AX Mina is an artist and culture writer exploring contemporary spirituality, technology and other sundry topics. She co-produces Five and Nine, a podcast about magic, work, and economic justice, and serves on the board of the Rabkin Foundation.
Opinion
OAKLAND, Calif. — I don't know if it's just me, but alien life — and our fascination with it — seems to have hit something of a crescendo recently. There's the question of alien life in Earth's atmosphere. We have the continued search on Mars, despite an utter dearth of evidence, and there's even a
Opinion
OAKLAND, Calif. — There's the old thought experiment in the days before social media and mobile phones: if you could send a message in a bottle, where would it end up?
Opinion
OAKLAND, Calif. — The stereotype of SnapChat — that it's for sending naked pictures — undergirds a more common but mundane usage: it's used for sending pictures of ourselves. And what is a picture of ourselves but a portrait?
Opinion
OAKLAND, Calif. — Most artists are incredibly busy, especially in a major city where art events and calendars seem to overflow each day. "If only I could be two places at the same time!" is a common lament.
Art
OAKLAND, Calif. — San Francisco-based photographer Erena Shimoda, who takes surreal, dream-like portraits of individuals underwater, understands the healing power of water in her art.
Opinion
OAKLAND, Calif. — As I type out this post, I am ever more aware of those who piece together the keyboard, circuits and processors that brought this computer to life.
Art
OAKLAND, Calif. — Twitter has often been likened to haiku.
Art
As Voyager becomes the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, it also carries the first human-made mixtape destined for such depths of the universe.
Opinion
"If America disappeared off the face of the Earth today, the greatest single cultural loss would be blues, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, rock-and-roll … ”
News
OAKLAND, Calif. — Legos have come a long way and they continue to evolve and adapt.
Opinion
OAKLAND, Calif. — Asian Americans occupy 6.1 percent of creative jobs in this country, which is nearly half of the Asian-American population.
News
OAKLAND, Calif. — Some of my favorite images from the classical world are archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann's recreations of the "true colors" of Greek and Roman statues. Stripped of their color over the millennia, the supposedly minimalist statues were instead imbued with bright yellows, red and blue