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Thursday, December 11, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Social Interaction of the Class
Some of you are concerned that asserting your opinion in the class, or participating in provocative discussion will harm your grade. Please be assured that this is not true. Although grading in a creatively based class does involve a level of subjectivity, I work very hard at the point of grading, to evaluate the work, the effort, and the comprehension of the course content. I do not view this class personally, I view it professionally. Although I genuinely like this class very much, that is a consideration that is secondary. The main point is that teaching has a purpose - which for me, is to stimulate growth - creatively and intellectually, and to introduce you to a way of thinking and working that will contribute to your life as you go forward. I do try to prod you in both gentle and more direct ways. It comes from an overall perspective that I work to balance. The balance is between how much of the stimulus comes from me, and how much comes from all of you towards each other.
As you know, I value attendance highly, as I think much of what happens in this class is based on process that evolves over time. I laid that out in the fist class and I think you have seen that develop over the course of the semester. But in the end, attendance and class participation are only 35% of the grade. Here for your review is the grading system from the syllabus:
Research, attendance and participation 35%
In class assignments 30%
Final project 35%
But the other criterion that I value and believe is part of the process of learning, is fun. In game design, the idea is called creative play. What I hope you will understand about this class, is that all of it - discussion, production, ideas - are integrated into an overall creative play - an environment where I hope profound learning is a by-product of experience.
The central kernal of the class is your own experience - how this process may reveal some inner aspects of yourself, and how that can be translated into a creative tool and become part of your language. The composition of that kernal is emotional, psychological and social - all aspects of human identity. The more you are able to take hold of this process and bring your own honesty and openness to it, the more you will get out of it. You have all done a wonderful job so far, it has been extremely interesting to be involved with you this semester. When we get together to critique the projects, and the class as a whole (as I appreciate your feedback as well), this understanding will be the lens of evaluation.
As you know, I value attendance highly, as I think much of what happens in this class is based on process that evolves over time. I laid that out in the fist class and I think you have seen that develop over the course of the semester. But in the end, attendance and class participation are only 35% of the grade. Here for your review is the grading system from the syllabus:
Research, attendance and participation 35%
In class assignments 30%
Final project 35%
But the other criterion that I value and believe is part of the process of learning, is fun. In game design, the idea is called creative play. What I hope you will understand about this class, is that all of it - discussion, production, ideas - are integrated into an overall creative play - an environment where I hope profound learning is a by-product of experience.
The central kernal of the class is your own experience - how this process may reveal some inner aspects of yourself, and how that can be translated into a creative tool and become part of your language. The composition of that kernal is emotional, psychological and social - all aspects of human identity. The more you are able to take hold of this process and bring your own honesty and openness to it, the more you will get out of it. You have all done a wonderful job so far, it has been extremely interesting to be involved with you this semester. When we get together to critique the projects, and the class as a whole (as I appreciate your feedback as well), this understanding will be the lens of evaluation.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Multiple Elements
Things that can be included in your projects. Using many elements and integrating them into an organic whole is the challenge.
Maps, charts, printed guides
Sound
Instructions
More than one location
The bus as location
Physical activity
Virtual activity
Physical + Virtual activity at the same time
Hand-crafted elements - sewing, drawing, rubbings
Digital Material - video, web sites, radio, GPS
Cell phones
Elimination of one sense (blind-folds, head-phones)
The archeologic debris of the area
Team activity
Cats
Maps, charts, printed guides
Sound
Instructions
More than one location
The bus as location
Physical activity
Virtual activity
Physical + Virtual activity at the same time
Hand-crafted elements - sewing, drawing, rubbings
Digital Material - video, web sites, radio, GPS
Cell phones
Elimination of one sense (blind-folds, head-phones)
The archeologic debris of the area
Team activity
Cats
Wodiczko
Krzyysztof Wodiczko, in his book Critical Vehicles, discusses his art work over the span of his career, all of it highly political in nature. What Wodiczko focuses on is designing for human interaction, and human relationship. What he higlights is the binary of power: victor/vanquished. This type of binary analysis of social space can easily be understood in relation to race and gender. What is interesting about his Prophet's Prothesis, is the idea of a doubling - the real person and the media double, both simultaneously walking through the city. Here we have the Derive or Drift retranslated through the integration of media. Inside/outside, real/virtual. These types of binaries fuse together so that the doubled experience creates a whole. Conceptually very interesting. One could even conceive of the doubled self - the real and virtual as a ying/yang.
On p. 13, his design summary could be considered a manifesto. He has articulated a social problem that he is trying to solve through design.
What we have said in this class, is that design solves problems. One must first identify the problem and then create the design to solve it.
On p. 13, his design summary could be considered a manifesto. He has articulated a social problem that he is trying to solve through design.
What we have said in this class, is that design solves problems. One must first identify the problem and then create the design to solve it.
Back to Heterotopias
We started our class with an essay called "Of Other Spaces" and the argument can be made that the mixed reality spaces that are created by the simultaneous experience of real place and the metaverse of Cyberspace is a third, heterotopic space - a time out of time, and a place out of place.
If you add some form of technology to your projects, you extend the space of the project; alter it, change the sequence of time and experience.
A brief summation by Rickie Sanders, Professor of Geography, Temple University:
In his paper, “Of Other Spaces” Michel Foucault called attention to the centrality of space in the 20th century. Indeed it has surpassed history as the great obsession of our time. In his paper he moves along a theoretical trajectory which builds on a medieval hierarchical notion of space, substitutes it with a modern theory of extended space, and ultimately displaces both with the postmodernist claim to site. The site, is both central to the culture and at the same time, set aside – the cemetery, the prison or the hospital – mirrored in the actions that take place there.
If you add some form of technology to your projects, you extend the space of the project; alter it, change the sequence of time and experience.
A brief summation by Rickie Sanders, Professor of Geography, Temple University:
In his paper, “Of Other Spaces” Michel Foucault called attention to the centrality of space in the 20th century. Indeed it has surpassed history as the great obsession of our time. In his paper he moves along a theoretical trajectory which builds on a medieval hierarchical notion of space, substitutes it with a modern theory of extended space, and ultimately displaces both with the postmodernist claim to site. The site, is both central to the culture and at the same time, set aside – the cemetery, the prison or the hospital – mirrored in the actions that take place there.
Understanding Space
All of you have picked a place for your final projects. The creative part of the assignment is to design a project/event/happening/performance/encounter in that place that activates the space. To do that, you have to bring together three things: some aspect of the history or dynamic of the place that you have researched, some aspect of your own experience and some experience of the interrelationship of the buildings, events and interactions that make up that space.
... and you need to read p. 28 in the Mapping Cyberspace reading on Theorising Space. Rob Kitchin lays out the history of how space has been thought about - Aristotelian - space is static, hierarchical and concrete; Newtonian - space is an absolute grid, within which objects are located and events occur; Leibnizian - space is fundamentally relational and defined in terms of those relationships; Kantian - space is conceptualized as a form imposed on the world by humans.
... and you need to read p. 28 in the Mapping Cyberspace reading on Theorising Space. Rob Kitchin lays out the history of how space has been thought about - Aristotelian - space is static, hierarchical and concrete; Newtonian - space is an absolute grid, within which objects are located and events occur; Leibnizian - space is fundamentally relational and defined in terms of those relationships; Kantian - space is conceptualized as a form imposed on the world by humans.
Manifestos
Some examples, far out and not:
Joseph Beuys, German conceptual artist: http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/jbeuys-manifesto.html
Fluxus manifesto: http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/index.html
White Manifesto by Lucio Fontana, "We are continuing the evolution of art."
