View allAll Photos Tagged Syntax
While painting is about communicating the artist inner world, photography could be conceived as a means of communicating the artist's perception of the outer world.
Within this frame of thought, I interpret my photographic activities as an effort to communicate selected visual fragments of my surroundings. In addition, I perceive the act of taking pictures as equivalent to the implicit formulation of an existential statement such as: "I exist, therefore this is the way I see the world".
This concept is perhaps not exclusive to photography but also applicable to other forms of art. The artist is implicitly within his/her work (Artifex in Opere). Creating the artwork then becomes an elliptical way of corroborating the artist's own existence, either through his/her own contemplation or fundamentally from the feedback received from other individuals.
If we assume that there are few casual elements within a picture and most elements within have been chosen either consciously or unconsciously, there must be another meaning associated with photographs that goes beyond the esthetics of the composition. This underlying hermeneutics adds an occult symbolic layer to the images that transcend the boundaries of individual fragments of work to step into the emotional and spiritual world of the photographer. The overall resulting pattern is clearly greater than the summation of its parts (gestalt).
I am very much attached to my cameras, I think that this feeling stems in part from my fascination with their precise mechanics, but nonetheless from the executive role they play in the process of image creation. The camera is an approximation of what the brush is to painting (Photography: from the Greek: φωτός (phōtos), genitive of light and γραφή (graphé) representation by means of lines), literally the photographic camera is the instrument that allows us to draw with light.
However, there are some caveats with this analogy, since there is no complete transparency during the process of image creation, the results are always inseparable from the syntax superimposed by the media and the camera. For example, a black and white picture represents the colors of a scene as gradations of grey but because we have the ability to see in color, we would never interpret this as being a literal depiction of reality.
Another example of image related syntax can be found on images produced with early photographic processes, in those days emulsions had a low sensitivity to light. A consequence was that most portraits taken during that period had to be done outdoors under harsh sunlight, having the subjects hold static postures for a long time. Understanding this syntax allows us to interpret why people looked so serious or event upset, their solemn appearance deriving from their stiff postures and hard shadows under their facial features.
I do not think it is essential to understand the underlying photographic syntax of an image in order to enjoy viewing a picture, but being acquainted with it could add valuable context to its interpretation.
Regardless of which technology is used, a photograph domain will always lay within the space where the artist composition intersects with the mechanical action of the camera, which will capture, without restrictions, everything that exists within its field of view. Including those elements that the artist never perceived, consciously or unconsciously, before pressing the shutter button.
Claudio Valdés
My 20th Mecha Mixel-Nixel Expeditionary Force (MMNEF) mech; this one from the Medivals tribe.
For more on the MMNEF click here.
I tried to get the most of the castle theme with a walking medieval castle turret/tower body and a good array of period weapons. Not my best arms/legs (I was going for armored knight), but this tribe was more limited than most in the mixels joint and clip/bar options.
C&C solicited as always!
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
August 2010
Inspired by Joe Murphy's recent C6 run. I started with an idea for the leg shape and knew I wanted a 4-wide body, however size creep made an appearance. This one is a little big... the biggest C6 frame I've ever made.
My C6 Album with all my C6 builds
For the Mobile Frame Zero game.
Veyman-JKLP MFZ Soldier loadout: audto-cannon, charged armor domes, comms array, jump thrusters, SSR. 81pcs as shown.
My 26th Mecha Mixel-Nixel Expeditionary Force (MMNEF) mech; this one from the Nindjas tribe.
For more on the MMNEF click here.
C&C solicited as always!
Japanese Tit
The Japanese tit (Parus minor), also known as the Oriental tit, is a passerine bird which replaces the similar great tit in Japan and the Russian Far East beyond the Amur River, including the Kuril Islands. Until recently, this species was classified as a subspecies of great tit (Parus major), but studies indicated that the two species coexist in the Russian Far East without intermingling or frequent hybridization.
The species made headlines in March 2016, when Suzuki et al. reported in Nature Communications that they had found experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls, marking the first such evidence for that type of syntax in nonhuman animals.
Here is the Agamemnon with stickers applied and micro Starfury fighters flying formation.
This micro Starfury design was created by my buddy Dark_Syntax after he found out that I was building the Omega Class Destroyer for SHIPtember. Huge thanks to him for a really cool design that only uses 12 parts! They are scaled just a little too big for the ship, but I still think they look totally awesome!
My other buddy ZKaiser helped me out by printing the custom made stickers that I designed. He did a really nice job, especially on getting the perforations on the letter "A" to come out so cleanly. Huge thanks to him as well!
This is the view from the mainland, 2 km away on the surfaced clifftop path between the visitors' centre at Carn Kez and the more traditional teashop of the First and Last House at Dr Syntax's Head, the actual westernmost point of mainland Cornwall and England.
The lighthouse stands on Carn Brâs, the highest of the Longships islets (apparently part of the Arthurian 'lost land of Lyonesse'), at 12 m above high water level. The original tower, built in 1795, showed a light 24 m above sea level – which, scarily, wasn't high enough to be seen in very high seas.
This granite replacement was built with a focal height of 35 m in 1869-73, though nearly demolished in 1898 when the SS Bluejacket, er, crashed into Carn Brâs in clear conditions. The lighthouse has been unmanned since 1988. Probably not due to a fear of stray steamships.
Land's End isn't the most westerly point on the entire island of Great Britain (mainland Scotland extends further west) and if counting islands the Scillies are also further west within England. However, the southernmost point on the mainland, Lizard Point, is only 38½ km away and Land's End is the obvious tip of the peninsula of Devon and Cornwall, so Great Britain is traditionally considered to extend 'from Land's End to John o' Groats'; from here to the extreme northeast of Scotland, 1,349 km away by road.
My 17th Mecha Mixel-Nixel Expeditionary Force (MMNEF) mech; this one from the Glorp Corp 2 tribe.
For more on the MMNEF click here.
A frame demo'ing systems for Mobile Frame Zero using the C6 concept by micah bauer.
For more, see the Mobile Frame Hangar post and my C6 set.
14/52.
Don't be a ghost, don't hang around like smoke, don't leave your afterglow like cigarette stubs at the bottom of my backpack. Give me something more than an echo of your voice through the car stereo, give me good grammar and smooth syntax. I know it's gonna be boring at the bar without you there, and that it's gonna be different when I go to the diner, and I know we're all gonna notice you're gone now. Sail your great sea; write me sometime.
Chers amis,
En cette période de confinement généralisée, de ce fait, nous avançons significativement sur notre nouveau projet Le Guide du Domaine des Oiseaux, un nouvel ouvrage en remplacement de notre bouquin annuel "Livre Photo" qui représentera la diversité ornithologique du site de Mazères, projet que nous vous avions présenté succinctement lors de l'assemblée générale fin 2018.
Rappel du contenu :
- Histoire du Domaine des Oiseaux depuis sa création jusqu’à aujourd’hui.
- Planches oiseaux potentiellement observables devants des observatoires en fonction des saisons.
