Then there is the concept of “workflow” in digital production: it refers to the establishment of an input-processing-output sequence that navigates the many competing and conflicting variables introduced by the various hardwares/softwares involved. Some variables may be constrained with capital, others only with repetitive experience and feedback loops. Most variables are the effect of widely imposed standards introduced by corporate entities. more “workflow, capital, and creative action”
Full dissertation text: The Regime of Amplification
Well, I guess it’s about time to put the PhD dissertation text out there in .pdf form, so, here it is (PDF download):
The Regime of Amplification
Have at it, be polite, no grabbing, pushing, or shoving. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. If you can prove that you’ve read it back to front, I’ll buy you a bottle of Herradura Añejo Tequila*, as long as we can split it!
*this is my hard liquor drink of choice since 1980 when it was hard to find even in the US southwest — cherished bottles imported into Iceland (bought in NYC at NY Liquors on Canal Street, the only place in NYC that carried it!) would last up to six months, like a fine Scottish whiskey, small glasses for sipping — none of that brutish slugging down shots or making margaritas with this fine distillate.
kickstart :: the Campaign is a succcess!
Well, there’s still 63 hours left, but Sally pledged $293 (oh those engineers ;-) and hit the goal. She made the 55th pledge, but since the campaign is not technically over yet, I’ll wait to post some of the statistics regarding the effort. Maybe I’ll have time to write some observations on best-practices, but it looks likely that I’ll be slammed with the task of fulfilling the pledge perks — silver gelatin prints of a variety of sizes that will have to be selected, carefully packed, and posted out.
I haven’t yet made any final decisions about the exact printer to buy either. I’ve gotten advice that adds up to essentially “I like the one that I have” from a number of people, which is fine, and points to simply selecting one of the 5-6 models available and go with it.
Mari Keski-Korsu’s program: Case Pyhäjoki
See what happened at this powerful human coming-together of (em)power-full people, Case Pyhäjoki. Should’a been there. Instead, half a world away on the Uncompaghre Plateau keeping an eye on the sky, actually, two eyes (sometimes with artificial attenuation). Getting to show some old friends around this particular region. At least, I find this place fascinating — given the similarity to Echo Park in some structural senses. Four of us old engineering-school house-mates have a very fine hike yesterday to a WWII strategic minerals (mica) mine. Into that Pre-cambrian basement rock. Mica crystals still bursting out of the cavity wall: some crystal complexes many square feet in area with the strange laminate layered crystals that can be split down to absolutely transparent sheets as thin as any paper. The crystalline lattice bonds generating laminar sheets of strongly connected atoms with weak ties between adjacent layers. Occasionally interspersed with sprays of black tourmaline up to 2 cm in diameter and 10 cm long. And the pink feldspar and cloudy white quartz matrix, pegmatitic. Quite dramatic. It’s hot in the canyon, but there are heavy clumps of cloud that keep ebbing and flowing shadows that cool the ground. Down-canyon there is a layer of > 2 cm chips of (shattered) white quartz that has come from some industrial mining process of crushing and sizing the chunks of stuff from the blast-face of the mine. They definitely had a full-on industrial process going on. And, as a strategic mineral reserve, did they even have some security/military presence, that’s one question I would have for the historians. Among others.
It is a pleasant outing into this intense landscape, environment. With three other quite intense people. Each in a particular way. That’s what’s nice about Mari Keski-Korsu’s collaborative art/activist project also, the one that just took place at a nuclear development site on the upper-mid-western Baltic coast of Finland. She has a talent for bringing intense people around her. It’s a powerful and important talent! Wished I coulda made it. There were two of my US students who claimed interest in going but neither ended up even putting in applications — apparently none of them understood this way of getting funding to experiment with their own creative practices in juxtaposition to some equally curious others — although I tried my best to open their eyes to this process. The rest of the students were absolutely deaf to the idea/offer that they participate in collaborative projects throughout the spring semester. As well as being hostile to the process of collaboration in general. (Or were hostile to the person who put them in the position of having to face the issues of active collaboration and collaborative thinking, sheesh, off-putting!)
Case Pyhäjoki looks good, as I had no doubts it would after talking with Mari in May at Pixelache. Great work!
Day 3 – Hawk Moon Ridge
Up at 0500 to continue the discipline of yoga on the patio before the bugs make it uncomfortable. It’s perfect in the waxing Light well before dawn. Body is stiff and resisting flexibility, but it will take time after two months on the road. Luna hangs out nearby, and although dog’s expressions have been proven to be largely in the mind of their owners, she has a quizzical look. When I start off with some “Om’s” for some reason she goes charging off barking as though she’s cornered some game. This is even more comic as she usually never barks. Otherwise, I can think of nothing better to be doing in such a place than to allow the body to regain some flowing order with a practice on the patio. 0500 tomorrow again!
I set up a bird bath with rain water barrels (repurposed garbage bins that I set out under the gutter drains mostly just to rinse them of a strong whiff!), and immediately birds begin to come. Have to optimize the inside of the bath with some wood and stones to stand on to give them options on washing and drinking. As I watch this morning from the cluttered kitchen working area that I set up immediately after Collin and Marisa depart, I see a pair of doves moving through the trees, and suddenly a red-tail (hawk) comes jetting through, pursuing one of the doves. I think it was one of the fledglings from this year. Last evening on the regular circuit walk with Luna, I got within 20 meters of a sizable red-tail roosting in a dead tree near the highest point of the ridge. He wasn’t happy with my presence and said so before sailing off down the canyon.
“Red at night, sailors deLight; in the morning, sailors take warning.” We’ll see if this works in a place where the only sailing would be down the river in a raft. Looks like some monsoon moisture is in the air, but only what afternoon brings will determine the verity of this Coriolis-driven sea-borne correlation.
Dinner with Bob and Burdette ‘next door’ — they’ve got some computer problems that I hope I can help them with, so it’s a good excuse to drop in on them.
back on land
no longer surrounded by the sea.
the return from the island. temporary. permanent. who knows. the returns at some point in life are overwhelmed by last visits to anywhere. the drift continues. Jerneja & Tapio head to Helsinki in the very deep green and very fast Jag. I hop the train with two minutes to spare in Turku. such a different train than the one that carried me across the Rockies a few weeks ago. this one new, solid, smooth, modern, clean, like an airplane with lots of room. passing the horizontal compressed flatness of dark farmed soil, small vertical fir trees, tunnels drilled through billion-yeared gneiss, granites. and the head filling with tiredness. until the eyes are closed, dreaming. passing Salo, where once Sanna’s elderly grandmother said I had nice eyes, when I first was introduced to her. then to the family, and then dinner with the parents. her father just a few years older than I was, yikes. they hand the basement sauna along with a few beers over to Sanna and I to enjoy, later clad in sweat only.
free wifi on the train. the car is silent except for a crying baby accompanied with a tired mother who keeps taking the baby out to another part of the car, a glass-doored area with a handicapped bathroom with a wide cylindrical automatic door.
get back in town and run into a bunch of the Pixelache crew, so end up in Kallio hanging with them. I knock a beer stein off the coffee table that we are gathered around, it smashes into safety-glass pieces. Tapio and Jerneja show up, along with Amanda fresh in from Brooklyn on a residency with Pixelache to share her prodigious arts management experience. lovely to see her! talk to Jenni about meeting tomorrow when she is back late from Tallinn. late-ness seems to be dropped from the spring calculations about time here, now, when night is only a soft impression of not-near darkness. a low-risk approach, no, a clear divergence from the winter’s heavy blot. knowing how this is, the vast human awakening that occurs when the sun comes out and out and out is no surprise. teenagers already in practice after Vappua celebrations early in the month, they are not firmly rooted, roving outdoor parks all through the night, partying with some long-suppressed spirit. good for them, in the altered state of their convocations.
quick notes
The N-1 event is curious — I wasn’t aware it was a pedagogic exercise to be acted out in front of (!) students at Arcada. This makes it a bit awkward with some of the invited people, though I simply jump in to the scene, aiming that for the students it would not be a business-as-usual pedagogic activity. That was hard to overcome in the lecture hall (suitably exquisite quality as is any Finnish public construct). So we oscillate in and out of the building, the lobby, outside, and so on, enjoying the cool sunshine. The students somewhat perplexed, but seemingly engaged or at least present.
