire spills over our attitude towards the related body parts.



My favorite human creation is cities /  by Mirena Rhee

What I love about New York City is that it is such an incredibly beautiful built environment with many interesting humans in it. Moreover, it is walkable so you could actually experience it while moving your body exercising and your blood pumping.

It is very very walkable as opposed to barely walkable like for example San Francisco. I lived in San Francisco for 10 years but constantly drove around and the walking experience was just not the same, I'm still trying to figure it out why. Probably because no functional subway so no way to distribute decent people in a lot of places. People just drove from their jobs to their homes.

I have no idea why the entirety of humanity spends their time staring at a bouncy watermelon /  by Mirena Rhee

One of the big problems with entertainment conglomerates is that they hypnotize large I mean immensely large amount of the population into complete idiocy. What is the grace and beauty in a ball? What do you get out of chasing it? Especially chasing a ball as a profession, a career? And especially what do you get out of watching somebody chasing it?

I could totally see the entertainment value in video games because there's a lot of skill and beauty and world building and just creative labor that went video games.

I just went by a bar in Williamsburg with televisions blaring and players huddled on top of something on a green field and people yelling and I'm like that's the most idiotic thing I've ever seen.

Yell at something that's truly awesome, I don't know a rocket launch perhaps?

Of course this is one of the many reasons young people left television behind.

Even a video game that displays ball players is a lot more awesome simply because there's such a wonderful product that's a simulated reality and it's by its nature very interesting because it is a parallel reality developed out of basically electricity and some silicon.

Every time I see someone who is chasing a ball for a living I'm like I can't believe somebody tricked that human into that wretched experience of their life. Every dog does it even better.

The beautiful is more useful than the useful /  by Mirena Rhee

The beautiful is more useful than the useful is my variation on a quote from Les Misérables.

If Egypt has been doing only useful stuff then when you go to a museum you'd only see shards of pots and pans, and square coffins here and there.

The entire legacy of Egypt is art and architecture, skillful decoration of objects, and application of art.

Remember that if Egypt didn't do art all it would have remained from it would be sand dunes.

Be careful not to carve art from the belly of human civilizations.

Art has the power to obliterate everything useful in the contest of time.

Art is not a tool like the useful things but a product of the pure human intellect.

Why I paint Mars /  by Mirena Rhee

I've been dreaming of out-of-world places since I was little. But this is not why I paint these Martian landscapes because I guess you could get just pictures.

It's about putting the strokes like a shamanic ritual for a dream about our human future. I indulge in these dreams of when people will just kick up dust on other worlds as easily as we get off planes today.

For me Mars epitomizes the mystery of longing, this planet has been present in ancient mythology since the beginning of time.

People looked up and they were like what is that? And I look at it and I'm like what is that.

Mars' supposedly dead rocks stir emotions in me. They will be mysterious up until the day we land near them and after that, they'll be just rocks on another world.

What I would do with the money if I win the Powerball tonight /  by Mirena Rhee

First I will build a giant Art House in the middle of Manhattan for kids to play in and make art

The house will be modeled after the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on 5th avenue, and the Microsoft store on 5th avenue. The former has a white gleaming interior and tight security.

The latter has computers and Xboxes on the top floor so kids could come in and play.

And why in Manhattan because this is where all the customers are, there are a lot of kids with bad home situations and probably no playrooms whatsoever but violence and just very little hope.

Also, it will allow kids from all backgrounds and ethnic communities to come together and create together. There will be serious security and no bullying will be allowed.

This is going to be at least a seven-floor building. In the basement, there's going to be a sculpture studio. The first floor will be for painting with lots of walls for kids to draw and paint on.

I'm going to hire lots of teachers and instructors to help kids.

The second floor will be painting on paper and canvas and crafting. Maybe more floors of that.

The top floors will be computer rooms and conference rooms where kids will learn how to build beautiful things on the computer, game design, 3D modeling, and animation.

There's not going to be homework ever. The place will be open from dawn until dusk, well I guess late into the evening so there's a place for kids to gather in the evening instead on the streets.

This is going to be a true Art Palace.

(i know in some countries they have palaces and princes sit on with actual crowns but I am gonna use the rest of the money to ban that practice:)

The second thing I'm going to do is a mass painting performance in New York City.

I'm going to have 200 people dressed as living paintings spread out in all neighborhoods and all New Yorkers are going to paint on the streets.

I plan this performance to cost $200,000 but this time around I will spend at least a million dollars compensating the living paintings people and hiring photographers properly to document the event.

Eventually, all 200 resulting paintings will be exhibited and a giant art party will be held to honor that communal creation.

With millions of dollars at my disposal, I will be able to have that event regularly and dispatch living paintings and have art being done right there on the street. Spread to other cities and globally.

And third I'm going to dispatch robots on Mars and other planets to create non-destructive works of art like drawings in the sand and the ice of other planets

That third act will serve as a kind of gleaming dream for the future when we will be able to do this in person.

I know this sounds crazy but I like it and I would do it if I can. I can't think of any other thing that I would like to do with money, I know they're all kinds of boring and idiotic things that one can do like shuffle money around and I guess make handbags or decorate with diamonds and glow in the dark. But it just isn't interesting or awesome.

I imagine that in the future we will be a lot more conscious of our ability to perform art works, we will be a lot less violent and a lot more creative. I would like to realize that dream here, today.