For Women's History Month
Self —
Illusion —
For some related remarks, see Aion in this journal.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Self and Illusion
Comments Off on Self and Illusion
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Overlay Art
"SH lays an array of selves, fictive and autobiographical,
over each other like transparencies, to reveal deeper patterns."
— Benjamin Evans in The Guardian , Sunday, March 10, 2019,
in a review of the new Siri Hustvedt novel Memories of the Future.
See also Self-Blazon and . . .
Comments Off on Overlay Art
Friday, March 29, 2019
The Blazon World*
“At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light,
an image of unutterable conviction,
the reason why the artist works and lives
and has his being — the reward he seeks —
the only reward he really cares about,
without which there is nothing. It is to snare
the spirits of mankind in nets of magic,
to make his life prevail through his creation,
to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful
substance of his own experience, into the congruence
of blazing and enchanted images that are themselves
the core of life, the essential pattern whence
all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity.”
— Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River
* Title suggested by that of a Siri Hustvedt novel.
See also Blazon in this journal.
Comments Off on The Blazon World*
Front-Row Seed
"This outer automorphism can be regarded as
the seed from which grow about half of the
sporadic simple groups…." — Noam Elkies
Closely related material —
The top two cells of the Curtis "heavy brick" are also
the key to the diamond-theorem correlation.
Comments Off on Front-Row Seed
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Culture
The previous post, "Dream of Plenitude," suggests . . .
"So here's to you, Nordstrom-Robinson . . . ."
Comments Off on Culture
Dream of Plenitude
"This time-defying preservation of selves,
this dream of plenitude without loss, is like
a snow globe from heaven, a vision of Eden
before the expulsion."
— Judith Shulevitz on Siri Hustvedt in
The New York Times online, March 26.
See also, in this journal, the dream of Edenic plenitude
in the March 20 post "Secret Characters."
Comments Off on Dream of Plenitude
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
The Level of the Line
"And the songs were most perfect at the level of the line,
embodying the terse and clever brilliance that exists
in the best country music."
— The New Yorker , Culture Desk
Postscript: Guy Clark, 1941-2016
By Ian Crouch, May 17, 2016
"To find me a bubble for the spirit level"
Comments Off on The Level of the Line
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Line
In lieu of an eternal blazon . . .
Posts now tagged Guy Clark Day.
(Clark reportedly died on Tuesday, May 17, 2016.)
"Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye…."
— Don McLean
Comments Off on Line
Preparatory Cartoons
The online New York Times this afternoon has an article on "the
preparatory cartoon for Raphael’s fresco 'The School of Athens.'"
Other preparatory cartoons:
The first New Yorker cover above is from a search for Hustvedt
in this journal. See the 2003 post "Art at the Vanishing Point."
Comments Off on Preparatory Cartoons
Monday, March 25, 2019
Clark’s Wake
Comments Off on Clark’s Wake
Espacement
(Continued from the previous post.)
