Skip to Content Skip to Search Go to Top Navigation Go to Side Menu


"Wordplay Project" Project


Social isolation in cities; Balance, Pro’s, Con’s and the Internet.


Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The ‘Happening’

An appealing aspect of every city is it’s ‘happening’. This could be translated here as: there’s movement, conversation, and just plain interaction, negative or positive, whether that be the honking of the horn or just the ‘good morning’ to the elderly man reading the paper at the café. This has always been something that is somewhat comforting, at least to myself. An example of a ‘happening’ city could be Naples, because, the core sidewalk principal that we will mention further into this article is fully in effect, and despite the city having many problems such as waste management, or crime, there is an underlying sense of happening. And of course, something to keep in mind is also the level of comfort each person has when it comes to being close, or around, to borderline illegal activities. The streets are packed, scooters flying up and down the street, people talking, arguing, people exchanging services on the street and not just in shops, the list goes on. This sense of happening helps someone who could be a victim of social isolation feel grounded, balancing between the familiarity of being in cities, and knowing that if there’s something they need to know, if the word is out, the sidewalks will be the first place to find out.

Streets of Naples (Napoli). Naples, Campania, Italy, South Europe.

 

The Internet also plays a part in this in 2017, as it’s a hub of information, but the one thing separates it from a city, is of course, it’s human interaction. And although the information that you get on the city sidewalk is conditioned to whom you’re talking to, and not to thousands of sources, the difference is that you are able to have a human discussion with this person, and not just the long deep stare into a screen, searching until you find something vaguely similar to the answer you were hoping to find from your search engine. This social isolation also occurs because a lot of times, we, or at least I, fall into the mistake of underestimating our fellow humans and assuming they don’t know about my interests, or about what I’m looking for. Chances are, if you risk conversation, they actually will. And if they don’t, oh well, that’s the beauty of discussion. And that’s the beauty of sidewalk chatter, conversation and interaction in the city.

c49cfda5df40ee74fe445e8f9a8284f1

This happening is present in the sidewalks of large cities and mostly the social structure of sidewalk life hangs partly on what can be called self-appointed public characters. A public character is anyone who is in frequent contact with a wide circle of people and who is sufficiently interested to make himself a public character. A public character doesn’t need to have any special talent or wisdom to fulfill his function – although he often does. He just needs to be present. His main qualification is that he be public, and that he talks to a lot of different people, instigating and creating interaction and discussion, leading us to conclude that news actually travels faster in these urban areas, seeing how sidewalks can serve as steady flows of information.

Social isolation in cities, and its virtues and disadvantages

I wanted to find out more about how different people handle stress. I read up on an article that explained that city dwellers’ brains, compared with people who live in the countryside, seem not to handle it so well.

The example given in the article was from a case study by Dr. Meyer-Lindenberg and his colleagues, where, as they were stressing out their subjects, they were looking at two brain regions: the amygdala and the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC). The amygdala is known to be involved in assessing threats and generating fear, while the pACC in turn helps to regulate the amygdala. It turned out that in stressed citydwellers, the amygdala appeared more active on the scanner; in people who lived in small towns, less so; in people who lived in the countryside, least of all.

PostStressBrainfigure2

Here the important relationship was not with where the subjects lived at the time, but where they grew up. An erratic link between the pACC and the amygdalas is often seen in those with schizophrenia too. And according to the data, schizophrenic people are much more likely to live in cities.

Dutch Dr. Jaap Peen and his team found out in their meta-analysis that living in a city roughly doubles the risk of schizophrenia. To explain inner-city and urban–rural variations in psychiatric morbidity, there are two main theoretical concepts, which originated from the early ecological research of schizophrenia, and from the Chicago School of Sociology: There’s the ‘drift hypothesis’ and the ‘breeder hypothesis.’ The ‘drift hypothesis’ assumes that sick and vulnerable people are more or less doomed to remain in socially unstable, deprived neighborhoods, while better off people move away. On the other hand, socially deprived neighborhoods can also have a pull-function on sick and vulnerable people, as they move to these areas with low social control and greater tolerance towards deviant behavior, this being what they call the ‘social drift hypothesis’.

The second theory, the ‘breeder hypothesis’, assumes that various environmental factors cause illness. These can be physical factors (air pollution, small housing, population density) and also social factors (stress, life events, perinatal aspects, social isolation). A lot of the stress factors mentioned above are more common in urbanized areas. Urbanization is modestly but consistently associated with the prevalence of psychopathology. They even suggest that levels of urbanization should also be taken into account when planning the allocation of mental health services.

“Obviously our brains are not perfectly shaped for living in urban environments,” Dr. Adli says. “In my view, if social density and social isolation come at the same time and hit high-risk individuals … then city-stress related mental illness could be the consequence.”

