November 3, 2008 at 5:43 pm · Filed under Artwork, Culture, Artistic Process, Scientific Method
Nature is everything, everywhere, in the present.
Nature is all things known and unknown.
Science is a formal method by which we investigate nature.
The Scientific Method is society’s way of verifying itself.
Art is a process of modeling nature, of representing forms, structures
and ideas.
Art raises social and cultural awareness, makes the invisible visible,
connects the improbable, breaks down artifice and presumption.
Art acts as a continuous feedback loop, constantly monitoring, evaluating
and modifying cultural activity.
Art and science share the goal of identifying, and identifying with, nature,
including a predictable fascination with human emotion, thought and
behavior.
Both science and art aspire to truth without compromise.
Both challenge the way we see the world as individuals and community.
John Holland
(photo from musical score Fruit and Roses for Piano Solo by J. H.; for details on the score visit http://www.johnholland.ws/home/scores/roses )
October 12, 2008 at 3:35 pm · Filed under Waves, Space, Light, Gravity
QWT is a new theory that describes energy, mass and force as manifestations of a single entity. We refer to that entity as space.
The theory defines space as a dynamic, quantized field, whose attributes include stretch, compression, rebound, and resistance. Vibrations of space form traveling and standing waves that occur throughout the universe at every order of magnitude. These vibrational wave patterns are the basic forms of energy and matter, including the 12 elementary particles (six quarks and six leptons) and the four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces).
QWT addresses some of the current challenges in theoretical physics, including foundational problems in quantum mechanics, the quantum gravity problem, the inability to assign cause to values of the free constants, unification of mass and force, and the puzzle of “missing” mass and energy.
Nearly 15 years in the making, our goal is that QWT be entirely consistent with scientific evidence at every scale before we introduce it to public scrutiny. The theory is being written in a descriptive form that will be entirely accessible to those with little or no mathematical background. Our intent is to publish the complete text on the Nature and Inquiry website in 2009.
Amy Robinson and John Holland
©2008
September 30, 2008 at 10:13 am · Filed under Artwork, Waves, Sound
Voices of Earth: A Global Symphony is a 10 -minute video sample of a sound installation first presented in 2004 at the Pozen Center in Boston. The original program was a 24-hour musical simulation of various acoustic phenomena on Earth, computer-controlled in real time, from sunset to sunset. A variety of acoustic phenomena that vibrate outside the normal range of human hearing, such as the continuous rotation of the Earth, high and low atmospheric pressure systems, ocean waves, tidal motions, earthquakes, storm cycles, mountain waves, heartbeat, breathing, stress waves, etc. were converted to musical tones by transposing their frequencies and amplitudes to within the range of human audibility. The quality of each sound was determined according to the medium in which the sound occurs: air, liquid solid, organic substance.
A computer was programmed to organize start and stop times for continuous tones, pulses, and cycles relative to their durations within a period of a single rotation of the earth.
In addition, there are a variety of sampled sounds that are integrated into the music. These range from environmental noises, such as rain, wind, and thunder, to human speech sounds representing more than 25 different languages. Sampled sounds also include various animals, birds, and insects that are representative of diverse regions and environments throughout the world. The computer was used to control the selection of individual sounds, and their respective start times.
Screen images of the various acoustic phenomena accompany the music, including many low-orbit satellite photographs mined from NASA’s Visible Earth collection.
Along with the video, there are notes (PDF file) that describe the various acoustic phenomena, their characteristics, methods of conversion, and the real time computer program used in the original installation.
John Holland - Music, Sound Design
Josh Caswell - Programming, Sound Design
Voices of Earth video and text:
http://www.vimeo.com/1877630
Voices Of Earth.pdf
September 29, 2008 at 11:31 am · Filed under Culture, Artwork, Chemistry, Reproduction, Neuroscience, Consciousness
Pietre Preziose is a celebration of beauty, chemistry and personal history. Women in Sicily are held precious yet often limited by the traditions of an ancient culture. My own background often hits up against the hard surface of these limitations. In an effort to soften the differences between us, I have given gemstone pendants to twelve women that are interlocked in a social web around my Sicilian family. Each stone in turn symbolizes one of the many chemical hormones that drive women of every culture to be who they are – as mothers, daughters, sisters, partners, workers, and friends.
