The Civilization of Illiteracy Part 58

Bas C. van Fraasen. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1980.

Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

-. The Extended Phenotype. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Elan Moritz, of the Inst.i.tute for Memetic Research, provides the historic and methodological background to the subject in Introduction to Memetic Science.

E.O. Wilson. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1975.

Mihai Nadin. Mind-Antic.i.p.ation and Chaos (from the series Milestones in Thought and Discovery). Stuttgart/Zurich: Belser Presse, 1991.

-. The Art and Science of Multimedia, in Real-Time Imaging (P.

Laplante & A. Stoyenko, Editors). Piscataway NJ: IEEE Press, January, 1996.

-. Negotiating the World of Make-Believe: The Aesthetic Compa.s.s, in Real-TIme Imaging. London: Academic Press, 1995.

"Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it," Karl Marx (cf. Theses on Feuerbach (from Notebooks of 1844-1845). See also Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, Garden City NY: Anchor Books, 1967, p. 402.

Paul K. Feyerabend. Against Method. Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: Verson Edition,1978.

-. Three Dialogues on Knowledge. Oxford, England/Cambridge MA: Blackwell,1991.

Imre Lakatos. Philosophical Papers, in two volumes (edited by John Worrall and Gregory Currie). Cambridge, England/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

-. Proofs and Refutations. The Logic of Mathematical Discovery (John Worrall and Elie Zahar, Editors). Cambridge, England/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Multivalued logic: expands beyond the truth and falsehood of sentences, handling the many values of the equivocal or the ambiguous.

Charles S. Peirce ascertained that all necessary reasoning is mathematical reasoning, and that all mathematical reasoning is diagrammatic. He explained diagrammatic reasoning as being based on a diagram of the percept expressed and on operations on the diagram. The visual nature of a diagram ("composed of lines, or an array of signs...") affects the nature of the operations performed on it (cf. On the Algebra of Logic: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Notation, in The American Journal of Mathematics, 7:180-202, 1885).

Brockman, John. The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution. (A collection of essays with Introduction written by John Brockman.) New York: Simon & Schuster. 1995

Here are some quotations from the contributors: Brockman maintains that there is a shift occurring in public discourse, with scientists supplanting philosophers, artists, and people of letters as the ones who render "visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are."

"We're at the stage where things change on the order of decades, and it seems to be speeding up...." (Danny Hillis)

Auguste Compte, in whose works the thought of Positivism is convincingly embodied, attracted the attention of John Stuart Mill, who wrote The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Compte (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1871). Some of Compte's early writings are reproduced in The Crisis of Industrial Civilization (Ronald Fletcher, Editor, London: Heinemann Educational, 1974).

Stefano Poggi. Introduzione al il Positivisma. Bari: Laterza, 1987.

Sybil de Acevedo. Auguste Compte: Qui tes-vous? Lyons: La Manufacture, 1988.

Emil Durkheim. De la division du travail social. 9e ed. Paris: Presses univrsitaires de France, 1973. (Translated as The Division of Labor in Society by W.D. Halls, New York: Free Press, 1984.

Durkheim applied Darwin's natural selection to labor division.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903): very well known for his essay, Progress: Its Laws and Cause (1857), attempted to conceive a theory of society based on naturalist principles. What he defined as the "super- organic," which stands for social, is subjected to evolution. In his view, societies undergo, cycles of birth- climax-death. Productive power varies from one cycle to other (cf. Principles of Sociology, 1876-1896).

Art(ifacts) and Aesthetic Processes

Art Speigelman. Maus. A Survivor's Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986; and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale-And Here My Troubles Began. New York Pantheon Books, 1991.

Started as a comic strip (in Raw, an experimental Comix magazine, co-edited by Speigelman and Franoise Monly) on the subject of the Holocaust, Maus became a book and, on its completion, the Museum of Modern Art in New York dedicated a show to the artist.

Over 1500 interlocking drawings tell the story of Vladek, the artist's father. The comic book convention was questioned as to its appropriateness for the tragic theme.

Milli Vanilli, the group that publicly acknowledged that the alb.u.m Girl You Know It's True, for which it was awarded the Grammy for Best New Artist of 1989, was vocally interpreted by someone else. The prize winners, Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, credited for the vocals, were hardly the first to take advantage of the new means for creating the illusion of interpretation. As the 'visual entertainment," they became the wrapper on a package containing the music of less video-reputed singers. Their producer, Frank Tarian (i.e., Franz Reuther) was on his second "fake." Ten years earlier, he revealed that the pop group Boney M. was his own "mouthpiece." Image-driven pop music sells the fantasy of teen idol to a musically illiterate public. Packaged music extends to simulations of instruments and orchestras as well.

