IMG

Well ladies and gentlemen, Felipe has finally put his tireless internet exploration to good use. Several times on this blog I've talked about Felipe waking me up in the morning with computer-crashing internet art. Multiply times a day, as we sit across from one another in our living room, he sends me links on gchat to images he's found while scouring the internets endless supply of oddities. For years now, Felipe has collected images on his array of hard drives that have laid dormant and unseen, until now. Felipe's hoarded collection of images will see the light of day on IMG, his clever new blog showcasing images from the past and present.

Ppppssss... FFFFOUND, give this guy an account.

The Muslims Live at the Echo

Muslims 'Parasites' from Felipe Lima on Vimeo.

Felipe shot this video of The Muslims playing at the echo a few weeks ago. The video looks and sounds surprisingly good, one for the books.

Felipe is also getting his hands dirty with other video/internet related projects. Check out When She Passes.

What About That Internet Personae?

About a month ago, Russ published a post about his internet persona. If you're not familiar I encourage you to read it. The gist is an awareness of one's presence online as it pertains to romance, professional life and general self-interest. How do we balance who we really are, and how we are represented online to an expanding audience? Our ability to censor ourselves slips from our grasp everyday we keep our Myspace and Facebook profiles alive. Photos of us are tagged and shared without our discretion. Our interests, educational background, age, place of residence and network of friends are all public domain.

After Russ' insightful post, I couldn't help but take this more seriously. Perhaps because Russ, more than anyone, has sacrificed his public image for laughs. Before online communities, almost nothing was off limits. Public nudity, outrageous outfits and social self-sabotage were all fair game. Nude/incriminating photos were freely shared amongst friends, and why shouldn't they be?

Well ladies and gentlemen, the pendulum has shifted. We can no longer rely on the honor system to conceal our more vulnerable moments, and with the internet as our audience, future employers, girlfriends/boyfriends and grandparents are in the front row.

For instance, Facebook just alerted me that my name was tagged on a photo Felipe took:

This photo takes on a new dimension when my little cousins search for cousin Andrew, and find me with a pissing clown. My cover is blown when the pretty jewish girl who raises money for Africa I was trying to impress finds out I'm just a jokester. But what's the alternative? De-tag and lose face? Or worse, censor my real life experiences to save myself the trouble of damage control after the fact? Oh brother.

Well Russ, you've planted the seed of self-consciousness. I used to never care about my internet personae, do I now? I'd like to think not, but ever since your post it's been in the back of my mind. Today when I saw this photo of myself, ironically with the two of us in it, I couldn't help but feel a bit concerned. Now, Liz has the photo saved to her desktop, and god knows who else is rolling around laughing at our expense.

Even Sam, a famous self-effacer, drunkenly mumbled "Russ...don't make a movie" as you filmed him trying to take his pants off with his shoes on in his kitchen. Would Sam have ever said that before he thought it might come back to haunt him on the internet?

So many uncertainties, so little online forgiveness. I guess the real question is, how far a reach does our Facebook/Myspace account have in our day to day life? The fear of course, is finding out.

Musca domestica

Summer is here and the house fly has arrived, one of the few downsides to the season of fun. What this means for most of the world is a slight annoyance and an intensified diligence in kitchen sanitation. They buzz, we swat and life goes on as usual, especially in southern California where we don't have a candle to hold to the rest of the world's bug problems. But for Felipe Lima, it's so much more.

Felipe's world was rocked Wednesday morning when he awoke to flies buzzing tyrannically around our kitchen. He woke me up, as usual, this time in an episode of panic. He had removed all of the screens in the apartment, taken all of our plants outside, done his damnedest to exterminate the invaders with his compressed oxygen dust cleaner and, to my dismay, fastened a gallon ziplock bag half filled with water above our front door. I suggested that perhaps the root of our fly problem was our open door policy during the day. This suggestion was met with outrage. Closing the door during day light hours was not on the table for discussion, nor did it have any relevance to the problem at hand. The flies in Felipe's view were indicative of a greater issue. He would hear nothing of it.

It's been a few days, the bag is still there, and so are the flies. I wanted to be wrong, and for a second I thought I might be, but the bag has proven no match for the determination of the little guys. Sorry Fil.

The house fly as we know it today has been buzzing around for 65 million years. It's survived ice ages, mass extinctions and countless swats from elephant tusks, horse tails and hands alike. Modern inventions like the fly swatter haven't quelled the issue, and god knows if anything ever will.

Look, if you squint you can see a fly to the right of the mammoth buzzing around causing a scene. They even say that Abraham Lincoln's favorite songs was "Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me," which is as relevant then as it is now.

We'll keep the bag for now, maybe it's working its magic as we speak and I'm too blind to see. Maybe Felipe has stumbled onto a solution to the world's oldest annoyance and his genius has gone unappreciated. Like Socrates or Galileo before him, his findings have been denounced by a world not yet ready for the scope of his discovery.

Maybe, Felipe was never meant for this cruel unforgiving world.

More Future Arts

As a follow up to my last post about internet art and Felipe's interests, you should look at Rafael Rozendaal's website. Rafael makes flash animation, flim and other forms of visual art. His art is associated with NEEN. Here is an excerpt from the NEEN Manifesto on their website:

"Neen stands for Neenstars: a still-undefined generation of visual artists. Some of them belong to the contemporary art world; others are software creators, web designers, and video game directors or animators."

I'm sure if you check in on Felipe's blog he too will be updating us on the exciting developments of internet art.

Future Arts

wwwwwwwww.jodi.org don't be afraid

This morning i was sleeping when Felipe came into my room, which he's gotten in the habit of doing, and woke me up to internet art. Felipe gets all giggly about this shit and apparently it couldn't wait, so together we explored the bizarre world of Jodi.

Go to the link below the picture, right click and 'view source,' here you will find diagrams of hydrogen and uranium bombs illustrated in the HTML source code. Don't stop there, there is more to be found in the weird world of internet art.

Jodi's Blog

Community Shorts Aftermath

The LA Community Shorts went off without a hitch. It was well attended and the mood was merry. After the screening, we danced in Rickey's space, went to gold room where Russ bought 30 something 'dollar tequila shots', went back to Rickey's space and danced etc. My little brother was there and charmed the pants off the young ladies and Felipe is very relaxed today. 
Brian Miller


Felipe here, laying down some moves Elaine Bennis style





Russ Finkelstein after unsuccessfully hitting on Ashley Fenton, an age-old classic.