Cities, the theory goes, might be part of the reason why a person’s dopamine production starts to go wrong in the first place. Repeated stress is thought to lead to this problem in some people, so if high social density combined with social isolation could be shown to do so, and thus to alter the dopamine system, we might have the first rough sketches of a map from city living that leads all the way to schizophrenia, and perhaps other things.

Many other possible impacts of city living on brain function are also being investigated. Aircraft noise might inhibit children’s learning, according to a recent study from Queen Mary University in London. (Although traffic noise, perversely, might help it.) Researchers in the US and elsewhere have also found that exposure to nature seems to offer a variety of beneficial effects to city dwellers, from improving mood and memory, to alleviating ADHD in children.

stock-photo-closed-door-of-hotel-room-with-please-do-not-disturb-sign-private-room-547001509

Privacy

I found that the perfect balance of social isolation between keeping to yourself and social interaction in a city was the ability to be able to wander and explore, go out on the hunt for information, but always have a private base to return to, to let loose and relax. Privacy is precious in cities. It is indispensable. Perhaps it is precious and indispensable everywhere, but in most places around the world you aren’t allowed as much of it. In small settlements everyone knows your affairs. Whilst in the city nobody does, unless you allow them in. This is one of the attributes of cities that is unique to city dwellers, whether their incomes are high or their incomes are low.

According to Jane Jacobs, in her book The Death And Life of Great American Cities, “A good city neighborhood achieves a marvel of balance between its people’s determination to have essential privacy and their simultaneous wishes for differing degrees of contact, enjoyment or help from the people around them. This balance is widely made up of small, sensitively managed details, practiced and accepted so casually that they are normally taken for granted.”

The more common outcome in cities, where people are faced with the choice of sharing much or nothing, is nothing. In city areas that lack a natural and casual public life, it is common for residents to isolate themselves from each other to a marked degree. If mere contact with your neighbors threatens to entangle you in their private lives, or entangle them in yours, and if you cannot be so careful who your neighbors are as compared to people who can be, the logical solution will seem to then be avoiding friendliness or casual offers of help. Better to stay thoroughly distant.

It’s important to recognize that a lot of adults either don’t want to become involved in any friendship relationships at all with their neighbors, or if they do succumb to the need for some form of society, they strictly limit themselves to one or two friends, and no more.  And the individualism and privacy that comes with city living makes it possible to choose to be solitary, which a lot of people find hard to deal with, but for a lot of people it is actually a luxury. So compared to town living, where interaction with your neighbors is almost inevitable, city living provides a choice; whether to keep to yourself or to socialize, and this is a choice that for many people can be quite hard to handle.

In light of the increasing push for us to work at home, here’s an interesting statistic from Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist and the author of Bowling Alone (which looked at how social ‘glue’ such as bowling clubs, which were so prevalent in 1950s America, have almost disappeared). It comes from a New Yorker article about commuting: “I was shocked to find how robust a predictor of social isolation commuting is,” said Putnam “There’s a simple rule of thumb: Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten per cent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness.”

Conclusion

I’ve come to conclude that although I do feel like a very open and city involved person, I need to know that I always have a safe haven to return to, where I can shut the blinds and lock society out for whatever time necessary. And what’s interesting about this in today’s day and age is that although we shut ourselves out, we still have access to the Internet and social networking. Being connected to the Internet let’s us control our interaction with the outside public world. Comparing the Internet to let’s say, the sidewalk interactions of a busy city is quite simple. We have, of course, the human vs. screen interaction, but more importantly, the Internet enables us to be in total control of what we discuss, and more importantly gives us freedom to search for answers from numerous sources instead of resorting to information from whomever is around. This isolation can be healthy or unhealthy for some, depending on who you are and how you deal with it, but without a good balance, it all falls apart.

 

 

 

 

Lost in Designblog


Tuesday, May 16, 2017

scrabb2

7

I start my search ,  analyzing everything  .  the information that gave the webpage . I did not know where I was going . But everything seemed super curious , there is so much information ,  and how the words played with each other . The connections that sent me from one page to another . It confused me a lot . I don’t know what I’m looking for.

13

I reaches a point that was lost in the network . Frustrated not knowing what to do , with a pen in the mouth that  i bit all the time . The pen entered my mouth and returned to the page and denied my mouth , repeatedly , unconsciously . The stress level went up completely. Looking for someting  that I’m going to make my blog about it .
I see myself with the surprise that i had a nervous tic . Without knowing that all the time i was in the network at the same time made recordings in my notebook . That was the moment that I realized that there was something that happens to me ,  when i was in a network , being frustrated, I relaxed doing doodles !

