20/7/2013: WLASze Part 2: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

The second part of my regular WLASze (Weekly Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics)... enjoy!

Part one is available here.



Let's start the second WLASze for the weekend we are in from science. The cognitive science to be more precise. Basically, in a summary, there's a myth that once we hit twenties, we are already matured, formed and, although conditions and our responses to them do change, we are basically 'emotional intelligence'-wise pre-determined. I am not so sure if my own recollection of my twenties supports this myth, but someone, somewhere, in large enough numbers believes it to be true. 

It turns out this is not the case (which makes me at my 45 at last being on the sane side of an argument about my own twenties). And here's an article arguing the point: "The brain is going through a second critical period of growth," she explained. "The brain doesn't finish developing until some time in your twentysomething years. Being more specific, the pre-frontal cortex doesn't reach maturation until some time in your twenties. This is the last part of the brain to have evolved; it's the last part of the brain to mature. For our purposes, what's important to know about the pre-frontal cortext is that this is the part of the brain that thinks about time, probability, and uncertainty."

Enough said. And a H/T @raluca3000 for digging the article up...

PS: I have no idea who the Girls are, but they look like something of a horror flick, where a bunch of giggly cheerleaders are about to be terrorised by a crazed alien that emerges from their mom's smile...


With alien worlds, then, here's a tale of a speedy demon: basically, someone digging through old data from that relic of the technology past that keeps on ticking - the Hubble Telescope - has spotted a little dot - a new Moon of Neptune. Quote d'resistance: “This is a moon that never sits still long enough to get its picture taken”. The thing flies around at a speed of ca 16,174 miles per hour. 

Staying with the theme of speed: ArsTechnica reports about the black hole that sucks gases at a speed of 10 million kmph or 6.21 million mph or 384 times faster than the Neptune's newest moon moves at. For those old enough to remember Ross Perot (no, not Hercule Poirot) can certainly see now where his famous reference about the 'giant sucking sound from the South' coined 21 years ago has some tangible traction... No, not in Texas, yet...

Shifting the gears from pure science (no, not Ross) to a grey area between science and arts: amasing visualisation of numbers properties: here is visualisation of π, φ and e: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/pi/art/

impressive visualisation h/t to Brian O' Hanlon and his comment to last week's WLASze. 

And while on the topic: progression and transition for the first 2,000 digits of e:

I have always argued that:

1. Mathematics is a part of Art,
2. Art is the most powerful tool of inquiry available to the (wo)mankind, and
3. Physical sciences (beyond theory) can only aspire to possess the power of Art

Need more evidence? The above was a trip from math to art. Now, from art to math by Roman Opalka:

Moving on from the methodologised (or theorised) madness of subtle beauty, but staying with the boundary between art and science theme, here's an interesting post on the evolution of typography and design in scientific publishing. Here's an oldest (albeit not the best designed) academic journal:

Although the French as usual claim the whole thing to be their own invention (they beat the Brits to it by 3 months) with this

Thankfully, we don't have to fight this one, though the French design definitely beats the UK dysfunctional plain-face approach to jumbling together a page of text made up of some 10 fonts and about as many font sizes... 

More on history, this time - a new discovery from the Mayan civilisation. The discovery relates the tales of political battles that raged in the Dark Period (dark because we know little about it, although the entire Mayan civilisation was not exactly 'light' when it came to ethics, but...). This dates back to AD 550-560s, as my reading of the article suggests and gives us the names of two kings we didn't know about... Meanwhile in Europe Justinian's boys smuggle contraband silkworms from Asia and Black Death is all the rage across the continent... Also, rather not very light-filled years...

Silkworm was smuggled from China back in AD 553. In return, we brought Chinese art back into the fold of 'thinking art' (away from pure propaganda utilitarianism) ca AD 1980s (yep, it took that long and even as late as 1989, the Chinese Communist Party was not too keen on modern art, especially when the bosses shut down the first modern art exhibition held in China in February 1989). But as with silkworm taking hold in Europe, it will take time for art to take hold in China, although the country art scene has been hugely dynamic and original. The reason for it is that we are now into the early stages of the second generation of Chinese (resident) artists that have any capacity to think beyond the constraints of the limited vocabulary and philosophy of Communist art (Socialist Realism). 

