Memory

Ali Baba had it good. In medieval Persia, one password was enough.

Imagine Ali nowadays, having to modify the magic words once a month. From OPEN SESAME to oPen1sEsame%. Hieroglyphics are back in fashion.

I recently tried to log into my online bank account (or was it Centrelink, health insurance, superannuation, the ATO, email, Twitter, Facebook or any of the dozens of “services” for which I now need a password?) and received the following gibberish masquerading as a message:

Continue reading "Forgotten your password? Click here." »

It was not until I recently heard an art historian visiting Australia to talk about Guernica – the iconic anti-war painting by Pablo Picasso – that I connected the dots of why the 9/11 attacks had such a penetrating impact on the global community.

Art historian Professor Timothy J Clark was explaining in a Sydney Ideas lecture why Picasso’s depiction of the world’s first terrorist air-raid continues to have political currency in the post-9/11 era, despite the existence of more “real” forms of media than existed in 1937.

Clark said that in essence Picasso managed to communicate what it is really like to be bombed. He told me after the speech that “Guernica wouldn’t have its continuing political relevance if it didn’t somehow manage to wrench the material reality of suffering out of that black and white virtual world”.

Continue reading "Cool heads are needed when horror is writ large" »