SpaceCollective: Polytopia

SpaceCollective: Polytopia http://spacecollective.org/projects/Polytopia Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:51:37 +0000 http://spacecollective.org/projects/Polytopia en Conversations With Impossible Creatures http://spacecollective.org/Xaos/8342/Conversations-With-Impossible-Creatures http://spacecollective.org/Xaos/8342/Conversations-With-Impossible-Creatures Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:51:37 +0000 Xaos 8342 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1366447782/Gadi 08.01.13 5670.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> The Case: Investigating traces of the real; applying artistic insights while mapping extended states of mind. The Nature: A Mytho-Poetic map. A lexicography of discoveries, whilst meeting impossible creatures. The Way: An intimate cross-fertilization between friends J.D Doria (<a href="http://spacecollective.org/Xaos" target="_blank">Xaos</a>) the Artist - Tyger A.C (<a href="http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat" target="_blank">Wildcat</a>) the Writer <object width="550" height="400" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=fb4qt0rqiveo&lock_to_path=0&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0" /><param name="src" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" /><embed width="550" height="400" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="prezi_id=fb4qt0rqiveo&lock_to_path=0&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0" /></object> Preface: In 1957 Borges published the book – “Handbook of Fantastic Zoology” which later came to be known as: The Book of Imaginary Beings. It contains descriptions of 120 mythical beasts from literature and mythologies of many origins; creatures, conceived through time by the human imagination. While going over this work, a question hunted me: how to read this book? Should one read it as a window into human imagination? Is it a rare porthole into the stuff of creation, past and future? Or else, is the book just demonstrating the limitats of human imagination when confronted with the richness of nature? It was this line of hard distinction between imagination, nature and time that caught my attention. What would happen by looking at nature and imagination as expressions of the same ‘stuff’, a continuum where the one endlessly spills into the other? Nature may be impersonating a richness, generated by the over-abundance of time, while imagination reverberates richness by the generative power of minds, punctuating time with condensed, embodied singularities, transiting a trace of reality. Yet both thread the same canopy of vital matter. The dissolution of difference between reality and representation, imagination and nature, is not dissolution into flatness, but rather, it brings into presence soft and active matter. It is the doing of the conscious space where the continuum of nature and imagination emerge, always in a process of interpenetrations, always demanding iteration. To trace the real means uncovering realities previously unseen and unimagined, carving bridges between the realms and reformulating that which already exists. Conversation with Impossible Creatures is born out of the exploration that interprets such a continuum of imagination and nature, and attempts to achieve it by the attentive usage of ‘bridges’, those bridges I refer to as technologies. The first bridge is between the ‘product’ of imagination, (i.e. a painting) traditionally perceived as single and stationary across time, and the generative richness of the creative process, a dynamic, and continuously opening progress. In this case it is digital, photographic and generative technologies that allow the opening of the image into a multitude, and disclose its otherwise invisible image-cells, now free to continue mutating in interaction. The second bridge is between image and language; those two separate categories which when tuned a-synchronously and are re-integrated into a dynamic process, provoke the penetration of reflectivity into the fascinating ‘absurd’ of every ‘terra incognita’. The third and most important bridge is between minds, in birthing an extended reality, a reality that comes to life only by virtue of such a unique bridge. The process of iterative approximations between mind sights becoming an event, a new world being disclosed and discovered. Technology (of bridging) exposes the ‘middle’, the constant leaking of medium into medium, and mind into mind, unfolding its ‘everywhereness’, opening by that a corridor into a new transitory ‘home’ for perception. A world full of amazing creatures, that came into existence only through collaboration, between processes, between moments and sights, bridged by the technologies we created, I found this line as significant in light of our future. http://spacecollective.org/Xaos/8342/Conversations-With-Impossible-Creatures Running With Machine Herds http://spacecollective.org/chrisarkenberg/8303/Running-With-Machine-Herds http://spacecollective.org/chrisarkenberg/8303/Running-With-Machine-Herds Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:22:39 +0000 chris arkenberg 8303 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/mdV4hau5/1362010859/innovation_d042.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Continuing its annual tradition of walking the lines between genuine social goodyness and highfalutin' techno utopianism, <a href="http://conferences.ted.com/TED2013/">the TED2013 conference</a> kicked off this week in Los Angeles. Gathering together some of the brighter minds and more well-heeled benefactors, attendees come to tease apart the phase space of possibility and to take a closer look at how we consciously examine and intentionally evolve our world. Among the many threads and themes, one in particular tugs deeply at both aspirational humanism and existential terror. On the early pages of this year's conference blog is a sensational, video-heavy list of <a href="http://blog.ted.com/2013/02/26/the-10-best-robots-from-the-ted-staff/">the 10 best robots from TED</a>. Featuring autonomous birdbots, dancing ballbots, silicon helpers, procedural comedians, affective mimics, and, of course, a smattering of tomorrow's robowarriors, the cavalcade of robotic evolution marches on with genuinely awe-inducing cadence. The field of robotics is being lifted by the same tides moving all industries: ubiquitous microcontrollers, breakthroughs in materials science, the global web of shared knowledge, and the mature capital markets looking for new profits. And we humans appear