This paper is about what happens when we consciously look at paintings, or to be more accurate what I observe happening in my own consciousness when looking at a particular painting. I will suggest, but not assert, that what occurs in my own consciousness bears some relation to what occurs in the conscious minds of others when confronted with a similar object.

{ Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, August 2009 | The Conscious Act of Looking at a Painting, by Robert Pepperell | Continue reading | And: The Intentional-Attributive Definition of Art, by Alexey Aliev }

{ Encyclopedia Britanica broome | Thanks AJJ!}

Witter: Are you moving more into the mainstream? Have you sold out to commercialism?

Grayson Perry: In this game you make more money not selling out to the mainstream. I’m not scared of being popular though.

{ Grayson Perry, cross-dressing ceramicist | Times | Continue reading }

artwork { John Guerrero }

John Kay’s thesis is quite straightforward: the subtitle “Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly” rather gives it away. He argues that we often cannot solve problems directly because of their inherent complexity, the incompleteness of our knowledge, the interdependence of the actors and the environment, and the fact that most models designed to assist decision-making are highly imperfect descriptions of reality. So we often get closest to our ultimate goal by pursuing intermediate objectives, or working towards some higher goal that may have the side-effect of delivering what we need, be it more profit, more market share, or success in politics or war.

{ Howard Davies/FT | Continue reading }

unrelated { An Insufficient Appreciation of the Coen Brothers | Curator | full story }

loop

In real life, nothing happens like switching on a light bulb. Those are sort of poetic notions. In the real business world and the real world, it’s a learning curve. You learn a little bit and you learn some more, learn some more, and you’ve got to keep in the race.

{ Gene Simmons | Continue reading }

Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age.

{ R. W. Emerson | more quotes }

headline { Magnolia, 1999 }

photo { Estelle Hanania }

{ Nietzsche and philosophy by Gilles Deleuze | Continue reading }

In movies when they show a person walking down a crowded New York sidewalk the people are always mysteriously headed in the same direction. Navigation is actually a little more complicated than that.

{ S Shirazi | Continue reading | Courtesy of Daniel S. L., who wrote: “ Interesting dissection/take down of Starbucks at 39 . The clean bathrooms shouldn’t be undersold, however. In NYC Starbucks basically serve as the city’s only reliable facilities.” }

photo { Gosia Wieruszewska }

Solitude and Leadership

If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts

My title must seem like a contradiction. What can solitude have to do with leadership? Solitude means being alone, and leadership necessitates the presence of others—the people you’re leading. (…)

Leadership is what you are here to learn—the qualities of character and mind that will make you fit to command a platoon, and beyond that, perhaps, a company, a battalion, or, if you leave the military, a corporation, a foundation, a department of government. Solitude is what you have the least of here, especially as plebes. You don’t even have privacy, the opportunity simply to be physically alone, never mind solitude, the ability to be alone with your thoughts. And yet I submit to you that solitude is one of the most important necessities of true leadership.

{ William Deresiewicz | The American Scholar | Continue reading }

A physical object like Mont Blanc or a species of plant or animal can be the subject of aesthetic analysis and evaluation, but such analysis is not part of natural science. Similarly, any human artistic activity has a psychological and eventually a neuro-physiological or biochemical basis, but this does not make a study of the brain activity of Michelangelo while he was painting part of “the humanities” (as we would call them). Neither is it the case that there is some specific method or set of characteristic methods used by the natural as opposed to the cultural sciences (or vice versa). Precise observation is equally important everywhere, and the basic forms of logical inference and evidentiary argumentation are similar in all scientific disciplines. Nevertheless, Windelband argued, there is an important distinction between the two basic kinds of “science”; it is merely that the distinction is not in terms of methods or subject matter but in terms of goals or aims.

{ Raymond Geuss, Goals, Origins, Disciplines | Continue reading | PDF }

As long as we’re on the topic of impulsivity, a brief remark about the word ‘manipulative,’ which I’ve found to be a remarkably overused, overrated explanation for the behavior of inflexible-explosive children. To me, the act of manipulation requires a fair amount of forethought, planning, affective modulation, and calculation — qualities that are in short supply in the vast majority of the inflexible-explosive children I know. Given that few of us enjoy being manipulated, believing that a child is being manipulative often causes adults to behave in counterproductive ways and hinders their consideration of more accurate explanations.