Most of us live much of our lives in the ether. We have a mobile phone with us at all times with the result that we are always on and never truly alone. We have maps and geo-positioning on our phones so that we are always traceable and never truly lost. We tweet and update our Facebook status so that we often say what comes into our minds when it comes into our minds, and we are rarely truly reflective.
In all of this we are telling each other stories about what we are doing, and from this we curate stories about who we are. From all the shards and slivers that we scatter across the digiverse we are piecing together new kinds of identities – and these identities propel us in some directions and constrain us from moving in others.
more “quick notes”
Global Development profile
Prof. Ajume Wingo invited me to join in the Global Development Group that is being organized by Prof. Paul Chinowsky, Mortenson Professor of Sustainable Development, in the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities Program. It looks to be an interesting program with about 40 senior faculty from across the university participating. Not sure how deeply I’ll be able to get involved given that I’m short-timing at CU at this point, but I noted that at one of the first meetings that brought a majority of the participants together, Paul ran with my suggestion to pair people off in such a way that the disciplinary boundaries are broken down. I used the dialogue assignment as an example — where time spent in face-to-face engagement goes a long way in the construction of a shared protocol that will bridge the oft-times exclusive disciplinary languages. It is my belief that these shared protocols are crucial to the success of a transdisciplinary collaboration and that the human networks they depend on are constructed only at the speed of life (as I have said elsewhere in this blog), not quicker.
John Hopkins (BSc, MFA, PhD) has worked for the last 25+ years as a nomadic media artist and autonomous learning facilitator across 25 countries and more than 60 cultural and academic learning institutions. His workshops explore issues of sustainable creative practices, ‘big-picture’ system views, tactical media, distributed and community-based DIY, Open Source, and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others or community-based DIY) processes, and the appropriation of global IT networks as the site for autonomous creative activity: Temporary Autonomous Zones. Resonating with both David Bohm’s and Martin Buber’s ideas around the power of human encounter and dialogue, he facilitates experiential learning around collaborative engagement. His own media-arts research is a practice-based exploration into the effects of technological development on human encounter and relationship. His views on global development are informed as a former member of the Imperialist Vanguard (Big Oil), he now draws on the rigors and knowledge-base of that experience while leaving behind the fixed and fear-drenched assumptions about the Other that drives the core of the military-industrial-academic complex. A CU alumni, he is currently teaching on the “Meaning of Information Technology” in the ATLAS/TAM program along with several digital arts courses in A&AH. He maintains an extensive web presence at https://neoscenes.net/blog/ and https://neoscenes.net/ that documents his practice.
track and field practice
The Energy of Archive
[Proposal to the Media Art Histories Conference 2013 in Riga, Latvia :: (section: Archiving, preserving and representing new media art) :: fast-forward, couldn’t make it to the conference in Riga, so had to wait to deliver the paper at Balance/UnBalance in 2015…]
Ordered systems require a more-or-less continuous influx of energy to maintain that order. This is the crucial issue embedded at the root of archive. Where does that energy come from and what is the cost? My paper is a brief reflection on this fundamental thermodynamic condition that applies to any ordered system. The archive is one such system. As there are no violations of the Laws of Thermodynamics in the observed universe, is the fate of the archive the same as the heat-death of the cosmos? Invoking an interpretation of living (general) systems theory, it is possible to demarcate the trajectory of the archive (as externally configured (social) memory); to calculate in the widest sense the cost of information storage and reproduction; and to predict the path that individual and collective knowledge takes into the future. In a space of energy flows, it is a relatively simple matter to understand the requirements for the propagation of information. Examining several scalar examples, I will explore the problematic costs of preserving the energized configurations of the past.
John Hopkins holds a transdisciplinary creative practices PhD from La Trobe University/University of Technology Sydney, an MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BSc in Geophysical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. His work and writings explore the role of energy in techno-social systems and explore the effects of technology on energized human encounter. He has taught in more than 20 countries and 60 higher education situations. He is currently teaching on the “Meaning of Information Technology” in the Technology, Arts, and Media program at the University of Colorado Boulder. You may track his process at https://neoscenes.net/blog/. His current CV is located at https://www.neoscenes.net/info/cv/index.php.
The BricoReader wants You and You :: I and I
The call goes out to the brico network for the reader that Jerneja and I put together a few days ago.
Dear Bricoleurs!
In preparation for the upcoming projects and the BricoReader that we are planning for Pixelache in Helsinki in May, we are asking that folks within the Bricolabs sphere of action generate some special conversations with each other. We believe the relevant knowledge-base available here among us is of great value to share (more) widely.
The conversations, dialogues, and/or interviews that you generate may include anything that you think is relevant: for example, what issues you think define the Pixelache theme Facing North/Facing South; what is (your) theoretical approach to open infrastructures and open communities; what is your practice to bring this theory to life; and so on. These textual conversations may not necessarily form an essay, but will provide us with an array of rich material to assemble the BricoReader from. These dialogues may also include material relating to what you find most interesting/powerful/engaging about the distributed bricolabs network, how it functions, and how it affects participants and the wider communities that it serves around the globe. We are also playing with a few sub-themes for the Brico-Pixelache presence: deep resonant networks; anti-disciplinary collaboration; subjective infrastructures – autonomy vs. connectivity; the reversal of polarities; and the smell of Bricolabs. These phrases might give you some things to think and talk about as well.
To participate in this process, we would like you to start by considering who you would like to start a conversation with. We would encourage every Bricoleur to participate and especially to perhaps reach out to an unfamiliar Brico on the mailing list — imagine the power of such a set of dialogues that will then be collected and bricolaged into the BricoReader! Once you’ve got a dialogue partner, please send us yours & their names so that we might begin planning and mapping out where we can go with the Reader. At this point, there are 182 (!!!) people on the mailing list: plenty of energizing possibilities. If you are not aware of all the people on the list, it is also possible to go to:
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/brico
and after logging in at the bottom of that page you can see see a full list of subscribers (by email address). If you need help on this let us know.
We will also list partners on this piratepad (you can add your name(s) yourself as well):
https://piratepad.net/briconversations
In addition, if any of you can think of other interesting individuals or groups to engage with but who are not on the mailing list please feel free to invite them into the conversation.
The conversations can be initiated immediately, and certainly may be conducted in any way you like — of course a text output suits us best. We see these as email or perhaps other text-chat transcripts, whatever.
To help the editing process (and the busy editors!) along we propose a formal deadline of 21 March 2013 to give us time to review and collate things. We are looking forward to your energized expressions!
kiitos/thanks/gracias/danke/takk fyrir/hvala/bedankt/obrigado/terima kasih!!
Jerneja & John
bricolabs @ pixelache
Helping Felipe, Jerneja, Bronac and other bricos get the following text out for our Pixelache Festival presence — still not sure that I can make it, logistically, between cost and timing: it will be a nice conclave of old and new friends, though, and a good landing back in Europe.
Bricolabs (https://bricolabs.net) is a fluid network created in 2006 to investigate — from a critical and creative perspective — the loop of free/libre/open content, software and hardware for community applications. Bricolabs promotes open debate and critical making on such themes, between people with diverse backgrounds, in areas of expertise from Latin America, Europe, Asia and North America. Special attention is given to affective networking as a shared value.
