INSTANTS OF METAMORPHOSIS

Mushroom lights up the night in Brazil: Researcher finds bioluminescent fungus not seen since 1840

2011-12-04T19:47:00.000-08:00

Mushroom lights up the night in Brazil: Researcher finds bioluminescent fungus not seen since 1840

Mushroom Lights Up the Night in Brazil: Researcher Finds Bioluminescent Fungus Not Seen Since 1840

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2011) — In 1840, renowned English botanist George Gardner reported a strange sight from the streets of Vila de Natividade in Brazil: A group of boys playing with a glowing object that turned out to be a luminescent mushroom. They called it "flor-de-coco," and showed Gardner where it grew on decaying fronds at the base of a dwarf palm. Gardner sent the mushroom to the Kew Herbarium in England where it was described and named Agaricus gardneri in honor of its discoverer. The species was not seen again until 2009.

Bioluminescent Fungi

2011-12-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

"Like all other organisms in which it occurs, bioluminescence in fungi is an oxygen-dependent reaction involving substrates generically termed luciferans, which is catalyzed by one or more of an assortment of unrelated enzymes referred to as luciferases. In fungi, both the luciferans and luciferases involved remain largely unidentified. During the luciferan-luciferase reaction, unstable chemical intermediates are produced. As these intermediates decompose excess energy is released as light emission, causing the tissues in which this reaction occurs to glow or luminesce. Although the older literature reports some fungal species as producing white or blue light, all recent studies and observations indicate that bioluminescent fungi emit a greenish light with a maximum around 520-530 nm."

http://www.mykoweb.com/articles/BioluminescentFungi.html

Friendly Fires

2011-11-22T19:21:00.000-08:00

about fractals and motion...

Ulam Spiral

2011-10-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

As a mathematical mainframe to design the volumetric base of Instants of Metamorphosis v.01, we have the Ulam Spiral. The installation will be presented at the ABCIBER 2011 conference and exhibition next November in Florianopolis, Brazil:

an article:
Observations on the Regularity of Prime Number Distribution
by Peter Marteinson
http://french.chass.utoronto.ca/as-sa/ASSA-No14/article7en.html

Abstract:
Stanislaw Ulam’s (1964: 516) most general observation on his famous spiral, that a “property of the visual brain” allows patterns relating to the characteristics of primes to be discovered, may indeed stimulate the mathematical imagination, and inspire further creative attempts at visual pattern recognition in this area, but his spiral (fig.1), like its derivatives, has yet to be successfully interpreted in terms of possible arithmetic principles that can explain the genesis of the known distribution of prime numbers. Of his spiral he says only that it “appears to exhibit a strongly nonrandom appearance” (Stein et al. 1964). A corollary of this somewhat disappointing observation is that Euler’s pessimistic prognosis has yet to be disproved: “Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the mind will never penetrate” (cited by Ivars Peterson in Science News, 5/4/2002). The Encyclopædia Britannica (2004) continues to suggest this consensus is alive and well, referring in an article entitled “Elementary Number Theory” to “the irregularity in the distribution of primes” which “suggests that there is no simple formula for producing all the primes.”

other connections:

On Quantum hall effect:
http://eskesthai.blogspot.com/2006/09/quantum-hall-effect.html

wiki: Ulam Spiral:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral

The distribution of prime numbers on the square root spiral
by Harry K. Hahn, Robert Sachs
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1441

Research Project - Learning about Wonderland

2011-09-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

This month we have two invited temporary members who started working with The Double Collective to develop part of their undergrad research project I'm supervising - Erica Monteiro and Flavio Santos. They will be involved in the production of Instants of Metamorphosis v.03 including the managing of the 3D online shared environment, aim in to produce a theoretical reflection about the creative process itself from a metapoint of view (Edgar Morin, 1977).

First of all, they have to learn about the Open Wonderland Platform. Here we have a few tips:

Using Google 3D Warehouse Content in Project Wonderland:

and

Using the Kinect as input for Open Wonderland with the FAAST toolkit:

and one more:

Using an empty module to bootstrap development with Open Wonderland:

Rashomon Effect

2011-06-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I was talking with a new friend (Milena Zafir) about the structural similarities between the church and the academy. She suggested me to read "Michel Foucault – from “The Order of Discourse” (Michel Foucault, from “The Order of Discourse” R. Young, ed. Untying the Text (1971). We were in a garden, talking and drinking beer after a frustrating talk of Don Buchla, at the School of Communications and Arts, University of Sao Paulo. I was reading the small book today while traveling form Sao Paulo to Limeira.

http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/sbaumgarten/Foucault_The%20Order%20of%20Discourse.pdf

Foucault was talking about discourse, truth.

http://www.michel-foucault.com/trans/od.html

In reply to the following FB post by Professor James K Gimzewski:

(JAmes K Gimzewski)
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
12 June at 11:40

I wrote:

(Clarissa Ribeiro) and when we hard believe we are telling the truth but we are inventing realities?
12 June at 14:57 · Like · 1 person

Venkatram Dattu wrote the following replying to my reply:

(Venkatram Dattu)Rashomon effect .......
12 June at 21:29 · Like · 1 person

Googling "Rashomon effect", I selected a few references, including the trailer of the film "Rashomon" (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)and an interesting paper of two Harvard University researchers:

The Rashomon Effect: Combining Positivist and Interpretivist Approaches in the Analysis of Contested Events. by WENDY D. ROTH and JAL D. MEHTA
Harvard University
Abstract:
Positivist and interpretivist analytical approaches are frequently believed to be incompatible as research strategies and ways of understanding the world. This article argues that not only may versions of positivism and interpretivism be combined in the analysis of contested events, but this combination can further the goals of both approaches by contributing information that may have been missed by adopting only one perspective. The authors illustrate this using two case studies of lethal school shootings near Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas, and introduce methodological strategies to manage potential biases that may lead to contradictory testimony. However, these same contradictions act as distinct data points from the interpretivist perspective, offering insight into the cultural understandings of a community. The authors develop new forms of triangulation that are tailored to these research goals and illustrate how, just as positivist analysis may be used to aid interpretivism, an interpretive understanding of a community may be necessary to develop causal theories of contested events such as school shootings.

Instants of Metamorphosis 03

2011-06-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

This the video Ralf Flôres posted last week on FB:
"Ralf Flôres
‎Clarissa Ribeiro Pra semana das ligações interestaduais, falsários em missões possíveis, banco que rouba, banda dos desafinados, risadas na madrugada, batidas no trânsito, corrida do rodízio, kibe do Jaber..." Friday 10:40

A starting point to the EyeTracking-ChaoticNarratives adventures...

Chairlift - Bruises (Official Music Video)

2011-02-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

Chairlift - Bruises (Official Music Video). Watch more top selected videos about: Chairlift

Voodoohop : collecting antenarratives:

2011-01-20T23:26:00.000-08:00

The following form will be used at the Voodoohop to run the dynamic of collecting antenarratives:

Instantes de Metamorfose I
Voodoohop, 21 Janeiro de 2011, São Paulo

Dinâmicas de desenho e escrita emergente são a base do processo de colecionar/construir os espaços estoricizados. A coleção de espaços estoricizados objetiva tornar visível a dinâmica sistêmica. É a partir dessa coleção de espaços estoricizados que é possível construir novas narrativas observando as relações entre as partes, entre partes e todo, entre todo e ambiente. Os espaços estoricizados serão agrupados em 7 (sete) instâncias de organização e significado em uma estrutura que é um sistema dentro do sistema-processo criativo. As instâncias são – impressão, atenção, memória, comparação, julgamento, reflexão, e imaginação e a dinâmica contempla as seguintes etapas:
1) Impressão (desenhos emergente produzido imediatamente após a experiência)
2) Atenção (escrita emergente produzida 10 minutos após a experiência e/ou gravação de vídeo com depoimento na forma de brainstorming)
3) Memória (escrita emergente e/ou desenho produzidos 1 (um) dia após a experiência)
4) Comparação (escrita emergente produzida 2 (dois) dias após a experiência combinada com a produção de um painel semântico)
5) Julgamento (escrita emergente produzida 3 (três) semana após a experiência)
6) Reflexão (escrita emergente produzida 5 (cinco) dias após a experiência)
7) Imaginação (escrita emergente e desenho produzidos 7 (sete) dias após a experiência)

Nome:
Sobre você:
E-mail:
Facebook:
concorda em participar da dinâmica via e-mail?

//

Instant of Metamorphosis 01

2011-01-20T23:23:00.000-08:00

Instant of Metamorphosis 01 was installed for the first time in March 2010 at the Faculty of Administration and Arts building, Limeira, Sao Paulo Countryside, Brazil

Instants of Metamorphosis FAAL 2010

2011-01-20T23:02:00.000-08:00

Instants of Metamorphosis version 01, was exhibited from 01 October to 21 December 2010 at the FAAL - Faculty of Administration and Arts, city of Limeira, São Paulo countryside, Brazil. During this period The Double collective crew was involved in the dynamic of collecting antenarratives through emergent writing and drawing activities combined with video documentary.
http://www.faal.com.br/

VOODOOHOP das Resoluções Irreais

2011-01-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

VOODOOHOP das Resoluções Irreais 21/01 from Voodoo Hop on Vimeo.

VOODOOHOP das Resoluções Irreais // Sexta 21/01/2011

Ego (Antiga Ocean Club)
Rua Nestor Pestana, 189 - Centro/SP
próximo Praça da Roosevelt

Lineup:

Bandas
--------
Zeroum (SP - Live Krautrock/Post-Punk)
Boom Project (SP - Surf/Funk)

Djs
----
Joyce Muniz (Exploited/Vienna)
Daniel IV (Liverpool/SP)
Say Hooo! (Floripa/Berlin)
Souksouklow (voodoohop)
Thomash (voodoohop)
Felipe Ribeiro (set alucinante)
Rubens Peterlongo (iorana set)
Cintia Mascari (SP)

Videoarte/Instalação
-------------------------
Mari Rizzo + Danilo B aka Bozo
Priscila Blix (ambiente/tarô/labirinto)
VJ Luis Briza (Artmidiacomp)
VJs Suave (Buenos Aires)
Paulo Beto - Zeroum (projeção 3D!)
DOOMEDO
A&Vj.ylantee
Instants of Metamorphosis (Instalação Multimedia / Coletivo O Duplo)

Dança
--------
Marilia Lins (dança tribal fusion)
bailarinos : Rafelice, Thamú, Tais, Jeferzion

Live painting/Arte
--------------------
Lunkie
Satansmothers

+ Hosts Fantasiados : Volatille & Fernanda
+ Brechó Full Gás

preços: r$0 de bicicleta (traga cadeado)
r$10 até 00:30h/r$20

contato: voodoo@voodoohop.com

pulleys' structure idea

2011-01-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

Here one idea that emerged concerning the base/stage to the interaction with the projections. The structure was composed by a series of small wooden planes fixed onto the ceiling. The planes could be moved by the audience being interconnected by a set of pulleys. Nevertheless, in the end, the wooden kinetic structure was becoming more evident than the performance projection. The idea was to make the material part of the work 'disappear'...

Here another previous idea suggested by Graziele Lutenschlaeger:

process models of the base structure

2011-01-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Here some process models of the base structure; an attempt to translate the idea of a never-ending spiral:

instructions to the video documentation production

2011-01-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here we have the sketches of the instructions to the video documentation production that were sent to Renata La Rocca in Brazil in March 2009 as a suggestion/orientation:

Arizona Dream (1993)

2011-01-15T22:48:00.000-08:00

Talking about the mirrors, reflection, Jennifer Nikolov(a) mentioned the film "Arizona Dreams", mentioned it could be 'read' as a movie about the relation between a man a fish...Me and Renata La Rocca was discussing questions of reflection related to the installation Instants of Metamorphoses v.02 that will interfere and define the design of the installation's structure.

