Accidentally in Code

Tag: art

  • Game: Feminist Art Genres

    Game: Feminist Art Genres

    I love art. But my preference is for modern, abstract art. I’m not as big a fan of classical art. Mainly because it is an artistic manifestation of the patriarchy. It might not be as crude as Playboy, but the lens of the male gaze pervades. This art wasn’t made for me, because this art doesn’t recognize me as a full human being. Only (white) men get that.

    So when I find myself surrounded by classical art, I while away the time with a game that I call “Feminist Art Genres”. This is basically a game of snarky categorization.

    People of both genders are often “inexplicably naked” – this one looks like he’s texting.

    “Man, Inexplicably Naked”
    Often they come with a weapon, because why the hell not. Sometimes they don’t have a weapon but… think they do? Sometimes they have machines that may or may not work, and they may or may not know how to use. Sometimes they appear to be explaining things. Plus ça change. Woman are often moping. Sometimes clothed, often not. Which makes sense I guess, because often when I feel sad the first thing I do is take all my clothes off and lie down in a provocative position.
    Woman, moping.
    As my friend Natasha says, “I lie naked like that sometimes, but not with one stocking.”
    Woman: inexplicably naked, moping.
    Or doing emotional labour – often without clothes.
    Woman: doing emotional labour
    I’ve never held a severed head, but I imagine if I did, I would experience a wardrobe malfunction. Often you find women doing domestic tasks.
    Woman, doing domestic task.
    Women often look bored. This pairs well with the genre of “mansplaining”. It’s not just classical art, I was also inspired by a type of plant recently. And if you liked this, you might also enjoy the time I went to a museum and had a complete meltdown about POCKETS.
  • Flawed Humans

    Flawed Humans

    IMG_4312As I walked through Barcelona, I came across a tiny hidden museum dedicated to Dalí. As I admired the work, I pulled up his Wikipedia page to learn more about the artist. And discovered that he refused to decry the Nazis, and had been kicked out of the Surrealist movement in part because of it (there is far more information about this on the German Wikipedia page).

    There’s a quote from George Orwell, that I often think about in this context,

    “[o]ne ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being”

    And yet. It has tainted Dalí’s work for me. It is brilliant and yet somehow I am wary of it. The dripping clocks are beautiful but I cannot quite give into it in the same way, with the knowledge that he was so… inhumane.

    Genius is entwined with madness, with selfishness. But we look back and admire the work of artists and mostly don’t discover who they were aside from a genius.

    This extends past art, I think, to the single minded determination to achieve anything.

    Terrible parent. Numerous affairs. Alcoholic. Abusive boss. Serial womanizer. Narcissist.

    A while ago, I realised that in the activist community there are people whose work that we benefit from, but that we might personally not want to be friends with.

    It can be hard to reconcile this with a hero narrative. Personally, I’ve chosen to not criticise other women, to be publicly supportive or say nothing, and privately keep my distance.

    In the years since I discovered this, I have watched what happens to women online and wished we would talk about what it does to you to receive constant threats. It’s amazing what you get used to. I realised when I was leaving the tech industry that someone had called me a bitch and I hadn’t even noticed. I just put it in a box and mentally noted to be wary of that guy. Would death threats also become normal, given enough of them? It terrifies me, what that might do to me. I can’t be sure what that would be. I don’t know that I would like the person who resulted all that much.

    One of the most unfair things we ask of women is that they be perfect victims. I’m not sure how much of an improvement the narrative of a perfect hero is.

    I dream of a day when women can be whole, entire, flawed, human beings. And we can admire what they do, or not, where we can temper our admiration with knowledge of their flaws, if we know of them, and where we can acknowledge that some things come at a cost that most of us are not prepared to pay.

    IMG_4346

  • Teaching Chaos

    Teaching Chaos

    Chaos Theory
    Credit: flickr / Steve Jurvetson

    My friend Linda teaches drawing at University (amongst a wide assortment of things), and she was explaining a fascinating exercise to me.

    Requirements: white paper, charcoal, eraser, glue stick & tolerance for dirt.

    This is all about developing lots of strategies for recovering from errors and changes, and stumbling upon expressive, aggressive marks and effects that you can integrate into your safe, well-observed drawing.

