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Myra Clark Gaines (ca. June 30, 1804 – January 9, 1885) was an American socialite and plaintiff in the longest-running lawsuit in the history of the United States court system. From 1834 to 1891, Gaines was at the center of a legal battle to recognize her legal status as the sole heir of her deceased father’s estate and recover valuable land in New Orleans. During its 57-year history in the courtroom, the Gaines cases appeared before the Supreme Court seventeen times and Louisiana state and federal court at least seventy times. The Gaines cases are notable not only because of their length and complexity but also due to the controversial image and perseverance of Myra Clark Gaines herself, particularly at a time when women were confined to a domestic, dutiful ideal of femininity.
Gaines was born to a mercantile businessman Daniel Clark and French socialite Zulime Carrière. During his lifetime, Clark was considered one of the richest men and most influential of New Orleans. Originally from Ireland, Clark was named after his uncle, another very successful businessman, who immigrated to New Orleans in the 1770s. After years of paying for his nephew’s education, Clark Sr. eventually invited him to take part in his business ventures in New Orleans. Against his parent’s will, Clark accepted his uncle’s offer and moved to the United States in 1787 at the age of twenty. Once there, Clark built up a decent fortune running his uncle’s mercantile house and investing those profits in New Orleans real estate. Aside from his various commercial projects, Clark also had ambitious political aspirations. Although Clark ultimately secured an official appointment as the vice consul to New Orleans from President Thomas Jefferson in 1801, he was unsuccessful in obtaining an appointment for the governorship of Louisiana.
While Clark was a well-known figure of society, much less is known about Gaines’ mother. Born in Louisiana in 1781, Carrière was an attractive woman from a modest upbringing. At thirteen, she entered her first marriage with Frenchmen Jerome DesGrange, who, at forty years old, described himself as a “wealthy nobleman. Carrière then met Clark through her husband, who had an ongoing business partnership with him. In 1802, once a relationship had already developed between Carrière and Clark, Gaines claimed that the two were secretly married because Carrière was still married to DesGrange. It was further alleged that Carrière’s marriage to DesGrange was illegal because he was a bigamist who had several wives before moving to New Orleans. Indeed, records showed that an ecclesiastical court condemned and arrested DesGrange for bigamy. As a result, in 1806, Carrière left Philadelphia where she and Clark resided for New Orleans to find enough proof to annul her first marriage. Still, the circumstances that ended her first marriage are somewhat contested since a transcript of Carrière’s testimony to an ecclesiastical court reveals that she did not believe DesGrange was a bigamist.
Whatever may have been the truth, Carrière’s relationship with Clark also began to crumble around this time. In Carrière’s absence, Clark courted another socialite, Louisa Canton, granddaughter of Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. According to Gaines, Clark destroyed every document proving his marriage to Carrière in order to marry Caton. The other reported reasons for their separation included rumors of Carrière’s infidelity while Clark was in Washington working as Louisiana’s territorial legislator as well as Clark’s fears that his clandestine marriage threatened his political aspirations. By the time Carrière and Clark separated, Gaines was an infant and put in the care of Clark’s close friend, Colonel Samuel Davis and his wife Marian.
Gaines had some interaction with her parents once she moved in with the Davis family. Clark often visited her as child and provided some financial support. However, at the time of his death in 1813, he never publicly acknowledged his paternity. Gaines did not receive much more support from her mother. After the break-up of her second marriage, Carrière married prominent dentist Dr. James Gardette and had other children. Her visits became more infrequent as Gaines got older, though both were in cordial contact later in life and until her death in 1853. Still, Carrière stayed away enough to never appear as a witness during any of Gaines’ trials.
Once the War of 1812 began, the Davis family and Gaines left New Orleans and migrated to Philadelphia. Making a new life up North, Gaines was also never told about her real father’s identity or her close ties to New Orleans.
When Colonel Davis first learned of Clark’s death, he contacted Clark’s executors, Richard Relf and Beverly Chew to know if Clark had left anything for Gaines. Relf and Chew, however, affirmed that Clark’s last will (“the 1811 will”) named his mother, Mary Clark, as his only heir.
