I was finishing up my thesis at Cornell University and taking double loads of classes in art and cognitive psychology in addition to Spanish. Note the lightsaber, Motorola v200 (Awesome for texting, but the speaker broke 3 times and I swapped out for Nokia 3660 the first camera phone in the US) and various cords and a gigantor thermal wax printer (which I still own).

Enjoy the ten-year Wayback Machine, with a surprise popup of Pete Ippel 2002…and yes all the images were shot with a Sony Mavica 640×480 px and written to a 3.5″ floppy disk.

So this is where the magic happened…lots of Mt. Dew Code Red, sleeping under my desk with a blanket and the computer fan blowing hot air on me to stay warm…then waking up to go to drawing class at 9am, grabbing a strawberry Pop-Tart on the way…

Thank you goes to all my friends and collaborators who provided wonderful support and helped me finish my Thesis “Priorities” on time.

Pete Ippel "Blue Room" Studio - The birthplace of Hypermodern Art, Cornell University

2 Lightsabers, Lappy, CAT5 cable, and a Spanish Book...Typical Studio Equipent

Pete Ippel in "Blue Room" studio 2002, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Tectronix 300i Thermal Wax Printer, Macintosh, 2 servers, and a IBM Pentium 95, and the first computer I ever owned: the Compaq 1535 DM

2002, running Windows 98, this was right before I first installed Redhat Linux...

What I find particularly interesting about the current debate on Intellectual Property is the fact that IP even exists.

If everyone gives their work away for the betterment of humanity, many people benefit. I have watched Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) grow for quite some time and it has a vibrant community based solely on sharing. Every piece of content is Public Domain. In the last week it’s received a massive influx of new users.

STOP SOPA / PIPA David B Lyons / davidblyons SOPA and PIPA are real threats to the free and open Internet. Although recent media reports have suggested that the bills are losing support, they are not dead. On January 17th, SOPA's sponsor said the bill will be discussed and pushed forward in early February. PIPA could be debated in the U.S. Senate as soon as next week. There is a need to send a strong message that bills like SOPA and PIPA must not move forward: they will cause too much damage. Download, remix, and share the image from Open Clip Art Library http://openclipart.org/detail/167202/stop-sopa-by-davidblyons-167202

Imagine a world where where that hurdle didn’t exist.

Learn more about SOPA, PIPA, and the Wikipedia Blackout.

Download, remix, and share the image from Open Clip Art Library http://openclipart.org/detail/167202/stop-sopa-by-davidblyons-167202

I found a piece of paper that I had forgotten about that was written last Friday. On it was the immediate morning scrawlings of a semi-conscious me. Here’s the dream drama:

A tall Asian curator female in a silk dress, very kind asked me to redo an older painting, so I cut it up and added digital sound and video (likely with a Milkymist) then my Dad and I work on it for a few days. During the installation (it was crated the day before) with all the chaos of the opening it was very hard to find the crate. Just in the nick of time the project was found and installed. In addition there was a device/sculpture component where the original 2d image was a city scape and transformed into a rolling chain of images joined with flexible joints, like a dragon kite.

One of the components was a window frame with the initials NJ in the frame…likely meanig New York was the skyline. Very exciting way to wake up. Everything got finished and the installation was complete right as I woke up.

The dream could have been influfluenced by the chain in Doris Humphrey’s water study, or the fact that I had gone to the studio with my father who was working with folks in wheel-chairs being propelled with whipping momentum across the stage the day before…plus I was anticipating building a crate before I left for California the 10th.

I want to bring you the ultimate satisfaction so that when you see my art in your home you are filled with energy. The way I explained it to a friend the other day is that my art is the opposite of the broken antique lamp that your grandma gave you…

Every time you walk past that thing you never know if you should throw it out or get it fixed, but you don’t know where to get it fixed, and it’s never high enough on the priority list, so it just sits there – unused – collecting dust and occupying a space in your home and your mind.

Art is freedom, when you walk past or think about a piece you are nourished by its energy surplus. You know who put in the effort and the piece resonates with your core. It’s something to share with your family, your friends, and you have a close personal relationship with the artist. I have a vast portfolio of completed art pieces that I am sharing for your enjoyment. In addition, I am dedicated to collaborating with you to produce the ultimate custom creation.

Everyone deserves to have excess energy in their home, and I’m happy to cooperate with you to attain it. Come by the studio, and see the art in person, and if not check it out on line. As my dear friend and artist Jacquelyn Strycker said on her blog post about the recent record setting Picasso sale “if you have a hundred million or so to spend on art, or even if you have significantly less, consider making a culturally significant, yet economically and societally responsible purchase” by supporting local and emerging artists.

Pragmatically synthesizing massive amounts of rich, asynchronous information and transforming it into manageable action-oriented tasks distributed on multiple channels is vital for survival.

Success will be insured by focusing on the humanities in economy and education by appealing to the empathic human experience.

Technological advances (Moore's Law) and biological systems (population growth) follow the green curve and I surmise that more brains may augment faster tech growth

The good news is as we continue to move forward in time, we step *more* rapidly toward the infinite possibility of understanding what it means to BE.

What a beautiful curve.

MacGyvero (adj.) MacGyverismo (noun) is a portmanteau coined by Pete Ippel and Peter Roberge that aids English speakers in the United States to understand the Chicano concept of Rasquache, that is both functional in American-English and sounds like Spanish.

The intent of MacGyverismo is to create positive associations among Mexican-Americans (Chicanos), original problem solving, new methods, and creative thinking.