to be deeply enthralled with robotics, both as hope and harbinger. Turning our hands to create better hands, we develop robotics as a means to extend our abilities, explore the kinetics of cybernetics, and to understand, or perhaps even question just what it means to be human. Through our desire to glimpse the spark of awareness in the cybernetic eyes of the Other, we always project our selves into that mirror. And so the shape of robotics necessarily recapitulates the shape of humanity and our relationship to nature. Setting aside the philosophical considerations for a moment, it's worth considering how the landscape would shift to accommodate the presence of robotic, autonomous cohorts. Self-driving cars may be the nearest robofauna to meet us on the modern Savannah plains of the carpool lane, edging out the humans for priority, but those TED videos remind us of how many more species are at play in the human-assisted evolutionary tides. If survival is of the fittest, even programmatically, then our swimming, walking, flying, trotting creations will seek to protect and sustain themselves - even if only so we won't be bothered with the responsibility. As we populate the world with more and more self-guided machines how will they advocate for their own needs amidst the competitive landscape? Are we introducing machine competitors into the survival marketplace? Of course we are, but this may not be immediately different from any other competitive machine. The internal combustion engine has certainly competed quite well for resources that may otherwise go to us humans. So too has the corn-based biofuel engine, as seen by <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0113/ethanol-one-of-several-factors-fueling-corn-prices.aspx#axzz2M2uEJCIX">the coupling of ethanol stocks to the price of corn</a>. Regardless of the skin, more resource consumers brings more competition. The long-prophesied robot wars may yet come to pass… Especially if we continue to mold them so fittingly in our own image. If we might soon join gangs of self-driving cars on the freeways, then a scenario takes shape where we encounter other forms of mechanical flocking. We may run with machine herds, glinting & gleaming, the evening skies joined by murmurations of silvery drones. Aibo's and Roomba's might become house pet companions scuttling along for walks in the park. In this scenario, what micro machines might cling to our arm hairs testing skin flakes or trudge along the walls of our intestines sending SMS notes about the quality of our, uh, byproduct or line our mind meats facilitating neural mesh nets and wireless brain-computer interface? Do we trust the intimacy involved in these relationships? Cybernetic control systems, biomimetic musculatures, micro-controlled servo arrays, machine vision, machine sensing, machine learning, memristor memories… The outcome is inevitably going to recapitulate biological structures and behaviors but with a distinctly manufactured aesthetic sensibility. Machine sensing, machine watching, machine swarming… machine memory, and machine modeling of future states & outcomes. These are the ingredients for genuinely emergent and unexpected behaviors. Consciousness isn't so much as a switch you turn on and a program that executes. It's likely more of an irreversible manifold that expresses on top of innumerable complex functions. The bardic philosopher, Terence McKenna, likened us humans to coral animals extruding shells of technology around ourselves. In the same tradition, Kevin Kelly speaks of a natural force of Technium that expresses through our heads and hands. Whether Technium is its own thing or merely an expression of humanness itself, there is indeed some natural force of biology and complexity that works through our manipulation of matter, taking form in ways that evolve our very ability to create. The iterative process of create-evaluate-revise drives what began as a clumsy cobbling of raw materials towards greater and greater refinement and efficiency, inevitably approximating the extreme perfection of natural systems. Nature is the template for everything. It's just that our creations are not yet mature enough to really look like it. So if we are compelled to recapitulate nature into our creations, and if we are compelled to turn our innate evolutionary and competitive imperatives into machines extensions & adaptive advantages, then we will very likely loose upon the natural world an array of biomimetic machines. Likewise, we will continue to lay the complex and unpredictable patchwork for emergent forms of directed behavior, stigmergic flocking, and at least the seeming mimesis of self-awareness. Machine intelligence may someday decouple from human supervision though it will likely retain the watermark of humanity for some time. Or at least, by the time it does so, it will very likely be contained by the same natural rules as the rest of us worldly occupants. That or, you know… Rise of the Robots. http://spacecollective.org/chrisarkenberg/8303/Running-With-Machine-Herds Overview Effect http://spacecollective.org/CoCreatr/8290/Overview-Effect http://spacecollective.org/CoCreatr/8290/Overview-Effect Sat, 23 Feb 2013 19:33:27 +0000 CoCreatr 8290 <a href="http://vimeo.com/55073825" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/4X1RkqUn/1361675475/Screen shot 2013-02-24 at 11.30.44.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a> <a href="http://vimeo.com/55073825" target="_blank">OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective</a> <blockquote>On the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Blue Marble’ photograph taken of Earth from space, Planetary Collective presents a short film documenting astronauts’ life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside – a perspective-altering experience often described as the Overview Effect.</blockquote> Synapsing with an interview <a href="http://youtu.be/ZlfZjmmxKUc" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/4X1RkqUn/1361676313/Screen shot 2013-02-24 at 12.24.31.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a> <a href="http://youtu.be/ZlfZjmmxKUc" target="_blank">Jamais Cascio</a> - The Future and You! Security, Privacy, AI, Geoengineering <blockquote>Jamais Cascio discusses the Participatory Panopticon, Privacy & Secrecy, the ramifications of Disconnecting from the Chorus, what it means to be a Futurist, the Arc of Human Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, the Need for Meaning, Building Agents to Listen to Us, WorldChanging.com / OpenTheFuture.com, Geoengineering and the Viridian Green movement.