IMDB:
Arizona Dream (original title) (1993)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106307/

References / Participant H.N.

2011-01-15T16:59:00.000-08:00

Listed bellow are some of the references brought by the participant N.H. in the dynamics of collecting antenarratives / Instants of Metamorphosis version 01.
December 2010

The first reference was the book Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), by Comte de Lautréamont:

Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror)
a poetic novel (or a long prose poem) consisting of six cantos. It was written between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautréamont, the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse. Many of the surrealists (Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, etc.) during the early 1900s cited the novel as a major inspiration to their own works and Les Chants de Maldoror, and its protagonist Maldoror, have continued to fascinate people since its publication.

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Chants_de_Maldoror

Here an Italian band of Death Rock named "Chants of Maldoror" I found when looking for the book via Google search engine:

The second reference was the experimental/horror film Begotten, 1991 , directed and written by E. Elias Merhige:

The film heavily deals with religion and the biblical story of the Creation. But as Merhige revealed during Q&A sessions, its primary inspiration was a near death experience he had when he was 19, after a car crash. The film features no dialogue, but rather uses harsh and uncompromising images of human pain and suffering to tell its tale. It also has no music, instead, the movie is accompanied by the sounds of crickets, and occasionally other sound effects such as grunting and thrashing.
The film was shot on black and white reversal film, and then every frame was rephotographed for the look that is seen. The only colors are black and white. There are no half-tones. This is intended to add to the eerie atmosphere of the movie, as sometimes the viewer cannot always exactly make out what it is being shown, but can still infer a sense of suffering. The look of the film is described in the trailer as "a Rorschach test for the eye". Merhige said that for each minute of original film, it took up to 10 hours to rephotograph it for the look desired.

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begotten

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101420/

The participant was still talking about his interest in Shock art...
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_art

Two weeks after his experience in the isntallation Instants of Metamorphosis v.01, the participant sent the book "Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), by Comte de Lautréamont (a translation to Portuguese) to Clarissa Ribeiro via Renata La Rocca.

Lautréamont, Conde de. Os Cantos de Maldoror. Tradução de Claudio Willer. São Paulo: Vertente Editora, 1970. (pseudônimo do poeta francês de origem uruguaia Isidore Ducasse)

//

Antenarrative's Series / Participant H.N.

2011-01-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

Endopterygota

2011-01-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

http://tolweb.org/Endopterygota/8243

ndopterygotes are those insects with distinctive larval, pupal, and adult stages. Their name (endo = within, pterygos = wing) refers to the fact that in later immature stages the wing buds are not evident externally, but instead the future wing tissues are entirely internalized; they make their first external appearance in the penultimate (pupal) stage. In contrast, other winged insects (for example, bugs) have external wing buds in instars before the penultimate.

Another name for this group is Holometabola, referring to the "complete metamorphosis" of the species; that is, the dramatic changes between larval, pupal, and adult stages.

Four of the five largest orders of insects belong to this group (Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Diptera).

http://entomology.ucr.edu/ebeling/ebeling4.html

Sol LeWitt, Serial Project

2010-12-19T06:08:00.000-08:00

Sol LeWitt, Serial Project #1 ABCD, 1966–68, baked enamel on steel, 9 1/2×70 x 70”.

SO Do you see your work as an abstract narrative, as telling a story about permutation or about how language and objects differ? How important is language to your work?

SL Serial systems and their permutations function as a narrative that has to be understood. People still see things as visual objects without understanding what they are. They don’t understand that the visual part may be boring but it’s the narrative that’s interesting. It can be read as a story, just as music can be heard as form in time. The narrative of serial art works more like music than like literature. Words are another thing. During the ‘70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art. I did a group of “location” pieces that would direct the draftsman in making the art. All of the tracks leading to the final image were to be shown. A person could read the directions and verify the process and even do it.

SO That brings us to the question of how you keep it interesting, how you keep it moving for yourself.

SL Unless you’re involved with thinking about what you’re doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over, and that becomes tedious and, in the end, defeating. When artists make art, they shouldn’t question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another. In my case, I reached a point in the evolution of my work at which the ideology and ideas became inhibiting. I felt that I had become a prisoner of my own pronouncements or ideas. I found I was compelled by the innate logic of the work to follow a different way. Whether it was a step forward or a step back or a step sideways didn’t matter. At that point I had moved to Italy. Quattrocento art really impressed me. I began to think about how art isn’t an avant-garde game. It has to be something more universal, more important.

In: Sol LeWitt (interview) by Saul Ostrow. BOMB 85/Fall 2003, ART
Avilable at: http://bombsite.com/issues/85/articles/2583

iED 2010 SUMMIT : Open Wonderland Foundation

2010-11-03T01:30:00.001-07:00

Instant Now Project

2010-10-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

The aim of the Instant Now Project is to design and administrate the shared environment connected to the installation series' creative process – a parallel online environment that works as a structure to collect and allow the free access and combination of fragments of information. The environment itself illustrates the emergent behavior of the system – both receiving throughputs and working as a throughputs' font integrated to the collective creative process.

http://openwonderland.org/
Open Wonderland allows to create dynamic learning environments, collaborative applications, or interactive, multi-user simulations. Start with a blank slate, or modify an existing world. While some types of worlds can be created by end-users or 3D artists, this toolkit is designed primarily for developers familiar with the Java programming language. As a developer, you can extend any part of the system and add functionality by creating modules, the Wonderland version of plugins.

notes: Treatise on the sensations

2010-07-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

CONDILLAC, E. B. Treatise on the sensations. Translated by Geraldine Carr. With a preface by Professor H. Wildon Carr. Lodon: The Favil Press, 1930.

The Favil Press, Church Street, Kensington, London, MCXXX

“Condillac’s importance in philosophy does not rest in his exposition and expansion of Locke’s theories, but in the fact that he gave an entirely new orientation to philosophy. He turns the philosophic inquiry into a new channel and gives it a new direction which leads ultimately to the idealistic position of modern French philosophy, as Locke may be said to have directed English philosophy towards a realistic position.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxvi-xxvii)

According to Geraldine Carr, the translator who was responsible for the first translation of the Traité des Sansation (1754) to English (1930), Étienne Bonnot Condillac, the French philosopher that was contemporary of Hume in England, was in his early days brought within the circle of the Encyclopedists, and he came to be recognized as ‘the philosopher of the philosophers’. In the preface of the English translation Professor Herbert Wildon Carr advise circa the Condillac’s Treatise that it “[…] deserves and will repay careful study, for it deal exhaustively with the problem which lies at the basis of all theory of knowledge, the nature of information which we receive through the senses.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, Preface, p.xv)
The eighteenth century was the age of the Encyclopedists. In this days, philosophic speculation was concentrated on the problem of the nature of the dependence of the knowledge on the functioning of the various special sense organs and it was rather than a metaphysical, a psychological problem – the greatest interest had been aroused in Diderot’s study of the psychology of the deaf and dumb. In the ‘Treatise on the Sensations’ Condillac followed almost the same method of Diderot, supposing an human being that was devoid of all sensations until the senses are stimulated. The interesting artifice the philosopher used was to “awake the senses successively and study the apport of each sense separately and the modifications consequent on the relations between them.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, Preface, p.xvii)

Desenvolver essa parte como outra refencia interessante:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/molyneux-problem/ On 7 July 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux (1656-1698) sent a letter to John Locke in which he put forward a problem which was to awaken great interest among philosophers and other scientists throughout the Enlightenment and up until the present day. In brief, the question Molyneux asked was whether a man who has been born blind and who has learnt to distinguish and name a globe and a cube by touch, would be able to distinguish and name these objects simply by sight, once he had been enabled to see.

The friendship between Rousseau and Condillac was life-long and they had much in common, despite their speculations led them through widely different fields of thought. According to Geraldine Carr, at the same time as he maintained with Rousseau that ‘everything is acquired’, “[…] he sought to trace man’s knowledge, rather than his nature, back to its first elements, to discover what the human mind is and to understand its operations, and to determine the extent and boundaries of human knowledge.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxi)

Condillac’s first book published in two volumes in 1746, ‘Essai sur l’Origine des Connaissances Humainnes’ that was significantly along the lines of Locke’s philosophy, explores what are the materials of our knowledge, how and by what faculties they are activated and what part the mind plays in the work of knowledge. In his polemic ‘Traité des Systèmes’ (1749, published in 2 volumes) Condillac argumented against the Descartes’s theory of ‘Innate Ideas’, Malebranche’s idea of ‘Vision in God’, Spinoza’s idea of ‘Substance’ and Libiniz’s ‘Pre-Estabilished Haemony’. According to Geraldine Carr, the Treaté des Sensations, published in two volumes in 1754, “endeavours to trace our knowledge back to its first elements, not by direct observation, but by a hypothetical and conditioned analyses.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxii)

Condillac followed Locke in the principle that “[…] there is nothing in the intellect which had not been previously in the senses; that the sources of knowledge are twofold, sensation and reflexion; that by means of sensation we apprehend external phenomena and by means of reflexion internal phenomena.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxii) Criticizing Locke for not carrying the natural method of analyses far enough, he believed that the faculties of soul are not innate qualities having their origin in the sensation itself. To Condillac, it is not enough to reduce all knowledge to sentience but learn how sentient knowledge is produced. According to Locke…
--------------------------
The statue
“In order to analyze the progress of our ideas, and the genesis of our faculties, and trace them back to their primary cause, Condillac made use of an arbitrary fiction, a fantasy in keeping with tastes and methods of the time. He imagined a marble statue with the complete organic structure of the human body, but insentient, and he analyzed the knowledge such an imaginary being would have if the senses were awakened one a time. He began by allowing it smell, then taste, then hearing, then sight, and finally touch. He considered each sense in itself and also in relation to the others. The conclusions he came to were: that a sensation is itself is a modification of consciousness and teaches us nothing of what is outside; that sensation of smell, taste, hearing and sight by themselves or together would give no ideas of external objects.” (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxii-xxiii)

Ideas of external things
He believes that “in touch are united both sensations and ideas; sensations in realation to the soul which they modify; ideas in connection with the external world. It is because we make a habit of ascribing sensations of touch to external things that we are led to ascribe our other sensations to external things. In this way sensations are referred to what is outside ourselves and become our ideas of external things. In this way sensations become our ideas of external things. Attention is a vivid sensation, throwing other sensations into shade. It can be directed to a past sensation which is recalled, as well as to a present sensation. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p. xxiii)

Memory
Memory is a sensation which is recalled; it is therefore a transformed sensation which can be attended to, it can be compared to a present sensation. Now in comparing we perceive certain relations of difference and resemblance, and to perceive such relations is to form judgments about them, and hence arise our powers of judgment and reasoning. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxiiI)
The active powers of the mind – love, hatred, hope, fear, volition – are also transformed sensations, for they follow from the fact that all experience is pleasurable or painful, and therefore every sensation is either one we inclined to continue, or one we seek to scape from. Thus all the powers of mind are traced back to their origin in simple sensation. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxiv)

Theory of instint
Condillac’s theory of instinct is of some importance in the light of modern philosophic development (in 1930, the age of Bergson) (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxiv)For him:
“We each have within us two selves, the self of habit and self of reflexion. The self of habit makes use of our bodily structure. Its range of activity is narrow and primarily directed to the guidance and preservation of our body. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxiv)
The self of reflexion, on the contrary, opens an extensive range of activity. It makes us care for our own happiness, gives us a curiosity which leads to an illimitable multiplicity of desires, gives us command over the material world. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxiv)
Instinct is habit with reflexionobliterated. Condillac considers that instinct could not be an innate quality because of the human mind because instinct presupposes reflexion. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxiv)

Bergson
This theory of instinct and reflexion is of considerable interest because of its development in modern philosophy. In the contemporary theory of Bergson, for exemple, instinct and intelligence are two modes of activity heterogeneous and complementary (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxv)

Condillac aims at shewing that all our knowledge comes to us by means of habit and reflexion, two modes which have a common origin and genesis in sensibility. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxv)

Bergson also recognizes instinct and intelligence as tow different modes by which we apprehend reality and by means of which we receive and use different kinds of knowledge. (CONDILLAC, 1930, translator’s introduction, p.xxv)

According to Bergson ….
In both (Condillac and Bergson) the older and the modern theory, intelligence does not give us direct and actual knowledge of reality but only its representation in a world of objects in space, in a world of measurable actions and reactions.

