Midnight in Paris
See also Mariani in this journal.
Monday, December 31, 2012
6 PM ET is…
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Abstraction
![IMAGE- The Art World: Shapes of Things- The Birth of the Abstract [New Yorker title]](http://www.log24.com/log/pix12D/121231-Schjeldahl-Review.jpg)
"What possessed a generation of young European artists,
and a few Americans, to suddenly suppress recognizable imagery
in pictures and sculptures? Unthinkable at one moment, the strategy
became practically compulsory in the next."
— Peter Schjeldahl in the current New Yorker
The following remarks may or may not be relevant.
Paul Valéry, "Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci,"
La Nouvelle Revue , Paris, Vol. 95 (1895)—
"Regarded thus, the ornamental conception is to the individual arts
what mathematics is to the other sciences. …the objects chosen
and arranged with a view to a particular effect seem as if disengaged
from most of their properties and only reassume them in the effect,
in, that is to say, the mind of the detached spectator. It is thus
by means of an abstraction that the work of art can be constructed,
and is more or less easy to define according as the elements borrowed
from reality for it are more or less complex. Inversely it is by a sort of
induction, by the production of mental images, that all works of art are
appreciated, and this production must equally be more or less active,
more or less tiring, according as it is set in motion by a simple
interlacing on a vase or a broken phrase by Pascal."
— Translated by Thomas McGreevy (Valéry's Selected Writings,
New Directions, 1950)
Paul Valéry, "Introduction a la Méthode de Léonard de Vinci,"
La Nouvelle Revue , Paris, Tome 95 (1895), p. 762—
"De ce point de vue, la conception ornementale est aux arts
particuliers ce que la mathématique est aux autres sciences. De
même que les notions physiques de temps, longueur, densité,
masse, etc., ne sont dans les calculs que des quantités homo-
gènes et ne retrouvent leur individualité que dans l'interprétation
des résultats, de même les objets choisis et ordonnés en vue d'un
effet sont comme détachés de la plupart de leurs propriétés et
ne les reprennent que dans cet effet, dans l'esprit non prévenu
du spectateur. C'est donc par une abstraction que l'œuvre d'art
peut se construire, et cette abstraction est plus ou moins éner-
gique, plus ou moins facile à y découvrir, que les éléments em-
pruntés à la réalité en sont des portions plus ou moins com-
plexes. Inversement, c'est par une sorte d'induction, par la
production d'images mentales que toute œuvre d'art s'apprécie;
et cette production doit être également plus ou moins énergique,
plus ou moins fatigante selon qu'un simple entrelacs sur un
vase ou une phrase brisée de Pascal la sollicite."
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Holiday Philosophy
Obituaries for New Year's Eve—
A link from Christmas Day—
Easter meditations—
See also…
- Valéry's reference to "a broken phrase by Pascal,"
- The shattered rock of a Wallace Stevens critic, and
- Pascal's diamond.
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Sunday, December 30, 2012
Rien de Rien (continued)
"I never had any hesitation or regrets…."
— Rita Levi-Montalcini, who died today at 103
See also today's previous post and…
Turning the Page:
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The Kick
George Steiner, Real Presences , first published in 1989—
The inception of critical thought, of a philosophic anthropology,
is contained in the archaic Greek definition of man as a
'language-animal'….
Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations , first published in 1991—
Botkin, whatever her gifts as a conversationist, is almost as old
as the rediscovery of Mendel. The other extreme in age,
Joe Lovering, beat a time-honored path out of pure math
into muddy population statistics. Ressler has seen the guy
potting about in the lab, although exactly what the excitable kid
does is anybody's guess. He looks decidedly gumfooted holding
any equipment more corporeal than a chi-square. Stuart takes
him to the Y for lunch, part of a court-your-resources campaign.
He has the sub, Levering the congealed mac and cheese.
Hardly are they seated when Joe whips out a napkin and begins
sketching proofs. He argues that the genetic code, as an
algorithmic formal system, is subject to Gödel's Incompleteness
Theorem. "That would mean the symbolic language of the code
can't be both consistent and complete. Wouldn't that be a kick
in the head?"
Kid talk, competitive showing off, intellectual fantasy.
