* See other posts tagged Langer Key.
Monday, April 5, 2021
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Philosophy in a New Key
(With apologies to Susanne K. Langer, née Susanne Katherina Knauth)
See too the buzzard-related Catch-22 song —
Monday, October 21, 2019
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Langer
"Visual forms— lines, colors, proportions, etc.—
are just as capable of articulation ,
i.e. of complex combination, as words.
But the laws that govern this sort of articulation
are altogether different from the laws of syntax
that govern language. The most radical difference
is that visual forms are not discursive .
They do not present their constituents successively,
but simultaneously, so the relations determining
a visual structure are grasped in one act of vision."
— Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key
Friday, October 24, 2014
New Key
See Langer (Harvard U. Press, Third Edition, Jan. 31, 1957, pp. 3-4-5).
See also Old Key : Pythagoras, harmony, and the 3-4-5 triangle.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
European Culture
A Wroclaw image from 2011 in which a version of my own work appears —
Later … A Wroclaw image posted by marrific on June 2, 2019 —
Recall too the oeuvre of Wroclaw native Ernst Cassirer . . .
Except, perhaps, by some roller-skate fans . . .
From The Catcher in the Rye —
“She was having a helluva time tightening her skate.
She didn’t have any gloves on or anything and her hands
were all red and cold. I gave her a hand with it. Boy, I
hadn’t had a skate key in my hand for years. It didn’t feel
funny, though. You could put a skate key in my hand
fifty years from now, in pitch dark, and I’d still know
what it is. She thanked me and all when I had it tightened
for her. She was a very nice, polite little kid. God, I love it
when a kid’s nice and polite when you tighten their skate
for them or something. Most kids are. They really are.
I asked her if she’d care to have a hot chocolate or something
with me, but she said no, thank you. She said she had to meet
her friend. Kids always have to meet their friend. That kills me.
Even though it was Sunday and Phoebe wouldn’t be there
with her class or anything, and even though it was so damp
and lousy out, I walked all the way through the park over to
the Museum of Natural History. I knew that was the museum
the kid with the skate key meant.”
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Articulation
Notes for a monkey grammarian —
"Visual forms— lines, colors, proportions, etc.—
are just as capable of articulation ,
i.e. of complex combination, as words.
But the laws that govern this sort of articulation
are altogether different from the laws of syntax
that govern language. The most radical difference
is that visual forms are not discursive .
They do not present their constituents successively,
but simultaneously, so the relations determining
a visual structure are grasped in one act of vision."
— Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key
See also Langer's New Key in this journal.
Related material —
Monday, June 20, 2016
Shema, Salinger
"I've got a brand-new pair of roller skates …"
Related material — Salinger in the Park and
Philosophy in a New Key.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Sunday School
In memory of Joan Rivers
This post was suggested by the previous post‘s quote
“the subject’s desires are scripted and orchestrated
by an unconscious fundamental fantasy,”
and by one of my favorite musical fantasies:
Melanie – Brand New Key (’71) .
Academics may prefer the following —
Monday, August 11, 2014
Syntactic/Symplectic
(Continued from August 9, 2014.)
Syntactic:
Symplectic:
"Visual forms— lines, colors, proportions, etc.— are just as capable of
articulation , i.e. of complex combination, as words. But the laws that govern
this sort of articulation are altogether different from the laws of syntax that
govern language. The most radical difference is that visual forms are not
discursive . They do not present their constituents successively, but
simultaneously, so the relations determining a visual structure are grasped
in one act of vision."
– Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key
For examples, see The Diamond-Theorem Correlation
in Rosenhain and Göpel Tetrads in PG(3,2).
This is a symplectic correlation,* constructed using the following
visual structure:
.
* Defined in (for instance) Paul B. Yale, Geometry and Symmetry ,
Holden-Day, 1968, sections 6.9 and 6.10.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Backstory
Steve Martin’s new novel An Object of Beauty will be released tomorrow.
“The most charmingly rendered female schemer since Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly.”
— Elle magazine
“Martin compresses the wild and crazy end of the millennium
and finds in this piercing novel a sardonic morality tale….
Exposes the sound and fury of the rarified Manhattan art world.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Like Steve Martin’s Shopgirl , this very different novel will captivate your attention from start to finish.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
Martin on his character Ray Porter in the novella Shopgirl (published Oct. 11, 2000)—
“He said, ‘I wrote a piece of code
that they just can’t seem to do without.’
He was a symbolic logician. That was his career….”
As the above review notes, Martin’s new book is about art at the end of the millennium.
See also Art Wars: Geometry as Conceptual Art
and some of my own notes from 2000 (March 9) in “Is Nothing Sacred?”
Some related material —
A paperback with a striking cover (artist unknown)—
Note that the background may be constructed from
any of four distinct motifs. For another approach to these
motifs in a philosophical context, see June 8, 2010.
“Visual forms— lines, colors, proportions, etc.— are just as capable of articulation , i.e. of complex combination, as words. But the laws that govern this sort of articulation are altogether different from the laws of syntax that govern language. The most radical difference is that visual forms are not discursive . They do not present their constituents successively, but simultaneously, so the relations determining a visual structure are grasped in one act of vision.”
– Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Language and Form
In memory of S. Neil Fujita, who died last Saturday—
Fujita did the cover art for this edition.
Another book by Langer with a striking cover (artist unknown)—
Note that the background may be constructed from
any of four distinct motifs. For another approach to these
motifs in a philosophical context, see June 8, 2010.
"Visual forms— lines, colors, proportions, etc.— are just as capable of articulation , i.e. of complex combination, as words. But the laws that govern this sort of articulation are altogether different from the laws of syntax that govern language. The most radical difference is that visual forms are not discursive . They do not present their constituents successively, but simultaneously, so the relations determining a visual structure are grasped in one act of vision."
— Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key