Author: Bruna Araujo Pereira

The questions made me think of ways to represent or see myself beyond “hair,” or perhaps away from any bodily, aesthetic or figurative expression. This collage is a representation of myself based on photos, artworks, songs and quotes that are dear to me. It is a self portrait that tries to abstract from my corporeal existence.

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Why do I have hair?
– biological/evolutionary level: my hairy ancestors were less prone to damage on their heads, skin cancer etc. so they were able to live longer/better and reproduce

But there are many bald people doing fine today. Why do you choose to keep your hair?
– I find it pretty.

Why?
– I like how I look, I’m used to my hair, and I find other people with similar hair, pretty.

You could get used to no hair and you also find some bald people pretty.
– I’m scared that I’ll look terrible without hair and it would take me a while to get used to bald.

Why couldn’t you wait for how long it takes?
– Because it’d hurt my self esteem.

Why?
– Because I base how I feel partially on how pretty I think I am.

Why?
– I don’t know…

This exercise felt a bit weird because my mind is always two questions ahead of my writing, so here are other topics I thought I would boil down to after asking Why: body neutrality, social acceptance, stereotypical femininity, my hair is a source of compliments many times (?).

Landing page for Live Forever Lab

https://liveforeverlab.cargo.site/

As Elon Musk has put it beautifully, humanity is in decline! Not because of rising ocean levels, ever more frequent extreme heat, and complete destruction of biodiversity. But because birth control and abortion have made smart people have fewer babies! The United Nations projects that the human population will continue to increase at a fast pace until the end of the century, driven by fertility rates in Africa and Asia. But can we trust that these newborns will be smart like Elon Musk, who is very smart and not just extremely lucky? Of course not! Live Forever Lab believes in change and smart people. Are you a special millionaire with some money to spare? Invest in our potions and add some more years to your life. Don’t believe it when they say you rely on privilege and centuries-old wealth and land inequality. You are special. We are special. Live Forever. Change Forever

response to: Lateral Thinking – Introduction

When discussing the ways in which ideas are updated, De Bono mentions that “(…) the [conflict] method does not work at all when the new information can only be evaluated through the old idea.” I found this really interesting as it reminded me of the importance of ideology in the formation and propagation of knowledge.

Back home, in Brazil, there have been increasing attempts to remove racist, mysoginistic and other bigoted content from traditional books, many of which are read in school. The idea is to rephrase those stories according to the morality of our current time. From my understanding, this sounds a lot like the linear progression inherent to vertical thinking. In my opinion, however, this strategy of simple erasure is fruitless when it comes to educating a new generation in social and political problems that, to quote de Bono, cannot be evaluated objectively. Instead I would suggest a strategy, perhaps similar to that of lateral thinking, where those stories are contextualized. After all, only by evaluating the past can we understand the struggles and ideological shifts of the present.

visit to Markus Popp

I appreciated Markus’s mentioning of the importance of going beyond one’s artistic field (e.g. Music) and instead focusing on a message, theme, “passion,” etc. I hadn’t thought from this perspective and it made sense to me to accomodate for multiple skills and interests while maintaining some sort of artistic identity.

I just wish he had talked more about his own practice. Half of the presentation sounded very coach-y and I personally didn’t agree with his absolute claims about “having a clear goal that you will not compromise.” I don’t think this fixed ideas are realistic, especially for us who are just in the beginning of our careers.

52.5381726,13.4100656,17 potion
prep time: 1h – 8h
serves one person

fly from munich to berlin specifically. leave your house at 7pm but before the sunset because for the first time your sun is setting at 9pm. [forgot to mention that it must be summer.] for 2min, walk towards the greenest area you can see. gather your first leaves from the ground. come back to get an umbrella. [forgot to mention that it must be drizzling.] walk in the opposite direction of the first time because you must go to a mall. stare at the ground closely as the green become less frequent. be tempted to pick up beautiful flowers but don’t – your ethics code is to only collect the ones that have already fallen down. disrespect yout ethics code once or twice. close your umbrella when you see that you’re the only one in the street holding one. bend over in the middle of the sidewalk to collect your fallen leaves. realize that you’re lost. ask other people for help and find the mall that is already closed anyway. forget that you were collecting plants in the first place. go back home.

response to “The creative act of listening to a talking frog”

today after class two friends and I went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for a pasta. as we walked I complained that I made pasta yesterday but it turned out a bit tasteless, as usual. we were staring at the seasoning products, listing out loud the ones we already had, when one of my friend suggested getting pepper. pepper. I forgot that it existed – maybe as a defense mechanism from my mom, who loves it a little too much. regardless of the reason, my friend unlocked a new layer of my cook brain. pasta was much better today.

listening to kermit the frog talk about the importance of friends for creativity, I recalled another time when a colleague suggested making my arts project to be hung on the wall, thereby completely changing my concept/execution for the better. I imagined that attaching spinning wheels on a horizontal wood panel would make my life easier – because, you know, gravity – but turns out I was wrong. or to rephrase kermit, perhaps my friend and I were both right in different ways.

on a side note, it was also a bit awkward to hear good advice from a frog.