Colin Edgington: News

Lately I’ve been really interested in THIS post at Wired’s “This Day in Tech” blog on Tom A. Warner‘s Lightning research and the images/videos that have resulted from the research.  It is interesting to think of his research in relation to the history of photography & motion and to these kinds of visual studies that have changed our perception and understanding of the physical world, natural phenomena, time and speed.  The slowing down of lightning specifically has me thinking of Eadweard Muybridge and his motion studies from The Attitudes of Animals in Motion.

One of Eadweard Muybridge's Motion Study - 1877

Warner’s Lightning

More Lightning [Source]

Even More Videos

Walter de Maria’s Lightning Field

There are enormous problems in certain ways of perceiving and treating non-human animals. One of these ways is the perception that they are possessable.  In looking at them this way, they (non-human animals) are seen as merchandise and can be related to other things that are possessable (i.e. handbags, shoes, cars & other “objects of desire”). This line of sight can lead to the thought of them as disposable.  Dogs have become accessories in which people boost their image and ego. It is an amazingly shortsighted view of the physical world. It is absolutely homocentric and ego centric.  Many states retain laws that hold domesticated animals as possessions and therefore disposable. They shouldn’t be considered possessions. Conversely I don’t believe they should be considered human either. They should be considered strictly what they are (dogs, cats, horses, etc.) and the laws (and individual responsibility) should reflect that. Dumping a dog on the side of the road is much different than dumping a couch. Dumping a dog isn’t littering, it’s abandoning.

Abandoned Pit Bull - Pic by Debbie Bonilla

Pine Tree Tops by Gary Snyder

in the blue night
frost haze, the sky glows
with the moon
pine tree tops
bend snow-blue, fade
into sky, frost, starlight.
the creak of boots.
rabbit tracks, deer tracks
what do we know.

*By (a favorite of mine) Gary Snyder from No Nature