I did not know why ,  but it just gave me a moment of reflection . My question was would there be more people like me, who carries this type of anxiety whit the web ? Will the web cause empathy with the viewer? I do not think zo , but I wanted to solve it, it’s a matter of having a way of finding information that is more comfortable, pleasant, when one has to do a research.

Many times once being an adult you forgets the power of scribbling. I think being optimistic makes you remember being that child who did not know how to draw. Or questioned what  am i doing has a validity.  But this case what the hell I’m doing . You must disconnect what one looks on the web with your notebook full of notes giving a space to do what you want free doodle type.
Enjoy that moment with no matter. In these acts that one draws or scribbling  , just releases the endorphins. It help . This type of exercises are leading you to have a better experience. Know what you can do to improve your income and take into account a better satisfaction .

tree

-HORMONES OF HAPPINESS, DOPAMINE, SEROTONIN WITH SCRIBBLING ?

Hormones of Happiness Our body is able to produce a series of hormones, three of which are responsible for pleasure and motivation (dopamine), relieving mood (serotonin) .  Endorphins are neuropeptides (small protein chains) that are released through the spinal cord and the bloodstream. They are natural opiates of the body that can be up to 20 times more potent than the anti-pain drugs that are sold in pharmacies. Activities such as listening to music, dancing, bathing, walking, staying with friends, etc. Increase blood levels of endorphins. The Mind of the Body produces at least 20 different types of endorphins, which are stored mainly in the hypothalamus.

By coloring, we are activated different areas of the two cerebral hemispheres. “Both the logic, the forms we color and the creativity in the mixture of colors, as well as areas of the cerebral cortex involved in vision and fine motor are involved. Provides acts by lowering the activity of the amygdala, a basic part of our brain involved in controlling emotions that is affected by stress. 

I think when you are so long connected on the web and being frustrated the best you can do something manual. Disconnect and give the space to assimilate all the information given. With scribbling leads you to better concentration and with this technique you can be more productive.

I think when you are so long connected on the web and being frustrated the best you can do something manual. Disconnect and give the space to assimilate all the information given. With scribbling leads you to better concentration and with this technique you can be more productive.

Have lot of fun , and be HAPPY !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bringing Intuition to the World of Algorithm


Monday, May 15, 2017

IMG_1021_1100

The online realm is one that is primarily and increasingly algorithm-based. With the growing use of the internet, the integration of our physical bodies with our technical devices, our access to the internet, algorithm is starting to take over our intuition. The more we use the internet the more we depend on algorithm and the less our intuition is trained. Sometimes I reach-out to my intuition in cases where algorithm could have brought a better answer, sometimes I reach out to algorithm in a case were intuition is much more fitting.
Today, I am going to bring intuition into a virtual space in which algorithm is the standard. I am going to do a simple PPF – past, present, future- tarot reading to predict the state of the Design blog over three periods of time. After I apply my own intuitive knowledge of the reading to the post I link the relative tag words to the post to create a calculated and contained interpretation, more algorithmic, perhaps more indicative and fitting.

 

The first card I pulled in the past position is the EMPEROR.

Emperor

The Emperor implies a controlling and organizing expression. He follows the Empress who is pure creative energy, flowing and care free. He also embodies that creative energy but does so by managing it in a way which provides structure. Where the Empress is totally engulfed in a mess of energy, the Emperor- like the tag words- are direct and organized. I always compare the Empress to Art and the Emperor to Design. Pulling the Emperor in the Past position here, implies the Design Blog’s beginnings were introduced by someone with intensions to or with a need to establish a system in order to share creative energies.

 

The second card I pulled for present position is the SUN.

19 - sun copy

The Sun is about being bright and fresh. It implies a time when vague ideas become clear. For present of Design Blog, I would say this is implying a time when its intentions are clear. The connections and intentions set up by the Emperor are now thriving and totally obvious. It implies that maybe there was a time in the past when its state was in a jumble, but that time is over and the Design Blog is in its prime.

 

The third card I pulled for the future position is the WORLD.

21 - world : graduation copy

The World card is the last card in the tarot’s Major Arcadia. It signifies an ending, a completion. Pulling The World in the future position is a very positive sign, as it implies that the Design Blog will continue to flourish in the Sun until it is totally complete and whole, and not a second before then. The design blog will never simply die out, like would be indicative by the Death or Tower card, but it will continue strong until it is time to evolve into something more advanced. A possible future outcome could be that the Design Blog evolves into something more fitting with future technologies.

