Notebook: Thoughts

walter benjamin - “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

donna haraway and the cyberfeminist manifesto

katharine hayles : posthuman

lev manovich and the info aesthetic

virtual museums: the guggenheim

asymptote architects

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Media and Power

Institutions: the political economy of media.

Concept of the “Public Sphere” (Habermas), that space wherein the all citizens can freely discuss politics independent of the influence of the state or capital.

Internet and Public Sphere

Cyberutopianism

Mark Poster “Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere” in David Porter (Ed.) Internet Culture.

Cultural Industry Concept and Technological Determinism: theories of the Frankfurt School (focusing on Theodor Adorno & M. Horkheimer) regarding the implications of the “industrialisation” of art and culture in the age of mass production (Fordist mode of production) for the political influence of culture. political function of mass culture.

Technological determinism versus Cultural Determinism: what factors influence the “appearance” of new/innovative technologies.

**society**

Imagined Communities:

Benedict Anderson -nation states as imagined communities.
myth-making and national folklore. legends and social construction.

sociology of ethnicity

michel mafesoli: The Time of the Tribes.

we are a bunch of fucked-up people who pride ourselves on being “civilized”

–

on homo sapiens:

people are funny creatures.

i shall use these pages to record some of my reflections on this highly interesting and contrary species. everything of course will be anonymised..i want to focus on things in the abstract. just things you observe in a person ( X, Y or Z) that make you think - ? - or ! really honest observations, that you often can”t tell anyone about. ( as some of us are rather polite in our interactions in society..)

or just things like..observing how aware individuals are of their actions. reflexivity and things like that. [ look up the root of the work sapient.. from which comes the Sapiens..] I always thought - and i may be wrong here - people can let me know what they think! - that people realized that in polite society ( ha ha - well lets save a discussion /dissection of that for later..or maybe a whole separate page..!) it doesn”t really do to show your self-centredness ( granted we are selves and are naturally centred around our self..) over-much or to keep going on about yourself or monopolizing the conversation etc. Well often people do monopolize the conversation but if its about something interesting or said person happens to be something of a raconteur.. What i dont understand : let me be clear about this - is that yes, while i can see that lots of people want to talk about themselves- sure - ( thats where blogs come in handy, ha ha again) , i thought that it was well-known that perhaps other people don”t always want to hear! or that you would be viewed in a certain way if you kept on insisting… however people who ” manage” to do this- ( and i think it must be sth to do with having a thick-enough skin..really sometimes i am filled with a desire to possess such a skin) some clearly seem to think there is nothing “untoward” shall we say - in their approach to life and their conversation.

Possibly people such as these gravitate to good listeners.

I often wish ( and there is a Saki story where Clovis does this so well.. i think it was called the talking out of …) i had the ability to give back to self-centred soliloquists the same thing on a plate.. so a conversation would run thus:

- oh- im so blah blah whatever..

- so am i

- oh i blah blah

- so am i…

[ you might be wondering - if you are someone reading this and not the usual diamonds and casino bot-: the motivation behind this kind of writing/invective. shall we say it simply grew out a fond analysis of the kind of agony-aunt-ism that has often taken up my time. after all, any time-taking up that allows reflection ( cynical or otherwise) and a better understanding of fellow man, must be salubrious in the long run..no?]

So there is going to be more written in that vein of things.

another thing: it annoys me when if you are in a social situation, and someone has bought you a drink, or sth like that before, or elsewhere, that they then on this occasion, pointedly announce - “its your shout!” ..personally i think that”s so uncouth - don”t you think, surely must reveal their inherent fear that they will be short-changed. ( and focus on the materialisms of this life) i mean - do they imagine that unless they point it out, i will insist they spend their hard-earned money on anotherdrink - and that they won”t get their due? Well to people like that: i say one thing: buy your own drinks and etc. and don”t offer to buy anyone else a drink. cos frankly there isn”t a point..if you are simply going to “demand” “repayment” later. why bother pretending to be hospitable? well i think its fairly rude to approach it in that way - shows lack of savoir-faire..after all, why not give gifts to people and demand they give you one back! –> you”re meant to wait till you”re “offered” a drink back..and like i said, if you don”t like waiting cos you think you”ll get short-changed- well don”t go in for the whole system.

in fact i think i will opt-out from now on. whenever such people offer me a drink/etc.- i shan”t accept! I shall say - no thanks - cos it only means that if i don”t return one to you straight away - you”ll be all like.–oh you owe me.

there, what a neat solution.

Oh - and also, in my experience, i have found such people to be the last in actually checking they aren”t shortchanging others. Typical? now in the dissection of past housemates/people of that kind - i”m sure this will ring bells in everyone”s heads. the kind of housemate who is dead keen you not use their teaspoons but doesn”t mind using your things ( cos you”re a let live sort of person!) , or someone who will happily tell you you owe them 2 p, but use your phone and run up massive bills and forget about that..

9th September
————–

amusingly enough i was flicking through a magazine at my sister”s house ( i do like to catch up on whats going on with the mass psyche now and then) and what did i find, but an article on how to deal with the me me me friend. it started off by saying..”now we will all recognize this person..” blah blah, anyway the point is it made me feel a whole lot better as apparently most women have had at least one such friend. things that ring true like ” eyes glazing over” when the discussion moves away from the favourite topic of said person”s “misfortunes” or dramas. and apparently we shouldn”t be upset if you confront such a person and they”re in complete denial and accuse you back of “betrayal”. well of course its betrayal if they think your role in life is to listen to them. So forget about it and move on - if they can listen, so much the better, but it seems pretty clear from the psychological portrait that in these instances, it may be that you”ve provided someone a crutch - and they”re not going to be interested in you if you withdraw that crutch. the main thing is to realize in advance and not beat yourself up over it. After all sometimes its rather naive and simplistic to imagine that such relationships aren”t about therapy when they are - and its not a big deal - as long as everyone”s open that”s not in itself a problem. its i guess the hypocrisy i”ve personally experienced in this context - that ive had the problem with. why hide it? its not like people are that dumb. Anyway the main thing is to kind of thing and realize that if you have friends like that you don”t need enemies. Its one thing if you feel like taking on when you have the energy and you want to do someone else the favour. its another to have it foisted upon you in the guise of friendship. that”s where the pah factor comes in.