Responding in a collaborative fashion to the call to reflect on the theme “Facing North – Facing South,” Bricolabs is currently planning, organising and developing part of the Pixelache Helsinki 2013 programme. Bricolabs wants to bring a multilayer perspective to trans-local networking, engaging the participants of Pixelache 2013 in new ways of being as well as new ways of doing things together. Bricolabs proposes a critical perspective on the usual north/south dichotomy, interested and rooted in deep resonant networks where borders are seldom taken into account. This is as true for geographic boundaries as it is for disciplinary ones – recently Bricolabs members have turned their attention to anti-disciplinary collaboration as an escape from the common traps of western/northern paradigms of development.
The Bricolabs programme will include live remote sessions with a number of collaborative groups sharing their perspectives from different parts of the world, as well as an exhibition articulating models of open source culture, translocality, DIWO, and subjective infrastructures. Several practical workshops will be conducted along these same lines. The festival will give Bricolabs members a rare face-to-face opportunity to meet and organise working sessions for particular collaborative projects. Bricolabs will also be facilitating discussions and panels, portraying collective efforts that take place across diverse practices engaging the work of artists, developers, thinkers – thus redefining the geophysical and virtual ecologies of their practices, as well as methodologies in the context of open source models and the theme of the festival.
stasis, spectacle and speed? unh-unh!
I just ran across this excerpt from Geert’s first internet-oriented book—way back in 2003—in the chapter on “tactical education” entitled “The Battle over New Media Art Education.” This is a section of that chapter titled Neoscenes Pedagogy:
The Digital Bauhaus concept may be a fata morgana amidst a never-ending institutional nightmare. The new-media subject appears at the end of a long global crisis in the education industry. Decades of constant restructuring, declining standards and budget cuts have led to an overall decline of the .edu sector. There are debates not only about fees, cutbacks in staff and privatization but also about the role of the teacher. For a long time the classic top-down knowledge delivery methods of the classroom situation have been under fire. In a response to the education crisis, the American-Scandinavian John Hopkins calls for a cultural shift towards alternative pedagogies. His pedagogy, close to that of Paolo Freire, is based on a combination of face-to-face and networked communication, keeping up a “flow of energies from node to node.” Hopkins, who calls himself an “autonomous teaching agent,” has roamed between Northern European universities and new-media initiatives and currently teaches in Boulder, Colorado. His spiritual-scientific worldview might not match mine, but he is certainly my favorite when it comes to a radical education approach. Hopkins prefers the person-to-person as a “tactical” expression of networking, avoiding “centralized media and PR-related activities wherever possible.” Hopkins’ “neoscenes” networks are “a vehicle for learning, creating and sharing that does not seek stasis, spectacle and speed.”
In a few instances, Hopkins’ “distributed Socratic teaching strategy” has culminated in 24-hour techno parties with a big online component to make room for remote participation and exchange. The challenge with the live remix streams was to find out collectively “how exactly to facilitate autonomy and spontaneity.” For Hopkins teaching is a “life practice,” an action that embodies “art as a way-of-doing.” He calls his style “verbose and densely grown (not necessarily meaningful either ;-). but I do try to say what I am thinking and practicing … ” Hopkins tries not to make a distinction between learning, teaching and being taught. “It is critical that I myself am transformed by the entire engaged experience.” As a visiting artist, and usually not a member of the “local academic politburo,” Hopkins can build up personal connections within a local structure, free to “catalyze a flexible response that is immediately relevant,” while maintaining a creative integrity that is based in praxis.
. . .
John Hopkins: “I start my workshops with a sketching of some absolute fundamentals of human presence and being in the phenomenal world. This beginning point immediately becomes a source of deep crisis for some students precisely because they are expecting the vocational top-down educational experience of learning a specific software platform and making traditional artifacts.” John finds people who focus on software platforms “incredibly boring. It’s like amateur photo-club members comparing the length of their telephoto lenses or having conversations about national sports. It’s a code system for communication that is often mindless and banal. While at some level, my students are forced to confront the digital device. I encourage them to be aware of how they are interacting with the machine, what is comfortable and what is not.”
. . .
John Hopkins compares Scandinavia and the USA, places he knows well. “Because of a well-funded cultural industry sector in Scandinavia, artists who are potential teachers are not forced into teaching as happens in the US. This has kept the stagnation of the tenure-track system, something that dogs US higher education, out of the way. In the US, artists who have any desire to live by working in some way in their medium are more often than not forced into academia because there is no other social context for them. They may or may not be teachers in any sense. There tend to be more permeable and productive interchanges between the ‘art world’ and ‘academia’ in Scandinavia and northern Europe, realized by cycling a larger number of idiosyncratic individual teacher/artists into contact with students.” Isolated campus life. slow and complicated bureaucracies, and the politically correct atmosphere at US universities are not ideal circumstances for a hybrid “trans-disciplinary” program to thrive. However, the campus setup does help to reduce distractions, once students know what they want and the resources are in place.
Lovink, G., 2003. My First Recession, Rotterdam, NL: V2-NAi Publishers.
yadda-yadda-yadda
The Call of the Bureaucrat:
Dear John
The Australian Higher Education Graduate Statement (AHEGS) process is to be implemented at La Trobe University and will provide students with a complimentary transcript, information on the degree completed and information about La Trobe University upon completion of their degree.
The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) require a 100 word abstract to be printed on the AHEGS statement.
To ensure we are able to include all relevant information would you please provide a 100 word abstract of your thesis by return e-mail – immediately.
The above is required before we can complete your degree and recommend you to the next Academic Board meeting and therefore, be invited to undertake Graduation in 2013.
Please treat this as a matter of urgency.
The Reply (gah, yet another hoop to jump through! Their sense of urgency does not reflect on their own reciprocal level of activity: it’ll be almost a year from the time I submitted and the time the degree will be awarded next February — and only a month of that delay is remotely related to my procrastination):
This creative research PhD is an innovative exploration of a media arts practice and the energy-based world-view that the practice is sourced within. It elaborates on that energy-based approach while suggesting potential ways of addressing crucial issues facing human systems. Using the amplifier as a prototypical model, it explores energy flows across a wide range of systems to aid in understanding the complexities of sustainable creative processes and practices in our current techno-social world. The dissertation text and the integral multi-media (b)log space (https://neoscenes.net/blog/) that accompanies it critically examine the dynamic of human presence, encounter, and relationship, techno-social systems, and creative action.
Richard Freeman
Shane reminds me that Richard is giving a talk after the usual Sunday afternoon mysore session at the studio over on 21st Street. It’s cold (record low temps) outside, and steamy inside.
But great to finally meet him, he’s a wonderful extemporaneous speaker, and his meta-process definitely resonated with my own sensibilities on the way to go with teaching. His knowledge-base of Sanskrit and yogic teachings provides him with a wide and very deep territory to explore, and he dances around it all with a wry and humane sense of humor. The same essence that I attempt within any of my teaching, though I lack the depth of a single systematic view and that muddies the water to some degree. At most one can only do that circuitous dance around the Void, laughing and pointing at it through the clouds and letting righteous fear fall away into the absurdity of it all.
He speaks of the soft-palate and its role in resonantly apprehending external energy sources (as in ‘awe,’ think of the palate’s role in vocalizing that phoneme…).
We have a conversation after class. I told him how much I appreciated his CD series on yoga practices and breathing. I used them as a base for my own praxis when I can’t get to a class.
Strangely only one or two people approach him after his talk. I don’t know if this is a respect thing, or some protocol that I missed, or that he intimidates his students, or what. But he was very forth-coming responding to some of my comments about resonance between exterior energy flows and internal flows. Good vibe!
Bandhas are the internal energy valves or gates, which when activated allow the energy to flow through the bodily vessel activating the dormant potential of embodied spirit. Another way of stating this is that the stagnant rigidity of a chronic spiritual disconnect can be disrupted through bandhas, pranayama, and pratyhara quickly providing the pathway for flow — the ongoing ever-present spiritual reconnect of the great expanse of being. Although, commonly denoted as locks, bandhas act as such only in so far that they prevent the outward flow (dissipation) of the energy. However, a better translation would be valves, gates, or doorways, because they direct the internal energy flow to irrigate the nadis, open to continuous flow, activate the energy body, and align it with all-creativity.