 

My predictive mother


Friday, May 12, 2017

Me: Mama, I’m laying in bed with fever. I caught the flu. Shall we maybe Skype later today?
My mother: me too and I think it’s time for a little more time to think about how I feel like to be a good mother.
Me: What do you mean?
My mother: my friend and my friend is the best friend and she was just so nice for you and me and my motherly motherland.
Me: Are you with her now?
My mother: my friend is a very nice person and she is really amazing. Yes let’s do this for you and me to be sure that you will be the best and most important thing to me.
Me: Is everything ok with you? I have the feeling that you are talking a bit strangely.
My mother: Me too and yes I’m sorry but it’s not really like that you don’t want to see me. You have a good time and then we can talk about it again maybe? I love you.
Me: Mama? You are scaring me. I want to talk with you now.
My mother: And I don’t know, what she would do if it was really bad but it was a really nice idea and then we maybe would be a great ideal.
Me: What?
My mother: me and my friend and she was so happy about it and now I’m just not really sure what to say about the other people.
Me: Stop!
My mother: When I see you and your sister I don’t know what to say to you but I’m sure that I can make it a good day for you too thank you for making me feel so amazing.

This dialogue is created with the predictive keyboard function of my iPhone. Everything that is said by my mother is Text that is created only by clicking the suggestions that appear on my screen. Even “My mother” are two words suggested by my iPhone. The parts that I say are my reactions to the generated text, acting as if it was my mother.
I did not research the mechanisms, that drive this predictive keyboard function, but I should state that my mother visited me 3 days before I wrote the dialogue.

A word categorization


Friday, May 12, 2017

I chose a word (with the limitation of this website’s tagwords) and then I found an image which I connected to the word. By repeating this I created myself a collection of images. I have organized the words in categories by the logic of their images. The word categories you are seeing below are like poems and also like spells, I think.

 

1. hyper hybrid, fragile, personalized, unseen

 

2. all-round, narration, hole

 

3. perfection, endless

 

4. disturbing, comment, white, poem

 

5. symmetry, craft

 

6. still, choreography, conspiracy

 

7. body, invisible, real

 

8. concept, conversation

 

9. metaphor, control, ghosts

 

 

 

Im feeling


Thursday, May 11, 2017

Romantic                                                                                                                  Young

                                 Super cool             Naive                               Dominant

        Glacial

          Sneaky

                 Punk                                        Plastic

           Hidden                                        Oversized                                                  Old

         Removable                                                            Fragile

        Bloody                                                                    Revolutionary                                   Immaterial                                                    Pink                                                                      Homeless

     Small

                    Heavy                                         White                              Monumental                                                     Attracted                                                                Blank

              Tiny                                                                                       On-time               Slow

                  Eatable

                     Dreamlike

    Old-fashioned                                                                     Evil                      Digital                          Tijdloos                                                 Shiny

     Superficial

          Material                                                                       Playful                                             Basic                                                      Sorry                                                     Smoking

                                 Temporary

    Joyfull                                                                    Mad                                          Simple

            Grey

                      Porcelain                          Content                                    Extraordinary                                                          Insecure

      Sublime

         Ice-cold                                                    Dew

                    Unseen                             Stuck

                                                                Adaptable

   Cross                                                    Fluffy       Childish                             Primal                        Tacky

        Blue                                                                     Cliché

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Didn’t I see this before?


Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Didn’t I see this before?

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

There are other interesting theories as well that try to explain a déjà vu:

Precognition: We have the power of foresight. A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future.

Reincarnation: We have lived before. A déjà vu is the surfacing of a hidden memory, evidence of a previous existence.

Higher dimension: Our consciousness actually exists outside of our physical bodies in a higher dimension, and when a déjà vu occurs, it’s a brief moment when that separation becomes clear.

Parallel universes: There are other versions of ourselves, living in parallel universes. A déjà vu is a moment we share a memory with an alter ego of another universe.

Precognition: A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future.

 

dejavu-gif

 

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have a déjà vu.

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself, didn’t I see this before?

 

Reading with my mood


Monday, May 8, 2017

What effect does our mood have on what we read? If we read something, for example on DesignBlog, does our mood have something to do with it?

Your brain consists of two systems. Your system 1 is fast, automatic and requires little or no effort and you cannot control it. System 2 gives conscious attention to mental effort, is rational, takes care of your self-control and keeps track of the impulses of system 1 to suppress them if necessary. System 2 (almost) always has the last word.

Take a pencil and clamp it between your teeth, with the eraser to the right and the point to the left. Now put the pencil in your mouth with the point to the front and the eraser between your lips. You probably were not aware of anything when you did this, but with the pencil horizontally you got a smile on your face and with the pencil point to the front you had a little frown. In an investigation, students had to watch cartoons while they were having a pencil in their mouth, the students with the pencil horizontally (smile) found the cartoons to be funnier than those with the pencil point to the front (frown). The people with the pencil point to the front were shown photos of starving children, arguing people and victims of accidents, their reaction was way more emotional.