It is by means of instinct, a mode of knowledge the direct opposite to that of intelligence, that we gain the inward view as opposed to the external view of reality. Instinct gives us real knowledge of life, of life as it is lived.
(storied spaces…)

Materialistic/deterministic approach x idealism
The immediate result of Condillac’s philosophy was a materialism though this was far from its intention. This arose from his explanation of personality as an aggregate of sensations which naturally led to a deterministic position, but his approach to the problem of reality was no materialistic.

He defines body as an extended substance and soul as sentient substance, and the senses as the occasional cause of our consciousness. He considered that the substratum of reality, mind or soul, canoot be an aggregate of extended

In order to separate the his theory of sensations from the approach of determinism Condillac wrote the appendix to the Treatise to vindicate the freedom of the will. In this appendix the subjective principle of Berkeley’s idealism is evident.

I
THE FIRST COGNITION OF A MAN LIMITED TO THE SENSE OF SMELL
I – The statue limited to the sense of smell can only know odours: Our statue being limited to the sense of smell its cognitions cannot extend beyond smells. It can no more have ideas of extension, shape or anything outside itself, or outside its sensations, than it can have ideas of colour, soud, taste. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.3)

II
HOW THE UNDERSTANFING WORKS IN A MAN LIMITED TO THE SENS OF SMELL
AND HOW THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN ARE THE PRINCIPLE OF ITS COGNITION

I – The Statue capable of attention,
At the first smell our statue’s capacity of feeling is entirely due to the impression which is made upon its sense organs. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.4)
2 – of enjoying and suffering,
From this moment it begins to enjoy or to suffer. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.4)

5 – How it would be limited without memory,
If there remained no recollection of former modifications, then on the occasion of each sensation it would believe itself to be feeling for the first time. Whole years might be swallowed up in each present moment. Were its attention always limited to one mode of being it would never be able to take account of two together, and never be able to judge of their relations. (CONDILLAC, 1930,p.6)

6 – Dawn of memory.
The smell is not wholly forgotten when the odoriferous substance which caused it has ceased to act on the sense organ, for the attention retains it, and an impression remains stronger or weaker according as the attention has been more or less vivid. This is memory. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.6)
7 – Division of the capacity of feeling between smell and memory.
When our statue is a new smell, it has still present that which it had been the moment before. It capacity of feeling is divided between the memory and the smell. The first of these faculties is attentive to the past sensation, whilst the second is attentive to the present sensation. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.6)

9 – The feeling of it can be more vivid than the sensation,
I say usually because memory is not always a feeble feeling, nor is sensation always a vivid feeling. For whenever the memory is recalling the past forcibly and the sense organ, on the contrary, is receiving only slight impressions, then the feeling of a present sensation is much less vivid than the memory of a sensation which no longer exists. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.7)

10 – The statue distinguishes in itself a succession.
Thus, whenever as odoriferous substance is making an impression on the sense organ itself, there is another smell present to the memory, because the impression of another odoriferous substance subsists in the brain, to which the sense organ has already transmitted it. By passing as it were thorough these two states the statue feels that it is no longer what it was. The knowledge of this change males it related the first smell to a different moment from that in which it is experiencing the second, and this makes it perceive a difference between existing in one state and remembering having existing in another. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.7)

14 – It compares.
If after having repeatedly smelled rose and pink the statue then smells rose, the passive attention which is caused by the smell is entirely the present smell of rose, and the active attention which is caused by the memory is divided between the recollection which remains of the smells of rose and pink. Now modes of being can only divide the capacity of feeling insofar as they are compared; for comparing is nothing else but giving attention to two ideas at the same time. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.9)

15 – It judges.
When there is comparisons there is judgment. Our statue cannot be ate one and the same time attentive to the smell of rose and pink, without perceiving that the one is not the other, and it cannot be attentive to a rose which it smells, and a rose which it has smelled, without perceiving that the two are the same. A judgment is only the perception of a relation between two ideas which are compared. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.9)

19 – Ideas which are preserved in the memory.

Where odours have attracted attention eqully, they will be retained in memory according to the order in which they occurred and that order will be the order in which they occurred and that order will be the order of succession. If the succession includes a great number, the last impressions, because the newest, will be the strongest; the first impression will be weakened by insensible degrees, and at last extinguished altogether. They will be as if they had not been. Should there be some to which only small attention has been given, they will leave no impression, and will be forgotten as soon as perceived. Those however which have made a very deep impression, will be retained most vividily and will occupy the attention so completely as to make it forget the others. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.11)

20 – The connexion of theses ideas.
Memory then of a sequence of ideas forming a chain. It is this connexion which furnishes the means of passing from one idea to another, and of recalling the most distant. Consequently we remember by means of an idea which we had some time ago only because we can retrace more or less rapidly the intermediate ideas. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.11)

24 – A state is only indifferent by comparision.
Among these different degrees there is no state of indifference. At the first sensation, howevery feeble it may be, the statue is necessarly either contented or discontented. When it has felt in succession the sharpest pains and the keenest pleasures, ti will judge indifferent, or will cease to regard as agreeable or disagreeable, those feebler sensations which will appear feeble when compared with the strongest. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.13)

25 – Origin of need.
Whenever it is ill at ease or less comfortable than it was, it recalls its past sensations and compares them with its present, and it feels the importance of becoming again what it was. From this arises the need, or the knowledge it has of a well-being which it judges necessary for its confort. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.14)

29 – Diference between memory and imagination. There are then two effects of memory: one is a sensation which is recalled as vividly as an impression on the sense-organ, the other ia a sensation of which only a slight remembrance remains. We are able therefore to distinguish in the faculty of memory two degrees: the feebler is that in which it scarcely enjoys it as if it were present. We name the faculty memory, when it only recalls things as past, we name it imagination when it recalls them with so much force that they appear present. Imagination has then its place in our statue as well as memory, and these two faculties differ only as more and less. Memory is the commencement of an imagination which has yet little force; imagination is the same memory enriched with all the liveliness of which it is susceptible. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.18)
Por isso pedir pra escrever um tempo depois…
As we have distinguished two attentions in the statue, one caused by sensation, the other by memory, we can now add a third, caused by imagination. The characteristic of this last is to arrest the impressions of the senses in order to substitute for them a feeling independent of the action of external objects. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.18)

30 – This difference is unnoticed by the statue.

When, however, the statue imagines a sensation which is past, and represents it as vividly as if it were present, it does not know that there is a inner cause producing the same effect as the odoriferous body acting on its sense-organ. It cannot, therefore, make the difference we make between imagining a sensation and having one. (CONDILLAC, 1930, p.18)

Animals That Live in the Mirror

2010-07-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

Animals That Live in the Mirror

In one of the volumes of the Letters edificantes et curieuses that appeared in Paris sometime during first half of the eighteeth century, Father Zallinger, of the Company of Jesus, mentioned the possibility of compiling a catalog of the illusions and errors of the common folk of Canton province. In a preliminary listing, he noted that the Fish was an elusive, gleaming creature that no one had ever touched but many people believed they had seen in the depths of mirrors. Father Zallinger died in 1736, and the work begun by his pen remained unfinished; one hundred years later, Herbert Allen Giler took up the interrupted labor. According to Giles, belief in the FIsh is part of a broader myth, which goes back to the legendary age of the Yellow Emperor.
In those days, the world of mirrors and the word of men were not, as they are now, separate and unconnected. They were, moreover, quite different from one another; neither the creatures nor the colors nor the shapes of the two worlds were the same. The two kingdoms - the specular and the human - lived in peace, and one could pass back and forth through mirrors. One night, however, the people of the mirror invaded this world. Their strength was great, but after many bloody battles, the magic of the Yellow Emperor prevailed. The Emperor pushed back the invaders, imprisioned them withim the mirrors, and punished them by making them repeat, as though in a kind of dream, all the actions of their human visitors. He stripped them to mere servile reflections. One day, however, they will throw off that magical lethargy.
The first to awaken shall be the Fish. In the depths of the mirror we shall perceive a faint, faint line, and the color that line will not resemble any other. Then, other forms will begin to awaken. Gradually they will become different from us; gradually they will no longer imitate us; they will brake through the barriers of glass or metal, and this time they will not be conquered. Water-creatures will battle alongside mirror-creatures.
In Yunnan province, people speak not of the Fish but rather the Tiger of the Mirrror. Others believe that before the invasion, we will hear, from the depths of the mirrors, the sound of arms.

(Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings)

Processing code

2010-07-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

/**
* Instants of metamorphosis v.02 // an interactive video installation // DOUBLE collective, UK/Brazil, June/July 2010; processing code: Clarissa Ribeiro.
* Clarissa Ribeiro: art direction, video and sound edition and performance
* Renata La Rocca: artistic direction and tests

* move around in the scene, over a projection onto the ground, to load and play movie files.
*/

import fullscreen.*;
import processing.video.*;
import JMyron.*;
import ddf.minim.*;

Minim minim;
AudioPlayer player;
FullScreen fs;
Movie myMovie;
Movie myMovie2;
Movie myMovie3;
Movie myMovie4;
JMyron m; //a camera object

//variables to maintain the floating movie
float myMoviex = 320;
float myMoviey = 240;
float myMoviedestx = 320;
float myMoviedesty = 240;

//variables to maintain the floating moviee
float myMovie2x = 320;
float myMovie2y = 240;
float myMovie2destx = 320;
float myMovie2desty = 240;

//variables to maintain the floating movie
float myMovie3x = 320;
float myMovie3y = 240;
float myMovie3destx = 320;
float myMovie3desty = 240;

//variables to maintain the floating movie
float myMovie4x = 320;
float myMovie4y = 240;
float myMovie4destx = 320;
float myMovie4desty = 240;

void setup() {
// set size to 640x480
size(640, 480);
// The background COLOR IS BLACK:
background(0,0,0);

//new Minim:
minim = new Minim(this);
// load a file, give the AudioPlayer buffers that are 2048 samples long
player = minim.loadFile("breathing.wav", 2048);
player.loop();

// Create the fullscreen object
fs = new FullScreen(this);

// enter fullscreen mode
fs.enter();