</blockquote> http://spacecollective.org/CoCreatr/8290/Overview-Effect Archeodatalogy - Entwined, Enmeshed, Entangled http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8216/Archeodatalogy-Entwined-Enmeshed-Entangled http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8216/Archeodatalogy-Entwined-Enmeshed-Entangled Mon, 18 Feb 2013 07:51:17 +0000 Wildcat 8216 Entwined, Enmeshed, Entangled – Three modes of ‘being’ pertinent to our cyborgization process Abstract: By redesigning the conceptual landscape of our networked inter-relationality we may finally disentangle ourselves from the all-pervading occlusion of the cyborgization process and allow a fresh recognition of the manifold human sensorium extended in hyperconnectivity. In the re-conceptualizing of our cyber existence we may need relinquish a few cherished objects of identity such as man machine interface, virtuality and man machine co-existence but more importantly the dualistic distinction between ‘real’ life and our virtual extensions as existence. All of these descriptive objects of identity I suggest should become ‘naturalized’ in a new cyber-existential language. This is the first part of a three pronged approach to what I believe is the foundation of a future philosophy of and for the hyperconnected individual. I will try to show that these three modes of beingness are the quintessential infrastructures necessary for a future of a technological civilization aiming for the firmament of freedom and equality, personal responsibility and open access culture. A civilization, which roots, we currently inhabit but that promises changes to the perception of ourselves, the understanding of the universe and the manner by which we may develop in tandem. The three lines of approach that will be used are: Entwinement, Enmeshment, and Entanglement. Each of these terms represents a similar but different manner to realize the state of affairs of hyperconnectivity as the threshold infrastructure in the process of becoming a citizen of the future, a cyborg netizen and perhaps a posthuman. Entwinement, Enmeshment and Entanglement each represent a different level of intimacy in the infocology (see lexical index) one exists in and partakes of. The three terms offered here are suggestions for an illustrative strategy that will allow a deeper and more accurate description of the state of affairs of our cyber existence. Each of these terms will be expanded upon later, for now suffice it to say that the terms are distinguished primarily by the amount, depth and extensiveness of the connectivity between minds in the hyperconnected infosphere. Entwinement stands for the lowest level, Enmeshment for the medium level and Entanglement for the highest or deepest level. Introduction: “Chance Favors the Connected Mind” (<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html" target="_blank">Steven Johnson</a>) Between our digital reputations taking hold of our old tribal systems of acknowledgement and trust and the new cyborg existentialism a tension is made manifest. This tension that I will expound upon in a moment can be seen primarily in its hyper complex fragility and tendency to <a href="http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/6849/The-Luxurious-Ambiguity-of-Intelligence-in-Hyperconnectivity" target="_blank">ambiguity</a>. The tendency for ambiguity, itself a by product of the de-potentialization of the known factors of trust moving into new realms of unknowability, increases exponentially as networked decisions are made manifest (e.g. 'like' clicks). The cyborg existentialism is a new domain of relationality residing between the tribal homophily and hyperconnected heterophily. The cyborg existentialism (CE) is a fresh approach to ‘freedom’ as the ultimate ground of human beings' capacity to relate to the world, extended and enhanced in the world via technology. Cyborg existentialism implies that sensory attunement via the embedding of technology in base line human bodies reveals a coherent understanding of the precedence of existence to essence. In short the idea is that the existence of the individual as an extended techno-sensory awareness mechanism belongs to a category in and of itself and should be looked at as the atom of the future (hyperconnected) cyber-civilization (see- <a href="http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/5462/A-Cyber-Soaring-Humanity" target="_blank">The rise of the Cyber Unified Civilization</a> ). *Notes: I will use existentialism as a general kind or manner of thought and not as a systemic philosophy. Existentialism in this regard is an approach or an attitude, putting the individual sense of being as primary. But first we need introduce a new term: <div align="center"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/3bGz1MiW/1360328350/Archeo1.png" width="" height="" border="0" /></div> Archeodatalogy (A neologism construct from the Greek arkhaios, "ancient"+ Data- The word data is the plural of datum, neuter past participle of the Latin dare, "to give", hence "something given" + the Greek noun λόγος (logos, "speech", "account", "story"). Archeodatalogy – Noun. Meaning: Archeodatalogy is the study and analysis of the Meta narrative emerging out of the accumulated information about an individual in a multiplicity of infocologies. Short version: The study and analysis of emerging meta-narratives in hyperconnectivity The premises of Archeodatalogy: 1. A hyperconnected individual ‘is’ and ‘has’ inherently a multiplicity of identities. 2. The multiplicity of identities a hyperconnected individual is made of, are manifested primarily in the infocologies this individual partakes of. 3. A hyperconnected individual then is a multiplicity of identities embedded in a multiplicity of infocologies; the coupling between these infocologies can be strong or soft, discreet or continuous. 4. A hyperconnected individual exists as a spectrum of identities correlated but not necessarily closely coupled with the fields of interests manifested as, and in, the infocologies this individual partakes in. 5. The study and analysis of a hyperconnected individual in a given infocology is the subject matter of Archeodatalogy. 6. Archeodatalogy assumes that the inter relation between a hyperconnected individual and the infocology in which she exists is a thematic environment from which emerges a particular narrative. This particular narrative is one of many such narratives, each of which represents the interrelation of the particular hyperconnected individual to a particular thematic environment or infocology. 