    1.

    Start drawing the model, large, over the whole page

    Once everyone has a drawing well under way, committing to using the whole page, ask the model to change one thing about the pose, and ask the students to smudge out or erase the drawing as needed to incorporate the changed pose. Then ask the model to change again, and again. Eventually the students learn to use the smudges, ghosts and erasures as constructive marks in a drawing that combines observation and expression

    Give them a couple of tries at that. First time, they will learn what can happen. Second time, they can start to leverage the effects, not just recover from them.

    2.

    Like that, but after a couple of changes to the pose, stop the students and tell them “Tear your drawing into two pieces and keep the one you like better. Crumple the other piece up and throw it away. Look at the piece you kept. If you like it all, keep it. Otherwise, tear that in two and keep the one you like better. Lather/rinse/repeat until you have a fragment of the original drawing, a fragment you like. Glue it onto a new page and keep drawing.”

    3.

    Like that, but then put a splodge of white tempera paint or gesso into the palm of everyone’s (non-working) hand. Have them use that as hand-painted “white-out” to make changes to the drawing. Students gradually discover that they can not just erase but blend in charcoal and apply paint as highlights and other constructive marks. Erasure, tearing and patching fragments together are all still in play.

    4.

    Now play with equally messy colour – water-soluble crayola markers. Draw for a while in colourful crayola markers, then spray with water until they bleed. Integrate white tempera paint (which never perfectly covers the marker, and often blends into it) as you go. Keep brush and black ink, and all the strategies above.

    5.

    One of the hardest, weirdest experiences is working on a drawing for longer than an hour. Of working on something, and stopping, and coming back to it the next day… and holy shit it’s like it was made by a whole other person, and you need to look it over and figure out what today’s artist wants to do with it next.

    So let’s approximate that effect, fast-forward, in the classroom, with tag-team drawing

    Arrange students in a circle around a subject (still life or model), start drawing in your choice of material. One they get something established on the whole page… stop. Have them leave the drawing, pick up supplies and move to the next drawing over. Tell them to “Look at it as if it were your own. What does it need next? Do that”. Next drawing, next drawing.

    After adopting several drawings, have them come home to “their” drawing and look over the many marks and styles and changes that classmates have applied. Students then work over the whole drawing, including any of the strategies used above, to emphasise and reiterate the properties they like, downplay the things they don’t like, make some corrections and integrate the whole thing into one image

    6.

    If students are really risk-tolerant and energised by this approach, ask the very best ones to send the drawings one direction while the artists travel the other. The drawing no longer aligns with the viewpoint on the still life (or model) and students have more extreme changes to cope with, change or embrace.

    7.

    Then you give them long sustained poses with complete free will and let them apply what they’ve learned when they want to.

    How Could We Increase The Tolerance for Chaos in Software Engineering?

    1. Shifting Priorities. Assignment is a choose your own adventure – you have a list of features to add, and some discussion about priorities of each. There are a series of deadlines, and at each deadline you have to hand in a feature, but it’s up to you which. The catch – each new round of deadlines, the features and the priorities change. The worse the choices you make early on (most interesting feature instead of most important? Added bells and whistles instead of infrastructure?) the harder things will get.
    2. Shifting People. Assignment is a series of features. After each deadline, you get someone else’s code. You lose marks for re-writing it unnecessarily. Added  chaos – the features are not ordered.

    Group work is supposed to teach this – or the experience of working with other people in a team, at least, and sometimes it works, but too often one person takes on the task of writing everything. Other students can then feel alienated and inadequate, view it as their failure to be the person doing all the work. It’s actually a failure of the exercise.

  • Frankfurt, March 2014

    Frankfurt, March 2014

    [slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157644472197926″ align=”center”]

    I went to Frankfurt for the Luminale, booked after I read about it on a design blog as I love light and electronics and digital art.

    Frankfurt isn’t the liveliest of cities, but I was really happy to have a break so used the time to go for a long walk along the river (clean air!)