// Load and play the video in a loop// according to the sculpture dimmension, change the video file: medium, big or small, or use the original.mov
myMovie = new Movie(this, "touch.3gp");
myMovie2 = new Movie(this, "taste.3gp");
myMovie3 = new Movie(this, "smell.3gp");
myMovie4 = new Movie(this, "look.3gp");
myMovie.loop();
myMovie2.loop();
myMovie3.loop();
myMovie4.loop();
m = new JMyron();//make a new instance of the object
m.start(width,height);//start a capture at 640x480
m.trackColor(255,255,255,256*3-100);//track white / must ajust the 3-5
m.update();
m.adaptivity(10); // how fast the white is capted! it was 100
m.adapt();// immediately take a snapshot of the background for differencing
println("Myron " + m.version());
rectMode(CENTER);
noStroke();
}

void movieEvent(Movie myMovie) {
myMovie.read();
}

void draw() {
m.update();//update the camera view
drawCamera();

int[][] centers = m.globCenters();//get the center points
//draw all the dots while calculating the average.
float avX=0;
float avY=0;
for(int i=0;i fill(0);
// image(myMovie, 0,0);
avX += centers[i][0];
avY += centers[i][1];
}
if(centers.length-1>0){
avX/=centers.length-1;
avY/=centers.length-1;
}
//draw the image. if you want the movie starts in the center of the screen, use myMoviex/2 and myMoviey/2.
// to star in the right corner: only myMoviex and myMoviex. To start in the left, myMoviex/4 and myMoviexy/4.
image(myMovie, myMoviex, myMoviey);
image(myMovie2, myMoviex/4, myMoviey/4);
image(myMovie3, myMoviex/2, myMoviey/2);
image(myMovie4, myMoviex/-4, myMoviey/-4);

//update the location of the thing on the screen.
if(!(avX==0&&avY==0)&¢ers.length>1){
myMoviedestx = avX;
myMoviedesty = avY;
}
//update the location of the 2 thing on the screen.
if(!(avX==0&&avY==0)&¢ers.length>1){
myMovie2destx = avX;
myMovie2desty = avY;
}
//update the location of the 2 thing on the screen.
if(!(avX==0&&avY==0)&¢ers.length>1){
myMovie3destx = avX;
myMovie3desty = avY;
}
//update the location of the 2 thing on the screen.
if(!(avX==0&&avY==0)&¢ers.length>1){
myMovie4destx = avX;
myMovie4desty = avY;
}
myMoviex += (myMoviedestx-myMoviex)/1f;
myMoviey += (myMoviedesty-myMoviey)/1.f;
myMovie2x += (myMovie2destx-myMoviex)/1f;
myMovie2y += (myMovie2desty-myMoviey)/1.f;
myMovie3x += (myMovie3destx-myMoviex)/1f;
myMovie3y += (myMovie3desty-myMoviey)/1.f;
myMovie4x += (myMovie4destx-myMoviex)/1f;
myMovie4y += (myMovie4desty-myMoviey)/1.f;

fill(0,0,0);
ellipseMode(CENTER);
//ellipse(myMoviex,myMoviey,0,0);
}

void drawCamera(){
loadPixels();

updatePixels();
}

Spiral Movement 1951

2010-07-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Spiral Movement 1951
Mary Martin 1907-1969
TATE ONLINE

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Mary Martin 1907-1969

Born in Folkstone, Mary Martin Studied at Goldsmith College in 1925 - 29 followed by the Royal College of Art from 1929 to 32, ,marrying Kenneth Martin 1930. Much of their exhibition history and biography is the same as they had such a close working relationship. Having exhibited at the A.I.A from 1934 onwards under her maiden name of Balmford mainly as a landscape and still life painter, like Kenneth Martin, her work evolved towards the abstract style as a result of exhibiting with the London Group from 1932 and becoming a member of the group in 1959. During this time she also taught at Chelmsford School of Art from 1941 - 44.

Mary painted her first abstract picture in 1950, and made her first reliefs in 1951. Her first one-man exhibition was with her husband, at the Heffer Gallery, Cambridge in 1954. She made her first free-standing construction in 1956. Despite becoming an abstract artist at the same time as Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin was less well represented in the early years and her early figurative work is less well known although she exhibited her first abstract works with Kenneth in the Gimpel Fils exhibition Design in February 1951.

She used permutations determined by mathematical principles such as the Golden Section and the Fibonacci sequence. Her reliefs are built up using modern sheet material, from a base plane, which allows the works, when placed against the wall, to become part of the architectural environment. She developed spiral movement in later reliefs. A major retrospective of her work was held at the Tate Gallery, London in 1984

The House with the Ocean View

2010-06-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

VIDEO: Marina Abramović: The body as medium
For more information, please visit www.moma.org/abramovic.
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present
March 14–May 31, 2010
Images courtesy of Marina Abramović and Sean Kelly Gallery/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Filmed by The People's DP, Inc.
DP - Edward Roy
Audio - Nick Poholchuck

Marina Abramović: Live at MoMA
For more information, please visit www.moma.org/abramovic.
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present
March 14–May 31, 2010
Images courtesy of Marina Abramović and Sean Kelly Gallery/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

© Marina Abramovic
"The House with the Ocean View", 2002
12 day durational performance
The exhibition is comprised of a major new perfomance "The House with the Ocean View" which the artist describes as the most important one of her career to date, "Dream Bed" - a sculpture the public can use and "Stromboli" - a new video installation. Each work demonstrates part of Abramovic's concern with creating works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life like lying, sitting, dreaming, and thinking; in effect the manifestation of a unique mental state. As a vital member of the generation of pioneering performance artists that includes Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Abramovic created some of the most historic early performance pieces and is the only one still making important durational works.

"The House with the Ocean View" is a public living installation: for the first twelve days of the exhibition Abramovic will fast following a strictly defined regimen in three specially constructed living units in the main gallery space. For this unique and challenging performance, the gallery will have special hours (see below), to facilitate repeated attendance by the public, as their presence is integral to the work.

two videos at the same time

2010-06-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

Test of the processing code I finished today allowing to run two videos at the same time on the screen. The position of the videos is disturbed by the hand's movements captured by the webcam.

Sonic Bed_London

2010-06-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

Kaffe Matthews, Sonic Bed, 2002-05

http://www.kaffematthews.net/works/

Sonic Bed_London is the original sonic bed, commissioned by Electra for Her Noise 2005, supported by the Arts Council of England and Women in Music. It is a central pin in music for bodies research and was awarded a Distinction in Digital Musics at Prix Ars Electronica, 2006.

The Sonic Bed is a purpose built portable venue which plays music that moves for the prone bodies of an audience, who can come lie in the bed alone or together.

It is a sonic and social experiment exploring our perception of sound, presenting an oversized bed as a polished wooden tank with steps to climb up to get in it. Visitors are invited to remove their shoes and come lie on and enjoy specially constructed pieces moving up and down and around their bodies. Subtle, dynamic, at times beyond hearing, Sonic Bed plays music to feel rather than just listen to.

Sonic Bed is also an instrument, to be played by anyone who is interested as well as commissioned composers to make pieces for it using the specially developed software interface, built by and being developed in collaboration with David Muth through our research.

This interface enables the maker to literally draw and record sounds through the 12 channel sound system hidden under the mattress and side panels whilst lying in it ; meaning that 12 independent sources of sound can be playing and moving independently at any one time.

Sonic Bed_London was conceived and directed by Kaffe Matthews 2002, realised in November 2005 and its success has spawned the ongoing Worldwide Bed Project.

Sonic Bed_London was designed in collaboration with Paul Weyland, built by Craig Helliwell, Sheffield, with audio consultancy from Mike Appleton, Audio Car, London, installed by Paul Rossi, covers by Camalo Gaskin and overall facilitation by Mario Radinovic.

Embankment

2010-06-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

(''Embankment'' by Rachel Whiteread. Turbine Hall, The Tate Modern, Bankside, London. 13 November 2005. Photographer: Fin Fahey.)

Embankment (2005-2006) . Rachel_Whiteread
In spring 2004, she was offered the annual Unilever Series commission to produce a piece for Tate Modern's vast Turbine Hall, delaying acceptance for five to six months until she was confident she could conceive of a work to fill the space [2]. Throughout the latter half of September 2005 and mid-way into October her work Embankment was installed and was made public on October 10. It consists of some 14,000 transluscent, white polyethylene boxes (themselves casts of the inside of cardboard boxes) stacked in various ways; some in very tall mountain-like peaks and others in lower (though still over human height), rectangular, more levelled arrangements. They are fixed in position with adhesive. She cited the end scenes of both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Citizen Kane as visual precursors, she also spoke of the death of her mother and a period of upheaval which involved packing and moving comparable boxes.[15] It is also thought that her recent trip to the Arctic is an inspiration, although critics counter that white is merely the colour the polyethylene comes in, and it would have added significantly to the expense to dye them. The boxes were manufactured from casts of ten distinct cardboard boxes by a company that produces grit bins and traffic bollards.[16]
The critical response included:
"With this work Whiteread has deepened her game, and made a work as rich and subtle as it is spectacular. Whatever else it is, Embankment is generous and brave, a statement of intent."[17]
— Adrian Searle, The Guardian, October 11, 2005.
"Everything feels surprisingly domestic in scale, the intimidating vistas of the Turbine Hall shrunk down to irregular paths and byways. From atop the walkway, it looks like a storage depot that is steadily losing the plot; from inside, as you thread your way between the mounds of blocks, it feels more like an icy maze."[18]
— Andrew Dickson, The Guardian, October 10, 2005.
"This is another example of meritless gigantism that could be anywhere, and is the least successful of the gallery's six attempts to exploit its most unsympathetic space,"[19]
— Brian Sewell, London Evening Standard, October 2005.
"[looks] like a random pile of giant sugar cubes [...] Luckily, the £400,000 sponsored work is recyclable."[20]
— Stephen Moyes, Daily Mirror, October 11, 2005.

TATE:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/whiteread/

unileverseries:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/unileverseries/interactives/index2.html

Polyethylene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene

Bill Viola - Anthem

2010-06-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

Bill Viola - Anthem
The piece centers on a single piercing scream and on the extension of this scream by a little girl eleven years old under the engine shed at Union Railroad Station in Los Angeles. This initial cry, which only lasts a few seconds, is prolonged in time and its frequency is profoundly transformed and multiplied by the use of slow motion. This spasm of sound is the invisible container of a stretched-out time and space, a universal breath. Thus, although the picture shows the little girl to be the source of the sound, the shriek extends well beyond the contours established by her body, spreading and flowing like a dark fluid, and mingles with all the sirens in the town, with every shout and with the noises of the rising irrepressibly from below. These are mnesic images, "all centered on the theme of primitive fear of the dark, materialism and the harmful separation of body and mind" (Bill Viola).

Shifting Intimacies

2010-04-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

Shifting Intimacies is a large-scale interactive/media artwork created during a six-month research residency in England at the Institute of Contemporary Art London and Vincent Dance Theatre Sheffield. Individuals experience 10 minutes alone with the work. They enter a large, dark space containing two circles of projected film imagery, presented within an immersive sound environment. One image floats upon a disc of white sand whilst the other falls upon a circle of white dust. Participants’ unencumbered movements are detected by an array of sensors direct and affect the subsequent realtime-composed series of filmic images and spatialised audio. Throughout the work a layer of dust (an artificial life form) slowly eats away and infuses itself deep into the imagery and consequent ‘granularised’ sound. Continual movement through the space affects resulting speed, quality, balance and flow within the work. At the end of the experience the participant is invited to climb a lit platform and cast dust back onto the images below.----- The project cross-fertlised knowledges of performance and media arts in the pursuit of an expanded and enriched range of interactive experiences for audiences, whilst promoting new opportunities to foster a better understanding of cultural and ecological co dependencies.----- Following its international premiere it has since become a successful touring production with curated showings booked into 2009/10. It has garnered strong audience and critical responses and has been a key case study for two published, scholarly papers, developing the idea of a ‘Grounded Media” form.

http://www.embodiedmedia.com/

The Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self

2010-04-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

Initially, this teaching of anatman was a rejection of the Vedic belief that everyone has an undying, unchanging essence called the atman (“Self”).

