Take away all the rules and let people behave.
"This surprises many people, although mathematically it's not surprising," Hamilton-Baillie says. "The reason for this is that your speed of journey, the ability of traffic to move smoothly through the built environment, depends on performance of your intersections, not on your speed of flow between intersections." And intersections, he says, work much more efficiently at lower speeds. "At 30 miles per hour, you frequently need control systems like traffic signals, which themselves mean that the intersection is not in use for significant periods of time. Whereas at slower speeds vehicles can move much more closely together and drivers can use eye contact to engage and make decisions. So you get much higher capacity."
Well it seems to me that anarchy is nice when few people are present but becomes a headhache when you are among a crowd. If you want to experience what I'am speaking about, no need to refer to mathematics, go to Beijing and drive a car...
"Woonerf" - Anarchy the Key to Safe Streets?
2004-05-27
2004-05-23
Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group
Creativity, creation are becoming fashion subjects for sociolologists nowadays. A few days ago I gave a link to an article about MIT's take on invention versus innovation. This time it's a link to an article by Ronald S. Burt, a sociologist at the University of Chicago about innovation through stealing the ideas present in other groups.
Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group
About cubism and the new look at reality that cubist artists brought to their societies. "Habits of perception and assumptions about the nature of things that had been stable since the 17th century were falling away. ... Picasso was a very physical, emotional man, and his cubism is not an attempt scientifically to account for the world so much as to experience it more fully."
Fragments of the universe
Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group
About cubism and the new look at reality that cubist artists brought to their societies. "Habits of perception and assumptions about the nature of things that had been stable since the 17th century were falling away. ... Picasso was a very physical, emotional man, and his cubism is not an attempt scientifically to account for the world so much as to experience it more fully."
Fragments of the universe
2004-05-21
Debates about art.
Realism versus conceptual, an old debate that still rages.
In the 20 May 2004 edition of the Independant Tom Lubbock addresses the question of Real Painting at the occasion of an exhibition by eight young British artists who persist in painting from life. Lubbock's central argument goes as follows: "this kind of figurative painting is indeed old hat, and what old hat means is that not only has someone done it before, but that someone has done it much better before and there really is no point in doing it again worse. And whenever someone speaks up for Real Painting it always means painting that's a pale and wonky imitation of something else".
The argument is right I guess but what a pale reasoning.
The real point of debate is not realism versus conceptual but what is art: content + technique. Content is the subject of an art work. Is a portrait or a landscape still worth the act of painting in the 21st century? Honestly I don't believe. Other techniques are better adapted to this kind of content than the brush. Also portraits and landscapes as message of a painter about his vision of reality, well a pale vision indeed. The 21st century is all about knowledge, understanding of reality. Science and philosophy are at the forefront of our understanding and they analyse our reality as being a global and complex system reaching from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Portraits and landscapes seem vain for the least in such a complex system.
Is The Tide Turning Against Conceptual Art?
Are the very well to do out of opportunities in the world of business? Or is art part of their business?
Irrational Exuberance
In the 20 May 2004 edition of the Independant Tom Lubbock addresses the question of Real Painting at the occasion of an exhibition by eight young British artists who persist in painting from life. Lubbock's central argument goes as follows: "this kind of figurative painting is indeed old hat, and what old hat means is that not only has someone done it before, but that someone has done it much better before and there really is no point in doing it again worse. And whenever someone speaks up for Real Painting it always means painting that's a pale and wonky imitation of something else".
The argument is right I guess but what a pale reasoning.
The real point of debate is not realism versus conceptual but what is art: content + technique. Content is the subject of an art work. Is a portrait or a landscape still worth the act of painting in the 21st century? Honestly I don't believe. Other techniques are better adapted to this kind of content than the brush. Also portraits and landscapes as message of a painter about his vision of reality, well a pale vision indeed. The 21st century is all about knowledge, understanding of reality. Science and philosophy are at the forefront of our understanding and they analyse our reality as being a global and complex system reaching from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Portraits and landscapes seem vain for the least in such a complex system.
Is The Tide Turning Against Conceptual Art?
Are the very well to do out of opportunities in the world of business? Or is art part of their business?
Irrational Exuberance
2004-05-17
The impact of technological change upon our response towards visual arts.
An article that illustrates the impact of technological change upon our response towards visual arts.
"It gives consumers access to a wide number of images from around the world that would otherwise only be available on their screen [on a museum's Web site] or in a book. It engages the viewer directly by giving them something they can make their own."
Having a famous painting at home might be as simple as hitting `print'
"It gives consumers access to a wide number of images from around the world that would otherwise only be available on their screen [on a museum's Web site] or in a book. It engages the viewer directly by giving them something they can make their own."
Having a famous painting at home might be as simple as hitting `print'
2004-05-11
Invention versus innovation.
The May issue of MIT Technology Review is all about invention and the distinstion between "invention" and "innovation".
