People's bodies were my biggest technical problem from the start. --Allan Kaprow, A happening conversation with AK DATA 16/17, 1975.
Showing posts with label diametric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diametric. Show all posts
24.12.09
of ego and body
The ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations, chiefly those springing from the surface of the body. --Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, 1936.
16.10.07
Platinum skull and the human soul
...Mr. Hirst’s latest controversial artwork, the diamond-encrusted platinum skull shown in London this summer. It seems like the perfect summation of our wasteful, high-priced, oblivious moment, an implicitly regal 21st-century equivalent of Cellini’s gold saltcellar.
Here, now, Kandinsky:
Art is not a vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul.
20.5.07
confounding chaos
Let's keep the distinctions between complexity and chaos crystal clear.
Chaos is the path followed by a rubber ball thrown into a grove of trees.
You can't predict the result of any throw, though a throw is a simple act.
Complexity is the state of contemporary fashion
being the grand sum of everybody buying clothing.
Crystal is a highly ordered lattice of atoms or molecules,
And that it can be clear is far out.
Chaos is the path followed by a rubber ball thrown into a grove of trees.
You can't predict the result of any throw, though a throw is a simple act.
Complexity is the state of contemporary fashion
being the grand sum of everybody buying clothing.
Crystal is a highly ordered lattice of atoms or molecules,
And that it can be clear is far out.
4.4.07
On the Rich and the Powerful
Both of these quotations are from today's New York Times Opinion pages.
"Not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, the top 1 percent of Americans — whose average income was $1.1 million a year — received 21.8 percent of the nation’s income, their largest share since 1929. Over all, the top 10 percent of Americans — those making more than about $100,000 a year — collected 48.5 percent, also a share last seen before the Great Depression."
...and, from a different column...
"Researchers led by the psychologist Dacher Keltner took groups of three ordinary volunteers and randomly put one of them in charge. Each trio had a half-hour to work through a boring social survey. Then a researcher came in and left a plateful of precisely five cookies. Care to guess which volunteer typically grabbed an extra cookie? The volunteer who had randomly been assigned the power role was also more likely to eat it with his mouth open, spew crumbs on partners and get cookie detritus on his face and on the table."
"Not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, the top 1 percent of Americans — whose average income was $1.1 million a year — received 21.8 percent of the nation’s income, their largest share since 1929. Over all, the top 10 percent of Americans — those making more than about $100,000 a year — collected 48.5 percent, also a share last seen before the Great Depression."
...and, from a different column...
"Researchers led by the psychologist Dacher Keltner took groups of three ordinary volunteers and randomly put one of them in charge. Each trio had a half-hour to work through a boring social survey. Then a researcher came in and left a plateful of precisely five cookies. Care to guess which volunteer typically grabbed an extra cookie? The volunteer who had randomly been assigned the power role was also more likely to eat it with his mouth open, spew crumbs on partners and get cookie detritus on his face and on the table."
2.4.07
Emet! & ting-yin
EMET is the Hebrew word for TRUTH.
The utterance activates the Golem.
.................................................................
ting-yin
in which the pulse of the bloodstream in the fingers of the guqin instrumentalist alters the timbre of the note
The utterance activates the Golem.
.................................................................
ting-yin
in which the pulse of the bloodstream in the fingers of the guqin instrumentalist alters the timbre of the note
1.7.06
one more idea
Solar cells shaped like blades of grass
instead of sheets of ice.
Because the shape of grass is a Nature-perfected topography for gathering sunlight. Ice couldn't be more opposite. Yet solar panels look like big sheets of black ice.
instead of sheets of ice.
Because the shape of grass is a Nature-perfected topography for gathering sunlight. Ice couldn't be more opposite. Yet solar panels look like big sheets of black ice.
17.2.06
Anti-Art can't also be Art
ArtInfo interview, 17 February 2006
João Ribas: You’ve been very critical of that line of British art, particularly its overemphasis on very sophisticated or conceptual things.