    I stayed at the Adina Apartment Hotel, which was fine although they charged for internet which was annoying. But you buy a pass, and you can stop start it, so it wasn’t too bad. I ate where foursquare recommended, although most of them weren’t much to write home about. This place was the best. And I went up the Main Tower, which gave some good views of the city.

    It took me a while to figure out what was going with the Luminale. I had to go to the centre to find the booklet with all the information about the pieces. This is where I found the bus, but I didn’t quite figure out that it was running on a loop, so having walked to meet it, discovered there was nothing there (apart from the booklet), I just rode it back to where I had started, realised that I couldn’t see most things because it was still light, stopped for dinner, got super lost… and then found my way to the heart of it, and started having a better time! A nice couple guided me to a park, which hosted lots of different pieces, so that was really nice. I love the idea of them being set all over the city! But they can be hard to find.

    There were some awesome pieces, but really spread out over the city so I got lost a lot, and didn’t get to see some bits that I would have liked to see. I think with another person and more time it would be super fun, you could walk around bits all evening. But by myself with only one evening to see as much as I could it was a little creepy and frantic, rushing around alone in the dark, in a quiet city. Mostly cab drivers and people who live there didn’t even seem to know what was happening! I did meet a really sweet guy who insisted on walking me to where I was headed, it was so kind of him, but late at night alone? I felt uncomfortable and slightly afraid.

    All in all, I’d go to the Luminale again. But with someone, and with more time. Because it’s not set over a weekend I had to book vacation days, so I thought one evening would be OK. It really wasn’t.

  • This Week

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    LIFE

    I sent out the first draft of my writing for That Project, which I kept not quite ‘fessing up to so here it is: I’m contributing a book chapter to the Architecture of Open Source 500 Lines or Less project. Which I’m super excited about, but have also had the usual worries about people realising I am woefully unqualified and changing their mind. With this milestone though I’m willing to entertain the probability that is all in my head, and put it out there. You can see my code here, and if you want a preview of the writing ping me because I would love the feedback.

    Prepping for my upcoming talks at iOS Con and ModevUX – working on my content and slides, scheduling some coaching from the amazing Denise. I’m also going to be on a panel at Modev, which is exciting, so I’m doing some prep for that.

    Took a vacay day to do a Stemettes workshop at Accenture. We made apps using AppShed, which is so cool! It’s so easy to make a little mobile site. And I met one of their female MDs, she was super cool. Used to code in COBOL!

    Nicely anti-social week in preparation for the craziness of next week – talk, workshop, friend in town, international flight etc. Got a lot of gym time in, I’ve been swimming more which is great, although I currently ache all over, which isn’t.

    WORK

    So little code this week (well, 3 day week) so much writing. Finally got the design document I’ve been working on for a while done enough to circulate, and wrote a little demo script. Then got cracking on another design doc.

    PLACES

    Takeout from Addie’s Thai, incredible deserts at Aux Merveilleux, sushi at Dozo (my fave). Got a bento box at ribon, which was nice. Also went to Honest Burgers which was tasty.

    MEDIA

    Yay for new episodes of The Good Wife and How I Met Your Mother, still catching up on Covert Affairs. Quite liking Melissa and Joey.  UK iTunes is annoying me so much, because it is way behind the US (I still can’t get Season 2 of Veep, or Season 3 of Hart of Dixie) and the season passes are erratic (you don’t consistently get one new episode a week). Most annoying is that I can’t get the latest two seasons of Drop Dead Diva.

    Still working on An Absolute Deception (maybe I should switch to another book), 4 Hour Body (still swimming more, now adding 75 kettlebell swings roughly every other day). Finished Manage Your Day To Day.

    Finally watched the Amy Cuddy TED talk – Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are. It’s one of those that I didn’t get around to watching for ages because I’d head so much about it and thought “OK, power poses, got it”. Turns out, that is the least of it. It’s an amazing talk, how she got into researching that and related things I found super interesting, and she talks about “faking it until you become it” which was a really powerful story. Loved it.

    Went to see the Liu Bolin aka The Invisible Man exhibit at Scream. The gallery isn’t open at weekends (so annoying) so I went on the way home from the Stemette’s event. It was great, I wasn’t sure how much better it would be, because of course I’ve seen his work online, but the full size prints are awesome. It was well worth the visit.