This shows that your mood definitely affects your ability and the way in which you process things. For example, research was conducted in which respondents were brought into a good mood or into a sad mood. The respondents who were brought into a good mood became more accurate and the respondents who were brought into a sad mood were unable to perform the intuitive task properly. Our mood affects the functioning of system 1. If we feel comfortable or sad, we lose contact with our intuition (system 1). According to Herbert Simon [x], you can see your intuition as a recognition. It’s like this: a situation gives a clue, this clue gives access to information in your memory and this information leads you to the answer. This makes clear that sadness affects your intuition and thus your knowledge.

So, it turns out that you become more accurate when you are happy while processing information. Well, I’m very forgetful and I’m wondering if I am more aware when I make myself extremely happy.

 

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

 

It will surprise you, but I can guarantee you that the list of words is always more than I would have written if I did not have laughed.

 

A Poetic Threesome


Friday, May 5, 2017

Words are magnets. Put two random words together, and they will enter in an (unintended) relationship. Of course in some cases it works better than others, in one case the result will be poetic, in the other criticism or humor will enter the stage.

As I was experimenting with this, using the tag words from DesignBlog, I noticed something. While combining the random words, they also started connecting to my surroundings, which were in that situation: the objects in my room.

 

Atmosphere_1100

Can random words and images enter in a “poetic threesome”?
I decided to do an experiment.

First I thought that maybe I should combine imagery from Google Image with the words, to make everything as random as possible. I tried this, but it didn’t really bring me any further. Of course some nice things happened, but it felt too general to me.

Anita_1100

ArabicArt_1100

I liked the personal, intimate side of my first observation.
I made up two guidelines for myself
:

1. use 26 tagwords from designblog starting with an “a”

2. use personal objects from your direct environment

 

Asian_1100

I wanted to know what would happen, combining the random with the personal. The personal intertwined twice in the process: combining the random words.
I think I unconsciously made choices according to my own taste. Even though I tried hard to combine the words randomly, I couldn’t help seeing the connections that might happen. In the end, I’m a person, not an algorithm, and I decided to embrace this.

ArtistMind_1100

anxiety_1100

Also, the objects are personal. I chose objects that were personal because I got them from someone important to me, because they were mine for a long time, or because I use them daily.

aboutabsence_1100

I made may own small home-studio and started making the words and the objects literally interact.

Americans_1100

Some interesting things happened:

Affection_1100

– The impersonal words became more personal, and more meaningful, simply because they were combined with my own belongings

Artichoke_1100

adidas_1100

– The objects, that I’d always looked at in one way, became something else, the words created gateways to other meanings

Klaas_1100

 I think also the white background allowed the object to break with their original context and start forming new connections.

Plant_1100

I found myself looking at my plant in a different way this morning.
Normally I barely notice it.

Am I living an automatic life? Or is the plant living an automatic life?

activism_1100

I wonder if there’s a third personal side to this: the connections we make when we see the random combinations. I make specific connections, someone else as well. We all have different imagery in our minds and different associations to the words used.

Vis_1100

What will the objects think of all this?
I don’t think people would like to be put in a random context. I wouldn’t like to be called Amusement or About Absence.

Maybe someone will invent a way to give objects a platform for their opinion. Objects have rights too.
Until that moment, humans will have to give the objects meaning. And I think sometimes it’s good to re-evaluate this meaning.

Why should a fish be food and not amusement?

Can’t avocado’s also be animals?

Why should pepper never be afraid?

And why is Anita no hero when she’s standing in the kitchen all day?

 

THE DUCK AND THE WHALE, A Play.


Thursday, May 4, 2017

To give my best overview of the creation of the play below is to say a visual campaign was of supplement to a mashed alphabet. Gravity helped me to sit on slow chairs in front of the digital art that was my photo achieve of personal stories, social history and environment. Maybe a dog popped in here or there. It was a process of critical thinking and curiosity to make a personal repossession of the photography. A bit like IKEA did with furniture. I gazed upon the hand in silence, with hidden feelings that I was living the lifestyle of William Chester Minor. My role was a kind of craftsmanship to dye the rules in nature with my own words, words that came to me from simply looking. Some would deem it additive manufacturing, like the work in progress of a futuristic master Azart artist. I was left with a list of words the size of a paperclip compared to the one to the left of me. I don’t disbelieve that if I were to continue my list would fill the human body, now it could fill a large poster made by Jan van Toorn or part of a suit or outfit. Although it would be a never ending process to fill Boijmans van Beuningen. Big here long now I was faced with the problem solving of a typographer, not like Sagmeister but one whose work was fair to say of careless design. The problem was generating a random selection of words to use like animal resources in chaos and order to be the leader and kiss the dialogue. I used a programme that was like some kind of Greek Thonic, that spurted words at me, a surprise selection, which I had to use like a Situationists. On the page the words look like a decoration or embroidery to a narrative surrealism, which imbedded hints of sexuality. To dream like a cyborgian I think I gave the sense of words in animation that in turn has self-made a whole loaf of poetic bread.

