OP

Anomina Group were a US collective of the 1960s who dealt with the investigation of the psychology of visual perception. The latest scientific research formed the starting point for the majority of their artwork, which, through exploring optics, geometry and monochromatics, formed part of the movement of Op-art (Optical Art). Their artistic methods - modulations, repetitions, spatialization, transformations and subdivisions - foreshadowed what are taken as ground level rules in the current generative art trend.

In an artistic manifesto mode typical of the 1930s, the Anomina group were anti-gallery, anti-art competitions and did not believe in the commercialism of art. However, in a stance perpendicular to the likes of the Dada, Anomina did not stand for art for arts sake, or for the idea that any 'creation' might be art - but rather explored art as a tool which, alongside science, could move humankind closer to understanding the biological world.

A 1964 Time article on Op-Art, featuring Anomina Group, can be found here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,897336-1,00.html

M I N D / M A T T E R ( ? )

A simple story based in philosophical antiquity from the 5th Century BC -

Assume two characters, 'A' and 'B', are having an arguement and A is in debt to B by, lets say, 5 dollars.

B comes to A and says:
"give me my 5 dollars back."

A replies
"What 5 dollars ? Let me ask you a question . . .
If we had a pile of pebbles with three pebbles and we took one away would we have the same pile or different ?"

B : "Well, different."

A : "Right, and if we added a pebble would we have the same pile or different ?"

B : "Well, different. "

A : "Aha! You see a human being is like a pile of pebbles, there's matter flowing in and out and each time the quantity changes we have a new and different person. Therefore it was not I who borrowed the money but someone else altogether so you can't possibly ask me to pay you the 5 dollars that the other being owes you . . . "

At which point B, frustrated, punches A in the face -

A: "Why did you do that?"

B: "Who, me ?"

The joke within the story is irrelevant, however the inherent arguement is valid - is it the mind or the matter that, well, matters ?

I Think Therefore I Am Part Deux

"A narrative view considers that individuals are both actively engaged with the external environment and are internally reflective and aware. As a result, humans are integrating multiple influences in the process of creating their own existential reality. This complex reality is continually being constructed and represented through one's personal narrative."

- Cathy J. Ganoe

See also, John Locke's stance on identity.

9 BOXES - 1999

www.lebbeuswoods.net

730

for shayna

I link therefore I am

Hypertext as the new Magical Mystery Tour.

http://www.altx.com/hyperx/sss/index2.html
http://www.altx.com/hyperx/ompha/preface.html
http://www.altx.com/hyperx/randompaths/index1.html

"In this ideal text, the networks [réseaux] are many and interact, without any one of them being able to surpass the rest; this text is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can reach, they are indeterminable . . . ; the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text"
Roland Bathes, S/Z

Josh Mannis & The psychedelic influence

There is a definite psychedelic/ 1970's National Geographic quality about your work, would you say that is what your stuff is about (psychadelia) or does it go beyond that? What kinds of influences come through in your work?

Psychedelic art was a huge pushing off point for me, although I'm hoping history will show these cultural references as bits of evidence being deployed in a much larger argument. In a broader sense, my big project is about ways in which an image can get over on and manipulate its beholder - in both the making and the viewing of a piece. The reverse is an image that grants permission, or seems to address a viewer as an equal, or as a partner in the process of generating the meaning of the piece. I guess these are also political ideas, in the sense that they are about how an artwork, through these modes of address, generates and determines the nature of a social space inhabited by artist - piece - viewer(s), and I think it gets at what we want out of an image in the first place. Drug culture, rock culture, art culture, political culture, and etc., are all metaphors I've used in the past, to act inside of, with the aim of theatricalizing these larger themes of the overbearing image, the permissive image, the fascist image, the leftist image, etc.

FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Pink laugh and a liquorice sentence

Synaesthesia comes from syn [union] and aistheses [sensation], in which a stimulus received in one sensory modality gives rise to an experience in another. One of the most common forms of synaesthesia is a sound/sight connection, where the person [synaesthete] ‘sees’ sound, or ‘hears’ visuals. Another is inherently knowing what colour different numbers or letters correlate to. Or knowing the personality of your appliances. Or knowing what a triangle tastes like. Or where in relation to your body 1999 is.

I love this video: it looks equally likely to have come from Sesame Street, or from an acid soaked nightmare.



And of course:

Fun facts: True synaesthesia is involuntary, women are eight times more likely to have it than males, as are those who have difficulty telling their left from their right(?)

Dreams

“Ἁνδρόνικός φησιν ἐν Ἱσπανίᾳ ἔν τινι τόπῳ λιθάρια εὑρίσκεσθαι περιερριμμένα πολύγωνα αὐτοφυῆ, ἃ μὲν λευκὰ ἅ δὲ κηροειδῆ, ἃ καὶ κύει ὅμοια ἑαυτοῖς λιθάρια. Τούτων δὴ καὶ ἐγὼ ἓν πείρας ἕνεκα ἔσχον, ὃ δὴ ἔτεκε παρ’ ἐμοί, ὥστε τὸ ῥῆμα μὴ εἶναι ψεῦδος.”

“Andronicos says that in a certain place in Spain one finds small, scattered stones which are polygonal and grow spontaneously. Some of them are white, others are like wax and pregnant of smaller stones similar to themselves. I kept one to verify this myself and it gave birth at my place, so the story is not a lie.”