- Représentation des 220 espèces observées depuis 15 ans au Domaine des Oiseaux séparées en deux parties : d'abord les plus communes, puis les exceptionnelles. Chaque espèce sera détaillée et illustrée, la période de l'année où nous pouvons l'observer, la migration de l'oiseau régulière et saisonnière, traçage des couloirs migratoires... etc.
- Fiches éthologiques/étymologiques des espèces rares accompagnées d'illustrations artistiques.
- Rapports de migration détaillés.
- Bilan soulignant l'importance de protéger ce site et toute la biodiversité qui s'y trouve.
En conclusion vous l'avez compris, nous avons besoin de photographies d'espèces même réalisées hors du Domaine des Oiseaux. Chaque oiseau n'aura qu'une seule photo à son effigie, nous privilégierons donc les images où l'espèce est bien reconnaissable.
Vous pouvez proposez vos images couleurs en fonction de la liste des espèces ci-dessous, de bonnes définitions (minimum 1024px) au format paysage et sans signature : par mail sur notre adresse associative : lesamisdudomainedesoiseaux@gmail.com
Afin de pouvoir indiquer proprement les droits d'auteur sur l'ouvrage et par un souci d'organisation de gestion des centaines de photos que nous devrions recevoir par mail, il faudra nommer impérativement vos fichiers suivant cette syntaxe :
nom-espece-nom-prenom-photographe.jpg
Il n'y a aucune limitation d'image, mais restez très raisonnable, proposez une photo par espèce mais surtout favoriser la photo de l'oiseau la plus exceptionnelle.
Par avance merci à tous pour vos contributions, nous vous tiendrons informé régulièrement de l'avancement de ce gigantesque projet collaboratif.
PS : nous avons besoin de volontaires !! : Vous vous sentez l'âme d'un poète ? Vous voulez vous affirmer en tant qu'artiste ? Vous souhaitez rédigez sur un sujet que vous adorez ? Proposez vos idées de contenu ? N'hésitez pas à poser votre candidature, ce projet est ouvert à tous ! mail : lesamisdudomainedesoiseaux@gmail.com
Bon confinement, prenez soin de vous.
Bien amicalement
Christophe.
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Liste des espèces communes
Voici la liste des espèces dites "communes" (observées plus de 5 fois au Domaine des Oiseaux). Il y aura quand même dans cette catégorie un degré de rareté sur 3 niveaux, représenté par une pastille de couleur (vert, jaune, orange). Par exemple, la mésange charbonnière aura une pastille verte, car elle est très commune, en revanche la Nette rousse sera taguée orange.
Canards, cygnes, oies
Bernache nonnette
Canard colvert
Canard pilet
Canard souchet
Cygne tuberculé
Fuligule milouin
Oie cendrée
Sarcelle d’hiver
Sarcelle d’été
Tadorne de Belon
Canard chipeau
Canard siffleur
Nette rousse
Oie rieuse
Fuligule morillon
Perdrix et faisans
Faisan de Colchide
Perdrix rouge
Grèbes
Grèbe castagneux
Grèbe huppé
Cormorans
Grand cormoran
Hérons et cigognes
Aigrette Garzette
Bihoreau gris
Cigogne blanche
Grande aigrette
Héron cendré
Héron garde-bœuf
Héron pourpré
Crabier chevelu
Cigogne noire
Ibis falcinelle
Spatule blanche
Rapaces diurnes
Aigle botté
Balbuzard pêcheur
Bondrée apivore
Busard Saint-Martin
Busard cendré
Busard des roseaux
Buse variable
Circaète Jean le blanc
Épervier d’Europe
Faucon crécerelle
Faucon hobereau
Milan noir
Milan royal
Élanion blanc
Rapaces nocturnes
Chevêche d’Athena
Chouette hulotte
Effraie des clochers
Râles, foulques, grues
Foulque macroule
Gallinule poule d’eau
Grue cendrée
Marouette ponctuée
Râle d’eau
Limicoles, sternes, goélands
Avocette élégante
Barge à queue noire
Bécasseau minute
Bécasseau cocorli
Bécasseau de Temminck
Bécasseau variable
Bécassine des marais
Bécassine sourde
Chevalier aboyeur
Chevalier arlequin
Chevalier culblanc
Chevalier gambette
Chevalier guignette
Chevalier sylvain
Combattant varié
Échasse blanche
Glaréole à collier
Goéland brun
Goéland leucophée
Grand gravelot
Guifette moustac
Guifette noire
Mouette mélanocephale
Mouette rieuse
Petit gravelot
Pluvier argenté
Sterne naine
Sterne pierregarin
Vanneau huppé
Pigeons et tourterelles
Pigeon biset
Pigeon colombin
Pigeon ramier
Tourterelle turque
Tourterelle des bois
Coucous
Coucou gris
Martinets
Martinet noir
Martin, guêpier, huppe
Guêpier d’Europe
Huppe fasciée
Martin-pêcheur d’Europe
Pics et torcol
Pic épeiche
Pic épeichette
Pic vert
Torcol fourmilier
Passereaux
Accenteur mouchet
Alouette des champs
Alouette lulu
Bergeronnette des ruisseaux
Bergeronnette grise
Bruant proyer
Cisticole des joncs
Bruant zizi
Bergeronnette printanière
Bouscarle de Cetti
Bruant des roseaux
Bruant jaune
Chardonneret élégant
Choucas des tours
Cochevis huppé
Corneille noire
Étourneau sansonnet
Fauvette des jardins
Fauvette grisette
Fauvette pitchou
Fauvette à tête noire
Geai des chênes
Gobemouche noir
Gobemouche gris
Gorge bleue à miroir
Grand corbeau
Grimpereau des jardins
Grive draine
Grive mauvis
Grive musicienne
Grive litorne
Gros-bec casse noyaux
Hirondelle de fenêtre
Hirondelle de rivage
Hirondelle rustique
Hypolaïs polyglotte
Linotte mélodieuse
Loriot d’Europe
Merle noir
Mésange bleue
Mésange charbonnière
Mésange noire
Mésange à longue queue
Moineau domestique
Moineau friquet
Moineau soucie
Pie bavarde
Pie grièche écorcheur
Pinson des arbres
Pinson du nord
Pipit des arbres
Pipit farlouse
Pipit spioncelle
Pouillot de Bonelli
Pouillot fitis
Pouillot véloce
Rémiz penduline
Roitelet triple bandeau
Rossignol philomèle
Rouge-gorge familier
Rouge-queue noir
Rouge-queue à front blanc
Rousserolle effarvatte
Serin cini
Sittelle torchepot
Tarier des prés
Tarier pâtre
Tarin des aulnes
Traquet motteux
Troglodyte mignon
Verdier d’Europe
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Liste des espèces rares
Canards, cygnes et oies
Fuligule nyroca
Harle huppé
Harle bièvre
Oie à bec court
Ouette d’Egypte
Tadorne casarca
Grèbes
Grèbe a cou noir
Hérons et cigognes
Blongios nain
Butor étoilé
Rapaces diurnes
Aigle royal
Autour des palombes
Faucon d’Eleonore
Faucon émerillon
Faucon pèlerin
Vautour fauve
Râles, foulques et grues
Marouette poussin
Outarde canepetière
Talève sultane
Limicoles, Sternes et Goélands
Barge rousse
Bécasse des bois
Bécasseau maubèche
Bécasseau sanderling
Bécasseau tacheté
Chevalier stagnatile
Courlis cendré
Courlis corlieu
Huîtrier pie
Mouette pygmée
Oedicneme criard
Phalarope à bec large
Phalarope à bec étroit
Pluvier doré
Sterne Caspienne
Sterne Hansel
Tournepierre a collier
Vanneau sociable
Coucous
Coucou geai
Martinets
Martinet à ventre blanc
Martins, guêpiers, huppe
Rollier d’Europe
Pics et torcol
Pic noir
Flamants
Flamant rose
Passereaux
Bec-croisé des sapins
Bergeronnette citrine
Bouvreuil pivoine
Bruant ortolan
Fauvette passerinette
Hirondelle rousseline
Locustelle tachetée
Merle à plastron
Phragmite des joncs
Pie grièche à tête rousse
Pipit rousseline
Pouillot siffleur
Roitelet huppé
Rousserolle turdoïde
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lesamisdudomainedesoiseaux.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/proje...
