Afterlife Avatars

One of the unique human traits is the preservation of memories of the people that have passed away from our lives. We keep their pictures, stories, personal items, video and audio recordings, and other reminders about who they were and what they meant for us. Sometimes, the necessity to communicate with someone who has passed away is so strong (due to overwhelming emotions, unresolved guilt, superstitions, etc), that we employ the use of psychics and palm readers and fortune tellers to help us reach out to our dear ones. I think it is inevitable that soon we will be able to do the same with the cyber-world representations, or Avatars, of our friends and family who have left us. I would like to see how people’s behaviors and interactions with the Afterlife Avatars (AL-atar) will shape and change overtime.

It is not so hard to imagine how much an avatar can eventually come to resemble its owner. As technology evolves ever faster, it is possible that avatars will evolve into intelligent entities with the ability to mimic and preserve our behavior and thought processes. We leave tremendous amounts of data about who we are and how we act - on social sites like Facebook and Myspace, in virtual environments like Second Life, in our financial/spending history, in our mailboxes and personal files, etc. As Artificial Intelligence evolves and we use more sophisticated computational mechanisms - recursive logic, neuronal networks, evolutional algorithms and quantum computing (Kurzweil), just to name a few - it is possible that our avatars will learn how to think and act like us. It is also possible that we will become more attracted to avatars primarily due to their quality to closely resemble us, and thus we will go to great lengths to design them in our liking. Furthermore, it is possible that the AL-atars will not stop where we have left and will continue to develop further and “live” on.

When I pass away what will my friends do with my Facebook page? Will they simply visit it to leave their condolences? Will they engage in conversations among themselves about who I was and what I meant to everybody? Will they ever wish to communicate with me via my AL-atar? Sure, they will know that I am dead and they are dealing with something that thinks and acts like I do, but how far can and will they go in believing my AL-atar? If my AL-atar is just like me - it can leave similar comments, likes, ask questions, provide interesting links - where is the borderline between the real me and the fictional me? Will my grand-grand-grand-grand-grandchildren ever want to communicate with me and ask me for some advice? How will humans’ perception of the dead change in general? If more and more almost-identical versions of ourselves start to populate cyber-worlds in the near future, will we pay the same kind of attention to cemeteries? Is it possible that AL-atars will start to communicate with other AL-atars? What can come out of this? AL-atar sounds a lot like Altar, and ironically, the symbolic meaning is pretty similar too. How will our Altar-keeping culture transform in the AL-atar future?

Artificial Intelligence

I had a heated argument with my friend yesterday about whether one type of intelligence can create another type that is more intelligent than itself. I have to say that she was convincing in smashing all of my theories and hypothesis (why I thought this would be possible) and won primarily thanks to this idea: whatever model of artificial intelligence we create will be a reflection of who and what WE are, and since we have a limited knowledge of ourselves, the model would never go beyond these limitations. In other words, the model would never stop being just a model, instead of being something complete and perfect. No matter how complicated the logic behind the computational and thinking process of a computer, it will not be able to grasp what WE (humans) haven't grasped yet because we did not include it in the design of the computer's logic. Its like saying that because we haven't grasped the understanding of our conscious process (the subjective perception of ourselves) we haven't grasped the meaning of our behavior. So in a way, we can perceive ourselves as a form of intelligence designed by someone else who is invisible yet always around and observing us and keeping us in check and not letting us figure out why we know that joy is really joy and sadness is sadness and why we are who we are. I know there is me who acts and does things a certain way, but I really don't understand how I do all of these things. My model is so perfect that it knows how to do everything without me ever worrying about anything - I just concentrate on being me. Well who are we and what is our purpose on this planet? Can the computer ask the same question on its own, without being pre-programmed to do so?

Lets consider the evolution of life (a form of intelligence) from the very beginning. The Eastern and Western philosophies approach this question from two different directions. According to the Western philosophy, matter came before reason. Thus, it took a very long time for any type of reasoning or intelligence to form out of the chaos of our universe. And later, through processes of Darwinian Natural Selection (survival of the fittest), humans evolved as the most intelligent of all known species. According to Eastern philosophy, it was the ultimate Reason (Ahura Mazda) that gave birth to matter in the universe. Just like a bolt of lightening, reason struck and matter started forming. Physics is of the opinion that matter and energy(reason) are essentially the same thing (duality of light, electrons, etc). None of this still explains why certain random, totally clueless bits of tiny matter started to self-organize and form into shapes and bits of larger matter and reproduce and decide what to do for itself. Darwin's theory is only applicable to organisms that are complicated enough to replicate, but it doesn't explain the early stages of the origin of life. Well, if and when we finally understand how simple lifeless matter turns into not-so-simple matter that is alive, would we be able to design something similar and breathe life into it? No matter how we approach this subject, we get stuck in the loop and can't break out of it. It is possible that we are not capable of finding the answer due to the computational limitations of our brain power. Can we hope to find the answer once the technology surpasses our thought-processing limitations? Or are we faced with a flawed argument, like a Zen riddle which originally implies that there is no solution... Whatever the case may be, I see Artificial Intelligence as a tool for building world models and better understanding who we are.

