A brief guide to my previous blogging

I have been using this blog for a few months now for an assignment which was given to me for the "Starting Out" module for the B.A Sonic Arts course at Middlesex University where I am currently studying.

For this assignment I had to write about an artist, institution, gallery, publication, and medium of my choice in a blog of my own.

I went through a period of not really knowing what I should write about and some of my indecisiveness is apparant through earlier blogs which I have posted on here. However I did come to decide on what I would write about and my research into these areas are ones which I hope will contribute to my own art and practice in future.

I chose to write about the medium of skepticism, an area I am interested in as I consider myself a skeptic. My chosen artist was magician and skeptic James Randi. I wrote about the James Randi Educational Foundation for my institution. A video gallery available on the JREF website with videos relevant to my research in the areas already mentioned (although YouTube.com also seemed to play a large part in my research and blogging). Finally my publication was the JREF blog, although obviously I found myself reading other online publications for research purposes towards this project.

I wanted to write about five different things that were all closely related and had something to do with skepticism as overall this was the main thing that I wanted to research and learn more about. I also felt that by taking this approach I could find research that would be appropriate to more than one area which I was writing about.

All the research, learning and writing I have done throughout this project is all relevant to my future practice as a sound artist as I believe that it will help me develop ideas and influence me in future when working on art which I hope will incorporate skepticism somehow, as this is an area I would like to pursue in exploring through my own artwork.

Latest SWIFT

The following link will take you to the latest SWIFT posting. Posted on the JREF blog, James Randi writes about various current affairs concerning skepticism and his organisation.

http://www.randi.org/joom/swift/swift/swift-may-2-2008.html

Randi speaks of figures and evidence which could debunk astrology. An area which I would like to pursue in debunking myself or showing to be nothing more than an illusion through my own practice and artwork as it is something that is so widely accepted and believed.

Randi also speaks of evidence against the ramblings of scientology. I have talked about my opposition to the church of scientology in a previous post on this blog and it still stands as something that I would wish to speak out against in my artwork due to the dangerous nature of the church and its persistance in making money from it's members.

The most interesting article in this latest SWIFT post is about how children are brainwashed into being opposed to the idea of evolution. Randi speaks of ignorance in this article and it made me aware that ignorance can be a dangerous thing and this is possibly why I got into skepticism and made me feel more encouraged to incorporate these ideas and concepts into my own practice and help speak up against such things that I'm opposed to and help others to not be so ignorant.

Bullshit! Episodes

http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/home.do?source=m_ptbs_aprilnews

Following this link, you'll find episodes of Penn and Teller: Bullshit! for download.

This programme is a skeptical television programme, hosted and produced by magicians and skeptics Penn and Teller (who I have talked about in previous blogs).

The episodes of this show have been educational and informative to me in my pursuit of truth through skepticism. It offers opposing view points that you rarely hear with evidence to back it up, as well as debunking of paranormal claims and the anatomy of tricks are revealed.

This is all relevant research and learning towards my interest in skepticism which could become a main focus or influence in future work.