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[rubbd] Tuur van Balen – Hacking Yoghurt

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:00:23 GMT

Click here to view the embedded video.

While most people think biotechnology is complex, expensive and exclusively practiced in fancy lab settings, designer Tuur van Balen argues it is actually quite accessible. He demonstrates his vision on DIY biotechnology by creating an ‘anti-depressant yoghurt’ on stage.

[rubbd] and then perhaps I should start writing about what I am doing, begin a conceptual staging of my web project, let me know if you would like to read about it here. Until I hear from you, dear visitor, some gleanings, scratchings, fork&plate

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:29:46 GMT

‘Style,’ said Evelyn Waugh, ‘is not just avoiding the cliché. It’s avoiding the place where you can feel the cliché is being avoided.’

- in David Hare, Obedience, Struggle & Revolt, Faber and Faber, London, 2005, p. 140

By engagement, I mean not so much an exposition, or a critique, or both, but a path that cuts across these texts, a thought that attempts to find its way through them. Needless to say, this approach might be seen as involving a certain degree of violence. Yet this may well amount to nothing other than the irreducible degree of violence involved in the work of interpretation, which remains the sole form of fidelity toward what is most thought provoking.

- Miguel de Beistegui, Truth and genesis : philosophy as differential ontology, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2004, p. 16

I once with, with Howard Brenton, wrote a play called Pravda, about a mad South African newspaper owner played by Anthony Hopkins as a kind of maquette for his subsequent Hannibal Lecter. Anxious lest our fictional proprietor be confused with a conspicuous real-life Australian, the Board of the nervous National Theatre insisted that we consult a QC. ‘Well,’ said this highly intelligent man, ‘as far as I can see, your play portrays a megalomaniac psychopath who drags his newspapers downmarket, who has no concern for editorial standards, who has no sexual pleasure except in public humiliation and violent dismissal of his staff, and whose only real interest is in the accumulation of a massive, unscrupulous and anti-social fortune for himself. If Rupert Murdoch really wants to step forward and identify himself as the hero of the play, then my advice would be: let him.’

In fact, Murdoch’s response to the play was characteristic. In Pravda, our Lambert le Roux adopts British citizenship specifically in order to be able to own British newspapers. Please not, six months after our opening night Murdoch decided to become an American, protesting that, like Lambert, he went through ‘the normal channels, albeit at unusual speed.’ Murdoch effectively treated our play not as a work of art, but as an inspirational business plan. Is Murdoch the only man on earth who could actually asset-strip a satire?

- David Hare, Obedience, Struggle & Revolt, Faber and Faber, London, 2005, pp. 127-8

if metaphysics, as a metaphysics of the ground, and of subjectivity – of subjectivity as constituting the very ground for the objectivity of objectal nature – is no longer possible, if philosophy can no longer turn to subjectivity as the transcendental site revealing the conditions of possibility of experience, and of beings as such and as a whole as a realm of objects, can it not undergo a transformation and reinvent itself, precisely out of this “crisis” of foundation? Can we not think the future of metaphysics, and the possibility of ontology, out of this very event, the event of un-grounding? And so, before proceeding with the rites of burial of philosophy, before declaring its death irreversible, and its new life as science – and, once again, that which, in the current institutional, professional, and cultural landscape, seems to testify to the good health of philosophy, in my mind only confirms the diagnosis I have just formulated – let us at least consider the possibility of a philosophy which, neither metaphysics in the sense of grounding, nor philosophy of science, nonetheless remains in relation to science, at once absolutely different from it and coextensive with it. What sort of relation would that be?

It is a relation born of this “crisis” of foundation. Yet because it is a relation, it does not coincide simply with a collapsing, whether understood as total collapse, or as a collapsing of the one (philosophy) into the other (science). Neither grounding (fondement) nor collapsing (effondrement), it is a relation of what, following Deleuze, we shall call an un-grounding (effondement). This concept is indicative of a twofold gesture, of a double possibility: the possibility of situating philosophy in relation to science anew, first of all; and, in close connection with this first possibility, the possibility of reasserting philosophy as ontology on the basis of a distinction in being between the actual, or the empirical (and the science it enables), and the virtual or transcendental horizon (which philosophy brings out) from which the former unfolds.

…

the transcendental no longer refers back to a transcendental subjectivity, but to the real as such. In effect, the transcendental no longer designates the conditions of possibility of (subjective) experience, nor the conditions of possibility of phenomena themselves. It now designates their real conditions of existence and is concerned with their actual generation and production.

…

The transcendental is therefore a dimension of the real itself.

- Miguel de Beistegui, Truth and genesis : philosophy as differential ontology, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2004, pp. 21-2

[rubbd] there you see I would go so far as to say that the web project I am engaged with reads with love, reads you, read …

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:13:51 GMT

“There are, you see, two ways of reading a book: you either see it as a box with something inside and start looking for what it signifies, and then if you’re even more perverse or depraved you set off after signifiers. And you treat the next book like a box contained in the first or containing it. And you annotate and interpret and question, and write a book about the book, and so on and on. Or there’s the other way: you see the book as a little non-signifying machine, and the only question is “Does it work, and how does it work?” How does it work for you? If it doesn’t work, if nothing comes through, you try another book. This second way of reading’s intensive: something comes through or it doesn’t. There’s nothing to explain, nothing to understand, nothing to interpret. It’s like plugging in to an electric circuit…This second way of reading’s quite different from the first, because it relates a book directly to what’s Outside. A book is a little cog in much more complicated external machinery… This intensive way of reading, in contact with what’s outside the book, as a flow meeting other flows, one machine among others, as a series of experiments for each reader in the midst of events that have nothing to do with books, as tearing the book into pieces, getting it to interact with other things, absolutely anything. . . is reading with love.”

- Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, quoted here

[rubbd] ideas of novelty & privacy – which I cite because they speak to my web project which I have not really spoken of here about which feel free to contact me, yours affectionately

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:11:14 GMT

“First you have to know how to admire; you have to rediscover the problems he poses, his particular machinery. It is through admiration that you will come to genuine critique… You have to work your way back to those problems which an author of genius has posed, all the way back to that which he does not say in what he says, in order to extract something that still belongs to him, though you also turn it against him. You have to be inspired, visited by the geniuses you denounce… In every modernity and every novelty, you find conformity and creativity; an insipid conformity, but also “a little new music”; something in conformity with the time, but also something untimely —separating the one from the other is the task of those who know how to love, the real destroyers and creators of our day. Good destruction requires love… You have to be able to love the insignificant, to love what goes beyond persons and individuals; you have to open yourself to encounters and find a language in the singularities that exceed individuals, a language in the individuations that exceed persons” (DI, 139-140).

- Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands, quoted here

“We are uncovering a world of pre-individual, impersonal singularities. They are not reducible to individuals or persons, nor to a sea without difference. These singularities are mobile, they break in, thieving and stealing away, alternating back and forth, like anarchy crowned, inhabiting a nomad space. There is a big difference between partitioning a fixed space among sedentary individuals according to boundaries or enclosures, and distributing singularities in an open space without enclosures or properties. The poet Ferlinghetti talks about the fourth person singular: it is that to which we try to give voice… Philosophers often have a difficult time with the history of philosophy; it’s horrible, it’s not easy to put behind you. Perhaps a good way of dealing with the problem is to substitute a kind of staging for it. Staging means that the written text is going to be illuminated by other values, non-textual values (at least in the ordinary sense): it is indeed possible to substitute for the history of philosophy a theatre of philosophy… Precisely, by virtue of those criteria of staging or collage, it seems admissible to extract from a philosophy considered conservative as a whole those singularities which are not really conservative: that is what I did for Bergsonism and its image of life, its image of liberty or mental illness.” (DI, 142-144).

- Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands, quoted here

[rubbd] Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Message

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:36:51 GMT

Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Message

[rubbd] Evolution is Blind

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:53:04 GMT

…thus it walks into a lot of dead alleys. Peculiar image of the week.

[rubbd] Raise Crops on the Moon with Plant-Growing Jelly

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:09 GMT

In dry areas like the desert, on mountain tops or on the moon it’s impossible to grow anything. Or is it? A rain in the desert sparks extreme plant growth from the moment the raindrops hit the ground. As long as the ground is irrigated and fertilized, plants will grow during the warm periods of the day. For some regions, the nights are another challenge. In the desert, temperatures drop drastically at night. For farmers, its a big challenge to keep the soil “livable” for plants, and to cope with the drastic temperature differences between day and night. Money is another problem. There needs to be a stable environment for plants to grow in, at low costs. That’s what the Plant-Growing Jelly project seeks to solve.

Conceived of by industrial design students Ruud van Reijmersdal, Tom Slijkhuis, Joppe Spaans and Jeroen Rood, this speculative project consists of a gel which serves as an ideal growing environment for food crops. The gel contains all the vital nutrients for a plant to grow, and insulates it from extremes of temperatures. Isolated the plant from the outside world could enable plants to grow anywhere, even on the moon. This enriched environment would attractive for mass-production, as fruits and vegetables could grow faster, earlier, and take up less space than traditional methods.

Want to learn more about the inspiration and specifics for this project? Read the project report.

[rubbd] Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens: some gorgeous Russian mermaids in honour of it being on the 7th of February 1812

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:36:25 GMT

[rubbd] Essay: Time Between Emergence and Design

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:11:24 GMT

Previously, experiences of time emerged from nature as given – offering seasons, the rhythm of humans, plants and animals. Nowadays, people integrate nature-time, body-time, inner-time, clock-time, and global 24/7 systems-time. Human beings, in past, current and next natures, have to deal with emergence and design of time in order to survive.

By CAROLINE NEVEJAN

To think about how future new worlds are visualized, assumes that these images reveal how life in decades to come will be shaped. These visualizations offer insight into today’s imagination of next natures and next cultures to come. However, in these visualizations ‘time’ as a process of emergence and design, is often forgotten. This essay argues that time design is distinct in any next nature that will emerge.

Witnessing Spatiotemporal Trajectories

At the end of his life, American philosopher Thomas Kuhn1 concluded that in communities of practice human beings’ need to recognize other beings’ spatiotemporal trajectories to be able to share concepts and thereby develop language. In this statement he suggests that without understanding other beings’ movements through time and space no communication will be possible. This statement challenges today’s experience of global systems-time of millions of people who manage to communicate with people they do not know or see in the online world. Nevertheless in today’s experience the feeling of having ‘no time’ has become a common good. Reaching out to anyone anywhere seems to generate ‘no time’ as a result. Will human beings be able to overcome the loss of sharing spatiotemporal trajectories and share concepts in next natures to come? What time design requirements would be needed to facilitate a time design that will foster the emergence of communication and possible new language as well?