Etc…
Boulder High football practice
holy cow
I can’t believe how much time this MiT class is taking! Help! At least it seems if it is going well, some bumps, but relatively smooth. The student presentations are proceeding and also seem to be succeeding in the goal of data filtration and information transfer. Actually that’s not what I want, I want to see life-practices shifted. (tough for a non-studio-praxis course). I actually want to avoid mere information transfer, I would rather they get something substantial rather than just a grade. (argh, assessment! grading! it skews the learning encounter more than any single social protocol.) I hope the experiment in self-testing/grading will not turn too many of them off to the knowledge-construction process. I’m making it a rather complex multi-layered sense-making exercise with many strands of encounter- and process-dependent query. It is simulating the complexity of a multi-attentioned (multi-tasking) mediated environment — actually not a simulation, but the thing itself. Certainly would have done a number of processes differently than I did, but it’s always that way.
organ practice at night
waterwheel
I responded to Suzon Fuks’ invitation to join a waterwheel performance this week – Wednesday, 22 August, between 1800 – 2000 MST (time converter here) — the detailed info on the performance as well as the gateway for joining in online is here. As I haven’t had much time to prep and to explore the potentials of the platform, I’m doing a relatively simple improv remix titled “Crossing the Yampa” with video material from Echo Park in Dinosaur National Monument, along tributaries of the Yampa and Green Rivers. Looking up, looking down, looking all around, listening, receiving the immersive flows, it’s about water and the life it supports.
Suzon set up waterwheel as a live/online collaborative performance space:
Exploring water — as a topic and metaphor — Waterwheel is an interactive, collaborative platform for sharing media and ideas, performance and presentation.
Waterwheel investigates and celebrates this constant yet volatile global resource, fundamental element, environmental issue, political dilemma, universal theme and symbol of life. It encourages you to explore and discover, share and collaborate, contribute and participate.
Waterwheel calls on everyone — performers and artists, scientists and environmentalists, students and academics, you and me, anyone and anywhere — to test the water, dive in, make a splash and start a wave. It provides a platform and forum for experience and exchange, expression and experimentation.
Waterwheel draws together different people, practices, places, media and modes of expression. There are no borders or boundaries. Waterwheel flows along its natural course.
The Welfare Model
In America as in Europe, Republicans argue, the welfare state is failing to provide either security or dynamism. The safety net is so expensive it won’t be there for future generations. Meanwhile, the current model shifts resources away from the innovative sectors of the economy and into the bloated state-supported ones, like health care and education. Successive presidents have layered on regulations and loopholes, creating a form of state capitalism in which big businesses thrive because they have political connections and small businesses struggle.
The welfare model favors security over risk, comfort over effort, stability over innovation. Money that could go to schools and innovation must now go to pensions and health care. This model, which once offered insurance from the disasters inherent in capitalism, has now become a giant machine for redistributing money from the future to the elderly.
This is the source of Republican extremism: the conviction that the governing model is obsolete. It needs replacing. — David Brooks editorial, NYT 15.06.2012
I would propose that the relative abundance of the historically recent welfare state is a direct result of the ‘easy’ availability of hydrocarbons. ANY abundance of energy will allow/encourage a species to expand the controlling complexity of its ‘social’ system. In the human case, it is not only the ‘welfare’ state, but the ‘defense’ state, the ‘agri’ state, the ‘industrial’ state, the ‘education’ state, and so on — the entire cumulative fabric of inter-related social systems. One single aspect (that welfare state) of the cumulative complexity cannot be blamed for our ‘problems.’ Actually, the human species, overall, with the development of its hydrocarbon energy source is wildly successful in its expansion and dominance of the globe in its entirety. The current ‘problems’ are a result of the species reaching the limits of the ability of the hydrocarbon energy source to provide structural organizing advantage and the ensuing stability of expansion/control that all living memory is accustomed to. The growing socio-economic instability of the West is a direct result of competition from other social systems for that once-easily accessible glutted energy source (that the West monopolized!). (Underscoring that the instability is not ‘just’ economic — the instability is a ‘real’ (thermodynamic) feature and a deep characteristic of the entire system — in just the same way that the initial ramping-up of the energy glut affected the entire system’s (negentropic) character of complexity and control of previously un-controlled flows — things like viral infections, the impact of ‘natural’ catastrophes on populations, and the stability of agricultural production, etc.)
more “The Welfare Model”
muito obrigado
Victoria (Co-ordinator of the Hackademia Festival) invites some of us bricoleurs to jump into an IRC discussion on technoshamanism connected to the technomagias festival in Maua in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. That was a nice language riffing challenge talking about the basics of reality (and juggling with google translate made it even more interesting!). I get more and more feeling that the Brazilians are doing very interesting things, and have been doing them since way before Freire started his radical practices in social encounter and bringing back energy from instead of going straight into the ‘State’ to being sourced in community. All the Brazilians I have had the pleasure to work with, teach, or otherwise cross paths with are fantastic thinkers, doers, and lovers of life!
end of lacrosse practice
raking the coals
raking the coals, blowing on the fire, adding judicious amounts of fuel. recall watching my old friend John, the blacksmith, as he stoked a warming house-fire, how he was able to coax a cold fire to flame up almost immediately with a few stabs of the poker. it’s a skill.
I had presumed that David Bohm and Martin Buber would have more of a presence in the final thesis text, but curiously, they are not dominant voices at all. I was wondering the other day about this, with a little feeling that I had lost those two threads. But in my own terms, it is an example of resonance — where the resonant energy of inspiring source is translated into, literally, any other form. Bohm, I think, has presented such a complete (and somewhat complex) mapping of reality that to invoke it would require explaining the whole thing — something of the problem I have faced from the beginning of this thesis process. Many (most!?) thesis works seem to be firmly planted on an established map of a known territory. What’s the point? The difficulty of trying to circumscribe a new territory has reduced academic pursuit to an incremental braille of minutiae. The absorbing of creative arts endeavors into DCA/DA/PhD programs at hundreds of universities (all outside the US) has precipitated a wide front for a process of rationalization of practices that are not of that nature.
revolution?
For revolutionary educators, knowledge exceeds its semiotic end products; it travels intertextually within demarcated systems of intelligibility. Critical knowledge is understood as persistently open, disclosive, incomplete, and open-ended. In this way it remains cautious in the presence of reified social relations and epistemological distortions that occlude the social ontology of knowledge and its processual journey from fact to value. In other words, critical epistemological practice examines not only the content of knowledge, but also its method of production. It seeks to understand how ideological constructions are encoded and administered, how metonymic and synecdochical gestures are performed so as to obscure relations of domination and oppression, how the interpretive and interpellative frameworks by which we organize our sentiments construct ruling stereotypes, and how the governing categories of our everyday discourse render invisible and obscure real social relations of exploitation. — (McLaren, P., 2001. Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Politics of Hope: Reclaiming Critical Pedagogy. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies.)
Aside from the monumental use of academic blah-blah-blah here, the idea behind the obscurity is valid. That is, a radical approach to the facilitation of transformative learning requires a deep awareness of more than just a subject. It demands an awareness of how an embodied knowledge of that subject is founded or generated or discovered. This “how” is in many cases far more important than the “what” of knowledge. I describe this “how” as the meta-structures under which the learning is undertaken. It can be a material issue — bricks-and-mortar, the architectural setting — but also, consequent to an energy-based worldview, it is also a critical question of the entire set of flows within which the encounter is taking place. This is far, far more than opening a classroom window for fresh air, or sitting under a tree with a group of students, although the change in the energy ‘content’ of the situation can be quite profoundly altered by small actions on or reactions to the locale. An energy perception drives much deeper into the meta-structures than that, although any awareness is a good starting point. Because the energy content of the situation is most profoundly affected by the presence of the Self and the Others, the entire energy dynamic among participants must also receive this attention and care. This dynamic is more fundamental than ‘merely’ the social — it is expressed in my concept of continuum-of-relation, defined as the total accumulated network of relations, expressed as activated exchanges of energy, as Dialogues, that have occurred, are occurring, and will occur between members of the species. A holistic awareness of this continuum is necessary to optimize the facilitation.