|
In-Between "Spacing" and the "Chôra " (Ch. 2 in Henk Oosterling & Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (Eds.), Intermedialities: Philosophy, Arts, Politics , Lexington Books, October 14, 2010) "The term 'spacing' ('espacement ') is absolutely central to Derrida's entire corpus, where it is indissociable from those of différance (characterized, in the text from 1968 bearing this name, as '[at once] spacing [and] temporizing' 1), writing (of which 'spacing' is said to be 'the fundamental property' 2) and deconstruction (with one of Derrida's last major texts, Le Toucher: Jean-Luc Nancy , specifying 'spacing ' to be 'the first word of any deconstruction' 3)." 1 Jacques Derrida, “La Différance,” in Marges – de la philosophie (Paris: Minuit, 1972), p. 14. Henceforth cited as D . 2 Jacques Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” trans. A. Bass, in Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 217. Henceforth cited as FSW . 3 Jacques Derrida, Le Toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy (Paris: Galilée, 2000), p. 207. . . . . "… a particularly interesting point is made in this respect by the French philosopher, Michel Haar. After remarking that the force Derrida attributes to différance consists simply of the series of its effects, and is, for this reason, 'an indefinite process of substitutions or permutations,' Haar specifies that, for this process to be something other than a simple 'actualisation' lacking any real power of effectivity, it would need “a soubassement porteur ' – let’s say a 'conducting underlay' or 'conducting medium' which would not, however, be an absolute base, nor an 'origin' or 'cause.' If then, as Haar concludes, différance and spacing show themselves to belong to 'a pure Apollonism' 'haunted by the groundless ground,' which they lack and deprive themselves of,16 we can better understand both the threat posed by the 'figures' of space and the mother in the Timaeus and, as a result, Derrida’s insistent attempts to disqualify them. So great, it would seem, is the menace to différance that Derrida must, in a 'properly' apotropaic gesture, ward off these 'figures' of an archaic, chthonic, spatial matrix in any and all ways possible…." 16 Michel Haar, “Le jeu de Nietzsche dans Derrida,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger 2 (1990): 207-227. . . . . … "The conclusion to be drawn from Democritus' conception of rhuthmos , as well as from Plato's conception of the chôra , is not, therefore, as Derrida would have it, that a differential field understood as an originary site of inscription would 'produce' the spatiality of space but, on the contrary, that 'differentiation in general' depends upon a certain 'spatial milieu' – what Haar would name a 'groundless ground' – revealed as such to be an 'in-between' more 'originary' than the play of differences it in-forms. As such, this conclusion obviously extends beyond Derrida's conception of 'spacing,' encompassing contemporary philosophy's continual privileging of temporization in its elaboration of a pre-ontological 'opening' – or, shall we say, 'in-between.' |
For permutations and a possible "groundless ground," see
the eightfold cube and group actions both on a set of eight
building blocks arranged in a cube (a "conducting base") and
on the set of seven natural interstices (espacements ) between
the blocks. Such group actions provide an elementary picture of
the isomorphism between the groups PSL(2,7) (acting on the
eight blocks) and GL(3,2) (acting on the seven interstices).
Espacements
For the Church of Synchronology —
See also, from the reported publication date of the above book
Intermedialities , the Log24 post Synchronicity.
Comments Off on Espacement
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Espacement: Geometry of the Interstice in Literary Theory
"You said something about the significance of spaces between
elements being repeated. Not only the element itself being repeated,
but the space between. I'm very interested in the space between.
That is where we come together." — Peter Eisenman, 1982
|
https://www.parrhesiajournal.org/ Parrhesia No. 3 • 2007 • 22–32
(Up) Against the (In) Between: Interstitial Spatiality by Clare Blackburne Blackburne — www.parrhesiajournal.org 24 — "The excessive notion of espacement as the resurgent spatiality of that which is supposedly ‘without space’ (most notably, writing), alerts us to the highly dynamic nature of the interstice – a movement whose discontinuous and ‘aberrant’ nature requires further analysis." Blackburne — www.parrhesiajournal.org 25 — "Espacement also evokes the ambiguous figure of the interstice, and is related to the equally complex derridean notions of chora , différance , the trace and the supplement. Derrida’s reading of the Platonic chora in Chora L Works (a series of discussions with the architect Peter Eisenman) as something which defies the logics of non-contradiction and binarity, implies the internal heterogeneity and instability of all structures, neither ‘sensible’ nor ‘intelligible’ but a third genus which escapes conceptual capture.25 Crucially, chora , spacing, dissemination and différance are highly dynamic concepts, involving hybridity, an ongoing ‘corruption’ of categories, and a ‘bastard reasoning.’26 Derrida identification of différance in Margins of Philosophy , as an ‘unappropriable excess’ that operates through spacing as ‘the becoming-space of time or the becoming-time of space,’27 chimes with his description of chora as an ‘unidentifiable excess’ that is ‘the spacing which is the condition for everything to take place,’ opening up the interval as the plurivocity of writing in defiance of ‘origin’ and ‘essence.’28 In this unfolding of différance , spacing ‘insinuates into presence an interval,’29 again alerting us to the crucial role of the interstice in deconstruction, and, as Derrida observes in Positions , its impact as ‘a movement, a displacement that indicates an irreducible alterity’: ‘Spacing is the impossibility for an identity to be closed on itself, on the inside of its proper interiority, or on its coincidence with itself. The irreducibility of spacing is the irreducibility of the other.’30"
