//things to think up on:

_pre-modernism had a MATERIAL ideology: it was limited.
_vertical cul-de-sacs, or, vertical sprawl


(Leon Krier, Berlage Lectures)

what do you do for a living // what do you do to live

//Exorcising Ghosts in Our Machine

What does it mean to be human? The simple answer might be "the soul", which rephrases the initial question into a comfortable word which doesn't beg for a deeper answer. But avoiding lyrical poetics, what is a soul? 

From wikipedia: 

"The Ghost in the Machine is a 1967 non-fiction work by Arthur Koestler. Koestler is  aiming at a more general explanatory principle, the hierarchical organization of life and the adaptability of living forms through a continuous exchange of energy and information. 

Following this principle down to its consequences, the book gets to a theme which has somehow never ceased to be of actuality, man's tendency towards self-destruction.

The book is particularly critical of B. F. Skinner's Behaviorist theory of psychology.

One of the book's central concepts is that as the human brain has grown, it has built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures, and that these are the "ghost in the machine" of the title. Koestler's theory is that at times these structures can overpower cognitive logic, and are responsible for hate, anger and other such impulses."

This metaphor of the ghost alludes to the idea of a soul, or, the irrational. Can one map the soul? And if it can be mapped and understood, does this mean it is no longer irrational and thus no longer within the domain of the soul?

If the soul is the territory of the unknown, are these boundaries (of the unknown) a constantly expanding horizon, or is it something that is fast closing down on us. 

And if so, are we losing, or lack of a better word, our souls or what it means to be human in the first place. Is the act of being human, in part, a surrender to our partial mysteries.

//When Words are Necessary

"... During this period El Lissitzky proceeded to develop a suprematist style of his own, a series of abstract, geometric paintings which he called Proun (pronounced "pro-oon"). The exact meaning of "Proun" was never fully revealed, with some suggesting that it is a contraction of proekt unovisa (designed by UNOVIS) or proekt utverzhdenya novogo (Design for the confirmation of the new). Later, El Lissitzky defined them ambiguously as "the station where one changes from painting to architecture."

//from Rhizome.Org

Colour Chaser 2010 from Yuri Suzuki on Vimeo.

this is too cool! its like drawing infrastructure, or paths. its such a simple interface to create simulations 

"... the world we believe we perceive is a barrier to the reality of our dreams," Werner Herzog

2000 words, elaborate

"floating with the gentle violence of a brick" is how this weekend feels. 

//rural city



"...rescript our interactions as collective, aggregating actions that can amount to something."
"engineered microlandscapes."

// Polite Humour


There is a dutch-ness to that dutch that could be described as polite indifference, which is a very spectral form of self-centered selfishness. 


"Dutch life is gentle. As the German poet Heinrich Heine supposedly said (though nobody can find the reference): “When the world ends I’ll go to Holland, because everything happens there 20 years later.”"

// Public Announcement

Starting the week after Halloween, this privately public life is going to be public-ally private. Thank you to whoever has taken the time to read any of this, and moreover, a debt to Bruce for encouraging me to write more and checking in every once in a while.

For the curious, another log has been going underway in the guise of LookingForTheLookingGlass.Tumblr.com for a thesis that I am in the midst of. My more public thoughts and opinions will be channelled there.

Check back in a few months or years, who knows. The Whale may resurface at any time.

Till then, its been a fun experiment and best wishes to this phantom public.

Adios to who you think I think I am,
(and who I think I am by who you think I am),
Hello to my honest reflection.

tschues,

Lennard Ong
12.45am,
Saturday, October 16 2010.