The shape of this Steve Tobin sculpture made me think of the Death Star in Star Wars. Tobin made it from letters of the alphabet, painted them green and welded and shaped them into this form. He named the sculpture 'Syntax'.
At the Houston Botanic Center in Houston, Texas
This third and final tour of Dr. Syntax in search of a wife is accompanied by twenty-five colored illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
The discovery of Mecha-Cubits (metallic Tribe-Cubits with a single black wedge) by a group of Nixels deep within the caverns of the Mixel Moon allowed a single Nixel to Max with a tribe of Mixels to form a powerful, technologically advanced mecha. A sentient working/fighting machine where the unique powers and creativity of a Mixel tribe are combined with the technology and military structure of the Nixels resulting in a union much more capable than the sum of its parts. Many other Nixels have formed teams providing needed maintenance and technical support for the Mecha-Max’s during their explorations of Mixel Land.
The Mecha Mixel-Nixel Expeditionary Force (MMNEF) is beginning to understand the secret origins of Mixel Land’s vast technological underpinnings. Initial discoveries suggest an unknown mutual enemy of Mixel/Nixel-kind that somehow disrupted a previous civilization and created the two disparate worlds of Mixel Land and Nixels Land. Mysterious remnants of this society can be seen in the giant Rainbow Cubit of Mixel Mountain, the extensive pipe network, and the unexplained Large Rock where Mixels inexplicably gather.
Meanwhile, the un-Mecha-Maxed Mixel tribes and Major Nixel both see the MMNEF as a threat to their status quo. Can the MMNEF solve the mystery of Mixel Land’s origin or will they succumb to the continuous threat from both Mixels and Nixels? Is the origin of Mixel Land something that should even be revealed?
These are all Mixel Max models (alt models) using only the pieces that come in the three sets from the respective tribes. This started as a slight departure from my usual mecha alt models of individual Mixel sets for Mobile Frame Zero when I built the first one from the Orbitons sets after being inspired by two fellow builders: Ezra Wibowo's (Cragster Max and Glorp Corp Max) and Dvdliu's (Wiztastics Max).
I wanted to make mecha Mixel Max's for the Nixel that comes with the tribe and set myself some conditions: build as many different types of mecha as possible, the Nixel must fit into the mecha and be removable without modification and have a well defined cockpit, and incorporate the Mixel tribe theme into an armed/military look. I knocked these out over about three weeks and had so much fun doing so that I'm kind of sad I'm done. I so can't wait for Series 5 and 6!
More pics in my Mecha-Max album.
I will be entering one of the Series4 Mecha-Max builds into the Brickset Series4 competition if I can ever decide which one to enter.
Mirit Ben Nun: Shortness of breath
'Shortness of breath' is not only a sign of physical weakness, it is a metaphor for a mental state of strong desire that knows no repletion; more and more, an unbearable glut, without repose. Mirit Ben Nun's type of work on the other hand requires an abundance of patience. This is a Sisyphean work (requiring hard labor) of marking lines and dots, filling every empty millimeter with brilliant blots. Therefore we are facing a paradox or a logical conflict. A patient and effortful work that stems from an urgent need to cover and fill, to adorn and coat. Her craft of layering reaches a state of a continuous ceremonial ritual.
This ritual digests every object into itself - useful or discarded -- available and ordinary or rare and exceptional -- they submit and devote to the overlay work. Mirit BN gathers scrap off the streets -- cardboard rolls of fabric, assortments of wooden boards and pieces, plates and planks -- and constructs a new link, her own syntax, which she alone is fully responsible for. The new combination -- a type of a sculptural construction -- goes through a process of patching by the act of painting.
In fact Mirit regards her three dimensional objects as a platform for painting, with a uniform continuity, even if it has obstacles, mounds and valleys. These objects beg her to paint, to lay down colors, to set in motion an intricate weave of abstract patterns that at times finds itself wandering the contours of human images and sometimes -- not. In those cases what is left is the monotonous activity of running the patterns, inch by inch, till their absolute coverage, till a short and passing instant of respite and than on again to a new onset.
Next to this assembly of garbage and it's recycling into 'painted sculptures' Mirit offers a surprising reunion between her illustrated objects and so called cheap African sculpture; popular artifacts or articles that are classified in the standard culture as 'primitive'.
This combination emphasizes the difference between her individualistic performance and the collective creation which is translated into cultural clichés. The wood carved image creates a moment of peace within the crowded bustle; an introverted image, without repetitiveness and reverberation. This meeting of strangers testifies that Mirit' work could not be labeled under the ´outsiders art´ category. She is a one woman school who is compelled to do the art work she picked out to perform. Therefore she isn't creating ´an image´ such as the carved wooden statues, but she produces breathless ´emotional jam' whose highest values are color, motion, beauty and plenitude. May it never lack, neither diluted, nor dull for even an instant
Tali Tamir
Veyman-CRKT MFZ Soldier loadout: mini-gun, reactive armor panels, comms pod, jump thrusters, SSR. 95pcs as shown.
I'd been wanting to do some Alt Models from the 2013 Star Wars Advent Calendar, but had been distracted with other things. I realized I could build my micro scale AT-RT in brown from it and that's all it took.
I tried to squeeze as many builds out of it as I could.
Back (L-R): Heavy Weapons Clone Trooper (auto grenade launcher & flightpack), Republic cargo lifter, Imperial shuttle Tyderium, AT-RT, B-Wing
Center (L-R): Y-Wing, two Swoop Bikes, Heavy Assault airspeeder, Geonosian Cannon
Bottom (L-R): Mandalorian speederbike, General Grievous Starfighter (variation of set 9509-21 from the 2012 AC), landspeeder
My 19th Mecha Mixel-Nixel Expeditionary Force (MMNEF) mech; this one from the MCPD tribe.
