... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHTJt2gYvgc

This week’s episode features returning guest JF Martel, film-maker, culture critic, and author of Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice. In his first appearance on Future Fossils, we discussed art as an opening to the transcendent and his awesome three-part essay on the philosophy of Netflix’s Stranger Things, “Reality Is Analog”…so it only made sense to have him back to weigh in on Stranger Things 2 and the extremely artful Blade Runner 2049, both of which speak directly to the evolution of the soul and “the human tragedy” in an increasingly digital age.  It’s ultimately a discussion of The Sequel, and how what distinguishes good simulacra from bad is all in the label, “Made With Love”… JF’s book and blog: http://reclaimingart.com JF’s podcast: http://weirdstudies.com We Discuss: - The humanization of replicants (and the “animalization” of a previously monstrous demogorgon) as empathetic characters in these stories, and how that provides a vital contrast to our future-shocked insistence on hard categorical divisions between made and born, human and non-human; - Carl Jung and Jungian therapist James Hillman, The Velveteen Rabbit, and “earning one’s soul” through individuation of the self (soul as connection to the imaginal contrasted with soul as individuality); - Where does order come from in the evolutionary process?; - The theological angle on the soul as digital because it is the soul as the absolute appearance of a singular (non-evolutionary) form; - Do things need to happen for a reason?; - Is it better to act as if you’ll die tomorrow or to act as if you’ll live forever? (And does thinking “only now exists” make you a lousier person?); - Balancing the two poles of “soul” in philosophy: that which exists beyond cause and effect, and that which is made through tribulation; - Looking at our lives from the perspective of Nietzsche’s Eternal Return and Alan Watts’ notion of the life as a symphony, comprehensible only from the outside; - The genius horror writing of Thomas Lugatti (sp?); - Why it’s so important not to spoon-feed your audience the plot points of a film, to invite them into an interactive process with the narrative; - Donna Haraway, John David Ebert, body hacking…and the shadow form of posthuman philosophy in the peril of ironic hipster detachment to human incarnation; - Rachel Nagelberg’s book The Fifth Wall and how she figures our postmodern dissociation from self through a matrix of surveillance technologies and the out-of-body experiences they induce (see also Erik Davis and Technobuddhism); - The difference between a good sequel and a bad one is “Made With Love” – and how the character of “Luv” in Blade Runner 2049 can be read as a statemen ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH3QEEdP4ac

Follow my adventures: http://michaelgarfield.blogspot.com Buy a print of this painting: http://michaelgarfieldart.com A timelapse video of me at work on a commissioned painting for the Jeff Hansen of Colorado State University's Chromatin Research Lab. In my voiceover, I discuss the scientific basis for and artistic techniques work in this piece. This video was filmed at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom in Denver, CO on 28 November 2009 for the Mile High Sound Throwdown (myspace.com/projectaspect) on a Canon SD1100 IS. You can subscribe to my newsletter or offer your feedback at michaelgarfield@gmail.com. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU5gUCGk8p4

Listen to the full episode here https://www.patreon.com/posts/34506608/ This week’s guest is Tanya Harrison, a Mars geologist, author, and infectious banner-waving space enthusiast. We talk about For All Humankind, her new book with Danny Bednar on the legacy of the Apollo missionsm, as both a planetwide accomplishment and also a high bar against which we have since not seemed to measure up...as well as: What it’s like to drive a mars rover and extend yourself technologically through space. What will have to change for us to attune to the plural temporalities of life on multiple worlds. How the tone of science fiction and space fantasy has changed over the course of our lives, for better or worse. The cultural differences between national space programs and commercial “jobs in space” exploration. The tragedy of how light pollution cuts us off from crucial perspective and our tangible belongingness in the starry cosmos. Using space-based imagining to understand our own planet as the unique and wonderful place it is. Tanya's Website & Twitter . Tanya Works for Planet Labs . Here’s another great (short) conversation with her about Martian geology. Grab the books we mention in this episode and I get a tiny kickback. Support this show on Patreon for secret episodes, the Future Fossils book club, and more awesome stuff than you probably have time for. People Mentioned: Jessa Gamble , Barry Vacker , Divya Persaud , Stewart Brand, Carl Sagan, Sara Imari Walker, Rusty Schweickert, Biosphere II Media Mentioned:  For All Humankind, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, Ad Astra, The Expanse Theme Music: “God Detector” by Evan “Skytree” Snyder (feat. Michael Garfield) Additional Intro Music: “Lambent” by Michael Garfield ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHwwsxsy0fI