Why is woman’s sex scary? /  by Mirena Rhee

I see kalashnikovs, I see tanks I see dead bodies, I see burning and bombs, I see the face of evil, I see the face of you know who. None of that is covered up.

But a pair of breasts and a vagina has to be covered up because it is scary, when they see it everyone runs. God forbid they see a penis and they start running the other way.

Boris Mikhailov Ukrainian, born 1938

Untitled from the series Case History 1997-98

Chromogenic color print

Gift of Susan and Peter MacGill, 2013

Mikhailov's Case History series examines the social oppression and devastating poverty of a disenfranchised community in Kharkiv, Ukraine: those who had been left homeless by the rise of the capitalist oligarchy following the collapse of the Soviet Union. "The rich and the homeless-the new classes of a new society-this was, as we had been taught, one of the features of capitalism," Mikhailov observed. A haunting document of post Soviet urban conditions, the series captures the failed promise of capitalism with poetry and grit.

When a woman sells sex everyone screams unless it’s a Picasso

The face of evil should be blurred and not sex

I stand with Ukraine with all my heart

Ads are insufferable so i am rebelling any way i can. Who needs all that stuff? /  by Mirena Rhee

i spend my time hunting for adblockers. I use ad blocking browsers on my android. I disabled the youtube app on my phone because it has become an ad fest. One of the reasons i am not getting an iphone is because it can’t block ads.

most people on youtube advertise stuff that is totally irrelevant and absurd, you wanna checkered toilet brush with homer simpson standing on the handle? cut the crap

Youtube started putting ads on my videos although my channel was not monetized so i was like if you can’t beat them join them right?

I cant stand watching youtube videos of people constantly shilling stuff. If you promote on your video I wont watch it, no matter how smart I think you are. If you actively advertise on your channel you are dumb, period.

you know why?

I cut the cord because of ads in the first place

rest assured i am pirating on principle.

I use

AdGuard
uBlock origin
Adblock Plus
all three simultaneously just in case

extensions for chrome firefox and

disabled chrome app on android and only use bromite browser

History repeats itself - I am watching Russian tanks going deep into Ukraine on a youtube stream near NOVA KAKHOVKA on Р-47 road /  by Mirena Rhee

russian tanks into ukraine stream on youtube


I am debating with myself the moral issue of watching a terrible tragedy of an invasion on youtube. I am trying to reason with myself  what right do I have and on what ground do I stand morally, as an artist, as an American and as a citizen of the world. What is even more crazy is that there is the usual chat on the livestream where kids from all over the world offer their real life commentary and count the tanks and armored vehicles on the screen. I can’t believe my eyes. But I want to remember for the future, for when I talk to my representatives in Congress on what we owe to the world.

The column of tanks stopped moving and then now just started again

My grandfather who was an enemy of the communist state watched Russians kill his friends who as communist invaders occupied Bulgaria. My aunt used to tell me the story of my grandfather who watched the muzzle flashes of the invading communists, shooting people all night from the terrace of his house, smoking cigarettes all night.

Grandpa was told late that night that his life would be spared because of a friendly lawyer who intervened on his behalf.

The communist regime was allowed to ruin the lives of generations of Europeans as the West watched

Many people were never able to realize creatively during their lifetime due to the communist regime in Bulgaria. My grandfather was one of those people, in my opinion a genius, an architect, a painter, a humorist, and a caricaturist, I used to copy his paintings in pastel when I was little. His name is Marin and I was named after him.

He was a very successful businessman, and when the communist regime invaded they confiscated his house and all his property. Him and my grandma were only allowed to live in two rooms in the house and they had a live-in communist with them for 20 years.

Growing up nobody ever talked about it, nobody ever told me what's happening. I was 18 years old when the Berlin Wall fell and I moved to the states not knowing anything about the history of my family or who my grandfather was. On my occasional returns to Bulgaria I was able to glimpse my grandparents history and my grandfather's history and I was told stories by my aunt.

