Jan 31, 2011

This right here is the "Least commercial browser"- literally.

Bus Stop in the First World, bronze
Years ago research on the internet was like going to the library.  Now it feels more like going to the supermall.  I was trying to get some info in Medieval calligraphy recently and I just couldn't get around the hawkers to get real information.  In fact I found a good article but when I tried to follow the link under the "art of calligraphy" I was hijacked by an insurance company!  It turns out all the links in the article went there or to similar ads!  Can we not escape the moneygrubbers?

But wait- it gets worse. I became frustrated enough that, thinking maybe I was using a lousy browser I Googled: least commercial browser, and got more than 23,100,000 hits.  But nothing I saw came close to what I wanted so I tried "least commercial browser". Guess what? Not a single hit!  On the entire web!!!  I am apparently the first person to write "least commercial browser" in cyberspace.  I can safely say you read it here first (and only because there is no such thing!) You'd think if nothing else out of 23 million instances of commercialzing a browser with the least effort, one of them would have at least gotten the words out of order!

I feel a similar thing with eBay, where I used to find it was mostly like a garage sale where you could pick exactly what you wanted out of someone else's basement. Now it seems to be overtaken by commercial retailers who are simply undercutting the local stores... It feels to me as though the moneychangers are no longer outside the temple! Is this the best way we can find to interact- by exploiting each other's wallets? Where are all the people?

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Tim Holmes Studio

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Helena, MT, United States
My inspiration has migrated from traditional materials to working with the field of the psyche as if it were a theater. Many of my recent ideas and inspirations have to do with relationships and how we inhabit the earth and our unique slot in the story of evolution. I wish to use art– or whatever it is I do now– to move the evolution of humanity forward into an increasingly responsive, inclusive and sustainable culture. As globalization flattens peoples into capitalist monoculture I hope to use my art to celebrate historical cultural differences and imagine how we can co-create a rich future together.