Science may take part in the formation of warfare, as for example in the
creation of some of Leonardo's machines of war. But the scientific
process itself has never driven war. And certainly poetry in its true
definition, which includes communication of full thought and not just
passionate egotism, has NEVER driven war. U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser
has said that the foremost purpose of poetry is to communicate with
people--and I would add that it is to communicate in ways that are
outside our limited commercial language. Probably 98% of the words we
say each day equate to "what can I buy from you?" or "What will you
trade me for...?" Poetry takes the vastness beyond those words, yet
still contained within our language, and uses them to explore other
issues that we perhaps feel more deeply though we don't discuss them.
False poetry--rhetoric/oratory--may be used to drive armies and false
ideas. We must as a culture understand, however, that there is a
difference between false poetry --often passion or hate-driven
egotism--and real poetry that reaches out to that which is larger. We
make that distinction in philosophy and have since Plato discussed
rhetoricians and philosophers as being two different types of people
with different goals.
Art--certainly poetic art--is a transcendent and inclusive process
conducted within oneself and perhaps later shared with others. It does
not lead to war.
Jared
On 12/2/2010 12:52 AM, ramon guardans wrote:
> One point that sould be noted is that as much as science and poetry interact and overlap in the production of beauty and positive social constructions
>
> science and poetry are also indispensable components of all massacres, wars and monstrosities that the human group is putting together today and has in the course of history
>
> the construction of spurious certitudes, nationalism and fanaticism rely
> on wine and poetry, but you can substitute the wine by other substances,
> the need-use of science and technology to amplify killing power does not need to be ellaborated
>
> Is there anything practical that can be said or done about this relation?,
> One thing i would say is that in the future it might be wise to pay more attention to the unpoetic and very effective stategies of ignorance technology, te deliberate and industrial production of unknowledge, confusion and fear
>
> Currently and in history much work, poetic and scientific has been devoted to produce and difuse ignorance, prejudice and confusion, this could be adressed and one way to proceed is by including forms of quality control , sort of cheks on the validity and logic of statements and propositions, science and poetry have proven to be able to do that
>
> cordially
> r
>
> --- On Wed, 12/1/10, Jared Smith<smithjrw@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Jared Smith<smithjrw@comcast.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Science, Technology, Art, POETRY
>> To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
>> Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 4:32 PM
>> Hi, Vitor and other Yasminers,
>>
>> What a fascinating conversation this is developing
>> into! Your contribution here, Vitor, opens up the
>> whole question of thought processes in poetry and the
>> languages that represent those processes. Of course,
>> on the most basic surface level, some of us may be most
>> comfortable conversing in Italian or French or English or
>> any other language native to a particular country or
>> region. At a somewhat deeper level, we may be more
>> comfortable conversing in light beams or music or
>> mathematical symbols All of these symbols are, of
>> course, just that: symbols that stand for the concrete
>> statements we make or the meditations we set out upon.
>> And David Morley's "Mathematics of Light" is a wonderful
>> example of how one set of symbols may be merged within
>> another. In our time, especially, one can do this with
>> images that are complete pictures, as with digital poems and
>> their interfaces, as Jason Nelson has just discussed in his
>> post. The shadows of Plato's cave wall take on depth
>> and become more interactive. And perhaps Knowledge
>> (science) is allowed the chance to become closer to Art than
>> to Craft--fact and not pretense?
>>
>> But the empty page, in any case, is what all these
>> languages line their symbols down on. I wonder if
>> there is value to thinking of the empty page as a
>> scaffolding which symbols of whatever sort that compose a
>> unity may be laid down. The symbols are
>> statements. The scaffolding is the blank space across
>> which those symbols play out--giving them nonlinear depth
>> and meaning because we don't know how deep that space is or
>> what its shape is. Nor does the mind try to measure
>> the size of the paper or its infinitude. The mind does
>> something else: it experiences the unknown space and makes
>> of it what it will. It turns the finite into one or
>> more possible definitions or discoveries of the
>> infinite. And the poet, then, whether in light rays or
>> mathematics or the contemplation of immigrants learns to
>> convey that new possibility and discovery to others in
>> a valid form. The poem happens, whatever language,
>> within the mind, drawing from the structure on the page or
>> visible through other symbols. It provides a setting
>> for the symbols/data, and a tool for using them to create.
