Reading Sianne Ngai’s Theory of the Gimmick made me hyper sensitive to aesthetic evaluations that were primarily based upon the level of effort input to the work by the artist rather than relying on the “output” of the work aka the experience it induces in its audience . Unsurprising then, …
In his article “Scrolling,” Gavin Francis mistakenly blames devices for the deleterious effects of the apps that run on them. There are many experiences one can have while using one’s phone (or “screen”), and it’s misleading to treat the most egregious experiences as characteristic of the whole. Phones are …
Andy Goldsworthy’s Leaning Into The Wind is primarily another chapter in his ongoing documentation of what he’s been working on lately, but it had a few items whose timing/length didn’t quite fit with that format. It made me think about time, time lengths of visual snippets and how they can …
Note: In this post I’m discussing viewing art that was not originally intended to be viewed online, e.g., paintings, sculptures, etc. that were created to be viewed in person. Deficiencies encountered when viewing artwork online that was intended to be viewed online are deficiencies of the artwork’s conception or execution …
Reading the (in)famous recent letter in Harpers https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/ and the responses it engendered. I was struck that I hadn’t seen anything addressing the empirical research on how people process information, and bring those results to bear on evaluating the issue. I’ve been, and continue to be, an advocate of an …
The existence of prostitution in all its forms lowers the value of wifely sexual services, This is a Phrase from Ann E. Cudd’s Analyzing Oppression which has stuck in my brain ever since I read it a few weeks ago. I don’t plan to talk about the book, other than …
This very short post isn’t about Derek Parfit’s book On What Matters, per se, but on the thoughts that came up while reading it. His phrasing of the arguments reminded me a lot of the way we phrased rules “back in the day” when expert systems were at the cutting …
Waking, Dreaming, Being by Evan Thompson The subtitle of the book self and consciousness in neuroscience, meditation, and philosophy, captures what I like best about it: it examines three separate disciplines to see what they say about the issues of self and consciousness, examining their areas of focus and how …
My goal here is to do a quick fleshing out of the term Augmented Reality (AR), since I find its meaning, including my own use of it, imprecise. Axes I’ll use these axes for analysis, even though they’re not completely orthogonal, they highlight significantly different factors: Physical Scale: Personal <-> …
I had an Augmented Reality (AR) app rejected by Apple recently because it “wasn’t interactive enough”. My argument that it was a sculpture, didn’t get any traction with the reviewers. In fairness, I did have a discussion with one of the reviewers and I felt that he was genuinely trying …