Theatre_text1_950Theatre_text2_950Theatre_text3_950Theatre_text4_950Theatre_text5_950Theatre_text6_950Theatre_text7_950Theatre_text8_950

Species of Magnets in my house.


Thursday, May 4, 2017

 

“Every word was once an animal.”

 -Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 

Scan-51_p50 Scan1_950

figure 1                                                        figure 2

 

 

Argument

In his 1974 essay Espèces d’Espaces (Species of Space) Georges Perec [x] states the following:

‘To live is to pass from one space to the other, while doing your very best not to bump yourself.’ (Espèces d’Espace, Georges Perec, p. 6)

 

Tine Melzer [x] in her 2016 essay (hand-out) subsequently notes that words are ‘magnets’:

A word has two ends and each awaits ties with another word.

Furthermore that the poetic ‘charge’ of several words together is based on such bonds:

When words meet up, they generate a field of tension, they go together!

In his 1958 book La Poétique de l’Espace (The Poetics of Space), Gaston Bachelard [x] points out that our whole perception of the world we inhabit based is upon our first encounters with the first universe of mankind: the house, the spaces we inhabit. He construct his argument by using the tactic of ‘Poetic Phenomenology’, which is to say, a philosophy built up while reading the poets.

Texts are a constellation of words, the same logic applies so to speak. Texts also have a magnetic effect. A late, albeit, useful discovery. They meet up as well, go together, and charge the field with the same sort of tension. And it this very tension that leads met to the following conclusion.

Something happens when we enter a room or when a work of poetry gently leans upon us. Something, to removed to mention, but there non the less. It leaves us tantalized. This is what we could call ‘the oneiric effect’. The tension, the magnetism has a familiar sound. It is in fact a logical extension of things I have referred to previously. Shortly put, I conclude: a word is a room and a room is a word.

Now what are the implications of such a statement? To illustrate further, this means that magnetism of words and text are played out on an even more poetic and fundamental level, for the visual has to be resolved and is dissolved by words and vice a versa. The visual and the language are (and become) then, in term, the concepts, notions, names and words we call upon to name our interior spaces, our inner houses, the room’s of our own.

This tension can even lead from time to time to vibration, think of Kandinsky’s ‘Seelische Vibration’, Think of a Paul Klee picture, think of the last time you drew a straight line, out of the blue. Try to imagine it again and try to measure it by using the corners of your childhood bedroom and you’ll see what this tension, this magnetism, this vibration, the poetic charge produces first and foremost: warmth, heat.

The subject of this research, this article, is informed by all of this, that’s why I called it: Species of Magnets in my house -see figure 1 and 2-  (small reference of course). For I have in my possession three texts that all deal with the design of such things, but all push and pull the same way, that is to say; like a magnet do. For to live is to imagine, is to speak from one magnet to the other while doing my very best not to bump myself. All these texts I wrote while walking in out of my house, while I did my very best not to bump myself  (of course).

 

 

Texts

 

I

I am the translator.

I am the the one who was too late. But I am the one who in time, has to defy and define, a divine straight line, or something in between, a shape and a dream.

Escabeau, 60° 55″ 6,54′

L’été, 51° 33′ 7,43′

 

II

In 1972, my grand-father left my grand-mother’s house in Strombeek, on the hilly outskirts of Brussels, for the first time. Just before his departure, he poured Pisang on the balcony, sealed off with dead plant leaves and broken pieces of glass, the apertures in which the different rooms were discussed and assembled, made alterations to the provision of shadow cells by taking 100.000 Belgian franks and left a feeling of sultriness and a trail of ashes on the radio, bookshelves and the countable rugs and carpets, making these regions of the house the most fertile for the following thirty years. But it was only during the last act, the act of inserting a silver object into a vexed area of a piece of wood, that he pronounced the terms of condition, while exposed to the strange and morose rendering of the orange light.

They are the following:

Vincent:

A day run astray but not lost. A dried-up carpet stain, a spastic vibration, taken faraway. A closed sometimes, while the sun comes in, anew.

Douffet:
A choice that at high temperatures glows in an environment of nitrogen and/or carbon monoxide and disposes, by means of evaporation a ceaseless flow of microscopic particles, which settle themselves on the inside of the house, whereby the house, in time, dusks.

Honte, La:

It is either a military tactic or an ululation (Klaagzang) that has it’s origin in the first sounds. It is a particular, grievous mode of weather which is converted into language upon its death.