Arms & Legs

Arms and Legs from Chris Franks on Vimeo.

STEM

stem logo by Alexandra Davidoff

Artificial Muscles

ARTIFICIAL MUSCLES from Djakhangir Zakhidov on Vimeo.

STEM

I finally started a company
STEM: Science Technology Education Media.

Current STEM project - Carbon Nanotube Aerogels, a film about a unique new material unlike any others in nature.
Next STEM project - building the STEM website, designing logos, business cards... my new STEM identity.
Everlasting STEM initiative - finding new stories and clients, understanding market demand, accumulating IP
STEM searching for - after effects experts, art director, 3D animators
STEM needs - MONEY!

Gitar

I never been lonely....
cause me so cool
baby you ever possibility
play with me

mmmm
Iaaai never been clever
because need it never
baby you ever possibility
play it with me

gitar gitar gitar gitar
come to my buduar
gitar gitar gitar gitar
jump to my yaguar...

-Peter Nalitch

Thermoacoustics and Carbon Nanotubes

Nanotechnologists are exploring new fields of sound design AKA Building a sound speaker has never been so easy and... hot?

Just yesterday, with my own eyes, I saw one of those - a sound speaker that doesn't have a vibrating membrane or any moving parts, is not bulky and complicated, and is so simple in design it would make you spasm with joy. Super thin Carbon Nanotubes, when stretched as a sheet, will emit sound while electric current is applied to them. Its thermoacoustics y'all! In layman's terms here's what happens: when you send electricity through these super tiny threads of carbon they release little bursts of heat into the air, agitating the air molecules and changing the air pressure around them - make acoustic vibrations that we discern with our ears. This has been long known in the world of physics and just recently a team of Chinese scientists published an article in Science that shows CNT (carbon nanotubes) sheets as ideal for this purpose.

So anyway, yes, this is super wild and amazing, and has been shown to me and I even have a video clip of it. Why am I so excited about this? Because when I first saw it I was truly amazed! I was looking at a clear plastic box with some ultra thin threads of wire stretched from one end to the other and that, connected to a radio through an amp, was playing a song by Outkast! The wire never vibrated or moved, but produced heat that i perceived as sound. Well, and I could also feel the heat on my hands when I moved them right over. It wasn't perfect sound reproduction, in fact it was far from perfect with more treble and not enough base, but still, that shit was FREAKY COOL. I'm sure with enough tweaking it will sound good. You can have sound come out of your t-shirt or your name card, better yet, your poster of Bob Marley! That's some mad gritty nano steez :)

A day at the farm

Take 35W South if you're driving from Denton, then exit onto FM 2449 and go until the going presses hard across your hands, far far away you'll make a left down on Robinson and then another right and a left and you get there. Watch for kids and dogs and hens running everywhere because running one down would be unpleasant. As you step out your car get your camera and voice recorder and start to record thoughts every minute, quick laconic notes about where your heart and soul is, where the love hidden comes through yearning for hay and dirt. Where shadows whisper to your ear about who you after now. Follow while the time permits, follow words without origin.. Today is peace kitchen. Chris is there since early pre-dawn cooking and shining his skill, making the best food you'll find west of Mississippi on that particular day: fruit drinks, cast iron dishes delicious, veggies, roots, wheat grass and beets mmmm. Next comes the spiral hug which extracts the final wow of hypnotic suspension, we're all suspended on each other's hands, each other's breaths, spiraling into the abyss of our childhood memories, looking through the clouded mirror. Then I see a friend of mine is there and she jumps up and down the trampoline and shadows the light particles landing on my brow, its like when you go rowing in the deep river and decide to stay for a while in the middle, mad chillin on them flows. Upon closer inspection of the farm you realize that there's a presence the blue grey wolf, he shifts back and forth mystified by the rising fumes across the plateau. As you follow him within you, you discover a house built from sandbags and barbed wire, a welcoming round structure reminiscent of an upturned well, with water-air flowing around it in slow circles. You enter, and once you look up into the round hole on the top you immediately fall through and stumble up into the blue beyond, past leaves and branches, past oxygen, past the cold and many layers of history, straight into a spiraling stream of the time-space echo system. And it's in that unusual place that things start to happen, its there that you discover a new link - new you.