My aunt says that my grandfather was about to be shot because they were shooting everyone who was considered an enemy but he was saved by a friendly lawyer. Basically before the Soviet occupation this lawyer, a friend of my grandfather’s, was sent to prison and my grandfather took care of his family while he was in prison. After the Soviet occupation it turned out that the lawyer was high up in the communist hierarchy. So a person was sent to my grandfather's house to tell them that he's going to be safe and that he's not going to be shot. My aunt told me that my grandfather spent the entire night on the terrace of his house chain smoking cigarettes and looking down into the valley where there were shots and muzzles flashing, basically a series of night executions.

My grandfather passed when I was 16 due to complications they said from the Chernobyl disaster.

When I go back to Bulgaria I try to photograph and keep a visual archive of my grandfather's work. Unfortunately my aunt passed in 2019 and afterwards my mom was overtaken by dementia and the memories may get lost forever. My mom also started destroying photographs and documents from the past due to dementia. It has been harder during covid.

There are many documents which I've seen with my own eyes from years ago from the archives at City Hall in my hometown. These documents pertain to various activities of my grandfather. I remember one slip of paper saying that my grandfather was a hidden enemy of the state, this was anonymous. I want to find and photograph these documents that may be lost forever.

My grandfather was also a godfather to Bulgarian king and I found a city hall minutes from a meeting where my grandfather wanted to give the Bulgarian king the town’s historical fortress. And everybody's like what are you doing Marin, this  belongs to Bulgaria we can't give it to the king. He was kind of a royalist.

I've included a photograph of him where he had a business meeting in Sofia and he couldn't find a babysitter for my aunt and so there is a picture of 38 businessmen and my aunt in 1938 in the restaurant.

Grandpa - to the right of the little girl, my aunt. Sofia, 1938.

My grandfather had beautiful handwriting, absolutely magnificent, I occasionally encountered small pieces of paper written by him.

There’s a beautiful letter which my grandfather wrote to my grandma, on his company's letterhead.

My grandfather used to listen to the BBC and the voice of America during communist times. And because authorities knew that he was one of the enemies, people came and put seals on the knobs on his radio so he couldn't listen to Western stations.

My brother knew all about these listening parties because he was in on it because he was much older 10 years older than me but I was never allowed to listen because I could tell at school.

After the establishment of the communist regime in Bulgaria My grandfather was sent to a labor camp and after his return he was never allowed to work. He was told that he should be glad he was allowed to live. So he never worked and did small jobs like modeling for the art academy for portraits.

Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped

https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/garry-kasparov/winter-is-coming/9781610396219/



Whenever the government asks me about my sex on forms /  by Mirena Rhee


Whenever they ask I immediately think

Why is my sex any of the governments’ business?

And I think

Well what do you mean?

Are you asking if I were born with a vagina?

Are you asking if I use my vagina regularly?

Are you asking if I use my vagina with a penis?

Are you asking if I prefer to have a vagina?

Are you asking me or you're telling me that I'll be using my vagina on the governments’ premises?

Are you asking me if I have the capacity to use my vagina?

Are you asking me if I want to use my vagina?

Are you asking me because you want me to use it?

Are you asking if I'm currently breeding?

Are you asking which side I'm on during breeding?

Are you straight up asking me if I want a dick?

What if I sport a vagina but I kind of fluctuate in my head, and that process has nothing to do with organs?

How do you know that I am not a robot?

A Vitruvian Woman meme answers the proverbial question - What is your sex?

Whenever the government asks me about my sex on forms. A Vitruvian Woman meme.

Okay, this is not a blog about fucking.

Hey, hey, isn’t it weird that the word that describes the making of humans is a forbidden word?

What the fusk?

It all started with the DMV, blame them.

Disobey the Big Five, resist the Big Dumb, stop shopping, lay down, walk in nature, make art, read books /  by Mirena Rhee

I'm working on a project that unravels gender, gender identity, and the home as the center of oppression for women for centuries.

I'm taking a fresh look at the organization of the home, specifically the kitchen, as the center of this debilitation.

I was at the Whitney last night and there was a very curious picture. It was called apron armor. I consider the apron the Iron mask for women, a source of debilitating disease of the mind. And detriment to progress.

There was also an installation at the Whitney of a beaded kitchen, I didn't take picture of it but it's telling, women artists have long been concerned with the home, and especially the kitchen. Very few though realized the oppressive nature of this dungeon.