In the past 15 years systems-time has invaded and restructured many professional practices the world over and people have developed a variety of time designs to make the 24/7 economy work for them. Without formulating it as such, a widespread knowledge and experience of time design has emerged in businesses, organizations and personal practices too. In current interdisciplinary research at the Delft Technical University, four features have surfaced as being crucial in time design for human beings involved: integrating rhythm, synchronizing performance, moments to signify and duration of engagement. Hereunder these four dimensions are outlined with the awareness that more research in any of these will benefit future time design.

Integrating Rhythms

When working in distributed teams, organizing a shared rhythm is crucial for keeping communication and business processes in flow (2). Simple things, like one well-structured online meeting a week, generate trust and well being for all involved. When working in different time zones, adaptation to others at the expense of personal time has to be taken into account. In small businesses people benefit from the fact that distributed work on a day-to-day basis facilitates personal life styles for those involved. Finding the ultimate rhythm between people’s personal time given the work that has to be done, is crucial for success. Global 24/7 systems-time has expanded human experience of time fundamentally. It offers immediate connections to other places anywhere facilitating interaction and transaction anytime and affects social structures of finance, law, business and family life profoundly. Human beings, through a methodology of trial and error, find solutions to integrate different rhythms they are confronted with. Different kinds of time merge necessarily in personal, social and collective experience of time: nature-time, body-time, inner-time, clock-time and systems-time.

Human beings have to deal with emergence and design of time in order to survive.

Nature-time has a huge diversity of scale in time designs. Long eras and short time spans, stretched rhythms and instant events are deeply interwoven. This is the environment in which human presence exists. Human bodies can only exist in one place and therefore human beings have partial perspective on nature-time as a whole. Human biological existence, the holder of body-time, is dependent on rhythms like day and night, heartbeat and breath. Human existence also contains a sense of psychological inner-time, which has hardly been investigated and yet underlies processes of growth and transformation and defines how social situations and events are perceived (3).

Many centuries ago clock-time was introduced to mechanically structure shared social time. In the variety of clock-times, nature-time was integrated. Whether the clock was made by use of the sun, by smaller and smaller radars or by digits in contemporary design; clocks made it possible to socially anticipate what will happen next. Clock-time always offers a local perspective on time because it is fundamentally connected to a specific region or place. Places are defined by nature-time offering seasons, climates and specific ecological systems that characterize a place. Clock-time and nature-time are integrated in local agendas take that into account the context in which the human body survives.

Integrating rhythm is part of any next nature that will emerge

Today’s systems-time, based on algorithms operating on a global scale, is changing the planetary landscape profoundly. Where before systems were built on principles of mandate and delegation, systems have become participants in communities of people in their own right (4). Systems need clock-time to synchronize, but they are detached from nature-time. Like climate and weather, systems-time can also only be known through partial perspective, but unlike climate and weather, human beings can communicate in systems-time and many millions do so everyday. Above all the use and impact of systems-time is its immediacy. Human beings can travel to expand their experience and mental map of the place they live. Systems-time offers an expansion of connection in an instant, any place anytime. It fosters the experience of being in one place while bodies involved reside in different places. Just as nature-time profoundly challenges human existence, so does systems-time.

Nature-, body-, inner- and clock- time offer rhythms that are shared and structure social life. Rhythms cannot not integrate (5). Over several centuries humankind developed a conscious integration of rhythms, inventing work hours, school hours, lunch breaks, agendas, holidays and more. Systems-time is challenging the integration of rhythms, since it does not seem to have a rhythm of its own. In day-to-day experience individuals integrate systems-time to their benefit, but for organizations this is more problematic. Research into beneficial systems-time design has not been taken up yet. Integrating rhythm is part of any next nature that will emerge, even though it is not clear which rhythm will dominate human life in the end. Human beings need to recognize and integrate rhythms to survive: nature-time, body-time, clock-time, inner-time. Especially systems-time, which gains importance day by day, is hard for human beings to recognize even though systems participate in human society more and more.

Synchronizing Performance

In seeking well-being and survival human presence judges and anticipates what will come next. In meeting a new person there is a moment when the encounter starts. Bodies reach out through perception and from the first instance a careful tuning of presence emerges. Lots of tacit knowledge is exchanged in such moments of exploring doubt and hesitation. Granular perception offers instant negotiation resulting in synchronizing the performance of presence to establish common ground upon which interaction may proceed.

The tuning of body rhythms in this process is profound; already a piece of glass between two people sitting at the same table breaks synaesthesia between them (5). Sensory perceptions, simple emotions and more complex feelings influence processes of synchronization fundamentally. To facilitate synchronization social structures have invented gestures of encounter. The handshake is such an example. Body language is distinct in these moments; the possible recognizing of each other’s spatiotemporal trajectories is at stake.

Mediating granular perception is complex. Collaborating distributed teams cannot communicate a simple phenomenon like color, for example (6). Nevertheless, human beings do synchronize in mediated communication in the variety of media they use. In a phone call – where bodies are not present but the voice is – this negotiation happens through a switch between talking at the same time and silences that are just too long before conversation continues smoothly. SMSes need to arrive just in time and so on. On the Internet, digital handshakes have the character of ‘pitching one’s presence’ after a period of investigating an online environment (7).