Linking hormone to gemstone to woman was a subjective process based on my impressions of these women, their strengths and weakness, their desires and accomplishments. The functions of the hormones were considered alongside the aesthetics, healing potentials, and legends attributed to the gemstones. Pietre Preziosa is a synesthetic experiment as well as a labor of love.
The current state of the project is a web site describing each women, stone and hormone. Other manifestations are forth-coming.
http://www.nitasturiale.com/pietrepreziose
Nita Sturiale
September 28, 2008 at 4:40 pm · Filed under Artwork, Origins, Neuroscience, Consciousness, Evolution
The origin of consciousness is one of many unsolved questions in neuroscience. There are ongoing controversies concerning how, where, when, and what kind of consciousness has arisen in organisms over 3.5 billion years of life on Earth.
Epochs of Consciousness outlines 7 different kinds of awareness that have evolved in a variety of creatures at different times, ranging from preconsciousness to superconciousness, including consciousness, primate consciousness, late hominid consciousness, self-consciousness and communal consciousness. The text also includes a detailed list of characteristics that define each category of consciousness, and an accompanying timeline.
The specific dates associated with each form of consciousness are broadly represented, and are clearly open to discussion.
Epochs of Consciousness was originally written as a performance text, and was first presented in Boston in 1997. The reading of the text to an audience was accompanied by an informal explanation, paraphrasing, and repetition of ideas emphasized within the text. A lively discussion followed the complete reading of the text.
We wish to acknowledge members of Nature and Inquiry for their tireless discussions with us on the subject of consciousness. We have incorporated many of their suggestions.
John Holland and Amy Robinson
Epochs of Consciousness.pdf
photo credit: The Daily Galaxy
September 19, 2008 at 2:47 pm · Filed under Artwork, Waves, Sound
The Acoustic Wave Spectrum is a poster-size artist’s edition of the first comprehensive acoustic wave chart. The 30×22 full color poster combines text and graphic symbols to represent the complete catalog of acoustic waves.
Sound waves propagate in a variety of media, including gas, liquids, organic and inorganic solids, in plasmas and superconductors, and in interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic media. Sound waves range in frequency from billions of cycles per second to a single cycle within a period of years. Human hearing is only a small fraction of the frequency range of the full acoustic wave spectrum.
Various generic waveforms are graphically represented by the symbols in the Acoustic Wave Spectrum. These waves propagate in a variety of media at different speeds, and have different vibrational characteristics depending on their source. They include traveling waves, standing waves, internal waves, surface waves, trapped waves, thermal waves, shock waves, and plasma waves. There is a legend at the bottom of the chart that correlates the symbols with the various waves.
In addition there is an information booklet that accompanies the Acoustic Wave Spectrum. This booklet describes sound waves, sound sources, and each of the generic waves that are represented on the chart.
The poster-size artist’s edition of the Acoustic Wave Spectrum is available at a cost of $49.99 plus postage and handling, through Spectrum Music (781-862-0088).
John Holland, Acoustic Wave Spectrum
Amy Robinson, Graphic Symbols
Acoustic Wave Spectrum.pdf
Information Booklet.pdf
September 17, 2008 at 3:45 pm · Filed under Artwork, Language, Sound, Consciousness, Evolution
The Violin Player was originally created as a performance text, to be spoken aloud.
The substance of the text is concerned with the nature of performance, the history and language of music, acoustics, musicianship, the evolution of music, and sound perception.
The Violin Player was first presented in 1991 at Vanderbilt Hall, Harvard University.
John Holland
The Violin Player.pdf
photo credit: Christian Gaser
September 17, 2008 at 12:07 pm · Filed under Language, News, Evolution
Harvard Museum of Natural History
NEW EXHIBITION: Language of Color
Opening Friday, September 26
Whether it’s the brilliant blue wings of a butterfly, the scarlet feathers of a tanager, or the stripes of a zebra, animals display color in vastly different ways and for different reasons. This exhibit combines dramatic specimens from across the animal kingdom with computer interactives, hands-on activities, and a stunning display of live dart frogs. Visitors will learn how color and its perception have co-evolved, resulting in a complex and diverse palette used to camouflage, startle predators, mimic other animals, attract a mate, or intimidate a rival. Through September 6, 2009.