In many family homes there are thousands and tens of thousands of dollars invested in kitchen appliances and zero invested in books and thoughts centered around progress, science technology, and the advance of civilization.

The book has been around for hundreds of years (people invented it for e reason, for a re-a-son) and never thought that in the 21st century the book has to fight with the debilitating influence of the food culture and entertainment companies, I call these the dumbing conglomerates.

One of the most terrible dumbing conglomerates is Hollywood, it perpetuates stereotypes and oppresses at every turn. You have to notice that in every Hollywood movie women and people of color beg and submit and are commanded by white men in power.

Women wash up things in kitchens and stir big pots while people of color work the land. That's all the the roles you see in most movies. If the woman is momentarily out of a kitchen she's invariably looking for a man, to invariably inhabit their kitchen.

I was skipping recently through a show about Queen Victoria, of course as you know I detest kings and queens stuff, I think that cutting the heads off of Queens and Kings was the best thing that happened to humankind. I really admire the French for that, it was a great idea.

So in that show the English parliament gets together to condemn slavery and while they welcome in their midst a representative a former slave from Virginia they didn't hesitate to command his submission by telling him not to speak to the royalty until spoken to. And the man responds yeah I've heard this before.

In addition to my gender concerns, I have material world concerns, The piling of goods in the home, this dreadful addiction to the material world.

The oppression of women and the oppression of material possessions are not very different. It's about disenfranchising and tribalizing humanity's free spirit by confining huge amounts of the populations to dungeons full of furniture that needs regular dusting.

I own several great books, among them is a series of books called The Material World. These books opened my mind to the human condition around the world.

Disobey, resist and read books.

Diane Simpson b. 1935; Joliet, IL

Apron Armour, 1976 Collograph

What I am reading today:

Tell the truth

Watching strangers chase a ball in a field, for a living, is the dumbest thing I can imagine /  by Mirena Rhee

Hate me. I like Elon Musk. Before he came along I didn’t know first principles to asking questions. Like why are these guys down there on this field, why is where the ball is such a fuss. And why on earth dumb people shill even dumber stuff to a nation that landed on the Moon, invented macs and drives rovers on Mars.

I totally do not oppose dogs doing it

Now imagine you are that stranger, day after day you show up to a field and you chase that ball. 24/7 your entire capable life, all the dexterity of your body, all your ambitions are focused on chasing a ball. The same rules, the same routine everyday.

We have athletic fields and basketball courts all over New York City. It's part of the street culture. It's an actual culture and community. I see kids after school and Wall Street guys kick and play ball after work and on weekends. It's awesome. Exercise the body, hand eye coordination, charge some dopamine, get fresh air. It builds communities. I stop to watch them sometimes.

It's great for kids to play sports and students and I totally approve of amateur sports, maybe semi-professional-amateur and I kind of like the Olympics in principle.

But I cannot understand having a grown man invest a lifetime in chasing a ball. How could that be the ambition of a life, every dog does that even better.

Yes, I approve of dogs chasing balls but not for a living

And I cannot understand wasting an afternoon watching a stranger chase after a ball, especially a group of millionaires. Yeah maybe it's worth seeing it once just as a curiosity, but cheering on a grown man running down the field day after day without any life purpose, and watching tons of commercials as a side dish it's just unfathomable to me.

It sounds like a prison sentence without a trial. You're basically stuck at that vicious circle for at least a decade of the most fruitful time of your life. I can understand if it's just a you know kind of a side gig but I cannot imagine chasing a ball professionally on a field. 

I'm open to horses doing it?

But grown men in heir prime.

I'm going to organize a clapping and cheering day for New York City street cleaners. They do a very useful and very awesome job. They need to be cheered on at a Super-Bowl.

But for the ball chasers there's no excuse. 

Get a real job

And by the way all the watchers of the super bowl are waiting for commercials to tell them what to think.

Hey I'm going to watch a bowl of cereal tell me all the truth about planet Earth and then I'm going to set my course in life based on a box of crackers that may not be made almost entirely of Monsanto crap and chemical shavings.

How about I'm going to wait for an independent artist with an army of 10,000 marketers and sound mixers, and a corporate boardroom on corrosive drinks, to tell me what to feel watch say or how to live.

