Re: [-empyre-] Writing and Pattern Flows, Forward from Kenneth Newby (2)

Roman Danylak <rdanylak@it.uts.edu.au> · Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:34:34 +1000

Yes I agree answers exist at the peripheries.

But how do we break through....what shall inspire this to happen? What shall
the fuel be?

Roman

On 10/10/05 5:06 PM, "Christina McPhee" <christina112@earthlink.net> wrote:

> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Kenneth Newby <knewby@sfu.ca>
>> Date: October 9, 2005 11:54:21 PM PDT
>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Writing and Pattern Flows
>> 
>> 
>> Well I suppose we experience them as cultures in the sense that
>> there are competing views as to what constitutes knowledge,
>> meaning, valid methodologies, and valid research in the
>> construction of these.  We encounter issues where we seem to speak
>> different languages and a considerable effort is required in
>> translation.
>> 
>> Raymond Williams put it this way:
>> 
>> "A culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions,
>> which its members are trained to; the new observations and
>> meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary
>> processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through
>> them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional
>> and creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and
>> the finest individual meanings. We use the word culture in these
>> two senses: to mean a whole way of life--the common meanings; to
>> mean the arts and learning--the special processes of discovery and
>> creative effort."
>> 
>> Universities train people, both students and faculty in ways of
>> thinking and making meaning which are offered and tested through a
>> variety of research methods.  The disciplines form discrete
>> cultures in the sense that they encapsulate a kind of tradition of
>> "known" meanings and directions.  The differences form points of
>> contact between different cultures of research, establishing what
>> is known and how it is validated.  There's also the issue of how
>> those cultures are encoded.  The kinds of tools and environments we
>> choose to use, develop and dwell in.  Michael Hamman  http://
>> www.shout.net/~mhamman/papers/index.html  is another interesting
>> critic of the way engineering culture focusses on efficiency and
>> ease of use quite in contrast to the needs of the artist where
>> constraints and break-downs often provide a response flashes of
>> creative insight (or perhaps more often consideration of a change
>> of medium ;-).
>> 
>> Kenneth.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 9-Oct-05, at 5:20 PM, Roman Danylak wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On cultural clashes
>>> 
>>> As a performing artist, completing a practice based PhD in HCI, I
>>> constantly
>>> find that the diversity of audiences I write/speak to means that
>>> someone out
>>> there will find what I do as incomplete.
>>> 
>>> Convergence, that all encompassing action of digital technology on
>>> information seems to go against the grain of the categories
>>> established in
>>> so many disciplines as we try to solve new problems with the old
>>> language.
>>> We can only ask "What is it that you see/hear and how does that
>>> compare to
>>> my experience?"
>>> 
>>> Even in description of the three disciplines of art, design and IT as
>>> 'cultures' this surely makes an anthropologist somewhere sit up
>>> and take
>>> notice... but I think I catch your drift.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Roman
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Roman Danylak
>>> Doctoral Candidate
>>> Creativity and Cognition Studios
>>> Faculty of Information Technology
>>> University of Technology
>>> PO Box 123
>>> BROADWAY NSW 2007
>>> SYDNEY AUSTRALIA
>>> 
>>> http://www.creativityandcognition.com
>>> 
>>> Tel 61 2 9514 4628
>>> Fax 61 2 9514 4761
>>> 
>>> -
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 10/10/05 8:51 AM, "Christina McPhee"
>>> <christina112@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Ken, can you offer a couple of specific references in Polyani?
>>>> maybe
>>>> a book title or better yet an online paper?
>>>> 
>>>> Christina
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Oct 9, 2005, at 9:30 AM, Kenneth Newby wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Jim,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Polyani's field in this case is philosiphy/science and the goal is
>>>>> a critique of pure rationality (logical positivism) and a
>>>>> recuperation of meaning through myth, art and a spiritual impulse.
>>>>> Not that he wants to break with rationality, but rather integrate
>>>>> it with these other modes of knowing and making meaning.  I've
>>>>> found myself increasingly interested in this topic myself as I
>>>>> struggle with the clash of cultures in an interdisciplinary school
>>>>> (art, design, IT) at our university where ideas like these are
>>>>> contested (not that that's necessarily a bad thing).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Kenneth.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 9-Oct-05, at 3:36 AM, Jim Andrews wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> What is the goal of Polyani's writing? Is it work in
>>>>>> AI? Semantics? Something else?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> _________________________________
>>>>> Kenneth Newby ? Computational Poetics
>>>>> School for Interactive Arts & Technology
>>>>> Simon Fraser University       778.858.0359
>>>>> _________________________________
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> empyre forum
>>>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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