Exhibition Opening lecture by Dr. Hopi Hoekstra
Nature’s Palette: the Biological Significance of Color
Thursday, Sept. 25, 6:00 pm.Free and open to the public.
The range of colors we see in nature is striking and beautiful, and it also drives how plants and animals communicate with one another.  With examples of her own research on the genetic architecture of rodents, Hopi Hoekstra, Associate Professor of Natural Sciences and Curator of Mammals in Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, will discuss the many ways that color is made, used and perceived  – and why that’s where the true elegance and ingenuity of natural selection lies.
Harvard Museum of Natural History
26 Oxford Street Cambridge, MAÂ 02138
www.hmnh.harvard.edu
August 11, 2008 at 9:36 am · Filed under News
This fall will mark the launch of GLIMPSE, an interdisciplinary journal of visual perception that has been brewing in the back of my mind for almost 8 years. With the help of friends and a slew of enthusiastic volunteers and interns, GLIMPSE examines the functions and processes of vision and its implications for being, knowing, and constructing our world/s. Each theme-focused journal issue features articles and essays, artists’ visual essays, interviews, and reviews from the physical sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Beginning last January, GLIMPSE’s team convened to slog through such foundational issues as coming up with a name for the journal, a logo and layout design, a web site, a secret wink, a patron saint (St. Lucy), selecting themes for the first 6 issues, and beginning to invite people to contribute articles, essays, reviews, visual essays, etc.
GLIMPSE has a new group of tireless interns for the summer that will be researching potential contributors and stalking them until they agree to contribute their work and ideas to our enterprise. Since I’d prefer not to stalk, harass, and extort people for content, I’d like to enlist your help in:
1) Submitting relevant works for an upcoming issue, OR
2) Encouraging others to submit their work
3) Subscribing to the journal
4) Getting the word out about GLIMPSE to your friends and colleagues
5) Suggesting relevant potential advertisers for our first issues
More details about the journal and our call for submissions are below.
Thanks for your time and ideas. Have a great summer, and watch the virtual newsstand for our first issue this fall!
Megan
Megan Hurst
editor@glimpsejournal.com
GLIMPSE: the art + science of seeing
http://www.glimpsejournal.com
______________________________________________________________________
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
GLIMPSE: the art + science of seeing
An interdisciplinary journal of visual perception
Upcoming deadline: June 20, 2008
GLIMPSE editors seek submissions for upcoming issues. Our intent is to bring current research and scholarship of “the visual” to a public forum consisting of academic and non-academic audiences alike. Since we strive to spark inquiry and dialogue across disciplines, it is important that our articles avoid jargon and be accessible to readers from diverse backgrounds. Stylistically, GLIMPSE is more like a magazine than an academic journal– however, in depth of content, we value conceptual precision and scholarly rigor.
SUBMISSIONS http://www.glimpsejournal.com/contribute.html
Themes for upcoming GLIMPSE issues:
Is the visual political? (Fall 2008) - Deadline June 20, 2008
China Vision (Winter 2009) - Deadline July 11, 2008
Cosmos (Spring 2009) - Deadline September 26, 2008
Revolutions in Visual Representation
Vision and Language
Iconoclasm
Visions
Vision and Ethics
Imagination
SUBMISSIONS http://www.glimpsejournal.com/contribute.html
GLIMPSE takes a uniquely lightweight and open approach to publishing. Our audience definition, review process, handling of copyright, contributor compensation, production and publication formats, and overall business model are low-overhead, technology-enabled, and pragmatically idealistic. You can read about how GLIMPSE is different from most publications at http://www.glimpsejournal.com/about.html
SUBMISSIONS http://www.glimpsejournal.com/contribute.html
GLIMPSE also has opportunities for issue- and theme-specific guest editors and graphic designers, for editorial, database and programming, design, and library science interns for summer and fall 2008. Visit http://www.glimpsejournal.com/contribute.html#staff for more information.
SUBMISSIONS http://www.glimpsejournal.com/contribute.html
UPCOMING GLIMPSE THEMES http://www.glimpsejournal.com/issues.html
ABOUT GLIMPSE http://www.glimpsejournal.com/about.html
July 21, 2008 at 8:49 am · Filed under Language, Evolution
well, of course it did. Read more.
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