{ Ross Greene, The Explosive Child, 1998 | Thanks Blue M.! }

What to do if cracks appear in a marriage—from seeking counseling to calling it quits. (…)

Many couples work out what to do on their own.

But what should clashing couples do? Marriage counseling became a popular answer to that question after marital referees first appeared in the U.S. in the 1930s. (…) Counseling for couples gradually grew to be an entrenched social phenomenon. (…)

It is all going reasonably well— until Chris decides that he wants to leave. She never quite figures out what went wrong, numbering each possibility as it occurs to her. (There are more then 300 by book’s end.) Even a decent marriage, Ms. Morrison learns, can turn heartbreaking.

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

Claude Hagège is a classically trained fieldwork linguist who conducts research in the Cameroons, British Columbia, Micronesia and wherever languages exist that have not yet been studied. (…)

Theoretician and polyglot as well, in addition to speaking several oral-tradition languages, Claude Hagège has perfect command of the main international languages and is known to lecture in a number of Germanic and Semitic languages, Chinese, several Slavic and Romance languages. Both as a researcher and a university professor, he has always made it a rule not to accept any simplifying model: his critical essays on generative grammar explain his refusal of abstract universalism (logicism), the primacy of a single dimension in language (syntax) or any idealized model of linguistic competence minimizing the importance of variations. On this point, he says [in L’Homme de paroles]:

The obsession with being scientific has led it [linguistics] to clothe itself in a false and artificial rigour for which there is no model, even in the most rigourous of sciences. The fascination with formalism has confined it within the narrow space of a technical discourse whose object, however difficult that may be to imagine, is the man of words. For not only has this space been emptied of a historical and a social dimension, but therein, the human element is a definitive abstraction, and words say nothing.

This very innovative criticism, formulated by Claude Hagège in respect to formal grammars and chomskyism - the theories of Chomsky and his disciples, whose generative models date back to the 60s - is one of the contributions that gave a new start to research in typology, linguistic comparison and cognitive gramar, fields currently recognized and reemerging throughout the world. Thus, without too much theoretical pretension, it can certainly be said that this cautious and reserved approach has played a catalyzing, if not pioneering role.

{ CNRS | Continue reading }

I. RESEARCH

My research is founded on extensive fieldwork, carried out in all parts of the world, supplemented by vast bibliographical explorations and constant correspondence with scientists of all nationalities. My work spans four essential areas: general linguistics, typology, sociolinguistics and specific linguistic domains. In general linguistics I examine linguistic theory, including phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, translation theory, the origins of language and languages, and the history of linguistics. In typology, I focus on language types, language universals and grammaticalization. In sociolinguistics, I delve into language planning and reform, 
the status and function of languages, field work, along with creolistics, mixed languages, Jewish languages, and language death. The specific linguistic domains I am interested in are French, Indo European, Uralic, Semitic, African, Amerindian, Sino Tibetan and Austronesian languages. More marginally, I explore the areas of semiology and literary semiotics, as well as philosophy of language. The results of these studies appear regularly, either in published form (books, articles, reviews) and/or as presentations.

II. TEACHING

General linguistics is the study of both language as defining capability of the human species, and languages as the historical and social manifestations of this capability. My Chair in Linguistic Theory at the Collège de France, which I have held since 1989, illustrates this polarity. In effect, at one end one finds language, studied from the perspective of child acquisition, as based upon innate capabilities supplemented by contributions from the social environment, at the other end one finds languages, studied in their diversity. This diversity is highlighted through typological studies, which seek to establish language types in the areas of phonology, morpho syntax and semantics. Typological categories may or may not coincide with genetic relationships, namely the grouping of the diverse human languages into one or another of the large families: Indo-European, Semitic, Uralic, Altaic, Bantu, Caucasian, Amerindian, Sino Tibetan, Austronesian, etc. The symbolic content of languages depends on their powers of identification, in other words the image they give of the diverse nations. The attachment of the latter to their languages is often very powerful and may be a source of conflict.

