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Building Block Monster
Painting and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
Small autonomous monster blocks will move in the same direction until a small pebble on the ground, a twig, a rough patch, sets them off course. For a long time they will appear to be in formation. Eventually they will veer wildly. The ant sits for what feels like a long, long time, watching them, occasionally nudging one or the other until it moves back into it’s path. But the small monster blocks are reliable only at accomplishing their small tasks. Working together is beyond them, and after consultation with the Ant Elders, the ant has formed a new plan. The small monster blocks will have to nudge and nestle themselves up and over each other block until they form one block. The Building Block Monster. Not yet a social being, but an automated device capable of more complex behaviour. Capable of social behaviour and limited problem solving. Each block able to mimic the commands of the ant, one block correcting other blocks. One central control containing hierarchical ordering. The Building Block Monster is a RoBlock.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I’m never quite certain whether I actually get this stuff of yours Lehan, but I always enjoy it, and I can’t help thinking that this critique of hierarchical structures suggesting atrophy, incipient at the base and pervasive at the top, and blind all over, is very compelling.
Or have I got it wrong?
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Good painting. The bits embedded on the red blocks look fossil like. Perhaps because I just finished watching David Attenborough’s TV documentary.
Glad to hear you are unharmed. Amazing that so much of Japan’s structures survived even though the quake was 140 times stronger than Christchurch.
Still, Japan has about a 100 000 quakes a year, mostly of a minor nature. This would make anyone contemplating building anything to make them almost indestructable. They now expect another 7.- quake within the next couple of days or so.
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Oooooh! A ‘frankenstein’ Building Block Monster! Love it Lehan! Tell us now… are this Block Monster’s actions as a (socially-)constructed social creature, like those of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ spastic and inarticulate; ultimately incapable of gentleness regardless of intent…?
🙂
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I just checked the next piece, astyages, and no. The roblock is more like ikea for your head.
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Oh… well… that’s alright then!
😉
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Sort of like a mental kit that you buy that helps you just to get ordinary things done, so you have space in your head to think about things you want to do. A bit like being partly on auto-pilot. All those things that break down when we experience trouble are taken care of by these roblocks.
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I think I could use a few of your ‘roblocks’ Lehan…
😐
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Lehan, could you please let us know how you are faring following the earthquake and tsunami.
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Hi Vivienne,
We were not strongly affected here. We had two long quakes at 3 yesterday and then there was flooding around the port. My house was not damaged, nothing fell. But I am on the mountain, there were no landslides, I am okay. The young animals ran outside and didn’t want to come back, the older animals stayed where they were, that was interesting. There is widespread damage in the coastal towns on the main island between here and Tokyo. A lot of people will be affected because nuclear power plants were damaged and roads were damaged. Provided there are no more quakes around here we will be fine. People I know around Japan were not in any danger.
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Update. The waters came in to Hakodate and covered a fair expanse, I think up to about 500 metres from the sea, and some places were knee-high. There are some old brick warehouses by the water that are famous as a tourist destination, and it appears that they may have some structural damage, the shops inside will be closed indefinitely while the buildings are assessed. But it sounds like we were very lucky to avoid major damage. One friend’s parents are living in Gunma, which is the prefecture next door to the damaged nuclear power plant. It depends which way the wind is blowing, he said, as to how bad that is going to be.
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You have done it again, Lehan, another lovely painting !
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I’ll take two, please.
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Surviving earthquakes and tsunami, yet still finds time to submit to the PA!
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