No revolution is possible among people using language as per McLaren!
Huxley’s education
In a world where education is predominantly verbal, highly educated people find it all but impossible to pay serious attention to anything but words and notions. There is always money for, there are always doctorates in, the learned foolery of research into what, for scholars, is the all-important problem: Who influenced whom to say what when? Even in this age of technology the verbal humanities are honored. The non-verbal humanities, the arts of being directly aware of the given facts of our existence, ale almost completely ignored. A catalogue, a bibliography, a definitive edition of a third-rate versier’s ipsissima verba, a stupendous index to end all indexes – any genuinely Alexandrian project is sure of approval and financial support: But when it comes to finding out how you and I, our children and grandchildren, may become more perceptive, more intensely aware of inward and outward reality, more open to the Spirit, less apt, by psychological malpractices, to make ourselves physically ill, and more capable of controlling our own autonomic nervous system – when it comes to any form of non-verbal education more fundamental (and more likely to be of some practical use) than Swedish drill, no really respectable person in any really respectable university or church will do anything about it. Verbalists are suspicious of the non-verbal; rationalists fear the given, non-rational fact; intellectuals feel that “what we perceive by the eye (or in any other way) is foreign to us as such and need not impress us deeply.” more “Huxley’s education”
freedom from mastery
The greatest joy, and the greatest triumph, in art, comes at the moment when, realizing to the fullest your grip over the medium, you deliberately sacrifice it in the hope of discovering a vital hidden truth within you. It comes like a reward for patience — this freedom of mastery which is born of the hardest discipline. Then no matter what you do or say, you are absolutely right and nobody dare criticize you. I sense this very often in looking at Picasso’s work. The great freedom and spontaneity he reveals is born, one feels, because of the impact, the pressure, the support of the whole being which, for an endless period, has been subservient to the discipline of the spirit. The most careless gesture is as right, as true, as valid, as the most carefully planned strokes. This I know, and nobody could convince me to the contrary. Picasso here is only demonstrating a wisdom of life which the sage practices on another, higher level.
This morning, awake at five o’clock, the room almost dark still, I lay awake quietly meditating about the essay I would get up to write, and at the same time, as though playing a duet, watching the gradual change of colors in my paintings beside the bed, as the light slowly increased. I had the strange sensation then of imagining what might happen to those colors should the light continue to increase in strength beyond full daylight. And from thinking about the unknown color gamut to the forms themselves and then to their significance — what a world of conjecture I explored. In that moment I was able, so to speak, to place myself in a future which may one day be realized. I saw not only what I might one day be able to do, but also I saw this — that the anticipation of the event was an augur of the deed itself. Suddenly I realized how it had been with the struggle to express myself in writing. I saw back to the period when I had the most intense, exalted visions of words written and spoken, but in fact could only mutter brokenly. Today I see that my steadfast desire was alone responsible for whatever progress or mastery I have made. The reality is always there, and it is preceded by vision. And if one keeps looking steadily the vision crystallizes into fact or deed. There is no escaping it. It doesn’t matter what route one travels — every route brings you eventually to the goal. “All roads lead to Heaven,” is the Chinese proverb. If one accepted that fully, one would get there so much more quickly. One should not be worrying about the degree of “success” obtained by each and every effort, but only concentrate on maintaining the vision, keeping it pure and steady. The rest is sleight-of-hand work in the dark, a genuine automatic process, no less somnambulistic because accompanied by pains and aches. — Henry Miller
some points and hints for students :: a remix
point == be where you are, look deep into the world from your point of view, and into the self, and out to the Other. share what you experience
point == find a flow that you can tap into, do so, pay attention to it, and see where it takes you
point == learn how to focus your energies on something; do that, at least for a time, and see what reflects and refracts from that focus
point == be sensitive to what resonates in/with your system; when something resonates, listen to the tone of the heart and any other resonate sounds within
point == action makes anything possible — there is no such thing as failure, there is only change
point == be open to all possible flows — incoming and outgoing — this will show up as a(n) (r)evolution in your life as well as a lived practice (praxis)
point == movement along/with(in) an intuitive flow will reveal truth in ever-changing forms — seek out that internal movement
point == creativity and rationality are two words that partially describe human behaviors — no words can describe the full reality of behavior. creativity is the movement of energies, rationality is the play of social abstractions — deal with both, you will have to anyway
point == seriously enjoy what you do, — if you don’t, then try changing what you do until the enjoyment returns — smile, it’s Lighter than you think
point == keep your own rules and points in mind while understanding that rules are only socially applied pathways that determine possible ways of human collaboration. collaborate often: define new pathways!
hints:
breathe, listen to your breath, listen to the breath of other things
understand what energy is and where your energy comes from
be a receiver and transmitter of energy
be open to energy flows
absorb many forms of energy
internalize or embody memory
drink plenty of water
be someplace, not just anyplace, and not everywhere
participate : share
watch the sky often
Models of Reality
Models of reality are generated by every social system and, in essence, are crucial elements of social relation and interaction. The models which people share may be more or less dominant, depending on many dynamic factors within the society. They may also be more or less coherent, and are typically fragmented (Aerts, et al, 2007). Within what are called creative practices there exist impulses which seek to challenge existing models or seek to construct alternate models. It is the latter pathway that I have undertaken to travel along with my creative practice. It is a practice that has enabled me to initiate significant encounters with the world and with numerous Others and to engage in sustained dialogues. These dialogues, as the site of the creative practice, have become, in turn, the field of exploration of this thesis.
These dialogues and especially the life-energy that they comprised of are carried through a “liberatory use” (Bey, 1991) of technological mediation .
Within the intertwined trajectory of dialogic engagement with Others, as explored in both the creative practice and the thesis, I have engaged in evolving a shared worldview from the macro level of a flexible cosmology through to the granular-level of everyday momentary practices. The creative dimension of the PhD accompanying the text is not an illustration of the principles of the worldview, rather it is a tracing of praxis, a site of evolving evidence of the pathway that this particular world-view obliges. It is a recursive demonstration of how that worldview evolves and enables that very practice. In short, the question posed by the thesis is “What is the relationship between individual creative practices and technologically-mediated human encounter in media arts?”
Aerts, D., et al (1994). World Views: From Fragmentation to Integration. Brussels: VUB Press.
Bey, Hakim (1991). The Temporary Autonomous Zone. Available at: https://www.hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html [Accessed November 16, 2009].
perturbation
I sit in a room in a one hundred year old storefront property on High Street. I am 12,422 kilometers south-south-west of the point where I entered the world. That’s less than a third of the way around the globe. It’s the furthest as I’ve been, I think, unless North Africa, the Mauritanian coast is further, or perhaps Hong Kong, but I don’t think so. I have the tools to calculate whether it is or not, but I don’t have the time. Too busy trying to write or to work up the courage to continue writing. Or to decide upon the language to use whilst writing. Or to read instead, or to just stare at the wall, or sky.
more “perturbation”
matters
Matter is not what it appears to be. Its most obvious property — variously called resistance to motion, inertia, or mass — can be understood more deeply in completely different terms. The mass of ordinary matter is the embodied energy of more basic building blocks, themselves lacking mass. Nor is space what it appears to be. What appears to our eyes as empty space is revealed to our minds as a complex medium full of spontaneous activity. — Frank Wilczek
Sometimes I get the feeling that I don’t recognize even my own life. Among the array of phenomena which present themselves for the sensual body-system every … second … recognition shouldn’t be necessary for any one of them, given that change is the governing principle, or so. All should be new every time, all the time(s), and thus recognizable whether or not there are any observable and (relatively) invariant* features. It could be that this lack of recognition is itself merely the reliance on external models or comprehensions of ‘what’s out there’ as opposed to a deeper reliance on what is experienced by the Self as being (relatively) invariant. more “matters”
back to B&B
Martin Buber and David Bohm — German-speaking Hasidim Jew phil-theo-logist/sopher and Anglo, McCarthy-black-listed quantum physicist. Unlikely combination, but in my practice, my pathway, they elicit a resonance unlike any others, although there are Legion sources of energized engagement that have made my trajectory a rich experience. All those Others who share the way(s). But I will work with these two as they both resonate. Simple, complex. One provoking an imaged-cosmos where there are no things, but only activated orders of manifestation, and this condition of being directly informing the way of interaction and relation between the Self and the Other. And the other thinker, sketching a cosmos which itself comes-to-be in the reality of relationship: within the encounter lies the source of all things.