" 'invention' is the creation of radical new ways of saying and ways of seeing; 'innovation' is the preparation and packaging of those ideas to connect to an audience; 'diffusion' is the final delivery of that innovation and the economic models that keep it flowing. "
Invention, innovation, and the arts
" 'invention' is the creation of radical new ways of saying and ways of seeing; 'innovation' is the preparation and packaging of those ideas to connect to an audience; 'diffusion' is the final delivery of that innovation and the economic models that keep it flowing. "
Invention, innovation, and the arts
2004-05-10
Remembrance about what this blog is all about.
Art is the expression of one's understanding and vision of reality in a technique of his choice (technique that he masters). Technique and content are thus the two components of whatever art form. This was true in the past, remains true today and shall remain true in the future.
Mastering a technique does not mean having been schooled, mastering a technique means virtuosity in the practice of a technique. Schooling can help someone to master a technique but it is the individual who in the last instance will exercise and as such, the exercise, the practice of a technique is what after some time will give the individual the mastery.
Speaking of art, we know for a sure fact that technique and content are inseparable. Good technique with poor content results in shallowness and poor technique with interesting content results at best in unfinished works. Thus technical mastery + rich content is what gives art works.
With the 20th century came an accelerating rhythm of technical changes that led to an overflow of information. Humans were gradually plunged into a maelstrom of noise and images. Total confusion resulted, art lost its meaning and we humans lost our way.
Observing this reality is not enough, we have to understand it to be able to orient ourselves in order to find back our way.
This blog is about my understanding of our human reality (total confusion) and my own search for our human WAY. Surely enough my thinking centers on visual arts, to be more precise painting for this is what I spend the most time at. In my first sentence I wrote "Art is the expression of one's understanding and vision of reality in a technique of his choice". So my work centers on my understanding and vision of reality. But this is not given by the movement of the brush or by my painting technique. My vision of reality comes from the effort that I consciously make at understanding this reality through reading and searching for answers and this passes through the study of history, culture, economics, politics and science.
Our human reality is made of total confusion and thus it is only natural that the arts have been for some time now mired in confusion. But when it is clearly established that confusion reigns what becomes paramount is the search for a way out of this confusion. Knowledge of the confusion is not enough, we have to give sense to our lives and this is only feasible through knowledge of our human histories and civilizations. Modern sciences do not bring sense they only make sense when they come as an extension of historical and civilizational understanding.
In other words, I believe that the artists' mission in the 21st century is to bring sense to our reality and thus it ensues that artists have to be thinkers and philosophers.
Mastering a technique does not mean having been schooled, mastering a technique means virtuosity in the practice of a technique. Schooling can help someone to master a technique but it is the individual who in the last instance will exercise and as such, the exercise, the practice of a technique is what after some time will give the individual the mastery.
Speaking of art, we know for a sure fact that technique and content are inseparable. Good technique with poor content results in shallowness and poor technique with interesting content results at best in unfinished works. Thus technical mastery + rich content is what gives art works.
With the 20th century came an accelerating rhythm of technical changes that led to an overflow of information. Humans were gradually plunged into a maelstrom of noise and images. Total confusion resulted, art lost its meaning and we humans lost our way.
Observing this reality is not enough, we have to understand it to be able to orient ourselves in order to find back our way.
This blog is about my understanding of our human reality (total confusion) and my own search for our human WAY. Surely enough my thinking centers on visual arts, to be more precise painting for this is what I spend the most time at. In my first sentence I wrote "Art is the expression of one's understanding and vision of reality in a technique of his choice". So my work centers on my understanding and vision of reality. But this is not given by the movement of the brush or by my painting technique. My vision of reality comes from the effort that I consciously make at understanding this reality through reading and searching for answers and this passes through the study of history, culture, economics, politics and science.
Our human reality is made of total confusion and thus it is only natural that the arts have been for some time now mired in confusion. But when it is clearly established that confusion reigns what becomes paramount is the search for a way out of this confusion. Knowledge of the confusion is not enough, we have to give sense to our lives and this is only feasible through knowledge of our human histories and civilizations. Modern sciences do not bring sense they only make sense when they come as an extension of historical and civilizational understanding.
In other words, I believe that the artists' mission in the 21st century is to bring sense to our reality and thus it ensues that artists have to be thinkers and philosophers.
2004-05-09
Creativity versus borrowing and rearranging.
Forget the hard-won solitary labors of the artist who doesn't pirate or sample. That model just doesn't fit anymore. Lessig considers culture itself to evolve through variants on piracy.
(Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, in his new book, "Free Culture: How Bad Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity" Penguin)
This is a thought provoking article that artists and thinkers need absolutely to read.
Liberty, Technology, Duty: Where Peace Overlaps War
(Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, in his new book, "Free Culture: How Bad Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity" Penguin)
This is a thought provoking article that artists and thinkers need absolutely to read.
Liberty, Technology, Duty: Where Peace Overlaps War
2004-04-29
Painters and the market.
Here is an excellent article about painters and the market.
Is fame the art world's biggest lottery?
Is fame the art world's biggest lottery?
