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Art: Before I was born Tji Ling (2020) Book: Other Minds - Peter Godfrey Smith Annotators: Garvan & Melek
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Steve first came across to this artwork in an exhibition in Amsterdam, in the form of panorama and people were surrounded, looking at it. It had a sort of feeling of taking the viewer somewhere else. The drawing illustrates the story of the artist's family migrated to Netherlands, from China, noting the tragedies and events through the journey. The artwork is presented in the style of an old book that extends into a long drawing. On the back, there is a text relating to the drawing.
Surprisingly, painting and drawing is not like riding a bike. Steve prefers to use coloured pencils, but he got into writing, reached a plateau in painting where he was comfortable and confident with it. Paul Nobson is an artist who is known for his intricate, detailed and large scale drawings. Steve thinks it's a strange fascination and one could get lost in it or find it overwhelming. The problem with the artists is that everything they do is important.The reason I'm still drawing is that I still haven't reached the limit whereas I think Paul Nobson has.
This book is called Other Minds. I learned that the plural of Octopus is nit Octopi but Octopuses and I've been correcting everyone my whole life. What's really interesting about octopuses is that they have a very different and complex nervous system, so it can relate to pragmatism. I believe that there are things that exist that are independent from my mind. Not everybody believes this. In other words, pragmatism is the idea that we are all organisms but what defines it is our nervous system and the understanding of the outside world comes from that. The skin of an octopus can see, it doesn't have one brain like us, or not located in one place. they can shape-shift and morph. What defines our perception of life is limited to pair of eyes. They live a very short life of 4 years and I have difficulty grasping how they can be this intelligent. For evolutionary reasons, they have a very solitary life. They age rapidly and when they die, they fall into bits. Aging is series of inevitable genetics defect. However, for an octopus it happens rapidly. The vast contrast between humans and octopuses is talked in the book that intrigued me.
A 19th century like panorama , like a precursor to cinema. It describes the story of a Chinese family's migration from Asia to Europe, charting the hardships of such a migration. Chinese migrants stories remain untold, even by the children of migrants. The drawing is enclosed in well designed sleeve. The artwork is an accordion book of drawings on one side and text on the other. It could be strange or alienating to uncover cultural differences between yourself and your parents. She has shown work at Tent in Rotterdam, but unfortunately it was tucked away and easily missed.
Painting and drawing is not like riding a bike. Having ambitions to paint and to draw could lead to something more significant, despite the decaying muscle memory.
https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+noble+artist&sxsrf=AOaemvJi8ieWXiO5F43tSqHxS-6YmOWGEg:1637145547863&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjo7sy2mp_0AhWD8LsIHZbgDssQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1275&bih=673&dpr=1#imgrc=c7j97_PW60-XzM This is just madness, it's not healthy. To create these gargantuan works is not healthy. There is humanity in the Ling work that is not found in Noble's work. Noble has reached a threshold that he maintains, it cannot really develop conceptuallly, it's tied to the logic of it's production.
Otherminds - P. Godfrey Smith a philosopher of ideas, this book lead steve to begin drawing octopusses and cuttle fish. They are very different to us, there are things that exist that are independant of my mind, they will exist when I don't and they have existed before I existed and will exist after I have existed. We receie a lot of information through are sensory abilities, though there is a lot of information that we cannot register. Pragmatically, our world is undertood through our nervous system and senses.An octopus is completely alien to us. It can see through its skin, it has no spine or any bones. We are facing frontwards, our nose and eyes and mouth are all facing the same direction. Gravity defines our evolution. Under water, gravity is subverted, not completely but enough to allow sharks to have evolved before trees. They have short lives, how does a creature with the life span of two-ish years become such a diverse and complex creature, is it because they live solitary lives, they don't get married or anything like that so they have lots of time to work on their hobbies. :-) Ageing is a series of genetic defects, but our evolution has pushed back the defects, but an Octopus ages rapidly at the end of its life, things fall apart. Radical Difference. historical novel - different characters in different locations
Tja Ling Hu (Gorinchem, Netherlands, 1987) is an illustrator and visual artist who lives and works in Rotterdam. Her detailed and personal drawings capture an intimate perspective of her Chinese roots and her family, who left China in the 1970s and immigrated to the Netherlands. The drawings and her genealogical research helped Tja Ling reconnect with her heritage. They also illustrate her family’s history over four generations and their journey to find a place in society.
In China, panoramic paintings are an important subset of handscroll paintings, with some famous examples being Along the River During the Qingming Festival and Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River.
To create a panorama, artists travelled to the sites and sketched the scenes multiple times.[11] Typically a team of artists worked on one project with each team specializing in a certain aspect of the painting such as landscapes, people or skies
Learning how to drawer again - a disconnect between the hand and the mind. By not holding onto the practice it can dissipate. "It feels weird...it's not like riding a bicycle. The rhetorics of if really shock me."
Octopusses - plural of octopus.
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.