Both these worldviews are highly idiosyncratic visions of the cosmos and also, consequentially, of human relation, but neither of them are mutually exclusive of the other. I find my own worldview shares at least this characteristic with both of them. But there are other ways in which our models overlap, and it is these pathways of flow which will stimulate the thesis.
The image of humans and their view of the cosmos that I always describe in a classroom setting is: (this after getting to know the students at least a bit) — “it’s as though we are dancing around the Void, each of us, in groups, pairs, alone, catching glances out of the corners of our eyes of it, calling out what is looks like in throat-tones frantic with fear, joy, and wonder. Sometimes a whole group will shout out in unison, the agreed-upon vision. Others stay to speaking the wind. Occasionally we turn to face it on, or are rudely pulled by the shoulder by another who is straying close to the edge. It has no name, yet we all insist on calling It something. Even when we turn our backs directly to it, we can feel it, perhaps even more than when facing it.”
So, idiosyncrasy is a way of movement (as point-of-view needs change), which leads to a clear, albeit self-relative, experience (impression) and the consequent expressions while regarding, receiving, that. Springing from these two pathways (im- and ex-pression) is a third which dictates, in part, the motion of the point-of-view. It is a feedback mechanism which generates, gradually or quickly, a worldview that touches on the Void if only by discrimination against what cannot be directly named.
Okay, working (or “working”) in the office much of the week and weekend, not too effective, but I think I did finally begin to imagine a framework to hang all these words on. And it feels like one that will work. Norie gave me a couple other theses of former students of hers — very interesting works. My intuition about her seems well-placed. And it’s a funny expression of the morphing social network that I’ve participated in the last 20 years. Connected.
And swimming. Hope to hit 100 km/3 months by the time I move on. That’s attainable, easily if I take care of things.
anomia::punctilio
Code of Federal Regulations
571.203 Standard No. 203; Impact protection for the driver from the steering control system
S1. Purpose and scope. This standard specifies requirements for steering control systems that will minimize chest, neck, and facial injuries to the driver as a result of impact.
S2. Application. This standard applies to passenger cars and to multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks and buses with a GVWR of 10,000 pounds or less. However, it does not apply to vehicles that conform to the frontal barrier crash requirements (S5.1) of Standard No. 208 (49 CFR 571.208) by means of other than seat belt assemblies. It also does not apply to walk-in vans.
more “anomia::punctilio”
hmmm?
Responding to Felipe’s thread on the bricolabs list:
Obviously, I’m not asking how serious lixoeletronico.org people are, because I’m one of them :P I meant the companies who say they are not using gold, coltan, tungsten etc any more.
sotto voce: If you want to dig (no pun intended) into this more, I’d highly recommend this audio/video panel at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
https://csis.org/event/rare-earth-elements
It’s a good in-depth intro to this issue by a panel of three experts who look at the contemporary situation with rare earth elements (which do not include niobium and tantalum from coltan deposits). But it is basically the same idea/situation — in the sense of there being a rare resource, in demand by a multiplicity of large forces/powers, in places where local people are considered to be disposable commodities.
(I am not promoting their opinions, but they do describe the situation well from their point of view, both historical and today’s view)…
I believe it is worth it to consider the principle, not the details, in these areas of activism, as EVERY material that the techno-social system uses for re-forming matter causes a similar distortion of localized systems: That is, look around your home, what’s made out of metal, plastic, chemicals, paper, wood… etc etc, it all requires machines to make which require more metals, plastics, chemicals, etc. etc… which make necessary the entire range of the global extractives industry which is closely allied to WAR (of every kind — both aggressive overt weapons war as well as slow and equally deadly environmental degradation warfare).
Humans do this. It is not avoidable. The only factor that we have the power to influence is *how much* we use — of course, this *how much* does imply choosing one type of device over another. It also places the choice directly in our power. We can make choices, we can influence others to make choices. But as long as this discussion proceeds here on this (telecom-based) mailing list, we are being somewhat hypocritical. Of course, educating each other is paramount, but the best teaching methodology is to ‘practice what one preaches.’ Which puts us squarely in a very problematic position of having to implement radical change in our tele- lived lives or else continue to support large portions of this global system.
If you want to stop mining, then you have to stop telecommunications. You have to go back to an industrial base before rare earths and coltan were discovered and rendered fit for use. (1800 were the first discoveries, but little use came before the beginning of the 20th Century).
Otherwise, this process will simply continue and expand, along with demand, and along with all the horrific effects that the human struggle for control of resources entails everywhere…
hmmm. god that sounds bleak. sorry, but from this materialist approach to global problems, there are no solutions. It would seem that a Buddhist approach which posits that *all is change* and to try to grasp and manipulate or put off change is a futile process. We must simply move through this incarnation and while treating each other as best as we can, not get caught up in the grasping at illusion…
I don’t know. (I type on my laptop and stare at the letters string themselves across the screen…)
interview with Niina: art & technology
Niina has been researching art and technology for some years now. We met when I was teaching my old netculture class at the Media Lab in the University of Art and Design Helsinki back in 2000. I participated in her research for her PhD then, and … now
Ei Niina — this is all I could manage, it’s impromptu, but honest, with a bit of humor mixed in… a little complicated, as there’s no time to write an essay about what world-view lies behind the answers. You might want to reference https://www.neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/pixel.html an article I wrote for Pixelache in Helsinki in 2007 — the same year I did a workshop there too https://www.neoscenes.net/projects/pixel/index.php
you could also check out:
https://neoscenes.net/blog/ and search on
https://neoscenes.net/blog/?s=network
or so…
even
https://neoscenes.net/blog/date/2001/11
> 1.What changes have happened in your work and practices as an artist during the
> last ten years? Do you think your relationship with technology / or the way you
> use technology /has changed during this time?
My practice has widened intensively to take on a tough challenge of the entire techno-social system we are embedded within, are part of. Yes, this includes my relationship AND my understanding of the relationship between all flows that are the substance of technology. This also includes all aspects of life governed by techno-social protocol. When I use (a) technology I understand what I will both lose and gain when using that particular protocol. Using a technology is in fact, a changing of flows of energy that we are embedded in, part of. We are not separate in any way from everything else!
diversions
The primary task to undertake in a learning situation: pushing back the deep im-pressions of attention-diverting noise: to the degree that the actual subject of inquiry is secondary. a practice of facing the unknown which is the core of learning. attentively facing the unknown. mediating technologies tend to wrap us in a cocoon of dis-awareness of our own senses and from the flows that we are immersed within, making it impossible to focus attentions on the flows to begin with… ach! it’s such a pervasive problem. It becomes a powerful motivation to engage (young) people and to push back these im-pressing forces and watch them begin to breath freely again and then, to watch them begin to wonder what it is that they would like to learn about, then participate with them as they approach the unknown and engage it…
endings – Day 11 – eNZed
I join the panel Social Energy with Zita Joyce, Caro McCaw, and Sally McIntyre along with a Skype from Eric (Kluitenberg) from late nite NL, half-way around the globe. It’s funny to cross paths with him here, but appropriate in the sense of the networking practice.