It was one more way to distinguish the teachings of the Buddha from the teachings of the Vedas. Instead of locating identity in something akin to a soul, the Buddha taught that there is only a sense of self. There is no permanent foundation, such as a soul, to consciousness and experience.

The Five Aggregates (skandhas)
This sense of selfhood arises from the combination of all the elements that make up a person and his or her identity. The Buddha outlined five broad categories that made up this sense of self. These five categories (skandhas, lit. “heaps, collections, aggregates”) are:
Form (rupa), which refers to the physical body;
Feeling (vedana), by which one reacts to perceptions as pleasant, unpleasant, or neither;
Perception (samjna), the recognition of objects;
Mental faculties (samskara), which refer to the collection of features of the mind such as will, memory, ideas, thought, etc., and;
Consciousness (vijnana), which is the awareness of the objects of perception.
The conjunction of these five skandhas results in one’s sense of identity and selfhood. From the body one acts and experiences in the world. Consciousness is the awareness of the world, while perception refers to the process of knowing the objects of awareness. That is, one can be aware of a tree, or a car, or the sky; perception is the act of knowing the sky is the sky, or a tree a tree, etc. The process of feeling is where one develops a liking or aversion to a sensation. Then the mental faculties decide how to act on these perceptions.

"In this book we will focus on one such tradition, that which derives from the Buddhist method of examining experiences called mindfulness meditation. We believe that the Buddhist doctrines of no-self and nondualismo that grew out of this method have a significant contribuition to make in a dialogue with cognitive science: (1) The no-self doctrine contributes to understanding the fragmentation of self-portrayed in cognitivismo and connectionism. (2) Buddhist nondualism, particularly as is presented in the Madhyamika (which literally means 'middle way') philosophy of Nagarjuna, may be juxtaposed with the entre-deux of Merleau-Ponty and with the more recent ideas of cognition and enaction." (VARELA, F.; THOMPSON, E.; ROSH, E. The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 1993, p.21-22)

mindfulness/awareness meditation

2010-04-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

Examining Experience with a Method: Mindfulness/Awareness
(Part I: The Departing Groud; chapter 2: What Do We Mean 'Human Experiece'? VARELA, F.; THOMPSON, E.; ROSH, E. The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 1993.)

This book begins and ends with the conviction that the new sciences of mind need to enlarge their horizon to encompass both lived human experience and possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience. (VARELA, THOMPSON, ROSCH, 1993, Introduction)

“Breathing is one of the most simple, basic, ever-present bodily activities. Yet beginning meditators are generally astonished at how difficult it is to be mindful of even so uncomplex an object. Meditators discover that mind and body are not coordinated. The body is sitting, but the mind is seized constantly by thoughts, feelings, inner conversations, daydreams, fantasies, sleepiness, opinions, theories, judgments about thoughts and feelings, judgments about judgments – a never-ending torrent of disconnected mental events that the meditators do not even realize are occurring except at those brief instants when they remember what they are doing. Even when they may discover that they are only thinking about the breath rather than being mindful of the breath.” (VARELA, THOMPSON, ROSCH, 1993, p.25)

“The meditators now discovers that the abstract attitude which Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty ascribe to science and philosophy is actually the attitude of everyday life when one is not mindful. This abstract attitude is the spacesuit, the padding of habits and preconceptions, the armor with which one habitually distances oneself from one’s experience.” (VARELA, THOMPSON, ROSCH, 1993, p.25)

Broken habits:
“From the point of view of mindfulness/awareness meditation, humans are not trapped forever in the abstract attitude. The dissociation of mind from body, of awareness from experience, is the result of habit, and this habits can be broken.” (VARELA, THOMPSON, ROSCH, 1993, p.25)

Joanna Griffin

2010-04-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (09/04/2010) I sent an e-mail asking John Vines, Joanna Griffin, Rita Cachao and Taslima Begum to write a report about the draws they made on last 'No Doctor's meeting', Wednesday, April 7 2010. Here, the text Joanna Griffin sent me:
-----------------------------------------------------
9 April 2010, 16:04
Hi Clarissa

I should write this quickly, maybe without thinking about it too much, a bit like when I made the drawing. When I made the drawing I was remembering the text. The text struck me by its idea: that it was proposing a very beginning sensation, a first sensation and then building on this and saying how separate concepts emerged, like comparison, memory and imagination. Now I think about it, it's like a creation story, but talking about the creation of ideas, states of being instead of physical things like the hills and people and oceans, which is a fantastic creation story!!

At the time I know I was thinking about cosmology. I get weighed down with my research with this concept of cosmology - its everything right and so to read about the scent of the rose being everything, entirely everything was just so peaceful. In my drawing I start with the rose, I think it was the scent of the rose the story began with, maybe I'm wrong, and I made a kind of gold fish bowl, not quite complete around it because that was this amazing starting concept - the rose scent as a kind of bubble of everything, of the universe.

I think you draw what you want to draw. I drew the flowers because the names of the flowers that he uses are very known to me - the rose and jasmine that's growing in my mum's garden right now and carnations that are all crinkly. I wanted to draw the flowers because it reminded me of the kinds of things we drew when I was younger, for art projects, I liked doing that detailed dainty drawing of a flower and I wanted to remember doing that drawing when I was thirteen or something. In some ways, there's an analogy there because art for me back then was as simple and contained as drawing a flower. I knew there would be other possibilities out there, but at the time this was sort of enough. Now the art making I do, I can hardly describe what it is, its become like a planet in itself, a complexity of history and time and possibilities opened up.

So my drawing takes me back to when I was 13 and its about the familiarity of flowers and having a delicate area in a drawing balanced by a strong line, then the circle round the rose became sort of moon like and I made it a kind of reverse moon with the night sky inside the moon instead of outside.

I thought the story had a romanticism about it, a kind of Proustian romanticism and that came from choosing flowers and scents, so my drawing has that flowerfulness antiquity.

i love the way the story ends by saying that valuing scents in different ways, according to you, is imagination, that it wasn't about creating images or films in your head, but just that you have that ability to play through ideas in whatever way you want.

I like that you've asked us to do this too, that you are showing everyone that there are other paths to information and that it is possible through drawing to make some kind of indication of what emergence is, you can make some idea of how a person has been touched by something, some indication of what is in a person's head and maybe how little we can really anticipate about the meaning another person makes.

very beautiful ideas you work with,

xx
jo

John Vines

2010-04-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

No Doctor’s Day – A Consciousness Generative Process (part 1)

2010-04-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

John Vines

Joana Griffin

Taslima Begum

Rita Cachao

No Doctor’s Day – A Consciousness Generative Process (part 1)
Today John Vines hosted an informal meeting of the Transtech researches and some invited ones from i-Dat and the Planetary Collegium as me and Jacques Chueke. As is usual in the official Transtech updates we presented our research's last developments. I used the opportunity to share the ideas of the second version of Instants of Metamorphosis explaining how this work is related to my PhD research aims as a whole. The understanding of the installation not just as a never-ending ongoing process (Rita Cachao mentioned the approach of Umberto Eco in his book The Open Work) but as a Complex Adaptive System – CAD is central to the approach. The point is that, using the complexity sciences framework may help in understanding how the informational flow through the interaction of several actors/elements creates and transforms the entire system in a generative process. There is no intention of considering the question from a mathematical perspective, measuring the amount of information, predicting transformations and emergences in a formal way. The complexity sciences perspective is being used from a qualitative point of view, combining references from philosophy and sociology to help in thing about the installation as a CAS. At this point, Rita Cachao questioned how can I defend that the idea of using this complexity sciences perspective (using systemic measures of complexity and organization for instance), could be valid to analyses a work of art? Why and how a work of art can be described as a complex adaptive system? And at this point, following the questioning moment of Rita, John Vines mentioned some similarities concerning my approach and Guto Nobrega's and Brigitta Zics's ones, in their PhD research works.
After an initial moment of open discussion, I proposed a group activity that is, at a certain level, integrated with the creative process of Instants of Metamorphosis v.02. The activity consisted in to read the Borges tale 'Two Metaphysical Animals' and the considerations about a possible use of some ideas presented and manipulated by Borges (from Condillac and Lotze, to be specific) to stimulate a conversation on how it could works as some sort of inspiration to the creative process and to think about a way or artifice to ‘capture’ emergent meaning from the system. The reading started after the presentation of a 3 minutes video about Instants of Metamorphosis 01.
We spent half an hour talking. Rita Cachao (That was very well performing the role of a doctor in the meeting!) asked me why I'm using Borges specifically. I explained that, one year ago, I was reading Clarice Lispector emergent writing book The Stream of Life because it, as a creative consciousness process it is, could has interesting connections with the main intention of my research of analyzing the interactive digital art installation from a complex sciences perspective.
Reading Clarice Lispector I was at the same time searching for possible connections between her and other fictional authors to help in constructing a fertile dialogue that could works as a base to a creative process (generative consciousness; creative evolution? ) I found some interesting articles on the dialogue between Clarice and J. L. Borges. I started re-reading Borges and was really interested in his Book of Imaginary Beings. Concerning the tale ‘Two Metaphysical Animals’, the intention is not to use it as an academic reference but to use this small part of Borges’ encyclopedic and imaginary universe as fuel to the artistic processes and the study interrelated.
After the ‘reading time’, I invited Rita Cachao, Joana Griffin, John Vines and Taslima Begum to produce individual draws from the central ideas of the 'Two Metaphysical Animals' – draws that could capture the way they apprehended the text, transformed it and turn it into memory. Amazing drawings; completely distinct universes emerged. In the end I asked the researches if they can write me a report, in two or three days, about the drawings they made. The intention is to see how this kind of exercise could help in to map emergences en a process of information interchange. In a few days I'll ask the group to produce new draws, at home, and send pictures of it to me via e-mail.

