As a human that fancies minimalism when it comes to a home or dwelling, the method of Self Build Housing developed by architect Walter Segal (1907-1985) is quite appealing. Segal’s method involved lightweight timber structures built quickly and at an extreme low-cost.

…learning from engineers, [Segal] resolved that “every building I was going to make, I would calculate”

-http://www.segalselfbuild.co.uk/news/waltersegalbycol.html

Walter Segal was brought up in the Swiss colony of Monte Verita, A location notably associated with Herman Hesse and Carl Jung, among others.

The following relates to the peripheral and slightly curious paragraph ‘The reversal of the metaphysical hierarchy: the value of the surface’ in Hannah Arendt’s first volume of ‘The Life of the Mind’.In this paragraph, Arendt points out, that modern science perpetuates philosophy’s sempiternal hierarchy of ‘true inner Being over mere surface’. Therefore – adventurously, yet plausibly – Arendt grounds her reversal of aforesaid hierarchy in the findings of a Swiss zoologist, named Adolf Portmann, who – from a zoological (hence, scientific) point of view – has no reason to think of “the surface, or outward appearance, of animals as the subordinate consequence of the much more essential inner process.” (He figures, the opposite is true: inner organs exist solely to bring forth and maintain appearance.) Arendt transports Portmann’s zoology into metaphysics. The following returns Arendt’s metaphysics to the animals…

http://www.thehighhorse.net/chiroptera-vampyros-taphozus/122/ Read the story of two bats respectively submerged in tanks of water. The verbal gymnastics and interplay is quite entertaining.

The aforementioned Hannah Arendt was a German political theorist. “To think with an enlarged mentality means that one trains one’s imagination to go visiting’”

The zoologist also mentioned, Adolf Portmann, turns out to be fairly elusive to search engines in terms of finding translations of any of his works online. If anyone can track something down for me, I will be pleased.

“The hurricane [Katrina] was an act of God upon a sin-loving and rebellious nation. It’s a warning–and a call to repent.”

This article, although written by one man, strikes me as wholly representative of the giant, faceless opposition that thinking, rational, knowledge-hungry humans are consistently up against. This is The Wall our generation must tackle, and tear down for good.

It is important to be continuously aware of the kinds of pocketed communities of humans that choose to dwell in such states of mental delusion; their collective hollow voices still chime of repention, aversion, regression, into a state of stagnation.

The rest of us are here, passionately existing, striving, moving, creating, thinking, marching, along side the god wall that should not exist. What does it take to free millions of minds?

One mind choosing to be free.

(Then another… and another…)

*B

http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/authors/Cather/Pauls-Case.htm

It is a brilliantly written piece, and very personal.

I grab a parallel to Like A Rolling Stone, the famed Bob Dylan song, which I recalled while reading the story.

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Portrait of a City

Originally uploaded by brittanygardner.

Trying something new, I drew the city, then inverted the colors in Photoshop.

Interesting effect!

Often, my perpetual idea appetite for ideas, (or just the habit of thinking online) will lead me to a brilliant oasis. Or at least a nice series of nodes. Regardless, here is some fodder for fellow active seekers (emphasis mine):

…There is a soul, a passion, inside of the economic machine. Our most personal desires and schemes sometimes scare us with their strangeness, with their lunacy. But some dare make them public—just as the first stone-chipper, the first stone-wall builder, the first brick-maker, and the first brick-city-planner did.

Some risk looking foolish with the tales, the songs, and the fantasies they share. Others stare with wonder—they see their own unspoken feelings, their chaotic longings, echoed in a mirror there. Then we and our allies recruit, we proselytize. We make the masses see what we have seen. We organize believers to throw themselves with idealism, passion, commitment, and deep faith, into creating something that this cosmos has never previously seen. We organize others so they can make a reality of what is now shared fantasy, shared lunacy, a communal and a corporate dream.
And we do it all to tickle and to please that wisp, that ghost, emotionality. We do it to satisfy, to excite, to cause the human spirit to ignite. That is the essence of leadership, and it’s the process to which capitalism gives flight.

-Putting Soul in the Machine - http://howardbloom.net/

I found Howard Bloom and his website after stumbling upon Paleopsychology. Sounds interesting? It is. Go Look: http://www.paleopsych.org/
…/paleopsych_manifesto.html

Mr. Bloom has an impressive bio, should you choose to delve. (You should.)

“…More important is the impact of a communal ritual like a rock concert. The star onstage is taken over by a self he doesn’t know, one that seems to surge through him as if he were a length of empty pipe. The force of this strange passion welds the audience in an almost transcendent bond.” Bloom’s task was to first experience the exaltation, then to dissect it. “The model for this work,” he says, “came from William James*, who attempted to feel the ecstatic experience of mystics, then to probe it scientifically, a process which led to his 1902 book The Varieties of the Religious Experience.”

*William James looks interesting too. I should have a read.

…Twenty pages in The Billboard Guide to Music Publicity are devoted to Bloom and the antidote he invented, “perceptual engineering,” which he defines as “a way of finding a valid truth which the herd refuses to see, then turning the herd around and making that truth self-evident. It’s what we do in much of science–seeing the ordinary from a new perspective, then revealing what makes it tick and in the process altering society‘s views.”
-http://howardbloom.net/bloombio.htm (emphasis mine)

The following video features Chris Bliss doing a juggling routine to the tune ofThe Beatles’ Golden Slumbers. Bliss’ movements are beautifully synchronized to the music, and the performance just keeps getting better:

On a slightly different note, an interesting project of Chris’ can be found on http://www.mybillofrights.org. The non-profit foundation aims to promote awareness and respect for the American Bill of Rights.

My graphics program trial ran out. Today I tried a trial of a different program.
This is what I think a video light experiment could look like. Of course this is a photo, but if I somehow could film a short narrative with this look to it, it would be interesting. Kind of like what the kids are doing with their video blogs, although if I were to make a video blog I would much rather do it as a character exploration than an angsty diary. Keen!

]]> http://memetome.wordpress.com/2007/02/09/the-personification-of-manipulative-photographs/feed/ 0 Brittany Gardner http://memetome.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/start-of-idea-doodle/ http://memetome.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/start-of-idea-doodle/#comments Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:46:04 +0000 brittanygardner http://memetome.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/start-of-idea-doodle/ ]]> This is the start of my idea doodle. I am brainstorming about the various kinds of ideas, and the translation of them between humans, and from their memetic state into something concrete. I am experimenting with flow and pattern in this rough copy, and plan on developing it further into a fresh drawing or painting.

Not only are these creatures fascinating to study, they also make for challenging artwork.

“Morphing in cephalopods works somewhat similarly to how it works in computer
graphics. Two components are involved: a change in the image or texture
visible on a shape’s surface and a change in the underlying shape
itself. The “pixels” in the skin of a cephalopod are organs called
chromatophores. These can expand and contract quickly, and each is
filled with a pigment of a particular color. When a nerve signal causes
a red chromatophore to expand, the “pixel” turns red. A pattern of
nerve firings causes a shifting image—an animation—to appear on the
cephalopod’s skin. As for shapes, an octopus can quickly arrange its
arms to form a wide variety of them, like a fish or a piece of coral,
and can even raise welts on its skin to add texture.” -Jaron’s World — Discover.com