25. Quoted in Jeffrey Kipnis and Thomas Leeser, eds., 26. Ibid, 25.
27. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy. 28. Derrida, Chora L Works , 19 and 10. 29. Ibid, 203. 30. Derrida, Positions , 94. |
Comments Off on Espacement: Geometry of the Interstice in Literary Theory
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Plan 9 Manifesto
"Arnheim was a particularly important source
for Norway's principal architectural theorist,
Christian Norberg-Schulz."
— Andrew Peter Steen, University of Queensland
doctoral thesis, 2015
See
- "Field of Manifestation,"
- "A Study in Art Education," and
-
"The Concept of Phenomenology in Architecture as Developed
by the Norwegian Theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz"
"Nine is a very powerful Nordic number."
— Katherine Neville, The Magic Circle
Comments Off on Plan 9 Manifesto
Another Typology
"You said something about the significance of spaces between
elements being repeated. Not only the element itself being repeated,
but the space between. I'm very interested in the space between.
That is where we come together." — Peter Eisenman, 1982
Comments Off on Another Typology
Friday, March 22, 2019
Page Number
"A version of this article appears in print on ,
on Page 132 of T Magazine with the headline: Bodies in Motion."
See as well page 132 of the Queensland thesis pictured here yesterday
in light of the 2017 Page film "Flatliners."
Comments Off on Page Number
Architectural Theory
For the late Robert Venturi, who reportedly died on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018.
See also The Venturi Manifesto (Log24, Sept. 22, 2018).
Comments Off on Architectural Theory
Charles Jencks’s Grand Unified Theory
"The stars and galaxies seem static, eternal, or moving slowly
in deterministic patterns, becoming the background stage
on which we move. But if we could speed up the sequence,
we would see how dramatic and unpredictable this background
really is — an actor, director, script and stage all at once.
Moreover, it is a unified universe, a single unfolding event
of which we are an embedded part, a narrative of highly
dangerous and fine-tuned events, something more like
a detective thriller with many crimes and last-minute escapes
than the impersonal account of astronomy textbooks.
We are only just beginning to decipher the plot and figure out
the Cosmic Code, as Heinz Pagels puts it."
— Charles Jencks, The Architecture of the Jumping Universe :
A Polemic (How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture
and Culture), Academy Editions, 1995, rev. ed. 1997
"A Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is a model in particle physics…."
— Wikipedia
"Under the GUT symmetry operation these field components
transform into one another. The reason quantum particles
appear to have different properties in nature is that the unifying
symmetry is broken. The various gluons, quarks and leptons
are analogous to the facets of a cut diamond, which appear
differently according to the way the diamond is held but in
fact are all manifestations of the same underlying object."
— Heinz Pagels, Perfect Symmetry , Bantam paperback, 1986, p. 284
See also the recent post Multifaceted Narrative.
Comments Off on Charles Jencks’s Grand Unified Theory
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Geometry of Interstices
Finite Galois geometry with the underlying field the simplest one possible —
namely, the two-element field GF(2) — is a geometry of interstices :
For some less precise remarks, see the tags Interstice and Interality.
The rationalist motto "sincerity, order, logic and clarity" was quoted
by Charles Jencks in the previous post.
This post was suggested by some remarks from Queensland that
seem to exemplify these qualities —
Comments Off on Geometry of Interstices
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Secret Characters
"Cell 461" quote from Curzio Malaparte superimposed on a scene from
the 1963 Godard film "Le Mépris " ("Contempt") —
"The architecture… beomes closely linked to the script…."