The Italian Futurists wrote many manifestos. They wrote manifestos on everything from art to clothing. http://www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/
This show in Chelsea (Oct. 23 - Dec. 20) has some beautiful work which translates Zapatista manifestos into musical scores (each letter of the alphabet which is also a note, becomes that note, and everything else is a pause/silence.) Kent Gallery, 541 West 25th Street http://www.kentgallery.com/index.html
The Dogme95 film-making manifesto that I mentioned in class http://www.dogme95.dk/the_vow/index.htm
You'll love this one: The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism, Thomas Marinetti 1905 http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html
The Situationist Manifesto http://www.infopool.org.uk/6003.html
And this is the manifesto that will help you with the entire assignment and final project The Manifesto of Possibilities http://wiki.bbk.ac.uk/Buildingcultures/index.php/Manifesto_of_Possibilities
Joseph Beuys, German conceptual artist: http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/jbeuys-manifesto.html
Fluxus manifesto: http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/index.html
White Manifesto by Lucio Fontana, "We are continuing the evolution of art."
The Italian Futurists wrote many manifestos. They wrote manifestos on everything from art to clothing. http://www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/
This show in Chelsea (Oct. 23 - Dec. 20) has some beautiful work which translates Zapatista manifestos into musical scores (each letter of the alphabet which is also a note, becomes that note, and everything else is a pause/silence.) Kent Gallery, 541 West 25th Street http://www.kentgallery.com/index.html
The Dogme95 film-making manifesto that I mentioned in class http://www.dogme95.dk/the_vow/index.htm
You'll love this one: The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism, Thomas Marinetti 1905 http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html
The Situationist Manifesto http://www.infopool.org.uk/6003.html
And this is the manifesto that will help you with the entire assignment and final project The Manifesto of Possibilities http://wiki.bbk.ac.uk/Buildingcultures/index.php/Manifesto_of_Possibilities
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Mapping Cyberspace
This is a very straightforward chapter. Lots of information. But the key point that Rob Kitchin brings up is how cyberspace refers to the conceptual space within the Information and communication technologies. That is key to our understanding of space and our definition of place.
p. 1 - At present, cyberspace does not consist of one homogenous space; it is a myriad of rapidly expanding cyberspaces, each providing a different form of digital interaction and communication.
Yes, so if we use any of them in our projects, how do we measure how they affect the space, place, experience or location of the project. In what way is this a microcosm of urban life as it is led on a daily basis.
This is a crucial chapter, it brings together many themes we have discussed in class. I will elaborate more at another time.
p. 1 - At present, cyberspace does not consist of one homogenous space; it is a myriad of rapidly expanding cyberspaces, each providing a different form of digital interaction and communication.
Yes, so if we use any of them in our projects, how do we measure how they affect the space, place, experience or location of the project. In what way is this a microcosm of urban life as it is led on a daily basis.
This is a crucial chapter, it brings together many themes we have discussed in class. I will elaborate more at another time.
Some other things
What I would say is most important is the sense of web 2.0 politics - open source, ground up authorship, networked, distributed. So, the integration of the social softwares such as blogger, twitter, Facebook or Ning, de.li.ci.ous, Flickr, Hipcast (or moblogging, podcasting etc.), Google Maps are core to the concepts of the class. If your projects can integrate with any of these applications, you get extra points. If you are doing something outside, but can include a web element, a map, a feature of some kind, extra points. If you can work on the idea of a MIXED REALITY experience - either a mixture of physical and networked experience, or mixed through sensory scrambling, or spatial re-organization etc.
The most effective projects have created experiences that start in one condition and end in another condition. Walking somewhere, putting something(s) somewhere and leaving them there, and that combine several of these concepts into one overall experience.
The idea of permanence vs. mutability, the ephemeral quality of technology as public art.
The idea that art and creativity can collapse multiple meanings into one experience.
Having the public or the class create the content for the project. You create the structure for gathering that content, asking for it, soliciting it, provoking it, creating it.
We will add to this list.
The most effective projects have created experiences that start in one condition and end in another condition. Walking somewhere, putting something(s) somewhere and leaving them there, and that combine several of these concepts into one overall experience.
The idea of permanence vs. mutability, the ephemeral quality of technology as public art.
The idea that art and creativity can collapse multiple meanings into one experience.
Having the public or the class create the content for the project. You create the structure for gathering that content, asking for it, soliciting it, provoking it, creating it.
We will add to this list.
Some issues
These are issues that we determined to underlie the NYU class. I think our class has other issues to add to this, and maybe some that were not as highly developed. Take a look at this list and think of what you would add or subtract:
Information Landscape is Everywhere
Geographic: by, at, in, on
Architectural: shape, volume
Social: history, interpersonal, regulatory (law, custom)
Presence: sensory, mental, time
Path: physical, communications
Some of the core elements that are addressed (sometimes critically and sometimes not) in Locative Media are control and surveillance (which are subtopics of regulation).
Information Landscape is Everywhere
Geographic: by, at, in, on
Architectural: shape, volume
Social: history, interpersonal, regulatory (law, custom)
Presence: sensory, mental, time
Path: physical, communications
Some of the core elements that are addressed (sometimes critically and sometimes not) in Locative Media are control and surveillance (which are subtopics of regulation).
Criteria of Evaluation
layers (how many)
thinking process
effort
growth in your own work
subjectivity (how well is expressed or understood in your method)
objectivity (what you have gathered from research)
extending or extention (any of the assignments or elements of your art practice)
issues of democracy (figure that out)
thinking process
effort
growth in your own work
subjectivity (how well is expressed or understood in your method)
objectivity (what you have gathered from research)
extending or extention (any of the assignments or elements of your art practice)
issues of democracy (figure that out)
Final Projects as of 11/10/08
RULES
We have 2 days for 3+ hours each day. Everyone MUST be on time for both presentation days. Everyone MUST attend both days + final review on date determined during exam week.
We will use cars on Wed. Dec. 3 and a bus will be provided by Rutgers for the final day of Wed. Dec. 10. The bus can also be a location, or integrated into your project if you so choose.
DRESS WARMLY - GLOVES, HATS, SCARVES, YOUR HEAVIEST COAT. It gets really cold on the street participating in these projects.
Locations so far:
275 George Street - C-Town Super
The cemetary
Train station
Corner of Senior Street and Eastern Ave. - Pete's Liquors
Corner of Front and Jersey
Bishop Street
College Ave. & Hamilton
The Hungarian Church - Livingston Ave.
Harvest Moon Brewery
We have 2 days for 3+ hours each day. Everyone MUST be on time for both presentation days. Everyone MUST attend both days + final review on date determined during exam week.
We will use cars on Wed. Dec. 3 and a bus will be provided by Rutgers for the final day of Wed. Dec. 10. The bus can also be a location, or integrated into your project if you so choose.
DRESS WARMLY - GLOVES, HATS, SCARVES, YOUR HEAVIEST COAT. It gets really cold on the street participating in these projects.
Locations so far:
275 George Street - C-Town Super
The cemetary
Train station
Corner of Senior Street and Eastern Ave. - Pete's Liquors
Corner of Front and Jersey
Bishop Street
College Ave. & Hamilton
The Hungarian Church - Livingston Ave.
Harvest Moon Brewery
Readings - a review list 11/10/08
Here is a list of all the readings so far:
Of Other Spaces (1967). Heterotopias, Michel Foucault.
The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges
Space and Place, Yi Fu Tuan, chapters 1,2 & 6
A Different City for a Different Life, Constant (From the Internationale Situationiste 3 (December 1959)
Introducing Cyberspace from Mapping Cyberspace, Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge 2002
Center-City, Empty Center; No Address; The Station, from Empire of Signs, Roland Barthes 1982
Voyage Around My Room, from the chapter Geography from The Atlas of Emotion, Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film, Guiliana Bruno, Verso 2002.