And even during participation, the process of synchronization is continuously ongoing in social networks and mailing lists because community members correct each other all the time to protect the ‘tone of voice’ they have agreed upon. When not sharing physical interaction people synchronize through engagement in time, through pitching and judging performance, through social control. Synchronization of performance of presence will remain a feature as long as human beings want to interact in any next nature that may emerge. Synchronization between human beings and animals, ecosystems and larger technology systems is indispensable for interaction to take place.

Moments to Signify

Part of human existence is that meaning and signification are continuously generated in personal lives and in social structures that emerge through time. Emphasizing specific moments of transformation, of passage of time, highlights the process of time. It helps people to deal with time. Human societies have invented rituals and celebrations for specific moments in time through which meaning emerges for those involved.

Just as nature-time profoundly challenges human existence, so does systems-time.

In personal lives signifying moments play an important role. Be it a private experience of becoming aware, or a collective celebration in which one partakes, these signifying moments produce identity and are fundamental for cultures to survive. Through orchestrating signifying moments, shared experience emerges and offers participants a perspective on their individual position in context of the biological, ecological, technological or social whole. In offering a perspective, it also produces this perspective, which is how cultures emerge and design at the same time. Creating ‘moments to signify’ is needed to create commitment for those involved (8) People need to share experience for ideas to become sustainable and materialize in the real world.

Special signifying moments offer unanticipated impact. In situations of trauma and tragedy the human mind accelerates. When bearing witness to moments of trauma, human beings dramatize to communicate impact (9). In these traumatic ‘imaginative’ moments inner-time dominates perception. Stories of trauma may even include perceptions of experiences that never took place. However, they reveal an inner experience of impact that needs to be signified to be able to communicate. Signifying moments are necessary for meaning to emerge. Offering a shared experience and/or offering an intense personal experience, they are fundamental for cultures to sustain. Any next nature that includes human life will be faced with the human need to signify. Moments to share the process of signification can be designed or will emerge. In these moments human inner time interacts deeply with surrounding rhythms and shapes culture.

Duration of Engagement

One’s short-lived presence on Facebook can be as authentic as a real-life land ownership spanning 80 years (10). Where authenticity used to be a property of being in one place for long stretches of time, in today’s world this notion is replaced by being engaged in an activity for specific durations of time. Duration of engagement qualifies participation, validates contributions and therefore deeply influences human lives. Consequentially, it is not enough to be just present any more. Individuals need to prove existence by constantly transacting (7). The formulation of ‘duration of engagement’ stresses the fact that there is a beginning and an end to activity. From simple time designs to more complex situations in which time emerges, people have to adapt to beginnings and endings continuously, just as birth and death are fundamental to human existence.

For human beings the transformation between the start and end of engagement is crucial to their well-being because it generates ‘empty time’ in between. In empty time, whether one is bored or not, feelings, emotions and a different thinking surface and human presence emerges. When such empty time is not granted, as in the Global Service Delivery model in the outsourcing industry in India in which people are monitored 24 hours a day, human beings’ well-being is seriously jeopardized (11). To generate empty time, robust structures of time design are needed (12). Only in moments of empty time can people experience the situation they are in and act on their well-being.

Communities of Practice

When accepting the proposition that recognizing spatiotemporal trajectories of other beings is fundamental to the ability to share concepts and develop language, any next nature that includes human presence will have to facilitate this recognition. In current nature, systems-time is especially challenging to the human mind. Its scale and speed can only be partially perceived and it does not seem to have a rhythm of its own. Human beings find solutions to integrate it anyway, but it is not a given that people will be endlessly capable of doing this. If next nature includes human presence it has to take into account that human beings integrate their own rhythm with the environment, synchronize performance of presence to be able to communicate and create moments to signify. Thus meaning emerges. Meaning in turn needs specific durations of engagement, with a beginning and an end, and has to include empty time to sustain human well-being and survival.

In the tension between emergence and design, human presence in past, current and next natures is shaped. The experience of time influences the experience of place, how we relate to each other and our scope of possible actions. Any next nature will also be defined by its time design in which integrating rhythm, synchronizing performance, moments to signify and duration of engagement will define how human beings will be able to create communities of practice in which concepts, language, social structures and cultures will emerge.

Photo from Curious Expeditions on Flickr.

REFERENCES

1. KUHN, THOMAS S. 2000. THE ROAD SINCE STRUCTURE, PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS, 1970–1993, WITH AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTERVIEW, EDS. JAMES CONANT AND JOHN HAUGELAND. CHICAGO: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS.

2 WILSON, REBEKAH. 2008. WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING, INTERVIEWS BY CAROLINE NEVEJAN CONDUCTED IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND POLICY, TU DELFT & NL NET). HTTP://WWW.

SYSTEMSDESIGN.TBM.TUDELFT.NL/WITNESS/INTERVIEWS/RW/INTERVIEW-RW.HTML (ACCESSED 21-06-2010)

3 OLIVER, KELLY. 2001. WITNESSING, BEYOND RECOGNITION. MINNEAPOLIS/LONDON: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS.