Over the last four years, my courses at the Collège de France have focused on the following four themes. In 1999-2000, I attempted to define what a realistic vision of language phenomena could be, through the study of the role played by the context in the definition of categories, and through the revision of the opposition between associative and syntagmatic relations. In 2000-2001, I examined six different aspects of how inter-individual and social relations are reflected in linguistic utterances: the illusion of syntactic autonomy , morphosyntax as dependant on semantic phenomena, morphosyntax as dependant on pragmatic phenomena, the dialogal relation as sole domain where certain morphemes are used; the extinction of languages; and lastly, dyshyponoesis, the outline of a hypothesis concerning the neurological bases of pragmatic commands in language phenomena. 2001-2002 was devoted to the introduction of a linguistic study of affects: after having defined the object of my study, I presented the expression of affects in daily conversation; I then questioned whether languages have structures exclusively assigned to the expression of affective utterances. In continuation of this study, 2002-2003 was devoted to a typological essay on affects: after defining the field, I, in turn, studied the cases of affect specific markings and the lack thereof.

Furthermore, I have been teaching at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE) since 1977, where I serve as Study Director in Structural Linguistics. My syllabus over the past four years has mainly focused on phenomena in the fields of syntax, semantics and enunciation theory.

III. SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Beyond the previously mentioned work carried out in the field, my scientific activities and responsibilities take the form, of multiple conferences and teaching sessions as visiting Professor, in France and abroad, as well as serving on several editorial boards. My activities also include presiding various professional societies and scientific committees, such as the Société de Linguistique de Paris.


I have also participated, as director, panel member or approval committee member, in a large number of doctoral theses bearing on languages spoken all over the world, and on a great variety of theoretical issues in modern linguistics.

{ Claude Hagège | Collège de France | L’Homme de paroles : contribution linguistique aux sciences humaines is the Claude Hagège book to read first, unfortunately/apparently not translated in english. }

Will booze make you skinny? (…)

Best case scenario is the study has indeed accounted for all variables and the association is causal and if you’re a woman, drinking 2 glasses of wine daily will help you not gain roughly a third of a pound extra per year.

Worse case scenario? The study proves just how difficult it is to study nutritional variables and that it’s one of those association doesn’t prove causality pieces.

{ Weighty Matters | Continue reading | unsourced photo }

Let’s define the term “value” as “a fair equivalent in money for something sold.”

Let’s define “devalue” as “to lessen the worth off something sold.”

So does a $1.99 price point for ebooks constitute their value? Or does that price devalue the work?

In a capitalist economy, under the rules of supply and demand, things cost money to produce, and their price is dictated by how many things are produced and how many people want to buy them.

An item usually costs a determined amount to create (which tends to go down as more items are produced), and then wholesalers and retailers sell this item for what the market will bear, trying to make a profit.

A few years ago, when the Nintendo Wii was a hot item and hard to find, people who were able to get Wiis sold them on eBay for more than double the $199 list price. The Wii’s value was higher, because demand was higher.

Now you can buy used Wii’s for less than $100. There is a big enough supply for everyone, so the price comes down.

So how do ebooks fit into this?

For the moment, let’s ignore the hard work the author has put into writing the book.

To bring an ebook to market, a book needs to be edited, proofread, put into a proper layout and format, and given cover art and a product description.

These costs can fluctuate. But they are one-time costs.

Once an ebook is created, it can be reproduced indefinitely for free. There are no printing costs or shipping costs. Distributing ebooks to readers costs about 5 cents per download.

{ Joe Konrath | Continue reading }

For some of our beliefs, our minds don’t offer much in the way of reasons.  We say these beliefs are more “intuitive.”  In a hostile debating context this response can seem suspicious; you might expect one side in a debate to refuse to offer reasons just when they had already tested those reasons against criticism, and found them wanting.  That is, we might expect a debater to pretend he didn’t have any reasons when he knew his reasons were bad. 

{ Overcoming Bias | Continue reading }

The human form, disrobed and displayed in all its glory, is arguably the most enduring motif in the history of Western art. Museums dedicated to art both ancient and modern are filled with nudes rendered every which way: painted, chiseled, molded, sketched and photographed. They’re just usually not living and breathing. But come March 14, New York’s Museum of Modern Art will host daily performances of five seminal works by Marina Abramović, three of which feature performers in the altogether. In Imponderabilia (1977), two players stand opposite each other, au naturel, in a narrow doorway. Visitors must brush past them to enter the exhibition—an early, if awkward, example of interactive art.

“This is America!” the Yugoslavian-born Abramović trills jovially in her heavily accented English, on a rainy fall day in New York, as she considers the potentially embarrassing encounter in what will be the first live exhibition of nudes in the museum’s history. “Is going to be riots! I have so many meetings with the security of MoMA and how we’re going to deal with things.”