Critical Vehicles, Writings, Projects, Interviews by Krzysztof Wodiczko, MIT press 1999
Mapping the Homunculus by Steve Dietz from Else/Where: New Cartographies of Networks and Territories Ed. Janet Abrams and Peter Hall, University of MN Press, 2006.
Counter-Geographies by Brian Holmes from Else/Where: New Cartographies of Networks and Territories Ed. Janet Abrams and Peter Hall, University of MN Press, 2006.
Of Other Spaces (1967). Heterotopias, Michel Foucault.
The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges
Space and Place, Yi Fu Tuan, chapters 1,2 & 6
A Different City for a Different Life, Constant (From the Internationale Situationiste 3 (December 1959)
Introducing Cyberspace from Mapping Cyberspace, Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge 2002
Center-City, Empty Center; No Address; The Station, from Empire of Signs, Roland Barthes 1982
Voyage Around My Room, from the chapter Geography from The Atlas of Emotion, Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film, Guiliana Bruno, Verso 2002.
Critical Vehicles, Writings, Projects, Interviews by Krzysztof Wodiczko, MIT press 1999
Mapping the Homunculus by Steve Dietz from Else/Where: New Cartographies of Networks and Territories Ed. Janet Abrams and Peter Hall, University of MN Press, 2006.
Counter-Geographies by Brian Holmes from Else/Where: New Cartographies of Networks and Territories Ed. Janet Abrams and Peter Hall, University of MN Press, 2006.
Why We Care
Not only does semiotics affect how we understand symbol features of our urban landscape, it influences how we interpret both language and meaning and visual language and meaning. The construction of meaning in a photograph, for example, which we use liberally to document our work, and as part of the work itself. Beyond that, it has great value in the understanding of computer science, which is one of the internal engines of our project. The internet, our cell phones, our GPS technology all use computer science somewhere in their mechanism.
In computer science, where it is considered as an application of mathematical logic, semantics reflects the meaning of programs or functions.
In this regard, semantics permits programs to be separated into their syntactical part (grammatical structure) and their semantic part (meaning). For instance, the following statements use different syntaxes (languages), but result in the same semantic:
x += y; (C, Java, etc.)
x := x + y; (Pascal)
Let x = x + y; (early BASIC)
x = x + y (most BASIC dialects, Fortran)
Generally these operations would all perform an arithmetical addition of 'y' to 'x' and store the result in a variable called 'x'.
Semantics for computer applications falls into three categories:[12]
Operational semantics: The meaning of a construct is specified by the computation it induces when it is executed on a machine. In particular, it is of interest how the effect of a computation is produced.
Denotational semantics: Meanings are modelled by mathematical objects that represent the effect of executing the constructs. Thus only the effect is of interest, not how it is obtained.
Axiomatic semantics: Specific properties of the effect of executing the constructs as expressed as assertions. Thus there may be aspects of the executions that are ignored.
The Semantic Web refers to the extension of the World Wide Web through the embedding of additional semantic metadata; s.a. Web Ontology Language (OWL).
SO, MOST IMPORTANTLY< SEMANTICS CAN AFFECT HOW WE TAG OUR PROJECTS, HOW WE TAG OUR DATA, HOW WE CREATE A METADATA TO OUR PROJECTS THAT SIMULATES THE SEMANTIC WEB.
In computer science, where it is considered as an application of mathematical logic, semantics reflects the meaning of programs or functions.
In this regard, semantics permits programs to be separated into their syntactical part (grammatical structure) and their semantic part (meaning). For instance, the following statements use different syntaxes (languages), but result in the same semantic:
x += y; (C, Java, etc.)
x := x + y; (Pascal)
Let x = x + y; (early BASIC)
x = x + y (most BASIC dialects, Fortran)
Generally these operations would all perform an arithmetical addition of 'y' to 'x' and store the result in a variable called 'x'.
Semantics for computer applications falls into three categories:[12]
Operational semantics: The meaning of a construct is specified by the computation it induces when it is executed on a machine. In particular, it is of interest how the effect of a computation is produced.
Denotational semantics: Meanings are modelled by mathematical objects that represent the effect of executing the constructs. Thus only the effect is of interest, not how it is obtained.
Axiomatic semantics: Specific properties of the effect of executing the constructs as expressed as assertions. Thus there may be aspects of the executions that are ignored.
The Semantic Web refers to the extension of the World Wide Web through the embedding of additional semantic metadata; s.a. Web Ontology Language (OWL).
SO, MOST IMPORTANTLY< SEMANTICS CAN AFFECT HOW WE TAG OUR PROJECTS, HOW WE TAG OUR DATA, HOW WE CREATE A METADATA TO OUR PROJECTS THAT SIMULATES THE SEMANTIC WEB.
Semantics
The linguistic branch of semiotics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
A partial description here:
Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word derives from Greek σημαντικός (semantikous), "significant",[1] from σημαίνω (semaino), "to signify, to indicate" and that from σήμα (sema), "sign, mark, token".[2] In linguistics it is the study of interpretation of signs as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts.[3] It has related meanings in several other fields.
Semanticists differ on what constitutes meaning in an expression. For example, in the sentence, "John loves a bagel", the word bagel may refer to the object itself, which is its literal meaning or denotation, but it may also refer to many other figurative associations, such as how it meets John's hunger, etc., which may be its connotation. Traditionally, the formal semantic view restricts semantics to its literal meaning, and relegates all figurative associations to pragmatics, but this distinction is difficult to defend.[4] The degree to which a theorist subscribes to the literal-figurative distinction decreases as one moves from the formal semantic, semiotic, pragmatic, to the cognitive semantic traditions.
The word semantic in its modern sense is considered to have first appeared in French as sémantique in Michel Bréal's 1897 book, Essai de sémantique'. In International Scientific Vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology. The discipline of Semantics is distinct from Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics, which is a system for looking at non-immediate, or abstract meanings.
A partial description here:
Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word derives from Greek σημαντικός (semantikous), "significant",[1] from σημαίνω (semaino), "to signify, to indicate" and that from σήμα (sema), "sign, mark, token".[2] In linguistics it is the study of interpretation of signs as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts.[3] It has related meanings in several other fields.
Semanticists differ on what constitutes meaning in an expression. For example, in the sentence, "John loves a bagel", the word bagel may refer to the object itself, which is its literal meaning or denotation, but it may also refer to many other figurative associations, such as how it meets John's hunger, etc., which may be its connotation. Traditionally, the formal semantic view restricts semantics to its literal meaning, and relegates all figurative associations to pragmatics, but this distinction is difficult to defend.[4] The degree to which a theorist subscribes to the literal-figurative distinction decreases as one moves from the formal semantic, semiotic, pragmatic, to the cognitive semantic traditions.
The word semantic in its modern sense is considered to have first appeared in French as sémantique in Michel Bréal's 1897 book, Essai de sémantique'. In International Scientific Vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology. The discipline of Semantics is distinct from Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics, which is a system for looking at non-immediate, or abstract meanings.
Semiotics
The full description from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
A partial description here:
Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood. One of the attempts to formalize the field was most notably led by the Vienna Circle and presented in their International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, in which the authors agreed on breaking out the field, which they called "semiotic", into three branches:
Semantics: Relation between signs and the things they refer to, their denotata.
Syntactics: Relation of signs to each other in formal structures.
Pragmatics: Relation of signs to their impacts on those who use them. (Also known as General Semantics)
These branches are clearly inspired by Charles W. Morris, especially his Writings on the general theory of signs (The Hague, The Netherlands, Mouton, 1971, orig. 1938).
Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological dimensions, for example Umberto Eco proposes that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication. However, some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science. They examine areas belonging also to the natural sciences - such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics or zoosemiosis.