Billy Childish: Well, I don’t think it is sophisticated at all. The problem is it’s pseudo-sophisticated and it’s actually even pseudo-conceptual. There isn’t any concept other than calling something that isn’t art, art. Which Duchamp already did. And if anti-art is art, then what is anti-art?
[These artists] don’t understand [that people] already know that things look interesting. Anything you look at closely or in isolation is interesting and has a story. You don’t need artists to tell you that. It’s condescending, and adolescent, and glib and useless.
The problem with an art of ideas is that it’s highly limited. It’s showing intellect with very little intellect. So I have art without ideas. Which means you just use nature. Everything that’s there is available. Art is ruined by having too much art in it.
João Ribas: You’ve been very critical of that line of British art, particularly its overemphasis on very sophisticated or conceptual things.
Billy Childish: Well, I don’t think it is sophisticated at all. The problem is it’s pseudo-sophisticated and it’s actually even pseudo-conceptual. There isn’t any concept other than calling something that isn’t art, art. Which Duchamp already did. And if anti-art is art, then what is anti-art?
[These artists] don’t understand [that people] already know that things look interesting. Anything you look at closely or in isolation is interesting and has a story. You don’t need artists to tell you that. It’s condescending, and adolescent, and glib and useless.
The problem with an art of ideas is that it’s highly limited. It’s showing intellect with very little intellect. So I have art without ideas. Which means you just use nature. Everything that’s there is available. Art is ruined by having too much art in it.
11.12.05
M.O.I. vs. M.I.C.
Dave-E says the Military Industrial Complex and the Meritocracy of Ideas do not have to form a dichotomy, implying that both concepts can co-exist, and contradicting his position from the evening before.
I don't know what these big ideas mean, so I've looked them up.
Former Vice-President Al Gore used the phrase, "Meritocracy of Ideas," in a media conference address in 2005.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/06/D8D2IU703.html
If the concept has philosophical precedents (which I'm sure it does), I don't know 'em by name.
In his speech, Gore laments a decay in American public discourse, including mainstream news and opinion, and the high cost of individual contribution to public discourse, in contrast to the situation at the time of the founding of the United States.
America, Gore argues, was founded as a marketplace of ideas, open to every individual and governed by "an unspoken duty to search for general agreement." The Meritocracy of Ideas [capitalized in the transcript] is the process by which the fate of ideas is decided. Good ideas succeed, bad ideas fade, "regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them." Apparently, this is no longer so.
I'm not sure I can buy Gore's pessimistic view of history--or, rather, pessimistic view of the present--but I like the concept of a meritocracy of ideas, and believe this system not only exists, but has existed in some form or other since long before the advent of Democracy, being a by-and-large natural process. In fact, Democracy, I suppose, is a one of those winning Ideas.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, famously, of the growing Military Industrial Complex in his 1961 Farewell Address:
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Now we may call him "President and Great Prophet Dwight D. Eisenhower."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex
Perhaps Industry and the Military are mutually dependent, and as natural as any Meritocracy of Ideas. Which leads us to cry, How dare the Gods grant us the wonder of the engineering mind, but at such cost!
Or perhaps an alternative. For instance, perhaps Peace yet lacks the merit to supercede War in this great meme-eological evolution. Or maybe Peace IS the winning Idea, but our lives are too little to notice the change of epochs!
I don't know what these big ideas mean, so I've looked them up.
Former Vice-President Al Gore used the phrase, "Meritocracy of Ideas," in a media conference address in 2005.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/06/D8D2IU703.html
If the concept has philosophical precedents (which I'm sure it does), I don't know 'em by name.
In his speech, Gore laments a decay in American public discourse, including mainstream news and opinion, and the high cost of individual contribution to public discourse, in contrast to the situation at the time of the founding of the United States.
America, Gore argues, was founded as a marketplace of ideas, open to every individual and governed by "an unspoken duty to search for general agreement." The Meritocracy of Ideas [capitalized in the transcript] is the process by which the fate of ideas is decided. Good ideas succeed, bad ideas fade, "regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them." Apparently, this is no longer so.