For more on the MMNEF click here.
With 16 and 17 being very action-figure-y, I went a little absurd on 18. A little too absurd. With 19 I tried to go a little more functional with this urban police scout and patrol mech.
Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) - Doctor Syntax at Covent Garden Theatre, 1 May 1812
www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/doctor-sy...
I've been playing around with my Ion Cannon Frigate over the last few days. I think its almost finished and ready to escort my SHIPtember 2015 build.
Thanks to my buddy Bryon for some of the suggestions he made. And thanks to Pierre for the suggestion of replacing the front cannon with a technic half-pin.
1) I changed out the 1x2 curved slopes on the front to the 1x2 slope with cutout
2) Added more white to the middle section to continue the stripe.
3) Modified the right side "wing" to try and more accurately portray the asymmetrical design portions of the ship.
4) Added some bits of white electrical tape to simulate the stripe affect more accurately.
Terran Expeditionary Marines 122nd Orbital Drop Company - the Grey Spectres.
Took a break from building spaceships to put together a company of edtuy's OMF-G29 "Betty Sue" frames. I love these guys! Credit to dark_syntax for inspiration on the stations.
I haven't figured out all of the system allocations yet, and was basically just building for looks in this pass.
238/365
Part 2 of my Tiny Words project.
Feel...
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
E.E. CUMMINGS
Boone Hall Plantation.
What is special about Boone Hall? It has a wonderful Virginian Live Oak alley which was planted from 1743 to 1843. The plantation has been continuously producing crops since 1681. It especially focuses on Gullah culture and the slave quarters with presentations by black Americans. Eight slave cabins (1790-1810) depict different aspects of Gullah culture and history. The plantation style homestead was only built in 1936 but the original house was built around 1700. It has beautiful flower gardens and the azaleas should be at their best. In the 1850s the plantation had 85 slaves with many involved in red brick production. Its main crops in early years were indigo and then cotton from the early 1800s. Its structures include the round smokehouse (1750); and the cotton gin factory (1853).
Gullah Culture and Language and Blacks in Charleston.
Gullah language is recognised as a distinct language and the black American population of coastal Sth Carolina and Georgia recognise themselves as Gullah people. But where did this culture originate? American historian Joseph Opala has spent decades researching the connections between Sierra Leone in Africa and Sth Carolina. A majority of the coastal black slaves arriving in Sth Carolina in the 1700s came from Sierra Leone where the area was known as the “Rice Coast” of Africa. The slaves brought with them the knowledge and skills for rice cultivation in Sth Carolina; their rice cooking methods; their West African language; their legends and myths; and their beliefs in spirits and voodoo. The Gullah people are thought to have the best preserved African culture of any black American group. Few have moved around the USA and black families in Charleston are now tracing their family history (and having family reunions with relatives) in Sierra Leone and Gambia, despite a break of 250 years in family contact! Many can trace their family links back to the Mende or Temne tribal groups in Sierra Leone. The Gullah language is a Creole language based on English but with different syntax more akin to African languages and with many African words and a few French words. The word Gullah is believed to be a mispronunciation of the African word Gora or Gola which came from several tribal groups in Sierra Leone. The direct links with Sierra Leone have been supported by the discovery of an African American funeral song which is identical to one sung by villagers in Sierra Leone.
The Gullah women in Charleston are also known for their weaving- the Sweetgrass basket sellers who can be found in several locations around the city. The skill and tradition of basket making came directly from Africa. And although they do not usually use the term voodoo the Gullah people believe in spirits and the power of roots, herbs or potions to ward off evil spirits or to snare a reluctant lover. If a spell is cast upon you can be “rooted” or “fixed” by this witchcraft and unable to resist the spell. This spiritual tradition is still strong and even whites in Charleston paint the ceilings of their piazzas blue to ward off old hags and evil spirits (and the colour is also meant to deter mosquitoes.)
In the city of Charleston about 18,000 of its residents were slaves in 1861. Large households often had 10 to 20 slaves to do gardening, the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the food serving, caring for the horses etc. Some households hired out servants to others for short periods and some households sold products produced by the slaves - dresses, other clothing, pastries, shoes, hats, horse shoes etc. Some slaves were musicians and played for their masters or were hired out for social functions to other houses; others were hired out with horse teams for transportation of others etc. So not all slaves worked as domestic servants. But there were also free blacks in Charleston. Often illegitimate children were freed upon their white father’s death and some slaves received small incomes if they had special skills and they could saved enough to buy their freedom. Eventually some free blacks became slave owners themselves by either purchasing slaves or by inheriting slaves from their white fathers. One of the wealthiest free blacks in Charleston in the Antebellum period was Richard DeReef who owned a wharf where he ran a timber business. He also owned a number of rental properties in Charleston. Richard was not a former slave. His African father with his Indian wife had migrated to Sth Carolina in the late 1700s when this was still possible. As his business grew Richard purchased slaves of his own. Despite his wealth Richard DeReef was considered a mixed race or coloured man and was never accepted into Charleston society. After the Civil War when the Radical Republicans from the North were overseeing/controlling Southern governments Richard DeReef was elected as a city councillor in 1868. That was the year that the new federally enforced state constitution allowing blacks to vote came into force. DeReef probably only served for a year or two. By 1870 the Ku Klux Klan was active and blacks disappeared from elected positions. When Northerners left Sth Carolina to its own devises in 1877, with the end of Northern Reconstruction, Sth Carolina stripped blacks of their right to vote by new state laws. Ballots for each of the usual eight categories of office had to be placed in a different ballot box. If any ballot was placed incorrectly all votes by that person were illegal. Later in the 1880s southern states brought in grandfather clauses- you could only vote if your grandfather did. This meant that slaves were not eligible to vote.
Mobile Frame Zero frames using only the bricks currently available from the Lego stores Pick A Model bins for the Q1 2017 Pick A Model.
Left to right:
PaM-43h "Wraith"
PaM-53q "Spectre"
PaM-38c "Phantom"
C&C solicited as always!
LDD File (the jumperplate over ball end of the double-ended ballplate wouldn't align in LDD so I subbed in a single-ended plate; it's red in the model)
Homage to M.C. Escher
Odd perspectives emerge inside Racin’s house and this is just one of these surprising vistas that follow you through the labyrinth of its very fabric.
You can also see a different perspectives of the same house:
link_1: www.flickr.com/photos/paion/475837979/in/set-721575945032...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAdoj_fVsuY
La poésie contemporaine ne chante plus. Elle rampe. Elle a cependant le privilège de la distinction, elle ne fréquente pas les mots mal famés, elle les ignore. Cela arrange bien des esthètes que François Villon ait été un voyou. On ne prend les mots qu'avec des gants: à "menstruel" on préfère "périodique", et l'on va répétant qu'il est des termes médicaux qui ne doivent pas sortir des laboratoires ou du codex. Le snobisme scolaire qui consiste à n'employer en poésie que certains mots déterminés, à la priver de certains autres, qu'ils soient techniques, médicaux, populaires ou argotiques, me fait penser au prestige du rince-doigts et du baise-main. Ce n'est pas le rince-doigts qui fait les mains propres ni le baise-main qui fait la tendresse. Ce n'est pas le mot qui fait la poésie, c'est la poésie qui illustre le mot.