>>
>> My Best,
>> Jared Smith
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/30/2010 1:41 AM, Vítor Reia-Baptista wrote:
>>> Hi Everybody.
>>>
>>> My name is Vítor Reia-Baptista and I work at the
>> University of Algarve, in South Portugal, where we have a
>> research centre on Arts and Communication - CIAC (Centro de
>> Investigação em Artes e Comunicação)
>>> http://www.ciac.pt/en/index.php
>>>
>>> I do not have anu direct answer to Roger questions and
>> I don't know if they exist in general, but I'm certain that
>> they apply to many of our human kind situations: we do need
>> poetry, in different shapes and different states of mind and
>> materia.
>>> So, here are some starting contributes for a
>> discussion maybe also around the way Teknè makes Poietike
>> possible, through knowledge (Science) made visible by Art
>> crafts?
>>> Dave Morley, author of the poem «Mathematics of
>> Light»
>>> <http://www.liv.ac.uk/poetryandscience/poems/mathematics-of-light.htm>;
>>> wrote:
>>> «Think of an empty page as open space. It possesses
>> no dimension. Human time
>>> makes no claim. Everything is possible, at this point
>> endlessly possible.
>>> Anything can grow in it. Anybody, real or imaginary,
>> can travel there, stay
>>> put, or move on. There is no constraint, except the
>> honesty of the writer
>>> and the scope of imagination-qualities with which we
>> are born and
>>> characteristics that we can develop. Writers are born
>> and made.»
>>> This contribute may be found in the site of the Centre
>> for Poetry and
>>> Science at the University of Liverpool:
>>> <http://www.liv.ac.uk/poetryandscience/poems/index.htm>;
>>>
>>> From another perspective the Poetry Foudation claims
>> that there are (at
>>> least) 1875 Poems about Arts& Sciences, such as
>> the «Equation for my
>>> Children» by Wilmer Mills:
>>> http://atirateaomar.blogspot.com/
>>>
>>> Best wishes.
>>> Vítor Reia
>>>
>>> Citando roger malina<rmalina@alum.mit.edu>:
>>>
>>>> Science, Technology, Art, POETRY
>>>> Opening Statement by YASMIN co moderator Roger
>> Malina
>>>> Poetry in the Asylum:
>>>>
>>>> There have been times in
>> my life when I have been a voracious reader,
>>>> and sometime writer, of poetry. Sometimes this
>> state is triggered by
>>>> jet lag. At those times I consume and generate
>> poetry as if my very
>>>> survival depended on it. At other times I am cold
>> to poetry.
>>>> My Czech grandparents were both musicians and
>> music teachers and they
>>>> raised my father in a home where music was almost
>> a basic food. He
>>>> used to listen to music as he carried out his
>> scientific research in
>>>> the 30s, and later as he created his kinetic art
>> works in the 1950s;
>>>> his seminal work "Jazz":
>>>> (http://www.olats.org/pionniers/malina/bdd/oeuvre.php?oi=1201)
>>>> is a visual poem linking sound and image. It was
>> during this time that
>>>> he was at personal risk, pursued by the US
>> McCarthy staffers and the
>>>> US FBI. Then suddenly in his 50s, after his
>> political problems were
>>>> over, he became oblivious to music and painted in
>> silence for the rest
>>>> of his life. Is this a coincidence or a
>> connection? What is it that
>>>> makes poetry vital for survival? We live in a
>> dangerous age, do we
>>>> need a new poetics?