22 September
————-
the world is full of them. I for one shall be keeping my bright ideas to myself.

———-
really Saki is the most fabulous writer around who clearly understood what i am trying to formalize in my head ( on this rather strange page). i”ve been reading his complete short stories and really the man is a virtuoso -we should all take a leaf out of his book. obviously a lot of those people had a lot of time on their hands so Saki was fully alive to the dangers of sociability in its conventional constrained sense.

——-
Meeting lots of people in this world: everytime you”re in a new place you meet people, re-meet them and the cycle goes on and on and around. you find out people”s views (and actually a large percentage of them don”t know much about me or my views - probably just as well! a few do..) and you later think..goodness..but it”s all for the best really - otherwise you wouldn”t find out how people think. sometimes its very tiring when you hear the same thing over and over again and it sounds so trite, but - you can”t expect them to know that! can you.

—
okay this is a rant at this stage. which is fine for now - lets save the more objective stuff for a later stage.

psychology

Psychology is the study of behavior and the mind.
- The science that studies behavior and the physiological and cognitive processes that underlie it, and

- The profession that applies the knowledge of this science to practical problems.

A common misunderstanding floats about that the academic study of psychology addresses only psychological disorders and personality.

**

• Mind and machines
• Language
• Cognitive Psychology
• Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud
• Behaviorists and B.F.Skinner
• Positive Psychology
• States of mind and Consciousness: the original trip and psychedelic substances
• Mind body dualism: Descartes and Cognitive Science in the 21st Century

Social Psychology

Social Psychology at the LSE :

Founded in 1964, as a Department of Social Psychology at LSE, and now located within the Department of Sociology, the Institute has one of the largest concentrations of social psychologists in Europe with 11 members of staff and over 140 graduate students enrolled on four specialist Masters programmes or conducting research towards a PhD.

The broad project of Institute of Social Psychology is to understand, through theoretical development and empirical research, the social processes that emerge at the intersection between the individual and wider societal contexts. Thus for example, our research and teaching focuses on organisational behaviour and dynamics, risk in society, communication multiculturalism and discrimination, individual and social health and the community, decision taking and the social production of knowledge. In this way social psychology has many links with other academic disciplines and research groups in the LSE and beyond. These include management, risk and regulation, media and communications, social policy, sociology, behavioural economics and anthropology.

Marco polo

“When a man is riding through this desert by night and for some reason -falling asleep or anything else -he gets separated from his companions and wants to rejoin them, he hears spirit voices talking to him as if they were his companions, sometimes even calling him by name. Often these voices lure him away from the path and he never finds it again, and many travelers have got lost and died because of this. Sometimes in the night travelers hear a noise like the clatter of a great company of riders away from the road; if they believe that these are some of their own company and head for the noise, they find themselves in deep trouble when daylight comes and they realize their mistake. There were some who, in crossing the desert, have been a host of men coming towards them and, suspecting that they were robbers, returning, they have gone hopelessly astray….Even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. For this reason bands of travelers make a point of keeping very close together. Before they go to sleep they set up a sign pointing in the direction in which they have to travel, and round the necks of all their beasts they fasten little bells, so that by listening to the sound they may prevent them from straying off the path.”

—- Marco Polo, Travels

Xanadu: The Ballad of Kublai Khan

Or, a vision in a dream. A fragment.

ST Coleridge. 1798

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e”er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher”s flail :
And “mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :

And “mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight “twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

——–

Sarashina ( 1009- 1059)

“Her memoirs - The Diaries of Lady Sarashina - compiled in the Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan (Boston: Houghton, 1920) are remembered especially for two things. One is the poetic account of her family’s journey from Kazusa back to the capital in Kyoto, which is viewed as a precursor of the poetic travel journal genre later developed by mediaeval poet pilgrims and the early modern haiku poet Bashô. The other is its thematization of her obsession with reading tales in particular the The Tales of Genji.”

James Robertson House: Architects: Dawson Brown Architects

an arrangement of pavilions on a narrow, elevated site overlooking the sea. The strongest aspect is the sense of framing provided by the overlapping layers of projecting eaves. This establishes a strong connection between the house and the bay beneath.

St.Pauls Cathedral -The Great domed church in London:

As depicted by Theodor Schwertfeger (1750)

Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, St Paul”s Cathedral took a decade to design and forty years to build. After much of the original structure was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, { the roof had mainly been constructed of wood. see the wikipedia article for information on the previous structures, dating back to the original wooden one built by the Saxons} Wren was given the mammoth task of rebuilding.

The BBC website also has a few decent images of the various designs Wren proposed. *reproduced* here is the –>

Temple Church, London

  

Built by the Knights Templar in the 12th Century. Like other Templar churches, the Temple Church has a round apse, and built to the plan of Jerusalem”s Holy Sepulchre; the significance of this is not often realised today.

The Temple Church had until recently, been one of London”s best-kept secrets, and has been for four centuries been maintained by the Middle and Inner Temples, societies of lawyers whose offices (”chambers”) surround the Church.