Archive for the ‘ culture ’ Category
I’ve been reading and enjoying a bit of Paul Feyerabend lately, so I was interested to hear that there was a recent controversy involving this anarchic thinker and our peculiar current pope Ratzinger, or Benedict, or whatever. How could this be? Well, it’s not difficult to see where the difficulty might arise. Although Feyerabend is [ READ MORE ]
Cryptography and steganography are now used more widely in practice than at any prior moment in history, and so one might expect to find the self-evident origins of these modern practices in the work of cryptographic pioneers like John Wilkins, Francis Bacon, or Johannes Trithemius. Just as Newton’s alchemical leanings give pause to would-be historians [ READ MORE ]
“Apparatuses are… not superhuman but subhuman — bloodless and simplistic simulations of human thought processes which, precisely because they are so rigid, render human decisions superfluous and non-functional” (Flusser 74). In honour of Vilém Flusser, who in his later years refused to purchase any books, instead quoting from memory and the books that were given him [ READ MORE ]
The simple answer to Martha Rosler’s question of “which political battles have been fought and won by someone for someone else” (307) is every one. That is to say, in the political sphere, there is no individual action. This is a structural necessity, insofar as the ‘political sphere’ is the realm of the polis, not [ READ MORE ]
How is digital imagery like the plastic arts? The simplest, and perhaps most flippant response, is that with digital imagery, the characteristic ‘look’ of the plastic arts has been reduced to a set of simple and effective algorithms. The ’styles’ cultivated by so many of history’s great artists are reduced by Adobe Systems Inc. into [ READ MORE ]
In this photo, we see a thickly bearded man in a white turban, wearing a blue robe adorned with leafy green plants and a number of medals. The robe is richly embroidered, cinched with two golden belts, and adorned with medals, epaulets, and a braid. Signifiers of military service, to be sure. The man has [ READ MORE ]
this is my brief thought on wikipedia. as someone who reads an almost ungodly amount of it, I think that I am distinctly more qualified to comment on it than any random sampling. such as that one study which I can’t be bothered to find a link to now. Jaron Lanier says that “reading a Wikipedia [ READ MORE ]
One of the most mysterious and wonderful things about physics for me is the ‘electromagnetic spectrum.’ I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that this huge spectrum of divergent phenomena — the light we see, the radio we hear, the TV we watch, the magnetism we feel, the microwaves that cook our food, et cetera [ READ MORE ]
right now, i am sitting in class behind an individual whom i do not know. however, i can see his computer monitor from here – as can the individual behind me see mine – and i can see that he has someone on his MSN list who is also on mine. thus, my being-in-the-world is linked to [ READ MORE ]
so, i’m at work. and despite the title of this post and our reading of this week, working does not, in fact, rule. but i’m reading this article and i’m going to jot down some comments informally whilst i do so. this blog will be my pharmakon. one interesting aspect of CCTV surveillance, for example, is that by [ READ MORE ]