Pragmatism began in the United States in the 1870s. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. In 1878, Peirce described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."
structure of the brain (nervous system): https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-anatbrain.htm >>> Cerebrum: is the largest part of the brain and is composed of right and left hemispheres. It performs higher functions like interpreting touch, vision and hearing, as well as speech, reasoning, emotions, learning, and fine control of movement. Cerebellum: is located under the cerebrum. Its function is to coordinate muscle movements, maintain posture, and balance. Brainstem: acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. It performs many automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate, body temperature, wake and sleep cycles, digestion, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, and swallowing.
Octopuses have an extensive nervous system, with over 500 million neurons, similar in number to that of a dog. But unlike dogs and other vertebrates, where the majority of neurons are in the brain, over two thirds of the octopuses' neurons are located within their arms and body. With such a strangely-built nervous system, scientists have long suspected that octopuses' arms may have a mind of their own and act autonomously from the central brain. Research has shown that octopuses' arms use reflex loops to create coordinated movements, and some octopuses can even distract predators by discarding limbs that continue to move for long periods of time. "Some scientists think about octopuses as nine-brained creatures, with one central brain and eight smaller brains in each arm," said Dr. Gutnick. But her new research, published in Current Biology, suggests that the arms and the brain are more connected than previously thought. Dr. Gutnick and her colleagues have shown that octopuses are capable of learning to associate inserting a single arm into a specific side of a two-choice maze with receiving a food reward, even when neither the reward nor the arm in the maze are visible to the octopus. But crucially, while the learning process takes place in the central part of the brain, the information needed for the brain to choose the correct path is detected only by the arm in the maze.
Octopuses have no bones!!! Humans are like horses - very frontal.
CEPHALAPODS A cephalopod /ˈsɛfələpɒd/ is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda /sɛfəˈlɒpədə/ (Greek plural κεφαλόποδες, kephalópodes; "head-feet")[3] such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles (muscular hydrostats) modified from the рrimitive molluscan foot. Fishers sometimes call cephalopods "inkfish", referring to their common ability to squirt ink. The study of cephalopods is a branch of malacology known as teuthology. As if octopuses, squids and other cephalopods were not already strange enough, they may have found a way to evolve that is foreign to practically all other multicellular organisms on the planet. For most animals, changes that might prove beneficial to the organism primarily occur at the beginning of their molecular production process. Mutations occur in DNA that are then transcribed into RNA; the RNA is then translated into an altered protein. Not so for cephalopods—at least not entirely. A new study published in Cell reports these aquarium oddities can modify the proteins found in their bodies without having to change the basic sequence of their DNA blueprint. As a result, it looks as if cephalopods have changed very slowly over the eons of their existence. The findings also suggest that octopuses and their tentacled cousins may be a lot older than previously thought.
RNA EDITING IN CEPHALAPODS The new paper reports on a process called “RNA editing,” which involves enzymes swapping out one RNA base (or nitrogen-based “letter” in the RNA/DNA alphabet) for another, presumably in the interest of an organism adapting to its environment. RNA editing is rarely employed in most animals. Among the 20,000 or so genes found in humans, for example, only a few dozen sites are thought to change their RNA so that it no longer matches the original DNA template. Yet previous work, in part by the same authors, suggested the process is employed rather frequently by octopuses and squid to respond to changes in ocean water temperature. The new study looked at DNA sequences, RNA sequences and proteomes—meaning all of the proteins encoded in a particularly cell or tissue—of multiple cephalopod species to determine how common RNA editing really is. Very, it turns out. Squid also have around 20,000 genes, a whopping 11,000 of which code for RNA that in some cases undergoes editing. A similar degree of editing was found in two species of octopus and the common cuttlefish. Far lower levels of RNA-editing were seen in the nautilus—a more primitive cephalopod—and in a non-cephalopod control, a mollusk called a sea hare. RNA editing was especially high in the cephalopod nervous system, including in genes coding for ion channels that facilitate electrical communication between neurons. What’s more, such extensive RNA editing seems to have helped to minimize changes in the cephalopod DNA over the eons that they have been around. Unlike most animal species, whose genomes are riddled with millions of years of mutations that have helped them adapt to a volatile world, cephalopod adaption appears to have been more a result of RNA editing. Heavy reliance on RNA editing, however it first evolved, practically would have guaranteed the need for cephalopod DNA to remain fairly stable over millennia. The proteins used for editing RNA would, after all, need to recognize various complexes of RNA, says paper co-author Joshua Rosenthal, a cephalopod neurobiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory. Hence, the DNA coding for the RNA that generates those particular proteins would have to stay consistent. In other words, in an animal reliant on RNA-editing for survival, any mutations that interfered with that process would probably not have survived into the next generation. “If a squid and octopus want to edit a base, they must preserve the underlying RNA structure,” Rosenthal says, “This means that the RNA structure can’t evolve. If it collects mutations as a result of DNA mutations, it would no longer be recognized by the editing enzymes. We normally think of mutations as the currency of evolution. But in this case their accumulation is suppressed.”