According to Davis, Gaines learned about the will and her father’s identity in 1830 when she supposedly found correspondence from Clark that acknowledged her as his daughter. Davis confessed the truth up on her discovery of these letters. Other evidence puts into doubt this chain of events, but regardless Gaines never asked Davis to make further demands upon Relf and Chew or attempted to write them on her own behalf. Circumstances and familial relationships changed after Gaines’ marriage to a young lawyer named William Wallace Whitney in 1832. Davis had a strained relationship with Whitney and did not approve of Gaines’ marriage to him for unconfirmed reasons, though it somehow involved Clark’s estate. Over time, Gaines became more distant from Davis, whom she only referred as “the Colonel” in her correspondence. Her relationship with the Colonel did not improve once she and Whitney decided to pursue the information found in the various correspondences between Davis and Clark. After locating and visiting Clark’s old friends and residents who knew Clark, Gaines and Whitney confirmed that Clark had made a second will right before his death (“the 1813 will”) that recognized Gaines as his legitimate child and heir. Under the will of 1813, Clark left Gaines his entire estate less several minor inheritances.
Following this investigation, Whitney filed a preliminary lawsuit in February 1834 to contest the validity of the 1811 will in the Eastern District Court of Louisiana. In the beginning, Gaines’s lawsuits were filed by Whitney because, for most of the nineteenth century, women had no legal standing before U.S. courts. Thus, Gaines could only fight for her inheritance on behalf of her husband’s name. Although Louisiana followed civil law, which gave women more flexibility and power in controlling their own property, Gaines’s claims were primarily filed in U.S. federal courts.
The preliminary suit went after Clark’s executors, Relf and Chew, accusing them of fraudulent mismanagement of Clarks’s estate assets. The specific claims alleged Relf and Chew had acted fraudulently by pretending that Clark endorsed to them a loan made to Davis. Another claim also accused Relf and Chew of destroying the 1813 will that left most of Clark’s fortune to Gaines. In response, the executors denied the allegations and further argued that Clark had never been married to Carrière, had no legitimate descendants, and left his estate to his mother. Additionally, they presented evidence that Mary Clark granted power of attorney to Relf and Chew to act on her behalf in all matters that related to Clark’s estate. Finally, they explained that managing Clark’s estate was complicated as a result of defective land titles. A few months later, in December 1834, Federal District Court judge Samuel Harper ruled in this preliminary suit in favor of Relf and Chew. Adding to the couple’s loss, Relf and Chew filed a libel suit against Whitney that was also successful. Whitney was convicted of criminal libel and sentenced to prison for a month.
Despite the setbacks, Gaines and Whitney were not deterred in moving forward with their claims. On June 18, 1834, Whitney initiated the first of a long chain of lawsuits on behalf of Gaines: W.W. Whitney v. Eleanor O’Bearn, et al. This new suit asked the Court of Probates of New Orleans to declare Gaines the true heir of the 1813 will and order Relf and Chew to transfer all property belonging to Clark’s estate to Gaines. The defendants named in the suit were the heirs of Mary Clark, including daughter Eleanor O’Bearn, as well as Relf and Chew.
The Gaines case posed a serious threat to not only the named defendants and but to the dozens of property owners in New Orleans. Indeed, over the last twenty years since Clark’s death, Relf and Chew had sold property from Clark’s estate to various third parties. Many of these transactions involved the executors and prominent figures of New Orleans society. In effect, the case claimed title to their plantations, hundreds of slaves, bank deposits, bank stocks, rents, and profits from Clark’s properties. Over the course of subsequent suits, the couple widened the scope of their litigation to include as defendants at least twenty-five purchasers of property from Clark’s estate.
