"If the teacher is only recording videotape, then there is no telepresence at all, and a great deal is surely lost. For example, if risk is important in the learning process, then when the teacher and the class are present together both assume a risk that is not there when they are not interacting – the student risks being called on to demonstrate his knowledge of the subject of the lecture, and the teacher risks being asked a question he cannot answer. If this is the case, then it may mean that distance teaching not only may produce poorer learning opportunities, but it may produce poorer teaching." Hubert Dreyfus (On the Internet) “We will show neurons firing in real-time on August … [Read more...]

"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." Romans 7:15 "I wish it were possible... to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence." Benjamin Franklin (Letter to M. Dubourg, 1792) "Kissing the picture of one’s beloved. That is obviously not based on the belief that it will have some specific effect on the object which the picture represents. It aims at satisfaction and achieves it. Or rather: it aims at nothing at all; we just behave this way and then we … [Read more...]

"Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. " Wassily Kandinsky (Concerning Art and the Spiritual) "Ancient Greek words for blue signified the sea. In Tertullian and Isadore of Seville, blue referred to both the sea and the sky, much as the Greek word (bathun) and the Latin (altus) connoted high and deep by one word. The vertical dimension as hierarchy continues in our speech as blue blood for nobility, blue ribbons, and the many mythological images of ‘blue Gods’: Kneph in Egypt and Odin’s blue wrappings, Jupiter and Juno, Krishna and Vishnu, Christ in his earthly ministry like that blue Christ-man seen by Hildegard of Binge." James … [Read more...]

"I think the question of whether the theatre should adapt itself to the masses, or the masses to the theatre, has been settled once and for all. The masses only understood, or pretended to understand, the tragedies and comedies of ancient Greece because their stories were known to everybody and were explained over and over again in every play anyway and, as often as not, set out by a character in the prologue." Alfred Jarry (On the Futility of the Theatrical in Theatre, Mercure de France, September 1896.) “The productive logic of film is the productive logic of the work of art in the twentieth century.” Peter Osborne (in conversation with Paul Willemen in Working Together: Notes on … [Read more...]

"Technically speaking, platforms are the providers of software, (sometimes) hardware, and services that help code social activities into a computational architecture; they process (meta) data through algorithms and formatted protocols before presenting their interpreted logic in the form of user-friendly interfaces with default settings that reflect the platform owner’s strategic choices.” Jose van Dijck (The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. 2013) "A bullfight is a tragedy in three acts. These noble creatures, who are waiting for their death this afternoon are the heroes of that tragedy. The tragedy of the bullfight is based on the innocence of this creature. … [Read more...]

"When I speak of moralism, in this context, what I am concerned with, in general terms, is the misuse of morality for ends and purposes that are themselves vicious or corrupt. Moralisers present the facade of genuine moral concern but their real motivations rest with interests and satisfactions of a very different character. When these motivations are unmasked, they are shown to be tainted and considerably less attractive than we suppose. Among these motivations are cruelty, malice and sadism. Not all forms of moralism, however, are motivated in this way. On the contrary, it could be argued that the most familiar and common form of moralism is rooted not in cruelty but in vanity. The basic … [Read more...]

"Attempts at description are stupid...” George Eliot (Daniel Deronda) "They love their delusions as they love themselves." Freud ( Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia ) "In direct confrontation with the positivism of Comte and Mill, Dilthey’s objective was to show that the human sciences (Geisteswissenscha en) of history, poetics, anthropology, and sociology stand on an equally strong logical and methodological footing as the natural sciences, even though a key epistemological criterion separates them. In a well-known formulation, Dilthey asks us to distinguish between explanation (Erklären) and understanding (Verstehen). Open to history and … [Read more...]

"There is no such thing as criticism, there is only history. What usually is passed off as criticism, the things you find in architecture magazines, is produced by architects, who frankly are bad historians. As for your concern for what should be the subject of criticism, let me propose that history is not about objects, but instead is about men, about human civilization. What should interest the historian are the cycles of architectural activity and the problem of how a work of architecture fits in its own time. To do otherwise is to impose one’s own way of seeing on architectural history." Manfredo Tafuri (Interview with Richard Ingersoll, 1986) "One of the greatest problems of our own … [Read more...]