Category: The Illusion Beyond Art

Impressionist Paintings by Florence Morrison, Installment 2

The traveler had long arduous journeys behind him. Ahead was an easy walk to paradise. Something akin to a time tunnel had been constructed, rendering all our adventures completely safe. Fences are not for separating. They are for connecting. Solitary and solidary.

May 25, 2011
New York City in Las Vegas

New York New York Las Vegas Casino & Hotel all photos © 2011 Alan Shapiro

April 30, 2011
Three Impressionist Paintings by Florence Morrison

As if Santiago of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea had gone out again for priceless discoveries, but this time with a group of friends. The singularity of this painting is striking, yet it also reminds me of work products from Van Gogh’s period in Arles.

April 1, 2011
From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti – Interactive Plant Growing and Trans Plant by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)

Christa Sommerer has a strong interest in botany: she dedicated herself to this after her secondary studies, enrolling in the Faculty of Biology and Botany of Vienna. Her intention was to investigate nature with methods suitable to the classification of plants for the purpose of achieving the formulation of systematic rules.

October 4, 2010
From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti – Nerve Garden by Bruce Damer (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)

All images © Copyright Bruce Damer, embedded here with the permission of the artist. Nerve Garden is a three-dimensional virtual world accessible on the Internet, a “Public Terrarium in Cyberspace,” according to the definition of its authors, where the users of the Net can sow and witness the growth of virtual plants.

October 4, 2010
Only Impossible Exchange Is Possible, by Aurel Schmidt (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)

Impossible exchange is an impossible subject. In Jean Baudrillard’s book Impossible Exchange (2001), the matter is treated in such a way that one is better off with an associative and meditative interpretive approach than with a discursive reading. Much of the book transported me into a state of wonder, other parts I found irritating.

April 15, 2010