There was one point in his presentation that I had a serious disagreement with — when he posited that the remote half of a connection (in this case, a tele-presence ‘wall’ in a working environment), was ‘fantasy’ in the sense that it wasn’t ‘real.’ If I understood this correctly, I would totally disagree. It is rather a situation of sensory attenuation — the ‘presence’ of the remote Other is real, but attenuated (by the communications protocols between here and there). And it is in this attenuation where the loss and alienation from remoteness (and ultimately the frequent dysfunction of online events like ElectroSmog) arises. We didn’t get into it too far as there were other issues to talk about in the panel, but this one really was problematic. When assigning a ‘fantastical’ label to a real techno-social deployment we remove any (human) agency from it and push it into a phenomenal realm where it does not rightly fit. What is implemented is an expression of a human techno-social system — manifestations of this system are never fantasy.
Many good presentations, especially the comments from Mike Poa, the founder of the One River project with the waka on the Whanganui River. It’s hard to hear of yet another river suffering from the typical exploitation/development which ends up wasting the life of the entire watershed and its people. But then the efforts to revive the river culture seem to be pretty successful. The Maori are by no means quitters, and their cultural strength is significant. A couple days ago I spent part of an afternoon talking with a group of Maori women who were reviving/continuing the tradition of weaving baskets, they said that there was a very positive engagement from the young people.
It’s over, so, cleaning up the space and trucking everything back to the Green Bench or the house at the end of the afternoon.
The day closes with another delicious barbie at Don and Ana’s place, with the slow and mild twiLight falling.
Energy, Creative Action, and Sustainable Systems Workshop – Day 8 – eNZed
The official blurb for the workshop:
This workshop will draw on Hopkins’ international experience in facilitating creative encounters in the context of the Temporary Autonomous Zone. With an open structure for engaged and focused dialogue, the workshop will explore a powerful energy-based worldview that can open up new awareness of social, cultural, and natural systems. The dynamics of collaborative human relations confined within an attentive space is guaranteed** to generate provocative and inspiring outcomes. Creativity is, by definition, about the formative flow of energy between living organisms. We will move through a variety of environments (including on the river by waka) as we share life-time in the workshop. The workshop will augment the processes of any creative practitioner with a profound, situated, and practice-oriented conceptual toolbox that address the following areas and more:
(Keywords in no particular order): energy, creativity, thermodynamics, technology and techno-social systems, art, attention, entropy, learning, media, networks, participation, process, virtuality, creative action, human presence, Light, human encounter, mediation, concentration, optimization, pathways, meals, sustainability, simplicity, synchronicity, auspiciousness, and serendipity.
**on the condition that you bring along your entire Self, not merely your body, mind, and spirit
drenched
brutal day, too late to change it: deciding to go out to the closest bush access — the Blue Mountains National Park up at Katoomba to check it out — bad weather, but this is the only opportunity to go before leaving for New Zealand on Friday. I suppose it is the rough equivalent of hitting Yosemite or so (not near the grandeur of Yosemite, but the proximity and intensity of being a tourist attraction, they get three million folks up here every year). a 90-minute train ride from Sydney Central up the hill to Katoomba Station. decide to fuel-up at a cafe in town first, do some writing, pick up on the vibe. then head south from town on foot to the edge of the main escarpment of resistant Triassic Hawkesbury sandstone that Katoomba sits on. pouring rain by the time I get an hour out. thankfully I have full Goretex on which is useless. so, drenched to the point that it makes no difference. more “drenched”
Statement of Multi-Cultural Experience and Practice
With 20 years of experience with students from more than 40 countries and with educational organizations in 25 countries, I have a deep appreciation of the issues involved in multi- or trans-cultural education. My own practice as an educator looks at multi-cultural learning from both a pragmatic and a positive point of view. Pragmatically, for example, all of my classes in the past years are composed of students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. This simple fact brings to the fore in every situation the difficulties of language, and the cultural expressions that are deeply formed by language. Most often working under second-language conditions, I have honed my sensitivities to the relative speeds of comprehension and expression that second-language imposes and to the contingencies of difference that surface. Because difference is such a core creative source, I make it a practice in my workshops that students engage each other so as to open the potential pathways for creative collaboration.
It is tremendously important that a learning/creative situation is relevant to each particular student and that they feel comfortable enough to evolve and take on an experience that reflects a personal, internal source. Teaching in up to 20 different linguistic and cultural situations each year I have developed an appreciation for what is possible, what each distinct viewpoint opens up in a collective learning experience, and how personally relevant work may be seen as an inspiring source for peers. This kind of movement through radically different domains requires me to have a flexibility to engage and facilitate under widely varying conditions. While this is a constant challenge, it is one that I seek out for its richness, liveliness, and the consequential open space that arises when learners, myself included, are faced with the unknown — both inside the Self and inside the Other that they face. Because a fundamental concept of my creative work as well as my seminars and workshops is the facilitation of distributed (that is, non-hierarchic) network systems, I specifically deal with this human-to-human dynamic both in the conceptual/theoretical content as well as the lived practices that I stimulate in the classroom.
the leisure class … (at 11.11.10, 11:11)
The erection of class/caste protocols (another harsh historical judgment in the midst of the industrial age):
Entrance into the leisure class lies through the pecuniary employments, and these employments, by selection and adaptation, act to admit to the upper levels only those lines of descent that are pecuniarily fit to survive under the predatory test. And so soon as a case of reversion to non-predatory human nature shows itself on these upper levels, it is commonly weeded out and thrown back to the lower pecuniary levels. In order to hold its place in the class, a stock must have the pecuniary temperament; otherwise its fortune would be dissipated and it would presently lose caste. Instances of this kind are sufficiently frequent. The constituency of the leisure class is kept up by a continual selective process, whereby the individuals and lines of descent that are eminently fitted for an aggressive pecuniary competition are withdraw from the lower classes. In order to reach the upper levels the aspirant must have, not only a fair average complement of the pecuniary aptitudes, but he must have these gifts in such an eminent degree as to overcome very material difficulties that stand in the way of his ascent. Barring accidents, the nouveaux arrivés are a picked body. more “the leisure class … (at 11.11.10, 11:11)”
From The Regime of Amplification to The Road
[editor: this document was used for a mid-way doctoral assessment at the University of Technology Sydney and no longer reflects the final content of the PhD dissertation as of the April 2012 submission at La Trobe University in Melbourne. The presentation was accompanied by the video that is posted at the end.]
Abstract
The DCA project “The Road” is a psycho-geographic perambulation through a web of personal, social, and universal trajectories which form a new knowledge-base on the cosmos as an entropic system of energy flows. Within this worldview the project explores human presence, encounter, and interaction including a close look at the effects of techno-socially prescribed protocols on those indeterminate flows of energy. As a multi-modal online data-space, the project offers a variety of navigational strategies connecting a rich variety of audio, video, text, and image sources from the candidate’s extensive personal archive of creative material.
Introduction
The armature for this DCA as originally proposed was the concept of the amplifier. An amplifier is essentially a device that takes an incoming flow of energy (signal), and through an influx of power, generates a defined outflow of energy with a greater (directed) intensity. The amplification process needs an independent energy source to increase the signal strength. It also requires a set of protocols that guide the flow of energy from input through output: a coherent signal is a controlled energy flow as defined by applied protocols.
The road, as an expression of a techno-social system (TSS), exemplifies, or, more precisely, is one of these protocol-defined pathways. It was this realization during the last year of research which shifted my focus from the amplifier to the road as both a real and metaphoric concept that opens a rich space for inquiry. The road allows the TSS to express amplified energy flows along its protocol-defined pathway. It is not difficult to conceptually extend the idea of the road as any pathway for the directed and concentrated expression of energy of a TSS. more “From The Regime of Amplification to The Road”
Migrating: Art: Academies: done
After eight weeks of intensive effort, sometimes re-writing almost from scratch a wide range of (English-second-language) articles, essays, and academic papers, the second and final book from the MigAA project is done and at the printers. Bravo to the Alfa60 designers, Joseph and Lina in Vilnius — perhaps this book will win awards like the last one did! And big kudos to El Jefe, miga, without whom, none of this would have come to pass, none of it!
