International Seminar on Network Theory Keynote - Bruno Latour
when an actor (an isolated agent) expands to a network, it goes from being a matter of fact to a matter of concern.
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2010-09-28
//Melt, or, playtime in the city.
//(A Lullaby for Los Angeles in the key of Singapore.)
Sous les pavés la plage
la ville, une jungle
melt
verb, melt·ed, melt·ed or mol·ten, melt·ing, noun
–verb (used without object)
1. to become liquefied by warmth or heat: i.e. the application of an external energy source, possibly in the form of architecture.
2. to become liquid; dissolve: "Melt boundaries/distinctions/hierarchies"
3. to pass, dwindle, or fade gradually (often fol. by away ): "The city as we thought we knew it melted away a long time ago. Why does everyone still think its solid?"
4. to pass, change, or blend gradually (often fol. by into ): "One space/program/atmosphere melted into another. I never knew quite exactly when I was in one or the other until I'd left it."
5. to become softened in feeling by empathy, connection: "I'll stop the world and melt with you"
6. Obsolete . to be subdued or overwhelmed by sorrow, dismay, etc. "We know too much and dream too little. Isn’t Knowledge just solidified imagination. Why don’t we melt it all into a soup of mutable free associaitons."
"What I want is defined by what I don't want." (A provisional list)
heroic idealism / temporary contemporary
program / atmosphere
order / wildness
timelessness / obsolesce
2010-09-20
2010-09-17
//excerpts from today
Ruth had a head full of white flowers to compliment her white hair, both of which were in a bouquet-ed arrangement: round, lollipop shaped and full.
"Before you run off young man, do you have the time?" she asked. Actually, she had caught me at the end of my morning run.
The sun cast crisp shadows to the tarmac road and the debris around it. It looked like found art, a private kind: from the street to the gallery and now in the street again. The undulating plane of the parking lot across the hilly road looked like a wave cresting over parked cars, a mechanical zoo in diorama.
"I came here on assignment 30 years ago for one week, and decided to stay, but realized that I still had a life back in New York," she shared in the middle of the conversation. "So I went back to destroy it, and I've been here since."
That seems to be the gist of Los Angeles, like an itch you can't get rid of.
"What is your first name?" She held her hand out. It had a thin pale sheen like my grandma's, the type where you can read the veins through it. "because you never know," she added with a smile while we were crossing a street.
"Have a good day," and we parted at the traffic light.
 |
| a postcard to the future |
Ruth had a head full of white flowers to compliment her white hair, both of which were in a bouquet-ed arrangement: round, lollipop shaped and full.
"Before you run off young man, do you have the time?" she asked. Actually, she had caught me at the end of my morning run.
The sun cast crisp shadows to the tarmac road and the debris around it. It looked like found art, a private kind: from the street to the gallery and now in the street again. The undulating plane of the parking lot across the hilly road looked like a wave cresting over parked cars, a mechanical zoo in diorama.
"I came here on assignment 30 years ago for one week, and decided to stay, but realized that I still had a life back in New York," she shared in the middle of the conversation. "So I went back to destroy it, and I've been here since."
That seems to be the gist of Los Angeles, like an itch you can't get rid of.
"What is your first name?" She held her hand out. It had a thin pale sheen like my grandma's, the type where you can read the veins through it. "because you never know," she added with a smile while we were crossing a street.
"Have a good day," and we parted at the traffic light.
2010-09-14
2010-09-12
*note to self for SG
"If you are a student from outside the EU, you are likely to incur higher costs than UK students because your course may not be subsidised from other sources. You are not eligible for either a ‘fees-only’ award or a maintenance grant, and no UK government subsidy may be used to reduce your fees. You are encouraged to contact the British Council in your country of residence from whom a scholarship or award may be available."
"If you are a student from outside the EU, you are likely to incur higher costs than UK students because your course may not be subsidised from other sources. You are not eligible for either a ‘fees-only’ award or a maintenance grant, and no UK government subsidy may be used to reduce your fees. You are encouraged to contact the British Council in your country of residence from whom a scholarship or award may be available."