A partial description here:
Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood. One of the attempts to formalize the field was most notably led by the Vienna Circle and presented in their International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, in which the authors agreed on breaking out the field, which they called "semiotic", into three branches:
Semantics: Relation between signs and the things they refer to, their denotata.
Syntactics: Relation of signs to each other in formal structures.
Pragmatics: Relation of signs to their impacts on those who use them. (Also known as General Semantics)
These branches are clearly inspired by Charles W. Morris, especially his Writings on the general theory of signs (The Hague, The Netherlands, Mouton, 1971, orig. 1938).
Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological dimensions, for example Umberto Eco proposes that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication. However, some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science. They examine areas belonging also to the natural sciences - such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics or zoosemiosis.
Yi Fu Tuan Chapter 6
Spatial Ability, Knowledge and Place
KEY THEMES OF OUR CLASS!
P. 68 - Walking is a skill, but if I can "see" myself walking and if I hold that picture in mind sp that I can analyze how I move and what path I am following, then I also have knowledge. That knowledge is transferable to another person through EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION IN WORDS, WITH DIAGRAMS, AND IN GENERAL BY SHOWING HOW COMPLEX MOTION consists of parts that can be analyzed or imitated.
P. 73 - When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place. Kinesthetic and perceptual experience as well as the ability to form concepts are required for the change if the space is large.
How well do you relate to small or large spaces? Do you become disoriented in large spaces? How would you design an experience that relates small and large spaces so that the viewer/user has to orient through some kind of maze like experience to orient themselves.
What are the spaces that have become places for you? Like Rutgers campus itself?
KEY THEMES OF OUR CLASS!
P. 68 - Walking is a skill, but if I can "see" myself walking and if I hold that picture in mind sp that I can analyze how I move and what path I am following, then I also have knowledge. That knowledge is transferable to another person through EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION IN WORDS, WITH DIAGRAMS, AND IN GENERAL BY SHOWING HOW COMPLEX MOTION consists of parts that can be analyzed or imitated.
P. 73 - When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place. Kinesthetic and perceptual experience as well as the ability to form concepts are required for the change if the space is large.
How well do you relate to small or large spaces? Do you become disoriented in large spaces? How would you design an experience that relates small and large spaces so that the viewer/user has to orient through some kind of maze like experience to orient themselves.
What are the spaces that have become places for you? Like Rutgers campus itself?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
More Yi Fu Tuan notes
These are ideas that caught my attention:
tactile perception is at the extreme opposite of visual perception. The skin is able to convey certain spatial ideas and can do so without the support of other senses, depending on the structure of the body and the ability to move. (p. 14)
--- which leads me back to the push/pull exercise and the experience of touching your partner. How much information was communicated through touch? How do you spatially organize yourself in open and closed space?
Sounds, though vaguely located, can convey a strong sense of size (volume) and of distance. For example, in an empty cathedral the sound of footsteps tapping sharply on the stone floor creates an impression of cavernous vastness. (p15)
--- which makes me think of the creative possibilities of sound to create, record or alter space.
Three principal types of space (p. 17), with large areas of overlap, exist - the mythical, the pragmatic, and the abstract or theoretical. Mythical space is a conceptual schema, but it is also pragmatic space in the sense that within that schema a large number of practical activities, such as planting and harvesting of crops, are ordered. A difference between mythical and pragmatic space is that the latter is defined by a more limited set of economic activities.... When an ingenious person tries to describe the soil pattern cartographically, by means of symbols, a further move toward the conceptual mode occurs. In the Western world systems of geometry - that is highly abstract spaces - have been created out of primal experiences. Thus sensorimotor and tactile experiences would seem to lie at the root of Euclid's theorems concerning shape congruence and the parallelism of distant lines; and visual perception is the basis for projective geometry. (p.17)
---so how would you design an experience that would separate the senses, and give a single sense experience of space.
--- Where in New Brunswick, do you find mythical space and pragmatic space overlapping?
An object or place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind. (p. 18)
---How can you deconstruct a place to recreate it as a new, whole, concrete experience?
tactile perception is at the extreme opposite of visual perception. The skin is able to convey certain spatial ideas and can do so without the support of other senses, depending on the structure of the body and the ability to move. (p. 14)
--- which leads me back to the push/pull exercise and the experience of touching your partner. How much information was communicated through touch? How do you spatially organize yourself in open and closed space?
Sounds, though vaguely located, can convey a strong sense of size (volume) and of distance. For example, in an empty cathedral the sound of footsteps tapping sharply on the stone floor creates an impression of cavernous vastness. (p15)
--- which makes me think of the creative possibilities of sound to create, record or alter space.
Three principal types of space (p. 17), with large areas of overlap, exist - the mythical, the pragmatic, and the abstract or theoretical. Mythical space is a conceptual schema, but it is also pragmatic space in the sense that within that schema a large number of practical activities, such as planting and harvesting of crops, are ordered. A difference between mythical and pragmatic space is that the latter is defined by a more limited set of economic activities.... When an ingenious person tries to describe the soil pattern cartographically, by means of symbols, a further move toward the conceptual mode occurs. In the Western world systems of geometry - that is highly abstract spaces - have been created out of primal experiences. Thus sensorimotor and tactile experiences would seem to lie at the root of Euclid's theorems concerning shape congruence and the parallelism of distant lines; and visual perception is the basis for projective geometry. (p.17)
---so how would you design an experience that would separate the senses, and give a single sense experience of space.
--- Where in New Brunswick, do you find mythical space and pragmatic space overlapping?
An object or place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind. (p. 18)
---How can you deconstruct a place to recreate it as a new, whole, concrete experience?
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Yi Fu Tuan more reading notes
Yi Fu Tuan refers to the kind of properties that create a sense of place. He also questions, what is space, and how does one have a sense of spaciousness? In what ways do people attach meaning to space and place? The answer goes beyond the cultural; there are certain "animal" relationships to space and place... one could say, embodied senses of how we orient ourselves to space and place. We are interested in how space and place are understood, so that we can question how technology disorients our sense of space and place, or amplifies our sense of space and place.
Try to think of some ways you would answer this question.
Three themes run through Yi Fu Tuans book:
1) The biological facts
2) The relations of space and place
3) The range of experience or knowledge.
He amplifies these themes on page 6 of the Introduction. Please refer to that and fill out the meanings.
A key term in the book is "experience." What is the nature of experience and the experiential perspective? (Yi Fu Tuan, p.7)
Our class is also based on the development of experiential exercises. How has each one informed your sense of space or place?
Chapter 2 focuses on the Experiential Perspective. Experience is made up of sensation, perception and conception. These influence on a continuum, emotion and thought.
Experience is directed to the external world. Seeing and thinking clearly reach out beyond the self. Feeling however, reflects the way in which the self is inwardly affected. (p. 9).
This is important to think about because as you come to define your own experiences, it helps you think about how to design experiences for other people. The final project will be the result of a complex experience design.
Try to think of some ways you would answer this question.
Three themes run through Yi Fu Tuans book:
1) The biological facts
2) The relations of space and place
3) The range of experience or knowledge.
He amplifies these themes on page 6 of the Introduction. Please refer to that and fill out the meanings.
A key term in the book is "experience." What is the nature of experience and the experiential perspective? (Yi Fu Tuan, p.7)
Our class is also based on the development of experiential exercises. How has each one informed your sense of space or place?
Chapter 2 focuses on the Experiential Perspective. Experience is made up of sensation, perception and conception. These influence on a continuum, emotion and thought.
Experience is directed to the external world. Seeing and thinking clearly reach out beyond the self. Feeling however, reflects the way in which the self is inwardly affected. (p. 9).