This is the jacket blurb I wrote in ten minutes — the day Lina was sending the book to the printers! more “Migrating: Art: Academies: done”
Empty Infinity
Without beginning, without end,
Without past, without future.
A halo of light surrounds the world of the law.
We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty.
The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart and of heaven.
The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the moon in its surface.
The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear.
Consciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon’s disk rests alone.
Wilhelm, R., 1962. The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, New York, NY: Harvest / HBJ Book.
Researching more of Wilhelm’s powerful translation work that continues to widen an opening door into an ultimately livable space. The dorsal/ventral (toku – nin or Circulation of Light) breathing technique elucidated here — even when practiced with flawed concentration — has an immediate and profound affect on the state of the system. I am even surprised with the intensity of change which ensues. The body is straighter, uplifted, and the balance of body heat has shifted drastically — the chronically over-heated head is cooler, the feet and hands warmer. This shift has not yet directly impacted rising gall (yang) in surprise (reactive) situations, but when the breathing becomes first nature, it appears to have the potential to do that. The base-line of calm has shifted for the better. Will have to consult Heiji about these affects. A daily practice of some minutes, with as many reminders shot through the many unconscious moments of non-breathing, seems to be an auspicious start. There is no going back on this discovered knowledge.
(How to Sit) Zazen
It’s a good example of the affect of mediation on socially-generated practices of any sort [this came into mind when I saw a poster advertising a IEEE conference here in Sydney. The posted contained all the recognized and standardized functions of conferences anywhere on any subject. The cocktail evening cruises on the ________ (fill in the blank) river/harbor/lake. The hospitality suites in the _________ (fill in the blank) hotel. The keynotes by famous personages. The plenaries, the break-outs, the posters, workshops, and seminars. yadda, yadda. Don’t people get tired of this endless repetition of heavily coded social protocols?]
The following was downloaded from the UM (University of Minnesota) original Gopher online text retrieval system sometime in the winter of 1991-92. I think it’s the first document (extant) that I downloaded via that new networked document system — the direct precursor of the WWW. Coming around in a very long, very wide circle, from the roots of the digital coming-to-being in the last millennium, breathe deeply:
1. Sit on the forward third of a chair or cushion.
more “(How to Sit) Zazen”
CLUI: Day Twenty-Seven
The platoon practices having their fixed machine-gun and observation emplacement attacked from a line of tamarisk bushes about 100 meters north towards the rail line and the interstate. Overhead, fighters prowl and engage. The heavy machine gun shakes the windows. The assault rifles sound like small fire-crackers in comparison.
SWAT practice
CLUI: Day Nineteen — SWAT
Today, upon waking, there are two buses parked to the west of the hangar, a bit later, numerous SUV’s begin to pull up along with several official SWAT command vehicles and their teams from Winnemucca, Elko, and Wendover. It’s SWAT play. How to deal with a bus-load of terrorists/hostages or so. Several squads are lectured and engage in practice drills for the morning. I had originally been told by the airport management folks that there were going to be live-fire exercises at South Base, so we were surprised when this began to unfold in the back yard.
There is the fascination of playing Army, recalled from early days in the Maryland woods beyond the pond, beyond the corn fields, into unknown territories of abandoned farmhouses and hunting camps. Learning to make the sound of a gun and of explosions. And here, older boys, men, with very fancy toys, playing for their lives and the lives of their charges. Learning to stay alive, to save life. Learning to kill, or be killed. Learning to protect the innocent and kill the profane.
The uncontrolled gesture: go to your edge
Starting with the immediate body as a field-of-action to release control (versus the control-at-a-distance regime we are immersed within now):
Bushwhacking is a method to relinquish control of the trajectory of the body. By exposing the body to the unknown, one has to respond in real time, in the present. This present invites the presence of be-here-now and within that state of be-ing, the embodied self yields to the edge that divides the controlled from un-controlled. Precisely at that edge is the locus of active transformation and change. Making the next step into the unknown is, literally, an act of trust in the body, in a belief that entering the unknown will present possibility. Whether or not this possibility is merely the chance of the continuance of the species (in a biological framework), the projection of life into the not-now, the future, or whether it is an operative pre-condition for a transcendent state I cannot at this moment comment on. Somehow, this is a question that each individuated being self-wise has to make in each of those moments.
more “The uncontrolled gesture: go to your edge”
theme song
The armature of the final work is a combination of practice-based activities and a display of input-output (re)sources. Thematic threads (flux, energy, continuum, flow, movement, change, sound), and must needs vocal, aural, oral output/interface. The allowance to rest in writing, here, is a giving-up, a surrender, to the order. And critique cannot dominate the work. it must be proactively positive after shifting the basis of the argument from a traditional worldview to one based in energy, flow, and distributed presence. And transform the argument from argument to metaphor, to incantation, to invocation, to song, to a lived/living dialogue replete with rejoinder, complaint, excuse, bombast, and obscure platitudes.
Produced by writing, philosophical statements are no more authentic or truth-bearing than are literary expressions, and literary expression are no more pseudo than are philosophical dicta; they both fall victim to (or rather take advantage of) the figurality of language, its uncontrollable semantic slippage and syntactic leaps and bounds. In fact, the more one believes one can stay clear of or break free from the sign’s dictate, the deeper one is likely to sink into the ever widening semiotic quicksand. — Briankle Chang, (1996) Deconstructing Communication: Representation, Subject, and Economies of Exchange. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (p. 202)
notes prior to Memory Seminar with Andrew Hoskins
The concept of memory is related to my own work and practice — as an artist, part of my work does relate to the creation and preservation of my personal archive. Also, memory is a feature of collective Techno-Social Systems as a mapping of embodied participation in that system over time. It is also a concept to consider in the wider perspective of my work which examines human presence, encounter with the Other, collective social systems and their impact on the individual and finally, creative action.
Memory is the trace of energies from the surrounding situation that literally impress (on) the embodied self. Making the radical assumption framed by the words of physicist David Bohm, that
… there is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux.
Phenomenal events and configurations of these energies pass through the body (as simply another manifestation of this flux), leaving altered states of be-ing. These embodied traces persist in time, but as with all life and being, are transitory. They exist as change, and are often experienced as a fundamental awareness of difference — “I originally felt like that, but now I feel like this, having experienced this event.”
External memory storage situations via digital technological mediation are, by nature, material, reductive, and transitory. They are subject to decay and loss as with any other external (and internal) means.
Three significant issues arise in the process of externalized memory storage. The first is in the process of creating the artifact. As with any pre-digital artifact, making a “memory” artifact requires that the Self (or someone) step out of living and mediate their presence in the operation of the device that creates the artifact. This stepping out applies not only to the making of the artifact but also to the (onerous) process of archiving. This process radically changes the experience of a life-trajectory by an individual. And, as suggested by Quantum ideas, the observer affects that which is observed, the act of making memory artifacts actually affects the scenario that is being recorded.
A second major issue occurs when any of these processes are taken over by extensions of the Techno-Social System, they subject the Self to a loss of autonomy. (i.e., cloud computing as one example of a centralized architecture that removes the trace of the digital artifact wholly out of the purview of the individual (creator, participant).) The levels of loss of autonomy exist on a sliding scale — loss occurs whenever the individual is not in control of the mediatory storage (its provenance, creation, organization, archiving, sustenance, distribution, demise, destruction). Any externalization falls under this regime.
The third issue lies in the maintenance of archive. As a fundamentally ordered system (timely retrieval is critical for a functioning archive), the archive requires an essentially constant energy influx to maintain that order. That energy source is, at base, the human being. How much personal energy will humans participating in a Techno-social system be willing to dispense of or provide/support in order to maintain an ever-growing energy burden of either a collective or individual archive? Is this why the Library of Alexandria burned?