>>>>
>>>> In recent decades, much of
>> the art connected to science and new
>>>> technologies has been non contemplative, often
>> loud and insistent,
>>>> un-poetical. But other artists, and poets, as they
>> have explored these
>>>> new terrains have developed new poetic impulses
>> that have created new
>>>> senses of the special and even the sacred.
>> Examples come to mind that
>>>> I would put in the category of poetic arts would
>> include:
>>>> Jeffrey Shaw's "Legible City : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61l7Y4MS4aU
>>>> Char Davies "Ephemere": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa_aiw7yhpI
>>>> David Rokeby's "Very Nervous System" :
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrawKucSSRw
>>>> Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin's Listening post:
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD36IajCz6A
>>>>
>>>> The invited respondents in this discussion have a
>> variety of
>>>> approaches to poetry that connects to the sciences
>> and technology of
>>>> our age.
>>>>
>>>> When historian Robert
>> Ilbert asked Samuel Bordreuil and I to set up
>>>> the Art-Science wing of IMERA:
>>>> http://www.imera.fr/index.php/en/organisation/101.html
>>>> he named it : ASIL, or the French word for Asylum,
>> with the acronym
>>>> Arts-Sciences-Instrumentations-Language . Indeed
>> the connections
>>>> between the arts, sciences and technology must
>> also be mediated by
>>>> languages both image and word, and in particular
>> by art forms that use
>>>> language as their raw material. We have recently
>> issued a new call for
>>>> residency proposals :
>>>> http://www.imera.fr/index.php/en/becoming-a-fellow/applications.html
>>>> and we welcome proposals from poets that need to
>> collaborate with
>>>> scientists or research engineers to achieve their
>> artistic vision. We
>>>> need poetry in the Asylum.
>>>>
>>>> Ten years ago poet Tim
>> Peterson, a participant in this discussion,
>>>> led a Leonardo Electronic Almanac project around
>> the new poetics :
>>>> New Media Poetry and Poetics
>>>>> From Concrete to Codework: Praxis in Networked
>> and Programmable Media
>>>> http://www.leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_14/lea_v14_n05-06/tpeterson.html
>>>> and more recently in the Leonardo Book Series at
>> MIT Press we published
>>>> New Media Poetics: edited by Adalaide Morris and
>> Thomas Swiss
>>>> http://leonardo.info/isast/leobooks/books/swissmorris.html
>>>> which documents some of the current work in new
>> media poetics.
>>>> In this YASMIN discussion we seek to discuss all
>> the many ways that
>>>> poetry connects to the new sciences and the new
>> technologies that
>>>> underpin so many of the new ways that we are
>> becoming human.
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
>>>> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
>>>> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>>>>
>>>> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>>>>
>>>> HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list
>> you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear
>> ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in
>> the fields found further down the page.
>>>> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all
>> the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last
>> field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe
>> button on the page that will appear ("options page").
>>>> HOW TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the
>> options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it
>> to either on or off.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> This message was sent using IMP, the Internet
>> Messaging Program.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
>>> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
>>> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>>>
>>> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>>>
>>> HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you
>> wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info
>> page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the
>> fields found further down the page.
>>> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the
>> way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field.
>> Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on
>> the page that will appear ("options page").
>>> HOW TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options
>> page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either
>> on or off.
>>> -----
>>> No virus found in this message.
>>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>>> Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3287 -
>> Release Date: 11/29/10
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
>> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
>> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>>
>> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>>
>> HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to
>> subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"),
>> enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found
>> further down the page.
>>
>> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way
>> down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter
>> password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the
>> page that will appear ("options page").
>>
>> HOW TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page,
>> find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or
>> off.
> _______________________________________________
> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>
> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>
> HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
>
> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
>
> HOW TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
>
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3291 - Release Date: 12/01/10
_______________________________________________
Yasmin_discussions mailing list
Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
HOW TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