L'alexandrin est un moule à pieds. On n'admet pas qu'il soit mal chaussé, traînant dans la rue des semelles ajourées de musique. La poésie contemporaine qui fait de la prose en le sachant, brandit le spectre de l'alexandrin comme une forme pressurée et intouchable. Les écrivains qui ont recours à leurs doigts pour savoir s'ils ont leur compte de pieds ne sont pas des poètes: ce sont des dactylographes. Le vers est musique; le vers sans musique est littérature. Le poème en prose c'est de la prose poétique. Le vers libre n'est plus le vers puisque le propre du vers est de n'être point libre. La syntaxe du vers est une syntaxe harmonique - toutes licences comprises. Il n'y a point de fautes d'harmonie en art; il n'y a que des fautes de goût. L'harmonie peut s'apprendre à l'école. Le goût est le sourire de l'âme; il y a des âmes qui ont un vilain rictus, c'est ce qui fait le mauvais goût. Le Concerto de Bela Bartok vaut celui de Beethoven. Qu'importe si l'alexandrin de Bartok a les pieds mal chaussés, puisqu'il nous traîne dans les étoiles! La Lumière d'où qu'elle vienne EST la Lumière...
En France, la poésie est concentrationnaire. Elle n'a d'yeux que pour les fleurs; le contexte d'humus et de fermentation qui fait la vie n'est pas dans le texte. On a rogné les ailes à l'albatros en lui laissant juste ce qu'il faut de moignons pour s'ébattre dans la basse-cour littéraire. Le poète est devenu son propre réducteur d'ailes, il s'habille en confection avec du kapok dans le style et de la fibranne dans l'idée, il habite le palier au-dessus du reportage hebdomadaire. Il n'y a plus rien à attendre du poète muselé, accroupi et content dans notre monde, il n'y a plus rien à espérer de l'homme parqué, fiché et souriant à l'aventure du vedettariat.
Le poète d'aujourd'hui doit être d'une caste, d'un parti ou du Tout-Paris.
Le poète qui ne se soumet pas est un homme mutilé. Enfin, pour être poète, je veux dire reconnu, il faut "aller à la ligne". Le poète n'a plus rien à dire, il s'est lui-même sabordé depuis qu'il a soumis le vers français aux diktats de l'hermétisme et de l'écriture dite "automatique". L'écriture automatique ne donne pas le talent. Le poète automatique est devenu un cruciverbiste dont le chemin de croix est un damier avec des chicanes et des clôtures: le five o'clock de l'abstraction collective.
La poésie est une clameur, elle doit être entendue comme la musique. Toute poésie destinée à n'être que lue et enfermée dans sa typographie n'est pas finie; elle ne prend son sexe qu'avec la corde vocale tout comme le violon prend le sien avec l'archet qui le touche. Il faut que l'oeil écoute le chant de l'imprimerie, il faut qu'il en soit de la poésie lue comme de la lecture des sous-titres sur une bande filmée: le vers écrit ne doit être que la version originale d'une photographie, d'un tableau, d'une sculpture.
Dès que le vers est libre, l'oeil est égaré, il ne lit plus qu'à plat; le relief est absent comme est absente la musique. "Enfin Malherbe vint..." et Boileau avec lui... et toutes les écoles, et toutes les communautés, et tous les phalanstères de l'imbécillité! L'embrigadement est un signe des temps, de notre temps. Les hommes qui pensent en rond ont les idées courbes. Les sociétés littéraires sont encore la Société. La pensée mise en commun est une pensée commune. Du jour où l'abstraction, voire l'arbitraire, a remplacé la sensibilité, de ce jour-là date, non pas la décadence qui est encore de l'amour, mais la faillite de l'Art. Les poètes, exsangues, n'ont plus que du papier chiffon, les musiciens que des portées vides ou dodécaphoniques - ce qui revient au même, les peintres du fusain à bille. L'art abstrait est une ordure magique où viennent picorer les amateurs de salons louches qui ne reconnaîtront jamais Van Gogh dans la rue... Car enfin, le divin Mozart n'est divin qu'en ce bicentenaire!
Mozart est mort seul, accompagné à la fosse commune par un chien et des fantômes. Qu'importe! Aujourd'hui le catalogue Koechel est devenu le Bottin de tout musicologue qui a fait au moins une fois le voyage à Salzbourg! L'art est anonyme et n'aspire qu'à se dépouiller de ses contacts charnels. L'art n'est pas un bureau d'anthropométrie. Les tables des matières ne s'embarrassent jamais de fiches signalétiques... On sait que Renoir avait les doigts crochus de rhumatismes, que Beethoven était sourd, que Ravel avait une tumeur qui lui suça d'un coup toute sa musique, qu'il fallut quêter pour enterrer Bela Bartok, on sait que Rutebeuf avait faim, que Villon volait pour manger, que Baudelaire eut de lancinants soucis de blanchisseuse: cela ne représente rien qui ne soit qu'anecdotique. La lumière ne se fait que sur les tombes.
Avec nos avions qui dament le pion au soleil, avec nos magnétophones qui se souviennent de "ces voix qui se sont tues", avec nos âmes en rade au milieu des rues, nous sommes au bord du vide, ficelés dans nos paquets de viande, à regarder passer les révolutions. Le seul droit qui reste à la poésie est de faire parler les pierres, frémir les drapeaux malades, s'accoupler les pensées secrètes.
Nous vivons une époque épique qui a commencé avec la machine à vapeur et qui se termine par la désintégration de l'atome. L'énergie enfermée dans la formule relativiste nous donnera demain la salle de bains portative et une monnaie à piles qui reléguera l'or dans la mémoire des westerns... La poésie devra-t-elle s'alimenter aux accumulateurs nucléaires et mettre l'âme humaine et son désarroi dans un herbier?
Nous vivons une époque épique et nous n'avons plus rien d'épique. A New York le dentifrice chlorophylle fait un pâté de néon dans la forêt des gratte-ciel. On vend la musique comme on vend le savon à barbe. Le progrès, c'est la culture en pilules. Pour que le désespoir même se vende, il ne reste qu'à en trouver la formule. Tout est prêt: les capitaux, la publicité, la clientèle. Qui donc inventera le désespoir?
Dans notre siècle il faut être médiocre, c'est la seule chance qu'on ait de ne point gêner autrui. L'artiste est à descendre, sans délai, comme un oiseau perdu le premier jour de la chasse. Il n'y a plus de chasse gardée, tous les jours sont bons. Aucune complaisance, la société se défend. Il faut s'appeler Claudel ou Jean de Létraz, il faut être incompréhensible ou vulgaire, lyrique ou populaire, il n'y a pas de milieu, il n'y a que des variantes. Dès qu'une idée saine voit le jour, elle est aussitôt happée et mise en compote, et son auteur est traité d'anarchiste.
