Issue #23 – Observations and Reflections
ISSUE #23:
This week in MUSE: Observations and reflections on the ways we are made
CONTENTS:
• Persuasion
• Hypotheosis III
• a la carte
• Mustard
• The Artist’s Eye-Hand-Heart
NEWS AND NOTES:
Recommended:
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center 11th Annual Domino Toppling Extravaganza. See the video.
The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces.
The Photographic Message, Roland Barthes, 1961
Image Credits:
Cover art: Persuasion, B. Wujcik, digital collage.
Hypotheosis III: Drive Baby Drive, K. Appleby. London Underground Map, LU Ltd., excerpt.
a la carte: Cookbooks, B. Wujcik photo & digital composition.
Mustard and Meat: photo by Pardeep Singh on Unsplash.
The Artist’s Eye-Hand-Heart: Fairy Festival Program, cover graphics, unattributed. Fairy house photos by B. Wujcik, card and note by Printha.
Persuasion
The case against the case against Cambridge Analytica
The Great Hack is very well-made documentary, engaging, articulate and … persuasive. But the (unintended, perhaps) effect of such an intensive focus on People Being Misled focussed me on (mis)leading in general. To wit, that the makers of this film were themselves leading (however unconsciously or innocently), girded by the assumed benevolence of a moral high ground. The good and best thing about this film is that it led me to think deeply,
Hypotheosis III
Neuroscience news – Researchers in Norway, England, and the U.S. have established by several experiments that at least some abstract knowledge is represented in the brain spatially. The essential idea is that many kinds of cognition – perceptions, experiences, and abstractions – are stored in cell grids of varying sizes and orientations, relative directions and distances among them standing in for relational and conceptual aspects. In doing so they co-opt the very mechanisms used to record location and navigational data.
a la carte
I find it hard to consider photography as art, because it is so often used as a technology of persuasion. By this I mean it is used to seduce the viewer, into a purchase (advertising), an author’s point of view (illustration), or an idea (Sketch-up). In these cases the emotions triggered are not any intrinsic to the promoted product/belief/idea and so the images are false, presented in bad faith. I use photographs in MUSE, employing covers and preview images to entice you to read.
Mustard and Meat
I have been watching the Netflix series Rasa, Rasoi aur Kahaniyan, which translates to Kings, Kitchens and their Stories. The series is about the astoundingly varied cuisines of India. The filmmakers weave a beautiful tapestry out of India’s regional histories and eating traditions. The dishes featured are always created from foods available locally and seasonally, and all are imprinted by the preferences, technologies, and customs of the successive waves of traders, warriors,
The Artist’s Eye-Hand-Heart
A few weeks ago we took Printha to Vermont, a Birthday in Brattleboro excursion. The premier event was a Domino toppling extravaganza at the local museum (BMAC). When Printha was younger she and Bruce used to build domino constructions just to knock them over, and later, would watch professional topplings online. We thought it would be fun for her (and us) to see one live. And it was! The domino artists – all engineers or former engineering students – created a marvelous set.
