Today for lunch we had Cream of Itself Soup. It tasted like…

Okay, imagine all of the flavors that could be described by a person who specializes in describing flavors, using a thousand words or less. Take the most difficult flavor of all of them to describe.

Then add cream and salt. That´s what it tasted like.

“We have a special recipe for it,” the waitress said, “We travel into the future where the soup is already made and bring the soup back, then distill it down to its essence, then add cream and spices.”

“But wouldn´t that cause a paradox?” I asked nervously.

“That´s where it gets that delicious flavor,” the waitress replied proudly.

“But what about the risks? I mean, couldn´t you accidentally destroy the universe or something, making a soup like that?”

“Well, yes,” she said, visibly unworried, “but it´s the kind of thing that risky and terrifying the first time you do it, but after a while you´ve done it so many times that you don´t even think about it. So we just travelled to the distant future and did it the first time then.”

All credit and thanks due to the author merovingian.

There are a many aggregators and readers of varying shape, complexity and benefit – and one element of Twine I particularly like is that it sends me feeds that are not always tied directly to my interests, but sometime are on the periphery.

A link through to portraits of women through the ages was a great way to start the day this morning.  Not simply for the beauty of the images it shows, nor just for the way the artist has morphed them together.

An art historian could discuss the changes in technique, perhaps in relation to the changes in society and technical processes.  An interpreter may highlight the nature of pose and implied gesture of each ‘model’.  A fabric and fashion expert, perhaps the change of clothing, its relation to social affordance or the economic interpretations of jewellery, clothing and style.

I enjoyed it for two reasons.  The first that it reminded me that I must make more of my next opportunity in London to visit the National Portrait Gallery (and to make more of their digital collections) and second, that it prompted me to consider what the next 20, 30 years of portraits would include.  What changes would different experts pick out?  The change from egg yolk binding to emulsion polymors to enhanced graphics?  Would experts talk about the lost ability of an artist to mix paints, or salute the technique of adding digital layers upon initial representations?  Would the art historian explain RFID-embedded jewellery as symbolising surveillance or enabling new social interactions?  Would the changing landscapes be interpreted as demonstrating progress or lost pasts?

Contemporary representations of the immediate are often reified (or vilified) for very specific reasons – the brushstrokes, the perspective, the new approach, the social story etc.  What intrigues me is what is left unchanged in these representations (what persists), as well as what these images tell us about change and potential change.  I’m still looking for some good examples of images of possible futures that are built on top of the current context – that show the rate of change (rather than simply ‘jumping’ to depict a new future).  Suggestions would be most wonderful, after you’ve enjoyed the show, of course.