Nam June Paik // Fish Flies on Sky

2010-04-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

Nam June Paik
Fish Flies on Sky
1983-85
3-Kanal-Videoinstallation
Maße variabel
Nam June Paik Estate
museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf

Fish Flies in Sky / pdf

Two Metaphysical Animals

2010-04-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Two Metaphysical Animals*
(BORGES, 1967, The Book of Imaginary Beings)

The problem of the origin of ideas contributes two curious creatures to the fauna of mankind’s imagination. One was invented sometime in the mid-eighteenth century; the other, a hundred years later.
The first creature is Condillac’s ‘sentient statue.’ Descartes professed the doctrine of innate ideas; in order to refute him, Étienne Bonnot Condillac imagined a marble statue shaped like a man’s body and animated by a soul that has never perceived, never thought. Condillac begins by endowing the statue with a single sense – smell, perhaps the least complex of the five senses. The fragrance of jasmine is the beginning of the statue’s biography; for one instant, there shall be nothing in all the universe but that odor. More precisely, that odor shall be the universe, which a second later will be the fragrance of a rose, and then a carnation. Let there be a single odor in the consciousness of the statue, and we have attention; let a fragrance last beyond the moment when the stimulus has passed, and we have memory; let one impression in the present and one from the past occupy the statue’s attention, and we have comparison; let the statues perceive analogies and differences, and we have judgment; let comparison and judgment occur again, and we have reflection; let a pleasant memory be more vivid than an unpleased one, and we have imagination. When the faculties of the understanding have been engendered, the faculties of the Will must follow – love and hate (attraction and aversion), hope and fear. The awareness of having passed thorough many states will give the statue as abstract notion of number; the awareness of being the odor of carnation yet of having been the odor of jasmine will endow it with the idea of Self.
Condillac would then grant his hypothetical man hearing, taste, sight, and, lastly, touch. This last sense reveals to the creature the fact that space exists and that within space, he himself is within a body; sounds, fragrances, and colors will have seemed to him, before that moment, simple variations or modifications of his consciousness.
The allegory we have just retold is titled Traité des sensations, and it was published en 1754; for this account of it, we have used the second volume of Bréhier’s Histoire de la philosophie.
The other creature engendered by the problem of the knowledge is Lotze’s ‘ hypothetical animal.’ More solitary than the statue that smells roses and at least becomes a man, the animal has but one sensitive spot on its skin, on the end of an antenna and therefore movable. The structure of this animal prevents it, as one can see, from receiving simultaneous perceptions, but Lotze believed that the ability to retract or project its sensitive antenna was enough to allow the all-but-isolated animal to discover the outside world (without the aid of Kantian categories) and to perceive the difference between a stationary object and a mobile one. Vaihinger admired this fiction; it is contained in the work titled Medizinische Psychologie, published in 1852.

* First impression – impression – attention – memory – comparison– judgment – reflection – imagination

This text is the main reference to guide the creative process of Instants of Metamorphosis v.02 and I think it could be a very interesting start point/structure to model the methodology based on systemic measures of complexity and organization. A mapping-narrative to help in capturing the flow of information – the emergence/transformations in the subject’s (the trans-actor) level.

As emergences, that represent different levels of organization and complexity of the system, we can have: the whole system/experience(the system as a whole, the installation as a process/Space-temporal structure one could experience through his senses); a second later we can have the ‘first impression’ and, after, a transformation of this impression into a instantaneous memory, according to our references stored. Then, there will be a single impression stored ( something that is ‘printed inside’, candidate to became a memory) in the consciousness of the trans-actor, and we have attention; let this impression “[…] last beyond the moment when the stimulus has passed, and we have memory;” let one impression in the present and one from the past occupy the trans-actor’s attention, and we have comparison; “[…] let the trans-actor “[…] perceive analogies and differences, and we have judgment; let comparison and judgment occur again, and we have reflection; let a pleasant memory be more vivid than an unpleased one, and we have imagination.”

links//
Rudolph Hermann Lotze, Medizinische Psychologie, Leipzig, 1852
Hans Vaihinger
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac,Traité des sensations

Breath

2010-04-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

DIXON, Luke. Play Acting: Thirty-two theatre workshop activities that create performance. New York: Routledge, 2005

Speaking and listening are physical activities. All the voice work in this section comes from an understanding of the functioning of the performer’s body, of which the voice is just one extraordinary part. We start with breathing, the activity that keeps the body alive and gives it motion, and the activity that is the basis for all voice work. We explore the infinite variety possible in the use of just one or two simple words before going on to sentences, verse and more complex forms of expression. The voice is constantly explored in relation to the moving actor and the dynamic relationship between body, voice and space. (DIXON, Introduction, p.3)

‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ The words from Genesis echo those of the Ugandan proverb that says that ‘life is your ability to breathe in every time you breathe out’. In the fifity years between my birth and writing this book I may have taken some for billion breathes. Most of them, unless I have been overexerting myself, or having a lesson in Alexander technique, or rehearsing a troublesome song, I will note have noticed. We breathe in as we enter this world and we breathe out as we leave it. Our breaths are what mark us being alive. To breath in is inspiration; to breathe out is expiration. To breathe is to be inspired. (DIXON, p.53)

John Cage and LeJaren Hiller HPSCHD, 1969

2010-04-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

John Cage and LeJaren Hiller: HPSCHD, 1969
Stephen Husarik
American Music, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer, 1983), pp. 1-21
(article consists of 21 pages)
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3051496

HPSCHD received its premiere performance before an audience of 6000 on May 16, 1969 at the Assembly Hall of Urbana Campus, University of Illinois. Conceived as a highly immersive multimedia experience, the performance featured David Tudor, Antoinette Vischer, William Brooks, Ronald Peters, Yūji Takahashi, Neely Bruce and Philip Corner playing harpsichords whose sounds were captured and amplified; 208 tapes with computer-generated sounds played through 52 monaural tape players; and an array of movie and slide projectors used to project 6400 slides and 40 movies onto rectangular screens and a 340 foot circular screen. Many of these images, selected by Ron Nameth and Calvin Sumsion, were borrowed from NASA (the premiere took place just a month prior to the first manned landing on the Moon). The performance, which lasted for about 5 hours, was not intended as a static, unidirectional event, but rather as a hypnotic environment where the audience was encouraged to "move in and out of the building, around the Hall, and through the performing area." During the premiere an image of Beethoven wearing a University of Illinois jersey with Cage's face on it was silkscreened onto paper tunics distributed to members of the audience (and onto audience members' garments, including t-shirts, once the supply of tunics ran out). Three large silkscreened posters were created for the event, two of which featured images chosen by chance operations similar to those used in the composition of the music. Some copies were sold to support the event, each for a different price established using an I Ching chart.

Perfect Human //

2010-04-05T18:48:00.000-07:00

A reference to the Instants of Metamorphosis v.02 suggested by Graziele Lautenschlaeger:

Perfect Human / 2008
Inspired by Joergen Leth's 1967 short film "The Perfect Human" and Lars von Trier's "The Five Obstructions" (2003). This performance intends to create a sixth obstruction of The Perfect Human, by introducing rules in order to complete the performance as a game.

In preparation for the game the performer receives a suitcase, one week in advance. The artists do not meet or talk with the performer until the day of the performance. The Suitcase contains items selected to help the performer prepare herself for the game. None of the items impose any obligation on the performer. Instead she is free to inspect and make use of them in any way she sees fit. But she must prepare herself. On the day of the performance, the performer must show up at the named time and location carrying the suitcase with all its contents. The game begins as the performer starts putting on the socks, the last item of the costume.

Instants of Metamorphosis 02

2010-04-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Instants of Matemorphosis v.02

“I’m going to go back to the unknown within myself and when I’m born I’ll speak of “him” or “her”. For the time being, what sustains me is the ‘that’ which is an “it”. To create a being from oneself is something very serious. I’m creating myself. And walking in complete darkness in search of ourselves is what we do. It hurts. But it’s labor pain: something is being born that is. It is itself. It is hard like a dry stone. But the core is “it”, soft and alive, perishable, in danger. The life of elementary matter.” (LISPECTOR, p.35)

Via msn I was talking with Graziele Lautenschlaeger about the seminal ideas of a second version of Instants of Metamorphosis. The ideas I was discussing last Sunday (04/04/2010) with Jacques Chueke here in Plymouth, after our Easter lunch with our friends Fernanda and Marcelo Gimenes – ideas concerning a big organic structure that must have a sensorial appeal and onto which will be projected several video performances activated by the presence of trans-actors via sensors installed in the structure skin and connected to an Arduino board (or similar).

My first idea was to work with different stages of development of a being - the development stages of an embryo, as an exaple. I invited Chueke to work together in this project, as an invited member of the Double Collective, and he started thinking about the video performances from a different point of view, focusing on the intention of to awaken in the one who is trans-acting, the sensation of displacement, mixing spatial temporal dimension through designing the performances considering space (movement along axes, crossing planes, zoom, frames, notions of ground, ceiling and walls, different notions of space as outer and inner space, for instance ) and time (temporal row, slow motion, delay, rewind) to help in blurring the borders between concrete and virtual in experiences that transport the trans-actor beyond the material, experiencing complex space and time.
In the book ‘The Stream of Life’, that continues to be the base to the reflections, or the conception of a consciousness process that is the installation-process itself, Clarice Lispector explores recurrently the relativity in the perception and the self experience of time and space. I search and selected now some excerpts from the book ‘by chance’:
“I’m so vast. I’m coherent: my canticle is profound. Slow. But growing. It’s growing still more. If it grows enough, it turns into a full moon and silence… and a phantasmagoric lunar surface. Witness to the stopping of time. What I write you is serious. It will turn into a hard, imperishable objct. What comes is unforeseen. To beuselessly sincere, I must now say that it’s six fifteen in the morning.” (LISPECTOR, p.34)
“Now is an instant. Do you feel it? I do.” (LISPECTOR, p. 35)

Today (06/04/2010) I awake up thinking about the discussions I had yesterday with Chueke. Thinking about the imaginary beings in the Borge's book (The Book of Imaginary Beings) that brings us, as legends, narratives that explores complex experiences of time and space by the self. I selected three: Two Metaphysical Animals p.15, The Double p.62, AnimaThat Lives in the Mirrors p.18, Thermal Beings 195, Spherical Animals p.20.
Tonight, a few hours ago, I went out with Chueke to have dinner at Mutley Plaine and was talking about this idea of using the imaginary beings to support/inspire the spatial-temporal interactive narratives/performances. He suggested I send him a brief description of the tales I mentioned and he will starts drawing HQ narratives inspired by each one as a start point to the process of creating the video performances.

Right now 01:15 a.m., reading again ‘Two Metaphysical Animals’, I think that to work with this single text is enough. The Borges description is fantastic, describing consciousness processes… really amazing. I remember me and Chueke walking and talking about the origin of the word metaphysics – the title one given to the books Aristotle wrote after the ones about Physics. And remember that tomorrow morning I wake up and started organizing my computer to backup the files and found the annotation I made when I was reading the funny book ‘Aristotle in 90 minuts’:

“It is to Andronicus that we owe the word ‘metaphysics’ – the title which he gave to a group of Aristotle’s works. These originally had no title, and merely came after those on physics – thus Andronicus simply labeled them ‘after physics’, which in anciet Greek is ‘metaphysics’. The works in this section consted of Aristotle’s treatises on ontology and the ultimate nature of things.” (Paul Strathern, Aristotle in 90 minutes, p. 45)

And now (1:40 a.m.), I found an excerpt of Clarice Lispector book, looking for fragments about space and time, in a completely random process , that I think dialogues in a very interesting way with the Borges tale ‘The Metaphysical Animals’:
“The risk – I’m risking the discovery of new territory. Where human feet have never trod. First, I have to pass through the perfumed vegetation. I was given a bridal wreath, which now sits on my terrace. I shall begin to make my own perfume: I’ll buy the right kind of alcohol and the essence of what has been dissolved, and above all the fixative, which has to have a purely animal origin. Heavy musk. That’s the last austere chord of the adagio. My number os 9. It’s 7. It’s 8. All behind thought. If all that exists, Then I am. But why this uneasiness? Because I’m not living the only way that there is for a person to live and I don’t even know what it is. Uncomfortable. I don’t feel weel. I don’t know what the matter is. But something’s wrong and it makes me anxious. Nevertheless, I’m being frank and my game is clean. I begin the game. Only I don’t tell the facts of my life: I’m secretive by nature. What is it, then? I only know that I don’t want deception. I refuse. I’ve looked into myself but I don’t believe in myself because my thought is inverted.” (LISPECTOR, p.34)

Approximately one an hour ago, via msn, Graziele Lautenschlaeger said she liked the idea, and I hope she will join us in this new artistic 'playgroud'. Here, the reference she mentioned:
Perfect Human //
Inspired by Joergen Leth's 1967 short film "The Perfect Human" and Lars von Trier's "The Five Obstructions" (2003). This performance intends to create a sixth obstruction of The Perfect Human, by introducing rules in order to complete the performance as a game.
http://www.kobakant.at/index.php?menu=2&work=5

references:
BORGES, J. L. 2005. The Book of Imaginary Beings. New York: Penguim Group.
LISPECTOR, C. 1995. The Stream of Life. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Translated by: Elizabeth Lowe and Earl Fitz.

