Who recognizes his limitations is healthy;
Who ignores his limitations is sick.
The sage recognizes this sickness as a limitation.
And so becomes immune.


“I don’t have any ideas myself; I have a vacant mind, in order to do exactly what the inspiration calls for… Art is responded to with emotion… art is not intellectual at all. … I guess I am rather extreme. I think we don’t deserve any credit. The inspiration comes to me and tells me exactly what to do… I gave up all of theory… so that leaves me with a clear mind. … An empty mind, so when something comes into it, you can see it… “

“Digital computers and software technologies are holistic; they think in terms of whole structures.”

Video 80(5):36-41. 1982. Bill Viola, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House, pg. 101. Editor. Robert Violette. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.



Communication #1: Computers, Slavery and Making Art

Jean Piché: “…virtuosity. Not as in pyrotechnics but as in transcendence. The ultimate, and for me desirable, absence of technical reference.” (1997)

online book

Fritjof Capra – website


Friends of Orbit Bright – a racistly-white parody site promoting chewing gum and chastity (sex!). Painfully obvious perpetual brand placements. It’s aimed at (post-)tweeners who believe in god but want to get laid.

Outlook Theatre – a car made glamorous through association with video vignettes of a perfect family and immaculate romantic moments. Light fluffy and efficient consumer waltz. It’s aimed at the wife archetype who wishes she could drive away.

UFC66 – an Ultra fighting championship labyrinth full of snarling warriors and big time money. It’s aimed at soldiers, the dispossessed and anyone who needs to fight just to survive. The myth of a champion is needed only by the defeated and oppressed.

Open Letter Home Page
“…a journal of critical and theoretical discussions of poetics and Canadian culture, written primarily by Canadian writers and artists.”

TCR – The Capilano Review

Intertheory Press


an academic press specializing in cultural theory and criticism