The Night of the Purple Moon

Rocksichord tune next to a giant bass tree and a shadow-net horn on the sun... what words can describe the total migration, the direct capitulation of morals. Anything is possible and death is near. By the time this music reaches you it must have travelled a very long distance, and because of that it sounds distant and thin, like fm radio jazz, yet its so overwhelming in content, something you'd wish to hear on a soccer field played by a big band. And right then and there the melody grows out and escapes its intentions, seeping under your thoughts and resting in remote pools that you'll only notice later. Climbing a stairway you stumble upon doors with numbers and you simply turn the buttons and the electric sounds start merging. Electricity flows through your blood. The sun also rises. If you've listened to organ music you'll know how the liquid flows, its a moog dream, a Muaddib soldier under lunar slopes awaiting the slow ascension of the purple star. Like when you go drinking on your own and on the way home you drunkenly stumble upon a secret and sad society of tax collectors. Quiet solitary men with the midnight burden of reminding you about your taxes. They only come out on a full moon because then its so bright and thick nobody can actually hear them. There aren't many of them but you wouldn't mistake one when you saw him, whispering while chewing on a cigar, invisible notes, semantic hiss of sorts. You hear the message yet it never physically arrives anywhere.

These lunar soldiers occupy a certain time and place, surrounded just like we are, by the immensely rich organism of our universe. Instead of snake handlers and shamans they have the purple night of the dying moon when visions arise before them. And in these visions they see a green planet, with a strange name - Earth. And on this planet live Earth people that do the Sun-Earth Rock, the All of Everything. Its interesting to them, to know this.

learn, son

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Originally uploaded by joehangir

Here's a campaign to promote higher/better education at schools and universities. Straightforward, loud, and simple - Learn, son!

Searching: Hunter

ISO hunter. Seeking real hunter to hunt my food for me. Will pay top dollar for use of bow & arrows, knife, or fishing pole. Fresh Roadkill ok, but NO supermarket food. Will do my own skinning.

This bold CL Ad has inspired me to make a short film. In this film a couple of city dwellers start a hunters club, undergo profound changes, and rise up in arms against the establishment. Roadkill OK, Asian babies fine, goats, cats, whatever isn't fast enough to run away from us. Pictures taken as proof of good successful endeavors, videos on youtube with anonymous smiles. New hunting styles will evolve quickly - off road jeep rodeo, lawnmower donkey chase, fb cyber sprawl, moghul tactics + google maps, nomadic techies. Soon everyone will go back to hunting because its healthy, cheaper, and green. Slender fit healthy hunter chicks will take over and kill the couch potato.

R.I.P. John Updike

I have only read two of his novels, Brazil and The Witches of Eastwick, and I know only a little about his biography, but i don't need much else to accept him as one of the True Greats of the 21st Century. John Updike's stories are direct commentaries about us - the people, witty reminders of who we really are - sex-obsessed, troubled, vulnerable, charming, decaying beings. His novels are full of magic and surrealism, they communicate on many levels, but most importantly, they are honest. Unthinkable transformations of character and flesh take place in Brazil, yet they are so real that I can't find any strength to dismiss their possibility - love prevails in the most unusual way at the end. In The Witches of Eastwick, Darryl Van Horne's sermon alone is worthy of highest praise and absolute admiration, its genius! Updike's style of writing is elegant and erotic, its seducing and bewildering, it will make you tremble and ask yourself some serious questions. Its a pity we lost this great man, but I am happy that I have yet to discover so many of his works.

Smile

Today i went by starbucks (ugh) to get a black eye (i just learned it means a dopio in a tall coffee) and as i was pulling out I had a woman from another car smile at me... It was the kind of a smile that remains for a while in your memory, sincere and beautiful. She was laughing at the ugly hat on my big head, but in a loving way, like it was ok. Kind of like if you mix Christmas and high school romance, or your first kiss gone awkward. She was gorgeous, European-like, probably a mother of some pretty kids and a loving husband, a member of some yoga club, organic shopper, etc. But what fascinated me most was that while smiling at me she belonged to me only, yes, that's the way it felt. You know, like she loved me... And then it all ended and the rain and winter cold took over.

Tokyo April 2008

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Originally uploaded by joehangir

Finally getting to some of those old pics. Pet em!

One-hand clap

Tokyo - April 18, 2008

On a train to interview an expert on Hildegar. Some top-notch philosophy guru will talk about his books and ideas. I won't understand anything but i'll get something out of it. Pretty lady sitting across the isle from me. We keep looking at each other. I like her eyes - Asian clarity, like two ripe pears split open. Her legs are slightly crooked and her toes facing each other. Straight black hair like long sewing needles... She just left. Been raining hard last night and this morning. Screen door fell off and did a little wet dance across balcony floor. Trees shook and rippled and rain drops found their way into everything. Udon lomein soup with dried tofu bits for breakfast, delicious! I feel like a vegetable - a Japanese pickle. Bodily fluids renaissance. Soon I'll start growing sprouts from my knees and elbows. Salty. Squeeze me, please. Life in Japan is hard because people are not encouraged to dream and to go after whatever they want. Its not that they can't get what they want, its more about them not knowing how to want it. I wonder if they'd appreciate a good slap across their face. I know i would, if someone slapped me in earnest. The kind of a slap that rings in your ears and allows you to escape, even if for an instant, from a prison of illusions. Hmm, what's that sound of the one-hand clap?... My stop.

