David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

19 November 2015

Elvis & The Two Truths

The two truths : relative and emPTy

Post script to yesterday's blog post : just in, this Biennale JOGJA X111 T.A.R tableau vivant of Nicolas Bourriaud with Punkasila & Slave Pianos.

Relational art

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Relational art or relational aesthetics is a mode or tendency in fine art practice originally observed and highlighted by French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud. Bourriaud defined the approach as "a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space."[1] The artist can be more accurately viewed as the "catalyst" in relational art, rather than being at the centre.[2]

Upon first seeing NB with P & SP :

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

- John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Kissin' Cousins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kissin' Cousins is a 1964 American musical Panavision Metrocolor comedy film directed by Gene Nelson and starring Elvis Presley. Written by Gerald Drayson Adams and Gene Nelson, the film is about an Army officer who returns to the Great Smoky Mountains assigned to convince his kinfolk to allow the Army to build a missile site on their land. His mission is complicated when he meets his look-alike cousin and two beautiful country cousins who compete to win his affections. Presley played two roles in the film: the Army officer, with dark hair, and his look-alike cousin, with blond hair.

Looking back:
Figure and ground at 100

Jörgen L. Pind examines Edgar Rubin’s dissertation on the figure–ground distinction, one of the great classics of perceptual psychology

"In July 1915 Edgar Rubin, a 28-year-old Dane, defended a doctoral thesis titled Synsoplevede Figurer (Visually experienced figures) at the University of Copenhagen (Rubin, 1915). His official opponents were the two outstanding representatives of psychology at the university: the philosopher Harald Høffding, and the experimental psychologist Alfred Lehmann. Neither of them, it is fair to claim, could have foreseen the influence this thesis and its findings would eventually come to play in perceptual psychology. It was in this work that Rubin first elucidated the figure-ground distinction, now a staple of every introductory textbook of psychology...

Two views of double mPT with that?

Yeah, thanks, fill 'em up.