Analogy as the Core of Cognition - Douglas Hofstadter
Analogies
are the mechanism that allows categorization to happen. They can be simple or
complex. They happen all the time for no purpose and they appear to rapidly go
away. We find analogies everywhere, when we perceive a common essence between
two or more things, when external impulses trigger associations in relation to
our memories, our ideas and interests. "They are the interstate freeway of
cognition", therefore,
I have chosen a specific analogy to address the challenge of submerging my
personal research to Vancouver's cultural and historical circumstances in order to write my project for the Vancover Biennale 2014. The
Sky-Train is to Vancouver as the Internet is to the World.
MERZBAU Reconstruction at Berkeley Art Museum
MERZBAU reconstruction at Berkeley Art Museum 7/2011. Video and timelapse by Mona Caron. Music: Béla Bartok, Six Rumanian Folk Dances - Roumanian Polka; and June De Toth, Gnossiennes n.4 by Erik Satie.
- The legendary Hanover MERZbau was created by Dada/Constructivist artist Kurt Schwitters in his apartment in Hanover, Germany in 1931-33, and was destroyed in 1943 during an allied air raid.
In 1981-83 Peter Bissegger reconstructed the MERZbau through extensive calculations and research, and with the help of Ernst Schwitters' memories (Kurt Schwitters' son.)
Information about the long adventure of reconstructing this lost classic of modern art can be found at
www.merzbaureconstruction.com
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
Solo Exhibition Project for the AC Institute. New York City
December 12th – February 22nd 2014
December 12th – February 22nd 2014
by Jessica Angel
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
INTRODUCTION
CONCEPTUAL BASIS
DESCRIPTION AND PROCESS
PUBLIC PROGRAMING
VISUALIZATION
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"The "Strange
Loop" phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through
levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back
where we started."
Douglas Hofstadter
"That
which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above
corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One
Thing." Thus, whatever happens on any level of reality (physical, emotional,
or mental) also happens on every other level.
"The Emerald Tablet of Hermes
Trismegistus"
INTRODUCTION
The solar system can easily
be paralleled with the “basic” unit of matter, the atom. Operations of a
colossal city are analogous to the miniature calculations of a computer. Phenomena of any system occur every
instant, simultaneously, on small and large scales. I am interested in
exploring these patterns and parallel realities, this duality between the vast
and the minute. The deeper into the minute one goes, the closer one gets to
understanding the large and vice versa.
I have chosen two specific
analogies to embody the idea of the minute and the vast as equivalents 1) the
relationship between the outer space and the digital information space and 2)
the similarity between urban planning and computer integrated circuits.
To work around this dichotomy I will create an immersive installation
that takes over the northern room of the AC Institute. I plan to "invert" these two ideas representing
the "large" in a small scale and the "minute" in an outsized
scale, emphasizing the concept of the strange loop and the
cyclic patterns. The installation will make reference to the micro world of
computers in correlation with outer space phenomena.
Non-Euclidian Translation: Crossing the River Delta from the Arts to the Sciences and Back Again.
Roger F Malina
Draft April 25 2011
Michael Punt in his LRQ editorial asks some simple questions:
as we move into a new cultural context, of e-culture, what is gained, what is
lost? When two cultures interface there can be constructive or destructive
interference. What knowledge is being transferred, or constructed, by whom and
to whom? Is the e-book really that
important in the context of global culture? His skepticism I think rightfully
argues that we are very much in the ‘dark’ ages and not yet the “middle ages”
of the way that digital cultural is re-shaping texts. Martin Zierold in his LRQ
commentary, points to the writing of Vilem Flusser who emphasized that
these new cultural tropes have to
be learned, and this takes time.
One way to think of this is as a problem of ‘translation”.
In Euclidian Geometry the three ‘orthogonal” transformations
are translation, rotation and reflection. Euclidian “rigid’ transformations
preserves the properties of the objects, they are”isometric”. The nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries saw the development in mathematics of ‘non-Euclidian’
geometries with profound consequences in physics. We now know that the universe
is “non-Euclidian”. Special and General Relativity informs us that space and
time are un-separable and that we need to think of ‘manifolds’ which may be
Euclidian on small scales but very much more complex on larger ones, with folds
and singularities.
Needless to say “culture’ is non-Euclidian and as we move
ideas, or objects or processes, around ‘the space of culture”, the move to
e-culture is not isometric.
