*Dirt. *Some well-worn brushes and some humble yet handy scraps of wood. *The creative end result.

*Wood-sculpting chisels. *Soil scoops and a root hook. *Specialty imported “Masakuni” brand cutting tools. *Masakuni will sell you an entire set of their standard bonsai gear, but the seasoned gardener will accumulate the tools that work for him or her.

*I happened to meet this Ibizan gentleman — Juan Montesino — and he’s been cultivating bonsai trees for thirty years. He’s accumulated some interesting hardware, starting with a small pair of specialized pruning shears and building from there. *The whole set is in an Italian roll aboard tool case, which demonstrates his good taste. *In […]

Set of bonsai tools (left to right): leaf trimmer; rake with spatula; root hook; coir brush; concave cutter; knob cutter; wire cutter; small, medium and large shears

*Of course this isn’t about the mere price of the scissors. It’s about the symbiosis of the elite bonsai artist and the elite scissor-maker. *The bonsai artist points out that these scissors improve his creative morale, and I don’t doubt that they do. I wouldn’t recommend sinking that much financial resources into a creative tool, […]

*Tom Sachs.

*Having a serious limited-art fit of multitool production here. Tom Sachs is quite a character. https://www.tomsachs.com/biography

*This is a speech of mine for Alan Turing’s centenary almost ten years ago, and it’s still topical because not a lot of progress has been made. Turing’s Strange Seas of Thought North American Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information (NASSLLI) Austin, Texas, June 23, 2012 Bruce Sterling Thanks for that introduction, Talking Alan […]

*What a peculiar enterprise, and yet, very lucrative.

*They’re sure not running out of material. If anything, their pace (and their prices) are accelerating. http://feralfile.com Feral File and Bitmark are pleased to announce the platform’s seventh exhibition, which will feature artwork from a group of 12 international artists exploring the natural form and its possibilities of representation with AI. Encompassing a variety of […]