today yana, talene, max, ben, berto and i went to sf moma. i was eager to see the work of barbieri because i overheard someone on an airplane talking about how his aerial photographs make everything look like toys. being a lover of cities conceptually and practically, i needed to see this for myself. the film made to showcase these aerial shots was very unsettling because it was focused on las vegas, an urban space that, in itself, is a simulacra. las vegas being built as a simulation of other urban environments is, through his lens, rendered hyper-artificial in its unblemished distortion of reality. i.e. it was probably my favorite thing i saw there today.
also, as yana and i were shopping at the painted bird, we saw devendra banhart....all in a days work.
