Erotic Photography

by Clayton Cubitt

by Fallen Yoko

by Lina Scheynius

by Sacha Federowsky

by Von Brandis

by Beautiful and Depraved

by Elias Tahan

10 Denver Acts on the Rise

1. The Natural Selection (www.myspace.com/thenaturalselection)
2. Josephine and the Mousepeople (www.myspace.com/josephineandthemousepeople)
3. Ellison Park (www.myspace.com/ellisonparkmusic)
4. Britt Rodemich (www.myspace.com/brittrodemich)
5. Dan Craig Band (www.myspace.com/dancraigmusic)
6. Laura Goldhamer (www.myspace.com/lauragoldhamer)
7. Kal Cahoone (www.myspace.com/kalcahoone)
8. Jen Korte and the Loss (www.myspace.com/jenkorteandtheloss)
9. Dormir (www.myspace.com/dormirmusic)
10. Delby L (www.myspace.com/delbyl)

The Society of the Spectacle

For decades now, there has been an idea floating around: the dumbing-down of America. And while I wouldn’t employ that phrase because it’s a euphemism, I will say this: We are screwed. Or, more than that, we are screwing ourselves stupid with broken lightbulbs and hackneyed, empty ideas that have no meat to them like: what Brittney Spears is doing today. Or what Madonna’s wearing this week.

In the sixties, an important thinker named Guy DeBord proposed a batch of ideas in his seminal work, “The Society of the Spectacle”. Much of what DeBord wrote about holds true fifty years later and it bears grand relevance both to the DoDo crowd and to our collective consciousness.

The main premise in DeBord’s work iss that, because of our economic system, everything in our society has become a commodity. Including you and me. Our hearts and love and lust included. What DeBord called “the spectacle” was the imbroglio of images that we are bombarded with through our media, and as an extension, through our mouths. These are the images of product and commodities and celebrity. What is important within this notion is not necessarily the images or “the spectacle”, but that the spectacle has become a mediator for how people interact with one another.

In other words, “the spectacle” has provided us with an inauthentic way of interacting with one another. A way to approach this is to say that our colloquialisms and manners of communicating with others is predicated by what we see on the television; what hip hop phrases are in vogue; what stupid hand signs (i.e., “the shocker”) are prevailing. What is important here is the idea that, as DeBord wrote, “passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity”.

DeBord wrote that the problem is within the quality of life we lead. He said that, within the spectacle, life is impoverished with such lack of authenticity. He said that human perceptions are affected, and there’s also a degradation of knowledge, with the hindering of critical thought.

The importance here, is in the dearth of critical thought. Not only the act of critical thought but really, the inability to think critically at all.

The Golden Suicides: A Love Story

On July 17, 2007 artist Jeremy Blake took off his clothes on Rockaway Beach and walked into the ocean. Five days and 4.5 miles away from the beach, his body was found. In his pant pocket, left on the beach, was a note that said, “I’m going to join the lovely Theresa”.

Theresa, the girl in the note, was Blake’s girlfriend of 12 years: Theresa Duncan. Her body was found a week before in the couple’s home - a rectory of a church in New York City. She apparently died of a suicide as well.

The question has remained: What happened? Why did this highly successful pair of artists, who by all accounts were madly in love - commit suicide?

For a long time I, like many others, were obsessed by this story. Blake and Duncan were highly visible in the art world; both very talented and completely in love. But scattered around the internet (Duncan’s blog) and beyond are clues of intrigue that involve: Beck, Scientology, paranoia and a whole world of intrigue around this bizzare but beautiful pair of artists.

Read the article here:

Vanity Fair: The Golden Suicides

The Living Room Series

syntax is a blog now (too)

The Denver syntax began four years ago when internationally-acclaimed lowbrow artist Jeff Soto said, “yes”.

syntax (www.denversyntax.com) was created on the literary, quarterly tradition. And while that has served us well, we wanted to create something a little less static than our website. We wanted something that was easy, quick and powerful - without compromising the look and feel of syntax’s site.

So, a blog it is.

Here we will be sharing learned information about new art, great ideas, upcoming music events and syntax-related projects.

Enjoy.

And then:

SUBMIT TO SYNTAX.

www.denversyntax.com

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