But Ressler knows what Joe is driving at. He's toyed with similar
ideas, cast in less abstruse terms. We are the by-product of the
mechanism in there. So it must be more ingenious than us.
Anything complex enough to create consciousness may be too
complex for consciousness to understand. Yet the ultimate paradox
is Lovering, crouched over his table napkin, using proofs to
demonstrate proof's limits. Lovering laughs off recursion and takes
up another tack: the key is to find some formal symmetry folded
in this four-base chaos. Stuart distrusts this approach even more.
He picks up the tab for their two untouched lunches, thanking
Lovering politely for the insight.
Edith Piaf—
See last midnight's post and Theme and Variations.
"The key is to find some formal symmetry…."
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Not Often
"It is not often anyone will hear the phrase 'Galois field' and 'DNA' together…."
— Ewan Birney at his weblog on July 3, 2012.
Try a Google search. (And see such a search as of Dec. 30, 2012.)
See also "Context Part III" in a Log24 post of Sept. 17, 2012.
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Saturday, December 29, 2012
Mapping Problem
A mapping problem posed (informally) in 1985
and solved 27 years later, in 2012:
See also Finite Relativity and Finite Relativity: The Triangular Version.
(A note for fans of the recent film Looper (see previous post)—
Hunter S. Thompson in this journal on February 22, 2005 …
Hunter S. Thompson, photos from The New York Times
… and on March 3, 2009.)
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Friday, December 28, 2012
Big Time
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in Looper :
Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys :
See also Big Time in this journal.
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Cube Koan
|
From Don DeLillo's novel Point Omega — I knew what he was, or what he was supposed to be, a defense intellectual, without the usual credentials, and when I used the term it made him tense his jaw with a proud longing for the early weeks and months, before he began to understand that he was occupying an empty seat. "There were times when no map existed to match the reality we were trying to create." "What reality?" "This is something we do with every eyeblink. Human perception is a saga of created reality. But we were devising entities beyond the agreed-upon limits of recognition or interpretation. Lying is necessary. The state has to lie. There is no lie in war or in preparation for war that can't be defended. We went beyond this. We tried to create new realities overnight, careful sets of words that resemble advertising slogans in memorability and repeatability. These were words that would yield pictures eventually and then become three-dimensional. The reality stands, it walks, it squats. Except when it doesn't." He didn't smoke but his voice had a sandlike texture, maybe just raspy with age, sometimes slipping inward, becoming nearly inaudible. We sat for some time. He was slouched in the middle of the sofa, looking off toward some point in a high corner of the room. He had scotch and water in a coffee mug secured to his midsection. Finally he said, "Haiku." I nodded thoughtfully, idiotically, a slow series of gestures meant to indicate that I understood completely. "Haiku means nothing beyond what it is. A pond in summer, a leaf in the wind. It's human consciousness located in nature. It's the answer to everything in a set number of lines, a prescribed syllable count. I wanted a haiku war," he said. "I wanted a war in three lines. This was not a matter of force levels or logistics. What I wanted was a set of ideas linked to transient things. This is the soul of haiku. Bare everything to plain sight. See what's there. Things in war are transient. See what's there and then be prepared to watch it disappear." |
What's there—
This view of a die's faces 3, 6, and 5, in counter-
clockwise order (see previous post) suggests a way
of labeling the eight corners of a die (or cube):
123, 135, 142, 154, 246, 263, 365, 456.
Here opposite faces of the die sum to 7, and the
three faces meeting at each corner are listed
in counter-clockwise order. (This corresponds
to a labeling of one of MacMahon's* 30 colored cubes.)
A similar vertex-labeling may be used in describing
the automorphisms of the order-8 quaternion group.
For a more literary approach to quaternions, see
Pynchon's novel Against the Day .
* From Peter J. Cameron's weblog:
"The big name associated with this is Major MacMahon,
an associate of Hardy, Littlewood and Ramanujan,
of whom Robert Kanigel said,
His expertise lay in combinatorics, a sort of
glorified dice-throwing, and in it he had made
contributions original enough to be named
a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Glorified dice-throwing, indeed…"
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Thursday, December 27, 2012
Cast
Note that the visible faces of the die, in counter -clockwise
order, are 3 6 5. See also this journal 365 days ago and,
since 2012 is a leap year, also today's date last year.