M.C. Escher

2010-03-25T09:42:00.001-07:00

M.C. Escher (Main with Cuboid)1958. Wood engraving. 64x64cm

Pachacamac Temple in Peru

2010-03-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Pachacamac Temple in Peru

Pachacamac (pronounced: pah cha kamak) lies 25 miles SE of Lima adjacent to the Pan American highway astride the Pacific coastline. "Pachacámac" in Quechua means "Pacha" world, and "camac" to animate -- "The One who Animates the World." The site was considered one of the most important religious centers of the indigenous peoples of the central Andes, and contains a number of pyramids. Spanish historical records, along with extensive archaeological research, have served to clarify its history and significance. Built centuries before the time of the Incas, Pachacamac is noted for its great pyramidal temples, and for the remains of frescoes adorning its adobe walls. Culturally and chronologically it is related to Chancay, and other centers of the Cuismancu empire, including Huari. At the time of the Spanish conquest it was a major Inca shrine.

http://www.labyrinthina.com/pachacamac.htm

YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06UiwjJL8I0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40at0ie14a4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo5OQxsCkVM&feature=related

Auroville / Matrimandir

2010-03-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.auroville.org/
http://synapticstimuli.com/tag/auroville/
http://www.auroville.org/thecity/matrimandir/mm_soul.htm

The Matrimandir will be the soul of Auroville.
The sooner the soul is there, the better it will be
for everybody and especially for the Aurovilians.

Matrimandir
At the very centre of Auroville one finds the 'soul of the city', the Matrimandir, situated in a large open area called 'Peace', from where the future township will radiate outwards. The atmosphere is quiet and charged, and the area beautiful, even though at present large parts of it are still under construction.
As yet incomplete, the Matrimandir emerges as a large golden sphere which seems to be rising out of the earth, symbolising the birth of a new consciousness seeking to manifest. Its slow and steady progress towards completion is followed by many.
While walking through the lovely green Matrimandir Gardens with their great variety of flowers, shrubs and trees, one's attention is greatly drawn by this important and powerful feature at the heart of the city which was seen by the Mother as the "symbol of the Divine's answer to man's aspiration for perfection" and as "the central cohesive force" for the growth of Auroville.

Evolutionary principle
The name 'Matrimandir' means literally 'Temple of the Mother'. According to Sri Aurobindo's teaching, the 'Mother' concept stands for the great evolutionary, conscious and intelligent principle of Life, the Universal Mother, - which seeks to help humanity move beyond its present limitations into the next step of its evolutionary adventure, the supramental consciousness.

Inner Chamber
The spacious Inner Chamber in the upper hemisphere of the structure is completely white, with white marble walls and white carpeting. In the centre a pure crystal-glass globe suffuses a ray of electronically guided sunlight which falls on it through an opening at the apex of the sphere.
"The most important thing is this: the play of the sun on the centre. Because that becomes the symbol, the symbol of future realisations."
There are no images, no organised meditations, no flowers, no incense, no religion or religious forms.

To find one's consciousness..
The Matrimandir is there for "those who want to learn to concentrate.." "No fixed meditations, none of all that, but they should stay there in silence, in silence and concentration. A place for trying to find one's consciousness."

No religion
"Let it not become a religion", the Mother said. "The failure of religions is... because they were divided. They wanted people to be religious to the exclusion of other religions, and every branch of knowledge has been a failure because it has been exclusive.
What the new consciousness wants (it is on this that it insists) is: no more divisions.

To be able to understand the spiritual extreme, the material extreme, and to find the meeting point, the point where that becomes a real force."

YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn9TvKrXucE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giFuGzQyc6w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNt4dvYr9DQ&feature=related

Jonathan Gibbs

2010-03-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Gibbs.Pyramids & Temple. Wood engraving.

“Although Jonathan Gibbs has lived and worked in Scotland for a number of years, he acknowledges the importance of the ‘churches, fields, shorelines and elements of landscape from East Norfolk, where my family comes from’. At first sight, his paintings and engravings evoke a mid-twentieth-century mood, suggestive of territory between Ben Nicholson and Eric Ravilious – fastidious, linear and deeply sensitive to place."

http://www.rowleygallery.com/Artist-Jonathan-Gibbs.aspx

http://www.centralillustration.com/jg/jg.php

http://www.scottishillustrators.com/?sel_category=46&phpc_sess=a69e5d04fe6e0720a6f72b6f2048707d

Jonathan Gibbs. Moon, Tree & River. Wood engraving.

Jonathan Gibbs. Blue Room. Oil on oak panel.

Acaso 30 Gilbertto Prado

2010-03-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

One of the references brought by Clarissa Ribeiro is the interactive installation Acaso 30 by Gilbertto Prado.

Acaso 30 is an interactive installation in memory of those killed in the massacre that took place in the Queimados neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro sometime between a Thursday night and dawn that Friday, in March 2005 where 30 people were eliminated.
The installation is set up in a not well-lit half-open space, as if it were a town square. In the center of the space there is a large heavy totally handmade blue rug, like those made by prisoners' wives. The series of images as well as the spots onto which they are projected occur in a random way. Once a person steps onto the rug two things happen: an image of a nude body is projected onto the ground and a strong wind faces the spectator. The only noise is that of the wind which creates tension and instability. As for the images, from the moment that they are projected onto a given spot tension zones are generated and the bodies react when the spectators get closer and when they move away. When the spectators reach the bodies the situation becomes irreversible with the death of the characters and the disappearance of the images. An interval without any projections or actions follows.

Credits: Gilbertto Prado, 2005. Support Team: Fábio Oliveira, Gaspar Arguello, Jesus de Paula Assis, Luciano Gosuen e Maurício Taveira. Programming: Luis Henrique Moraes
Actors: Francisco Serpa e Karina Yamamoto. Exhibited at the show Cinético_Digital, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo from June 5th to September 11th 2005.

Videos:
Acaso30 - makingOff
Acaso30 - Gilbertto Prado

Reflexivity

2010-03-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

Reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect. A reflexive relationship is bidirectional; with both the cause and the effect affecting one another in a situation that renders both functions causes and effects. In sociology, reflexivity therefore comes to mean an act of self-reference where examination or action 'bends back on', refers to, and affects the entity instigating the action or examination. In this sense it usually refers to the capacity of an individual agent to recognize forces of socialization and alter his or her place in the social structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)

Margaret Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=9156562982538374872#

Bourdieu, Pierre. Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology

Reflexivity in Spectatorship: The Didactic Nature of Early Silent Films

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90O0T-VLuXM

Pablo Valbuena’s Augmented Sculpture

2010-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

One of the references brought by Graziele Lautenschlaeger is the Pablo Valbuena's Augmented Sculpture. It is interesting as well to take a look on the ntire production of this artist as a whole.

http://www.pablovalbuena.com/

Pablo Valbuena’s Augmented Sculpture v. 1.2 is a remarkable synthesis of modernist-minimalist sculpture and video projection. Strangely this fascinating piece was not shown at the main Ars Electronica 2007 exhibition space in the OK Centrum Gallery but was instead relegated to a rather decrepit building on the streets of Linz. Fortunately we wandered around the town long enough to stumble upon it.

Pablo Valbuena, Augmented Sculpture v.1.2

http://www.pablovalbuena.com/videos/ars07_video.html

Giulio Camillo's Memory Theatre

2010-03-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

One of the references brought by Renata La Rocca is the Giulio Camillo's Memory Theatre.

In a letter written by Viglius to Erasmus, both comtemporary of Camillo, they said that Camillo has constructed an Amphitheatre, a work of wonderful skill, into which whoever is admitted as spectator will be able to discourse on any subject no less fluently than Cicero and that he pretends that all things that the human mind can conceive and which we cannot see with the corporeal eyes, after being collected together by diligent meditation, may be expressed by certain corporeal signs in such a way that the beholder may at once perceive with his eyes everything that is otherwise hidden in the depths of the human mind. And it is because of this corporeal looking that he calls it a theatre.

Giulio Camillo Delminio was one of the most famous people of the sixteenth century, primarily because of his construction of a life-size model of a theater. His Idea del theatro(Venice, 1550) was published in ten editions by 1584. As Frances Yates has shown, Camillo belonged to the Hermetic-kabbalistic tradition initiated by Pico della Mirandola. His theater was actually a memory building representing the order of eternal truth and depicting the various stages of creation, from the first cause through the angels, the planetary spheres, and down to man. The theater's basic planetary images were talismans receiving astral power that could be channeled and operated through the agency of the theater. By mastering the proportions of universal harmony whose memory was preserved in the theater's structure, the operator could harness the magical powers of the cosmos. (in: Kabbalah, Magic, and Science, The Cultural Universe of a Sixteenth-Century Jewish Physician. Harvard University Press, 1988, p.113)

references:
The Art of Memory, Frances Yates
The Renaissance of the Theater of Memory, Peter Matussek
The Memory Theatre of Giulio Camillo, Written and Directed by Matthew Maguire, Sets and installations by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio.
Tetsuro Nagata, Computing an Identity

technical draws

2010-03-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

Here are the technical draws of the installation project:

Processing CODE //

2010-03-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Here is the Processing code for the Installation:

/**
* Instants of metamorphosis v.01 // an interactive video installation // The Double Collective, UK/Brazil, November 2009/March 2010
*
* processing code by Clarissa Ribeiro
*
* move around under a wide angle webcam, over a projection onto the ground, to load and play a movie file
*/

import fullscreen.*;
import processing.video.*;
import JMyron.*;
import ddf.minim.*;

Minim minim;
AudioPlayer player;
FullScreen fs;
Movie myMovie;
JMyron m; //a camera object

//variables to maintain the floating moviee
float myMoviex = 320;
float myMoviey = 240;
float myMoviedestx = 320;
float myMoviedesty = 240;

void setup() {
// set size to 640x480
size(640, 480);
// The background COLOR IS BLACK:
background(0,0,0);

//new Minim:
minim = new Minim(this);
// load a file, give the AudioPlayer buffers that are 2048 samples long
player = minim.loadFile("breathing.wav", 2048);
player.loop();

// Create the fullscreen object
fs = new FullScreen(this);

// enter fullscreen mode
fs.enter();

// Load and play the video in a loop// according to the sculpture dimmension, change the video file: medium, big or small, or use the original.mov
myMovie = new Movie(this, "azultransparente_big.3gp");
myMovie.loop();
m = new JMyron();//make a new instance of the object
m.start(width,height);//start a capture at 640x480
m.trackColor(255,255,255,256*3-100);//track white / must ajust the 3-5
m.update();
m.adaptivity(10); // how fast the white is capted! it was 100
m.adapt();// immediately take a snapshot of the background for differencing
println("Myron " + m.version());
rectMode(CENTER);
noStroke();
}

void movieEvent(Movie myMovie) {
myMovie.read();
}

void draw() {
m.update();//update the camera view
drawCamera();

int[][] centers = m.globCenters();//get the center points
//draw all the dots while calculating the average.
float avX=0;
float avY=0;
for(int i=0;i fill(0);
// image(myMovie, 0,0);
avX += centers[i][0];
avY += centers[i][1];
}
if(centers.length-1>0){
avX/=centers.length-1;
avY/=centers.length-1;
}
//draw the image. if you want the movie starts in the center of the screen, use myMoviex/2 and myMoviey/2.
// to star in the right corner: only myMoviex and myMoviex. To start in the left, myMoviex/4 and myMoviexy/4.
image(myMovie, myMoviex, myMoviey);

//update the location of the thing on the screen.
if(!(avX==0&&avY==0)&¢ers.length>1){
myMoviedestx = avX;
myMoviedesty = avY;
}
myMoviex += (myMoviedestx-myMoviex)/1f;
myMoviey += (myMoviedesty-myMoviey)/1.f;
fill(0,0,0);
ellipseMode(CENTER);
//ellipse(myMoviex,myMoviey,0,0);
}

void drawCamera(){
loadPixels();

updatePixels();
}

3D model and animation //

2010-03-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

3D model of the installation made using Google SketchUp.