4 BRAZIER, F. & VEER, G.VAN DER. 2009. “INTERACTIVE DISTRIBUTED AND NETWORKED AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS: DELEGATION PARTICIPATION”. WORKSHOP PAPER ACCEPTED BY THE WORKSHOP HUMAN INTERACTION WITH INTELLIGENT & NETWORKED SYSTEMS, ORGANIZED BY THE 2009 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT USER INTERFACES, SANIBEL ISLAND, FLORIDA. (HTTP://WWW.IIDS.ORG)

5 KUMAR, SIRISH. PERFORMANCE AND THE FUTURE OF BROADCAST MEDIA LAB, PERFORMING ARTS LABS, UK. HTTP://WWW.PALLABS.ORG/PORTFOLIO/TIMELINE/MAY_2001_PERFORMANCE_AND_THE_FUTURE_OF_BROADCAST_MEDIA_LAB/ (ACCESSED 21 JUNE 2010)

6 GILL, S.T., KAWAMORI M. KATAGIRI W, SHIMOGIMA A. 2000. “THE ROLE OF BODY MOVES IN DIALOGUE”. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION (RASK), VOLUME 12 PAGES 89-114.

7 ABRAHAM, SUNIL. 2008. WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING, INTERVIEWS BY CAROLINE NEVEJAN CONDUCTED IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND POLICY, TU DELFT & NL NET). HTTP://WWW.SYSTEMSDESIGN.TBM.TUDELFT.NL/WITNESS/INTERVIEWS/SA/INTERVIEW-SA.HTML (ACCESSED 21-06-2010)

8 SOLOMON, DEBRA. 2009. COLLABORATING IN A COMMUNITY: ARTWORK DEVELOPED IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (FACULTY TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND POLICY, TU DELFT & THE NETHERLANDS FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE). HTTP://WITNESS.BEING-HERE.NET/PAGE/2112/EN (ACCESSED 21-06-2010)

9 OPHUIS, RONALD. 2009. METHODS FOR PAINTING. ARTWORK DEVELOPED IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND POLICY, TU DELFT & THE NETHERLANDS FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE). HTTP://WITNESS.BEING-HERE.NET/PAGE/2110/EN (ACCESSED 21 JUNE 2010).

10 HAZRA, ABHISHEK. 2008. WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING, INTERVIEWS BY CAROLINE NEVEJAN CONDUCTED IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (FACULTY TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND POLICY, TU DELFT & NL NET). HTTP://WWW.SYSTEMSDESIGN.TBM.TUDELFT.NL/WITNESS/INTERVIEWS/AH/INTERVIEW-AH.HTML (ACCESSED 21-06-2010)

11 ILAVARASAN, P.VIGNESWARA. 2008. “SOFTWARE WORK IN INDIA: A LABOUR PROCESS VIEW”. AN OUTPOST OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, WORK AND WORKERS IN INDIA’S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY, EDS. CAROL UPADHYA AND A.R.VASAVI. NEW DELHI: ROUTLEDGE.

12 FEIGL ZORO. 2009. MOVEMENT THROUGH TIME. ARTWORK DEVELOPED IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WITNESSED PRESENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND POLICY, TU DELFT & THE NETHERLANDS FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE)

[rubbd] MASHUP (DUBSTEP) - Strange Girls - Beastie Boys vs Hektagon - illpropaganda

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:47:13 GMT

MASHUP (DUBSTEP) - Strange Girls - Beastie Boys vs Hektagon - illpropaganda

[rubbd] #10: Enhance Human Experience, Don’t Replace it

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:06:42 GMT

Part 10 in the 11 part series Anthropomorphism and Design.

The hidden danger with interactive products is that they will become so good at fulfilling our needs that they start to replace actual humans. This is not a futuristic scenario: In an increasing number of locations, from supermarket self-scan checkouts to online bookstores, automatization has replaced human contact. Eventually this may lead to us becoming alienated from other people, which seems to contradict today’s rapidly increasing communication possibilities. Anthropomorphic products have the potential to support, stimulate and enhance human contact, but they may also eliminate it.

[rubbd] MASHUP - Lovegame With Evil Mind - illpropaganda

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:13:34 GMT

MASHUP - Lovegame With Evil Mind - illpropaganda

[rubbd] everything about our camping holiday in Pataua, Treasure Island – it looks like The Island of Nose – including sacks, eggs, gulls, one cat, a cemetery, tradition, the future, and a traditional welcome after the future

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:23:24 GMT

[rubbd] the shame of it, the shame of there being a grey area

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:41:53 GMT

American scientists from Princeton University have found out how much money do I need a man for happiness.

It turned out to achieve full satisfaction from life, you need to earn 75,000 dollars a year, which amounts to 6,250 dollars a month, or about 190 thousand rubles. In this case, the excess of the threshold income is no longer adds happiness, and more positive experiences of wealthy people relate purely to their personal characteristics.

- from here

“The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”
by Andrew Keen, Doubleday / Currency, 2007

[rubbd] Thijs Zonneveld – Let’s build a Mountain

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:53:46 GMT

Click here to view the embedded video.

“God created the world, except for the Netherlands. That the Dutch created themselves”, Voltaire remarked in the eighteenth century already to describe the overly cultivated Dutch landscape. But when the Dutch built the Netherlands, they forgot to add any mountains. Former cyclist and visionary Thijs Zonneveld was annoyed by the lack of cyclable heights and proposed to build a 2000-meter high mountain in the Netherlands. Ridiculous idea or summit of Dutch Design?