    Also caught The Brits Who Built The Modern World, At RIBA, which was cool although a little rushed (turns out they shut at 5, I thought I had until 6), and took a lightening tour around the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House – this huge building in the middle of London. My favourites were by Frauke Thielking (pictures of artist studio floors), Kylli Sparre (otherworldly pictures) and Samantha Fortenberry (also ethereal).

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    PUBLISHED

    Elsewhere on the internet, my Returning to The Stage… After Harassment post was republished on The Eloquent Woman (one of my favourite blogs).

    And Skills Matter put up an interview with me in advance of my iOSCon talk.

    ON THE INTERNET

  • This Week

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    LIFE

    My birthday this week, which made me angsty. So many people remembered though which was really sweet. Hung out with friends, got in some reasonable gym time. Getting the pool to myself for a while on Saturday was a highlight of my week.

    Not feeling very creative lately, I think it’s because I’ve reached this really boring part of The Project – substantially done, need to incorporate comments and edit etc. Hopefully a good break over the weekend and the bank holiday next week will help me push through this bit and make some progress.

    Had a call to prep for a panel I’m going to be on at ModevUX, the other panellists seem really cool so that is exciting.

    WORK

    Tube strike sucked, although it did mean that I was finally shut away without distractions to make progress on this document that I’ve been trying to work on for a while. My team went out to celebrate a launch, which was cool, although otherwise it wasn’t a good week. Couple of disappointments.

    Booked my flights for McLean and Seattle later this month.

    PLACES

    Incredible deserts at Aux Merveilleux, sushi at Dozo (my fave), Zuma (so expensive but amazing) and Yashin (wow!). Dinner at My Old Place (so tasty) and dim sum at Dragon Palace. Also went to My Old Dutch, Bill’s restaurant (desert), and brunch at the Troubador Cafe.

    MEDIA

    All caught up on The Good Wife, back to watching the latest seasons of Covert Affairs, Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. Also watching Melissa and Joey. Finally got around to watching The Hangover 3, which was hilarious and wrong, as were the first two.

    Still working on An Absolute Deception (I never normally take this long to finish a novel, but I’ve read it before and I’m not getting into it), 4 Hour Body (still trying out the tips, currently on cold showers – fail! – and swimming more, which is great), and Manage Your Day To Day.

    Went to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which was completely bizarre but funny. The portrayal of women was pretty terrible though, including French maid outfits with the back cut out of the skirt (tiny frilly yet insufficiently revealing of their underwear without this modification?) except for one awesome twist.

    Went to see In the Making at the Design Museum, which was really cool. All every day items stopped partway through the process. The Paul Smith exhibit I found less compelling.

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  • This Week

    This Week

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    LIFE

    Had a lovely time in Frankfurt, the Luminale was cool, although I got sick which is never the funnest. Went to Oxford for the Be The Eloquent Woman workshop which was fantastic, met some great people. Caught up with a friend, and a colleague who came over from another office in Oxford, went for dinner with a friend and his fiancee and had lunch with a woman I met a few weeks ago. Got an intro to someone about yet another potential side project, and also working on another potential speaking opportunity.

    Finally got around to unboxing my misfit wearable. And getting a haircut! Weekend is for once pure Cate-time. Art, gym, writing (want to finish this project so I can move onto other things!)

    WORK

    3 day week which is always busier. Wrote a lot of tests. Worked on a design doc. Not the greatest week, to be honest. Things with bad associations, even if in themselves they weren’t.

    PLACES

    Treated myself to dim sum from Dragon Palace (BBQ pork buns… mmm) and had dinner at Ken Lo’s Memories of China (tasty). In Oxford, had breakfast at Bill’s, and stayed at the Malmaison, a converted jail but comfortable! Although they didn’t have conditioner, which always annoys me.

    MEDIA

    Watching Covert Affairs Season 4, How I Met Your Mother Season 9, but mostly really loving Veronica Mars. At first it was pleasant background noise whilst doing other things (like email, or writing tests), and somewhere around the middle of season 1 I just got completely hooked on it. Finished The Richer Sex (such an interesting book).

    Novel-wise, reading An Absolute Deception.