7. Each narrative has a particular environmental theme that can be described as the story of ‘this individual in this infocology’. Each such narrative has its own characteristics and attributes and though at times might correlate and or superimpose upon another narrative, the particular narrative carries its own peculiar and idiosyncratic coherence. 8. The purpose of Archeodatalogy is to create a Meta account of the multiplicity of narratives (of a hyperconnected individual in multiple infocologies) and to allow for the emergence of a Meta story descriptive narrative, from which arrays of predictions can be summarized. 9. Archeodatalogy assumes that no particular thematic narrative can capture the totality of the hyperconnected individual, therefore only a Meta descriptive chronicle of the multiplicity of interrelations can permit a full understanding of a hyperconnected individual. 10. The results of an Archeodatalogy analysis permit a mapping of an hyperconnected individual correlated to her fields of interest that may or may not parallel this individual immediate existence, nevertheless it is the assumption of the Archeodatalogy method that a high enough approximation can be realized. Part 1: Entanglement is an event – Enmeshment is an episode- Entwinement is circumstantial Explication: In a state of Entwinement the correlativity of interest and mutual cross-fertilization is low to very low. Currently the state of Entwinement is the most widespread. A circumstantial state in hyperconnectivity can be defined as an accident of (at least initially) secondary importance in which two or more minds find themselves in the same infocology for reasons that are not necessarily pertinent and or interesting to their personal agenda (membership in the given infocology excluded)- example: one may join the network of twitter and because one twits with the hashtag of #Science he or she will be grouped in a Science list and by extension be correlated to all other minds (and possibly bots) that use this hashtag. As a consequence one may find himself being followed by a number of members of twitter and be labeled in the same fashion, namely ‘Scientist on Twitter’ or alternatively ‘Twitting about science’. This level of correlativity between the minds involved will be called here entwinement. However the level of ‘intimacy’ between these minds is (again, at least initially) practically non-existent, so though ‘Jon’ and ‘Mary’ may both be part of the infocology titled ‘ Scientist on twitter’ the amount of information that can be gleaned from this fact is very small if interesting at all. In a state of Enmeshment the correlativity of interest and mutual cross-fertilization is medium and can be averaged. Currently the state of Enmeshment is in the exponential increase. To continue the same example from above then, an episode in hyperconnectivity can be defined as an extended session of interest between two or more minds that are of medium correlation such as might happen in a Google hangout or Skype chat or alternatively an extended period of loosely coupled membership in the same infocology- such as a comment section in a particular site. An episode in hyperconnectivity will be called here ‘Enmeshment in hyperconnectivity’ and can be a single episode (as in ‘we had a few exchanges on the comment board of..”) to a multi episode connection (as in ‘ we are in continuous contact via the comment section of.. but it never extended beyond that’). The importance in understanding the enmeshment state of affairs lies with the amount of information that can be pertinent to the individuals involved. In a very wide sense the scope of possible ambient intimacy is extended beyond that of the accidental or circumstantial (as in Entwinement) and thus allowed for reciprocal influence, but did not reach a critical level of mutuality such that might exist in the state of Entanglement. In a state of Entanglement the correlativity of interest and mutual cross-fertilization is high to very high, the difference resulting in a closely coupled relationship that may engender a relationship of extended duration. Entangled states in hyperconnectivity are currently quite rare (though in continuous increase) but offer us a glimpse into the future of inter-relationality and intersubjectivity as the web progresses and the Internet spreads globally. A short lexical index: Infocology: Information ecology – Basically the sum total of a particular kind or set of information, related to a particular domain of interest. Infocologies are nested and carry a given set of characteristics defined by the design and function of the infocology in question. Infocologies stand for the ambient ecology of minds in a hyperconnected situation. Infocologies should be considered as complex adaptive cultural contexts of hyperconnectivity in which transformative and processual properties extend the being of a particular mind Infocologies can be seen as inter-relational spaces extending the biological autonomy of the individual mind into new forms of being manifested as the cyber-autonomy manifold. Facebook for example is a medium size infocology nested within the larger infocology of the overall social networks infocologies of the net, themselves nested within the larger framework of the Web. (Of course also within FB there exists a continuum of nested infocologies, defined by friends or acquaintances and so on) (It is my view that as the complexity of the web continues to increase both in size and widespread, the babushka effect reflected in nested infocologies will grow exponentially and in consequence the importance of Archeodatalogy will develop in tandem. ) Some other examples of infocologies: The set comprised of all commentators on say CNN or the NYT current news page. The set of all Wikipedia users as an ensemble represent an infocology. With the advent of “<a href="http://gigaom.com/2013/02/07/the-future-of-search-is-gravitational-content-will-come-to-you/" target="_blank">anticipatory computing,” or “information gravitation</a>”, (though I am not certain I go with these descriptive terms), the search will be gravitational and come to us no doubt about that, in this case the search itself might be reflected upon as an infocology. Following the above the next step in the sequence per necessity will be self-mapping in hyperconnectivity. (Self-mapping in infocologies is the main tool we should get acquainted with, it is via the agency of such an activity as self-mapping that we will allow the myriad identities of our minds to carve a mind habitat on the net that fits and accommodates, our