I'm also going to set my course in life based on complete strangers who for some reason have chosen a life of pretending to have a profession in front of a camera and have doubles do the real work, especially thinking.

What we are made of - star stuff! /  by Mirena Rhee

I always crush on NASA really hard! I am no longer on Twitter because it always ends up derailing my train of thought into comments and such useless bot stuff. So I just sign on and first read Elon Musk to check on the state of the muskanity and then I check NASA for all the star stuff to see where all the rovers are and what's happening.

There are so many NASA accounts, I used to follow them all on my old Twitter account but that ended up sucking a lot of my time which I could use creatively on something that I really care about so now I'm always selectively pinpointing things like what's happening with the Webb telescope.

And I found this absolute gem of an illustration created by a lot of awesome people at NASA's Goddard space flight center.

Periodic Table of the Elements: Origins of the Elements

link to nasa page https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13873

link to hi res image https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013800/a013873/PeriodicTableOrigins.jpg

We are made of stars for real

Periodic Table of the Elements: Origins of the Elements by NASA

Periodic Table of the Elements: Origins of the Elements by NASA's Goddard space flight center.

I was looking at the image and I'm like so how did these elements disperse throughout the universe?


It has been probably a couple of years since I stopped typing, I now almost exclusively use voice to text and just edit. So I quickly yelled at my phone how did the elements travel through the universe and another wormhole opened up.

I ended up on another amazing site of NASA made for kids which means it fits me perfectly


Enrichment of the Space Between the Stars

read on - i don’t wanna copy and paste.
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/educators/lessons/xray_spectra/background-elements.html

we are the bomb!



Second Life and 3D Virtual Worlds are back, again /  by Mirena Rhee

My first job as a digital artist ( i discount my work in architecture and 3D architectural visualizations because architecture is not art unless it is the work of an exceptional artist like Zaha Hadid,  even then it is too bound by gravity ) was making 3D Virtual Worlds design and art for a small company called VWorld Technologies. At the time I was also building in ActiveWorlds and naturally my first world was a Martian Environment. My boyfriend and I were hanging out in ActiveWorlds and bonding while building stuff and chatting. It was the best time. My boyfriend at the time was building a Moon Landing simulation at another lab using software called Motivate. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

On a very personal level I'd like to find out what makes me like using the computer that much and building in it. Is it because there's a certainty and clarity to a digital world? Is it the fact that you have a god-like ability to create anything?

The push for 3D virtual reality is the need to create a version of the world where we are in total control. I'm like of course - in the real world we have absolutely zero understanding of who we are, where we are, and what's going on.

The smartest people in the world are trying to figure out how exactly the brain operates and they take very small steps with little creatures like birds, studying and building data models and trying to wrap their heads around.. their heads. Can we realistically study a system that we are embedded in? That's why we need machines - the third eye.

Have you ever looked inside one of those things [computers]? It's a whole hierarchy of angels- all on slats. And those little tubes-those are miracles.

—- Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine -- it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy.

Fundamentally I believe we humans need to have control of our environment, it's a survival instinct. We have so little control in our lives because of entropy. With computers we have found a way to contain entropy at least within the context of the machine.

Our personal view of the universe is so fragmented we are in dire need of a world with little entropy where we could feel safe from the coldness of space.

But it is a cave alright, the same cave Plato talked about, with shadows dancing on the walls. He knew his stuff.

The reason I am writing this is because of all the talk about Metaverse and Facebook, I am sure data models have given Facebook a reason to fear obsolescence. I am thinking that Facebook could literally disappear in a month. Such is the fate of digital constructs and business models. A small, absurd, tiny, piece of paper with scribbles on it can last 500 years. This was my discovery while studying the old masters and art. There was a 5000 years old tiny animal sculpture I saw at the Morgan Library that blew me away. I have since learned to respect the fragility and endurance of small, deep works, made of durable materials that resist entropy.

I found that great ideas resist entropy the best, followed by the written word.




30 questions about the brain - I proposed to play Exquisite Corpse with scientists from the Future of Mind at Columbia & the Harlem community /  by Mirena Rhee

Earlier this year I made a proposal to scientists at the Columbia Zuckerman Institute to play together Exquisite Corpse, along with the larger Harlem community. Investigators at Zuckerman Institute work to transform the understanding of the brain and the mind.