2010-09-07
//a string of forget-me-knots for the weekend
----------cycling to venice, curry and lager by the sidewalk-------hmmm, maybe i'll live there-------a swim at canvas and the SGs, "Hi, i'm gerald's friend."-----------his apartment with clotted blood----------springstreet bar with peppery wine--------------clubbed by surprise-----------unexpected dalliances------------- Disney Concert Hall, oh you dance like a ballerina's shadow in the changing sun-------------hotboxed cars recording audio------------@gam, HELLO! (because its a beautiful life)-------------at FARbar, too late--------back to kTown, expectations suspended in the crisp air, what beautifully almond eyes you have---------to the backalley bar for korean cakes------------a fight, guns and tasers: caught on camera------------ to a bbq today.
good day, good night and good luck.
----------cycling to venice, curry and lager by the sidewalk-------hmmm, maybe i'll live there-------a swim at canvas and the SGs, "Hi, i'm gerald's friend."-----------his apartment with clotted blood----------springstreet bar with peppery wine--------------clubbed by surprise-----------unexpected dalliances------------- Disney Concert Hall, oh you dance like a ballerina's shadow in the changing sun-------------hotboxed cars recording audio------------@gam, HELLO! (because its a beautiful life)-------------at FARbar, too late--------back to kTown, expectations suspended in the crisp air, what beautifully almond eyes you have---------to the backalley bar for korean cakes------------a fight, guns and tasers: caught on camera------------ to a bbq today.
good day, good night and good luck.
2010-09-05
2010-09-04
//David McCandless @ TED
keyphrases:
_milk the metaphor
_the language of the eye and the language of the mind
_data diagrams as data compression
_telling a known story, then flipping it
_let the dataset change your mindset
also from David's website, www.informationisbeautiful.net
 |
| The illusion of diversity: visualizing ownership in the soft drink industry |
"Three firms control 89% of US soft drink sales [1]. This dominance is obscured from us by the appearance of numerous choices on retailer shelves. Steve Hannaford refers to this as "pseudovariety," or the illusion of diversity, concealing a lack of real choice [2]. To visualize the extent of pseudovariety in this industry we developed a cluster diagram to represent the number of soft drink brands and varieties found in the refrigerator cases of 94 Michigan retailers, along with their ownership and/or licensing connections."
2010-09-03
Last night was Leonard Bernstein's version of Candide, or, The Optimist. It is a riff of Voltaire's Candide (1759), which in turn is a rip on Leibnizian optimism.
Leibniz optimism is about addressing evil in a religious world. The simple question to summarize would be, "Mama, if there is a God, why is there also war?"
"Because my child, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds," would be the Panglossian thing to say. The underlying assumption being the simple mantra, God is Good.
(The operatta was performed at the Hollywood Bowl. Outdoors in the cool evening sky, and we experienced it from box seats to the accompaniment of cheese, bread, wine and curries, thanks to the generous Justus and his hedgefund.)
Aside from the farcical tones of the play: repeated calamaties, rapes, wars and greed, was the Garden motif: a nod to the garden of Eden and the idea of paradise manifested in the City candide was born in, the false garden of El Dorado, and finally, by his own making, Candide's garden. We must make our garden grow.
In the original Voltaire version, the play ends with the line "We must cultivate our garden."
//definitions
artistarchitect
designer
writer
curator
curator
from wikipedia:
Curator (from Latin cura, care), means manager, overseer.
Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, or archive) is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections. The object of a traditional curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be inter alia artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections. More recently, new kinds of curators are emerging: curators of digital data objects, and biocurators.
2010-09-02
//knee-jerk responses
There is a new park in Denmark. Actually, its a giant parkour and freerunning park.
Parkour is about discovering the city: by engaging it or "misusing" it, it re-frames how you see things. The banal becomes playground. And all this, without building. And by proxy, those who see you do parkour, it is a random delight that peppers the day.
The park centralizes all this. It becomes a place to go to rather than a place to be discovered. Maybe good, maybe bad, but why the conventional response to something that is in itself so radical?
My gut crankiness says that the centralization builds a parkour community, but this solidarity is associated with a formalized set of actions and "simulations". See stair, do flip. What about see stair, do pilf? I do not know much about parkour, but that is its beauty: it is done, not studied. I wonder if that is how other sports started out: free and open before becoming structured and formalized. I hope this does not mummify the sport.
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