Divine Anarchie, adorable Anarchie, tu n'es pas un système, un parti, une référence, mais un état d'âme. Tu es la seule invention de l'homme, et sa solitude, et ce qui lui reste de liberté. Tu es l'avoine du poète.
A vos plumes poètes, la poésie crie au secours, le mot Anarchie est inscrit sur le front de ses anges noirs; ne leur coupez pas les ailes! La violence est l'apanage du muscle, les oiseaux dans leurs cris de détresse empruntent à la violence musicale. Les plus beaux chants sont des chants de revendication. Le vers doit faire l'amour dans la tête des populations. A l'école de la poésie, on n'apprend pas: on se bat.
Place à la poésie, hommes traqués! Mettez des tapis sous ses pas meurtris, accordez vos cordes cassées à son diapason lunaire, donnez-lui un bol de riz, un verre d'eau, un sourire, ouvrez les portes sur ce no man's land où les chiens n'ont plus de muselière, les chevaux de licol, ni les hommes de salaires.
N'oubliez jamais que le rire n'est pas le propre de l'homme, mais qu'il est le propre de la Société. L'homme seul ne rit pas; il lui arrive quelquefois de pleurer.
N'oubliez jamais que ce qu'il y a d'encombrant dans la morale, c'est que c'est toujours la morale des autres.
Je voudrais que ces quelques vers constituent un manifeste du désespoir, je voudrais que ces quelques vers constituent pour les hommes libres qui demeurent mes frères un manifeste de l'espoir.
Léo ferré
A company of Veyman Genesis frames for Mobile Frame Zero.
Equipped systems L to R:
Rh, Y, B, G8, SSRx2
Ra, Y, Y, B
Rd, Y, B, G, SSR
Rd, Y, B, G
Systems: M2c carbine (Rd), A25s shoulder-integrated howitzer (Ra), H1 battlefield chainsaw “ripper” (Rh), S2 EMP shield (B), Mk1 comm’s pack (Y), Battlefield360 sensor mast (Y), J2 jump pack, R1 single-use rockets (SSR)
SHIDtember's back, baby!
5yrs ago today I posted The 8-Belle. Today I give you the Jovian Confederation ship JCS New Belfast, light tactical carrier.
Dual hangar bays with control tower, quad engine nacelles, main bridge, and multiple sensor systems.
108 studs (Duplo studs!), 67.5"/171.5cm. 100% Duplo; all SNOT is Duplo: no System or Toolo bricks, all parts are connected via studs (no "gravity connections"). She's mostly stable sitting on the table, but she wants to collapse under her own weight (she's a big girl); NOT swooshable. The stands are not built into the ship.
It took about 20hrs to build. No preplan, just a huge pile of Duplo and go!
More pics in my Duplo album.
The picture is dark, as dark as my mood today!
Just spent two hours fixing syntax errors... what a delightful morning-)))
found an oldie ... interesting are the crinkles on the top of the pants ... haven´t seen that yet ... (my american and british sisters : is this the right syntax ... ? I always have a problem with that little word -yet- ...)
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The Nature of Dreams
SIGMUD FREUD'S theory of dreams was part of his theory of man. He assumed that man in the course of his growth is forced to repress evil strivings - egocentricity, destructiveness, irrationality - in order to adapt himself to the requirements of social life. He does so, said Freud, partly by turning his asocial strivings into socially useful ones - a process which Freud interpreted as either "sublimation" or "reaction formation." Successful "sublimation" is exemplified by the surgeon who was turned his original sadistic strivings into a socially useful activity. An example of successful "reaction formation" is that of a humanitarian who has developed great kindness in combatting his destructive potentialities. The best in man, according to Freud, is rooted in his worst.
When we are asleep, Freud reasoned, we relax the effort that normally restraints the criminal we are at bottom. Our dream life is the refuge, as it were, where we recover from the heavy burden of our culture and are free to satisfy repressed infantile strivings. Yet even in sleep the internal censor's attention is only relaxed, not entirely dismissed. To deceive him, we dream in a kind of secret code. The real meaning of the dream can be understood only if the code is deciphered. This process of deciphering is what Freud called the interpretation of dreams.
Freud's theory of dream shocked psychologists and was denounced by many as unscientific. Most of his followers have denied it fanatically, though some accepting its heavy content of truth, came to consider it one-sided. Carl Custav Jung, who became the leader of his group, tended increasingly emphasize the 'higher' aspects of dreams just as one-sidedly as Freud has emphasized the 'lower'. Where Freud has found in dreams only irrational infantile strivings, Jung saw only expressions of moral or religious experiences, which he interpreted as outgrowth of racially inherited religious and metaphysical ideas.
If a man saw his dream a woman whose features were unknown to him, Freud would assume that this woman represented his mother, that the infantile sexual attachment to the mother, repressed in the conscious state, was satisfied in his dream. Freud argued that the dream she remained unknown to the dreamer in order to fool the censor. Relating this longing for the mother to the recent experiences of the dreamer, the analyst sought the hidden incestuous aspects in the dreamer's relationship to a woman which whom he may recently have fallen in love. Jung, on the other hand, tended to interpret the unknown woman as the image of the "unconscious", and also as a symbol of feminine aspects in the male dreamer's personality.
Had Jung been less concerned with the creating another school, and less fascinated by irrational racialism, his departure from Freud's dogmatism could have avoided the blind alley into which it ultimately led. As matters stand, a constructive revision of Freud's theory of dreams must pick up the thread where it was left before Jung's and other schools of psychoanalysis were formed.
WE MAY begin with Aristotle's definition of dreams, quoted but not accepted by Freud: Dreams are expressions of any kind of mental activity under the condition of sleep. The distinctive quality of dreams, the, is not a particular area of experience - neither Freud's "infantile wishes" nor Jung's "true picture of the subjective state" -but the effect of the condition of sleep upon our mode of experiencing.
Physiologically, sleep is a condition of chemical regeneration of the organism. Energy is restored while physical activity and even sensory perception are almost entirely discontinued. Sleep suspends the main function of waking life: reacting to reality by perception and action. This difference between the biological functions of waking and of sleeping is, in fact, a difference between two states of experience. In the waking state, thoughts or feelings responds primarily to challenge - the challenge of mastering our environment, changing it, defending ourselves against it. The primary task of waking man is survival; this means essentially, that he must think in terms of time and space, and that his thoughts are subject to the logical laws which are necessary for action.
During sleep the frame of reference changes radically. While we sleep we are not concerned with bending the outside world to our purposes. We are helpless - but we are also free. We are free from the burden of work, from the task of attack or defense, from the watching and mastering reality. We live in an inner world concerned exclusively with ourselves.