What is really interesting is that scientists are called principal investigators.

And I thought that to describe what I do as an artist is that I am a principal investigator of everything. My task is to pierce all veils, and strip down everything to first principles.

The principle investigators ask a lot and very interesting questions like:

“What happens in my brain,” asked Dr. Aronov, “when I have a one-time experience that I remember for my whole life?”

While I was reading about the principle investigators’ work - I started asking questions in my head, and speech to text them in the cloud:

30 questions about the brain

1 What is bigger the universe or the mind, because we can imagine the entire universe and imagine what is beyond it, so in the sense the interior of our brains hold larger than the universe or is it?

2 Are we figments of someone's imagination?

3 How can we imagine so big when we're so small, we are not even visible from space, we're corpuscles?

4 Does anyone else in the universe think?

5 Does anyone else in the universe see what we see?

6 Does anyone else in the universe know there is a universe?

7 Will the memory of Michael Jackson still live in some form when our universe dies, as a fraction of an atom that once was a memory?

8 are we animals or gods

9 Why do people when they encounter my paints on the street - they start painting immediately?

10 Are we simply the sum of our parts?

11 why brain difference is labeled disease and not just variety

12 Do animals suffer mental illness

13 is creativity flight and fight or entirely separate drive /motivator

14 Why are models beautiful, which part of the brain makes that judgment, how does the brain decide someone or something is beautiful are we trained just like AI or monkey on beauty are we influenced by suggestions when people like things that we decide that we also like the things although we might not but just want to participate

15 are we just a bump in the background radiation, denser field, tiny blips or the future of the universe

16 will machines ever become sentient

17 will I be able to upload myself and live in the cloud one day

18 can my brain live in entirely different body like an octopus

19 What is the difference between decorative and fine arts really?

20 is the brain like my laptop i close the lid and it's all out

21 Why do we sing in the shower?

22 Why do we dance when no one's looking?

23 why is yellow a happy color

24 What is it to have?

25 How exactly do I remember the smell of my grandfather's tool drawers?

26 Why are we interested in Space?

27 What is this fundamental difference between us and machines?

28 how games fundamentally affect the brain and generation of dopamine?

29 Can a machine one day be a best friend?

30 What will humans and machine brains look like in a thousand years?


Hands Landscapes - preliminary pen and ink drawings I made for paintings I am working on /  by Mirena Rhee

Hands Landscapes pen and ink drawings 4 x 6 inches on hot press board, 2022


A famous NYC gallerist told me that my drawing are too brown, I like brown, it's the color of old times when Leonardo and the likes made real art, that now is priceless and held up 500 years. Now that I got a lot out of my system - I am back to brown.

I have never met a person that doesn’t like my drawings, it’s impossible to show what they are really like on the screen. because they are three dimensional on microscopic level. The micro and macro work together.

A very old drawing of mine, I used this "building block" to make this drawing
https://www.mirenarhee.com/hand-painted-ocean-and-fruit

and this animation:
https://youtu.be/zi7VYuRMw-k

My drawings are made to last 500 years, always with pigment inks on rag paper using dip pen and ink. The dip pen and ink makes incredible surface that can’t be replicated by simple micron pens and the like. It’s not a marker and leaves grooves in the paper and the drawings are like etchings, one of a kind etchings. this is why I was never interested in making prints as the reproduction is so much more inferior to the original - I quickly lose interest. This is why i do not have any faith in Instagram or YouTube and other digital distribution channels, they will long be gone and forgotten but my drawings will remain. If you're lucky to get one of my drawings while I'm still around good, once I'm dead they're going to be very pricey cuz they're going to be rare.

Our technological advancements are a direct result of democracy /  by Mirena Rhee

I believe our technological advancements are a direct result of democracy. Used to be there was just one guy that told all people what to do. Now there are all these little guys checking with each other. If you have worked in the silicon valley you probably know that people really listen to other smart people.