Unlike the earlier purely theoretical proposal by Jacob Tigges in Berlin, the people behind Die Berg Komt Er (That Mountain will be There) are taking their landscape-building mandate seriously. Their ‘mountain’ should really be understood as a very large building with all kinds of functions ranging from housing, to recreation, to sustainable energy source.

Watch the presentation Tijs gave at the Next Nature Power Show last fall. If you feel the Dutch Mountain should be realized you can buy a 50 euro certificate to support their feasibility research.

[rubbd] Ice Cream Cones Made from Ice Cream, and Other Wikicells

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:00:41 GMT

Plastic is a part of the earth’s ecosystem, but it’s a part that no one wants. At Harvard, scientists are looking to replace single-use plastic bottles, plates, and cups with packaging that not only biodegrades, but tastes great. These so-called Wikicells are made up of liquid or solid food contained within an organic membrane that’s held together by electrostatic forces – the same forces that cause cling wrap to cling. In the wonderful world of Wikicells, the wrap around a cut of in-vitro beef could contain the sauce, or an ice cream cone could be made from actual cream. If the scientists get it right, we may soon have an edible way to stop using plastic bags and bottles that take 500 to 1,000 years to degrade.

Photo via The Way We See the World.

[rubbd] Hybrid Hummer

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:34:32 GMT

Who knows after some future energy crisis, it becomes en vogue to use a horse to pull your horseless carriage. For now it is our peculiar image of the week. Created by Walter Robinson.

[rubbd] Bonobos (And Maybe Baboons) Domesticated Themselves

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:00:50 GMT

While evidence indicates that humans domesticated themselves, we’re not the only primates capable of self-domestication. Bonobos and baboons have shown they are just as capable of turning a kinder, gentler, and more cuddly culture into hardwired changes in their genomes.

Bonobos, aka the “sexy ape”, look a lot like chimpanzees and share the same forest habitat. It stands to reason that they should be similar in most other regards, but the two species are wildly different. On a physical level, bonobos have smaller skulls and canine teeth, but their greatest differences lie in the social realm. Bonobos are the laid-back lovers compared to the chimpanzee’s neurotic warmongers.

Bonobos spend more time playing and grooming than chimps. They have sex for just about any reason: so say hello, to solve conflicts, to celebrate finding food. A “bonobo handshake” is not how humans would want to start a business meeting. In the bonobo’s reduced physical stature and playful spirit, researchers have recently recognized the same changes that occurred when wolves became dogs, or when aurochs became cattle. But while dogs needed humans for domestication, bonobos have done it all on their own.

What distinguishes bonobos from their chimp cousins is food availability. Duke University anthropologist Brian Hare argues that bonobos have gorillas, or their absence, to thank for their peaceful lives. One million to two million years ago, the newly formed Congo River split the proto-bonobo-chimps into two populations. The northern population had to compete with gorillas for scarce food. This created an aggressive, scheming culture that eventually lead to Machiavellian lifestyle of the modern chimpanzee. The lucky southern population got to keep all the leaves and fruits to themselves. This abundance of resources lead to a culture of happy-go-lucky apes that, over the course of a million years, evolved into today’s bonobos.

If this process of speciation by culture seems far-fetched, a similar process has been underway for the last three decades in Kenya’s savannah. In 1983, an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis lead to a permanent change in the social structure of a troop of olive baboons. The dominant males in the so-called Forest Troop were the only baboons aggressive enough to venture to the trash heap of a tourist lodge and fight over scraps of meat tainted with tuberculosis. Every last one of the troop’s most aggressive members kneeled over dead from bad beef.

The survivors found themselves in something of a baboon utopia. Subordinate males and females were no longer subject to the violent moods and giant canines of the alphas. The Forest Troop spent more time grooming each other, and sat closer together when they were relaxing. The benefits extended all the way down to the most subordinate baboons, who showed significantly lowered levels of stress hormones.

This fascinating cultural shift has persisted for thirty years, even though aggressive, outsider males have continually moved into the troop. Though no active teaching takes place, the outsider males appear to learn the joys of non-violence all on their own, probably because females prefer to spend more time with companions that don’t bite.

As of now, there’s no evidence that the Forest Troop has changed genetically, or that it will persist given the pressure from other baboons. However, if the Forest Troop became geographically isolated, or if their culture could be transmitted to other troops, a million years or so might be sufficient to create a cuter, kinder monkey: the baboon version of the bonobo.

The case of the stress-free baboons may indicate that in the lack of savage competition for resources, highly social primates naturally gravitate towards what feels good. Maybe even early humans realized they’d rather spend their time talking, singing, and having recreational sex than ripping each other apart.

Photo by Lens Envy, LaggedOnUser, and Wikipedia.

[rubbd] Chuck D. Feat. Ambersunshower - War

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:18:40 GMT

Chuck D. Feat. Ambersunshower - War

[rubbd] #9: Be Aware of the Ecosystem You’re Invading

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:17:54 GMT

Part 9 in the 11 part series Anthropomorphism and Design.

With most products, one wouldn’t normally worry about the environment that it enters. However, anthropomorphic products inevitably elicit responses from others, even from non-human entities. This can have obvious advantages, for instance, when a human-shaped scarecrow frightens off the birds. But when daddy’s new toy frightens the children or the pets, there is a significant chance that it will end up on the attic. Bringing home an anthropomorphic product can be like introducing a new person into the household, which doesn’t always go as smoothly as the family might hope.