To see this, go no further than this example of a superb online flip book of contemporary Chinese artists in Paris: http://flipbook.kohn.fr/private-sale_chine-a-paris/ Much of this is 'soft' - excitingly interesting for its novelty and naivety factors, but conceptually and artistically boring. Take numbers 10 and 11 - iconoclasm does not work in Western art context. 

Not since we broke the taboos of strictly dogmatic interpretation of the subject of art as drivers of form - the school of thought that dominated pre-Rinascimento and then occasionally re-floated under various political regimes throughout the ages, including in the 1930s-40s in fascist states and subsequently in the Warsaw Pact (plus Yugoslavia and Albania). Stuff like the above is now mostly kitsch, unless it has a historical (as opposed to artistic) value. Don't tell the fans of late (post-abstract minimalist) works of Jeff Koons:

Efforts at abstract art as well as reinterpreted traditionalist expressions represented in the e-book on Chinese art in Paris remind me of the period in Russian art around 1988-1998 when Russian artists raced to catch up with the Western vocabulary, philosophy, composition and theory, and semiotics. This process in Russian art is now exhausted, largely, although the market for Russian art still shows strong interest in that expressionist nostalgia for preservation of any departure from the past norm, even if that departure relies on the very same norm for juxtaposition-defined raison d'etre.

The entire book left me in a strange state: I would not want to hold a single work in my collection, but I would not be averse to holding many works, were I to end up with them in my collection… Strange? Try not to think too hard… the e-book is lovely... just lovely... just...

Stay tuned for Part 3 of WLASze coming up later tonight.

13/7/2013: WLASze Part 1: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and Zero Economics

This is Part 1 of my regular WLASze: Weekend Links on Art, Sciences and zero economics. Enjoy!


"Nostalgia had been considered a disorder ever since the term was coined by a 17th-century Swiss physician who attributed soldiers’ mental and physical maladies to their longing to return home — nostos in Greek, and the accompanying pain, algos." Todays view: "Nostalgia does have its painful side — it’s a bittersweet emotion — but the net effect is to make life seem more meaningful and death less frightening." A fascinating article from NYT on research into the role nostalgia plays in our lives:

As Derek Walcott said:
"Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched
roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church
above a bleached village.  The gap between the driver  
and me increased when he said:
                          “The place changing, eh?”
where an old rumshop had gone, but not that river
with its clogged shadows. That would make me a stranger.  
“All to the good,” he said. I said, “All to the good,”
then, “whoever they are,” to myself. I caught his eyes  
in the mirror. We were climbing out of Micoud.  
Hadn’t I made their poverty my paradise?"

The whole poem is linked here. Keep an eye on that space/time/art/nostalgia continuum in links below.


I mentioned John Baldessari in last weekend's post and here's Baldessari in a conversation with Ed Ruscha dealing with works by another modern art's great: Richard Artschwager. Classic RArt: Destruction IV, 1972 — Acrylic on celotex 40x48in

Something less art-theoretic and more design-tied: a fascinating video from the relic of the past that keeps (nostalgia-helping)a firm footing in the present: it's Morgan carmakers' tour through their factor. I am not kidding you - this video is fascinating: they build things like this:

From design to science policy (though scientific precision does not exactly match Morgan's image and output, inspiration is similar). Aiming for the Big Thing, two US lawmakers decided to stake some territory on the Moon and called on the US Federalistas to "establish a US national park about 240,000 miles outside of America’s borders". Nothing outlandish there - the US planted a flag on the moon and can have territorial claim to some of it, presumably. I am sure Russians will support this, since their rovers covered more of the lunar surface and have laid a claim to bit of it too. Which begs a question: if the Federalists in Washington do create a 'park' on the moon, how soon will Gasprom be drilling for lunar gas in the vicinity of the American National Park?


For the time being, Lunar Park of the 'nostalgic future' (not to be confused with Luna Parks of the 'nostalgic past') is a matter of dreams for some over-enthusiastic congresswomen. Which means we can safely look into the past and imagineer from its artefacts the world of art we never knew (or cared to know). Archeology is a derivative of nostalgia (not uniquely of it, but nonetheless containing it): a fascinating find from China.

