January 2011
13 posts
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Illusions, Senses and Sound
It has been known at least since the time of Aristotle that our senses can distort the way we perceived the world. My teacher Roger Shepherd, a perception psychologist at Standford University, used to say that when functioning properly, our perceptual system is supposed to distort the world we see and hear. We interact with the world around us through our senses. As John Locke noted, everything we...
“Playground Love” / You’re the piece of gold...
“Lucy: “I’m not exotic, I’m Asian. Statistically, there are...”
– Better Off Ted ‘Bioshuffle’
Art and The Brain
[Semir] Zeki works on the visual areas of the brain, and he has many fascinating things to say about how brain-science may help to clarify common human experiences. For example we often feel that we cannot properly express our thoughts in words. Indeed, it is clear that we cannot. It is impossible, for example, to describe a face in words so that the person we are addressing will be sure to...
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“[Virginia Woolf] believed the individual identity to be always in flux, every...”
– Moments of Being, Virginia Woolf
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M.I.A. and Power
Jian: You’re a global rockstar, don’t you have a lot of power? Wouldn’t people look at you and say your powerful at this point? You have legions of people who’ll listen to what you’ll say. They pay to hear what you have to say. M.I.A.: Of course I’m not. The day I jump down and be like ‘Heeelo’ here’s my name on a Coca Cola fuckin’ promotion, yeah I’ll be like that, but I do turn down...
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The Politics of Writing
“There is one fact that can be established: the only phenomenon which, always and in all parts of the world, seems to be linked with the appearance of writing… is the establishment of hierarchical societies, consisting of masters and slaves, and where one part of the population is made to work for the other part”
Marion Deuchar’s ‘Comment’, The Guardian...
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“A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off you.”
– Françoise Sagan
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