Image via I’m Not Obsessed.

[rubbd] Years

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:10:52 GMT

Good old analog technology, now even better than ever before. Artist Bartholomäus Traubeck created a hyper-nostalgic record player that, rather than making music from vintage vinyl records, uses slices of woods to generate sound.

The player analyses a tree’s year rings for their strength, thickness and rate of growth as input for a generative algorithm that outputs piano music. Watch the video to enjoy the sound of a tree and appreciate the beauty and variety of nature from a whole new unexpected perspective.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks Yuri Keukens.

[rubbd] Medicinal Blueberries

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:08:14 GMT

As our scientific knowledge of nutritious food increases, will healthy foods be progressively designed to look like medicines? This blueberry blister packaging created by Chinese designer Daizi Zheng certainly points in that direction.

Although utterly over-designed and unsustainably over-packaged, this might well be a product patients suffering from the healthy eating disease Orthorexia Nervosa would crave for.

[rubbd] MASHUP - illpropaganda's GREATEST MISSES 2

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:01:08 GMT

MASHUP - illpropaganda's GREATEST MISSES 2

[rubbd] Goats Replace Lawnmowers in San Francisco

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:00:37 GMT

They might not be as fast, but goats offer several advantages over diesel-powered lawnmowers. They’re quieter, they emit fewer greenhouse gases, and they fertilize soil as they go for no extra charge. They can easily climb slopes where mowers can’t reach, and can clear thick brush without the help of herbicides. City Grazing of San Francisco has capitalized on the benefits of goats, and leases out their 50-member herd for landscaping needs around the city.

These back-to-the basics of landscapers who replace mowers with goats, or farmers who replace tractors with horses, represent an unusual trajectory for the Hierarchy of Technology.* Technologies normally become accepted and widely-used before they are superseded by new technologies and sink out of sight. Except for meat production, livestock has largely lost out to machinery in industrialized settings. In a time where oil was cheap and global warming unknown, goats and horses were clearly obsolete. But in other contexts – greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion, cuteness – it becomes clear that old-fashioned, four-legged technologies can become cutting-edge a second time.

*For more about the Maslow-style Hierarchy of Technology, get your hooves on a copy of the Next Nature book.

[rubbd] PausaManzothaBEEF vs illpropaganda - I'm Funk To The Bone!

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:04:21 GMT

PausaManzothaBEEF vs illpropaganda - I'm Funk To The Bone!

[rubbd] the new

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:28:32 GMT

[rubbd] link

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:49:24 GMT

[rubbd] third-party tender now available to satisfy “the desire of the US government to watch everyone”

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:48:18 GMT

agents need to “locate bad actors…and analyze their movements, vulnerabilities, limitations, and possible adverse actions”

(by conducting, [sic] trend, pattern, association, and timeline analysis)”

[rubbd] Mark Post – Meet the New Meat

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:43:37 GMT

Click here to view the embedded video.

As we are moving towards 9 billion people living on our planet, it seems impossible to continue producing & consuming meat like we do today. Will we soon all be eating rice and beans? Perhaps. Yet professor Mark Post thinks otherwise.

At the Next Nature Power Show, Mark Post presented his plan to create the first lab-grown hamburger. He argues lab-grown meat could become the environmentally friendly alternative for breeding cows and pigs for meat consumption. It is relatively simple to take stem cells from an animal and grow them to produce new muscle tissue. Simply add sugar, proteins and fat and get it into shape with a bit of exercise to created edible meat. The only problem then is to find a new role for our livestock.

[rubbd] designed to exude information slowly

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:33:10 GMT

there are people who can’t afford to hate.

the damned.

- Jim Sanborn: The Archeological record offers us a frustratingly fragmented view of the past. Though fragmentary, this archeoview is pregnant with secrets yet to be discovered and is thrilling in its potential. Secrecy is power even if it is just a little something kept from view, buried, so to speak, in the matrix of everyday life.

For the past 30 years, my task as an artist has been to release this hidden information at a rate commensurate with its importance, and at the time of my choosing so as to prolong the experience of discovery. As we all know, artwork that gives up its form or content quickly is soon forgotten.

[rubbd] Occupy is it Revolutionary Subjection or Still Life?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:24:56 GMT

[rubbd] lynching, piracy, decapitation, abject media = subjection … and excerpts from Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:41:52 GMT

this is an ad for lynching

occupy lynching?

while nearby: piracy -

while art means action now

and action means decapitation

- the ritual slaying of Ronald McDonald

“ahead of the game”

which could be the following:

is at least what the following wants needs likes follows shares and

adverts to in a culture of “distracted tactility” [Rachel Lee after Michael Taussig, 1991]

“This reminded Tengo of a certain event, something from the distant past that he would recall now and then. Something he could never forget. But he decided not to mention it. It would have been a long story. And it was the kind of thing that loses the most important nuances when reduced to words.”

- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84, trans. Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011, p. 72

“The concepts of time, space, and possibility.

“Tengo knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of fime might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally, the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely. Sometimes things that should not be there at all might be added onto time. By adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences. In other words, by adding such operations to time, they were able – but just barely – to preserve their own sanity. Surely, if a person had to accept the time through which he had just passed uniformly in the given order, his nerves could not bear the strain. Such a life, Tengo felt, would be sheer torture.