passions and our interests, our complex life. In the second episode of the rise of the cyber unified civilization asymmetry is being explored as the initial attribute of self-mapping in complex infocologies.) See: <a href="http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/5641/The-Natural-Asymmetry-of-Infocologies" target="_blank">The Natural Asymmetry of infocologies</a>. Coming soon: Part 2: Entanglement is a spectrum – Enmeshment is a gamut - Entwinement is particular Part 3: Entanglement is multifaceted – Enmeshment is involved - Entwinement is exclusive This is a work in progress and belongs to the Polytopia research projects. Please use with discretion and elegance. It is a fresh neologism meant to help us in distinguishing the next step in the evolution of hyperconnectivity. Though I do not accept the copyright idea in principle, please refer to this first paper when referring to the term Archeodatalogy. As of February 2013 search results in all major search engines has given zero results therefore I am not aware that the term exists anywhere in any fashion remotely similar to the way I present here, it is therefore my assumption that this is a first exposition of a term that I believe will be of great importance in the coming future. Please use with elegance and grace. <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png" /></a> Archeodatalogy - Entwined, Enmeshed, Entangled by <a href="http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8216/Archeodatalogy-Entwined-Enmeshed-Entangled">Tyger AC</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>. Cross-posted on <a href="http://www.realityaugmentedblog.com/2013/02/archeodatalogy-entwined-enmeshed-entangled/" target="_blank">RealityAugmented</a> http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8216/Archeodatalogy-Entwined-Enmeshed-Entangled Plan B For Humanity - The Next 200 Years http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8231/Plan-B-For-Humanity-The-Next-200-Years- http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8231/Plan-B-For-Humanity-The-Next-200-Years- Fri, 08 Feb 2013 03:47:25 +0000 Wildcat 8231 <object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uvJRB5JcD-4?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uvJRB5JcD-4?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> A video timeline of the social and technological changes that could save civilization and secure the long term survival of humanity. I have watched this video and I hope that you will do too. There are many Utopian oriented perspectives presented here, in a very ‘cool’ and attractive fashion. However being the realistic (and highly skeptical) futurist that I am, I find the video though admirable in some aspects, somewhat estranging, not because of some particular aspect, but mainly because the tone distances the immediacy of our perceptions and thus the possible real life behaviors that we may need implement to make this portrayed reality an actuality. Would love to read some of your views on the matter. notes: COPYRIGHT ATTRIBUTION Music Library<a href="http://www.youtube.com/themusicrack" target="blank">http://www.youtube.com/themusicrack</a> Playlist: Silent Films Title: CHEE ZEE CAVES—Movie Soundtracks | Creative Commons | Royalty-Free Music for YouTube Videos Artist: Kevin MacLeod Copyright: 2011 Kevin MacLeod. Licensed to the public under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" target="blank">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/</a>  verify at <a href="http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/)" target="blank">http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/)</a>  http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8231/Plan-B-For-Humanity-The-Next-200-Years- Illegal, Addictive and necessary, Ramez Naam’s Nexus http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8219/Illegal-Addictive-and-necessary-Ramez-Naams-Nexus http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8219/Illegal-Addictive-and-necessary-Ramez-Naams-Nexus Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:04:17 +0000 Wildcat 8219 Nexus is about the evolution of a techno-participatory culture. It’s called Nexus, an upgrade to the human brain, an update to the human mind, a coherent nano-technological addendum to the future of mind-to-mind communication. Its all this and more, in a very real sense the Nexus technology as portrayed by <a href="http://rameznaam.com/" target="_blank">Naam</a> is a predictive and highly plausible vision of the evolution of complexity, technology and society. The story is fast paced, the theme uncommon enough to be intriguing, the storyline common enough to allow non-stop fascination. <a href="http://angryrobotbooks.com/books/nexus-by-ramez-naam/" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/3bGz1MiW/1359715820/nexus-75-dpi.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" align="left" class="padRight"></a> It’s a science fiction book all right but not of the regular kind (whatever one may mean by regular in a genre that is anything but), the difference in this case and my interest in the book is its emphasis on the connectivity effect. Yes there are bad guys and good guys and the full complement of every good techno-thriller action packed scenes, nevertheless I admire Mr.Naam for the ingenuity of hiding in plain sight what I believe he meant to convey. Namely, our future (2040 in this case) is made of humans desiring to connect to other humans in a transcendent fashion. In other words whatever you will think nexus is about, my take is that the meaning of the book is its techno-participatory culture. Such a culture is already here now and in this sense Naam’s nexus is (as all good science fiction is) a critique of our current state of affairs, with all its attending protagonists, the luddites and the technophiles, the control freaks and the meditating mind connected lovers. It is a good read indeed, much better than I expected, I am the first to admit, but more importantly perhaps I think that what this science fiction narrative is trying to show us is that technology is much more than a tool, deeply ingrained and reflective of our conflicting desires. I salute Ramez Naam’s ‘Nexus’, his first novel, highly recommend it and expect him to provide a sequel, I for one have become a fan. Ramez Naam’s take on his book Nexus at Google Talks: Data flowing in and out of our brains, Google being the third part of our brains <a href="http://youtu.be/dlHAFHOsp9Q" target="_blank">watch</a>. - http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat/8219/Illegal-Addictive-and-necessary-Ramez-Naams-Nexus A becoming on the line: painting and the genesis of form. http://spacecollective.org/Xaos/8210/A-becoming-on-the-line-painting-and-the-genesis-of-form- http://spacecollective.org/Xaos/8210/A-becoming-on-the-line-painting-and-the-genesis-of-form- Thu, 24 Jan 2013 03:41:18 +0000 Xaos 8210 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359024900/5513.