About the tech-no-mad (b)log

The tech-no-mad (b)log platform is a surfacing of the creative praxis of the artist and educator, John Hopkins. This site is not about being liked on Facebook. It is about a self-maintained island of personal research and expression in a sea of corporately hosted and filtered content. Your support via PayPal is gratefully received (see sidebar link).

It evolved from several earlier iterations of the neoscenes travelog which has been in existence since 1995. This current form was implemented on a WordPress platform in February 2009 as the integral creative portion of a non-traditional Ph.D. supervised by Prof. Norie Neumark and initiated at the University of Technology, Sydney in August 2009 and subsequently concluded at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia in March 2012. The thesis bibliography and abstract are available; as is a full research archive via my Zotero library. Later in 2012, the full text of the dissertation will be made available.

The (b)log may be explored using the tag/keywording system and the year/month navigator (in the right sidebar) along with category navigation above.

As part of the research process, there are several threads of new content which are in a continual expansion process. These, along with ‘regular’ travelog entries include:

  • CH: 50 years on – These are transcriptions of my late father’s work and personal journals from the early 1960′s when he was involved in developing strategic weapon systems at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and elsewhere. They provide a snapshot of the ‘mid-Century Modern’ life of an senior engineer and operations analyst working in service of the very Cold War. I am adding these as the days pass through 2012 and beyond, 50 years on:

    These entries are from his work journals at MIT‘s Lincoln Lab Division 2 (so far) between 1961-1962 where he was working as a Senior Analyst on strategic deployment of the then-current ICBM defense network. He worked in close relation with numerous major Military-Industrial-Academic organizations (see acronyms for a comprehensive list as well as people for a listing of names mentioned). I plan to transcribe the journals back to 1958 (2008) which is far back as they go. In 1964, he (and the family) relocates to Southern California’s Norton Air Force Base (and the Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Division): more proximal to Vandenberg AFB and Kwajalein Atoll where missile testing was being carried on.

    While these are from his personal journals. These are taken up primarily with family events, tasks around the house, auto repair, vacations (road trips!), and church-related activities.

  • images: beds

    • — a nomad is not picky as to where to bed down. it’s got to be safe—no snakes, no scorpions, no ants, preferably dry, view of stars is a plus—this series, started in the late 90s, numbers around 200, and so represents maybe a 25% of the actual total from the last 30 years. that’s a different bed ever fortnight for the duration. now if I’d only shot kitchens, living rooms, and bathrooms.

  • images: portraits

    • — portrait images prior to 2000 are primarily from scanned black&white negatives. Most have not been seen before!

  • images: self-portraits

    • — back when cameras used film that came in rolls, I would, on average, do one self-portrait per 36-exposure roll of film. So, over the years a couple hundred of them materialized along with numerous self-portraits with Others met along the way.

  • projects (include): aporee::maps

    • — these are located field recordings (more than 800) done on three continents they are hosted on aporee, a collaborative sound mapping project initiated by Udo Noll in Berlin, Germany.

    See the projects list for others — some are documented more fully on the neoscenes.net site which still contains vast quantities of material.

  • projects: sacrifice

A second major re-development within the (b)log is an ongoing expansion of material from my image archive. That archive numbers upwards of 50K images from the last 40 years of photographic work. It’s extremely slow work to make sure the scans are in good shape (17K have been scanned during the last 3 years).

Oh, and also, please forgive copy-editing failures. I am constantly catching and correcting things, but there are sure to be more than I catch. Advice on egregious errors or even simple ones is gratefully received. And with the images, if you see any mis-labeling or lack of info, please let me know.

You are welcome to comment after registering (unfortunately, spamming has greatly handicapped the open-ness of these platforms regarding comments, making registration a necessary step). I’d like to hear from you via any available means! {neo [[at]] neoscenes.net} is one way.