Modern Day Virgin

When Musashi, the double-handed swordsman sired his woman, he thought of the earth, the sword, and the bloody battle. Just as one should think of a mother, a whore, and a muse when choosing a Modern Day Virgin.

So, who's this Modern Day Virgin? She's every guy's secret ideal. A woman that loves you unconditionally, gives you the best lay each time, and can keep your intellect in an excited state for the hottest mindfuck ecstasy. She has conquered the vice of this century. A digital wiz, and a frequent blogger, she is a lioness mother teaching her cubs the art of lonewolf war. She is a lion's mate, a victorious madam. In bed she's like Serge Gainsbourg's daughter knowing which goes where and how to count backwards. She is somebody you stole first and then let free immediately after, into the wilderness of love. I'm trying to find her.

Fashion for Umi

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Originally uploaded by joehangir

Carla.

We were doing a shoot for Umi and met Carla at the farmers market in Dallas. We approached Carla by the taco stand and asked if she'd model for us, and without any hesitation she agreed. I think some really nice images came out.

Umi is a fashion designer from Uzbekistan (my homeland). Check her website: www.umicollection.com

Gran Torino review

Walt Kowaltski (Clint Eastwood) is a grumpy old man whose life isn't going so well. Walt is not exactly a family man, he doesn't understand his two sons and their demanding wives and kids, he is probably repulsed in general with the idea of a family. A Korean War vet, Walt lives in a neighborhood that went from being a cozy white community to a buzzing nest of asian invaders with their strange traditions and comic street gangs. Walt gets to meet one of them, a troubled adolescent who tries to steal Walt's prized Gran Torino, and is clearly in need of some guidance. But Walt doesn't care - he as openly despises his sons as he does his neighbors, the kid, his barber, and Father Janovich - the new minister. The heavily racist and culturally derogatory language adds another dimension of conflict to the film. And then something happens that changes all of this...

Clint Eastwood delivers another good western, different, but a western nevertheless. Just as with the spaghetti westerns, there is a play of masks - all of the characters are hyper real as if etched on paper in cartoons on wanted stickers... these are archetypes we are so used to: vagabond, wandering nomad, criminal, intruder, law enforcer, love interest, the good guy vs. bad guy, etc. Clint Eastwood's is the most interesting mask - changing under light and shadow, sculpted from mountains and granite, both revealing and blank. All of the elements of the genre are there: honor, gunfight, "confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier", justice. And as with all good westerns we are presented at the end with the final stand down battle... See it!

8/10

Older

When do you start feeling like you've grown older? I think it happens when you suddenly realize that certain things don't matter the way they used to. You are not alarmed by the realization that there's nothing to do, you don't mistreat people like you used to because it was a sad fun thing to do, you forgive the moments of awkwardness introduced by somebody younger. When you find yourself in a certain dangerous or risky situation you handle it with ease and complete mastery and actually savor any sign of possible defeat, because you'll laugh at it. You observe weather differently too, it all makes sense. The moon cycles, migrations of bees and pollen, corn harvest time, the shifts in blues and font types, concentration foci points allowing for more ambiguity and less sharpness, some things stop being interesting all of a sudden. There are more interesting things now, but even they will soon submerge into a hallow abyss of not caring. Like when you read too many tweets at once and you know that there are so many more to read and you're so excited at heart but in reality you only want to read your own and why would that be happening? In growing older you notice the secret passageways that lead to the original source of happiness - not knowing, not caring. The good thing is that there are always things remaining that you haven't learned yet, so don't fret or regret anything, just go out there and learn. Get older, son.

Fashion for Umi

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Originally uploaded by joehangir

Shahnoza

home, tx

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Originally uploaded by joehangir

dad

twitter, etc

Whooa, so this thing called twitter just stepped into my life! If I keep at this rate I'll have to visit those Chinese rehabs for people addicted to the internet. Seriously people (I doubt anyone reads this), why can't I tear myself away from the screen?

When you follow someone, don't find it hard to follow. Follow with ease and a detached attitude, like a sailor would follow the waveline, like a rabbit that follows his shadow. People come calling at you from various parts of the world, some offering pieces of wisdom, dirty jokes, steaming news, others bombard you with questions about homepaid jobs and ways to shorten your fuse. Just remember, the less you follow the more you'll discover.