World-building notes for Jewel of the Boreal, panel 11: “City of Art and Science”

Members of Central Shield Civic Corps conduct the operation of construction A.N.T.s (Autonomous Networked Things) as they repair a carbon capture coil near Superior City. The line between work and play is at best a fuzzy affair in Central Shield. Every citizen is expected to participate as a member of the Central Shield’s Civic Corps. Duties run the range from simple park maintenance to more complicated activities like construction and engineering of the megastructures. In … >> read more

Photo of a two page spread in the book Criticial Visualization.

Diagrams for Critical Visualization

In 2021 I made a series of diagrams for a book called Critical Visualization by Peter A. Hall and Patricio Davila. It was published at the end of 2022 and the contributor copies recently arrived. As the title suggests, this work takes an in depth look at how data is presented and how the viewer of visualizations can understand and accommodate for the inevitably biased systems that produce the data and its representations. It is … >> read more

Happy Sleepy Bolt

Guided creative visualization with Dr. Martin Rossman to worry properly, relax deeply, and sleep naturally

Happy Sleepy Bolt resting under a palm tree on the beach in Bocas del Toro, Panama, 2014. The videos in this post are free lectures and guided meditation sessions created by Dr. Martin Rossman. The videos in the first half of this article explain how our brains and bodies actually work, why and how to use creative visualisation and why it is so powerful, as well as what sleep even is, how it works, and … >> read more

Sculpture of an eye on a sparkly tear pedestal

Using Dall-E in the process of developing the walking crying eye sculptures

“Sculpture of an eye on a sparkly tear pedestal” DALL·E 2022-11-01 14.21.09 A recent meditation on grief and perseverance produced ideas of “an eye standing on a pedestal of or walking on legs made of its own tears”. The language snippets were put into Dall-E and here are some of the results “Textile sculpture crying eye embroidered iris glass tear support” was the text and the AI is having some difficulty here with the concept … >> read more

American chestnut Castanea dentata as a prince in a throne

North American native hazelnuts, acorns, chestnuts, and plums photographed in the garden studio

Native American plums and nuts arranged as a mandala for curing in the garden shed that doubles as the photography studio, when such beauty is present. This mandala features nuts and fruit all native to north eastern North America and is possible through the work and generosity of PJ Chmiel who for the last decade has been restoring the soil and planting a native food forest near Kalamazoo, Michigan. A visit earlier in the week … >> read more

Little Terror written on a leaf

Writing messages to the subconscious

A little terror goes a long way. A plea to the subconscious, and a promise! I will listen, I promise. I will listen so that only a little terror goes a long way. Three steps of hesitation translates to three months of delay. When we get a message, we must listen, fully, clearly, and without delay we must respond. The houseplants have been shedding old leaves as the seasons change, giving another surface for art. … >> read more

Adspace Oasis

Adspace Oasis: imagining a truly public online space without advertising

Adspace Oasis – art instead of advertising Imagine an Adspace Oasis in your fav online hangouts! Real public space where we and our  friends could be served art of our choice vs advertising. #adspaceoasis There is no truly public space online to hang, only malls, private livingrooms, lobbies of trading floors. Rather miserable. In times of the plague, I really missed walking through crowds, in a city or at a festival or beach and hearing … >> read more

Garden studio with green coffee burlap and cats

Working with green coffee bean burlap bags in the garden studio, with cats

Cats having a snack on the project burlap, with the cat fort in the background. Cat assistants were in full snacking and supervision mode in a recent outdoor studio session in the garden. A sunny weekend of high temperatures saw us drag our projects out of the basement studios and onto the circle lawn. Such a strange experience, to have such a warmth and angle of light but with no leaves on trees! Marc works … >> read more

Welcome to Dee Double Dub title panel

Welcome to Dee Double Dub

Two online workshops coming up for Dee Double Dub, one at the Science Gallery in Detroi and one at Subtle Technologies in Toronto. Catch both online!

Drawing a Thousand Plateaus: 10 000 BC, paragraph 44b

Instagram Press for Drawing a Thousand Plateaus

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cole Economy (@americawhispers) @americawhispers put together this neat little profile of Marc and some of our projects. Thanks!

Happy Sleepy February Rain embroidered art toy

Happy Sleepy February Rain hand embroidered textile sculpture

Happy Sleepy February Rain, wool and cashmere coating, cotton embroidery by hand, fusible interfacing, polyester stuffing, 2020 Happy Sleepy February Rain – the name of this little soft sculpture and the blue embroidery dashes on a grey cashmere background tell a story of the end of winter 2020 by the Detroit River. February accommodates well hunkering down to do some hand embroidery, both to pass the winter and to rescue the mind with creativity and … >> read more