Mostly, we agree (for now) that true writing of language, beyond the system of counting things or simply marking things with a representative symbol, was invented independently from each other in at least two civilisations: Mesopotamia's Sumer ca 3400 BCE and Mesoamerica's Olmec or Zapotec around 600 BCE (put simply in colloquial Americana terms - very old Mexicans). Two other civilisations claim independent invention of writing: Egypt ca 3200 BCE and China ca 3600 BCE. Egyptian claim is a challenge to Sumer's claim. Meanwhile India is pushing for its own claim to fame on this, with Indus script from the Bronze Age ca 2200 BCE. The issue of dating the formation of languages arises because we generally have to distinguish symbolic scribbling - denoting some concepts, but not a full system of written language - from genuine fully symbolic and structured writing. This is the reason why there is a debate about whether earlier Mesopotamian symbolic records, dating to 5000 BCE are form of writing or not. And the same debate is going to apply to the Chinese finds described in the link above. Nonetheless, the latest find does support the idea of independent writing formation in China and at around the time when the first writing appeared or started forming in another part of the globe.


But enough of stuff old and physically proximate. Let's get out far away into Space. The five facts about the black holes can be scary, their size (so big that you can just fatalistically utter: 'who cares' should one be formed next to our solar system), their theoretical omnipresence (the Schwatzschild radius principle), their power (somehow, being ripped apart by a black hole seems more pleasant that being ripped apart by a Spanish bull), they trap and loop light (and fold space into a perfectly closed loop) at the photon sphere, and they can bend time. But… just think - all the energy they trap can provide infinite supply of non-fossil fuels powered electrical bulbs the Greens dream about… And thus, expect an Intergalactic Centre of Excellence in Offshore Black Holes Energy Harvesting to be formed in Drogheda, around 2113, just about in time for the Chinese to become official Irish language Number 3.


While out in space, but closer to our planet, picture of the week:

Iapetus is the third largest moon of Saturn discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1671. You can see Cassini Spacecraft images in raw colours here.


Staying in space for the next story: "Astronomers used the ageing Hubble space telescope to determine the true colour of the distant world, the first time such a feat has been achieved for a planet that circles a star other than the sun." The beast is ugly behind its visual beauty: "Unlike the pale blue dot that harbours all known life in the cosmos, the "deep blue dot" is an inhospitable gas giant that lies 63 light years from Earth. On HD189733b, as the planet is named, the temperature soars to 1,000C and glassy hail whips through the air on hypersonic winds."

I am sure folks from The Guardian will blame lack of planning on hostility of the HD189733b environment, calling for more strict Space Development guidelines and better integration between Spacial designs, social inhabitability and environmental sustainability in future discoveries.


Of course, social concepts lend themselves to serious discussions. Here's a great example of the battle ranging in philosophy of science for ages: what implies causality and whether correlation is that. Very insightful and well written. Of course, in economics, we know - causality is whatever your heart desires...


Sometimes our hearts desire that which makes no sense in the world we inhabit. And in the modern age of ageing populations and immovable object-like human existence, this happens more often and with more violent outcomes. Seeing and experiencing nature requires technological contortions of immensely innovative kind in the society where we focus on minimising effort in attaining everything. Behold the latest exemplification of the absurd: a walk bridge 'out' into the Grand Canyon. The point the idea is missing is that Grand Canyon is not to be seen by human as a bird might see it. Instead, it is supposed to be experienced as human can experience it - through physical exhaustion of hiking down or climbing down its walls. Believe me - I've done it twice and it is arduous. But because is is arduous, it is awe-inspiring. And no amount of walking on a fancy platform, near-fainting from the illusion of vast space beneath you can ever replicate the feeling of standing - at the end of the day-long hike - waste-deep in the Colorado River and raising you head to look where you came from.


Not all human world is senseless and not all senselessness is ugly. Even the more poignant examples of ugliness contain elements of beauty. Stunning imagery from one of the best currently active photographers, Michael Wolf, proves the point. My favourite:

Stay tuned for more WLASze links Part 2 later today.