In sleep the realm of necessity has given way to the realm of freedom where "I" am the only system to which thoughts and feelings refer. In a dream the grief I experienced 10 years ago may be just as strong now, and I may hate a person on the other side of the globe as intensely as if he stood beside me. Sleep experience need not pay attention to qualities that are important in coping with reality. If I feel, for instance, that a person is a coward, I may dream that he has changed into a chicken. This change is illogical in terms of my orientation to outside reality, but logical in terms of what I feel about the person. Sleep experience, therefore, is not lacking in logic, but it is subject to a special logic of its own, which is entirely valid in that particular experiential state.
The "unconscious" is unconscious only in relation to the "normal" state of activity. When we call it "unconscious", we really say only that it is an experience alien to the frame of mind which exists while we act; it is then felt as a ghost-like, intrusive element, hard to get hold of and to remember. But the day world is an unconscious in our sleep experience as the night world is in our waking experience.
From what has been said so far it follows that the concepts "conscious" and "unconscious" are to be understood relative to the sleeping and waking states respectively. As and old Chinese poet put it: "I dreamed that I am a butterfly; now I do not know, am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or am I a butterfly who dreams it is a man." In the waking state of action those experiences which feel real in the dream are "unconscious." But when we are asleep and no longer preoccupied with action but with self-experience, the waking-experience is "unconscious" and sometimes it is a hard struggle to chase away the sleep world and to convince oneself of the reality of the waking world.
It is true that even in the waking state of existence, thinking and feeling are not entirely subject to the limitations of time and space. Our creative imagination permits us to think about past and future objects as if they were present, and of distant objects as if they were before our eyes. It could therefore be argued that the absence of the space-time system is not characteristic of sleep existence in contradiction to waking existence, but of thinking and feeling in contradiction to acting. Here it becomes necessarily to clarify an essential point.
We must distinguish between the contents of thought process and the logical categories employed in thinking. While it is true that the contents of our waking thoughts are not subject to limitations of space and time, the logical categories of thinking are those of the space-time logic. I can, for instance, think of my father, and state that his attitude in a certain situation is identical with mine; this statement is logically correct. If I state, on the other hand, "I am my father," the statement is "illogical" because it is not conceived in reference to the physical world. The sentence is logical, however, in a purely experiential realm: it expresses the experience of intense closeness to my father. When I have a feeling in the waking state with regard to a person whom I have not seen for 20 years, I remain aware of the fact that the person is not present. But if I dream about the person, my feelings deals with the person "as if he or she were present" is to express the feeling in logical waking-life concepts. In sleep existence there is no "as if"; the person is present. (It is true, however, that sleep is not completely free from action concepts, as proved by the fact that sometime we think in our dream that what we dream cannot really be so.)
The experiential mode of thought occurs in other forms of dissociation besides dreams - in the hypnotic trance, in psychoses, in early infantile experience, and possibly in primitive thinking. And there is, of course, the state of intense mystical contemplation, wherein attention is withdrawn completely from the outside world as a potential field of action, and is completely focused on self-experience although the person remains awake. The mystic, indeed, considers this state to be highest awareness. The language employed in such a state of contemplation follows the experiential logic of dream, not the action logic of "normal" thinking.
So the sleep existence, it seems, is only the extreme case of a purely contemplative experience, which can also be established by a waking person if he focuses on his inner experience. Symbolic language employing experimental logic is one mode of human expression - just as valid and rational as our "normal" logic, and different from it only as to the systems of reference. These systems, in turn, are determined by the total orientation of the culture. Cultures, in which the emphasis is on self-experience, such as those of the East, or some "primitive" cultures where mastery of nature is little developed, give great scope to this symbolic language. In modern Western culture, almost exclusively focused on activity in the sense of mastery over nature, the comprehension of symbolic language has atrophied. Dreams are remnants of a legitimate mode of human expression, one well known, now looked up as if they were undecipherable hieroglyphs.
IT is peculiarity of dreams that inner experiences are expressed as if they were sensory experiences, subjective states as if they were actions dealing with the external reality. This interchange between the two modes of experience is the very essence of symbols, and particularly of the dream symbol. While the body is inactive and the senses shut down, the inner experience makes use of the dormant faculties of sensory reaction.
A forceful illustration of the dream's symbolic language is the story of Jonah. God commanded the prophet to help the people of Nineveh to repent of their sin and so to save them. But Jonah is a man of stern justice rather than of mercy; he declines to feel responsible for sinners and attempts to escape from his mission. he boards a ship. A storm comes up. Jonah goes into hold of the ship and falls into a deep sleep. The sailors believe that God sent the storm because of jonah and throw him into sea. He is swallowed by a whale and stays inside the animal for several days.
The central theme of this symbolic, dreamlike story is Jonah's desire for complete seclusion and irresponsibility - a position which at first was meant to save him for mission, but eventually is turned into a unbearable, prisonlike existence. The ship, the sleep, the ocean, the whale's belly - all are different symbols of that state of existence. They follow each other in time and space, but they stand for growing intensity of a feeling - the feeling of seclusion and protection. Being inside the whale has brought this experience to such a final intensity that Jonah cannot stand it any longer; he turns to God again; he desires to be freed, to go on with his mission.
SO far we have been concerned with the mode of expression and the particular logic of dreams resulting from the peculiar condition of sleep. We must now turn to the question in what respect the state of sleep also determines the content of dreams. According to Freud it does so in a specific way. Culture, in his view, suppresses our primitive-bad-instincts and the sublimation and reaction formation springing from this suppression are very essence of civilized life. Quite logically, then, in his view, dreams must bring out our worst, since in our sleep we are free - from the cultural pressure.
There can be no doubt that many dreams express the fulfillment of irrational, asocial and immoral wishes which we repress successfully during the waking state. When we are asleep and incapable of action it becomes safe to indulge in hallucinatory satisfaction of our lowest impulses. But the influence of culture is by no means as one-sidedly beneficial as Freud assumed. We are often more intelligent, wiser and more moral in our sleep than in waking life. The reason for this is the ambiguous character of our social reality. In mastering this reality we develop our faculties of observation, intelligence and reason; but we are also stultified by incessant propaganda, threats, ideologies and cultural "noise" that paralyze some of our most precious intellectual and moral functions. In fact, so much of what we think and feel is in response to these hypnotic influences that one may well wonder to what extent our waking experience is "ours." In sleep, no longer exposed to the noise culture, we become awake to what we really feel and think. The genuine self can talk; it is often more intelligent and more decent than the pseudo self which seems to be "we" when we are awake.
My conclusion, then, is that we may expect to find true insights and important value judgments expressed in our dreams, as well as immoral, irrational wishes. We may even find in them reliable predictions based on a correct appreciation of the intensity and the direction of forces operating in ourselves and in others. Both Freud's emphasis on the "low" and Jung's emphasis on the "high" aspect of dream content are dogmatic restrictions. Only if it is recognized that dreams can express either side of a dreamers nature is the way cleared for a real understanding to them.