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> A becoming on the line: painting and the genesis of form. Written by <a href="http://jd-doria.com/" target="_blank">Xaos</a>; <a href="http://spacecollective.org/starwalker" target="_blank">Starwalker</a>; This work is currently under review for publishing on the journal <a href="http://ojs.wpi.edu/index.php/orgaesthetics/index" target="_blank">Organizational Aesthetics</a> * Art puts a question upon the world of ideas and perceptions. A question that artists pause upon in their every day practices with matter, mediums and minds. It is composed of the vivid sense of openness, unpredictability and chance that emerges with creativity: how open is the world around us – and in us? It comes to challenge the vision we have concerning the world and primarily the notion of strong determinism. Art is occupied in the generation of forms, from the times of its beginning in the caves of the Paleolithic. Ever since Art is declaring, and today more than ever, that aesthetic is not arrested in frozen objects but rooted in the open dynamics of life, in the complex activity through which forms emerge, sustaining and modifying themselves. The journey of an artist into morphogenesis and aesthetics happens between experimental exploration and selected constrains. Through the subtle interplay between the chaotic and the coherent, the artist understands aesthetic from within. The outcome is a work that confronts the constraints of what is the expected dénouement of painting, and explodes in a multiplicity of images and worlds. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359024960/5524.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Morphogenesis Morpho-genesis, or the emergence of form, is one of the most fascinating and least understood territories of life and of human cognition. How does nature acquire its forms and shapes? How does our mind recognize form? How does it deem particular shapes, and not others, attractive, elating, inspiring? The human directly experiences the emergence of form continuously, whether it be visual, structural or belonging to the level of significance and meaning. The artist, in his hunt, aspires to be intimate with it. From the eyes of an artist, morphogenesis provides the viscerally relevant territory to explore the bifurcating roots of aesthetics. Though Art speaks mostly through a language of images, its meta-language – the complex creative process – is a constant gaze into the back-stage of morphogenesis. A backstage where softness and multiplicity are signatures of depth, marking art simultaneously as mature and experimental, and a refined commentary upon the generation of form. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359025093/5511.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Causality Experimenting with emergence means, inevitably, to touch upon the ancient questions of causality. How does form come into being? Stretching as far back as the dialogue on aesthetics, the dialogue on causality brings forth the inquiry into two grand paradigms: Telos (from the Greek τέλος for ‘end’, ‘purpose’, or ‘goal’) expressed in the concept of final causes; and material necessity embedded in the concept of efficient causes. In the evolution of the latter one, necessity projects along history into the critical quest of the modern scientific method and up to the mechanistic view of the universe, aiming to explain all existing forms as the result of a concatenation of efficient and predictable causes. Causation clearly resides in the non-negotiable past of observed phenomena and can be deduced, as in the case of billiard balls rolling on a green table, or of an impassive mechanical clock. The final cause on the other hand, driven by telos, lends us the idea of form emerging ‘for the sake of’ a becoming, within organic and recursive processes that need to self-sustain themselves. The final causality of form extends into the anticipated evolution of something, residing with the future stages of a process and its components as much as with the past ones; as in the case of the evolution of an organism, whose embryo shape-shifts through inexplicable forms to serve the future aptitude of the mature life-form; or in the case of human action and organization, whose logic is assumed to hold an aim extending above and beyond the fulfillment of material immediacy. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359025150/5565.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Open-endedness For the artist that enters such a dialogue, the riddle in exploring the creative generation of form boils down to a critical core issue: how open is this world around us - in us? As humans, we ultimately find our significance in intersecting both time (history) and pure potentiality, electing ourselves to be heroes of a privileged open-ended edge, so that a genuinely new element may have the option to emerge and affect our history. We assume, by now, that the final cause in terms of purpose, vision, direction, commitment, intention and design, expresses entities that are playing a role in our human mode of interaction with the world, and to which we are entitled. We also generically deny, though, all and any generative property of interest related to substrata and physicality, at most when coming to describe them. We do not consider nature or matter as counterparts populated by final causes. On the contrary we expect them to respond passively to material necessity and be imbued by our own telos. Yet how profoundly different the view when we come to interact with them, when what is demanded of us is to radically blend into a reactive substrata, whether it be matter, nature or technology. How surprisingly non inert is the world of substrata, when we find ourselves connected, wired, embodied, in love or simply absorbed in the depth of a creative process. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359025178/5559.