Ask an American-English native speaker to think of someone who did the most with the least in tough situations: MacGuyver, the pop culture reference of resourcefulness, comes up consistently…often with a half-smile of nostalgia.

The starting of a car with a cactus, a nickel, and a string may be a bit of hyperbole, and MacGyver has his fair share of parody…yet the general connotation is positive.

Why is that? Because the main actor is white? Because MacGyver isn’t poor or in a marginalized culture?

There is contradiction because when performed by a non-white American, innovative repairs are castigated by pejorative words such as ghetto, hack, and jury-rigged which often have a negative connotation.

MacGyverismo is functional in explaining a complex notion to someone who only has the capacity to describe objects with the aforementioned terms. MacGyverismo imbues an odd sense of respect to an oft-dismissed practice of solving problems with available materials…a key trait of artists in any culture.

Inspired by the exhibition at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, California entitled Chicano Visions

"I'm taking the question marks in my life and bending them into exclamation points. I am the human interrobang." Pete Ippel #ALLRISK ‽

Learn more about Martin K. Speckter, innovator of punctuation.

Thank you to @rejon for Fabricatorz @pianoBrad for wonderful avatar creation video tutorial unleashing the power of Inkscape to create and share. Download inkscape. Thank you to @n8willis @christopheradam @davelab6 for revealing the awesome and useful interrobang, News Cycle, and your vast font knowledge. Also gratitude goes out to @WebChickBot and Point.B Studio for supporting and sharing ALLRISK in the Artists In The Information Age Exhibition.

SHARISM is a Mind Revolution: The more you share, the more you receive. It is a ideology which promotes the sharing culture and economy as a way of thinking.

Those that support conceptual art (performance art, video art, social sculpture, happenings etc.) art are mocked by those that do not understand it…and the myth of disbelief, shock, and awe is perpetuated by popular media.

Mimicry is common BECAUSE there is a long history of conceptual art, even when it’s lost.

Shovel by bsabarnowl http://www.flickr.com/photos/bsabarnowl/

Even the name Praxis is a lifted reference.

The history of conceptual art that James Franco tries to explain (the fellow on the Jimmy Kimmel Show) has strong roots in the Bay Area, as does video art. That’s why I chose to study for my MFA in New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute. The Bay Area boasts artists: Tony Labat, Linda Montano, Doug Hall (AntFarm), Sharon Grace, Paul Kos, David Ireland, Karen Finley, and many, many more.

The Museum of Conceptual Art was created by one of my mentors, Tom Marioni. Tom is a big fan of Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade. Hypermodern.net represents 12 years of conceptual art education and I’m constantly asked, what for?

Simply, as Cathy Malchiodi writes, the massively important restoring power of imagination.

The phrases “art heals” and “art saves” have become ubiquitous and will continue to circulate; like many catch-phrases, they are just too cool to go away. Like any popular slogans, they blur real meaning; in this case the actual purpose of art is often forgotten.

Cathy summarizes further synthesizes and interprets Ellen Dissanayake’s book What is Art For?

1) Makes life special.
2) Engages the senses.
3) Involves rituals.
4) Enhances community.

When was the last time you went to an art show and got an experience, a prize, a few bucks, and a great story and thought differently about the present moment you just experienced. Free Memory. Free Money. Free Ideas…and a 2 minute smile free from economic stress. Or was it referencing the financial collapse, throwing money in a hole, and making peons work for it doing crazy tasks that don’t mean anything by diverting their own lust for financial gain? Why did they follow the rules of the over arching system? The title of the piece of mine is “Free Money, Sticky Fingers” made at SomArts. Check out their open call for more art in the hole.

Sound like art?
Yes.

Sound like MTV’s Jackass?
Yes.

Sound like conceptual art?
Yes.

Is everything art?
No.

Is everyone an artist?
No.

That’s why I can auction a crispy 100 bill and get $115.00 for it and be present in hundreds of people’s minds.

Thank you R. Mutt

When critiquing or defending artwork remember three core concepts: intent (what did the artist want to express), context (where, when, and who are they showing it to), and liability (will it put the artist or anyone else in danger, will it cost money from the artist or public, does it exclude anyone, does the artist take responsibility for the piece).

It all matters. Or maybe the medium is the message, or maybe the medium is the massage.

It’s about knowing that life is finite, as is energy in any given form or shape. Energy flows out and in, to and from any vessel, and energy cannot be destroyed.

ROMA O MORTE (Rome or Death): Rome, Italy 2003 by Pete Ippel

Openness allows for boundaries to exist, just as boundaries allow for openness…Thereby creating a vessel for energy. If there are no boundaries, there can be no peace nor present.

ALLRISK
?

Look at the difference between a baleen whale vs. a sea sponge. Both can commonly be understood as “filter feeders”. However the difference between the two is active vs. passive filtering.

Búðir (Snæfellsnes- og Hnappadalssýsla, Iceland : Farmstead)

When I say artists make decisions, they are whales, actively seeking nourishing content following instincts, and making decisions through experience and technique.

Artists and whales sift and process…having the sense and experience to follow others, to collaborate when appropriate, to capture sustenance together. Other times they seek a solo journey of thousands of miles…alone.

The pod, the nurturing behavior, and the desire to migrate are not mutually exclusive.

Meanwhile the sea sponge just spends the day eating what passes by in a static community. It is rooted to a rock and passively consumes anything that floats through. It is forced to accept what it is provided.

Active vs. passive: interactive vs. transmissive : hypertext vs. broadcast: The act of seeking is important.

…and artists are still Apex-Apex Predators culling their own ideas.