The following examples illustrate the alternative interpretations that can be given to the same dream. The dreamer sees himself naked in the presence of strangers and feels ashamed but powerless to alter the painful situation. Freud said that this dream represented an infantile exhibitionistic impulse still alive in the adult. During sleep this impulse comes to the fore and finds its fulfillment in the dream; the dreamer's mature personality, not entirely silenced, reacts with shame and fear to the very wishes of his infantile self.
No doubts many nakedness dreams are to be so understood. But others must be interpreted differently. Nakedness is not necessarily an expression of sexual exhibitionism; it can also symbolize the true self of a person, free from pretense and make-believe. A person who dreams of himself as being naked in a well-dressed group may give symbolic expression to his wish to be honest, to be more himself, not to be conformist who wants to please everybody. And his embarrassment in the dream is the same embarrassment he would feel in waking, too, whenever he tried to discard his dependence on other people's opinion.
According to the orthodox Freudian interpretation, the nakedness dream's essential impulse is an infantile sexual desire; in the alternative, it is a rational wish, rooted in the most mature part of the dreamer's personality. But if so, why should it be distinguished in dream symbolism? Why should we repress some of our very best impulses? The answer is that in our culture people are no less ashamed of their best strivings than of their worst. Generosity is suspected as "foolish", honesty as "naive", integrity as "not practical." While one tendency within our complex culture presents these qualities as virtues, another stigmatizes them as "idealistic dreams." Consequently wishes motivated by such virtues often live and underground existence together with wishes rooted in our vices. To mistake rational wishes of the dreamer for expressions of irrational strivings makes it impossible for him to recognize positive goals which he has set himself. Yet to see in every dream an ideal or profound religious symbol is just as fallacious. Whether a dream is to be understood as an expression of the rational or the irrational side in ourselves can be determined only by a full investigation of the individual case - by knowing the dreamer's character, his associations with the dream elements, the problems he was concerned with before he fell asleep.
The following dream is an example of unconscious insight and moral judgment: A man has visited X, a widely known figure whose kindness and wisdom are praised by everybody. He was properly impressed by the admirable man. The same night he dreams of X, who now has a cruel face and tries to swindle a poor old woman out of her last dollar. He remembers this dream the next day, is quite surprised and wonders why the dream picture of X differs so completely from the "real" picture of the day before. Suddenly he is struck by the recollection that his instinctive reaction to X had been one of intense antipathy - but so fleeting had this first reaction been that he was not aware of it at the time of the visit. Actually his antipathy was his real insight into X's character. it was silenced at once by the conventional picture of X: the "noise" had drowned the dreamer's real judgment, which awoke when he was asleep.
If this dream were understood in Freud's terms, the subject would accuse himself of unconscious hostility and, having discovered his own wickedness, would be all the more prone to accept the conventional picture of X. If, on the other hand, the interpreter assumed that dreams unerringly express the "real" judgment, the dreamer might accept his dream as evidence against X, and act accordingly, though it may indeed have expressed only the dreamer's own hostility. Which interpretation is correct can be found only in an appraisal of the dreamer's total situation.
One of the best known dreams of prediction is Joseph's dream, reported in the Bible. He dreamed that the sun, moon and stars were making obeisance to him. His brothers, hearing of the dream, did not need the help of an expert to understand that the dream expressed a feeling of superiority over his parents and brothers. It certainly can be argued that the infantile rivalry with father and brothers was the root of the dream (which would be Freud's interpretation). But what Joseph saw in the dream later came true; the dream indeed predicted future events. And Joseph was able to make such a prediction because he sensed his exceptional gifts, which made him actually superior to the other members of his family; but the conceited character of such insight made it impossible for him to be aware of his superiority - except under the condition of sleep.
WHEN we dream we speak a language which is also employed in some of the most significant documents of culture: in myths, in fairy tales and art, recently in novels like Franz Kafka's. This language is the only universal language common to all races and all times. It is the same language in the oldest myths as in the dreams every one of us has today. Moreover, it is a language which often expresses inner experiences, wishes, fears, judgments and insights which much greater precision and fullness than our ordinary language is capable of. Yet symbolic language is a forgotten language, considered by most as non-sensical or unimportant. This ignorance not only prevents us from understanding the wisdom expressed in myths but also from being in touch with a significant part of ourselves. "Dreams which are not understood are like letters which are not opened," says the Talmud, and this statement is undeniably true.
Why, then, do we not teach the understanding of this forgotten language as a subject in the curriculum of higher education?
True, there are dreams so difficult and complicated that it requires a psychologist of great knowledge and technical skill to understand them; and sometimes even the expert will fail. But is this so different from the study of languages, of mathematics, of physics? Liberal education, in genera, only lays the foundation for more specialized skills which the student later develops for himself. The analogy between teaching dream interpretation and teaching languages is particularly close, not only because dream language is a sort of "foreign" language but also because the results of teaching are similar. No student succeeds in mastering a foreign language without specialized study; but even an average undergraduate is capable of understanding syntax and grammar.
For a number of years I have been teaching dream interpretation not only to graduate students of psychoanalysis but also to undergraduates at Bennington College. The results, at least to my satisfaction, compare with the results of teaching any other subject matter to the same group of students. Remarkable achievements have been rare in this as in any other field; the minimum achievements have not been lower. The aim is to help the student to understand an unknown language in which he expresses important aspects of his own personality, and also to understand a mode of expression in which mankind has expressed some of its most significant ideas.
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The Nature of Dreams - Erich Fromm
taken for macromondays theme: mondays!
Mondays mean the start of a new week at school, and for me, they were always great. I pretty much looked forward to getting up and going to work every day. How lucky (and rare) is that?! This is some school stuff on my desk - a folder of my handouts, ruler, pencil, scissors, and my 3rd-person S prompt (I had students pass this s-hook around while speaking to help them remember that the crazy English language adds an "s" to verbs when the subject is he/she/it: I like, you like, she likes... This really doesn't affect meaning, but native speakers are pretty intolerant of this mistake when considering someone for a job or college admission, so we emphasized it in our speaking classes). There is also a very faint overlay of a page from a grammar reference book to remind me how much I miss Monday lunches with my colleagues - Mondays being the day we shared and then tried to analyze - strangely structured sentences that we'd heard from native speakers over the weekend.
A full Mobile Frame Zero company of RU15-2's. The Stations are the same C6+ designs I've used before.
by Brian David Johnston.
Montréal, Fingerprinting Inkoperated, december 199o. 26 lettered copies.
2o pp/11 printed, photocopy with rubberstamp & fingerprint additions to inside rear cover. 8-1/2 x 7, side-stapled card covers.
visual poetry.
17.5o
Inspired by this album from Dark Syntax : www.flickr.com/photos/dark_syntax/albums/72157650779899970
My 22nd Mecha Mixel-Nixel Expeditionary Force (MMNEF) mech; this one from the MCFD tribe.
For more on the MMNEF click here.
C&C solicited as always!
This features my version of the Veyman Genesis by Dark Syntax. Instead of posting just the build this time around, I figured I'd show how it compares to my usual measuring sticks. As is my normal, I made a couple of changes to the original build to reflect my design choices and parts availability.