//fun brain clutter

apomechanes is derived from "��o ������� ����" literally "god from the machine", which is a plot device of ancient greek drama. In numerous tragedies, the poet would gradually steer the plot/myth to an inflection point at which the natural resolution of the conflict would be very difficult if not impossible. Then, an unexpected event in the form of an intervention of a god would take place and allow for the play to continue. The term "from the machine" was established due to the fact that the god would enter the stage with the help of a "machine" - a wooden crane on which he would appear floating from above.

deux ex machina

//He Makes My Toes Twinkle

MeeK is a British-French indie pop songwriter who has become a bit of a “cult-artist” over the years and he’s one of the first european artists to have used the Internet as a marketing tool and a media to expose his music to the general public, long before the advent of MySpace, Facebook and the likes. He’s a self taught guitarist, pianist, arranger and producer. He sings in both French and English. His music is melodic and his tunes are often conceived around multi-layered vocal harmonies. His lyrics tend to be somewhat surreal, very ironic with a lot of double-entendre, trippy distorted imagery and words seldom used in pop lyrics… The Meek Sound is a genuine blend of acoustic instruments, sophisticated vocal harmonies and this rather high-pitched and almost childlike voice of his.

http://www.myspace.com/meekintheweb

// Plantoids

My wallet wants me to stay in the US and my curiosity wants me to go to London but my fear is telling me to go home to Singapore.

// Norwegian Wood

YOU be a curator

hmmm.

maybe

but. i rather create than curate.

or actually... maybe a curate

i agree

curate by create

i would rather create

show me something beautiful

beauty is all relative

thats why i want to see your version of beauty

so i can see you

hahaha

when are you coming back to LA m

tomorrow

excellent

we'll have coffee

and smoke cigarettes

can't, i got something on in the afternoon. lets get a nightcap

sounds lovely

we'll walk through the downtown area at night

when all the office buildings are empty

its nice when the city feels like its all ours

i like that

we'll talk about films and music

and how strange americans are

i like that too.

that, and then we can also be silent

that can be nice sometimes

so we can hear the city

it speaks if you listen, you know?

ahahaha

and what does it say to you, len?

all kinds of lies which i love believing in

how about you mirea?

oh its way too personal

i would never tell you

then you are selfish

i would tell you

but i dont think it be told in words

//A Constructivist's Perspective on Art&Design

"There is something incredibly liberating about surrendering yourself to the unplanned." 

Matthew Herbert , Musician

Video Interview, The Creators Project 

   a ViceMagazine & Intel Collaboration

More and more, it feels like art/design will be the next driver in what feels like a post-knowledge paradigm. As a form of soft creation, art/design constructs meaning by the interpretation of facts: the relationship between knowledge domains, its instrumentalization and its intentions.

*note to self: this is a paragraph that needs enormous elaboration

Matthew Herbert is an audio artist that touches on such themes. It feels like he operates with an attitude of the here/new, collapsing distinctions between old and new, futurology and nostalgia.

One of the records Matthew Herbert is soon releasing uses the sounds of a pig getting killed. "There will be one stage where we butcher the pig, and we'll bury mikes into the carcass, you know? Just to get a different perspective on the sound, you know?" he says with a tone of genuine curiosity and an overture of glee in his voice.

That is one instantiation of why Matthew Herbert is interesting. He posseses an emergent manifesto, one that is guided by a reactive ideology that is generative. Called "the Personal Contract for the Composition of Music [Incorporating the Manifesto of Mistakes] (2005)", it is a list of 11 points of self-imposed limitations that choreograph accidental moments for him to seize.

"Music is an expression of what its like to be alive... Being open to imperfections, being open to the unplanned is an enourmous liberation... [and] the equipment we have is phenomenal. The more incredible it is, the more important it is to come back to the fundamental question itself: why are we creating music in the first place? 


The equipment is designed for you to replicate a moment in the past. Electrohouse kit. HipHip kit. IDM kit grunge, these are categories that are packaged as products. But artistic work, really, is a process, not a product."

[excerpts from interview]

When what we know we know grows substantially, and what we know we don't know is shrinking (and what we don't know we don't know doesn't matter), how we reveal what we don't know we know might be, until the next paradigm shift, the most fruitful territory to be in.(1)

(1) ref: Slavoj Zizek, GoogleTalks

Max Surface Area: more area for cell membrane to allow in nutrients, benefiting cell's survival. More transpiration and osmosis
Min volume: More volume means the need for more nutrients and more waste material

What Zizek really excels at doing is critiquing the way late phase captialism shapes the public imagination. If capitalism trades in commodity fetsishism and fantasies of unfettered market freedoms and unlimited horizons for liberal subjects, then Zizek sees it as his job to show that this fantasy is just that, a fantasy, and that late capitalist ideology is still ideology.