    Caught the last of some amazing art shows over the weekend, including Boomoon, and stopped by the Bernard Jacobson Gallery which has these incredible pieces made from tiny wrapped packages, in different colours, so cool. Dale Chihuly: Beyond the Object was amazing, such incredible glass work. And finally I went to Sensing Spaces at the Royal Academy, which was interesting. I loved the scale, but it was pretty crowded which maybe meant I didn’t appreciate the space as much.

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  • This Week

    This Week

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    LIFE

    Quieter week this week, caught up with some uni friends but mostly hermitted after how hectic last week was! Was also still feeling sick and run down which left me exhausted and in something of an emotional funk. Trying to carve out more time for personal projects and rebalance a bit, taking 30 minutes before work one day to write made me feel exponentially better, also managed to make time to submit two conference proposals this week. Starting with easier things and trying to ramp myself up to feeling creative and also just recharge a bit. My strategy when I’m feeling this overwhelmed is taking the first step of just crossing some of the easier things off to try and feel more in control.

    Not enough gym time this week, just 2 (although I’ll also make it there Sunday afternoon), although as I was sick for half the week maybe that’s not terrible. Trying to walk more, catching the tube further from my apartment and getting off early. Got my Jawbone up switched for a new one. Maybe this one will live longer!

    WORK

    Hectic. Gave a talk. Trying (and not quite succeeding) to get on top of everything before I head to the US next week. But – I’m learning a lot and working on things that I never got to work on before, so that is great.

    Bunch of drama about my flights next week, but they are all sorted now and my upgrade for the outbound Air Canada flights came through instantly – yay!

    PLACES

    Ate at Canteen (British food, pretty nice), and HK diner (tasty Chinese food).

    MEDIA

    Still (still!) working on  The Charisma Myth, more progress this week as I didn’t read any fiction. Finished Brothers and Sisters season 5 – which brings me to the end of the show (again). Love that show, but at the end of season 5 was probably the right time to end it. Now watching Jane by Design which is cute, some light relief. Mostly listening to Tegan and Sara with a little Lady Gaga, and whatever is playing on my iPhone.

    Went to see Reverse at Rook and Raven, which is incredible. I felt a bit ambivalent about going, but the pictures on the internet don’t really capture the incredible pencil drawings, which are exquisite. The hair actually seems glossy and glowing, in a way that I wouldn’t have thought was possible.

    Also caught Out of Ice at P3. The space is cool, although hidden away, and I liked that there were actual blocks of ice melting into the pool (I wonder if they replace them?) which was cool to watch, soothing. Overall I’d agree with the Londonist Review.

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  • This Week

    This Week

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    LIFE

    Two friends in town, one from Sydney and another from California, which is lovely. Did a couple of the fancier things on my list (upmarket sushi, afternoon tea). And my dad even stopped by for an evening – although sadly we were both running around too much and only had time for a brief hot chocolate and a chat. Really nice to see people, I guess London is a place that people actually visit – another friend arrives next week, and I can’t wait to see him.

    Went on a date with a misogynist. Which was horrifying (didn’t come up with any comment I have not heard before, but he did pack a lot in to the two hours I endured with him), and being an at times reprehensible human being, I live-tweeted the experience. Many of my friends found it hilarious, and I got comments from as far away as New Zealand, so I’m glad the desolate wasteland of missed expectations that is my love-life is at least providing comic relief for others.

    Ended up missing the gym and half my weekend because I was sick, but on the upside being trapped in my apartment and vicinity did mean that I finally got to grips with my apartment and it’s now all set up as I want it – I even bought myself flowers! Also been checking out some of the local shops, there’s an independent pharmacy, flower stall, electronics (ethernet cables to connect my Apple TV/Time Capsule), and haberdashery (I bought a household thing! Crazy).

    WORK

    Stressful week. Late meetings 2 nights, although at least with a 2230 meeting I can go out for the evening and dial in when I get home. I think it’s getting better, I got some helpful advice which started “functionally you’re a PM right now, so…”, but I took it, I think it worked, and hopefully I can work towards a place where I’ll be less PM-like! I know this is part of the process of figuring out exactly what we need to do, and it will settle down. And I wanted broader impact, and remit, and to travel more – that’s what I have. And my manager is really supportive, which helps a lot.