Brasschaat, Belgique:

A form of rain that is neither poor nor stubborn. Theoretically, there’s an occurrence of acuity when approached, but acuity is relative and subbordonante to the songs and the smoke of the sea, plus, lake and the melancholy which is cherished by a diffusing sky.

 

III

Index of words used in this article:

Act

Albeit

Am

Anew

Animal

Aperatures

Are

Argument

Ashes

Assembled

Astray

Bachelard, Gaston,

Balcony

Bedroom 

Belgian

Best

Bump

But

Carbon

Carpets

Ceaseless

Childhood

Choice

Condition

Corners

Day 

Deal

Dispose 

Douffet

Dream

Dried-up

Each

Effect

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Environment

Escabeau

Faraway

Feeling

First

Following

Forms

For

Franks

Grievous

Hand-out

Heat 

High

Honte, la

I

Implications

Inhabit

In

Klaagzang

Last

Leans

Level

Magnetic

Military

Morose

Neither

Nipomo

Nitrogen

Notions

Object 

Occurrence

Off

Orange

Outskirts

Phenomenology 

Pieces

Pisang

Poetic

Questions

Radio

Research

Room

Run

Shadow

Shape

Something

Spastic

Straight

Strombeek

Sultriness

Sun

Tactic

Tension

Time

Together

Too

Trail

Translator

Ululation

Universe

 Very 

Vice a versa

Vincent

Visual

Waldo, Ralph Emerson

Warmth

Weather

With

Words

Years

zig zag

 

Roots and Branches


Thursday, May 4, 2017

Go on Wikipedia and start a research for something, it can be the most common thing or notion you think about. Then, start clicking on the first link you see, in the sentence that defines what you are searching for. Again and again. If you arrive on a webpage where you have been before, just click on the next link, so not the first but the second one and see where you will end up. Here is my example :

London

london_1100

> capital city

capital_1100

> municipality
> urban area
> human settlement
> geography
> science
> knowledge
> awareness
> perception
> sensory nervous system
> nervous system
> eumatazoa
> clade
> organism
> biology
> natural science
> natural phenomena
> phenomenon
> experience
> philosophy

SQLtree1

So, this brings us to a crucial point. It shows how important arborescence (which means in French from the trunk to the branches) is in a research process. By starting from a very specific subject, you can end up on something you don’t expect to see, something really independent from your first research. By a system of hierarchy, websites choose for you what you should see, in order to make your research larger and more relevant. The concepts presented through the pages are of course connected, because terms are presented to define the notion you are looking for. That is by the way essential for every website : to give a hierarchy. But how? On what logic?

If you follow the previous example on Wikipedia, you can try how many times you want, you will normally end up on the Wikipedia page related to philosophy.

By placing some hyperlinks, you can give an orientation on an internet reasearch. In that sense, links are super efficient tools. Just have a look to what is offered on an everyday internet journey.

But more widely, from the easiest thing, you can always go to something larger in terms of meaning : groups of living species, geographical regions, etc. By defining something, you need an element with a bigger concept to categorize it. Then, is philosophy the final notion, the highest point to reach?

It is basically more than just a simple category in which we can put everything like a cellar where you come to take an old box once a year to remember your sweet childhood.

 

A dopamine delivery service

By spending time by scrolling down, letting my eyes wandering a bit on the DesignBlog, and repeating the same process previously experienced, I found that article by Olya Troitskaya about a concept that defines pretty well this process. It is called “cyberflânerie”. Have a look at it here.

flâneur (word which comes from the french verb flâner) is according to Baudelaire, quoted by Olya Troitskaya, “a person who walks the city in order to experience it”.

By experiencing a part of the internet content in a certain order, you expect something to get, a crucial information, or just an everyday surprise, your dopamine doses maybe. At least some satisfaction.

Play at this (not)serious game, make this fantastic tool a hijacked object, follow the lines, think about this endless journey, how you move through this digital space in terms of pictures and map, with a starting point and an unreachable end.

The Kleptomania


Thursday, May 4, 2017

I started knitting again.

I’t seem I have found pleasure in monotonous work.

Gradually I have become quite go for it.

Two times front, one behind, two times front, one behind.

My fingers do the work for me.

Two times front, one behind.

I knit and knit.

The hours fly by and I levitate with them.

I never knitted with wool like the common kitter. My wool is not shaggy and doesn’t scratch my cheek.

Even though I am pretty new in the field of knitting, I knit with thoughts.

The thoughts are merged into one another and create this perfect third.

Two times front, one behind.

They create an invisible blanket that I warm myself under.

The blanket has a few holes, some irregularities and even some loose ends here and there.

But I made it myself.!