This is important to think about because as you come to define your own experiences, it helps you think about how to design experiences for other people. The final project will be the result of a complex experience design.
Yi Fu Tuan reading notes
From the paper "Neighborhood Narratives, New Dialogues With/in the Mediated City", by Hana Iverson and Rickie Sanders. 2008.
Place, according to Yi Fu Tuan (1977) combines a sense of position within society and a sense of identity with a spatial location. Places have historically been viewed as physical sites, with natural and emotional endowments that speak to the limits of human freedom. Not only are our human identities bound up with the hills and valleys in which we live but our very humanness and humanity is bound in this way. It is place that gives rise to humanness – in the form of feelings, attachments, longing, nostalgia, desire, melancholy, and fear.
... Space is perhaps best thought of as a three dimensional void where things are held to exist only if they occupy volume. Location based technologies negate the consideration of volume and view space along the lines of abstract Cartesianism.
...Similarly, beginning with the 16th century, the conception of space which relied on the Cartesian coordinate system set in motion a marginalization of place. Space with its numerical properties was regarded as absolute and finite. Thus it was perceived as scientific and crucial to the goal of imperialism.
...Certain activities are accorded special spatial status, while others are not. Driving a truck is spatial (hence, work), talking on the phone is less spatial (hence, bureaucratic), and pondering an idea is simply ethereal (Sack, 1980, p. 17) hence, indolent.
Place, according to Yi Fu Tuan (1977) combines a sense of position within society and a sense of identity with a spatial location. Places have historically been viewed as physical sites, with natural and emotional endowments that speak to the limits of human freedom. Not only are our human identities bound up with the hills and valleys in which we live but our very humanness and humanity is bound in this way. It is place that gives rise to humanness – in the form of feelings, attachments, longing, nostalgia, desire, melancholy, and fear.
... Space is perhaps best thought of as a three dimensional void where things are held to exist only if they occupy volume. Location based technologies negate the consideration of volume and view space along the lines of abstract Cartesianism.
...Similarly, beginning with the 16th century, the conception of space which relied on the Cartesian coordinate system set in motion a marginalization of place. Space with its numerical properties was regarded as absolute and finite. Thus it was perceived as scientific and crucial to the goal of imperialism.
...Certain activities are accorded special spatial status, while others are not. Driving a truck is spatial (hence, work), talking on the phone is less spatial (hence, bureaucratic), and pondering an idea is simply ethereal (Sack, 1980, p. 17) hence, indolent.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Audio MoBlogging
To record an audio moblog, dial: (214) 615-6431
When prompted, enter your PIN: 181-197-551
Your options will be: Record and Publish, orRecord and Not Publish.
Record and Publish
If you select Record and Publish, you will be prompted for your Blog Number or Podcast Number.
Blog # 1000.
When prompted, enter your PIN: 181-197-551
Your options will be: Record and Publish, orRecord and Not Publish.
Record and Publish
If you select Record and Publish, you will be prompted for your Blog Number or Podcast Number.
Blog # 1000.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Further tips on Flickr to My Maps image sharing
You need to use url for actual image, not the url for the page on flickr.
To embed this image http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosamari/490656514/
you need to use this url : http://farm1.static.flickr.com/220/490656514_ccac510179.jpg which is listed on "all sizes" tab of each image.
Hit the "small" option to get embedding code.
To embed this image http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosamari/490656514/
you need to use this url : http://farm1.static.flickr.com/220/490656514_ccac510179.jpg which is listed on "all sizes" tab of each image.
Hit the "small" option to get embedding code.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Social Software Hell
It all may not be as easy as it sounds. We will sort it out in class, do not despair.
Putting Photos into My Maps
When you are in My Maps, you hit the "edit" button, which is on the left side nav bar, near the title that you gave the map. That is when the took bar appears and you can put in little drop marks (tags) etc. When you have tagged a location, you click on the tag (still in edit mode) and a text box will open so that you can annotate the location. It has three choices - Plain Text, Rich Text or Edit HTML. You click on Rich Text and the menu bar will appear (you can highlight the text, color it etc.) It also has a little picture icon and if you hit the picture icon, it asks you for the url to your picture. So, that is part 2. You have had to sign on to Flickr - Flickr.com and upload some photos there. You pick the picture and you want, click on it so that it is the only image displayed on the page and then you copy and paste the url from that image into the text box on My Maps - voila! You have annotated the map, and used one of your photos.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Mashups
Taking this all to the Digital arena, here is the complete description of Mashups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)
and putting it all together:
Dada, mashup, derive, detournement, and Locative Media (which is built on all of these theoretical foundations) is
Bikes Against Bush (apologies to anyone who does not share this political idealogy - I am showing this not to support the idealogy, but to demonstrate the project:
http://www.bikesagainstbush.com/blog/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)
and putting it all together:
Dada, mashup, derive, detournement, and Locative Media (which is built on all of these theoretical foundations) is
Bikes Against Bush (apologies to anyone who does not share this political idealogy - I am showing this not to support the idealogy, but to demonstrate the project:
http://www.bikesagainstbush.com/blog/
Detournement and the Situationists, also known as Mashups
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement
In détournement, an artist reuses elements of well-known media to create a new work with a different message, often one opposed to the original. The term "détournement", borrowed from the French, originated with the Situationist International; a similar term more familiar to English speakers would be "turnabout" or "derailment", although these terms are not used in academia and the arts world as they are inherently 'anti-art,' often involving the blatant theft and sabotage of existing elements. Détournement is similar to satirical parody, but employs more direct reuse or faithful mimicry of the original works rather than constructing a new work which merely alludes strongly to the original. It may be contrasted with recuperation, in which originally subversive works and ideas are themselves appropriated by mainstream media.
This practice builds upon the Political Collage that was a product of the Dada movement in the early part of the 20th century:
The real hayday for political collage came in the interwar years (1918-1939) in Germany when a group of Dadaists including John Heartfield (born: Helmuth Herzfelde, 1891-1968), George Grosz, Hannah Höch (1889-1978) and Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971) started to experiment with pasting together images from magazines and newspapers. Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Höch were lovers and together with George Grosz they claimed to have invented the technique but this is not really accurate. Collages including photographs had appeared a lot earlier and the technique of merging different images was already widely used in advertising.
Adolf the Superman Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk 1932
Dada (1916-1923) was an artistic and literary movement that attacked political and artistic norms as a direct response to the chaos of the First World War (1914-1918). Photographic collages proved to be a powerful tool to promote critical thinking about the establishment and much of the work was centered at the Wieland Herzfelde's gallery and publishing house, Malik Verlag. Malik Verlag was one of the most important printers of Dada publications. Although a lot of the early Dadaist works were a random collection of images and textual fragments John Heartfield appreciated the political possibilities of the form and in 1924 produced an image called 'After ten years: fathers and sons' that showed General Von Hindenburg, one of the key figures of the First World War (1914-1918) and soon to be President of the Republic, standing in military uniform in front of a series of skeletons, who are above a marching group of infantry.
In détournement, an artist reuses elements of well-known media to create a new work with a different message, often one opposed to the original. The term "détournement", borrowed from the French, originated with the Situationist International; a similar term more familiar to English speakers would be "turnabout" or "derailment", although these terms are not used in academia and the arts world as they are inherently 'anti-art,' often involving the blatant theft and sabotage of existing elements. Détournement is similar to satirical parody, but employs more direct reuse or faithful mimicry of the original works rather than constructing a new work which merely alludes strongly to the original. It may be contrasted with recuperation, in which originally subversive works and ideas are themselves appropriated by mainstream media.