    PLACES

    Got sushi at Zuma which is extortionate, but delicious, and we got in (seats at the counter) without a reservation. Less impressed by the desert than the sushi, many things had nuts in, and so part of the desert I picked was missing, and they would charge for a substitution – I thought I agreed to this, but it didn’t come with it, and whilst the ball of meringue looked cute it was dry. My friend got a different desert than she ordered, but it was still good.

    Dinner at Ping Pong before the theatre – one of my favourite restaurants in town, and you can tell them when you need to be out by, which is handy. Also tried the nearby Chinese restaurant/takeaway from me Dragon Palace (sadly too late for the dim sum menu, but what I did get was nice), and went back to the Troubador Cafe, which is becoming a regular weekend brunch haunt.

    My friend and I went to The Berkely for my most decadent ever afternoon tea. At 39GBP each, it’s as wildly extravagant as the fashion that inspires it, but quite the experience. We spent about 3 hours there, drinking quantities of tea (3 pots for me, I may never sleep again), and turning down offers of more cakes and sandwiches, although we did accept a to-go box each! Sadly most of the things on the menu contained nuts, and so were off the menu for me, but they put together a gorgeous selection of things I could eat. Really fabulous service, that you expect at that price, but isn’t that often found in London (or the UK). Spur of the moment thing, inspired by this list of top places to have tea in London, so we weren’t dressed up (leggings and a dress for me, jeans, Uggs, tunic for my friend) but they never made us feel under-dressed. Really lovely, definitely recommend if you want a decadent British treat. Reservations are recommended, but we got in without one.

    MEDIA

    Still (still!) working on  The Charisma Myth, too spaced out on meds to read much non-fiction but did get through Conditional Love (meh, another book about a drippy woman finding herself, and a man) and Calling Mrs Christmas (surprisingly, given my hatred of the pagan festival, I loved – relatable, positive, features long term unemployment and at-risk youth). Only one episode left of Brothers and Sisters season 4 left. More of Katy Perry’s new album (PRISM), but also Tegan and Sara – who I had no knowledge of until I saw them in Sydney last year, and now adore.

    Went to see Blurred Lines, which is completely sold out. Luckily I already had plans with a friend for the last night there were tickets, and luckily she was happy to come with me and also enjoyed it! And supervise me as I did my 9pm catch up with my group from a training I did last year whilst walking alone South Bank/in a cab/roaming Earls Court in search of hot chocolate – I think they enjoyed the impromptu tour of London. Anyway, the show itself was amazing. Just over an hour long, I was gripped the entire time. The dialogue and rhythm is fast, and smart, and it’s full of all these examples that are not the outrageous ones, and are so pervasive. Exploring consent, for example, being sidelined at work. My favourite (which seems the wrong word for something so important) was the illustration of victim blaming. Gradually, the victim gets emphasised to the point where the assailant disappears. Feminist theatre, but not of the dramatic events, but of the day to day tiny cuts. I loved it. If it was possible to get another ticket I’d go again.

    I went to see the Republic of the Moon exhibition. It’s a relatively small exhibition (6 pieces) and the first two pieces didn’t really speak to me, although I liked the trans-media aspect – Moon Meme has a website where you can see the projection of SHE onto the moon. Second Moon has an app, and I liked the piano, which plays a version of the Moonlight Sonata created by sending a transmission in Morse Code to the moon and back. Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility is beautiful – I’m not normally a fan of video installations, but this was lovely, charming. Sadly I cannot find the video online to watch in it’s entirety (at over 20 minutes and not much seating I didn’t manage to see it from beginning to end). The absolute highlight, for me, was seeing Leonid Tishkov’s Private Moon in person. I’ve been following his blog for a while, and I just adore his work – and now I have a picture of me with the Private Moon. Total art fangirl moment!

    Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s at the V&A was fun – especially with a friend to exclaim “did people really wear that? In public?” to. No pictures allowed, so I can’t share the amazing inflatable orange jacket… complete with tail, or the purple body suit with appendage tube that was worn to the club… and the supermarket.

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