Technical Requirements
The volumetric sculpture is constructed of individual wooden components that pack down for ease of transport into road cases. The structure is robust and strong, allowing several people to walk over it at the same time.

(we supply)
- 4m x 3m volumetric wooden sculpture
- A wide angle webcam with a 2.1mm 160-Degree Wide Angle Lens for Security Cameras and Webcams.

(the exhibition place supply)
- Projector: EIP-5000 (or an equivalent with 5000 lumens), with Aperture Width of 0.5410 in. Projector Aspect Ratio: 4:3; Height of 5 meters
- Projector mounted parallel to grid with masked mirror. Picture size must be
4m x 3m
- PC, Intel® Core™ i3 processor 530, NVIDIA® GeForce® G210 (with 512 MB dedicated), 4 GB DDR3, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 audio ports, running Processing 1.0.3 in Windows Vista. - Dense black space (Or can be presented in restrained lighting)
- Technical assistance in set up – general setup, construction test

Observation: Set up time approximately 1/2 days depending on room pre-prep.

Instants of Metamorphosis 01 // theoretical description

2010-03-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

The work combines references as the Jorge Luis Borges’ description of the A Bao A Qu in The Book of Imaginary Beings (BORGES, 2005), with the perspective brought by Clarice Lispector in her emergent writing book The Stream of Life (LISPECTOR, 1995) – a chaotic consciousness process of a being without gender, an ‘it’, in dialogue with the self, the other, space and time; a being instants of metamorphosis.

The spiral metaphor for a creative evolutionary process is inherent to the concept of the installation. Conceptually the art work is a dynamic system and their narratives, the stories it tells and which one it contains, have no end and no beginning.

Inspired by the Pablo Valbuena’s Augmented Sculpture, a video performance is projected onto a volumetric base that composes a subject-sculpture: a reference to the never-ending spiral one may climbs to acquire spiritual evolution. As one climbs, exploring the volumes, the video follows its movements, leaving stamped onto the ground, frozen instants of the performance, memories of the metamorphosis of the self. Nevertheless, the video and the sound never stop playing and following the movements of the audience.

The environment sound is the irregular and deep sound of someone breathing: a reference to yoga and meditation practices that intent to put the subject in deep contact with its essence. The immateriality of the video performance and its narrative, aim in stimulating reflections on self consciousness, alluding to the borders and the extensions one virtually constructs around to live and dialogue, considering an ecological perspective.

All the actions, the trans-actions, are integrated in a never end timeline that incorporates several times, as a garden of forking paths(BORGES, 1941), never end storied spaces (BASKIN, 2008) where imaginary beings live: ‘its’; ourselves, and the others.

The video is available on YouTube: Instants of Metamorphosis 01 // theoretical description

Instants of Metamorphosis // technical description

2010-03-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Technical Description // Installed in a dark room measuring 5 m x 6m, 5m high, Instants of Metamorphosis 01, consists in a wooden irregular volumetric sculpture measuring 4m x 3m. A computer-controlled video down projection falls directly onto the volumes, skinning it in real time in response to sensed movements of the audience, combining in a subject-sculpture the physical and the virtual dimensions. The movements are captured by a wide angle web camera, allowing real time responsiveness to the work. Using motion and color tracking, the camera input is processed using the library JMyron on Processing 1.0.3. The libraries that are being used are JMyron, Minim,Processing.Video and Fullscreen.

When one moves in the region covered by the camera lens caption, climbing the volumetric sculpture, the Processing code allows to load and play a movie file in loop the video performance , stamping the frames of the video onto the sculpture skin, like frozen memories, instants of metamorphosis of the self. Playing in loop the sound of someone breathing deeply and slowly, four-speakers surround the structure, creating a spatial sound environment.

The video is available on YouTube: Instants of Metamorphosis // technical description

Instants of Metamorphosis 01 // performance

2010-03-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

"The vibration of the person as he approaches infuses the creature with life, and an inward light begins to glow within it. At the same time, its body and its virtually translucent skin begin to ripple and stir."
(Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings, 1967)

The video performance for the interactive installation Instants of Metamorphosis 01 aim in translating the never-ending process of metamorphosis of the self present in such references as the Jorge Luis Borges description of the A Bao A Qu in his Book of Imaginary Beings (BORGES, 2005), as well as the perspective brought by Clarice Lispector in her emergent writing book The Stream of Life (LISPECTOR, 1995) a chaotic consciousness process of a being without gender, an it, in dialogue with the self, the others, space and time.

The video is available on youTube: Instants of Metamorphosis 01 // performance

The Double Helix

2010-03-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

The Double Helix - Sketch of the double helix, loose sheet, early 1953

"In April 1953, Watson and Crick published the correct structure of DNA. They had pulled together the evidence from Chargaff's biochemistry and from X-ray diffraction images of DNA and built physical models to work out how it fitted together. The structure has two sugar-phosphate strands twisted into a double helix; the two strands being linked by bonds between complementary bases (adenine and thymine, cytosine and guanine). The structure of DNA has become an icon of modern biology. At the time, however, Watson and Crick modestly noted that: "This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest."

From: The Crick papers: 1953 The double helix, 1/3/03, BY GILES NEWTON

La double hélice
“Voilà comment se met en place ce qu’on peut, par métaphore, apeller la double hélice. C’est rendre hommage à l’extension de la nature entrevue par la science (d’où nous vient tounjours la pression). C’est sourtout soulinger à quel point sont liées les deux grands modalités de au grés desquelles l’analogia se trouve constantemment menacée e retravaillée. La première modalité touche l’analogie photographique, la façon dont le monde, les objets et les corps y semble défini (toujours pour une parte, et plus ou moins) par réference à la vision naturelle, qui implique ressemblance e reconnaissance. La seconde modalité touche l ‘analogie propre à la reproduction du mouvement. Voilà les deux puissances qui se trouvent, chacune et ensemble, mise en jeu e mise à mal, dans le film, dès que l’image incline vers la défiguration, la perte de reconaissance, ou que son mouvement se tourne détourné, figé, interrompu, transi par l’irruption violente du photographique (l’effet photo: il va de la photo comme présence à l’arrêt sur image, en passant par les fictions de la fixité e du photogramme."

From: Raymond Bellour: La Double Hélice, pg. 41

The Double // Jorge Luis Borges

2010-03-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Double
Suggested or inspired by mirrors, the surface of still water, and twins, the concept of the Double is common to many lands. It seems likely that statements such as Pythagoras’ “A friend is another myself” and Plato’s “Know thyself” were inspired by it. In Germany, it is called the Doppelgänger; in Scotland, the fetch, because it comes to fetch men to their death. Meeting oneself was, therefore, most ominous; the tragic ballad “Ticonderoga” by Robert Louis Stevenson recounts a legend on this theme. We might also recall that strange paiting by Rossetti called “how They Met Themselves” – two lovers meet themselves at dusk in a forest. One need only mention other instances in Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, and Alfred de Musset.
For the Jews, on the other hand, the apparition of the Double was not a foreshadowing of death, but rather a proof that the person to whon it appeared had achived the rank of prophet. This is the explanation offered by Gershom Scholem. A tradition included in the Talmud tells the story of a man, searching for God, who met himself.
In Poe’s story “William Wilson”, the Double is the hero’s conscience; when the hero kills his double, he dies. In the poetry of William Butler Yeats, the Double is our “other side”, our opposite, our complement, that person that we are not and shall never be.
Plutarch wrote that the Greeks called the king’s representative the “other I”.
(Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings, 2005)

How They Met Themselves

2010-03-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

How They Met Themselves, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Date: 1851-1864. Subject: A pair of lovers meet their doubles, outlined in light, in a wood at twilight—a sure presage of death(Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné,74)

The Double Collective

2010-03-21T21:51:00.002-07:00

The Double // collective is an ongoing project on process-based collective work, idealized by three multimedia artists – Clarissa Ribeiro, Renata La Rocca e Graziele Lautenschlaeger -, associating their individual artistic views and references, purposes and research interests, mixing experiences and contexts. The name of the collective is a reference to the Borges considerations on the concept of 'The Double' in the tale of The Book of Imaginary Beings (1967). The intention is to use the double as a concept that describes the generative process of creation - the understanding of the collective itself as a systemic structure, a complex adaptive system where several elements (artist and audience, objects/technology...)are dynamically interconnected, articulated in a self-organized process where the objective of creating artistic experiences/structures, works as an attractor being the goal of the entire system.

process documentation

2010-03-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here we are documenting the process.

Instants of Metamorphosis 01

2010-03-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

Instants of Metamorphosis 01 is an interactive video installation that is the first emergence of a process-based collective work by the DOUBLE collective. Using a methodology based on systemic measures of complexity and organization, the work is being documented and analyzed focusing on the connections, the dialogue between the elements, and the emergences. The work combines references as the Jorge Luis Borges’ description of the A Bao A Qu in his Book of Imaginary Beings, with the perspective brought by Clarice Lispector in her emergent writing book The Stream of Life – a chaotic consciousness process of a being without gender, an ‘it’, in dialogue with the self, the other, space and time; a being instants of metamorphosis. The spiral metaphor for a creative evolutionary process is inherent to the concept of the installation. Conceptually the art work is a dynamic system and their narratives, the stories it tells and which one it contains, have no end and no beginning. Inspired by the Pablo Valbuena’s Augmented Sculpture, a video performance is projected onto a volumetric base that composes a subject-sculpture: a reference to the never-ending spiral one may climbs to acquire spiritual evolution. As one climbs, exploring the volumes, the video follows its movements, leaving stamped onto the ground, frozen instants of the performance, memories of the metamorphosis of the self. Nevertheless, the video and the sound never stop playing and following the movements of the audience. The environment sound is the irregular and deep sound of someone breathing: a reference to yoga and meditation practices that intent to put the subject in deep contact with its essence. The immateriality of the video performance and its narrative, aim in stimulating reflections on self consciousness, alluding to the borders and the extensions one virtually constructs around to live and dialogue, considering an ecological perspective. All the actions, the trans-actions, are integrated in a never end timeline that incorporates several times, as a garden of forking paths, never end storied spaces where imaginary beings live: ‘its’; ourselves, and the others.