This practice builds upon the Political Collage that was a product of the Dada movement in the early part of the 20th century:
The real hayday for political collage came in the interwar years (1918-1939) in Germany when a group of Dadaists including John Heartfield (born: Helmuth Herzfelde, 1891-1968), George Grosz, Hannah Höch (1889-1978) and Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971) started to experiment with pasting together images from magazines and newspapers. Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Höch were lovers and together with George Grosz they claimed to have invented the technique but this is not really accurate. Collages including photographs had appeared a lot earlier and the technique of merging different images was already widely used in advertising.
Adolf the Superman Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk 1932
Dada (1916-1923) was an artistic and literary movement that attacked political and artistic norms as a direct response to the chaos of the First World War (1914-1918). Photographic collages proved to be a powerful tool to promote critical thinking about the establishment and much of the work was centered at the Wieland Herzfelde's gallery and publishing house, Malik Verlag. Malik Verlag was one of the most important printers of Dada publications. Although a lot of the early Dadaist works were a random collection of images and textual fragments John Heartfield appreciated the political possibilities of the form and in 1924 produced an image called 'After ten years: fathers and sons' that showed General Von Hindenburg, one of the key figures of the First World War (1914-1918) and soon to be President of the Republic, standing in military uniform in front of a series of skeletons, who are above a marching group of infantry.
Guy Debord and the Situationist International
Guy Debord led the Situationist International group which led the Paris uprising of 1968.
The Situationist International, a political/artistic movement organized by Debord and his colleagues and represented by a journal of the same name, attempted to create a series of strategies for engaging in class struggle by reclaiming individual autonomy from the spectacle. These strategies, including "dérive" and "détournement", drew on the traditions of Dada and Surrealism.
Here is the wikipedia article on Guy Debord: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord
More from wikipedia:
In the situationist thought, a Dérive is a concept meaning an aimless walk, probably through city streets, that follows the whim of the moment. It is usually translated as a drift.
French writer and Situationist Guy Debord used this idea to try and convince readers to revisit the way they looked at urban spaces. Rather than being prisoners to their daily route and routine, living in a complex city but treading the same path every day, he urged people to follow their emotions and to look at urban situations in a radical new way. This led to the notion that most of our cities were so thoroughly unpleasant because they were designed in a way that either ignored their emotional impact on people, or indeed tried to control people through their very design. The basic premise of the idea is for people to explore their environment ("psychogeography") without preconceptions, to understand their location, and therefore their existence.
Like the earlier flâneur, the Situationist dérive was a general reaction, manifested in the shadow of the Parisian landscape, as the casual stroller of flânerie moved towards the more directed urban pedestrian.
Derive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive
The Situationist International, a political/artistic movement organized by Debord and his colleagues and represented by a journal of the same name, attempted to create a series of strategies for engaging in class struggle by reclaiming individual autonomy from the spectacle. These strategies, including "dérive" and "détournement", drew on the traditions of Dada and Surrealism.
Here is the wikipedia article on Guy Debord: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord
More from wikipedia:
In the situationist thought, a Dérive is a concept meaning an aimless walk, probably through city streets, that follows the whim of the moment. It is usually translated as a drift.
French writer and Situationist Guy Debord used this idea to try and convince readers to revisit the way they looked at urban spaces. Rather than being prisoners to their daily route and routine, living in a complex city but treading the same path every day, he urged people to follow their emotions and to look at urban situations in a radical new way. This led to the notion that most of our cities were so thoroughly unpleasant because they were designed in a way that either ignored their emotional impact on people, or indeed tried to control people through their very design. The basic premise of the idea is for people to explore their environment ("psychogeography") without preconceptions, to understand their location, and therefore their existence.
Like the earlier flâneur, the Situationist dérive was a general reaction, manifested in the shadow of the Parisian landscape, as the casual stroller of flânerie moved towards the more directed urban pedestrian.
Derive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive
Monday, October 6, 2008
The Digital Divide
Enjoleah posted an interesting article on her blog that questions issues about the Digital Divide. Since the mobile web 2.0 technologies and ideas that we explore in this class relate to the idea of e-Democracy, I thought that a good place to get information about this discussion is on Wikipedia.
Here is the link to a definition of the Digital Divide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide
If we are thinking about binary oppositions and their effect on place and space, here is another way in which we can discuss polarities in access and information.
Here is the link to a definition of the Digital Divide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide
If we are thinking about binary oppositions and their effect on place and space, here is another way in which we can discuss polarities in access and information.
Borges
Here is some background information about Jorge Luis Borges, which will help enrich your understanding of The Garden of Forking Paths.
Borges
Jorge Luis Borges composed only small essays or short narratives.
Wealth of invention, tight mathematical style.
Argentinian by birth, nurtured on Universal literature, Borges had no spiritual homeland. Born in 1899 and settled in Beunos Aires in 1921, after his education in Switzerland and Spain. His parents were intellectual middle class. Influened by the post WWI social aspects of the convergence of impact of war, industrialism and the emerging modern European art, he became part of the Argentine “ultraismo” – a mix of modern expressionist form and a nostalgia for certain national values…
Creates outside time and space; imaginary or symbolic worlds
Kin to Kafka. Poe amd always to Valery by the abrupt projections of his paradox into what has been called “his private metaphsyics.” He had a radical insistence on breaking with the known world and postulating another.
Started as a poet but from 1930 – 1940, he underwent a huge change and turned to the short narrative genre. A lot of what had emotionally fueled his earlier work became ranked within a larger context of vast universal processes. Oppressed by physical disabilities and the turmoil of Europe, Borges sought to create a coherent fictional world of intelligence. Some of his stories, like Tlon, project a tentative utopial into the future beyond the grim year of 1941 when it was written.
Sources are wide. Has read everything and very obscure literature:
The Cabalists
The Alexandrine Greeks
Medieval Philosophers
Pascal wrote, “Nature is an infinite sphere whose whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Borges set out to hunt down this metaphor. Drawn from a 3rd century French theologian, Alain de Lilles “God is an intellogible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Such researches, carried out among the Chinese, the Arabs or the Egyptians, led him to the subject of his stories. Not a science ficton of probability, he admired the notion of possibility or impossibility. He said, “God must not engage in theology; the writer must not destroy by human reasonings, the faith that art requires of us.”
Inspired by the English writer John William Dunne, author of curious books about time, in which he claims the past, present and future exist simultaneously, as proved in our dreams. In death we shall rediscover all the instants of our life and we shall freely combine them as dreams. “God, our friends and Shakespeare will collaborate with us”. Nothing pleases Borges better than to play this way with mind, dreams, space and time. The more complicated the game becomes, the happier he is.
Looks for paradoxical intellectual possibilities. “ If this absurd postulate were developed to its extreme logical consequences, what would be created?’
The “Library of Babel” is the image of the universe, infinite and always starting over again. Most of the books in this library are unintelligible, letters thrown together by chance or perversely repeated, but sometimes in this labyrinth of letters, a reasonable line or sentence is found. Such are the laws of nature – tiny cases of regularity in a chaotic world.
Attracted by metaphysics but accepting no system as true, Borges makes out of all them a game for the mind. Of the fables that attract him, certain ones particularly fascinate him. The Endless Recurrance, or the circular repetition of all the history of the world; that of the dream within a dream; that of centuries that seem minutes, seconds that seem years; that of the halucinatory nature of the world. Borges once claimed that the basic devices of all fantastic literature are only four in number: the work within the work, the contamination of reality by dream, the voyage in time, and the double. These are both his themes and his techniques of construction.
Borges felt that it was we who had cast a spell on ourselves, we who have dreamed the universe. We can see in what it consists, the deliberately constructed interplay of mirrors and mazes of this thought, difficult but always acute and laden with secrets. In all these stories we find roads that fork, corridors that lead nowhere, except to other corridors, and so on as far as the eye can see. For Borges, this is the image of human thought, which endlessly makes its way through concastenations of causes and effects without ever exhausting infinity. Why wander in these labyrinths? Because the present infinity, these “vertiginous symetries” have their tragic beauty. The form is more important than the content.