Whitney offered as witnesses two of Clark’s close confidants. First, Harriet Harper Smythe, the nurse who cared for Gaines as an infant, testified about the contents of the 1813 will, which Clark signed only a month before his death. Clark’s friend Colonel Joseph Bellechasse also confirmed the existence of the 1813 will and recalled how Clark had confessed that Gaines was his legitimate daughter and heir. The defense’s answer was similar to the arguments presented in the prior suit and would continue to be used in the suits that followed: Clark and Carrière were never legally married; Clark had no legitimate children; the 1811 will was the only will Clark made; and if there was a subsequent will, Clark had gotten rid of it himself.
Outside of the contested legal issues, Gaines and Whitney faced other types of challenges in the courtroom. In presenting their case in New Orleans courts, the couple, who were not fluent in French, had to navigate through complicated courtroom procedures that continued to heavily rely on the use of the French language. For example, when an argument was presented in English, French-speaking jurors were excused from the jury box. Similarly, English-speaking jurors were removed from the jury box whenever it was time to listen to the French counsel. As a result, the jurors had to come up with a verdict based on an incomplete record when a case involved both French- and English-speaking litigants.
A few years into what would be decades of litigation, Gaines overcame another significant obstacle: the unexpected death of Whitney. He died from a yellow fever epidemic that hit New Orleans in 1837. His death was sudden and unexpected, succumbing to the illness after only three days. Gaines, as a result of his passing, was pushed into serious financial difficulties. Most of Whitney’s personal fortunate went into the legal expenditures for Gaines’s cases. In spite of economic strain, Gaines chose not only to pursue the lawsuits but also to file them under her own name. By 1848, more federal courts practicing under the common law were adopting the Married Women’s Property Act, which protected the inherited property and money of married women.
Gaines finally argued her case in front of a trial in Barnes v. Gaines (1843), a suit filed in a Louisiana District Court by Gaines’s alleged half-sister, Caroline Barnes. At issue was Gaines’s unlawful possession of a land under Clark’s estate. The case took an unexpected turn when her attorney withdrew from the courtroom after an argument with the judge. Gaines, consequently, argued her own claims in front of the jury at the risk of losing another suit. During the nineteenth century, her move was almost unprecedented since judges typically refused that women act even as witnesses. The accepted view was that women were less able to speak rationally or reasonably as compared to men. Gaines, however, took the opportunity to act as her own attorney and demonstrate her command over the intricacies of her claims. Barnes became the first victory ever for any Gaines case. In light the intense public scrutiny over the trial, the judge refused to grant Barnes a new trial and be forced to conduct an extraordinary search for an unbiased jury..
Gaines’s most important victory came in 1858 when the Louisiana Supreme Court admitted Clark’s 1813 will to probate. Upon Gaines’s return to the Supreme Court in 1860 and again 1867, the Court finally declared Gaines to be the legitimate child and only heir of Daniel Clark.] By this time, the reported value of the properties Gaines had claims over but did not yet control topped $35 million of prime New Orleans real estate. However, Gaines’s challengers fiercely defended the property they had purchased, and none proved to be more difficult than the City of New Orleans.
The Supreme Court issued its final ruling on the Gaines case in City of New Orleans v. Whitney (1891). Six year after Gaines’ death, the Court ordered the city of New Orleans to pay her estate $923,788. Before this decision, the city had been contesting the decrees from both the U.S. and Louisiana Supreme Court that awarded damages and the contested property to Gaines. Although the city lost the courtroom battle, the Gaines family did not fare much better. Gaines’s creditors quickly filed claims with the administrators of her estate for repayment of attorney fees and loans.[38] After deducting more than $860,000 in prior debts and legal expenses, Gaines’s heirs were left with a small fraction of the original settlement.
Gaines’s plight in the courtroom led to extensive media coverage that propelled her into a celebrity status that few women had in the late nineteenth century. A popular series of books during that time, for example, published a novel inspired by her life and the romance between Clark and Carrière called Myra: The Child of Adoption, A Romance in Real Life.