“Through the expansion of the brain, people had acquired the concept of temporality, but they simultaneously learned ways in which to change and adjust time. In parallel with their ceaseless consumption of time, people would ceaselessly reproduce time that they had mentally adjusted. This was no ordinary feat. No wonder the brain was said to consume forty percent of the body’s total energy!”

- Ibid., p. 275

my bookmark reads: strike!

TRIPLE DIP – STRIKE

“They’re both policemen now. Not too long ago, my uncle even received official commendation as an outstanding officer – thirty years of continuous service, major contributions to public safety in the district and to improvement of the environment. He was featured in the paper once for saving a stupid dog and her pup that wandered into a rail crossing.”

…

“The ones who did it can always rationalise their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”

- Ibid., pp. 292-293

“I am a part of this world, and this world is a part of me.”

- Ibid., p. 855

[rubbd] A very short reflection about McLuhan's statement "Tomorrow is our permanent ...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:24:03 GMT

A very short reflection about McLuhan's statement "Tomorrow is our permanent address"

[rubbd] Rule #8: Use Human Ethics

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:00:39 GMT

Part 8 of the 11 part series Anthropomorphism and Design.

Anthropomorphic products blur the boundaries between products and people. Ethical norms for people don’t usually apply to products and vice versa. For example, there’s no need to apologize if you accidentally run into an object. But with an anthropomorphic product, you might instinctively say sorry, because it seems like the right thing to do. People can apply their attitude towards humans to products, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But transferring attitudes from a product to a human might lead to problems, especially when the product induces abnormal social behavior. Don’t make your product do what you wouldn’t want a person to do.

Image via Lazy Bone.

[rubbd] Transparent Smart Window

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:27:45 GMT

Click here to view the embedded video.

Displays have been on our desks for too long. Samsung makes space and introduces the Transparent Smart Window. This LCD touchscreen is powered by the sunlight shining from the outside in. During the night time when there is no light to power the device, one can switch to night mode and use an edge-lit backlight instead. Though still a prototype, the possibilities and consequenses are endless — within the frame that is.
- thanks Martijn Lammerts

[rubbd] Greetings from the Ohio Turnpike

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:00:01 GMT

Apparently freeways have obtained a level of nostalgia that they are now suitable objects to be depicted on postcards (speaking of nostalgic objects). Perhaps one day in the future, freeways will be remembered as the fossils of a society dominated by auto-mobility. Peculiar image of the week.

[rubbd] MASHUP - illpropaganda's GREATEST MISSES 1

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:01:54 GMT

MASHUP - illpropaganda's GREATEST MISSES 1

[rubbd] Sead Alić: Praksa avangarde i avangarda prakse (McLuhan u svjetlu pojma praks...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:04:37 GMT

Sead Alić: Praksa avangarde i avangarda prakse (McLuhan u svjetlu pojma prakse Gaje Petrovića)

[rubbd] Dumpster Fish the Future of Farming

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:03:21 GMT

Cities have seen guerilla gardens, rooftop honey production, and fire escape chicken coops. Now, urban farmers may be adding aquaculture to the mix. Headed by ex-banker Christopher Toole, the Society for Aquaponic Values and Education in the Bronx, New York, raises tilapia in tanks and trashcans. Closed recirculating systems use the waste from the fish to fertilize herbs like mint and basil. Toole and his girlfriend and partner, Anya Pozdeeva, envision a future where neighborhood fish like “Bronx Best Blue Tilapia” become a thriving local industry.

Efforts from Toole and other New York tilapia pioneers like NYU professor Martin P. Schreibman may represent the future of fish. As cities grow, and wild fish stocks dwindle to near-depletion by 2050, the urban production of hardy, freshwater species like the tilapia could be a sustainable way for city-dwellers to have their fish and eat it too. Urban aquaculture faces some steep hurdles before becoming a profitable venture. Similar small-scale city fish farms have flopped over costs and lack of demand. However, there is one bright spot: In China, which has practiced fish farming since 2,000 BC, indoor recirculating aquaculture is doing a booming business.

Photo via Blue Ridge Aquaculture.

[rubbd] Tiny amounts of Alcohol might extend Life

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:49:04 GMT

A new study on the effects of cholesterol on the life span of Caenorhabditiselegans, a tiny worm often used in experimentation, resulted in some surprising finds. The life span of the critters was doubled. Now it turned out it wasn’t the cholesterol after all. The cause of the effect was set in motion by the solvent used to deliver the cholesterol. The solvent used? Alcohol.

Now we all know the detrimental effects of alcohol on the human body. So don’t start drinking just yet! The amount of alcohol administered to Caenorhabditis elegans was only a tiny amount. Equivalent to a tablespoon of ethanol in a bathtub full of water or the alcohol in one beer diluted into a hundred gallons of water. Increasing the amount is not very good for the wiggly creatures.

Although not certain on how tiny amounts of alcohol help the worms live longer. It does open some interesting speculation about the beneficial effects of alcohol on humans. If we cut our consumption of the toxic, to a dose proportional to that of what Caenorhabditiselegans helps to live longer, it might do the same for us. After all, the poison is in the dose.

And if the benefits turn out to be experimentally proven, will we ever succeed to make it our next nature to shrink our – almost ritualistic – consumption of the fire water.

via: UCLA Newsroom