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My goodbye letter to Facebook

fb

Hi friends. I deactivated my account a couple weeks ago and found that with the time I saved I was doing:
– more online Dutch practice (on memrise.com)
– more brain games (on lumosity.com)
– more reading interesting things that are relevant to me
– more drinking tea and staring out the window (very important for us creative industry types)
– more online courses (yeah MOOCs are not the new face of education, but useful to pick up a thing or two)

In other words, it was better for me.

My friends who I connect with here who I don’t see very often (hello people in Canada, the US, New Zealand, the UK, etc) let’s have one on one time on Skype. My Skype handle is mkultra0000. Add me.
I still use Twitter, because it’s a usable archive of links to research I want to look at again. The FB Wall is too unwieldy for that. You can also connect with me there, I’m @mkasprzak.

Email me, Skype me, send me an SMS or even call (I don’t always pick up though, maybe I’m busy staring out the window), or best of all — write me an old fashioned letter or postcard if you are really after my heart.

Also think of me when you are listening to Glenn Gould, watching The Sopranos, shooting a gun down at the range, at a great exhibition, at a crappy exhibition, digging out your real film camera and taking some pictures, doing some barbell squats, making some delicious meal out of what you have on hand, stealing the hotel toiletries, appreciating some Finnish design, riding your bike aimlessly after midnight, holding a falcon on your arm, or any other nice shared memory that we have. That means more than a thousand “likes”.

So I’m just back to say I’m downloading all my stuff and moving on. Soon.
It’s been fun, but it’s kinda feeling like leaving Friendster in 2005. Time to go.

Happy trails!

My comments on my own post:
If you want to do the same, download your info here: https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467 and then deactivate here: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=security
And then go read this great article by Rebecca Solnit about our fragmented attention spans these days, and the pleasure of focusing on one thing at a time. (Sorry to say, it means not just quitting Facebook but being present… that’s next level). http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n16/rebecca-solnit/diary

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Asides

2013 is…

PANTONE
The year of PANTONE 17-5641, Emerald.
The year of the Water Snake.
The international year of Statistics.
The Centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten.
The Centenary of the Tour de France.
The UN International year of Water Cooperation.
The European year of Citizens.
The year of the Mathematics of Planet Earth.
The planned launch year of India’s unmanned mission to Mars.

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I Like

As an exercise in comparing unusual likes with a collaborator of mine, I quickly drew up this list of things I like, trying to drift and not be too deliberately weird or cute or funny or anything, just myself. I genuinely like all the things on this list.

radio
weightlifting
nice pens
Soviet space program ephemera
barely ripe bananas
leftovers
the siren test at noon on the 1st Monday of every month across the Netherlands
slow cookers
white noise
sriracha sauce
other people’s business cards
fabric bags from art shows
things that are Finnish
airplane sick bags
unusual names
Epic Sax Guy
men who wear dress shirts all the time
perfume that works on either gender
curly hair
perfectly straight hair
making piles
coffee from a stovetop espresso maker
taking vitamins
using spreadsheets to measure personal progress
changing my mind
updating my CV
making lists
German opera
thinking about chess but not actually playing
that feeling when a fever breaks
that feeling the day after lifting heavy weights
hugs
the Dutch three kisses thing
riding the subway in cities I do not know well
keeping foreign money and subway tokens in case I go back
good earphones

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Asides

2011 was…

Last year around this time, designer/researcher Michele Perras posted her Top Ten of 2010 to Twitter. I enthusiastically jumped in and posted my top 10 too — it seemed a great way to look back and celebrate the year. The list covered life events, achievements, fabulous trips, et cetera.

Top Ten of Twenty Eleven doesn’t have the same ring Top Ten of Twenty Ten had to it, plus I wanted to do something a little different than last year. It was hard to pare it down, but I thought I would try to keep it to the Top 5 of 2011 and include some photos. Here goes!

1. This year an exhibition entitled Constellations opened at Cornerhouse in Manchester UK, which I co-curated with my friend and collaborator, Karen Gaskill. The show featured works by Kitty Kraus, Katie Paterson, Takahiro Iwasaki, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and investigated themes of impermanence and flux. I know I’m biased, but I’m very proud of how beautiful and coherent the show was. Karen and I are already scheming about the next project!

Out of Disorder (hair) by Takahiro Iwasaki. Photo by We Are Tape.

Untitled by Kitty Kraus. Photo by We Are Tape.

2. I started my wonderful job as Curator at V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam and kicked off Blowup, a brand new event and exhibition series there. Over the year I delivered 5 successful editions of Blowup and the organisation’s first e-Book series (in the form of readers that accompany each Blowup event). More exciting things to come in 2012, including the Dutch Electronic Art Festival!

Blowup: The Era of Objects, with Julian Bleecker, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Anab Jain. With me doing my best Oprah Winfrey. Photo by Jan Nass.

Doing my best Vanna White. Photo by Jan Nass.

3. Travel highlights: I was an invited guest of BAM in their International Curator’s Programme and had a blast discovering Flanders; gave 4 talks in 7 days on a whirlwind and magical tour through Ukraine; visited the Venice Biennale during opening week; and enjoyed the IKT (international association of curators of contemporary art) Congress in Luxembourg and Metz. I’m really looking forward to more great trips in 2012, including going to places I’ve not yet been, like Tel Aviv.

Karla Black, Scotland + Venice

Nice to see a queue for contemporary art! Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine

4. I gave lectures in a number of places scattered around the globe, from Durham, Ontario, Canada to Lviv, Ukraine and many spots in-between (including my first Pecha Kucha here in Amsterdam to a packed house at Trouw), and I also picked up a speaking agent — Tessa Sterkenburg at The Next Speaker. Contact Tessa if you want to book me for 2012.

Dan McGee and I, in Durham, Ontario, at the Common Pulse symposium. Photo by David Jhave Johnston.

Lviv, Ukraine

5. I brought on four fabulous international correspondents to help with Curating.info, commissioned a new logo by designer Rita Godlevskis, and kicked off a huge new project: the Curating.info Fellowship, with CCA Glasgow.

New Curating.info logo by Rita Godlevskis

New site look and feel (ideas and implementation by Mikhel Proulx)

What are your top 5 highlights from this past year?
Looking forward to what 2012 has to bring!