Philadelphia, New York, and New Orleans newspapers[which?] also published recurring stories on Gaines and her lawsuits. However, the relationship the litigants had with the media was a mutually beneficial one. From the beginning, the parties took their claims to newspapers, which would publish their story but not without its own commentary. Immediately, New Orleans papers were in firm support of Relf and Chew while Gaines received a strong backing from the Northern press. The Southern papers often questioned Gaines’s true motivations and praised Relf and Chew’s determination to rise above any speculation. On the other hand, the Northern papers were moved by elements of romance and tragedy marking Gaines’s life, often referring to her case as the cause of an injured orphan.
Gaines garnered significant attention from her second marriage in 1839 to war hero General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. In fact, the General’s courtship of then Myra Clark Whitney made national headlines. At the time they married, the General was known as the “Hero of Fort Erie” from his victories in the War of 1812 and celebrated in various states with medals for bravery. The marriage proved successful not only in bringing more attention to her case but also in alleviating much of the financial burden from her cases. Like Whitney, the General also contributed most of his wealth to defending Gaines’s claims.
Gaines became a famous yet controversial figure just as much for her appearances outside courtroom. In 1840, Gaines set out with the General on an extensive lecture tour throughout the Atlantic to discuss his plan of national defense, which promoted the use of floating batteries over fleets of steam-powered warships. In support of the General, Gaines spoke after him about the horrors of war to packed town halls in St. Louis, Cincinnati, New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Her decision to speak went contravened the common view women could not be taken seriously in a public forum. While the lectures were also a way to keep the public eye on her lawsuits, she was also outspoken about other legal causes such as the post-Civil War campaign for women’s suffrage. Gaines’s celebrity status finally reached its zenith in the 1860s.
After General Gaines’ death in 1849, Gaines did not remarry. She died on January 9, 1885 in New Orleans due to pneumonia and lung congestion. Although by this time, Gaines had retreated from the media limelight, her death was widely covered by national newspapers.
"Isso tudo que está aí, esse lixo, essa violência, essa discriminação, esse estupro social, esse desemprego, esse favoritismo, essa incompetência, é o que se chama de 'ordem natural das coisas'" (Millôr Fernandes IN: "Milôr Definitivo - A Bíblia do Caos", p.157)
“Tutto questo che è lí, questo rifiuto, questa violenza, questa discriminazione, questo stupro sociale, questa disoccupazione, questo favoritismo, questa incompetenza, è ciò che si chiama di ‘ordine naturale delle cose’” (Millôr Fernandes in: “Millôr Definitivo – A Bíblia do Caos”, p.157, trad. libera)
“Everything that is here, this dirt, this violence, this discrimination, this social rape, this unemployment, this favouritism, this incompetence, is what we call ‘things’ natural order’” (Milôr Fernandes IN: “Millôr Definitivo – A Bíblia do Caos”, p. 157, free translation)
a complex structure of the railway station liège-guillemins, by Santiago Calatrava
more pictures of liège-guillemins on my website:
Wupatki Pueblo, Wupatki National Monument
The Pueblo ruins, or Wupatki (tall houses) were scattered on the arid plains near Sunset Crater, whose eruption in the 11th century caused an influx of dwellers due to the volcanic ashes that were suitable for agriculture. The intricate complexity of these houses, built merely with the local sandstone sheets, was a pure form of art to me.
Visualization of the terms:
"Complexity", "Management of Complexity", "Networking", "Knowledge Networking"
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
2013 World Water Week.
Sunday: Cooperation to Address the Complexities of Water Management, B7.
Prof. Jan Lundquist, SIWI.
Photo: Thomas Henrikson.
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
“To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.”
Paul Klee
Please visit my site at www.pjcimages.com.
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
The Irreducible Complexity fallacy is such that if we cannot comprehend the evolutionary systematic developement of a complex organism, it must therefore have been created via intelligent design.
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
Marlon Barrios Solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
The Beautiful Complexity all around Us
All around us there are innumerable cells working together to form beautiful, complex organisms, bacteria populating the planet, all this wonder. And all we see are our mundane little problems. All we see is some irrelevant expectation of ours not met, or chance playing to our seeming disadvantage.