2004-04-23
New York's flirt with the past.
So I'am not alone to think about New York's design scene as a swim in a minimalist bath. See my post of Tue Aug 12, 2003.
Minimalist Oases in a Bustling Manhattan
Minimalist Oases in a Bustling Manhattan
2004-04-22
Art ...and its function in society.
Here we are again, art and ideology and commerce. Art as a public relation tool at the hands of the ideologues and the merchants. In earlier times, the ideologues were the priests, today they are the merchants.
"...fine art's conceptual leanings are increasingly difficult to distinguish from the facile surfaces of advertising, this ironic fusion of art and commerce is perhaps an inevitable progression. ...the all-important products and logos are deleted, leaving only their surrounding associations hanging in the air like conceptual perfume."
Death of the gallery
"...fine art's conceptual leanings are increasingly difficult to distinguish from the facile surfaces of advertising, this ironic fusion of art and commerce is perhaps an inevitable progression. ...the all-important products and logos are deleted, leaving only their surrounding associations hanging in the air like conceptual perfume."
Death of the gallery
2004-04-10
Art with sense or accountancy of works.
What is culture and art all about ?
Is it to collect all that is realized under the sky without any selection or is it to select from all those creations the ones that offer meaning about the times we live in ? In other words, is there sense in art or are all productions equally interesting and thus deserving collection?
Read in spiked-online 04/09/04.
"The pursuit of aesthetic or historical understanding, of attempting to distinguish good paintings from bad or correct interpretations from false ones, is deemed impossible. Instead, all cultural institutions can do is to revel in 'diversity', by promoting different kinds of art and competing judgements. Today's cultural policy rejects the ways of the traditional cultural elite, and presents itself as far more enlightened. However, if we examine the legacy that cultural diversity policy has rejected, we find that some valuable principles have been lost by the wayside."
"Cultural diversity policy is founded upon the collapse of traditional cultural policy. The celebration of 'diversity' for its own sake expresses the disorientation of the cultural elite, once belief in standards of cultural value had waned. But the same policy is also a response to this disorientation, providing a new logic and role for cultural institutions".
The latest attacks on multiculturalism in Britain have been coming from the left. "An elite that is unwilling to make judgements about why any one cultural practice is better than another, to set universal standards about what role individuals should be expected to play across society, and to promote a distinct set of values that a society should agree upon, finds a useful tool in multiculturalism. This is why it has been so well-suited to Western societies in the past few decades, increasingly disorientated by the erosion of cultural and political certainties. Clearly, the official promotion of multicultural policy has not provided any solution to this disorientation - indeed, by actively encouraging expressions of difference and divisions between communities, it may well have fuelled the process of fragmentation."
Art for inclusion's sake
Facing up to the M-word
Is it to collect all that is realized under the sky without any selection or is it to select from all those creations the ones that offer meaning about the times we live in ? In other words, is there sense in art or are all productions equally interesting and thus deserving collection?
Read in spiked-online 04/09/04.
"The pursuit of aesthetic or historical understanding, of attempting to distinguish good paintings from bad or correct interpretations from false ones, is deemed impossible. Instead, all cultural institutions can do is to revel in 'diversity', by promoting different kinds of art and competing judgements. Today's cultural policy rejects the ways of the traditional cultural elite, and presents itself as far more enlightened. However, if we examine the legacy that cultural diversity policy has rejected, we find that some valuable principles have been lost by the wayside."
"Cultural diversity policy is founded upon the collapse of traditional cultural policy. The celebration of 'diversity' for its own sake expresses the disorientation of the cultural elite, once belief in standards of cultural value had waned. But the same policy is also a response to this disorientation, providing a new logic and role for cultural institutions".
The latest attacks on multiculturalism in Britain have been coming from the left. "An elite that is unwilling to make judgements about why any one cultural practice is better than another, to set universal standards about what role individuals should be expected to play across society, and to promote a distinct set of values that a society should agree upon, finds a useful tool in multiculturalism. This is why it has been so well-suited to Western societies in the past few decades, increasingly disorientated by the erosion of cultural and political certainties. Clearly, the official promotion of multicultural policy has not provided any solution to this disorientation - indeed, by actively encouraging expressions of difference and divisions between communities, it may well have fuelled the process of fragmentation."
Art for inclusion's sake
Facing up to the M-word
2004-04-09
No meaning, only agit-prop. Is it art ?
They do not build "meanings," "messages" or "symbols," they nevertheless know how to trot out agitprop... Ah, yes...it's subversive.
Unreasonable Art
Unreasonable Art
2004-04-08
Change: our earth is breathing.
The earth seems to breathe. Its magnetic field appears to flip from North to South for very long periods. Its last flip from South to North appeared some 780.000 years ago...
Quick flip of Earth's magnetic field revealed
Magnetic Field Flip-Flop Clocked
Our Growing, Breathing Galaxy
Quick flip of Earth's magnetic field revealed
Magnetic Field Flip-Flop Clocked
Our Growing, Breathing Galaxy
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