JOINT AGEING With ageing, joint movements becomes stiffer and less flexible because the amount of synovial fluid inside the synovial joints decreases and the cartilage becomes thinner. Ligaments also tend to shorten and lose some flexibility, making joints feel stiff.[3] Age in the cartilage is likely due to ageing changes in cells and tissues that make the joint more susceptible to damage and less able to maintain homeostasis ie an imbalance exists between catabolic and anabolic activity driven by local production of inflammatory mediators in the cartilage and surrounding joint tissues. There is a close relationship between chondrocyte activity and local articular environment changes due to cell senescence, followed by secretion of inflammatory mediators.[4] The senescent secretory phenotype likely contributes to this imbalance through the increased production of cytokines and MMPs (matrix metalloproteinases) and a reduced response to growth factors. Oxidative stress appears also to play an important role in the degradation of cartilage seen in ageing with excessive ROS (reactive oxygen species ) affecting cell function.
ANTHROPOCENTRISM Anthropocentrism refers to a human-centered, or “anthropocentric,” point of view. In philosophy, anthropocentrism can refer to the point of view that humans are the only, or primary, holders of moral standing. Anthropocentric value systems thus see nature in terms of its value to humans; while such a view might be seen most clearly in advocacy for the sustainable use of natural resources, even arguments that advocate for the preservation of nature on the grounds that pure nature enhances the human spirit must also be seen as anthropocentric. Alternative, non-anthropocentric or anti-anthropocentric views include ecocentrism, biocentrism, and similar framings. The articles assembled here look at the question of anthropocentrism from a variety of points of view, proceeding from an investigation of the roots of modern anthropocentrism in Western philosophy and religion, and looking at the implications for anthropocentric thinking of the Darwinian revolution and the emergence of environmentalism. Questions of anthropocentrism and its alternatives emerge in part from the nature/culture divide, a fault line of Western philosophy and environmental thought. These categories differ significantly in other cultural settings, and discussions of anthropocentrism and its alternatives would take on a much-different character outside the confines of “Western” thought. A mycorrhiza (from Greek μύκης mýkēs, "fungus", and ῥίζα rhiza, "root"; pl. mycorrhizae, mycorrhiza or mycorrhizas[1]) is a mutual symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant.[2] The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungus in the plant's rhizosphere, its root system. Mycorrhizae play important roles in plant nutrition, soil biology, and soil chemistry. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plant's root tissues, either intracellularly as in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF or AM), or extracellularly as in ectomycorrhizal fungi. The association is sometimes mutualistic. In particular species or in particular circumstances, mycorrhizae may have a parasitic association with host plants.[3]
Presenter: Melek Annotators: Aitan & Pelle
Artwork / Meshes of Afternoon, Maya Deren 1943 Melek plays film: Flower falls to the road - shadow play high contrast - trying to get through the door - fumbles the key - inds the kay - opens the lock - a living room with a newspaper - a loaf of bread with knife and bowl of soup - an old telephone on the stairs - dark dark stairs spiralling winding - a curating blowing by the windwon - a record playing - back down the windy stairs - a floral couch - footsteps in sanles wih a flower - yawning dreaming on the sofa, falling asleep - zoom out of the dtreet in a whole - a woman in a veil with a mirror face - a shadow runs owards the eiled woman - the veiled woman walks down the garden path - protagonist runs after her - we see protagonists face for he first time, a curious, languid stare - the knife is on the stairs, slow motion run up the spiral staircase - telephone on the bed - refelection on the knife - back through the window - falling through space and time down the stairs - shes still asleep in the living room with record playing - she sees herself asleep - its inception - the veiled woman still walks down the path, protagonist sees herself walking - veiled woman walks up the stairs - she leaves flower on the bed with a mirror face, and then abruptly disappears - the key is in her mouh and changes ti a knieffe - multipled versoions of her sit in the kitchen - one takes the key - one had black hand and takes the key with lightbub eyes - he camera looms over the sleeper, almost stabbed by the lightbulb version of herself - a handsome stranger rescues her with a flower - the house is as she saw in the dream - can she trust the perfect straner? - hes taken the place of the veiled mirror woman in the dream - we see his face in the mirror - could i have been him all along - she destroys his images, mirror shattering into another world - to the sea he wa;sl away out the house, opens the door with the key, the mirror is shatterd all around our original dreamer and blood trickles from her mouth, shes covered in sea weed. A constant loopi ng between dream and reality.
Best known film by Maya Deren - avant garde cinema, choreography, dance, photoraphy. She experimented with film techniques - slow motion, split screen. Melek is very critical of experimental filmmaking, but this is her limit. This seems to have a nice balanace between real and fiction. References o freudiean psychoanalysis. Its so universal and personal and accessible.
It tastefully suggests a complex story in surrealist fashion.
The images were filled with references to noise but actually its a silent flm. Theres an indication of presence and the dream sequence stars to loop. A dialogue between the dreamer and the subjects of her dreams.
Dali v David Lynch v Deren - object/subject interchangeable, also hints at parallel universe