Malaparte's cell number , 461, is somewhat less closely linked
to the phrase "eternal blazon" —
Irving was quoted here on Dec. 22, 2008 —
The Tale of
the Eternal Blazon
by Washington Irving
“Blazon meant originally a shield , and then
the heraldic bearings on a shield .
Later it was applied to the art of describing
or depicting heraldic bearings in the proper
manner; and finally the term came to signify
ostentatious display and also description or
record by words or other means . In Hamlet ,
Act I Sc. 5, the Ghost, while talking with
Prince Hamlet, says:
‘But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.’
Eternal blazon signifies revelation or description
of things pertaining to eternity .”
— Irving’s Sketch Book , p. 461
Update of 6:25 PM ET —
"Self-Blazon… of Edenic Plenitude"
(The Issuu text is taken from Speaking about Godard , by Kaja Silverman
and Harun Farocki, New York University Press, 1998, page 34.)
Comments Off on Secret Characters
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Architectural Note
Casa Malaparte, also known as Villa Malaparte —
Related film image with architectural quotation superimposed —
Related art prose —
Comments Off on Architectural Note
Composed in Light
"Composed in light of both Hiroshima and
Einstein’s general theory of relativity,
Dali’s crucifixion . . . ."
— "The Crucified God: A Death in Pictures,"
by Ed Simon, April 11, 2017,
http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/…
See as well Log24, The Relativity Problem at Hiroshima (Dec. 3, 2018).
Related material —
Comments Off on Composed in Light
Monday, March 18, 2019
“Iacta Est” Continues.
Update of 4:36 PM ET from The Wall Street Journal —
__________________________________________________________
"You, Misirlou, are a dream of delight in the night.
To an oasis, sprinkled by stars above,
Heaven will guide us, Allah will bless our love."
Comments Off on “Iacta Est” Continues.
Pulp Fictions
The rest of the post "Sermon" referred to in yesterday's
St. Patrick's Day post "Just Another Block in the Wall" —
Comments Off on Pulp Fictions
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Another Lying Rhyme…
For Tom Stoppard, author of "Jumpers" —
"Seven is Heaven"
From a webpage of Bill Cherowitzo
" … the Fano plane ,
a set of seven points
grouped into seven lines
that has been called
'the combinatorialist’s coat of arms.' "
— Blake Stacey in a March 14 post
Comments Off on Another Lying Rhyme…
Easily
"Watch the trailer." — This journal on Eliza Doolittle Day, 2012.
Midrash — March 14 remarks on geometry from Christchurch, New Zealand —
Comments Off on Easily
Just Another Block in the Wall
Yesterday's post Grundlagen —
Midrash on yesterday's Grundlagen —
A poem linked to here on the above "building blocks" date, in the
Log24 post Sermon of 11 AM ET Sunday, 15 September 2013 —
Comments Off on Just Another Block in the Wall
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Multifaceted Narrative
"Here, modernism is defined as an autonomous body
of ideas, having little or no outward reference, placing
considerable emphasis on formal aspects of the work
and maintaining a complicated—indeed, anxious—
rather than a naïve relationship with the day-to-day
world, which is the de facto view of a coherent group
of people, such as a professional or discipline-based
group that has a high sense of the seriousness and
value of what it is trying to achieve. This brisk definition…."
— Jeremy Gray, Plato's Ghost: The Modernist
Transformation of Mathematics , Princeton, 2008
"Even as the dominant modernist narrative was being written,
there were art historians who recognized that it was inaccurate.
The narrative was too focused on France . . . . Nor was it
correct to build the narrative so exclusively around formalism;
modernism was far messier, far more multifaceted than that."
— Jane Kallir, https://www.tabletmag.com/
jewish-arts-and-culture/visual-art-and-design/
269564/the-end-of-middle-class-art,
quoted here on the above date — Sept. 11, 2018.
From some related Log24 posts —
Comments Off on Multifaceted Narrative