Beauty and the Beast is the story of a handsome prince in 18th century France turned into an eight-foot tall, hideous, hairy beast. Unless he finds someone to love him before his 21st birthday, the curse cast upon him by the old woman he tried to chase away will become permanent. In a nearby village, Maurice, a lovable eccentric inventor, his daughter Belle, who keeps her nose in books and her head in the clouds, and Gaston, the macho of the place, go through the usual "he (Gaston) loves/wants her; she does not care for/shuns him, etc." As its 30th full-length animation, this Walt Disney picture is a musical fairy tale that takes advantage of sophisticated computer animation. Its over one million drawings (the work of 600 animators, artists, and technicians) are animated, some in sophisticated 3-dimensional computer animation. The technological performance, resulting from an elaborate database, provided attractive numbers, such as the Be Our Guest sequence (led by the enchanted candelabra, teapot, and clock characters, entire chorus lines of dancing plates, goblets, and eating utensils perform a musical act), or the emotional ballroom sequence. Everything is based on the accepted challenge: "OK, go ahead and fool us," once upon a time uttered by some art director to the computer-generated imagery specialists of the company. The story (by Mme. Leprince de Beaumont) inspired Jean Cocteau, who wrote the screenplay for (and also directed) La Belle et La Bte (1946), featuring Jean Marais, Josette Day, and Marcel Andr.

Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945). Seduced by the relation to history, he produces allegories in reference to myth, art, religion, and culture. His compositions are strongly evocative, not lacking a certain critical dimension, sometimes focused on art itself, which repeatedly failed during times of challenge (those of n.a.z.i Germany included).

Terminator 2 is a movie about two cyborgs who come from the future, one to destroy, the other to protect, a boy who will affect the future when he grows up. It is reported to be the most expensive film made as of 1991 (over 130 characters are killed), costing 85 to 100 million dollars; cf. Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic, August 12, 1991, pp. 28-29.

Kitsch: defined in dictionaries as gaudy, trash, pretentious, shallow art expression addressing a low, unrefined taste.

Kitsch-like images are used as ironic devices in artworks critical of the bourgeois taste.

The relation between art and language occasioned a major show organized by the Socit des Expositions du Palais de Beaux-Arts in Brussels. A catalogue was edited by Jan Debbant and Patricia Holm (Paris: Galerie de Paris; London: Lisson Gallery; New York: Marian Goodman Gallery). Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). sthetik (Hrsg. von Friedrich Ba.s.senge). Berlin: Verlag das Europische Buch, 1985.

Dadaism: Hans Arp defined Dada as "the nausea caused by the foolish rational explanation of the world" (1916, Zurich).

Richard Huelsenbeck stated that "Dada cannot be understood, it must be experienced" (1920). More on this subject can be found in:

Raoul Hausmann. Am Anfang war Dada. (Hrsg. von Karl Riha & Gunter Kampf). Steinbach/Giessen: Anabas-Verlag G. Kampf, 1972.

Serge Lemoine. Dada. Paris: Hazan, 1986.

Dawn Ades. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1978.

Hans Bollinger, et al. Dada in Zurich. Zurich: Kunsthaus Zurich, 1985.

Walter Benjamin. Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproduction is a translation of Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit: drei studien zur Kunstsoziologie.

Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1963.

Walter de Maria's Lightning Field project was carried out with the support of the Dia Art Foundation, which bought the land and maintains and allows for limited public access to the work. As the prototypical example of land-art, this lattice of lightning rods covers an area of one mile by one kilometer. Filled with 400 rods placed equidistantly, the lightning field is the interplay between precision and randomness. During the storm season in New Mexico, the work is brought to life by many bolts of lightning. The artist explained that "Light is as important as lightening." Indeed, during its 24-hour cycle, the field goes through a continuous metamorphosis. Nature and art interact in fascinating ways.

Christo's latest work was ent.i.tled Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, July 1995. Regarding Christo's many ambitious projects, some references are:

Erich Himmel, Editor. Christo. The Pont-Neuf Wrapped, Paris 1975-1985. New York: Abrams, 1990.

Christo: The Umbrellas. Joint project for j.a.pan and the USA, 25 May - 24 June, 1988. London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 1988.

Christo: Surrounded Islands. Kln: DuMont Buch Verlag, 1984.

Christo: Wrapped Walkways, Loose Park, Kansas City, Missouri, 1977-1978. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1978.

Christo: Valley Curtain, Riffle, Colorado. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1973.

The Bauhaus, a school of arts and crafts, founded in 1919 in Weimar, by Walter Gropius. Its significance results from the philosophy of education expressed in the Bauhaus program, to which distinguished artists contributed, and from the impressive number of people who, after studying at the Bauhaus, affirmed its methods and vision in worlds of art, architecture, and new educational programs. Among the major themes at Bauhaus were the democratization of artistic creation (one of the last romantic ideas of our time), the social implication of art, and the involvement of technology. Collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts were encouraged; the tendency to overcome cultural and national boundaries was tirelessly pursued; the rationalist att.i.tude became the hallmark of all who const.i.tuted the school.

In 1925, the Bauhaus had to move to Dessau, where it remained until 1928, before it settled in Berlin. After Gropius, the architects Hans Mayer (1930-1932) and Mies van der Rohe (1932-1933) worked on ascertaining the international style intended to offer visual coherence and integrity. In some ways, the Bauhaus was continued in the USA, since many of its personalities and students had to emigrate from n.a.z.i Germany and found safe haven in the USA.