And if I do say so myself, It actually looks  quite nice.

 

As I sit there and let your fingers glide through the fine material: two times front, one behind, two times front, behind. I discover a piece of blanket is missing.

It was stolen from me.

I immediately get more thoughts out.

Suddenly more and more of the blanket starts to  disappear. Bit by bit.

The sweat coming from behind.

Two times front, one behind,

I knit faster.

Two times front, one behind.

I try to bring more thoughts out, but soon there are no more of the good ones left.

So thoughts about him, slipping into the pattern.

And wupti! Just as suddenly as he becomes a part of the pattern, it disappears.

Faster and faster I knit now!

Two times front, one behind, two times front of a rear!

Sweat rushes forward and my fingers are cramping.

I panic! All of my work!

All the good thought in my blanket!

Haps!

And the last bite was taken.

With sore fingers, empty of any good thoughts, I sit back, disappointed.

Saddened and Deprived of my own thoughts.

 

Then I remember that I probably used some of the thoughts about him in my blanket.

 

You see,

I’ve got a new friend.

The Celptomania is his name.

It’s probably him!

He’s a predator for my thoughts.

But there’s no other way.

So I short the thoughts I have left, although they not all good.

And start over.

But this time with a different tactic.

Because I’m smarter than him!

Just wait! I think to my self and start my new blanket with this thought.

Didn’t I see this before?


Monday, May 9, 2016

Didn’t I see this before?

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

 

dejavu-gif

 

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have a déjà vu.

There are other interesting theories as well that try to explain a déjà vu:

#1: We have the power of foresight. A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future (Precognition)

#2: We have lived before. A déjà vu is the surfacing of a hidden memory, evidence of a previous existence (Reincarnation)

#3: Our consciousness actually exists outside of our physical bodies in a higher dimension, and when a déjà vu occurs, it’s a brief moment when that separation becomes clear (Higher dimension)

#4: There are other versions of ourselves, living in parallel universes. A déjà vu is a moment we share a memory with an alter ego of another universe (Parallel universes)

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself, didn’t I see this before?

 

Didn’t I see this before?


Saturday, May 9, 2015

Didn’t I see this before?

dejavu-gif

 

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have a déjà vu.

There are other interesting theories as well that try to explain a déjà vu:

Precognition: We have the power of foresight. A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future.

Reincarnation: We have lived before. A déjà vu is the surfacing of a hidden memory, evidence of a previous existence.

Higher dimension: Our consciousness actually exists outside of our physical bodies in a higher dimension, and when a déjà vu occurs, it’s a brief moment when that separation becomes clear.

Parallel universes: There are other versions of ourselves, living in parallel universes. A déjà vu is a moment we share a memory with an alter ego of another universe.

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself, didn’t I see this before?

 

Didn’t I see this before?


Friday, May 9, 2014

Didn’t I see this before?

dejavu-gif

 

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have a déjà vu.

There are other interesting theories as well that try to explain a déjà vu:

Precognition: We have the power of foresight. A déjà vu is the evidence that we are actually able to predict the future.

Reincarnation: We have lived before. A déjà vu is the surfacing of a hidden memory, evidence of a previous existence.

Higher dimension: Our consciousness actually exists outside of our physical bodies in a higher dimension, and when a déjà vu occurs, it’s a brief moment when that separation becomes clear.

Parallel universes: There are other versions of ourselves, living in parallel universes. A déjà vu is a moment we share a memory with an alter ego of another universe.

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself, didn’t I see this before?

 

dejavu-gif

Didn’t I see this before?


Thursday, May 9, 2013

Didn’t I see this before?

dejavu-gif

 

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have a déjà vu.

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself,

 

 

Didn’t I see this before?

 

dejavu-gif

 

Have you ever had this strange, but uncertain feeling that you have experienced something before? An overwhelming sense of familiarity? A moment you are not sure if something similar or the exact same thing already happened? Then you belong to the majority of people who have had a déjà vu. Scientists are still unsure how to explain this phenomenon. Some try to link it to memory functions, claiming that familiar events can trigger memories of forgotten information. Some say it’s a more like a “memory check” of our brain: a signal that there is a conflict between what we think we’ve experienced and what we actually did experience.

In a web app I created for iPads you can move along stories told by various images and collages of hands. Sometimes you end up at a point you think you have experienced before. But is it really the same, or does it just familiar? You might just have a déjà vu.

When browsing through the internet, we often experience this feeling of familiarity. Links and tags create a confusing net of intertwined information, often taking you back to a page you have been before. But because of the information overload we are exposed to, we are often not sure. Maybe you experienced it while surfing through the Design Blog, using the various tags. And you asked yourself,

 

Didn’t I see this before?

 


Log in
subscribe