Borges thought and style is highly original. Of the metaphysicians in his story “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”, a history of an unknown planet, he writes “ they seek neither truth nor likelihood; they seek astonishment. They think metaohysics is a branch of the literature of fantasy.” That pretty well describes the greatness of Borges.
Borges
Jorge Luis Borges composed only small essays or short narratives.
Wealth of invention, tight mathematical style.
Argentinian by birth, nurtured on Universal literature, Borges had no spiritual homeland. Born in 1899 and settled in Beunos Aires in 1921, after his education in Switzerland and Spain. His parents were intellectual middle class. Influened by the post WWI social aspects of the convergence of impact of war, industrialism and the emerging modern European art, he became part of the Argentine “ultraismo” – a mix of modern expressionist form and a nostalgia for certain national values…
Creates outside time and space; imaginary or symbolic worlds
Kin to Kafka. Poe amd always to Valery by the abrupt projections of his paradox into what has been called “his private metaphsyics.” He had a radical insistence on breaking with the known world and postulating another.
Started as a poet but from 1930 – 1940, he underwent a huge change and turned to the short narrative genre. A lot of what had emotionally fueled his earlier work became ranked within a larger context of vast universal processes. Oppressed by physical disabilities and the turmoil of Europe, Borges sought to create a coherent fictional world of intelligence. Some of his stories, like Tlon, project a tentative utopial into the future beyond the grim year of 1941 when it was written.
Sources are wide. Has read everything and very obscure literature:
The Cabalists
The Alexandrine Greeks
Medieval Philosophers
Pascal wrote, “Nature is an infinite sphere whose whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Borges set out to hunt down this metaphor. Drawn from a 3rd century French theologian, Alain de Lilles “God is an intellogible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Such researches, carried out among the Chinese, the Arabs or the Egyptians, led him to the subject of his stories. Not a science ficton of probability, he admired the notion of possibility or impossibility. He said, “God must not engage in theology; the writer must not destroy by human reasonings, the faith that art requires of us.”
Inspired by the English writer John William Dunne, author of curious books about time, in which he claims the past, present and future exist simultaneously, as proved in our dreams. In death we shall rediscover all the instants of our life and we shall freely combine them as dreams. “God, our friends and Shakespeare will collaborate with us”. Nothing pleases Borges better than to play this way with mind, dreams, space and time. The more complicated the game becomes, the happier he is.
Looks for paradoxical intellectual possibilities. “ If this absurd postulate were developed to its extreme logical consequences, what would be created?’
The “Library of Babel” is the image of the universe, infinite and always starting over again. Most of the books in this library are unintelligible, letters thrown together by chance or perversely repeated, but sometimes in this labyrinth of letters, a reasonable line or sentence is found. Such are the laws of nature – tiny cases of regularity in a chaotic world.
Attracted by metaphysics but accepting no system as true, Borges makes out of all them a game for the mind. Of the fables that attract him, certain ones particularly fascinate him. The Endless Recurrance, or the circular repetition of all the history of the world; that of the dream within a dream; that of centuries that seem minutes, seconds that seem years; that of the halucinatory nature of the world. Borges once claimed that the basic devices of all fantastic literature are only four in number: the work within the work, the contamination of reality by dream, the voyage in time, and the double. These are both his themes and his techniques of construction.
Borges felt that it was we who had cast a spell on ourselves, we who have dreamed the universe. We can see in what it consists, the deliberately constructed interplay of mirrors and mazes of this thought, difficult but always acute and laden with secrets. In all these stories we find roads that fork, corridors that lead nowhere, except to other corridors, and so on as far as the eye can see. For Borges, this is the image of human thought, which endlessly makes its way through concastenations of causes and effects without ever exhausting infinity. Why wander in these labyrinths? Because the present infinity, these “vertiginous symetries” have their tragic beauty. The form is more important than the content.
Borges thought and style is highly original. Of the metaphysicians in his story “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”, a history of an unknown planet, he writes “ they seek neither truth nor likelihood; they seek astonishment. They think metaohysics is a branch of the literature of fantasy.” That pretty well describes the greatness of Borges.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Useful links!
Thank you, Enjoleah, for pointing to these links!
Bria Holcomb has a podcast on the Urban Change of New Brunswick on her faculty website at the Bloustein School. You can listen to it on-line or download it through iTunes:
http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/holcomb/newbrunswick
And a great article that is an oral history of the internet from Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807
Bria Holcomb has a podcast on the Urban Change of New Brunswick on her faculty website at the Bloustein School. You can listen to it on-line or download it through iTunes:
http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/holcomb/newbrunswick
And a great article that is an oral history of the internet from Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Syllabus
Neighborhood Narratives
Fall 2008, Rutgers University
Hickman Hall, Room 126
Wednesdays, 12:35 – 3:35 p.m.
Instructor: Hana Iverson
Email: hanaiver@gmail.com; h.iverson@mac.com
Office Hours: Wednesdays after class, by appointment.
In Neighborhood Narratives, the urban landscape is a canvas where analogue and digital media, text, sound, and image are applied to real places in order to document the definable aspects of place that simultaneously reveal and construct their essence and trigger authentic engagement. The goal is to create a set of site specific annotations; such as sound maps, community histories augmented by websites, audio interviews authored and distributed over the cell phone, site specific installations that integrate radio and other communications technology, scavenger hunts along with many other types of combinations that when connected would produce a neighborhood narrative. This process encourages participants to combine the skills of the storyteller (the grounded expert with detailed everyday knowledge) with the flaneur (the mobile observer of the city with a broad overview).
Neighborhood Narratives uses alternative technologies, basic mobile recording devices, on-line open-source tools such as blogging, and Google Maps along with analog resources such as sketch maps to produce context rich stories that portray the world, city, or neighborhood. In Neighborhood Narratives we explore the real and metaphorical potentialities of mapping, walking, and wayfinding as methods of developing attachments, connecting, and constructing narratives in a virtual and spatial locality (neighborhood).
The final assignments are presented on location in the city. No prior technological expertise is required.
The course is divided into three themes:
Theme one: Place and Space. The course begins with a close examination of the concept of place. We explore questions such as: What is place? What is the difference between place and space? How are places mapped? What is the relationship of place to location?
Theme two: Embodied Practice. We investigate how a constantly changing environment affects the ways in which we physically stabilize our sense of orientation. We consider ways to ask strategic questions about encounter, gathering, and location; exploring our sensory alignment of the world, and how it is synthesized by the social mix of influences that affect both physical and virtual environments.
Theme three: Merger of Mixed reality and Mobility. Mobile media are tools that connect the physical to the virtual, by handheld connectivity to networks and webs. New public sites are emerging as a result of this mix - situated storysites, community mapping, environmental installations that incorporate technology, to name a few - that create a new form of experience and authorship.
Schedule of Classes and Assignments
Sept. 3
Introduction: What is Neighborhood Narratives?
The history of the class, case studies. Where am I? Rutgers campus, New Brunswick. What I carry with me. The bag exercise. The archeology of everyday life. Create your blog. Daniel Spoerri – An Anecdoted Topography of Chance.
Assigned Reading: Of Other Spaces, Foucault.
http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html
Assignment: Map your week on a T-shirt.
Sept. 10
Introduction to place and space.
Review Foucault.
Discussion of Foucault’s ideas about hetertopias; the archeology of place and space.
George Legrady’s “Annotated Archive of the Cold War” + other projects by Legrady.
Assigned reading: From Yi-Fu Tuan.