But remember the miracle that makes you possible. 100 million million living beings cooperating seamlessly and in symbiosis with 10-20 times as many microbes in your body to make it possible for you to exist, to live, to be conscious.
Read more at my blog post Scales of Life – From an Atom to the Human Body
Summary
I'm building a new product. I want give users access to their own data. Do I let them have it with the lot? Or offer a fat-free alternative?
Ambition
Last year I finished up running a BBQ for a local sports club. Four years of Saturday morning planning and preparation. [0] Wake up, pack my kit. throw it in the car and drive to the local oval oval. Then ready myself and a volunteer team to prepare and cook. And cook we did. From early in the morning we cooked Hamburgers, plain and with the lot. If customers didn't want a Hamburger then it was hand-made sausages from a great local butcher. We worked like dogs from nine in the morning till two o'clock in the afternoon. From the cool mornings of spring through the heat of summer. Preparing, cooking, selling, cleaning up. Repeating this pattern until we either ran out of food or time. Effort paid off and we made more money than we spent. [1]
The next year we got a bit more ambitious. Enthusiastic after a long break we decided to add a raft of new additions to the menu. Bacon and eggs until we run out. Usually before 10 o'clock. Hamburgers with the lot would now include onion, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato. You could even order pineapple and beetroot. Instead of plain sausages you could choose from spicy Italian, beef or plain. Nothing was too much trouble.
Complication
Then an unexpected additional constraint. We moved venues. Changed days from Saturday to Friday. Now instead of mornings we had twilight. Instead of feeding people who skipped breakfast, we are feeding people coming home from work, hungry.
Nightmare
Right about then we, I should have realised it was not going to work. We created our own twilight zone. A nightmare combination of heat, fading daylight and hungry crowds. I'm pretty sure if Chef Gordon Ramsey [2] was to pop in, it would have gone something like this ...
GORDON So Peter. I finally got some of those sausages. Great stuff. Local produce, plenty of onion, selection of sauces. Then I had a Hamburger with the lot. Well cooked. Cheese under the meat. Good meat. Lettuce, onion, eggs. I noticed you'd even put beetroot on the menu.
PETER We are working our legs off but everyone wants their food now! (So far so good. He didn't order the pineapple? Hope he didn't notice the wait. It's an awfully long queue!)
GORDON These bl@@#! people haven't been served? Why? Customers, customers, customers. Service is too slow. You're loosing customers to the F@$!#% re-heated dim sims and Hot Dogs over there. Talk about going to the dogs ...
PETER We're being slammed ... (We are pro's. Everything under control. Too many customers at once)
GORDON Why did I wait a bl@@#! hour to get a F@%$#! feed? It's too complicated. Simplify the F@%$#! menu. Reduce the load on the cooks and service staff. What do you think?
PETER Ahhh, "yes Chef" ... (Oh he noticed)
So what just happened?
We made what customers wanted. The price was right. We made a good profit. The consumables, high quality. But I made a classic mistake. The overly complicated menu with it's combinations and additions was not workable. The front-end was stressed taking weird orders. The back-end cooks could not keep up with demand. Hungry customers waited in winding queues. Add to this a change in venue and increased demand. Chaos reigned. The menu was too complicated. Unsustainable.
GORDON Now what I suggest is. Stream-line the menu. Cut the extra Hamburger additions. Let the customers have the cheese, onions. But for F@%$#! sake, get rid of the beetroot and pineapple.
And so we did. As soon as we simplified the menu, the stress disappeared. The simplified ordering made it easier. We still had the crowds. We sold even more, made more money and sold out early.
Simplify
What has this got to do with technology, software and making product? Well, I've been doing some research for a new product I'm working on. I want users to have the power of access to their data. But before today, I fell into the complexity trap I just described above. I'd forgotten the hard earned lessons of simplicity.
