Wednesday 30 January 2013

overprint // man of sorrows


overprint


404 grrlz



Democracy /// Arthur Rimbaud


'The flag goes with the foul landscape,
and our jargon muffles the drum.'
In the great centers we'll nurture
the most cynical prostitution.
We'll massacre logical revolts.

In spicy and drenched lands!--
at the service of the most monstrous
exploitations, industrial or military.
'Farewell here, no matter where.

Conscripts of good will,
ours will be a ferocious philosophy;
ignorant as to science, rabid for comfort;
and let the rest of the world croak.
This is the real advance. Marching orders, let's go!'

Tuesday 29 January 2013

corporation of the dying

red cabbage soup
carbonic acid bath
marzipan
ochre-yellow Italian scarf
whipped cream
meringue
coffee
a fur outfit with variegated pearls
felt footwear
program for a materialist encyclopedia



tungus

stand still



30 January 1927

But I also came across a real parrot, a white macaw: on Miasnitskaia, sitting on a basket containing linen goods a woman was selling to passers-by.


Judith Butler on Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History






Sunday 27 January 2013

modern warfare



colporteur articles de fantaisie

....

La Legation des Etats-Unis d'Amérique reclame, du chef de vol, l'acceptation pro victoire du nomme Garfinkel Harry âge environ 26 ans, taille 5 pieds 8, cheveux courts, épais; une dent de cote remplie de ciment, face glabre, apparence juive, vessie d'un costume brun et un chapeau brun. 

Thursday 24 January 2013

women work

max liebermann

sprites

In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene. Initially including just graphical objects handled separately from the memory bitmap of a video display, this now includes various manners of graphical overlays.
Originally, sprites were a method of integrating unrelated bitmaps so that they appeared to be part of the normal bitmap on a screen, such as creating an animated character that can be moved on a screen without altering the data defining the overall screen.
Z depth Sprites create an effective illusion when
  • the image inside the sprite already depicts a three dimensional object;
  • the animation is constantly changing or depicts rotation;
  • the sprite exists only shortly;
  • the depicted object has a similar appearance from many common viewing angles (such as something spherical);
  • the perspective of the object from the viewer cannot possibly change fast enough for the viewer to discern a difference from true 3D geometry, as in the case of object a long distance away from the viewer in 3D space.
  • the viewer accepts that the depicted object only has one perspective (such as small plants or leaves).
wikipedia

animal composition

Animals, then, are composed of homogeneous parts, and are also composed of heterogeneous parts. The former, however, exist for the sake of the latter. For the active functions and operations of the body are carried on by these; that is, by the heterogeneous parts, such as the eye, the nostril, the whole face, the fingers, the hand, and the whole arm. But inasmuch as there is a great variety in the functions and motions not only of aggregate animals but also of the individual organs, it is necessary that the substances out of which these are composed shall present a diversity of properties. For some purposes softness is advantageous, for others hardness; some parts must be capable of extension, others of flexion. Such properties, then, are distributed separately to the different homogeneous parts, one being soft another hard, one fluid another solid, one viscous another brittle; whereas each of the heterogeneous parts presents a combination of multifarious properties. For the hand, to take an example, requires one property to enable it to effect pressure, and another and different property for simple prehension. For this reason the active or executive parts of the body are compounded out of bones, sinews, flesh, and the like, but not these latter out of the former.
...


Of the homogeneous parts of animals, some are soft and fluid, others hard and solid; and of the former some are fluid permanently, others only so long as they are in the living body. Such are blood, serum, lard, suet, marrow, semen, bile, milk when present, flesh, and their various analogues. For the parts enumerated are not to be found in all animals, some animals only having parts analogous to them. Of the hard and solid homogeneous parts bone, fish-spine, sinew, blood-vessel, are examples. The last of these points to a sub-division that may be made in the class of homogeneous parts. For in some of them the whole and a portion of the whole in one sense are designated by the same term-as, for example, is the case with blood-vessel and bit of blood-vessel-while in another sense they are not; but a portion of a heterogeneous part, such as face, in no sense has the same designation as the whole.

The first question to be asked is what are the causes to which these homogeneous parts owe their existence? The causes are various; and this whether the parts be solid or fluid. Thus one set of homogeneous parts represent the material out of which the heterogeneous parts are formed; for each separate organ is constructed of bones, sinews, flesh, and the like; which are either essential elements in its formation, or contribute to the proper discharge of its function. A second set are the nutriment of the first, and are invariably fluid, for all growth occurs at the expense of fluid matter; while a third set are the residue of the second. Such, for instance, are the faeces and, in animals that have a bladder, the urine; the former being the dregs of the solid nutriment, the latter of the fluid.