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Object Lesson
Yesterday's post on the current Museum of Modern Art exhibition
"Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925" suggests a renewed look at
abstraction and a fundamental building block: the cube.
From a recent Harvard University Press philosophical treatise on symmetry—
The treatise corrects Nozick's error of not crediting Weyl's 1952 remarks
on objectivity and symmetry, but repeats Weyl's error of not crediting
Cassirer's extensive 1910 (and later) remarks on this subject.
For greater depth see Cassirer's 1910 passage on Vorstellung :
This of course echoes Schopenhauer, as do discussions of "Will and Idea" in this journal.
For the relationship of all this to MoMA and abstraction, see Cube Space and Inside the White Cube.
"The sacramental nature of the space becomes clear…." — Brian O'Doherty
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Roots
This journal on June 24, 2006—
Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , 1974:
"But what's happening is that each year our old flat earth of
conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle
the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings
of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people
in irrational areas of thought… occultism, mysticism, drug changes
and the like… because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason
to handle what they know are real experiences."
"I'm not sure what you mean by classical reason."
"Analytic reason, dialectic reason. Reason which at the University
is sometimes considered to be the whole of understanding. You've
never had to understand it really. It's always been completely
bankrupt with regard to abstract art. Nonrepresentative art is one of
the root experiences I'm talking about. Some people still condemn it
because it doesn’t make 'sense.' But what's really wrong is not
the art but the 'sense,' the classical reason, which can't grasp it.
People keep looking for branch extensions of reason that will cover
art's more recent occurrences, but the answers aren't in the
branches, they're at the roots."
See also an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that opened Dec. 23—
— and an exhibition in this journal of the image "Root Circle."
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Tuesday, December 25, 2012
At Heaven’s Gate
A meditation on the performance of the late Charles Durning
in the film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas .
- This journal on December 7th, 2012
- This journal on December 22, 2012
- Kristofferson and Huppert in Heaven's Gate
- Walken in Heaven's Gate
- Punchline at Heaven's gate: "Spell chrysanthemum."
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Monday, December 24, 2012
Post-Mortem for Quincy
Raiders of the Lost Trunk, or:
Stars in the Attic
See also A Glass for Klugman :
Context: Poetry and Truth, Eternal Recreation,
Solid Symmetry, and Stevens's Rock.
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All Over Again
"… the movement of analogy
begins all over once again."
See A Reappearing Number in this journal.
Illustrations:
Figure 1 —
Background: MOG in this journal.
Figure 2 —
Background —
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Eternal Recreation
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
by C. G. Jung
Recorded and edited By Aniela Jaffé, translated from the German
by Richard and Clara Winston, Vintage Books edition of April 1989
From pages 195-196:
"Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is:
'Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind's eternal recreation.'*
And that is the self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all
goes well is harmonious, but which cannot tolerate self-deceptions."
* Faust , Part Two, trans. by Philip Wayne (Harmondsworth,
England, Penguin Books Ltd., 1959), p. 79. The original:
… Gestaltung, Umgestaltung,
Des ewigen Sinnes ewige Unterhaltung….
Jung's "Formation, Transformation" quote is from the realm of
the Mothers (Faust , Part Two, Act 1, Scene 5: A Dark Gallery).
The speaker is Mephistopheles.
See also Prof. Bruce J. MacLennan on this realm
in a Web page from his Spring 2005 seminar on Faust:
"In alchemical terms, F is descending into the dark, formless
primary matter from which all things are born. Psychologically
he is descending into the deepest regions of the
collective unconscious, to the source of life and all creation.
Mater (mother), matrix (womb, generative substance), and matter
all come from the same root. This is Faust's next encounter with
the feminine, but it's obviously of a very different kind than his
relationship with Gretchen."
The phrase "Gestaltung, Umgestaltung " suggests a more mathematical
approach to the Unterhaltung . Hence…
Part I: Mothers
"The ultimate, deep symbol of motherhood raised to
the universal and the cosmic, of the birth, sending forth,
death, and return of all things in an eternal cycle,
is expressed in the Mothers, the matrices of all forms,
at the timeless, placeless originating womb or hearth
where chaos is transmuted into cosmos and whence
the forms of creation issue forth into the world of
place and time."