Last winter I was listening to a lot of lectures on the history of Egypt from one of the professors that is the pre-eminent expert in Egyptology, and it goes on for about 4,000 years and I'm like how's it possible they didn't advance technologically that much. One day it just occurred to me that the pharaoh made the entire country do whatever they wanted singularly, if he decides to make a pyramid the entire country makes a pyramid and nobody thinks about anything else cuz everyone from the top to the bottom think about the pyramid.

In democracy now we have all these guys thinking about things all over the place, we also have people working for free and checking out stuff that are important for other people. And I think the French revolution was one of the most important events in history, this was where decisively people said no more monarchy and lady's wearing crowns.

You know I'm such a terrible fan of the British monarchy, every time I read something about it I'm like how anyone stands these people, they're probably nice but, I mean what does that mean to be Royal and prance around, it’s just ridiculous it's embarrassing. I believe it's embarrassing to have a monarchy in the 21st century.

It's just the whole queen thing, you've lived old enough to see rovers on Mars, it's time to change it up a little, give up the palace, make it a museum and move on. Give up the crowns and all the red carpet. To me it's just a greedy and ridiculous spectacle. But I guess British people like it.


I want to create problems that I find solutions to /  by Mirena Rhee

I'm absolutely crazy about NASA and space, I'm a space geek and a sci-fi geek, since I was maybe five actually not sure but I remember very well being glued to the TV on Carl Sagan's Cosmos and then watching really weird British TV show I think it was called Blake's 7. it was so corny but I believed everything about it and I was completely engrossed in that world.

The other day as I walked randomly into the New York public library I picked up a book which looked interesting and it was by a photographer who spent some time at NASA photographing astronauts training for the repair of the Hubble telescope. I couldn't finish the book with the promise that I will come back later. But that little glimpse resulted in a binge of NASA documentaries - I watched several of the documentaries, and while I don't want to get boggled down in details and links to the shows, you can basically Google best documentaries about space and documentaries about NASA, and watch them all.

In this though there was a footage from a scientist from CERN, which is not a trivial place, with really great minds and the scientist was saying that NASA is about solving problems that no one could solve. I have to also say that NASA is about creating problems that nobody else creates.

I want to be that kind of artist, where I create problems for the first time, and solve these problems for the first time.

I want to be the engineer of my own problems and the solver of these problems. I have always had the capacity to solve complex logistics on the fly and make things happen that a pretty skeptical things and usually it's a skeptics would never attempt. Some of the time it's just too many permissions involved too many unknowns if the cops would show up or the park people or something else. Assembly decided to solve these problems as they come, because given the bureaucracy some of my proposals would never see the light of day. So I have to act and deal with the consequences.

Today was going to be vaccine booster day but became reading in the Public Library Day /  by Mirena Rhee

Got my booster shot at Walgreens and walked down 5th avenue. I saw a strange machine, I hope they're not drilling for oil. I really love construction sites in New York City, they're really dynamic. Once a building is built it's kind of dead weight.

Unless it is the..

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library - New York City public library at 40th street and 5th Ave in Manhattan, and wanted to show it to you - it is one of my favorite places in New York City, a Palace.

One of my favorite excitements and favorite thrills in NYC is to walk into the library and pick a random book I have never seen before, or just a random book. I never understood why people spend hours at restaurants, stuck at tables with mystery food. The only thing I want to be stuck with in New York City at a table is a book.
I was not allowed to film inside the library much but this is my favorite place in New York City.

Third floor is great, it has got graphic novels, science fiction.

They even have the Persian book of Kings, illustrated in full color. Written 11 centuries ago and illustrated in the 1500s for a mighty king of Persia. It's out of this world.

I wonder if this king could have possibly imagined that one day all the plebs would be allowed to roam around much better palaces.

A palace which even has a red carpet on the first floor.

Seven floors of bright spaces warm clean beautiful with free Wi-Fi. Seven floors of books floor to ceiling and media and computers and all kinds of magic with all of human knowledge and culture in it free for the taking.
It is one of the most magnificent spaces, where you can acquire unlimited knowledge.

The mighty kings from history like Alexander of Macedon and Napoleon, all these bloodthirsty dudes would have given their right hand to Lord over a palace like this.

Why is there never a line for the library?

I've always wondered why people stand in line in shops, what could possibly be so enticing us to make you spend your life force standing around. Unless of course they're giving out the elixir of immortality.