Translation Studies have recently emerged as a new focus for
understanding a number of problems in the humanities, with the expansion of the
métier of textual translation to cross- cultural studies, and more recently
inter-disciplinary studies. I want to explore here the usefulness of some of
the concepts of Translations Studies to current discussions on the relations
between the art and sciences.
Internship Available for Installation Project Production
Jessica Angel, International
visual artist based in New York, seeks career-minded students and art
enthusiasts with a working knowledge in contemporary art, drawing and
installation work to assist with the execution of an installation project in a Chelsea art gallery. Prior experience related to dye-cut vinyl installation and perspective
drawing is preferred. Attention to detail, promptness and strong organizational
skills, are required.
The installation of the
project starts on Nov 20th until Dec 12th 2013 and applicants must be available 3 days a week.
To apply, please send to jessica.angel@gmail.com:
- A 100 words paragraph stating why you are interested in this position.
- 5 images in a JPG format 800 pixels - 72 dpi of the work that best represents your compatibility with this project.
- Schedule. Dates and hours you can commit to the project.
DEADLINE EXTENDED: Monday November 18th 2013
This position comes with a weekly modest stipend. College credit may be available.
This position comes with a weekly modest stipend. College credit may be available.
You can see "the making of" past projects of the same scope:
Website: www.Jessica-Angel.com
Edward Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscapes
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES
by Jennifer Baichwal
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length
documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky.
Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ –
quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs
civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning”
or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and
aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.
The film follows Burtynsky to China as he
travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country’s
massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is
bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million
people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of
Shanghai’s urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture
camera.
Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured
Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing
us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the
epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What
makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are
all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film
continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach
simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to
shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.
2006, Canada, 90 mins.
Watch Documentary HERE
Source:
The Archigram Archival Project
 |
| Peter Cook |
The Archigram Archival Project makes the work of the seminal architectural group Archigram available free online for public viewing and academic study. The project was run by EXP, an architectural research group at the University of Westminster. It was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and made possible by the members of Archigram and their heirs, who retain copyright of all images.
More Than 200 Projects are included in the Archigram Archival Project. The AAP uses the group’s mainly chronological numbering system and includes everything given an Archigram project number. This comprises projects done by members before they met, the Archigram magazines (grouped together at no. 100), the projects done by Archigram as a group between 1961 and 1974, and some later projects.
Slideshows, Talks, Exhibitions and Events form a big ongoing part of Archigram‘s work. This section features the ‘backup‘ of Archigram‘s shared slides, lists the venues of the ‘World Tour‘ of the Archigram Exhibition ‘Archigram: Experimental Architecture 1961-74‘, re-collects the group‘s exhibition and event projects, and will show a version of the ‘Archigram Opera‘ multi-media show.
The Six Members of Archigramare Peter Cook, David Greene, Mike Webb, Ron Herron, Warren Chalk and Dennis Crompton. Cook, Greene and Webb met in 1961, collaborated on the first Archigram magazine, later inviting Herron, Chalk and Crompton to join them, and the magazine name stuck to them as a group. Archigram projects are by named individuals and include other collaborators.
The Archigram Archival Project is run by a team from EXP, the Research Centre for Experimental Practice at the University of Westminster and was funded by a Resource Enhancement Grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Collaborative help was kindly provided by the surviving members of Archigram or their heirs who retain copyright of all images.
Architectural Dystopian Projections in the films Metropolis , Brazil, and The Island
Written by Angeliki Avgitidou.
In the proposals which describe utopian constructions envisioned by philosophers, utopian socialists and writers alike, the uniformity of the needs, assertions and believes of each utopia’s members is considered as a given. Uniformity takes away personal expression, multiplicity and difference, essential elements of life as well as of creative expression(1), granting priority to the interests of the majority in the name of equality and justice. The determinism of this assertion as well as its inevitable bankruptcy has served as a starting point for the majority of dystopian films. Fiction films, such as Metropolis , Brazil and The Island , are commented below in relation to the architectural environments represented
in them, the ideological basis of their choices and the timeliness of the dystopian visions which they put forward.
According to Maria Luise Bernieri: “Utopians tend to forget that society is a living organism and that its organization must be an expression of life and not just a dead structure”(2) . The paternalistic monomania of utopian visions becomes a leitmotiv in fiction films describing dystopia, which demand that their members show flexibility and adaptability to an established social structure and a political organization.
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