I'm not sure I can buy Gore's pessimistic view of history--or, rather, pessimistic view of the present--but I like the concept of a meritocracy of ideas, and believe this system not only exists, but has existed in some form or other since long before the advent of Democracy, being a by-and-large natural process. In fact, Democracy, I suppose, is a one of those winning Ideas.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, famously, of the growing Military Industrial Complex in his 1961 Farewell Address:
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Now we may call him "President and Great Prophet Dwight D. Eisenhower."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex
Perhaps Industry and the Military are mutually dependent, and as natural as any Meritocracy of Ideas. Which leads us to cry, How dare the Gods grant us the wonder of the engineering mind, but at such cost!
Or perhaps an alternative. For instance, perhaps Peace yet lacks the merit to supercede War in this great meme-eological evolution. Or maybe Peace IS the winning Idea, but our lives are too little to notice the change of epochs!
11.6.05
Starting Transient v. Loop Mode
An Origin of Life assumes that at some deep, ancient time, Life did not exist.
That Life struggled forth from a miraculous -- or non-miraculous -- alignment of ecological variables,
Then Life must one day twinkle and fade, stars in the dawn of the day that one of those variables wavers or zips away!
But, does not our very existence prove the inevitable potential of Life; Life as Eternal as Lifelessness?
These novel forms of ours--must be locked into the Eternal. Essential Forever.
Mortality, as with Birth...perhaps these are illusions. Our little bodies, see them there?, tripping through the forest.
That Life struggled forth from a miraculous -- or non-miraculous -- alignment of ecological variables,
Then Life must one day twinkle and fade, stars in the dawn of the day that one of those variables wavers or zips away!
But, does not our very existence prove the inevitable potential of Life; Life as Eternal as Lifelessness?
These novel forms of ours--must be locked into the Eternal. Essential Forever.
Mortality, as with Birth...perhaps these are illusions. Our little bodies, see them there?, tripping through the forest.
11.3.04
Monk v. Holiday
A MONK is a dark area on a printed page, caused by uneven inking of a plate or type. The term derives from the pre-printing press days of Europe, when publishing consisted of monks, hand-copying texts, and the occasional splotches of ink were inevitable.
HOLIDAYS are light spots in a coat of paint. As it was explained to me, it comes from the good-humored sentiment, "The painter must have been taking a holiday when this part of the wall was being painted."
HOLIDAYS are light spots in a coat of paint. As it was explained to me, it comes from the good-humored sentiment, "The painter must have been taking a holiday when this part of the wall was being painted."
22.5.03
EMET! & ting-yin
EMET is the Hebrew word for TRUTH.
The utterance activates the Golem.
.................................................................
ting-yin
in which the pulse of the blodstream in the fingers of the instrumentalist alters the timbre of the note
The utterance activates the Golem.
.................................................................
ting-yin
in which the pulse of the blodstream in the fingers of the instrumentalist alters the timbre of the note
22.3.00
resinous & vitreous
Robert Symmer proposed the terms RESINOUS and VITREOUS for the two states of electrical energy, designated NEGATIVE and POSITIVE, respectively, by Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin is widely accepted as having gotten it backwards. The (-) side of a battery actually has excess charge and the (+) side of the battery is vacant.
But Ben not only got it wrong, condemning us users of electricity for centuries to have to ignore the ill convention for the sake of communication, but, relative to Symmer's proposal, he dubbed the phenomenon shamefully apoetic as well. Maybe it's the mathematic correlation that assured the classification's ultimate success.
But Ben not only got it wrong, condemning us users of electricity for centuries to have to ignore the ill convention for the sake of communication, but, relative to Symmer's proposal, he dubbed the phenomenon shamefully apoetic as well. Maybe it's the mathematic correlation that assured the classification's ultimate success.
Nevertheless, electricity is an interplay of a restless resin and a vitreous void.
11.3.00
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