Assignment: Take photos of reflections and/or places that are “time out of time” and “place out of place” and post to blog.
Sept. 17
Place and Space.
Presentation of Cross/Walks: Weaving Fabric Row; Murmur Toronto; One Block Radius (GlowLab)
Psychogeography, ethnography.
Artist: Richard Long, Walking the Line
Assigned Reading: The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges
Assignment: Drift, Tag/Annotate the walk, Document
Sept. 24
Embodiment. Walking.
Historic Walk of New Brunswick. Push/Pull.
Oct. 1
Embodiment.
Review Yi Fu Tuan, Garden of Forking Paths.
Push/Pull and stabilzation: Akitsugu Mayebashi, Sonic Interface.
Historic view vs. psychogeography: One Block Radius.
Assigned Reading: The Situationists
Assignment: Rearrange something/where in your life and document as two versions of a self-portrait.
Oct. 8
Design, politics and economics: Urban Planning and Mapping.
Review Situationists + assignments
How-to GPS.
The geoweb. Google earth. New neighborhoods without proximity
Assigned Reading: Mapping the Homonculus
Assignment: Emotional Maps
Oct. 15
Public Art. Kystof Wodizcko and “Public Address”. Public memorials, counter-memorials.
Assigned Reading: Critical Vehicles
Mid-term Assignment: Put something here
Oct. 22
Mixed Reality and Locative Media.
Review: Put Something Here.
A variety of Locative Arts projects will be presented including MilkProject.
Assigned Reading: Locative-Media Artists in the Contested Aware City; Views from Above: Locative Narrative and the Landscape
Mid-term Review
Oct. 23
Extra Credit Event
Rob Kitchin, Professor of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth; Director: National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis
1.10 pm, Special Events Forum, Civic Square
“Soft Cities: Software and the remaking of the American City”
Oct. 29
Public/Private
Janet Cardiff, Sophie Calle
Assigned Reading: Locative Arts
Assignment: Following
Nov. 5
Public/Private II
Review Following.
Outline requirements for final projects. Discuss locations.
Assignment: On-line following and the idea of driving a project on the street from the web.
Nov. 12
Games.
Blast Theory – Uncle Roy All Around You.
Class Map as interface for final projects.
Begin discussion of final projects.
Nov. 19
Project Development
More Locative examples.
Nov. 26
No class. Thanksgiving break.
Dec. 3
Final projects due. On-site presentations.
Dec. 10
Class critique and wrap up.
Fall 2008, Rutgers University
Hickman Hall, Room 126
Wednesdays, 12:35 – 3:35 p.m.
Instructor: Hana Iverson
Email: hanaiver@gmail.com; h.iverson@mac.com
Office Hours: Wednesdays after class, by appointment.
In Neighborhood Narratives, the urban landscape is a canvas where analogue and digital media, text, sound, and image are applied to real places in order to document the definable aspects of place that simultaneously reveal and construct their essence and trigger authentic engagement. The goal is to create a set of site specific annotations; such as sound maps, community histories augmented by websites, audio interviews authored and distributed over the cell phone, site specific installations that integrate radio and other communications technology, scavenger hunts along with many other types of combinations that when connected would produce a neighborhood narrative. This process encourages participants to combine the skills of the storyteller (the grounded expert with detailed everyday knowledge) with the flaneur (the mobile observer of the city with a broad overview).
Neighborhood Narratives uses alternative technologies, basic mobile recording devices, on-line open-source tools such as blogging, and Google Maps along with analog resources such as sketch maps to produce context rich stories that portray the world, city, or neighborhood. In Neighborhood Narratives we explore the real and metaphorical potentialities of mapping, walking, and wayfinding as methods of developing attachments, connecting, and constructing narratives in a virtual and spatial locality (neighborhood).
The final assignments are presented on location in the city. No prior technological expertise is required.
The course is divided into three themes:
Theme one: Place and Space. The course begins with a close examination of the concept of place. We explore questions such as: What is place? What is the difference between place and space? How are places mapped? What is the relationship of place to location?
Theme two: Embodied Practice. We investigate how a constantly changing environment affects the ways in which we physically stabilize our sense of orientation. We consider ways to ask strategic questions about encounter, gathering, and location; exploring our sensory alignment of the world, and how it is synthesized by the social mix of influences that affect both physical and virtual environments.
Theme three: Merger of Mixed reality and Mobility. Mobile media are tools that connect the physical to the virtual, by handheld connectivity to networks and webs. New public sites are emerging as a result of this mix - situated storysites, community mapping, environmental installations that incorporate technology, to name a few - that create a new form of experience and authorship.
Schedule of Classes and Assignments
Sept. 3
Introduction: What is Neighborhood Narratives?
The history of the class, case studies. Where am I? Rutgers campus, New Brunswick. What I carry with me. The bag exercise. The archeology of everyday life. Create your blog. Daniel Spoerri – An Anecdoted Topography of Chance.
Assigned Reading: Of Other Spaces, Foucault.
http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html
Assignment: Map your week on a T-shirt.
Sept. 10
Introduction to place and space.
Review Foucault.
Discussion of Foucault’s ideas about hetertopias; the archeology of place and space.
George Legrady’s “Annotated Archive of the Cold War” + other projects by Legrady.
Assigned reading: From Yi-Fu Tuan.
Assignment: Take photos of reflections and/or places that are “time out of time” and “place out of place” and post to blog.
Sept. 17
Place and Space.
Presentation of Cross/Walks: Weaving Fabric Row; Murmur Toronto; One Block Radius (GlowLab)
Psychogeography, ethnography.
Artist: Richard Long, Walking the Line
Assigned Reading: The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges
Assignment: Drift, Tag/Annotate the walk, Document
Sept. 24
Embodiment. Walking.
Historic Walk of New Brunswick. Push/Pull.
Oct. 1
Embodiment.
Review Yi Fu Tuan, Garden of Forking Paths.
Push/Pull and stabilzation: Akitsugu Mayebashi, Sonic Interface.
Historic view vs. psychogeography: One Block Radius.
Assigned Reading: The Situationists
Assignment: Rearrange something/where in your life and document as two versions of a self-portrait.
Oct. 8
Design, politics and economics: Urban Planning and Mapping.
Review Situationists + assignments
How-to GPS.
The geoweb. Google earth. New neighborhoods without proximity
Assigned Reading: Mapping the Homonculus
Assignment: Emotional Maps
Oct. 15
Public Art. Kystof Wodizcko and “Public Address”. Public memorials, counter-memorials.
Assigned Reading: Critical Vehicles
Mid-term Assignment: Put something here
Oct. 22
Mixed Reality and Locative Media.
Review: Put Something Here.
A variety of Locative Arts projects will be presented including MilkProject.
Assigned Reading: Locative-Media Artists in the Contested Aware City; Views from Above: Locative Narrative and the Landscape
Mid-term Review
Oct. 23
Extra Credit Event
Rob Kitchin, Professor of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth; Director: National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis
1.10 pm, Special Events Forum, Civic Square
“Soft Cities: Software and the remaking of the American City”
Oct. 29
Public/Private
Janet Cardiff, Sophie Calle
Assigned Reading: Locative Arts
Assignment: Following
Nov. 5
Public/Private II
Review Following.
Outline requirements for final projects. Discuss locations.
Assignment: On-line following and the idea of driving a project on the street from the web.
Nov. 12
Games.
Blast Theory – Uncle Roy All Around You.
Class Map as interface for final projects.
Begin discussion of final projects.
Nov. 19
Project Development
More Locative examples.
Nov. 26
No class. Thanksgiving break.
Dec. 3
Final projects due. On-site presentations.
Dec. 10
Class critique and wrap up.
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