Make something users want
Maybe it was because it was dinner time and the smell of the Sunday roast bought back memories of those sausages and hamburgers on the BBQ. A more likely reason was the article I happened to be reading at the time by the "Gordon Ramsey of the programming world", Douglas Crockford. The paper compared the merits of encoding data in JSON to XML. [3] Reading the article I realised my stupidity. I could still give users access to their data. But without spending the extra three months working on a "ground breaking" standard to achieve the same aim. Earlier in the day I had also read how the Microformat design process really works. [4] The only way standards succeed in the open source world is through a consultation process. Preferably with users who know through experience what problems they face. How can you solve users problems if users themselves are left out? Skip a step. Make a mistake through lack of consultation or insight and failure will follow. Worse still, you might be trying to solve a problem that does not exist. So to I'll repeat it again. If you want to build a standard the right way make sure you at least look at the recipe of successful standards. A recipe something like ...
problem statement ----> research/discussion ----> proposal/draft ----> standard [5]
The standards cooking process takes time, effort and participation. But the outcome is worth it. But I don't have the time to build a standard. I don't even know if users really want it. Once I realised I was biting off a bigger problem than I could solve. I quickly simplified my approach. Why not kick out the complicated XML, DTD's and schema's? Why not give users access to their data without the cruft?
GORDON So Peter. I've been away 3 months now. How's the choice of technology going? Has it worked? Will it move your product closer to demo?
PETER We've stuck with the much simpler JSON instead of the complicated XML schema. The users will be happier because they get the data they want without the extra fat. I'm happier because it means I can get on with building the product instead trying to build a standard nobody will understand, use or want.
GORDON Well that's gone down well. Simplifying the technology means it's lighter, with a faster development time. Customers still get to edit their data. I'm really impressed with the flexibility in thinking. Developers can use JSON libraries with lots of other languages allowing them to build their own data processing tools. F@%$#! me. I think it's the smartest choice because, "While there are transformations which allow XML to express these structures, JSON expresses them directly"! [6]
So I chose the "Fat-free" technology alternative. JSON instead of XML. Giving users direct access to their data not some overly complicated format.
References
[0] I twittered about my last day. Looking back it was a lot of work: "After three years, 22 meets per year, I've sourced, moved, cooked (along with others) approximately 660Kg snags (sausages), 3,300 hamburgers, 3960 buns, 10,560 slices of bread, 132 Kg bacon, 42 tins of beetroot, 132 Kg of onions, 3,200 slices of cheese, 44 lettuces, 66 Kg of tomatoes, 70 litres of tomato sauce and approximately 2000 eggs. It's getting a bit rough. I've only missed 2 meets in 66."
http://twitter.com/bootload/statuses/9910271
[1] The idea behind doing this was simple. With some resources, a bit of effort make something and sell it to people and see what happens. I made a lot of mistakes. Had some success.
[2] It's interesting watching the slew of Ramsey shows on TV. It shows the step up required from technician to entrepreneur.
[3] json.org, Doug Crockford, "JSON: The Fat-Free Alternative to XML" [Accessed Wednesday 14 May 2008]
http://www.json.org/fatfree.html
[4] Microformats.org, "So you wanna develop a new microformat?" [Accessed Wednesday 14 May 2008]
http://microformats.org/wiki/process
[5] Microformats.org, "So you wanna develop a new microformat?", Iterate, et.,al.
http://microformats.org/wiki/process#Iterate
[6] This is great quote lifted from the "JSON: The Fat-Free Alternative to XML". There is a postscript. I posted the article to HackerNews and had a nice discussion on the merits of JSON vs XML.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=187124
A couple of days later this article, "XML: The Angle Bracket Tax" at Coding Horror appeared. No "angle bracket tax" here.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001114.html
<<< start
I broke out the 100mm Macro lens today and had a little fun. There's a vase that my wife and I received as a gift when we were married, sitting on a glass table, and it called to me. Zoomed in, tried to find a nice 'vase to reflection' ratio, and converted to black and white. Simple things are often incredibly complex and interesting when you take a closer look.
"The Complexity of Today's Global Threat Environment" Clark Ervin, Jacqueline Rice, James Comey, Wolf Blitzer
Greenwald Pavilion
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011