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Can any sharp cut be made then, while form is emerging somehow, between active and passive, organic and inorganic, subject and substrata, final and necessary? Opposite and complementary emotions bring about those ephemeral and fertile edges, where one is engrossed to search for the sudden emergence of mind-evoking shapes along the iteration of shifting borderlines. Aesthetics At such moments, the emergent property being exposed and disclosed is aesthetics - the chaotically coherent organization of form, surprisingly composed in a fashion that stirs our being into presence. It emerged, not from an external vision imposed upon inert matter, nor solely from the efficiency of material randomness, but by stemming powerfully from the deep structure of the process that renders the complex sensible. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359025206/5515.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Artist and substrata While far from equilibrium, matter is active and pregnant with potentialities. The artist is immersed in a dynamic universe where he lends himself to the chaotic process of sense-making, leaving behind the old habit of ignoring nature or substrata, using it rather as a vector, participating in the genesis of the image. Absorbed, he navigates through an ad-hoc vision and real time intuition. For the artist Aesthetics is a direction to the creative pulse, a direction that unfolds in a non-linear fashion via concepts such as simultaneity, spontaneous co-emergence, accuracy, or the simultaneity of knowing and action. He becomes a function of Aesthetics as a complex verb, combining the ‘sudden’ (intuition), the ‘gradual’(aggregation) and the ‘edge of chaos’ into a fertile event. “I wish my art as a passageway, a corridor into the dynamic ambivalent line between self and other, between intimate and alien, between certainty and the unknown; to mark through aesthetics the possibility of transition towards a new perspective.” <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359025248/5521.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> The works: Painting as Multitude Painting as a Multitude is the technique I am using to explore the moods and tides of emergence. The creative process, through which the image emerges, does not have one point of end (convergence) but multiple entrances and endings. The rigid hierarchy of representation between process and form, in which the final product takes the front stage, is broken in favor of nesting dynamics where both process and form become part of a dynamic feedback loop. I usually begin with a small work on paper, using liquid materials (colors) such as ink, glass paints and acrylic. When working out a composition and laying out these materials, I take account of the chaotic process. In the process, the paints do not merge entirely but maintain their disparate identities, while the chemical interaction between the colors creates forms and processes, which generate images that retain fractal qualities. Technology is incorporated into the works through two main techniques. The first involves the use of a 3D scanner on the painting, to extract a high-resolution digital image. The out coming image provides the basis for a process of selection, to capture (through a manipulation of scales) a series of other images, that lie locked in the base painting. The images extracted are then finally blown up and printed on various mediums. The second technique involves the usage of a digital camera during the painting process, the camera exposes and briefly captures the images in the making that subsequently unfold into a resting point in time. These images (that are usually lost without trace) take form while the painting process is taking place, in various areas of the work, as a result of the interaction between the different materials. Both techniques are rendered through a close artistic collaboration with a photographer and image designer. At the end of the process, the work comes out as a multitude, a series of images that are both a plural form of the base state of the painting and also independent images of their own accord. I discovered that the work gains edge by opening itself to a network of extensions. Through technology, media and collaborative interaction, the act of painting grows into an increasingly more exposed creative process, which aims to release the fixed constraints of the one single perspective, into a multiplicity of moments, images and scales, captured in dynamic evolution. It is as if a new cosmology becomes visible and a multitude of images bounces to presence. From micro to macro and vice versa, with each iteration it gets clearer that the particular image on paper is but the skin of a bubble of life, lusciously liquefying into richness. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/xZQTL96x/1359025278/5523.jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> In front of my eyes, painting opens a vertical gaze into the genesis of form. For brief instants, causality is exposed in whirls of interconnected subtleties, history not yet on its path to be interpreted, as a fine line that grows tangible, where the inevitable meets vision and where generation is fertile. * Collaboration The unfoldment began with a series of small paintings on paper, it continued with the exquisite intervention of technology and an artistic collaboration with Shaw Gadi Raz as photographer and Image designer. The multitude image-generating process called painting when extended through technology and augmented through collectivity can generate infinity, an endless and manifold articulation based on one (graceful) painting procedure. Appreciation Impossible Creatures is the name suggested by <a href="http://spacecollective.org/Wildcat" target="_blank">Wildcat </a>for the new series of works that are now in process. Images by J.D Doria Image 1 - Impossible Creature - manifest 1 Image 2 - Impossible Creature - manifest 2 Image 3 - Impossible Creature - manifest 3 Image 4 - Impossible Creature - manifest 4 Image 5 - Impossible Creature - manifest 5 Image 6 - Impossible Creature - manifest 6 Image 7 - Impossible Creature - manifest 7 Image 8 - Impossible Creature - manifest 8 http://spacecollective.org/Xaos/8210/A-becoming-on-the-line-painting-and-the-genesis-of-form- Inheritance http://spacecollective.org/YWorlds/8201/Inheritance http://spacecollective.org/YWorlds/8201/Inheritance Wed, 16 Jan 2013 08:17:31 +0000 YWorlds 8201 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358352897/Inheritance.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> All living things carry an inheritance that governs their behavior. We possess an adaptive patchwork of genetic programming that affects how we experience and interact with the world. In addition to our genetic inheritance, we rely on another inheritance – the fabric of life experience and acquired systems that guides us through our lives. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358352956/nets.png" border="0" width="" height="" align="right" class="padLeft">Culture, relationships, education, language and institutions are passed down through generations, forming the world we live in today. This inheritance is rich, but it also limits our potential by leading us to believe that this is the way life and civilizations must be. The world has changed, but out genetic programming and any of our cultural systems have not. In some ways we have adapted to interact with a world we no longer inhabit. In this complex world, we know less than we think we know, and more importanlty, much less than we could know. On an individual level inheritance also takes the form of a roll of imbalanced dice. A few of us receive a rich inheritance. Most of us are handed an inheritance with limited choices. Some of us find ourselves in survival mode from birth. The momentum of our genetics and inherited social and economic systems push us to continue living as we always have. We call these combined forces SLANT. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358352945/slant_graph.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Y Worlds aims to step out from the momentum of inheritance, to pull against SLANT’s push. By revolutionizing how we cooperatively organize knowledge across systems, humankind can do a better job surviving, protecting and making our way through the world without illusions. READ THE FULL POST <a href="http://tinyurl.com/byglnud" target="_blank">HERE</a>. http://spacecollective.org/YWorlds/8201/Inheritance Meaning http://spacecollective.org/YWorlds/8200/Meaning http://spacecollective.org/YWorlds/8200/Meaning Tue, 15 Jan 2013 07:24:39 +0000 YWorlds 8200 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358263296/MeaningFeat-560x280.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> We believe in the extraordinary concept stuck with an ordinary name - meaning. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358263329/imgres1-150x150.jpeg" border="0" width="" height="" align="right" class="padLeft">Meaning is what stands out across all of our senses. Meaning is the signal that stands out from the noise. Meaning is the pattern that is deviant, the pattern that is sought, the pattern that can be recognized, the laws of pattern that enable us to understand and anticipate, the pattern that we are programmed to focus on, the sudden motion, the loud noise, that our genetics require us to process, the threat we evade the exhilaration we explore the filter for every stimuli the guide to decision and choice the thing we call knowledge Meaning is what we remember in long term memory- in short term memory. Meaning is the connections we make to whatever crosses our path. Meaning is the importance we place on whatever crosses our conscious and subconscious processing. Meaning is the message. Meaning is the understanding. THE CREATION OF BITE SIZE, PATTERNED, SPATIAL, DIGESTIBLE, COMPREHENSIBLE, SEMIOTIC MODELS IS TO: ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES EXTRACT & COMMUNICATE MEANING GENERATE VALUE Meaning is NOT information, data, books, words, compendiums, dictionaries, wikipedia <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358263409/jellymeaning.png" border="0" width="" height="" align="left" class="padRight">Our model of Meaning contains Objectives and Value. They are a construct of memory and processing among our conscious, subconscious and corporal- Y Person. Everything has programming. The programming directs behavior and exchange and change. Molecules, cells and organisms have programming that is their “objective”. Human beings have BOTH native programming, and conscious and subconscious objectives. We may think we need something. We may think we want something. These needs and wants derive from both our programming (genetic and life experience) and at a higher level, our objectives – which are human constructs – made up of aspects of meaning. Objectives frame what we wish to move to or from. Meaning defines the variables that we pay attention to. Value organizes the meaning and objectives within a systemic spectrum – filled with context, perspectives, choices and feedback loops. <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/lbmuBA41/1358263402/objectives_objectives-model_02.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"> Together: Objectives Meaning Value …become what systemic knowledge is all about. …become the purpose of a semiotic language. …become the mission for Y Worlds. We would like to hear from you about the concept of meaning. What does an ontology of meaning look like when applied to human relationships, day to day life, societal policy, our language, our priorities? What is the essence of meaning? When you look something up on wikipedia, make a decision, take an action, or think about the universe – what is the meaning you are seeking at the first principle level? Other levels? READ THE FULL POST <a href="http://tinyurl.com/btdcrl2" target="_blank">HERE</a>. http://spacecollective.org/YWorlds/8200/Meaning Responsibility Vortex http://spacecollective.org/CoCreatr/8186/Responsibility-Vortex http://spacecollective.org/CoCreatr/8186/Responsibility-Vortex Sat, 05 Jan 2013 03:25:31 +0000 CoCreatr 8186 <a href="http://youtu.be/SjNRtrZjkfE" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/4X1RkqUn/1357384123/The Personal Responsibility Vortex - Bret Weinstein.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a> What is swirling, where to, and why, and how to get society on a futurable sustainable course. <a href="https://plus.google.com/102457756029591589248/posts" target="_blank">Bret Weinstein</a> explains, among other: Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Adaptive Evolution: - Reproduction - Variation - Heritability - Differential Success The Personal Responsibility Vortex: Bret Weinstein at TEDxTheEvergreenStateCollege <a href="http://youtu.be/SjNRtrZjkfE" target="_blank">Video 16:33</a> <a href="http://youtu.be/SjNRtrZjkfE" target="_blank"><img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/4X1RkqUn/1357384555/The Personal Responsibility Vortex - Bret Weinstein TEDx.png" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"></a> Hat tip <a href="https://plus.google.com/100313086520534185887/posts" target="_blank">Seb Paquet</a>. http://spacecollective.org/CoCreatr/8186/Responsibility-Vortex