In all fairness, yes, Americans have a more delicate relationship with nakedness than Europeans, but Abramović acknowledges that when she and her former collaborator and lover, Ulay, performed the piece at a museum in Bologna, Italy, the police showed up six hours into it, asked to see their passports (which they obviously didn’t have on them) and promptly shut down the performance. This time around, regulations mandate that MoMA provide a second route into the exhibition—one with a wider opening to allow for wheelchairs—a measure Abramović finds understandable but disappointing. “I hate that alternative because in the original piece there was no alternative—you go here,” she says, seated in her midtown office as she points to a photograph of Ulay and herself, face-to-face in the passageway, while a man turned slightly sideways tries to negotiate the cramped space. Even so, Abramović has come up with one small tweak: Though the original conceit paired a man and a woman, she now plans to mix up the couples taking turns performing Imponderabilia so that some are same-sex.

At 64, Abramović is the doyenne of performance art, a true believer who has literally risked her life more than once in fealty to her work. Decades after her peers segued exclusively into other—typically more lucrative—art forms, she is still constructing new performances, though she does dabble in other mediums. For the MoMA retrospective, the 36 hired players will rotate every two and a half hours to allow for breaks, while Abramović herself will perform a new work nonstop during museum hours for the duration of the exhibition. That’s seven and a half hours a day, five days a week; 10 hours on Friday. For three months. “The idea is that we are there before the museum opens, and we are there when the museum closes,” she says. “The attitude is the same as toward a painting—the performance is always there. It’s never been done that way for three months, ever, in history.”

{ W | Continue reading | More: NY Times | NY Times video }

related { Nude Statues Installed On Rooftops In NYC }

photo { Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir }

A little vagueness helps us to live with differences of opinion and debate each other without too much savagery.

‘If I seem unduly clear to you,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once remarked, “you must have misunderstood what I said.”

As Kees van Deemter tells it in “Not Exactly,” Mr. Greenspan’s famous imprecision is simply the most advanced form of a syndrome that besets all of us. Our language is befogged with vagueness, by which Mr. van Deemter means that almost all words have “fuzzy” boundaries. Think of “short” and “tall.” We cannot say definitively where one ends and the other begins. Even words that seem models of precision are vague: Mr. van Deemter notes that “meter” is an inexact measurement term—the platinum bar regarded as the definitive meter turns out to have been mismeasured by about 0.00005 millimeters.

Vagueness, then, may be unavoidable. But is it a problem? Not according to Mr. van Deemter.

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

photo { Nicholas Lorden }

Magic Show, a newly published catalogue to accompany a travelling exhibition of the same name, explores the relationship between art and magic. (…)

Many of the 24 contemporary artists featured (in both the show and the book) borrow directly from iconic magic tricks. Sinta Werner’s “Disjunction” plays on the idea of a disappearing act, but in this case it is the viewer who vanishes; the site-specific installation creates the effect of approaching a mirror without a reflection. Susan Hiller’s “Homage to Yves Klein” is a more upbeat take on his rather dark photo-montage, “Leap into the Void” (1960). The result is a charming play on the trick of levitation.

In other works, artists challenge the viewer’s ability to suspend disbelief—a crucial requirement of magic-show audiences.

{ More Intelligent Life | Continue reading }

related { In the Zig-Zag illusion, a magician divides his or her assistant into thirds }

In the emerging world of e-books, many consumers assume it is only logical that publishers are saving vast amounts by not having to print or distribute paper books, leaving room to pass along those savings to their customers.

Publishers largely agree, which is why in negotiations with Apple, five of the six largest publishers of trade books have said they would price most digital editions of new fiction and nonfiction books from $12.99 to $14.99 on the forthcoming iPad tablet — significantly lower than the average $26 price for a hardcover book.

But publishers also say consumers exaggerate the savings and have developed unrealistic expectations about how low the prices of e-books can go. Yes, they say, printing costs may vanish, but a raft of expenses that apply to all books, like overhead, marketing and royalties, are still in effect.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

quote { Morgan Meis, Photography’s surprising impact on the Surrealists }

related { To keep pace in this climate of innovation, we are proud to announce our groundbreaking new 3-D print edition. }