 
...
Very nearly resembling the bones to the touch are such parts as nails, hoofs, whether solid or cloven, horns, and the beaks of birds, all of which are intended to serve as means of defence. For the organs which are made out of these substances, and which are called by the same names as the substances themselves, the organ hoof, for instance, and the organ horn, are contrivances to ensure the preservation of the animals to which they severally belong. In this class too must be reckoned the teeth, which in some animals have but a single function, namely the mastication of the food, while in others they have an additional office, namely to serve as weapons; as is the case with all animals that have sharp interfitting teeth or that have tusks. All these parts are necessarily of solid and earthy character; for the value of a weapon depends on such properties. Their earthy character explains how it is that all such parts are more developed in four-footed vivipara than in man. For there is always more earth in the composition of these animals than in that of the human body. However, not only all these parts but such others as are nearly connected with them, skin for instance, bladder, membrane, hairs, feathers, and their analogues, and any other similar parts that there may be, will be considered farther on with the heterogeneous parts. There we shall inquire into the causes which produce them, and into the objects of their presence severally in the bodies of animals. For, as with the heterogeneous parts, so with these, it is from a consideration of their functions that alone we can derive any knowledge of them. The reason for dealing with them at all in this part of the treatise, and classifying them with the homogeneous parts, is that under one and the same name are confounded the entire organs and the substances of which they are composed. But of all these substances flesh and bone form the basis. Semen and milk were also passed over when we were considering the homogeneous fluids. For the treatise on Generation will afford a more suitable place for their examination, seeing that the former of the two is the very foundation of the thing generated, while the latter is its nourishment. 

...

All animals that have hairs on the body have lashes on the eyelids; but birds and animals with scale-like plates, being hairless, have none. The Libyan ostrich, indeed, forms an exception; for, though a bird, it is furnished with eyelashes. This exception, however, will be explained hereafter. Of hairy animals, man alone has lashes on both lids. For in quadrupeds there is a greater abundance of hair on the back than on the under side of the body; whereas in man the contrary is the case, and the hair is more abundant on the front surface than on the back. The reason for this is that hair is intended to serve as a protection to its possessor. Now, in quadrupeds, owing to their inclined attitude, the under or anterior surface does not require so much protection as the back, and is therefore left comparatively bald, in spite of its being the nobler of the two sides. But in man, owing to his upright attitude, the anterior and posterior surfaces of the body are on an equality as regards need of protection. Nature therefore has assigned the protective covering to the nobler of the two surfaces; for invariably she brings about the best arrangement of such as are possible. This then is the reason that there is no lower eyelash in any quadruped; though in some a few scattered hairs sprout out under the lower lid. This also is the reason that they never have hair in the axillae, nor on the pubes, as man has. Their hair, then, instead of being collected in these parts, is either thickly set over the whole dorsal surface, as is the case for instance in dogs, or, sometimes, forms a mane, as in horses and the like, or as in the male lion where the mane is still more flowing and ample.


aristotle /// on the parts of animals

Monday 21 January 2013

the paranoid style

What is the distinguishing thing about the paranoid style, wrote Richard Hofstadter, is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in history, but that they regard a 'vast' or 'gigantic' conspiracy as the motive force of historical events. History is a conspiracy, set in motion by demonic forces of almost transcendent power, and what is felt to be needed to defeat it is not the usual methods of political give and take, but an all-out crusade.

Friedlander /The Years of Persecution / 84

Sunday 20 January 2013

characteristics of dumb cake

measuring of the ingredients in thimbles or egg-shells
made and baked by a group in silence
salt
intitials are scratched onto the cake
other initials appear left by a doppelganger


An egg-shell-full of salt,
An egg-shell-full of wheat meal.
An egg-shell-full of barley-meal.
Water.

garnish the lower edge with English walnuts and autumn leaves.

sometimes objects are included: a ring, a button, a coin 

eaten in silence

animal magnetism



scene and herd


Thursday 17 January 2013

gibbons /// cosimo panel

James Shirley. 1596–1666
  
288. Death the Leveller
  
THE glories of our blood and state 
  Are shadows, not substantial things; 
There is no armour against Fate; 
  Death lays his icy hand on kings: 
        Sceptre and Crown         5
        Must tumble down, 
  And in the dust be equal made 
With the poor crookèd scythe and spade. 
 
Some men with swords may reap the field, 
  And plant fresh laurels where they kill:  10
But their strong nerves at last must yield; 
  They tame but one another still: 
        Early or late 
        They stoop to fate, 
And must give up their murmuring breath  15
When they, pale captives, creep to death. 
 
The garlands wither on your brow, 
  Then boast no more your mighty deeds! 
Upon Death's purple altar now 
  See where the victor-victim bleeds.  20
        Your heads must come 
        To the cold tomb: 
Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust. 
 

Wednesday 16 January 2013

hippophagy


The discovery of horse DNA in burgers in major supermarkets such as Tesco and Iceland has been met with alarm among consumers.


Anthropophagy – the possibility for consuming, internalizing and fusing fragments of erudite, popular, and mass cultures, without any reverence for dominant hierarchies.