— Harold Stein Jantz, The Mothers in Faust:
The Myth of Time and Creativity ,
Johns Hopkins Press, 1969, page 37
Part II: Matrices
Part III: Spaces and Hypercubes
Click image for some background.
Part IV: Forms
Forms from the I Ching :
Click image for some background.
Forms from Diamond Theory :
Click image for some background.
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Sunday, December 23, 2012
Digital Recreation
Denzel Washington in Deja Vu (2006), directed by Tony Scott—
See also Tony Scott and four and a half days ago* —
Japanese character
for "field"
Related material from five days ago—
|
"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by |
* More precisely, what will be 4.5 days ago at 3:09 AM ET.
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In a Nutshell…
The Kernel of the Concept of the Object…
according to the New York Lottery yesterday—
From 4/27
From 11/24
A page numbered 176
A page numbered 187
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Saturday, December 22, 2012
Cezanne’s Greetings
Click anywhere in the above image for the high culture essay.
Here are the links to Rosen and Cézanne.
See also the December 11th Log24 post Conclusion.
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Web Links:
Spidey Goes to Church
More realistically…
- "Nick Bostrom … is a Swedish philosopher at
St. Cross College, University of Oxford…." - "The early location of St Cross was on a site in
St Cross Road, immediately south of St Cross Church." - "The church building is located on St Cross Road
just south of Holywell Manor." - "Balliol College has had a presence in the area since
the purchase by Benjamin Jowett, the Master, in the 1870s
of the open area which is the Balliol sports ground
'The Master's Field.' " - Leaving Wikipedia, we find a Balliol field at Log24:
- A different view of the same field, from 1950—
. - A view from 1974, thanks to J. J. Seidel —
- Yesterday's Analogies.
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For Larry L. King…
… author of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,"
who reportedly died on Thursday—
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For George Steiner…
… In gratitude for his book Real Presences—
A related shell game:
Ad for a talk at Harvard by Nick Bostrom in April 2010—
Click ad for background on the April 10 , 2010, symposium.
See also Bostrom on the The Simulation Argument
and the Log24 April 12, 2010, Shell Game post above.
Note the black diamond logo of Bostrom's Oxford institute.
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Friday, December 21, 2012
Analogies*
The Moore correspondence may be regarded
as an analogy between the 35 partitions of an
8-set into two 4-sets and the 35 lines in the
finite projective space PG(3,2).
Closely related to the Moore correspondence
is a correspondence (or analogy) between the
15 2-subsets of a 6-set and the 15 points of PG(3,2).
An analogy between the two above analogies
is supplied by the exceptional outer automorphism of S6.
See…
The 2-subsets of a 6-set are the points of a PG(3,2),
Picturing outer automorphisms of S6, and
A linear complex related to M24.
(Background: Inscapes, Inscapes III: PG(2,4) from PG(3,2),
and Picturing the smallest projective 3-space.)
* For some context, see Analogies and
"Smallest Perfect Universe" in this journal.
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Thursday, December 20, 2012
For Grimm Day*
* See Google Doodle for today, the
200th anniversary of the Grimms'
Kinder- und Hausmärchen .
See also Ay Que Bonito Es Volar
and The Broom Factory.
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Riddled
See reference AR in "Binary Coordinate Systems."
See also Prewar Berlin in this journal.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Identity Shining Forth
From William M. Kantor's 1978 review of Peter J. Cameron's
1976 book Parallelisms of Complete Designs—
"There are three ways an area of mathematics
can be surveyed: by a vast, comprehensive treatise;
by a monograph on a small corner of the field; or by
a monograph on a cross section."
An area of mathematics—
A small corner of the field—
A cross section—
The area— Four.
The corner— Identity.
The cross section— Window.
The three ways— December 8 ten years ago.
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Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Lines
Today's New York Times on a collector of Japanese art who died on December 8th—
In 1954, she made her first trip to Japan. The visit had been suggested by the architect Walter Gropius, whose disciple Benjamin Thompson was designing a modernist house for her in Oyster Bay, on Long Island.
Gropius, a titan of the Bauhaus school, was deeply influenced by the Japanese aesthetic and wanted her to experience its clean, spare lines firsthand.
See Dec. 8th in this journal for the following clean, spare lines:
Japanese character
for "field"
Related material: Looking Deeply and Field.
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